xerinmichellex

I'm posting this today to give anyone who wants to join in the chance to do so.

Tomorrow is the tenth anniversary of "Rose", the beginning of the Doctor Who era known as "New Who", and the introduction of new fans to a show that's span 50 years. I didn't start watching Doctor Who until 2009, when I caught the last 15 minutes of "Doomsday" on TV. Over the years, my relationship with Doctor Who has gone up and down; but it still remains an important TV show. And ONE DAY I will complete that DW Re-Watch.

For the past week, fans on Tumblr have participated in "Celebrating New Who" week with each day devoted to a different theme. I've combined the meme into one, very long post. Obviously, I couldn't capture all my favorite stuff so here's my Doctor Who tag on Tumblr which has even MORE Doctor Who goodies.

( The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history. When disaster comes he's there. )

Because gothrockrulz asked what I thought about the episode and this turned into a longer reply that befits its own post rather than be in the comments section.

Overall: I thought it was "meh". It wasn't "Let's Kill Hitler" or the last 15 minutes of "The Day of the Doctor" levels of bad for me; nor did it knock my socks off like "Doomsday" or "The Doctor's Wife". The stuff it did right was VERY good; but mainly it was comprised of boring parts and things that I did not enjoy. I don't care about the Paternoster Gang (Vastra, Jenny, and Strax), so the first 45 minutes (in US time, with all the commercials) bored me. But once Clara and the Doctor were actually together and doing stuff, the episode picked up.

(Rhoda, I know you mentioned not being all that into Doctor Who since Matt Smith's departure. I'd let a couple weeks go by, and then maybe binge watch them because it's hard to gauge right now what kind of Doctor Peter Capaldi's going to be.)


The Positive

--I'm glad they gave Clara stuff to do, because when she was on her own she proved to have a spine and be interesting and work outside of being the Doctor's Impossible Girl. I liked her calling out that half-robot, half-man (I'm gonna call him Two Face from now on) and standing up to him and using her mind. Sometimes being clever is just as important as being "hot" or witty or strong.

--I liked Clara and Twelve at the restaurant, and this is where the episode picked up for me. I was engaged with them and that's always important in a Doctor/companion relationship. I really think Capaldi and Coleman are the strongest pair of actors this show has had since the re-boot. I liked their banter; I liked that Clara wouldn't allow Twelve to steamroll over her. The creepiness set in when they tried to leave and the automatrons slowly surrounded them.

--I like the darker side of the Doctor they seem to be headed with Twelve. (He totally pushed Two Face out the window. I refuse to accept the alternative!) But. . .just because you say he's darker doesn't mean he will be if you don't back it up with evidence. I'm still on the fence with Twelve, but I like Peter Capaldi and how he "handles" the Doctor's serious tones. (I wasn't a fan of the beginning where he was stumbling around. It felt forced.)

It's a shame they've wasted "this is the Doctor's darkest moment" stuff on Eleven, though, if they intend Twelve to be darker than Eleven. We shall see.

--My favorite moment, and the one that really resonated with me, was when Clara stuck out her hand, knowing that if Twelve was the Doctor, he'd be right there for her. It's these "small" character moments that I like over the grandiose speeches and BIG! ideas and goofiness that Moffat sometimes relies on.

I also liked Clara after Twelve abandoned her. I like when characters push through their fear and press on. It tells me more about them than calling them a "control freak" or "egomaniac".

The Negative

--I can't believe how much time they spent on the "he's so ~old" conversations. On some level, I get that Moffat was probably addressing the fans. But come on, of all the people to complain about the Doctor being old, Clara should be the last one. She's been in the Doctor's timestream. She's seen older versions of him. She just met John Hurt's War Doctor, who isn't exactly a spring chick. And don't try and tell me that this is because of Clara's "crush" on Eleven. I have more on that below.

I'm also not here for Twelve's monologue on "I've seen this face before" and "where do these faces come from". I honestly don't care that Peter Capaldi's played two, different characters in the Whoverse. Colin Baker played a small role in Doctor Who before he became Six and it was never addressed. I've grown up on Law & Order, where they regularly recycle actors who go from criminals to a detective or an ADA. I DON'T CAAAAAAAARE!

