Doctor Who Rant/Essay but mostly rant
I’m trying to stay positive about the new Doctor Who series I really am…
The new Doctor Who and I have had a rather rocky relationship. I liked the old series but even then I didn’t watch it religiously since it never really had a solid airing schedule, the only times I got to watch it was by occasionally catching it on UK Gold and even then that was a rare occurrence. What I saw though I liked. It wasn’t has hard hitting as some of the other Sci-fi shows I was watching (SG1 and Farscape) but it was British and it was something different and I enjoyed the Doctor and the mythos of the universe.
So jump forward a few years to 2007 and the new Doctor Who. Honestly, I wasn’t that fussed about watching it and I can’t say why. When it was advertised all I can remember is thinking ‘Oh, that’s interesting’ and would then move onto something else. When it did start airing I sat down with my Dad and attempted to watch it. My initial reaction was not good. I didn’t really like Rose and Nine was so far removed from the Doctor’s I’d grown up with that it left me a little sceptical but that wasn’t enough to deter me. Oh no, it was all the other stuff that did that.
Stupid stories that made little to no sense, plot holes so big you could lose a small town in them, a strangely immature approach to homosexuality, odd aesthetic choices, broken science, music that was so loud you had to turn the subtitles on to know what was going on half the time. Plus many many many MANY more.
I stopped watching because I lost interest but I came back briefly after the Daleks were introduced because, pfft, it’s the bloody Daleks! How could I ignore them! Sadly that still wasn’t enough to keep me interested because the same problems were gnawing at my ankles, reminding me why I’d left the series in the first place.
So we went our separate ways until the last episode of Nine. I was gob-smacked! How could something like this happen. I thought the thing with Bad Wolf was superb, giving the series a real epic sense of grandeur that spread across the ages which really made me think ‘Time Lord‘. For the first time I actually found myself respecting Rose and even though we were losing Nine there was the excitement of getting a new Time Lord. The series was showing some real potential.
With Ten things improved… slightly. I won’t lie. I LOVE Ten. He is exactly what I imagine the Doctor to be. Quirky, eccentric and yet stupidly brilliant. But there was the small problem of Rose… I was so sick of the Doctor/Assistant romance because, for me, the Doctor wasn’t supposed to be interested in romance. Oh yes, there was nothing wrong with some harmless flirting but this was different. It annoyed me how Rose’s character had basically boiled down to what EVERY female sidekick becomes in the end, a love interest. It annoyed me how she dumped Mickey even though the poor guy put his heart and soul into trying to find her and even waited for her during her absence but noooo apparently that wasn’t good enough for Rose. She’d gone onto bigger and brighter things and wasn’t interested in the mundane anymore.
I was so glad when she left because it meant a new start with a new Assistant. Finally, the Doctor could stop fawning and get back to saving the world with his new Assistant Martha. I really liked Martha. Yes, she was slightly ruined by her infatuation with the Doctor but at least she was a lot more mature about it and she had some truly epic moments. Sadly her spell on the show was ruined by pretty much the same problems as the last. Stupid stories, compliments of Russell T FECKING Davis.
Out with Martha and in with Donna. Oh Donna, you were a breath of fresh air after Rose and Martha. I adored her approach to the Doctor which was more or less a verbal smack upside the head and a toss of her hair. She had no time for soppy romance because she was too busy actually enjoying her travels and knew what she wanted. She actually tracked down the Doctor using her own initiative, something which I think Rose would have been incapable of. She was fantastic and I loved the friendship that she and the Doctor built up. So obviously it had to stop. I HATE what was done to her. If it weren’t for Doctor Who’s near famous habit of humping the reset button every series I would be worried about never seeing her again but I have hopes for her return. She’s half Time Lord so I can’t see them ignoring that forever.
I was sad to see Ten go because I really enjoyed his run as the Doctor. His was the only run I saw from start to finish without missing an episode and it was fun with a few bright moments. Now we have Amy Pond(Pond? Really?) and Mister Eleven and my initial reactions are… meh. He’s just a pale shadow of Ten with too few of his own defining features. Amy is alright, it’s nice to an Assistant with her own storyline and she’s Scottish and a red-head(all huge plus marks in my book) but I can see her falling back into that bad habit of Doctor romance. It’s early days yet but I’m remaining hopeful… barely.
Why? Well, it’s only two episodes in but I can see some of the old problems already.
