Looking back on Doctor Who
The video The Fall of Doctor Who popped up in my recommendations on youtube. It's 5 hours long! But I watched almost the entire thing. And now I'm suddenly a bit into Doctor Who again. Maybe not quite so much that I want to do a full rewatch, but I'll definitely watch some of my favourite episodes. As in, early 11th Doctor episodes. And then maybe some 9th and 10th Doctor later.
In the spirit of having Who on the brain again, here are some lists and thoughts on the topic.
Previously
- In November 2013, I wrote my last DW post about The Day of the Doctor.
- In July 2011, I wrote about why the 11th Doctor is my favourite
- In April 2011, I was not happy with the 10th Doctor's regeneration
- In January 2011, I was about to finish watching series 1 for the first time
Why I stopped watching
My interest in Doctor Who started going downhill during the second half of series 7 in 2013. Things weren't quite the same after Amy and Rory's exit. I loved the 50th anniversary, but I wasn't entirely a fan of the 11th Doctor's regeneration episode. I tried watching the 12th Doctor, but since the magic had already started fading, and the 12th Doctor's personality never fully "clicked" for me, I gave up at some point before the end of series 8 in 2014.
I actually rewatched series 8 and 9 on Netflix last year, but they didn't have the 12th's last episode (the Christmas special), so I didn't want to watch series 10 without being able to finish the 12th's run. I've been told he actually gets more likeable in season 10, so I'd really like to finish his episodes. But I never got around to it.
I have not watched any of the 13th Doctor episodes, and for now, I don't have any plans to. The youtube video linked above didn't exactly change my mind.
Discovering the show
Tumblr
I first heard of Doctor Who on Tumblr in early 2011, in the form of various gifs. I vaguely remember a gif of this scene being part of the decision to finally check out the show:
"Hello, I'm an alien"
An early Who-related thought I can remember having was that the show was such a refreshing contrast to Smallville. Smallville had been my favourite show for years, and at that time it was close to ending. Doctor Who was a huge breath of fresh air. I still loved Smallville, but it was so cool to see the Doctor showing up and basically introducing himself as an alien after almost 10 years of Clark keeping it a secret.
(To be fair to Smallville, Clark didn't really have the option to just get out of there if the world found out about him like the Doctor could)
Falling in love with the Doctor character
I remember liking 9. Then when 10 came on, I really started loving the show. And then 11 came on, and I got properly, head over heels obsessed.
My favourite episodes:
9th Doctor:
- The empty child / The Doctor dances
10th Doctor:
- The girl in the fireplace
- The family of blood / Human nature (God, the ending is just heartbreaking)
- Blink
- Silence in the library / Forest of the dead
- Planet of the dead
11th Doctor:
- The beast below – though I think that this episode should have come a bit later in the season. That's a huge decision Amy makes, based on understanding the Doctor, after knowing him for such a short time.
- The Time of Angels / Flesh and stone
- A Christmas Carol
- The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon – The setup for the season is so great, and I remember being absolutely amazed after watching it. Shame about the resolution...
- The Doctor's Wife
- The Almost People / The Rebel Flesh
- A Good Man Goes to War – Also suffered from plot holes, but the general idea was greatness.
Moffat issues
Ugh... So great at setups and mysteries, and so bad at resolving them. And so bad at working out what to do with the companions. Noteworthy:
- Silence will fall, and the exploding TARDIS: This was not handled well. Silence turned out to be actual aliens? Why the TARDIS exploded wasn't really explained. Silence never "fell".
- River - who she was, killing the Doctor, and being sort of a Time Lord. Her being in the astronaut suit made no sense at all. If the suit could force her to shoot the Doctor, why did she need to be in it? And why did it matter that she was a Time Lord? That never came into play. And why did she have to go to prison? No way to explain that she was forced?
- Amy: A kissogram, really? So basically a PG13 version of a stripper? I wish Moffat would have settled for an education or something for her, so that there were some guidelines for what to do with her. Now she's a strippogram, now she's a model, now she's a writer... I also couldn't stand the way she treated Rory most of the time. Like, she basically, deliberately tried cheating on him with the Doctor!