--I can't figure out who I despise more in the Paternoster Gang: Strax or Vastra. Both are on my shit list. Strax isn't funny with his attempts to undress Clara. (It's creepy that Moffat keeps throwing in these moments where he wants Clara to be naked or the audience to view her naked. That kind of stuff doesn't belong in a children's program.) Vastra was really a snot to Clara. Boy, was it eye opening to see her treat Jenny, her goddamn wife, in such an appalling manner. Jenny deserves better. Everything with them felt like filler--and not even interesting filler. A lot of it was annoying and gross and sadly things that I've come to expect from a Moffat script.

--Clara and Eleven crushing on each other makes no damn sense and I'm resistant to the entire thing. For one, I never bought this overt flirtiness when you compare it to Eleven and River. I always got a "just friends" vibe off Clara and Eleven. Then again, I'm asexual so maybe I'm less inclined to notice subtle methods of flirting. Still! Given Eleven's actions towards Clara throughout Smith's farewell episode, I don't see how Eleven valued Clara in the same way Ten valued Rose.

But the biggest thing that makes me so resistant to it being a positive relationship, or a tragedy on Clara's part that she's lost her "crush", is the circumstances surrounding Eleven and Clara. Eleven's sole interest was figuring out why there were versions of Clara throughout time: A fact he deliberately kept secret from Clara. A fact that Clara never got the chance to confront Eleven about once she realized what he'd done.

Throw in Eleven's call to Clara after she's decided that she can't--won't--travel with Twelve, it's Clara once again losing her choice to make her own decisions. Which brings me full circle on how I hated that Clara, of all fucking people, threw a fit, and whined and moaned about the Doctor changing his face and getting old and grey and wrinkly. It made no sense and it felt like a cheap way to introduce conflict. (Much like the Ponds' divorce in Season 7's opener.)

Since I had issues with the largest components of the episode, this is why it's a major "meh" for me. Hopefully with Twelve's introductory episode out of the way, we can hit the ground running and see what kind of a man Twelve is. Whether he's a good man or a bad man, I want an interesting man. I believe Peter Capaldi can deliver.

Note: Since this is a post specifically about 8x01, let's just assume there will be spoilers in the comments and forgo those annoying spoiler tags. I can't stand how unformatted they are.

All the NBCHannibal stuff--the tumblr and twitter--better knock it off with the "this finale is going to blow your brains" because the last time something was hyped up to this degree it was the DW 50th, and we all know how I feel about that. (To wit: It was not good.)

(Speaking of: BBC released a teaser for the Season 8 trailer. . .which isn't anything exciting. Although we do know the season premiere is August.)

Two things I don't want to happen:

( Spoilers from Hannibal Season 2 and speculation )

I'll have an actual, final Hannibal post this weekend, complete with Season 3 speculations. *sniff* What are we going to do with ourselves for 9 months?

11:30pm EDIT: Before anyone asks, I'm totally okay even though one of the things I dreaded happening happened. A little annoyed; but not angry. Also: My finale prediction was pretty darn accurate (minus the Abigail thing, which I'll discuss later) *does Snoopy dance* *runs off to buy some lottery tickets* *sobs into a bowl of ice cream*

Lately I've had this desire to re-watch New!Who. With the 50th Special coming up, it seems like the most appropriate time to do so. (Maybe re-watching the past seasons will help amp me up for the 50th. Because the more fuckery interviews and articles I read, the less enthused I am about the whole thing.)

Mostly, though, I've never watched the seasons back-to-back. I've talked about my first Doctor Who experience before; and from digging around Tumblr, I've had a bit of nostalgia for the RTD era. And I realized that I never watched the seasons in their proper order. When I saw my first snippet of Doctor Who, SciFi (yes, back then it was still SciFi and not SyFy) was airing Season 4. My first, complete Doctor Who episode was "The Unicorn and the Wasp" and watched the rest of the season onwards. (You can imagine my confusion during "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End". Who are these people? Oh, hey, Rose!)