No Aliens or Alien Planets: For a series with such a proud sci-fi heritage like Doctor Who I was really surprised by the lack of…well sci-fi. Now I know Sci-Fi doesn’t always mean aliens but with the New Who it’s a lot more noticeable. The Old Doctor would travel to exotic worlds and meet strange new life forms and poke them. With New Who you’re lucky if he leaves the shores of the UK. Even when they do manage to get into outer space you’re lucky to see actual aliens. It’s always humans and they are ALWAYS British.
A sense of time: I remember seeing a early episode set on this satellite. Apparently this was set about 200,000 years in our future so I was surprised to see everyone wearing clothes you’d see down at your local Asda. I was further surprised when they visited the satellite again(100 years later in their timeline) and they were showing sadistic versions of The Weakest Link and Big Brother, again with very little change to wardrobe. Several times in the series we’ve travelled far into the future and visited future versions of Earth only to see very little change other then those convenient to the plot. The show fails quite badly at creating an actual sense of setting or time travel. In the past 100 years mankind has made astonishing leaps in terms of technology, science, art and cultural. Mankind is an ever changing creature and sometimes I wonder where we’ll be in another 100 years. When I watch Doctor Who… it never feels as if we’re actually gone that far. The latest episode(the Beast Below) is a fantastic example of this, we jump 1200 years into our own future and what do we encounter? A space travelling society that has modelled itself after 1930’s England… huh?
Christmas Speshuls: I won’t go into huge detail with this one since you can pretty much blame RTD for it but EVERY New Who Christmas special has been made of complete fail.
Broken Science: I know when it comes to Sci-Fi you need to set aside your disbelief in order to enjoy it but even I have my limits. In one episode the Doctor found a cure for a horrible disease by mixing together every cure known to man… seriously! I’m no chemist but I’m pretty sure that’s more likely to kill the patient then save them. I’ve always found Sci-Fi to be at its best when there is some truth behind the science, even if it’s just a little. New Who makes no attempts at even using real science and all problems can be solved by the sonic screwdriver or running up and down corridors a lot. I love the Sonic Screwdriver but never, NEVER, in any fictional media has there been a bigger Deus ex machina. I’ve actually looked up what the ScrewDriver has done and some of the things listed are “Unlocking handcuffs” “Tinting the Doctor's glasses” and “Storing the consciousness of a human being”… what can I say… really?
No Other Country Except For England Exists: I know this is a British made programme and I feel proud of that fact but it gets tiresome seeing England(more specifically Cardiff and London) over and over again. The Doctor claims to love the human race but doesn’t seem all that bothered about interacting with different countries. In the latest episode(the Beast Below) Mankind had fled Earth on spaceships but England was the only country to get a Star Whale as their mode of transport. The way they spoke in the episode and the words they chose made it seems as if the people of England were the last people on Earth but lines from earlier in the episode proved those claims to be false. What made England so special that it got a space whale? It was never made clear. It could simply be a case of production costs limiting them to shooting in the UK but even shows with half DW’s budget manage to cobble something together.
Immature Approach to Homosexuality: I know Russell T Davis is gay and it’s nice for writers to write about what they know but the way he inserts homosexually into the show is just random. It comes from out of nowhere, has no effect on the plot and is often jarring and all sorts of confusing. It’s like his pointing at the screen shouting “Look at them! They’re totally gay! Look at that!” and I just don’t like it. There are far more subtle and skilful ways to handle homosexuality than shoving it in our faces. I understand that he broke down some barriers with Captain Jack but it’s probably best that I leave that alone… Torchwood really got my teeth grinding. A little more context and subtleness would have been greatly appreciated.
Russell T FECKING Davis: Oh Davis… DAVIS! He is responsible for all of my gripes with New Who. The man is prone to reusing the same plot over and over and very rarely does he write a compelling and interesting script. What he does write is full of plot holes, rushed, poorly thought out and abuses the concept of deus ex machina. The final appearance of Ten was a depressingly shining example of Davis’s inability to put together a coherent and interesting story. All too often he will rely on melodrama to the extent that no one cares or it becomes predictable. I actually found on a fansite a bingo card listing every Davis cliché you could think of. I used it for the last episode and it was scary how well they’d put this together, several of the boxes were filled and I was only one box off getting a bingo. Davis has been replaced by Steve Moffet, a man who’s responsible for writing some of the BEST New Who episodes ever (Blink is regarded as the BEST New Who episode) so a lot of people are hopeful for the future.
