Big Blog Fridays #12 - Adventures in Time and Space

Sorry, guys, for some reason this entry posted twice, and I have no idea how to delete the second one. You could always read this one, wait a couple of hours, and then read the other one and pretend it's not the exact same thing you've already read. The decision is yours...

Can't you think of a better name than Big Blog Fridays? I mean, the alliteration is nice but it's not really a "big blog".

Anyway, I'll be watching it. There never was a "golden age" of Doctor Who, it's always been a mixed bag, although most agree it was the Philip Hinchcliffe era.

The best season of the revival is by far series one, the show has been at a lower standard since then but every series has some gold episodes, like Heaven Sent. Not sure if that one's an anomaly on Moffat's part though since the following episode, Hell Bent, was one of the worst I've ever seen.

I'm always looking forward to a new season of Doctor Who, hoping that it'll get consistently good, and I'm usually left lukewarm. Still though, I keep going back, like an abused puppy.

EDIT: Somehow managed to double post this comment. This blog is cursed!

^Agree with everything Nep said.

Eccleston's series set the benchmark so high that every other series so far has been playing catchup. It retained everything that made the original series a great sci-fi, as well as bringing in humanistic elements that made it more appealing to a family audience, something Russell T. Davies emphasised heavily when he pitched the revival to the BBC.

Some may argue that bringing in romance and consequences to the Doctor randomly ripping people away from their live's detracted from the show's core appeal, but it's undeniably the reason it's still on the air now.

I'm not sure if they'll be able to return to it's heyday again, although I hear producers are keen to bring in a younger Doctor again to emulate the success of Tennant's tenure. This is to combat the dwindling viewing figures Capaldi has been bringing in. Capaldi plays the Doctor very well, but I think the "old man" portrayal that was more common in the classic era is a bit lost on the younger audience, who are used to a dashing hero.

Capaldi will be remembered fondly in the future by enthusiasts, as well as Moffat for bringing back the "grandad" type portrayal similar to Hartnell. But right now, the Beeb wants dolla from action figures so get ready for a 22 year old hunk to take on the reins.

^Agree with everything Nep said.

Eccleston's series set the benchmark so high that every other series so far has been playing catchup. It retained everything that made the original series a great sci-fi, as well as bringing in humanistic elements that made it more appealing to a family audience, something Russell T. Davies emphasised heavily when he pitched the revival to the BBC.

Some may argue that bringing in romance and consequences to the Doctor randomly ripping people away from their live's detracted from the show's core appeal, but it's undeniably the reason it's still on the air now.

I'm not sure if they'll be able to return to it's heyday again, although I hear producers are keen to bring in a younger Doctor again to emulate the success of Tennant's tenure. This is to combat the dwindling viewing figures Capaldi has been bringing in. Capaldi plays the Doctor very well, but I think the "old man" portrayal that was more common in the classic era is a bit lost on the younger audience, who are used to a dashing hero.

Capaldi will be remembered fondly in the future by enthusiasts, as well as Moffat for bringing back the "grandad" type portrayal similar to Hartnell. But right now, the Beeb wants dolla from action figures so get ready for a 22 year old hunk to take on the reins.

To be honest, I've lost less interest in DW in the last season that was out. However, Capaldi was awesome in the Doctor's role, and he particularly astonished me in this scene:



We see a Doctor that looks back at his terrible and horrible past, he talks about the dreadful wartime he took a big part in. And he knows what the pain is, he says it clearly. And he knows how much a stupid thing like war can bring a lot of pain.
Capaldi's interpretation in this was sensational, he talks like he really lived the awful pain of the war. He talks like an old Doctor like the ones we saw in the previous seasons, and that's a particular detail that imo it's a great thing to see for DW's real fans. So I disagree that Capaldi was not that great, instead he was for me a great Doctor and a great lookback to the old ones which didn't bothered me.

Also I'm okay with the idea of a female Doctor. Why? Take a look at the female Master, she was great. And I don't think making the Doctor always male is a good idea. Changing the Doctor's gender could be a new start for the series. I also heard that Tilda Swinton could be the next Doctor and I would be absolutely ok with it, but that's just a possibilty told by the fans so it's not official yet.

I've also saw that John Simm is making a comeback as the Master and even the DW medias said it pretty everywhere, and tbh they made a wrong choice to announce it like that. Simm was cool in his role, and his return would be a great surprise for everyone. So that's why they didn't had to say the notice yet.