- Clara: Like with Amy, he should have settled on who she was from the beginning. The mystery could be open, sure, but she also changed jobs randomly through her time on the show.
- River: Suuuch a great mystery and setup. "River, you know my name". Uggggh, I fell so hard for this character and the mystery attached. And then the following episodes with her kinda ruined things, at least a little bit. This is almost a whole post in itself I think.
Things I'd change in general
I know Doctor Who is what it is, with it's slightly low budget and cheesiness, but there are some changes I'd like to make. This is not taking into consideration the 13th Doctor's run, because I haven't watched it.
Tone down boasting like "I promised you the equivalent of an army"
As in, lines by the Doctor or others that make him sound unrealistically badass. He is a big deal, sure, but I'd like these lines to make sense for character, and what he does. Solving problems, yes, the literal equivalent of an army? No.
"You're in a library, look me up" from Silence in the Library is an example of this done right. Because the Vashta Nerada look him up, and based on what they find, decide to pull back and let him do his thing to solve the issue. They don't run away! They just trust that he can get shit done, based on learning his history.
"Basically, run" from the Eleventh hour is another one that's a bit much. And I love the Pandorica speech, but it cheapens the moment when you know that all his enemies are actually there to trap him. So them running away is basically an act?
Make sure the companions are fully fleshed out people
See Amy and Clara above.
Nail down what the sonic can and can't do
I hate when the sonic just kinda magically resolves things.
Drop the "Doctor doesn't understand humans" jokes
This is mainly a Moffat issue. The Doctor knows how humans work. So I'm not a fan of portraying the Doctor like in "the Lodger" for example. Kissing cheeks, "football's the one with the sticks" etc.
The video I mentioned above points out:
...an equally consistent core element of the character: The Doctor's confidence, and social apathy. Most of the Doctors have a rich history of doing and saying weird and awkward things. (...) This doesn't come from a place of not knowing how to seem normal. This comes from a place of not giving two shits if someone thinks he's strange. The Doctor has lived among humans for hundreds of years. Of course he knows how to seem normal if he wants to. He does it sometimes, if he's trying to blend in somewhere. And in these cases he doesn't introduce himself as "the Doctor", 'cause he knows that's a fucking weird name. When the Doctor does weird and awkward stuff, it's not because he wants to fit in, but doesn't know how, it's because he doesn't give a shit.
And then he goes into detail on how the 11th and 12th doctors doing weird things were suddenly a joke at their expense. Like in the Lodger, mentioned above. Or the Doctor being naked but having clothes projected onto him or something in one of his last episodes, and not realising that this is a dumb thing to do. Ugh.
These two doctors were so often so great, but easily one of the worst aspect of the way in which they were written is how they would randomly, for no reason, lose a skill they'd had for hundreds, if not thousands of years, just so that we could point and laugh at them for getting the thing wrong.
I would most definitely change this back to him knowing that he's being weird / doing it on purpose.
Don't always kill off the companions that leave
Does it have to always be so dramatic? Can't more companions do what Martha did, and just leave? It bothered me after a while that all the companions sort of die, or have to be sent somewhere they can never return. That just raises all sorts of red flags about the Doctor. Should he really take on more travelling companions when it always ends this badly? I know he gets lonely, so I know why, he does it. But he should go find someone who's at least a bit sturdier than a human.
I know that if they just leave, that raises the question of why the Doctor never visits them again, but that's just how it is. Or say he does it off screen!
Don't make the Doctor's death such a huge deal
It got tiresome, the constant "impending doom". It started with 10, and was a bit overdone with 11 as well. I hated 10's regeneration for example. Then we got it in 11's series 6, and then again right after with the Trenzalore stuff/lead-up to the regeneration. Can't there be more happy episodes? Then the last one is sad? (But no more "I don't wanna go", thanks)
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