Future Foundation
Member
Fuck yes, and it's Brian Rimmer to boot. His intro and regeneration compilation videos got me up to speed on Who when I first started watching.
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Doctor Who: Time Of The Doctor |OT| 11's hour is over now... The clock is striking 12
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Fuck yes, and it's Brian Rimmer to boot. His intro and regeneration compilation videos got me up to speed on Who when I first started watching.
While I agree that arc-heavy shows and episodes of shows are much less rewatchable, I don't really think that's a bad thing. It's just the way it is.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Well its not just the re-watchability, its just that a huge part of sci-fi for me is novelty. Hell, one of the reasons why I do like Doctor Who so much is for its thematic and tonal eclectic...ness and when that takes a back-seat to character drama I just start to lose interest. Same reason why I'm pretty sure I never really got into Deep Space 9
Not sure if this had been posted yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc5V-Mcm3ZY
It's the drunk reaction video made by the 2 ladies who did videos for other episodes. Spoilers for the Christmas Special (obviously)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc5V-Mcm3ZY
It's the drunk reaction video made by the 2 ladies who did videos for other episodes. Spoilers for the Christmas Special (obviously)
I actually like those reaction videos, they helped me like the episodes a little (I still have many issues with them). I suppose the unbridled enthusiasm rubs off or something.
Reminds me of that deleted scene when 11 says to Amy "I'm 900 years old, I don't see it anymore, after a while everything's just stuff. But when you see it, I see it."
Future Foundation
Member
I caught that a few nights ago. I like them, they're fun.
I feel like that's a really weak justification when you boil it down or rather it's kind of neither here nor there in the end. Certainly 10 had is fair share of disappointments, but in the end it played out how it played out and created the stark contrast to 11 and reinforces what I said earlier, that 11 just seems to be above it all, and himself, in comparison, hence the jab at 10 during the Christmas special. 10 is the most emotionally intense, but he's also the most emotionally immature in part due to that. The self regeneration being referenced as vanity and narcissism is also a little damning, as it occurs during The Stolen Earth, before he learns about the prophesy, or the events of the Journeys End and the infamous Water of Mars. He was getting fuller and fuller of himself well ahead of his end or being made aware of it, which can't be necessarily argued solely as a response to loss. It's his ego that makes him such a sour note in comparison to 11.
Right, he doesn't really know if it's a real death or just a regeneration, but honestly the way those lines are delivered, and especially the conversation with Wilff, makes it seem as though 10 views his own death as equivocal to 'The Doctor' dying. he doesn't see the difference. During the 50th 10 isn't surprised or confused to hear that 'Trenzalor' is the place of their death. We really have no clue when he learned about it. It could even be possible that he already knows of Trenzalor during the time of the 10th.
How about fighting a war for anywhere from 300 to 1000+ years. One in which you know that you will lose because you've seen what becomes of it and your own grave; everyone around you will be killed and in the meanwhile you watch everyone you care for grow old and die or be killed as the situation grows worse and worse until its slow agonizing conclusion? Like you say, different set of circumstances for each Doctor, but the last centuries of 11 are a basically his own personal Ragnorok and time war in a teacup. Sure we saw the good times, but it's fair to say they didn't last, and the time between the tipping point and the end was nothing to underestimate. Tragedy is more than what happens to us, it's also about how we choose to deal with it.
9 was a Martyr, but what he did wasn't out of character for 'The Doctor' when it comes to saving others. My point wasn't why he did it, it was how he went out, with a smile on his face; So was I'.
So in essence we agree that is was less well suited to dealing with tragedy than 11. I don't dispute that he is emotionally charged, in fact that's in part one of the planks of my statement that he's just not as mature as 11 was. I'm not disputing that 10 didn't have his reasons, but I am saying that they aren't 100 percent excusable just because things happened. Even if they were, it wouldn't diminish the after taste that the two regeneration have left in many people's mouths. I've liked every Doctor I've seen so far, but 11s wonderful sincerity, selfless perspective from the word go, and exit made me look back on 10's time with a different set of eyes than I saw it in previously. Maybe I'm not giving the victim enough due, but maybe we're also not given 11 the due he deserves for the things he had to overcome and deal with during a very long life.
