(no subject)

[ebonlock]

A couple of quick things, first elo_sf shared with me this link, Where's the Fun? Doctor Who Thoughts, and interesting essay on the latest season. I agree with many of the author's points but I strongly disagree with her conclusion that her disinterest in the season may come down to original series vs. new series viewing.

I'm an old school fan, I was delighted by the relaunch and grew to enjoy it despite the different take on the Doctor from what I was used to. Eccleston and Tennant were much more...touchy-feely shall we say than the rather distant, alien Doctor I grew up with. And I hear a lot of people comparing Smith to Troughton and even Baker I, and I get what they're saying. Smith does definitely play his Doctor as a Gallifreyan, someone profoundly aware of the fact that he is an alien and decidedly unlikely to crush on his companion. But the way he plays it doesn't so much remind me of Tom Baker as that...other one. You know, that Collin fellow. And that's what turns me off. I mean sure every Doctor can be a dick, it's part and parcel of always being the smartest guy in the room, but Smith's Doctor is a dick constantly.

I think I could've forgiven a lot of that and just rolled with a character that seemed to be entirely made up of quirks, catch phrases and a list of generally annoying personality traits if he'd at least had an interesting, appealing companion. I mean set him up with a Donna Nobel and I'm in. But throw an even more annoying and pathetic version of Martha Jones in the mix? No, way, un-uh, count me out.

Anyway, give it a read if you've seen the season or don't care too much about being spoiled. The author's take on Moffat is pretty much dead-on.

And thanks to moonlightnrain I share with you my new favorite ST:ToS fanvid:

Comments

I still like Nine best of the new ones...

[scoreboard.livejournal.com]

...largely because he was teetering right on the edge of losing his mind ALL THE TIME, and you could see him forcing the madcap just to try to gloss over the fact that he was the last of his kind, that his race had been destroyed, and that ultimately it was all for nothing because the Daleks survived somehow - plus I was very sympathetic to his wardrobe color choices and his hairline. ;]

Ten wore on me after a while - I think the endless Rose-mopery just got to me. I think a little more time with Donna would have been more amusing, but we all know how that ended up.

Eleven I kind of like, just because having him be alien and a bit of an ass calls back to One for me as much as Six. I'm not on the UK sched so I'm still just up to the Van Gogh business.

The thing that jumps out to me is that my old-school basically was Five, with some overlap of Four and Six and a smattering of Seven. So I was in an era where there was generally more than one companion, and even if there was just one, it was statistically unlikely to be some eye-candy of marginal legality. (Setting aside that I would probably push Rose in front of an inter-city train to get a good look at Amy Pond, but never mind that.) This Doctor has worked best for me when Rory was around, somehow, and I think that they wouldn't hurt anything to summon up the old "Tegan AND Nyssa AND Adric" approach.

Also, not enough Cybermen. REAL Cybermen, the kind you have to take on with a slingshot and a bag of gold nuggets.

My ultimate fear was that Moffet would take us even further down the mopey-Doctor-in-love road, since the River Song business was all his as was Girl in the Fireplace and, let's be honest, Captain Jack Harkness. I wonder sometimes if they're making Eleven prickly in a specific effort to break away from Ten being Britain's TV Boyfriend. (Esp. since John Barrowman has applied for that by being on every single BBC show at once...)

I'm still withholding judgement until they finish the season, but one thing I will absolutely commit to now: the new theme music and opening sequence are godawful in every particular. However I will be willing to forgive that if Moffat has the testicular fortitude to reveal that one other Timelord survived and it is Geoff Murdock...

Re: I still like Nine best of the new ones...

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Totally agreed on Nine, I loved the Doctor as utterly broken and perpetually swinging between manic and depression. To this day I can call up his reaction to seeing the Dalek survivor on Earth. The stark terror turning to gleeful triumph when he realized it was helpless and later aiming a weapon at it, more than ready to commit genocide. I've seen good episodes since then but nothing to quite match that one in my mind.

And how much do I love you for mentioning Adric? Very, very much :)