Hello everybody, it's me, Phylum, and once again I'm here to drop a phat blog comment.

I stopped watching Dr Who years ago, and stopped enjoying it at all once Moffat became head writer more or less. You can definitely see a decline in certain elements then.

I'm not going to hold RTD up on some podium. Fuck his season finales, and the highlights of RTD's time as head writer were the Moffat episodes. But if there's one thing RTD could do it was structure a fucking episode, and a season.

Moffat tried to tackle bigger ideas in the show. He was ambitious, he wanted more overarching and complex elements. Some of them were pretty cool, but it came at the cost of solid monster-of-the-week episodes. The individual episodes just weren't satisfying - they stopped having a clear beginning middle and end. He lost sight of his ABCs trying to be a big brain man.

Dr Who shouldn't be rocket science. If they want to tackle gender ideas or some bullshit then more power to them. But given recent things I've seen they're going to do it in an overly heavy-handed dramatic way that detracts from individual episode structure.

Also I've only seen Missy in one episode but I found her irritating, and the episode was bad. She seemed like style over substance?

Anyway before you tell me I'm overthinking this, I don't consider the first few revival series that great either. Nep hit the nail on the head saying there was no golden age. I agree that the Eccleston series had some magic that hasn't been recaptured though.

I gave up on DW when they turned the cybermen into comedy relief and blasted them off into the sky to set some clouds on fire.

The reason views went down during Capaldi's era was because they had slowly been going down for a while with Matt Smith's era, because many people - myself included - thought that Stephen Moffat simply wasn't as good of a writer as our lord and savior Russel, or at least, he was better at being a co-writer instead of the main guy. That's how I feel at least - I don't think he's good with drama, but it's ironic because some of my favorite russel-era episodes - some of the most romantic I might add - were actually Moffat's. For example, The Girl in the Fireplace or whatever that episode was called, and Father's Day - what I considered to be Rose's best episode mainly because of how sad the idea was behind that story. My personal opinion of him is...confused. But he's not as popular with most people as Russel was.

In my opinion though what really killed new-who was Clara Oswald. This obnoxious cretin was absolutely, beyond a doubt, the most obnoxious, selfish, controlling, over-possessive, passive-aggressive, ungrateful, uncooperative, deceitful, manipulative, repulsive BITCH of a character ever to be considered a companion. I'll admit I haven't seen season 9 yet - supposedly her best season - but everything up until then was INSUFFERABLE. Her character really distracts from Capaldi's, and she just doesn't belong. She's not a good person, yet the show's narrative behaves as if she is, and puts her on the moral high ground when she's actually being a real bitch - which I think was especially bad for Capaldi's character because it made him look pussy-whipped for not scolding her and calling her out. The worst thing though goes back to the narrative - all too often, every single Clara-episode to me seemed like it tried way to hard to give Clara some kind of important role which in all honesty, she didn't deserve. She's presented as just so fucking awesome and perfect, like she's the most amazing thing the show ever had and we all love her. We don't.... I'm not alone on this, since I've seen more people complain about her since the beginning than any other companion, even from the classic series.

Besides all that ranting though - I honestly don't know which new-who Doctor, as an individual character, I love the best. They all have their strengths, and each was wonderful in their own right. The eras they were placed in are up and down though - I really miss the Ninth Doctor, I think he deserved at least one more season. And for me personally, to this day my favorite season of the entire show was season 4. Yes, I know that one is somewhat controversial because 10's era was more romantic, and teenie-bopper, but I must protest - fuck off. :u

No really, fuck off :n

I could write an entire essay on why the things the Tenth doctor showed us as a character
- despite being unusual to the show's typical history and style - were not only okay, but god damn necessary to the evolution of his meta-personality, but I won't here, that's for another rant. What I think most people should agree on though, is that most of the dramatic and romantic elements of the Tenth Doctor's character were presented to us in very well crafted stories, with a lot of heart. His era was a true accomplishment in televised drama - which is why David Tennant won an award for just that, and I thoroughly believe he deserved it.

With that said, despite me personally feeling that Matt Smith's era was much less climatic, I did really love his character, and even at the show's worst, it always managed to have just that one episode every now and then that was actually really good, or that one really memorable moment.