Daleks and Cybermen: Fair enough, with Doctor Who you can’t help but think of the Daleks or the Cybermen. They are iconic and are even recognised by people who’ve never watched the series. But RTD relied too heavily on these two high profile villains and this wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d handled it properly. Every time either of these two villainous groups were defeated it was always FOR THE LAST TIME but lo and behold RTD would find new, more confusing and unrealistic ways to bring them back. It’s gotten to the point where no one cares anymore. The brilliant thing about taking on such a long lived series like Doctor Who is the huge amount of villains and alien races you get to choose from but to stick with two for all your major storylines is just redundant and robs the characters of any fear they might have once induced because you know the Doctor is just going to beat them AGAIN.
Season Long Prophecy : Oh how RTD loves this little plot device, it would be good if he hadn’t done it EVERY SINGLE SERIES! I loved it in the first series with Bad Wolf, the idea that Rose was reaching back through time and leaving her mark was brilliant and I loved it. Then it was repeated in the next series only slightly different… and again with the You are not alone/YANA crap(How was the Doctor supposed to get that clue!) each series these ‘Prophecies’(sorry can’t think of a better term) were getting sillier and sillier(Yana still wins though) until our latest ‘He will knock four times’. I don’t mind these I just wish they were handled better or not included at all. Very rarely did RTD actually base a arc or story around them and the Doctor never seemed all that fussed with trying to work them out. Even the latest series seems to be following this trend(crack in the universe) but I think, so far, it’s being handled with a bit more skill. Time will tell.
So there you have it. My reasons why Doctor Who isn’t as good as it could be. That’s the really annoying thing about this show, it has SO much potential but it never quite lives up to it. Some episodes will leave you feeling really satisfied but most episodes just leave you annoyed and frustrated. At least for me. This show has the tough job of being a family show, that means he has to both cater to children and adults and sometimes getting the balance right it next to impossible and sadly it’s the adult who come away feeling unsatisfied most of the time.
Will this stop me from watching the latest series? Nope. For you see Moffet has taken control. Moffet is a writer who has proven that he can push this show to the limits and still make it enjoyable for everyone involved. This is the year of Moffet. THE YEAR OF OPTIMISM!
The new Doctor Who and I have had a rather rocky relationship. I liked the old series but even then I didn’t watch it religiously since it never really had a solid airing schedule, the only times I got to watch it was by occasionally catching it on UK Gold and even then that was a rare occurrence. What I saw though I liked. It wasn’t has hard hitting as some of the other Sci-fi shows I was watching (SG1 and Farscape) but it was British and it was something different and I enjoyed the Doctor and the mythos of the universe.
So jump forward a few years to 2007 and the new Doctor Who. Honestly, I wasn’t that fussed about watching it and I can’t say why. When it was advertised all I can remember is thinking ‘Oh, that’s interesting’ and would then move onto something else. When it did start airing I sat down with my Dad and attempted to watch it. My initial reaction was not good. I didn’t really like Rose and Nine was so far removed from the Doctor’s I’d grown up with that it left me a little sceptical but that wasn’t enough to deter me. Oh no, it was all the other stuff that did that.
Stupid stories that made little to no sense, plot holes so big you could lose a small town in them, a strangely immature approach to homosexuality, odd aesthetic choices, broken science, music that was so loud you had to turn the subtitles on to know what was going on half the time. Plus many many many MANY more.
I stopped watching because I lost interest but I came back briefly after the Daleks were introduced because, pfft, it’s the bloody Daleks! How could I ignore them! Sadly that still wasn’t enough to keep me interested because the same problems were gnawing at my ankles, reminding me why I’d left the series in the first place.
So we went our separate ways until the last episode of Nine. I was gob-smacked! How could something like this happen. I thought the thing with Bad Wolf was superb, giving the series a real epic sense of grandeur that spread across the ages which really made me think ‘Time Lord‘. For the first time I actually found myself respecting Rose and even though we were losing Nine there was the excitement of getting a new Time Lord. The series was showing some real potential.
