Doctor Who: New Season 1&2
I've made up a tag (below) solely for this entry, and I suspect I'll have cause to break it out again.
Let's start with the good things before we get down to the nit-picking.
* Some very convincing alien make-up and the opening 15 minutes of RoA easily rivaled the iconic Star Wars cantina scene in terms of visual interest and establishing Otherness, even though we were obviously on a set somewhere. As for BoSJ, the spoon-heads weren't particularly scary in and of themselves, although when we saw them being used for evil, the scare factor became more evident. I liked the Matrix-y nature of the cafe scene.
* There have been some excellent and quotable one-liners, my favorite being, "I don't know what happens in the future, I just work here." (I may have mis-remembered this, but the sentiment made me laugh out loud.)
* I like Clara so far, although it's a bit hard to a read on who she really is, other than a spritely conundrum.
* I had forgotten (as I often do) how much I missed the Doctor himself, and I've been interested to see Matt Smith's take on him evolving with the series. These two new installments present a Doctor with issues (not that he hasn't had them before, obviously), issues that just beg for a really meaty storyline to drag them squarely into the open. The speech at the end of RoA is likely just the start.
* I love all the little shout-outs to the Who past, especially Amelia Williams' children's book. :D
OK, more nit-picky stuff now:
* Whoa, Doctor, you've just destroyed Galactus a sun... don't you think there's some astronomy problems you need to worry about now? The ending of RoA was far too rushed--it didn't seem reasonable that the Doctor and Clara would just traipse back home as if nothing had happened when it's possible they just destroyed an entire solar system. Clara getting the ring back wasn't enough--there needed to be another line like, "Good thing the gravitational field didn't collapse!" or some other scientific nonsense that would have convinced that seven planets weren't just sucked into the void.
* There's a lot of talk about the nature of a soul, and I get the distinct feeling that this is going to be major theme this season. I guess that's fine (it's at least 1,000,000 times better than "the Doctor is actually Jesus" at the end of Martha's tenure) but I'd really like to see some episodes where the characters *show* their true souls, not just talk about them. Clara's leaf speech was sweet, but it was too much telling and without really knowing who she is (or who her mother is), it's just a lot of convenient, deus ex machina (ha ha ha) talk.
Short version: they're fun, but I can't help feeling like something is missing. I think this series needs to get its sea legs more, and I'm optimistic that this can happen.
Speaking of sea legs, next week, it's snakes (or possibly just one snake) on a sub! Whee!
Let's start with the good things before we get down to the nit-picking.
* Some very convincing alien make-up and the opening 15 minutes of RoA easily rivaled the iconic Star Wars cantina scene in terms of visual interest and establishing Otherness, even though we were obviously on a set somewhere. As for BoSJ, the spoon-heads weren't particularly scary in and of themselves, although when we saw them being used for evil, the scare factor became more evident. I liked the Matrix-y nature of the cafe scene.
* There have been some excellent and quotable one-liners, my favorite being, "I don't know what happens in the future, I just work here." (I may have mis-remembered this, but the sentiment made me laugh out loud.)
* I like Clara so far, although it's a bit hard to a read on who she really is, other than a spritely conundrum.
* I had forgotten (as I often do) how much I missed the Doctor himself, and I've been interested to see Matt Smith's take on him evolving with the series. These two new installments present a Doctor with issues (not that he hasn't had them before, obviously), issues that just beg for a really meaty storyline to drag them squarely into the open. The speech at the end of RoA is likely just the start.
* I love all the little shout-outs to the Who past, especially Amelia Williams' children's book. :D
OK, more nit-picky stuff now:
* Whoa, Doctor, you've just destroyed Galactus a sun... don't you think there's some astronomy problems you need to worry about now? The ending of RoA was far too rushed--it didn't seem reasonable that the Doctor and Clara would just traipse back home as if nothing had happened when it's possible they just destroyed an entire solar system. Clara getting the ring back wasn't enough--there needed to be another line like, "Good thing the gravitational field didn't collapse!" or some other scientific nonsense that would have convinced that seven planets weren't just sucked into the void.
* There's a lot of talk about the nature of a soul, and I get the distinct feeling that this is going to be major theme this season. I guess that's fine (it's at least 1,000,000 times better than "the Doctor is actually Jesus" at the end of Martha's tenure) but I'd really like to see some episodes where the characters *show* their true souls, not just talk about them. Clara's leaf speech was sweet, but it was too much telling and without really knowing who she is (or who her mother is), it's just a lot of convenient, deus ex machina (ha ha ha) talk.
Short version: they're fun, but I can't help feeling like something is missing. I think this series needs to get its sea legs more, and I'm optimistic that this can happen.
Speaking of sea legs, next week, it's snakes (or possibly just one snake) on a sub! Whee!