Mostly Doctor Who Stuff

[amberfocus]

Thanks to those who sent me V-gifts for Christmas and also to all those who were so lovely in response to my news about Chris's new job being permanent.

So it only took me...eight hours to catch up on my f-list (300 odd entries) and that was with skipping all the Castle, Human Target, Fringe, and The Mentalist entries and just keeping the focus solely on Doctor Who and TVD and real life stuff.  I hadn't really read since Christmas Eve.  Christmas was long.  Just three days in a row and I got food poisoning.  That is what I get for eating other people's food apparently.  People who don't pay attention to food safety standards.  *sighs*  Normally I cook, but with having bronchitis (still) I didn't this year.  I would say life is punishing me except too much good stuff has happened lately for me to really think that.  But seriously I've spent enough time hugging a toilet bowl this month to last me a lifetime.  Needless to say I didn't get as much writing done as I would have liked.

I watched the Doctor Who Christmas special today.  I was amused and entertained but also disappointed a lot.  There wasn't enough Amy and Rory and what there was was mindless and silly.  Also white space suits?  Seriously?  Space is filthy.  White space suits?  I don't think so.  Also was disappointed in the lack of continuity and the flagrant violation of previous canon.  I generally like Eleven but there were a few times in this ep that I just wanted to slap him or shake him or point out the obvious.

Was annoyed with Eleven for saying shut up so much.  Not being a good role model to kids.  Not that I don't ever tell my kids to shut up, because I do, but I do so sparingly and usually nicely and in more than one language.  Seriously, they know be quiet in like five languages.  Also wasn't thrilled with the child abuse storyline in Doctor Who.  Then again, I wasn't thrilled with it in Fear Her, either, but somehow it seemed less blatant then or handled better or something.

But I had a good time with it otherwise.  I've more or less reconciled myself to the fact that DW will never be great with it's current show runner in charge, but it can still be good-ish.  I...really hope SM gets bored of Who and moves on.  I'd really like someone in charge who is more concerned about the show being excellent and giving all of its characters actual development and less concerned with peeing on everything that came before to make it his marking his territory like a dog.

Also the CGI in the opening segment?  Looked like a cartoon.  Not real at all.  So how much has DW's budget been cut since David and Russell left?  Because it seems like special effects have gotten worse and worse the last year and that space shark was...ridiculous, though the little fishies were cute.

I do like Eleven in the same way that I liked Seven and Five.  They will never be favorites but they entertain me and I can have fun with them.  I hope once season six starts we'll get back to seeing Rory and Amy for an appropriate amount of the screen time.  I think SM forgets that DW is supposed to be viewed through the eyes of the companions and not through the eyes of the Doctor.  It's always been that way.  That's what makes it accessible.  *sighs*

Comments

[arabian.livejournal.com]

Other than being entertained (because I really wasn't beyond my love for Eleven/Matt Smith), I agree with every single world here:

I watched the Doctor Who Christmas special today. I was amused and entertained but also disappointed a lot. There wasn't enough Amy and Rory and what there was was mindless and silly. Also white space suits? Seriously? Space is filthy. White space suits? I don't think so. Also was disappointed in the lack of continuity and the flagrant violation of previous canon. I generally like Eleven but there were a few times in this ep that I just wanted to slap him or shake him or point out the obvious.

Was annoyed with Eleven for saying shut up so much. Not being a good role model to kids. Not that I don't ever tell my kids to shut up, because I do, but I do so sparingly and usually nicely and in more than one language. Seriously, they know be quiet in like five languages. Also wasn't thrilled with the child abuse storyline in Doctor Who. Then again, I wasn't thrilled with it in Fear Her, either, but somehow it seemed less blatant then or handled better or something.

Yup.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

I must have missed your post about Chris's job - that has to be a HUGE relief. Congratulations to him! And food poisoning - yuck! Not good at any time of year, but especially not at Christmas.

I wasn't expecting much from the Christmas special, but was disappointed by the casual dismissal of canon, as you were - and also by the Doctor's complete failure to do anything to free the rest of the frozen people, or even to give any indication that he was horrified by it. The Doctor doesn't just ignore that kind of thing, and by completely bypassing that horrible injustice Moffat did the character of the Doctor a huge disservice.

(There's a tl;dr commentary on the episode on my LJ...)

[txoktober.livejournal.com]

Everytime The Moff breaks cannon a little part of me dies inside...Was it necessary for Kazran to hug his younger self? Rose barely touched herself and all reaper Hell broke loose. Kazran does and it snows happy, happy snow. Ah, but why respect what has come before, I mean really who knows better than you, eh Moff? ...weeping angels looking at each other and breaking necks...::sigh::

[krazykat-neko.livejournal.com]

Jumping in to say I agree completely with your thoughts about the Christmas special. It pretty much felt like a repeat of a lot of things in Season 5 (and Moff written episodes before that). The time limit (under an hour) on saving the ship, the Doctor popping in and out of a child's life and shaping the person they become, playing matchmaker...He's done it all before except this time he's doing it with the theme of Christmas and A Christmas Carol.

[kaffy_r]

Was annoyed with Eleven for saying shut up so much.