With Ten things improved… slightly. I won’t lie. I LOVE Ten. He is exactly what I imagine the Doctor to be. Quirky, eccentric and yet stupidly brilliant. But there was the small problem of Rose… I was so sick of the Doctor/Assistant romance because, for me, the Doctor wasn’t supposed to be interested in romance. Oh yes, there was nothing wrong with some harmless flirting but this was different. It annoyed me how Rose’s character had basically boiled down to what EVERY female sidekick becomes in the end, a love interest. It annoyed me how she dumped Mickey even though the poor guy put his heart and soul into trying to find her and even waited for her during her absence but noooo apparently that wasn’t good enough for Rose. She’d gone onto bigger and brighter things and wasn’t interested in the mundane anymore.
I was so glad when she left because it meant a new start with a new Assistant. Finally, the Doctor could stop fawning and get back to saving the world with his new Assistant Martha. I really liked Martha. Yes, she was slightly ruined by her infatuation with the Doctor but at least she was a lot more mature about it and she had some truly epic moments. Sadly her spell on the show was ruined by pretty much the same problems as the last. Stupid stories, compliments of Russell T FECKING Davis.
Out with Martha and in with Donna. Oh Donna, you were a breath of fresh air after Rose and Martha. I adored her approach to the Doctor which was more or less a verbal smack upside the head and a toss of her hair. She had no time for soppy romance because she was too busy actually enjoying her travels and knew what she wanted. She actually tracked down the Doctor using her own initiative, something which I think Rose would have been incapable of. She was fantastic and I loved the friendship that she and the Doctor built up. So obviously it had to stop. I HATE what was done to her. If it weren’t for Doctor Who’s near famous habit of humping the reset button every series I would be worried about never seeing her again but I have hopes for her return. She’s half Time Lord so I can’t see them ignoring that forever.
I was sad to see Ten go because I really enjoyed his run as the Doctor. His was the only run I saw from start to finish without missing an episode and it was fun with a few bright moments. Now we have Amy Pond(Pond? Really?) and Mister Eleven and my initial reactions are… meh. He’s just a pale shadow of Ten with too few of his own defining features. Amy is alright, it’s nice to an Assistant with her own storyline and she’s Scottish and a red-head(all huge plus marks in my book) but I can see her falling back into that bad habit of Doctor romance. It’s early days yet but I’m remaining hopeful… barely.
Why? Well, it’s only two episodes in but I can see some of the old problems already.
No Aliens or Alien Planets: For a series with such a proud sci-fi heritage like Doctor Who I was really surprised by the lack of…well sci-fi. Now I know Sci-Fi doesn’t always mean aliens but with the New Who it’s a lot more noticeable. The Old Doctor would travel to exotic worlds and meet strange new life forms and poke them. With New Who you’re lucky if he leaves the shores of the UK. Even when they do manage to get into outer space you’re lucky to see actual aliens. It’s always humans and they are ALWAYS British.
A sense of time: I remember seeing a early episode set on this satellite. Apparently this was set about 200,000 years in our future so I was surprised to see everyone wearing clothes you’d see down at your local Asda. I was further surprised when they visited the satellite again(100 years later in their timeline) and they were showing sadistic versions of The Weakest Link and Big Brother, again with very little change to wardrobe. Several times in the series we’ve travelled far into the future and visited future versions of Earth only to see very little change other then those convenient to the plot. The show fails quite badly at creating an actual sense of setting or time travel. In the past 100 years mankind has made astonishing leaps in terms of technology, science, art and cultural. Mankind is an ever changing creature and sometimes I wonder where we’ll be in another 100 years. When I watch Doctor Who… it never feels as if we’re actually gone that far. The latest episode(the Beast Below) is a fantastic example of this, we jump 1200 years into our own future and what do we encounter? A space travelling society that has modelled itself after 1930’s England… huh?
Christmas Speshuls: I won’t go into huge detail with this one since you can pretty much blame RTD for it but EVERY New Who Christmas special has been made of complete fail.
Broken Science: I know when it comes to Sci-Fi you need to set aside your disbelief in order to enjoy it but even I have my limits. In one episode the Doctor found a cure for a horrible disease by mixing together every cure known to man… seriously! I’m no chemist but I’m pretty sure that’s more likely to kill the patient then save them. I’ve always found Sci-Fi to be at its best when there is some truth behind the science, even if it’s just a little. New Who makes no attempts at even using real science and all problems can be solved by the sonic screwdriver or running up and down corridors a lot. I love the Sonic Screwdriver but never, NEVER, in any fictional media has there been a bigger Deus ex machina. I’ve actually looked up what the ScrewDriver has done and some of the things listed are “Unlocking handcuffs” “Tinting the Doctor's glasses” and “Storing the consciousness of a human being”… what can I say… really?
