Unadulterated Thoughts on New New Doctor Who

[nina_ds]

I haven't read anyone else's reviews, personal or professional, so here we go. Unadulterated.

Comments

[cheriola]

Since I already gave you my views on the characters, just this:

I agree about the awful title sequence. Though, I didn't think "colonoscopy", but more along the lines "there's weather in the time Vortex now?". The theme song I found bad at first, but by the second episode it had grown on me a bit. So it's not mute-it levels of bad anymore.

I really, really hope the "timey whimey" line was just a callback for the characterisation in-between-regenerations.

Liked little Amelia a lot, too. Even if her self-sufficiency and nightly alone-ness spells bad things about her aunt. Apart from that neglect, there are a number of little inconsistencies (for example that she could understand the alien voices from the crack, or that her house appears to have two storeys on the outside but three on the inside) that make me think she's not human.

During the "get away from my pet planet" scene at the end, I was literally thinking: "Okay, writers I'll give you this *once*, to introduce the Doctor to new watchers. And the Doctor deserves a little arrogance - as long as he doesn't claim superiority over the entire universe again, I can live with that." Handing over the prisoner to the proper authorities was a good sign, too.
Even if you could make a case about how it's not clear that he wasn't an innocent who just decided he'd rather go down in flames with the people who want to extradite him back to his oppressors than go back to that prison. Wasn't like he was really hurting anybody while hiding on Earth.

I'm divided about the new TARDIS interior. I don't think it looks bad (though I'm looking forward to how that plexiglass floor will look after shooting a few seasons). But I'm missing the organic look, too. There's still some of that at the console, but it looks too much like that yellow foam we used to insulate our house. The hellish red light bugged, but at least it was just on entry, not the whole time. In principle I like that they kept the "recycled Earth objects" look for the controls. But this time around it looks too clean to be recycled. And if the TARDIS can just grow her own technology, it doesn't make any sense for her to look that way either. I liked the idea that Nine had to make do with what he could find after the War. Having the TARDIS do all her own maintenance (and grow a new Sonic Screwdriver!) ruins the tech-genius aspect of the Doctor for me. And even though I like that the Doctor treats her more like a person this time around, I'll miss the fact that he has to take care of her.

And I totally agree re: Rory/Geoff (or Jeff or whatever his name). Rory was kinda cute, like if they took Mickey and made a decent character out of him right from the start, instead of a caricature. A bit of a doormat, but not entirely. Good heart. And he notices things that are amiss - and tries to find out what's wrong, completely without the Doctor prompting him!
The other guy isn't unattractive in an objective sense. But to me he seemed dumb, or at least very clueless. I couldn't fathom what the Doctor saw in him. But this impression might be because he's the spitting image of someone I knew in high school, who was as much of a dumb jock as you can be in a German Gymnasium. (a type of high school that prepares you specifically for university and requires relatively good grades in primary school)