Villordsutch thinks Doctor Who could be losing its way…
| Shortly after this was taken I was shouted at by that man. |
I’ve been a Doctor Who fan for as long as I can remember, I really have. My initial memories of the Doctor had to be Tom Baker’s huge grin. His regeneration scared me greatly because for the first time The Master won, and the Doctor was fallible. I chased every episode of Sylvester McCoy’s run and I spent my hard earned pennies on the VHS boxset of Colin Baker’s “Trial of a Time Lord”. Heck, I’ve even had my photo taken and been shouted at by Sylvester McCoy within the same hour. The current run of The Doctor has left me with an odd feeling in my brain and I don’t like it.
I can see people could start shorting, “You’re two episodes in man!? Calm the flip down!”, but I can’t….something feels wrong.
Doctor Who returned to our screens back in 2005 and while we’ve had the odd few episodes which didn’t cut the mustard, generally we’ve had a good strong writing team who’ve managed to steer the adventures of The Doctor along a steady path and made it make sense.
A couple years back a friend of mine commented on the fact he was falling out of fun with the Doctor (Hello Mr. Hatch) and I stood beating my chest defending the show trying to get him to see why the new and improved Moffat era is great, and that we should understand that it’s not completely for us going on “40 somethings” and more for the children. I didn’t pacify him and I think now he may have a rather smug smile on his face, whilst reading this reflection.
The two shows of the new series so far have been rather poor. The first episode, ‘The Bells of Saint John’, was aimed to introduce us to another companion who was mysterious (again) and will have a season revolving around them (again). Also, again, this new companion instantly has the ‘hots’ for the Doctor. I exhale a sigh when I even think of this. When the Doctor used to gain a companion it was never for snogging or love – it was an extension of you. When you were unsure what the heck was happening the companion would ask the Doctor for you. The only inkling of love was when Sarah-Jane left Tom Baker; we never witnessed Adric attempting to gain a snog! The Doctor was a mentor or a father figure. Now, again, we have an assistant that wants into the Doctor’s tweed pants. Why do we need this constant love desire from the new companions? Rose, Martha, Amy to Clara Oswald (I’m not including Christmas and Easter Special assistants) – the only one that didn’t was Donna (and Bernard Cribbins).
I touched on at the beginning of my romance gripe the fact that the story again will be wrapped around the companion. I can only remember a couple of times, off the top of my head, when a story was orientated around the companion in the past: Turlough and Ace. If there are more I apologise, but in my years of watching Doctor Who it was with the Fifth and Seventh Doctor. Companion stories separated by nearly ten years. Do we need to see another lazy story entwined around this new companion? I don’t think we do.
Now to the new companion. By all accounts, given of types of women that turn my head, I should be shutting my mouth about now and declaring there is nothing wrong with her, but I’m being truthful so I’ll roll with it. I currently don’t like Clara Oswald. It was my wife that noticed it first; she noticed that when Clara turns her head, her hair bounces. That may sound like nothing, but that is just the tiny snowball starting its destructive journey down the Swiss Alps. Her entire body can’t just move as a normal person does. She dances. She really does. Go back and watch ‘The Rings of Akhaten’ in the TARDIS. anyone that can easily accept the inside of the TARDIS in a couple of seconds and act like Ginger Rogers needs to begin the process of seeking psychiatric help. She continues to exaggerate her steps throughout the episode and I found it difficult to distract myself from her dance recital, though by the stories laid out for us so far I should be glad of the distraction.
At some point in Steven Moffat’s day he decided to turn the Doctor from a Lord of Time to the Jester. Even during the Amy Pond seasons he never attempted to over act. Matt Smith is fantastic and can act perfectly. I see him going far either on British stage or just exploding in Hollywood, if he can shake the Who spectre off. He can go from excited child to 900 year old Time Lord who has really seen enough in the click of a finger. However, now whether it’s the fact that the directors are awful and haven’t seen an episode of Who before, or the director just hates Doctor Who, his acting is set to buffoon. Introducing new friends to Doctor Who with this series, for me, would be a major mistake as they’d laugh at me for watching such tosh.
Scripts are making no sense. I understand trying to make time travel make sense can be difficult, but these stories aren’t flowing correctly, nor do they have any weight to them. The current stories feel empty and lacking in fun. The writers obviously feel this too and are sticking in two flying bike scenes in two separate episodes. Clearly they are hoping to distract your brain from seeing how vacuous these stories are. Perhaps once or twice in a series of NuWho we’d see this, but not consecutively.
Still, my children love it. Perhaps I’ve be tainted by good programmes in the past and I expect NuWho to keep up with what I consider good watching. Perhaps I should have listened to Mr. Hatch a couple of years back, and why did my wife have to point out the bouncing hair?
Villordsutch – Follow me on Twitter.
Originally published April 13, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