THIS! So much this! "Shut up" is a hot button phrase for me at the best of times; it was the only one I ever had my mouth washed out with soap for, and it was considered the height of rudeness in my house. I've just about gotten myself used to Amy saying it; it's a personality quirk in a bright, defensive and damaged character. But every time I hear the Doctor say it, I want to bang my head against a wall. I can barely imagine Six saying it (and can anyone tell me whether he ever said it?) and I simply can't imagine any iteration of the Doctor saying it and being in character. I adore Eleven, but that? Is double-plus ungood.

I didn't mind the slightly-more-cheesy-than-last-season-and-the-season-before special effects. I remember the effects pre 2005, and even the damned shark was award-winning compared to Classic Who.

As for canon ... I know that a show that's damned near half a century old is going to have continuity errors and canon cracks at the best of times, so I'm more than willing to be flexible with some things. After all, even RTD played havoc with canon, at least in some fans' eyes.And, hey, canon and continuity foul ups can be viewed as a chance for dedicated fans to fanwank/No Prize/Explain it All, and that can be great fun.

But Moffat seems to be taking so many opportunities to break so many pieces of canon into such small pieces, and doing it in a way that seems to say "I dare you to argue with me, because then I can dismiss you as a (fill in the blank ...fangirl, canon-obsessed geek, etc.)" ... it seems so odd - and not in a good way,. for someone who claims to love the franchise. (Of course, I'm not inside his head - and reading his interviews is about as informative as reading Rusty's back in his hey-day. Neither of them seem interested in complete honesty, and both of them have more than a little Trickster in them.).

[develish1]

I can only repeat what I said on, I think it was Wendy's post, earlier...thank god I'm not alone in my thoughts on this...excuse for a special. I've read far to many raving reviews and every time I do I think "were we watching the same damn thing?" because I can't believe we really were.

There were so, so many things I didn't like about this farce I wont even attempt to list them here, but my main ones were the blatant disregard for canon, and the utterly abysmal "special" effects. When I saw that shark....well I was speechless to be honest.

But apparently reapers no longer exist so you can touch and even hug your earlier self, and don't even get me started on how you don't mess with personal timelines (unless of course it's the only way you can make your lame ass story actually work.)

Speaking as someone who's been a fan for decades, the longer SM stays in charge, the sooner I'm likely to walk away. I'm simply getting sick of having my intelligence insulted, thanks

[kilodalton]

Speaking as someone who's been a fan for decades, the longer SM stays in charge, the sooner I'm likely to walk away. I'm simply getting sick of having my intelligence insulted, thanks

Frankly, I think that by rights, The Doctor should share your opinion about having intelligence insulted.

Here's what I mean -- Moffat likes to make the Doctor an idiot, and have the audience be smarter than him.

* He harps on the temporal instability of the fireplace for a solid minute at the beginning of GITF and then at the end ... is surprised by the temporal instability of the fireplace.
* It takes him almost 2 hours to realize that books are made of paper in SITL/FOTD
* It takes him a ghastly amount of time to realize that the one person that all of his sworn enemies have in common hatred is ... him? in TPO/TBB
* Everyone and his mother noticed the little countdown thingy on Abigail's fridge ... he doesn't even notice that it's counting down?

... this is supposed to be the smartest man in the universe? He reminds me of Mr. Noodle from Sesame Street (in case you don't have kids - he's this zany older guy who keeps screwing obvious things up, and the kids have to shout at him to make him do stuff correctly).

[develish1]

I totally agree. I'm seriously beginning to wonder if Moffat is doing this on purpose in an attempt to make the show more juvenile. If he is, someone really needs to point out to him that although there might be a lot of kids who watch the show, the majority of it's audience is adult, and he's going to lose them if he keeps this up. Viewing figures have already fallen since he took over, so he needs to be holding on to those of us who are still hanging in there, not driving us away.

[kilodalton]

I'd really like someone in charge who is more concerned about the show being excellent and giving all of its characters actual development and less concerned with peeing on everything that came before to make it his marking his territory like a dog.

this!!!!!!!!!!!!

[geordie-chick.livejournal.com]

Interesting how you're comments are similar to mine when I was speaking to my other half about the Christmas episode. Not enough translation through Amy or Rory although I do not like them as characters they are essential to the viewer.

I do think that I am done with DW now, lots of canon broken and whilst I like elements of Eleven much more in that I think Matt Smith is a great actor, I do not like his Doctor. He isn't someone I'd like to travel with. In fact as a committed Nine fan, I'd prefer to hook up with Ten and I have never liked David Tennant very much at all - not a great actor in my opinion but he had big boots to fill. I think that my feelings are to stick with whatever Nine fic I can squeeze and that's it sadly. Bring back the Eccleston.

[jellybean728.livejournal.com]

I decided in the very first episode of the past season of DW that I would only be able to watch and enjoy this show if I just didn't think about it. At all.

And if I just watch it, chuckle when it's funny and resolutely ignore how much I don't like Amy (and how much I wish Rory had some backbone) and ignore how Moff ignores cannon (HE CAN"T TOUCH HIMSELF) and don't question what fish that swim in fog have to do with A Christmas Carol and why they like singing other than so that we can get this woman to sing, then I'm fine.

Sorry you were so sick over Christmas, that really sucks.