No Other Country Except For England Exists: I know this is a British made programme and I feel proud of that fact but it gets tiresome seeing England(more specifically Cardiff and London) over and over again. The Doctor claims to love the human race but doesn’t seem all that bothered about interacting with different countries. In the latest episode(the Beast Below) Mankind had fled Earth on spaceships but England was the only country to get a Star Whale as their mode of transport. The way they spoke in the episode and the words they chose made it seems as if the people of England were the last people on Earth but lines from earlier in the episode proved those claims to be false. What made England so special that it got a space whale? It was never made clear. It could simply be a case of production costs limiting them to shooting in the UK but even shows with half DW’s budget manage to cobble something together.
Immature Approach to Homosexuality: I know Russell T Davis is gay and it’s nice for writers to write about what they know but the way he inserts homosexually into the show is just random. It comes from out of nowhere, has no effect on the plot and is often jarring and all sorts of confusing. It’s like his pointing at the screen shouting “Look at them! They’re totally gay! Look at that!” and I just don’t like it. There are far more subtle and skilful ways to handle homosexuality than shoving it in our faces. I understand that he broke down some barriers with Captain Jack but it’s probably best that I leave that alone… Torchwood really got my teeth grinding. A little more context and subtleness would have been greatly appreciated.
Russell T FECKING Davis: Oh Davis… DAVIS! He is responsible for all of my gripes with New Who. The man is prone to reusing the same plot over and over and very rarely does he write a compelling and interesting script. What he does write is full of plot holes, rushed, poorly thought out and abuses the concept of deus ex machina. The final appearance of Ten was a depressingly shining example of Davis’s inability to put together a coherent and interesting story. All too often he will rely on melodrama to the extent that no one cares or it becomes predictable. I actually found on a fansite a bingo card listing every Davis cliché you could think of. I used it for the last episode and it was scary how well they’d put this together, several of the boxes were filled and I was only one box off getting a bingo. Davis has been replaced by Steve Moffet, a man who’s responsible for writing some of the BEST New Who episodes ever (Blink is regarded as the BEST New Who episode) so a lot of people are hopeful for the future.
Daleks and Cybermen: Fair enough, with Doctor Who you can’t help but think of the Daleks or the Cybermen. They are iconic and are even recognised by people who’ve never watched the series. But RTD relied too heavily on these two high profile villains and this wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d handled it properly. Every time either of these two villainous groups were defeated it was always FOR THE LAST TIME but lo and behold RTD would find new, more confusing and unrealistic ways to bring them back. It’s gotten to the point where no one cares anymore. The brilliant thing about taking on such a long lived series like Doctor Who is the huge amount of villains and alien races you get to choose from but to stick with two for all your major storylines is just redundant and robs the characters of any fear they might have once induced because you know the Doctor is just going to beat them AGAIN.
Season Long Prophecy : Oh how RTD loves this little plot device, it would be good if he hadn’t done it EVERY SINGLE SERIES! I loved it in the first series with Bad Wolf, the idea that Rose was reaching back through time and leaving her mark was brilliant and I loved it. Then it was repeated in the next series only slightly different… and again with the You are not alone/YANA crap(How was the Doctor supposed to get that clue!) each series these ‘Prophecies’(sorry can’t think of a better term) were getting sillier and sillier(Yana still wins though) until our latest ‘He will knock four times’. I don’t mind these I just wish they were handled better or not included at all. Very rarely did RTD actually base a arc or story around them and the Doctor never seemed all that fussed with trying to work them out. Even the latest series seems to be following this trend(crack in the universe) but I think, so far, it’s being handled with a bit more skill. Time will tell.
So there you have it. My reasons why Doctor Who isn’t as good as it could be. That’s the really annoying thing about this show, it has SO much potential but it never quite lives up to it. Some episodes will leave you feeling really satisfied but most episodes just leave you annoyed and frustrated. At least for me. This show has the tough job of being a family show, that means he has to both cater to children and adults and sometimes getting the balance right it next to impossible and sadly it’s the adult who come away feeling unsatisfied most of the time.
Will this stop me from watching the latest series? Nope. For you see Moffet has taken control. Moffet is a writer who has proven that he can push this show to the limits and still make it enjoyable for everyone involved. This is the year of Moffet. THE YEAR OF OPTIMISM!