Lol this was pretty much me throughout the end. Their face of just "wtf" when Peter Capaldi showed up was exactly like mine.
lol - give me a break.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
I'm surprised to learn that there are people who doubted that Martha and Mickey weren't shoe horned together on account of race, but maybe I'm just cynical. The fact that they were apparently also space bounty hunters out of nowhere made the whole thing feel like they were given very little consideration during the writing of the episode, which sucks because Martha was one of the best companions of nuWho.
MHWilliams
Member
Decided to re-watch Doctor Who from the reboot.
"Rose" is equal parts goofy and melodramatic. But it is interesting to see how War Doctor and 9 dovetail pretty well. 9 - at least in the first episode - gives very few shits about humanity on a singular basis in episode one, probably because he spent way too much time "big picture" as War.
Seemingly, the timeline seems to jump from the 50th special, to the beginning of Rose. Then 9 spends a lot of time flitting about alone, because there's a ton of Doctor sightings throughout history (that rose sees at the conspiracy theorist's home), but he had obviously only seen his face for the first time in the beginning of the episode.
Seeing this, I think it works out better that 9 wasn't the Doctor in the special. 9 isn't War, but you can see the through-line from one to the other.
As a start, Rose is just okay, but it had a lot to carry because it was re-introducing Doctor Who to a new generation.
"Rose" is equal parts goofy and melodramatic. But it is interesting to see how War Doctor and 9 dovetail pretty well. 9 - at least in the first episode - gives very few shits about humanity on a singular basis in episode one, probably because he spent way too much time "big picture" as War.
Seemingly, the timeline seems to jump from the 50th special, to the beginning of Rose. Then 9 spends a lot of time flitting about alone, because there's a ton of Doctor sightings throughout history (that rose sees at the conspiracy theorist's home), but he had obviously only seen his face for the first time in the beginning of the episode.
Seeing this, I think it works out better that 9 wasn't the Doctor in the special. 9 isn't War, but you can see the through-line from one to the other.
As a start, Rose is just okay, but it had a lot to carry because it was re-introducing Doctor Who to a new generation.
Didn't love the episode. Moffat spent too much effort trying to tie things up, IMO. But it was a good send-off for the first Doctor I've watched from beginning to end - and he left in a way that sort of plays at everything fun and excessive about him. I'll miss Matt.
That said, I am excited for 12 and hopeful that he's something completely different.
That said, I am excited for 12 and hopeful that he's something completely different.
paradox121
Member
That's so cool to see. Particularly the different approaches to regeneration. It's almost treated as an uncertainty in Classic Who. And it does make me wonder what it's like watching Day of the Doctor followed by Rose. I think that's one of the most satisfying elements of the anniversary episode on reflection- it feels like a centre point with these various plot threads and arcs spiraling out from it. Kinda like a choose your own adventure of sorts.
Also 6 to 7 will never not be hilarious. I always thought it was some stupid joke that 6 died because he fell off his exercise bike til I finally watched the episode.
I think it's more because they're the two least developed characters RTD had on The Magical Misery Tour, both with no real outstanding goals to show them having reached in it, but it's pretty fair to say that it's a bad thing that both the people you could say that about were black.
acheron_xl
Member
I watched the Confidentials for Stolen Earth/Journey's End recently, and I believe Noel and Freema were seated next to each other at the table read. Maybe they just got on well off screen and RTD just said 'what the hell' and grafted them together in-canon?
Or maybe it's the obvious race thing. *shrugs*
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
What, what, whaaaaaaaaat!!!!
*looks for it...*
WHAT?!
Xenoblade has turned even more awesome now. And I new Melia was best girl while playing without knowing it was Jena.
Nintendo of Europe needs to make all the voice acting for Nintendo (and distributed by them) RPG's. We would have had a better english dub with Bravely default if they did that.
RIKI FOR NEXT DOCTOR WHO K-9 COMPANION TYPE!
APZonerunner
Member
I think a lot of it was just down to everything getting fucked up by those two being really popular/in demand. Post-Journey's End, they were both meant to be in Torchwood: Children of Earth, but then Noel was offered something big and had to drop out last minute (literally, CoE scripts existed with Mickey in them), and Freema had to drop out ahead of time because she was offered the lead role in Law & Order UK. This is obviously telegraphed in Journey's End when those three all go off together.
