There is a new Doctor Who, and it's Billie Piper.
(archive.ph)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (28)
sorted by:
I think I'm a bit of an outlier, but I already could barely stand Matt Smith. I liked both Eccleston and Tennant, lost interest with Smith pretty quickly and, from what little I saw Capaldi seemed a sharp upgrade, but my interest had already waned. Considering what came next, I don't feel like I lost out on much. I wish Eccleston had gotten another season; he was the introduction to the new show, but then gone too soon.
I enjoyed Smith when I was watching—and I actually really like him as the character—but I would say that the episodes around him began to get worse and worse. Some standout offenses for me are:
Rings of Akhaten. Matt Smith delivered a passionate speech that is one of my favorite acting moments of his only for it to get rug-pulled that actually that doesn't work so Clara can have her moment instead. (Seriously, I think Smith's speech is actually one of the best moments in the whole show. You don't even need to watch anything else, just watch that clip, appreciate it, and then understand that they undermined all of it in the next ten minutes of screen time).
The Ponds being written out of the show in the way that they were. Doctor Who's time travel logic has always been vague and nonsensical, but the whole "you can't change the past now that you read a book about how these events go" is so completely at odds with the entire premise of the show that it's absurd.
The Silence being resolved the way they were. You have these freaky aliens that first show up in association with a crack in the fabric of the universe, they have a weird power that messes with people's memories, they have an unrelenting obsession with killing The Doctor in order to "save the universe" and after three seasons of teasing and mystery the answer is that they're a splinter group from a universal megachurch? And the church is actually very well known and not mysterious at all and they all end up on The Doctor's side in about five lines of dialogue? And the fact that they make people forget them is so they can take confession and then you forget going to confession?
You have to be willing to overlook a certain level of questionable writing, camp, and plot convenience to enjoy Doctor Who in the first place. The issue with the Matt Smith seasons and later (outside of the woke stuff, of course) is actually that it began to take itself more seriously in the worst way, and thought it was much cleverer than it was.
...Hey, has the BBC ever had any other show like that...?
It's not even true by their own material, and from Smith's own run! History was written that River Song killed The Doctor, that is until Clara erased the history of the universe which also meant River was no longer considered a murderer somehow,
Except not only did The Doctor find a loophole for that but as mentioned somehow simply erasing it from all the data archives everywhere was enough to undo it's lasting repercussions! Was this a clumsy way of saying [digital] book burning is good because it no longer means the bad things are ever thought about? That precise argument fails because "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" anyway!
Also explaining just what they were. They weren't aliens, they weren't monsters, they were just modified humans. End of. Massive anticlimactic fumble on something previously considered genuinely dangerous🙄 At least the Weeping Angels were still dangerous, albeit reduced to some point of ridicule when it turned out The Statue Of Liberty was one...
Oh man. I know I complained about that exact episode in my comment, but I had actually completely forgotten that that happened. I must have blocked out how dumb it was.
"Hey, we have this monster that people love. Its two main traits are: it can't move if anyone is looking at it, and if anyone photographs it or stares at its eyes for too long, bad things happen. Also, they go around with their faces covered because they even freeze if they look at each other."
"Great, lets make one of the most famous, visible, photographed statues in the world—which has its face visible all the time—turn out to be one of them."
Already been 11 years. Also i still hate the Clara character
I enjoyed David Tennant more than Matt Smith, but I think Smith was more believable as a old man in a young man's body.
Ideally I wish Paul Mcgann would’ve reprised his role. I loved his movie. Tennant was good but him running his mouth constantly has annoyed me. Best Smith moment was the return of Tom Baker. At this point I’m happy watching the classic who and pretending it ends with Mcgann
I knew someone who loved McGann's Doctor and once got something signed at a convention by him. I think he mentioned something about wishing the role was reprised too and this happened just around the time of The Three Doctors coming out so the teaser where McGann does reprise the role and regenerate into the War Doctor was about to drop so McGann was "strangely tight-lipped" about the idea 🤣
I loved that they at least filmed a regeneration to correct that mistake. He has a lot of audio adventures so that makes me glad and I need to get some. I wish they had given him a series
Smith was odd, but I just chalked it up to Doctor Who's eccentricity being maxed out.
Capaldi is probably the best Doctor Who in another universe where the show has better writing. Capaldi loved being Doctor Who, and he's clearly very good at acting, but his character is just forced to be garbage.