At the same time, I think BBCAmerica was airing the third season (maybe Season 2?). . . it was one of the past seasons, and I caught an episode here and there. Then, I bought the Season 1 & 2 boxsets and watching those. Oh! Later that year, BBCAmerica aired the fourth season, so I caught up on that ("Partners in Crime" up to "The Unicorn and the Wasp"). Then I between the Ten Farewell Tour specials I caught up with the missed-third season episodes. (Jeez, was Season 5 the first one I watched in real time? Yikes. Maybe that's why I had such high hopes for Moffat's era.) Needless to say, bopping between seasons and episodes, my head is a tangled mess of character arcs, plots, and time travel.

I won't review each episode/season as detailed as rhoda_rants does in her reviews (I do have a WiP I should be working on); but I could probably throw up capsule reviews on each episode per season, leading up to the 50th. It would include: Seasons 1 - 6--Christmas Specials, too--and the Ten Farewell Tour Specials. (Hopefully by November, OnDemand will put up Season 7, as I don't--nor will I have--the season DVDs to make my re-watch of New!Who complete.)

So--*checks calendar*--I've got roughly 4 months to get this done. *gnaws nails*

So, I'm a little nervous about the Doctor Who premiere tonight. I've aired out my frustrations over and over and over and over (<--SPOILER POST!) about the past couple of seasons. (Season 5--if I don't think about it too hard--was not the complete fluster-cuck as Season 6 and 7, Part I.) Bad as it gets, I don't think I'll ever stop watching Doctor Who. Then again, owing to my "series loyalties", I thought I'd never drop Glee or The Vampire Diaries and those shows are off my TV viewing schedule. We'll have to see how this back-half plays out.

As I've been busy plotting (and re-plotting) I figured out my biggest issue with this "Moffat Era": I don't care about the characters so the writing/plots come off cold and detached. I think back to the Russel T. Davis days* and I remembered how much I loved Rose, Martha, Donna, and their families because they were so normal. They were ordinary people who did amazing things that made them extraordinary. If we look at the last three main characters (excluding the Doctor) they were overly special. River's part timelord, Rory's lived over 2000 years, and Amy has her, erm, mind...memory...thing? something. I think because Moffat made them too special and epic, I never connected to them like I did to a nineteen-year-old shop girl, medical student, and wayward red-head. Moffat seems to be big on ideas and trying so, so hard to be clever and smart, that his characters suffer and he just doesn't seem to come off as creative with them as he has with the Weeping Angels or the cracks in time. And, as much I like what I've seen of the new companion, Moffat has already set her up to be SUPER-SPECIAL!!!, and I don't know if I can deal with another Amy.

I just want the heart and soul of the show that I fell in love with back. I don't expect--given his track record--that I'm going to get that with Moffat.

*RTD had his own problems, but the man knew how to write believable and loveable characters.

ETA: Looking this over, it seems like a rambling mess. (This is what I get from shifting my brain from plotting--where my thoughts are jumbled and fragmented--to writing eloquently.) So, to simplify:

I feel like Moffat doesn't have a good grasp on human/human emotions. He comes up with a lot of good, creative ideas; but applying these ideas to the human condition is not his strong suit. When Melody/River is taken from Amy and Rory, there is no anger, no sadness, no worry from the parents whose newborn infant was ripped from their hands to be used as a weapon against their best friend. The little cubes from "The Power of Three" could've been a great opportunity to talk about humankind's obsession with obtaining/collecting things just to have them. Instead, they're merely a plot device. "The God Complex" was this great examination on how fear and bravery are intermingled. Of course, this episode was not penned by Moffat. This is why Moffat's stories read cold to me.

Let's get this done with. I've hidden the spoilery stuff under a cut so anyone who hasn't seen the episode (I'm looking at you, Rhoda) can skip to the bottom.

( FINAL WARNING BEFORE YOU HIT SPOILERS )

I think my biggest problem was the marketing of the last 5 episodes was designed as the Pond Farewell Tour. Obviously, the marketing wasn't for me, as I've stated many times over that the Ponds needed to GTFO. However, Moffat really shot himself in the foot by even confirming that this would be the Ponds farewell. It would be like Hitchcock going to the studio and saying, "You know how we could get butts into the theater? Let's design the whole marketing of Psycho around that shower scene that happens 20 minutes into the movie." But he didn't. In fact, Hitchcock made the movie theaters prohibit anyone from buying a ticket to Psycho after the movie started so as not to ruin the impact of the shower scene. Moffat had all the emotional impact he could want in the story; but it's negated when he keeps giving interview after interview about this being the Ponds last season and their farewell would be heartbreaking. I thought he would've learned by the end of Season 6 that hype kills everything.