Think it probably was planned ahead to an extent, but we never really got to see those two interact as they both ended up not having the journey intended after Series 4 due to real life reasons. Probably would've made a lot more sense if they'd been in that. Mickey was going to be at Torchwood, as is part of the reason they were gonna kill Ianto - to make space, per se. Martha was going to still be at UNIT, and when the government declares Torchwood outlaws she was going to run interference and stuff. By the end, RTD said it would've been Torchwood in tatters - just Gwen left as Jack legs it, as he does in the final. Martha would've left UNIT out of disgust or whatever after they side with the government/aliens (RTD wanted to write her out of UNIT so that if Moffat used them people wouldn't wonder where she is) and Mickey would've developed a relationship with her through the course of that series and decided to go with her.
WrenchNinja
Member
Couldn't agree more. Blink was what got me to watch the show. I actually made a friend watch that episode yesterday and he's now on board with trying the rest of the show starting from series 5. I think what finally really convinced him was when I told him that the "Sherlock show runner was behind that season".
Exterminieren
Banned
Right. Finally- finally!- figured out what I actually think about The Time of the Doctor. Been a long time since it's been so difficult to nail down my opinions on an episode, but it's a fascinating and flawed bit of work in many ways. Text dump incoming...
Concept
It's... quite difficult for Christmas Day, no? I mean, calls across Time and Space, monster jamborees, religious orders, complicated backstory from the past 4 years being tied up... Nothing to really grab you by the throat through the drunken Christmas stupor?
I love the concept of the Doctor slowly sacrificing himself for this one village. It's a really nice counterpoint to the Tenth Doctor's begrudging sacrifice in The End of Time, and it's the sort of thing I absolutely want the Doctor to be doing. It's damaged by the fact that we don't care about any of the villagers as individuals, though. There's something of a feint towards Barnable being a symbolic figure for the Doctor, but fundamentally, by the time the Doctor makes his final stand on the roof, he's fighting for a bunch of nameless extras. It's baked in to the passing of the centuries, but it does kind of damage the hero's struggle. Then again, maybe this is precisely why the Doctor's so heroic here- I've long wished that the original concept of the Doctor having to go into the control booth to save a nameless technician instead of Wilf was kept in The End of Time, and this is that on a grander scale.
The Oswald Family
Moffat... No. I really, really wouldn't have bothered with this strand of the episode (calling it part of the plot would be a total lie). Added nothing except water-treading. We don't know these people, either at the beginning of the episode or at the end, so the trials and tribulations of their Christmas are a total lead weight around this already narratively overstuffed episode. Not one of the family has been given any interesting characteristics, either. Hassled dad, bitchy stepmum, nostalgic grandma. Yawn. It's better than the background figures that Amy had for a family, in fairness, but not by much. I can understand Moffat wanting a family Christmas in his Christmas special, but it'd certainly have helped if it was a family we'd given the remotest shit about.
With all that said, I actually liked Clara herself quite a bit more in this episode than I have in others. Dunno why, really, although I suspect the fact that she's allowed to be a person rather than a mystery now helps Coleman's natural likability and charisma fill in more of the gaps in the characterisation.
Christmas?
One thing I'm absolutely sure on; The Time of the Doctor has absolutely no earthly business being a Christmas special. None at all. As I've already said, the most overtly Christmassy elements of the episode were inelegantly crowbarred in, and the rest of the episode jarred heavily with our expectations of a Christmas special. This happened with The End of Time, too. Honestly, I think the ominous nature of regeneration specials makes them fundamentally suited to be Christmas specials.
As a side note, doing a regeneration episode as an Easter special is the most blindingly obvious idea. If Moffat had found the time to make The Time of the Doctor into something to be shown at Easter, and given us a more appropriate Christmas special, the big revelations from this episode could have been more organically spread out, and the regeneration episode could have been less messy. Ah well.
The Moffatisms
Ooh, let's count them. Femme fatale from the Doctor's past that we've never met before? A cute child with talismanic importance to the Doctor (two, if we count the little Amelia hallucination)? A collection of monsters conspiring against the Doctor? The rewriting of established history? Check, check, check and check.
