The Doctor Who thread


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Also, I get that not everyone's pro-Moffatt - like half of the internet at this point - but I sincerely hope he's not going to be namechecked every week, particularly as a stick to beat the show with if he isn't the writer that week. I think it's pretty clear that the Missy character is the new season-arc hook, which every new Who series has had to some extent. I'm not saying "waah, how dare you criticise Dr Who! waaah!!" but I prefer criticism to be based on something other than "ugh, Moffatt".

I have to agree. He's made a lot of mistakes and he's at least a year or two past his sell-by date AFAIC, but he takes a lot of garbage from people who walk into an episode expecting (and sometimes even hoping for) failure and waving anything they like aside with "But it's still Moffat". There are a lot of very valid criticisms but the negativity feels knee-jerk.

Incidentally, I want to point out that this isn't directed at anyone on this board specifically. This is just what fandom is doing right now.

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^Truth.

I also think that a lot of the harsh criticism is along the lines of, "How DARE the show not COMPLETELY ENTHRALL ME at EVERY MOMENT! I don't even know what the main arc for the season is yet, and we're an entire episode in! This show has gone SO downhill..."

Also, after hearing Clara's angry monologue, I eagerly await the oncoming storm of Clara/Mountain Range fanfiction.

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I agree a lot with what Ian said, specifically concerning at what point the show got good, Clara and Jenna Coleman's performance, the direction of the episode and the anti-Moffatt era we're currently in.

I definitely got a Six/Peri vibe from the episode. Metatextually, going from the popular Doctor (Baker/Tennant) to the young Doctor (Davison/Smith) to the Doctor who's a bit off from his first episode and clashes with the companion (Coliln Baker/Capaldi). I found that kind of cool, and it makes sense to happen at least one other time.

Personally I'm not yet sold on Capaldi yet but I'm definitely engaged to see more of him. One thing I felt hurt him is that we didn't see as much of him perform as we did with Matt Smith. I get why, as Clara helped portray the audience in adjusting, but I wanted to see more of the Doctor than what we got. In that instance, it reminded me of Tennant's first episode, down to being unconcious and running around in pajamas.

Also, did Matt Smith film the phone call back last year? It looked like he did, which was nice filmmaking.

I will say that I actively don't like the new theme. It's kind of wimpy and lacks that dramatic touch I feel the others have had.



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Didn't we get the same sort of backlash against RTD about this time during his run? Maybe its just a thing with New-Who, by the third series you've written people tend to get annoyed with the showrunner.

Yeah, by the end RTD was also getting a ton of grief. And to be fair, a lot of it was deserved. Just like Moffat. The gripes that a lot of people - myself included - about Moffat's writing (more interested in being clever than writing characters, bad at women) have come about with good reason.

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Didn't we get the same sort of backlash against RTD about this time during his run? Maybe its just a thing with New-Who, by the third series you've written people tend to get annoyed with the showrunner.

Yeah, by the end RTD was also getting a ton of grief. And to be fair, a lot of it was deserved. Just like Moffat. The gripes that a lot of people - myself included - about Moffat's writing (more interested in being clever than writing characters, bad at women) have come about with good reason.

Sometimes with Moffat though I have noticed that the viewers tend to make thing more complicated for themselves than anything Moffat had actually written. I remember a lot of hand wringing over the weirdness in the Wedding of River Song for instance about the Churchill being Holy Roman Emperor and pterodactyls flying around and people being confused when the entire plot was that something was supposed to happen, didn't happen, then time got fucked up. That's all there was to it but reading online I saw a lot of people acting like they had to be quantum physicists to figure it out.

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Didn't we get the same sort of backlash against RTD about this time during his run? Maybe its just a thing with New-Who, by the third series you've written people tend to get annoyed with the showrunner.

Yeah, by the end RTD was also getting a ton of grief. And to be fair, a lot of it was deserved. Just like Moffat. The gripes that a lot of people - myself included - about Moffat's writing (more interested in being clever than writing characters, bad at women) have come about with good reason.

That's true, I think Series 6 was the most guilty of the 'getting too clever' for his own good. At least to me it didn't seem too bad in Series 7 but maybe that was replaced by focusing too much on the mystery of Clara. Be curious to see if the problem comes up in Series 8

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When I first saw Eccleston (RE: "Rose" on Sc-Fi), I knew he was going to be a pretending-to-be-light-but-really-dark Doctor. Tennant, though I saw "Blink" before "The Christmas Invasion," I understood was bouncy-but-still-haunted. Smith's Doctor I knew was getting over The Time War but was, again, trying to move on; he was trying to be his own man. All of this I got from their first episodes.

Peter Capaldi's Doctor, on the other hand, I'm excited to say, I still don't know what to expect. This new regeneration cycle is unpredictable; he's more broken and confused than ever, and I hope this lasts for two to three more episodes.

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I liked Capaldi's portrayal a lot. He doesn't feel like the Doctor yet ("The Eleventh Hour" is literally the only time in the history of the show that I turned off a new Doctor's first episode and said "Yep, that's the Doctor" with zero hesitation) but he'll get there, and probably very, very quickly.

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Also, (this may've been my TV and hopefully not Capaldi's accent) but I had a hard time making out what he was saying half the time. Did anyone else have this problem?

You're not the only one. The audio mix sounded really off; too "soft." Both the Doctor and Clara sounded like they were mumbling a lot of the time. It could just be a kink with the airing version; hopefully it'll be fixed by the time of the blu-ray release.

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It's the same but with the round things popping out and the time rotor is more orange-red than blue.

Ok the colour I would never have noticed. When he referenced the round things "I use to have more round things on the walls" I thought he ment the classic interrior. Will have to go back and look at Smiths version again. Thanks.

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Forgot to mention the opening credit sequence.

Loved it but then I loved it when it was a fan made you tube clip. The theme will take some getting use to but I kind of like how it feels like its limping along. Like the cogs of the time machine are just about functioning. Very apt for a mad man with a box, who is always putting it back together again.

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