Here's the thing: You cannot tell someone how they're supposed to feel. Storytelling doesn't work like that. So the last ten minutes of the episode--which should've had such emotional resonance--is so "well, duh, of course" that it angered me because I'm reminded of my first Doctor Who experience. I happened to catch the last 15 minutes of "Doomsday"--around the time Ten is running around with the 3-D glasses on. Now, I knew absolutely nothing about Doctor Who, nothing about Rose and the Doctor,the TARDIS, the Daleks and Cybermen, etc.; I had no idea what was going on. HOWEVER! As soon as Rose got sucked into the alternate universe, and by the time we see her and the Doctor holding onto the wall because that's as close as they'll ever get to being together again, I was bawling my eyes out. Full on tears running down my face. And I knew nothing about these people. I just knew that they would never see each other again, and it was devastating because I could read it on David Tennant and Billie Piper's face.

Thus, that emotional response I had started the obsession with watching all the New!Who episodes. So, and this just may be me, but I hold a high standard for Doctor Who. Because if it could make me cry within ten minutes of flipping on a random episode, having two seasons and more devoted to the Ponds, when they say, "Goodbye" should rate higher. And...it didn't. And it's a shame because this episode is really good, and really creepy. "Blink" level of creepiness. (I seriously want to pretend like the two-parter from Season 5 featuring the Angles never, ever happened.) All of this could've been pulled off if Moffat would've kept his damn mouth shut. He is really his own worst enemy. I'd curious that, in a few years, when someone watches this episode without knowing anything going in, if the heartbreaking ending Moffat intended is achieved.

This first part of Season 7 has left me feeling "meh"; not in the least because I feel like the Ponds overstayed their welcome. I mean, let's look at the seasons before Moffat's era: Every season ended with some sort of companion/Doctor shake-up that breathed a freshness to the series. I'm so ready for this new companion. Can it be Christmas already?

Within a few hours Season 7 of Doctor Who premieres. To say I was disappointed in last season would be an understatement. I've already gotten my vitriol reactions from the mess out on rhoda_rants's blog (sorry for that!) so I'm hoping this season can wash away all the bad. But to do that, Doctor Who is going to have to do a few things.

( Some ranting and semi-spoilers from past seasons )

There's been a slight uproar at the house for the past couple of days due to my brother's idea of a Christmas gift for me. Ever since we put my cat, Midnight, down, my brother's been insistent on getting me another to "even the cats out" since he has two and I was left with one. Naturally, when my brother teased me about my Christmas gift and said it "was special" and I was "going to love him [my brother] so much for it" I knew he was trying to convince my mother to adopt another cat for me. It was also suppose to be a thank you for helping him with his papers for college--which I have basically written for him, so those A's he received are mine anyway.

On Friday, when my mother and brother conveniently ducked out of the house, I figured they were getting my "Christmas present". Did I mention my brother volunteers at the animal shelter near our house? The pieces were adding up, and when they did come home, I received my new, replacement kitten. *I is so smart.*

( I swear, she's living up to her name with each passing day )
Totally unrelated, the first hour of SciFi's (yes, I refuse to use that stupid, variant spelling "SyFy") Alice aired last night. I was less than impressed. I really liked Tin Man--it was fresh, new, and engaging. Though both were created/written by the same people, Alice felt...off. Wonderland looked like a recycled set from Doctor Who--even the selling of emotions was borrowed from a Doctor Who episode that aired in 2007. Honestly, Alice started off bad. When I see a brown haired Alice, I don't like her unless she's carrying a butcher's knife and sporting Victorian boots. Needless to say, this Alice wasn't. Perhaps the second night will make up for last night's. Doubt it. I may just have to wait for Tim Burton's Alice as a worthy re-imagining of the timeless tale of a girl who slipped through The Looking Glass and the adventure she had on the other side.