Alright, I gotta say this.

I've been trying really hard to like Doctor Who.

I've been following the order Teague told me to watch the seasons in (5 6 2 3 4 1), and got through 5 and half of 6 before giving up and giving Tennant a try. Still no.

I feel like it doesn't have any substance to it. Every episode feels interchangeable and forgettable to me. There isn't a single character I felt emotionally attached to in any significant way.

I'm sorry guys. I tried to give it a fair shot. Is there something important I'm missing?
From what I've seen, I just don't see the appeal.

Last edited by MadBadCoyote (2012-12-28 20:18:59)

.. but I wanted to feel included :(

And also, Teague really gave you the wrong order to watch things. Start with 1. This isn't Star Wars. Watch it in context, the story will make more sense, and you won't be skipping around in The Doctor's timeline.

While I still have some enthusiasm for the show, I must admit I'm a little miffed with Moffat myself. I was with the entire internet in thinking that Moffat's episodes were far and away the strongest of the Russell T. Davies era, and I was SO stoked when it was announced that he was taking over as showrunner. Series 5 is, I think, the best of the "nuWho" series. It all felt so energized and there was a consistent standard of high quality with a greater focus on science fiction than ever before. Series six was a step down, the jury's still out on series seven. But it's become clear to me that Moffat is kind of a three-trick pony, as far as his plotting is concerned. Jumbled timeline with predestination paradoxes, scary everyday thing, glib prophesizing.

And he's a ONE trick pony when it comes to writing women. Amy Pond is Madam Du Pompadour. That didn't bother me TOO much, because he burned a cool character idea on one episode in somebody else's era and wanted to explore it more fully. That's fine with me. But Sally Sparrow is also a very slight variation on the same character. River Song is an amplified version of it. Even Katherine from Jekyll and Irene Adler (ESPECIALLY Adler) are the same character as River Song. And now it looks like Oswin is too, though Jenna-Louise Coleman plays it with more charm than Alex Kingston. There ARE... y'know... meek women. Hateful women. Dumb women. Could we get a little variety, please? It works for your male characters.

I hate that I'm agreeing with you. It feels as tho, once he was put in charge and encountered all the pressure of budgets and deadlines that Davies contended with, he ends up doing much the same things as Davies: writing whatever seems exciting and mysterious without much planning and pulling answers out of his ass at the last minute.

And he draws women as "strong" in a way that can too easily be characterized as pushy, selfish, and arrogant, and CONSTANTLY second guessing the Doctor. They do run a gamut, I think, from Sally to Madame du Pompadour to Clara to Jenny to Amy to River to Vastra, but they're all of a type. The Widow from last Christmas at least had to develop into a Moffat woman. The dying singer of the Christmas is probably the notable exception.

Last edited by Zarban (2012-12-29 02:47:42)

Yes. Because his idea of "strong" is one-note, and it's almost as much a disservice to women to paint them all with the same "strong character" brush as it is to do it with the "weak character" brush. I proposed those adjectives simply because they represent the opposite of Moffat's typical female character, and are not traits we've seen in any women he's written. What I really want is just something different. Think about a character like Rory. That's a GREAT character with a believable arc and his own kind of strength, but he's not the Doctor, he's not Captain Jack, etc. I want that for the women characters too, and it's not at all what I'm getting.

EDIT: Dammit Jimmy. If you're not saying what I was just typing you're seeing the light before I've had my shot at breaking you.

Last edited by C-Spin (2012-12-29 02:47:17)

Do you think it would help the show if they went back to the way it was in the classic series, with there being a showrunner and a script editor who were two entirely different people? Or is this just a weakness of the two showrunners they've chosen, rather than the current system?

Damn you, Jimmy. Damn you straight to hell.

I'll just put this here...

I used to like Futurama like you. Then I took an.... No, then the new show happened, and it wasn't the same. Didn't care much for it.
Firefly I've watched a couple of episodes, but it didn't grasp me enough to continue watching it. I will, at one point, but it's not at the top of my list.
Babylon 5 was never the slightest interesting. Nor was any form of Star Trek, sans the new film. That I actually really like. Stargate was my cup of tea, though.

Among nerdy shows I don't like is The Clone Wars, X-Files, Big Bang Theory(It's alright as a time-consumer, nothing more), I was never into Xena, and I hate, no, that's not enough; HATE Family Guy, American Dad and Cleveland Show. I just don't like Seth MacFarlane in general. Ted was better than I expected it to be, but the combination of MacFarlane and Wahlberg was a horrible idea. Neither of them make me want to see a film.

Meanwhile, in other alleged news, the 50th anniversary special will supposedly feature all eleven Doctors.

FCW: If this is true, I wonder how they'll pull it off. 3 of the actors are dead, and the earlier doctors are getting seriously old.

Then again, Time Crash did a pretty cool job of it, and The Five Doctors had a Hartnell lookalike that worked out well. it might work.

*here's to hoping it does*