Now, none of this is a problem. Moffat is a writer with a good deal of tropes in his back pocket, and I really don't have any issues with him exploring them. However, they really don't work to their full potential here. Tasha Lem is a bizarre character- all credit to Orla Brady for finding the notes in the performance that made it work, but nothing about the character as written makes any sense as someone we've just met. Part of me suspects that the role was originally intended for River, with Alex Kingston having to drop out- certainly, that's the only sense I can make out of the psychopath line.
A Comparison...
One really interesting comparison to be drawn is that between TTOTD and The Parting of the Ways. Even beyond the regeneration, you have the Doctor sending the companion home, only to contrive a way to find her way back to him. It is here that Moffat's deficiencies in comparison to RTD become properly apparent, and why Parting works much, much better. Parting stings like a gut punch- we know Rose, Mickey and Jackie, and know exactly why Rose would push so hard to get back. In Time, on the other hand, Clara's situation doesn't carry even remotely the same amount of heft- the Doctor had only picked her up that morning, we don't give the remotest shit about any of the characters she's been left with, and as soon as she gets back to the Doctor he sends her back home again! The Moffat style and the RTD style have different positives and negatives, but Moffat comes out poorly here.
The Regeneration
Perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. The last ten minutes as a whole, actually. The first 50 minutes of the episode were often muddled and unclear, but the last ten were superb, both on the clock tower and in the TARDIS. Loved the Doctor's triumphant riposte to the Daleks, love the huge destructive scale of the regeneration, loved the Amy hallucination, love the shock of the snap regeneration where we've been trained to expect a long drawn-out SFX sequence, loved Capaldi's boggling and intense stares. The one element I loved above all others, however...
Matt Smith
The man's a revelation. This episode absolutely relied on him in a way very few episodes throughout the show's history have relied on their Doctor, and he totally bossed it. Whether he was buried under piles of latex to simulate age, or mourning the loss of Handles, or doing the broad comedy of the wig gag, or the patronising of the wooden Cyberman, or the initial resigned yet stoic conversation with the Daleks on the rooftop, or the sheer joy of the new regeneration cycle... He absolutely nailed every single beat. Astonishing performance- handily the best of his Doctor Who career, and only Tennant in Midnight, Eccleston in The Parting of the Ways or Davison in The Caves of Androzani can even remotely compete.
The cherry atop the cake was the final regeneration scene. That elegiac performance, the halting, emotional delivery, the moment with Amy... Christ. Best pre-regeneration performance ever, and it's not even close.
Conclusion
I will never criticise Moffat for ambition. I often feel his surface-level tropes (timey-wimey, femme fatales, etc.) often serve to disguise what an innovative and groundbreaking writer of Doctor Who he really is. I don't think even this episode's most fervent detractors could deny it was, on some level, ambitious- without knocking RTD's regeneration stories, they were very much big, typical adventures that contained a regeneration at the end. This was different- it was a story that could only be told now (or, to be more accurate, at the final regeneration- Moffat's creative accounting doesn't quite convince me, but I'll let it slide).
Yet, for all this, the episode's absolutely at its best when it's playing with extremely simple, universally understandable stakes. The Doctor, having confronted and prepared for death, facing his oldest enemies for the last time, and his triumphant turning of the tables, followed by his fond farewell to everything that he loved as he faces his change. That's what I'll remember from this episode- not superfluous explanations (we figured out that the Silence blew up the TARDIS nearly three years ago, thanks all the same), not underpowered monster confrontations, not Papal Mainframes or Tasha Lem or truth fields. Just the Doctor facing death. Moffat would do well to learn lessons from that.
Concept
It's... quite difficult for Christmas Day, no? I mean, calls across Time and Space, monster jamborees, religious orders, complicated backstory from the past 4 years being tied up... Nothing to really grab you by the throat through the drunken Christmas stupor?
I love the concept of the Doctor slowly sacrificing himself for this one village. It's a really nice counterpoint to the Tenth Doctor's begrudging sacrifice in The End of Time, and it's the sort of thing I absolutely want the Doctor to be doing. It's damaged by the fact that we don't care about any of the villagers as individuals, though. There's something of a feint towards Barnable being a symbolic figure for the Doctor, but fundamentally, by the time the Doctor makes his final stand on the roof, he's fighting for a bunch of nameless extras. It's baked in to the passing of the centuries, but it does kind of damage the hero's struggle. Then again, maybe this is precisely why the Doctor's so heroic here- I've long wished that the original concept of the Doctor having to go into the control booth to save a nameless technician instead of Wilf was kept in The End of Time, and this is that on a grander scale.
