The Eleventh Hour
I absolutely adored it. I've watched it twice now.
I LOVED all the little in-moments. I've seen some complaints about them, but whatever. I don't care. I like them, and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Most viewers do not get them, especially ones that related to pre-RTD Who. Even more people don't get ones that relate to media outside of the actual show itself! I think it's fun for those of us that know these things to pick up on, and it doesn't change anything for majority of people who watch it who say, haven't seen Doomsday since it aired in 2006 and have mostly forgotten anything that would lead them to remember similarities to the crack in the wall scene in The Eleventh Hour. Not that I'm faulting anyone for disliking this bit since God knows I've hated my fair share of things in Who, like The End of Time and pretty much everything else since The Stolen Earth, but this is something I've found fun. And who knows if he'll continue it to that extent? I know Moffat likes to pick various bits and things out of stories he has (and other people have) written, but I don't think it's usually as extensive as in this episode. Part of it, in this case, may have just been the fact that so much changed, all at once. New Doctor, new companion, new head writer, new producers, new TARDIS, new sonic screwdriver...he may have just put those bits in to remind everyone that this is, indeed, still Doctor Who. He's still doing a lot of the same things as the old Doctors, facing a lot of the same challenges, but they're new, different, changed. It's a new era of Doctor Who, but it still is, and always will be, the Doctor.
But the plot? Yes. I loved the plot. I loved that he met Amy at three points over the course of her life, but I almost wished that it had been more. It would have been fun to see more, but I always love stories that actually involve time travel as part of the story and not just the mechanism for the story to get to its setting. Part of the reason why Blink is one of my favorite episodes! No, I don't think the plot was particularly strong, and certainly not like they are in the Moffat episodes we're used to. But a season opener, especially one introducing us to so much new stuff, is just as much if not more so about the new characters than it is about the story. For plot, I'm looking to next week now that we know the new Doctor and we're beginning to know Amy.
I thought the episode was hilarious. I particularly love the food bit, and I am COMPLETELY with the Doctor on British bacon. It is NOT bacon, and as someone who travels through space and time, hopefully the reason he hates it so much is that he had American bacon in the past and nothing compares. No, really, Brits: your bacon sucks. Sorry. It's a fact. Curtis Stone even said it, an Aussie chef who worked and lived in London for a long time. There were lots of fun little moments, and honestly, it didn't feel like a Moffat episode to me! It felt like RTD. But then I have never had a problem with companion introduction episodes he wrote - Rose, Smith & Jones, and Partners in Crime are some of my absolute favorite new Who episodes. I'm far more interested to see if Moffat differs in the end of the season from the RTD formula of "spend one and two-thirds episodes building up a big, ridiculous, crazy-scale story, only to be pretty much entirely unable to successfully resolve it in time for the end" than I was to see how he handled an introduction episode. I think it's got everything an introduction episode needed. A story that was just enough story to keep us interested, but not so much of a plot-based episode that we hardly paid attention to the characters. An introduction to the new Doctor through the eyes of a child was also an interesting twist on the episode, I thought.
I am interested to learn more about Amy, and I'm incredibly interested to see where she goes in the eyes of people who hate Moffat because of his treatment of women. I simply do not think we know enough about Amy to really make a judgment on her or how Moffat writes her yet. Because yes, she's a kiss-o-gram (which =/= stripper/prostitute/etc), and yes, she's getting married. But when have 12 or more episodes left to learn the story of Amy, so I kind of wish those criticisms would hold off until we know more about her future and her past, both of which I assume we will get to know since her past seems important to what presumably is the over-arching theme of the season and I know there is an episode about her future. Also, I'm super excited to see how having the Doctor as your fantasy playmate after having met him when you were just a kid affects Amy. Obviously we got a bit of that with Reinette, but we didn't REALLY get to know Reinette and know how the Doctor in her life affected her day to day.
Speaking of the cracks in time, I'm very interested in this series' arc. I definitely think that time is somehow not right because I don't think that cell phones with video cameras and internet with Facebook and Twitter was a mistake, but I also don't think Rory's nametag was a big mistake, either. What if the Doctor really WAS on time? That it really had been five minutes, but somehow, the cracks in the fabric of space-time (because we know there are more than one) are somehow messing with the flow of time and what should have happened? Part of me thinks that this would have to do with the re-introduction of Gallifrey from out of the time lock into our world, but who knows? That might just be wishful thinking on my part that The End of Time was not well-enough explained, and that there was a reason for it: because this season will explain it even more. It had seemed like Moffat wanted his series to be his own, but it seems pretty likely that an event like Gallifrey pushing itself into the world where it doesn't belong would be likely to cause that.
We'll see.
On a non-Eleventh Hour or thoughts about the series based on The Eleventh Hour note, HOW AWESOME DOES THE NEW TRAILER LOOK? I am so excited for EVERYTHING, you guys. :D :D :D There are DALEKS with WINSTON CHURCHILL and Cybermen which I am ready to see again and vampires! And and and...well, pretty much everything. I can't wait. :)
I probably have more to say...but hey, I plan on watching it at least twice more before the next episode. If I think of something else, I can post again.
I really, really need some Eleven and/or Amy icons. :)