The Oswald Family
Moffat... No. I really, really wouldn't have bothered with this strand of the episode (calling it part of the plot would be a total lie). Added nothing except water-treading. We don't know these people, either at the beginning of the episode or at the end, so the trials and tribulations of their Christmas are a total lead weight around this already narratively overstuffed episode. Not one of the family has been given any interesting characteristics, either. Hassled dad, bitchy stepmum, nostalgic grandma. Yawn. It's better than the background figures that Amy had for a family, in fairness, but not by much. I can understand Moffat wanting a family Christmas in his Christmas special, but it'd certainly have helped if it was a family we'd given the remotest shit about.
With all that said, I actually liked Clara herself quite a bit more in this episode than I have in others. Dunno why, really, although I suspect the fact that she's allowed to be a person rather than a mystery now helps Coleman's natural likability and charisma fill in more of the gaps in the characterisation.
Christmas?
One thing I'm absolutely sure on; The Time of the Doctor has absolutely no earthly business being a Christmas special. None at all. As I've already said, the most overtly Christmassy elements of the episode were inelegantly crowbarred in, and the rest of the episode jarred heavily with our expectations of a Christmas special. This happened with The End of Time, too. Honestly, I think the ominous nature of regeneration specials makes them fundamentally suited to be Christmas specials.
As a side note, doing a regeneration episode as an Easter special is the most blindingly obvious idea. If Moffat had found the time to make The Time of the Doctor into something to be shown at Easter, and given us a more appropriate Christmas special, the big revelations from this episode could have been more organically spread out, and the regeneration episode could have been less messy. Ah well.
The Moffatisms
Ooh, let's count them. Femme fatale from the Doctor's past that we've never met before? A cute child with talismanic importance to the Doctor (two, if we count the little Amelia hallucination)? A collection of monsters conspiring against the Doctor? The rewriting of established history? Check, check, check and check.
Now, none of this is a problem. Moffat is a writer with a good deal of tropes in his back pocket, and I really don't have any issues with him exploring them. However, they really don't work to their full potential here. Tasha Lem is a bizarre character- all credit to Orla Brady for finding the notes in the performance that made it work, but nothing about the character as written makes any sense as someone we've just met. Part of me suspects that the role was originally intended for River, with Alex Kingston having to drop out- certainly, that's the only sense I can make out of the psychopath line.
A Comparison...
One really interesting comparison to be drawn is that between TTOTD and The Parting of the Ways. Even beyond the regeneration, you have the Doctor sending the companion home, only to contrive a way to find her way back to him. It is here that Moffat's deficiencies in comparison to RTD become properly apparent, and why Parting works much, much better. Parting stings like a gut punch- we know Rose, Mickey and Jackie, and know exactly why Rose would push so hard to get back. In Time, on the other hand, Clara's situation doesn't carry even remotely the same amount of heft- the Doctor had only picked her up that morning, we don't give the remotest shit about any of the characters she's been left with, and as soon as she gets back to the Doctor he sends her back home again! The Moffat style and the RTD style have different positives and negatives, but Moffat comes out poorly here.
The Regeneration
Perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. The last ten minutes as a whole, actually. The first 50 minutes of the episode were often muddled and unclear, but the last ten were superb, both on the clock tower and in the TARDIS. Loved the Doctor's triumphant riposte to the Daleks, love the huge destructive scale of the regeneration, loved the Amy hallucination, love the shock of the snap regeneration where we've been trained to expect a long drawn-out SFX sequence, loved Capaldi's boggling and intense stares. The one element I loved above all others, however...
Matt Smith
The man's a revelation. This episode absolutely relied on him in a way very few episodes throughout the show's history have relied on their Doctor, and he totally bossed it. Whether he was buried under piles of latex to simulate age, or mourning the loss of Handles, or doing the broad comedy of the wig gag, or the patronising of the wooden Cyberman, or the initial resigned yet stoic conversation with the Daleks on the rooftop, or the sheer joy of the new regeneration cycle... He absolutely nailed every single beat. Astonishing performance- handily the best of his Doctor Who career, and only Tennant in Midnight, Eccleston in The Parting of the Ways or Davison in The Caves of Androzani can even remotely compete.
The cherry atop the cake was the final regeneration scene. That elegiac performance, the halting, emotional delivery, the moment with Amy... Christ. Best pre-regeneration performance ever, and it's not even close.
Conclusion
I will never criticise Moffat for ambition. I often feel his surface-level tropes (timey-wimey, femme fatales, etc.) often serve to disguise what an innovative and groundbreaking writer of Doctor Who he really is. I don't think even this episode's most fervent detractors could deny it was, on some level, ambitious- without knocking RTD's regeneration stories, they were very much big, typical adventures that contained a regeneration at the end. This was different- it was a story that could only be told now (or, to be more accurate, at the final regeneration- Moffat's creative accounting doesn't quite convince me, but I'll let it slide).
Yet, for all this, the episode's absolutely at its best when it's playing with extremely simple, universally understandable stakes. The Doctor, having confronted and prepared for death, facing his oldest enemies for the last time, and his triumphant turning of the tables, followed by his fond farewell to everything that he loved as he faces his change. That's what I'll remember from this episode- not superfluous explanations (we figured out that the Silence blew up the TARDIS nearly three years ago, thanks all the same), not underpowered monster confrontations, not Papal Mainframes or Tasha Lem or truth fields. Just the Doctor facing death. Moffat would do well to learn lessons from that.
Future Foundation
Member
I remember reading that Freema wasn't a contract worker w/ DW/Torchwood, and that was a bit of a problem. Was that true?
APZonerunner
Member
In series 2 she was a guest star, because she was only in half of the episodes or whatever. Same for Who Series 4. I think she was meant to be in 4/5 Children of Earth episodes, IIRC, but the choice she had was between that and a full 13-episode run of Law & Order UK as the female lead (alongside Peter Davison, no less) so she made the obvious choice, because Law & Order was also already renewed for a second series, too.
Noel was meant to be in it all the way through (He's Torchwood alumni, in a sense, as he wrote an episode as well) but had a movie project or something that clashed. There's a chapter in The Writer's Tale where RTD while writing Who is scrabbling around like a madman trying to repair impossible broken Torchwood scripts thanks to the two having to drop out.
Martha was supposed to turn up in Sarah Jane as well, with Mickey showing up at the end of the episode to pick her up or whatever in a small cameo. Again, she was just too in demand, and that episode and her role in it is the one that was rewritten for the Brigadier. So there were definitely best laid plans for making them a more believable couple, but it all fell apart.
APZonerunner
Member
Ironically, if "one person" had said no out of the others, it would've just been Donna's wedding and Rose. Shame, as it would've been better that way. Though I do really like the scene with Jack, it's cheeky in just the right way... his goodbye to Jack isn't to save his life but is basically to be a gay pimp. RTD in a nutshell.
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
I'm kinda bummed that we didn't get another episode with Craig like The Lodger (not Closing Time, that was awkward). The Lodger is one of my favorite episodes of Who. It was just so hilarious to watch one of the most alien doctors being plopped down in a regular social setting, it was a lot of fun.
Yeah, I really agree with this. Series 6 and 7 just really fell apart. There's a really good Tumblr post that's linked to it that kind of explains
Now I kinda want a minisode, for Red Nose Day or something, with Craig and Capaldi as the "Doctor Tucker" being stuck with him.
paradox121
Member
Nice write up Exterminieren. I think I probably enjoyed the episode more than you but I can't disagree with any of your points. From a casual/Christmas viewer perspective it was probably near impenetrable.
Its such a weird notion that for an often times amazingly progressive, feel good show literally every single companion of the new series has ended up being 'coupled off' at the end of their run. Rose, Mickey, Martha, Donna, Jack, Amy and Rory. I know at the heart of it the show is about love and strong bonds but geez...let someone live out their dreams without being dependent on someone else. (He says, totally non-bitterly).
Its such a weird notion that for an often times amazingly progressive, feel good show literally every single companion of the new series has ended up being 'coupled off' at the end of their run. Rose, Mickey, Martha, Donna, Jack, Amy and Rory. I know at the heart of it the show is about love and strong bonds but geez...let someone live out their dreams without being dependent on someone else. (He says, totally non-bitterly).
aHebrewMenagerie
Member
I think the reason that Series 6 & 7 tanked so hard, is because Moffat tried to deviate from the standard formula too much, which people were completely fine with the formula that we had now. Everybody universally hates the split, and the issue of two-parters is more devisive, but people for the most part, agree that at least Series finales should be two-parts, The Wedding of River Song is the biggest case against it. However, it sounds like we'll have the standard formula back for Series 8.
I don't think Moffat was intentionally leaning toward split seasons, it was a decision stemming from production issues.
I dunno. I think the split has something to do with it, and the fact that it meant that there were so many episodes dedicated to plot-arc-servicing...
...but on the other hand, given that there were about a million plot arc episodes, why are all the characters so underdeveloped? Why is it that after a billion episodes featuring the Paternoster gang, I still don't give a shit about them? That I roll my eyes every time River appears, and just about the worst thing I can imagine is that
Tasha Lem is River again somehow and the next series is going to be yet more farting around with her for precisely fuck all emotional or plot payoff.
Man the more I think about this the more disappointed I get with the second half of 11's life.
Which is for the best.
But I wonder, are they also making another series of Sherlock?
I assume this series will be the last mostly because of how big Benedict and Martin Freeman have gotten.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
This is ultimately what kills it for me. I could forgive the character-development focus if it was actually good but at the end of the day it never worked for me. The closest I've gotten to actually liking River Song was in her debut, every episode since then has almost felt like a caricature of who she was in the Library, like she was so popular they were afraid to ever do anything except hit those personality beats. Amy was a little better, especially when they explore how the travel effects Amy and Rory together, but Clara is still completely hollow.
He doesn't come off very perceptive at all. That's also the most obnoxious delivery method for a critique possible.
paradox121
Member
I think she's annoying by virtue of being in...what just under half the episodes of S6? When River isn't necessarily trying to be River, she's actually pretty great. Moffat nails it with Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and she has some great moments in Impossible Astronaut purely because she's not being a mystery or introducing a mystery or solving a mystery, she's just a decent semi-companion in the vein of Jack. It just feels like you have to wait a while before she's done with her flamboyant introductions.
I've been considering rewatching Let's Kill Hitler recently, based on no real motivation other than to see if it holds up. Cuz if people thought Time of the Doctor had zero plot and was soaked in Moffatisms then that episode wants a word.
Jest Chillin
Member
Roughly 300 years by DotD, though he admits he doesn't know his exact age. During TotD he ages more than 300 years (he says it's been about 300 years the first time Clara comes back) and he's even older the second time, so if I had to hazard a guess somewhere between 200-300 more years? It's at least 100 years though. Meaning he would've been 11 somewhere between 700-900 years. Easily the longest he's ever been in one form of The Doctor.
Edit: Re-reading that, it's probably hard to follow. He's 907 at the beginning of S5. By DotD he's 1100 and something but he's unsure of his exact age. During TotD, he says 300 years have passed since he sent Clara away the first time. By the time she comes back the second time, he's even older though they don't say exactly how much older. I guess 200-300 more years based on rate of aging shown earlier but it's pretty safe to say it's at least 100 years due to his inability to recognize the young man, thinking it was the little boy (Barnaby?).
Okay, thanks.
Exterminieren
Banned
The script specifies 900 years on Trenzalore, apparently, making the Doctor 2100 years old. He was 11 for 1200 years.
Kano on the Phone
Member
DiipuSurotu
Banned
So basically the Doctor has been 11 for most of his life? No wonder he said "I will always remember when the Doctor was me" then... That's pretty crazy.
Why did they have to inflate his age with so much with these big time skips? I mean it's not like we're gonna have some Doctor Trenzalore Adventures audio spinoff or anything.
If they are made, they would be a bit boring.
Dr Zhivago
Member
Because Moffat. I was really looking forward to his era, but I just want him to go now. If he hangs another arc off another fucking predestination paradox I may just give up on the show.
To age the Doctor to death.
Pretty charming or infuriating (depending on your view of continuity) to think that he couldn't survive a week at the Pond's.
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