Doctor Who opinions

Sometimes a show needs to be sat through to give it another chance. When both 'Haven' and 'Agents of Shield' premiered I watched them but just could't get into them much and went on to different things. A couple of years later I started watching them again, from the beginning and something clicked. I guess my head was not in the right spot for them earlier.
 
Wow, is this really the most recent discussion thread? We really lost interest, didn't we? ;)

I liked the New Years special well enough. Although the wrong companion is staying...Graham is really the only of this batch I have an affection for.
Good to have Jack again.
The Time Lord retcon... oy.
(Which is really a "end of the previous season" discussion but apparently we didn't have one?)
 
Wow, is this really the most recent discussion thread? We really lost interest, didn't we? ;)

I liked the New Years special well enough. Although the wrong companion is staying...Graham is really the only of this batch I have an affection for.
Good to have Jack again.
The Time Lord retcon... oy.
(Which is really a "end of the previous season" discussion but apparently we didn't have one?)

It sucks. Nobody watches it anymore. Even my wife, who kept going long after I gave up, finally said enough is enough.
 
I stopped watching sometime during the end of Matt Smith's run, watched a little of Capaldi and just didn't care. Seemed more of the same and then after that I just didn't care for Jodie. Sorry, not sorry. She just seems like she's doing a bad impersonation of David Tennant. Every single promo I've seen for her run of Doctor Who just seemed like a high school play with a high budget. If her quitting is true, it can only be a good thing. I hope.
 
Jodie was saddled with an agenda before her first episode ever premiered.

TO BE CLEAR-I'm not saying this politically or even saying where I stand on the subject. Just sharing the fact. All good?

At,I believe, the NYCC the year either before or the same as the premiere, Chris Chibnall was speaking at a panel, & in answer to a question about what his run would need about, replied that as a creator, he was embarrassed to be a white man.

I knew at that moment that the show was about to become a platform. Not that that is in any way a 'bad' thing, but if I were to create something, then told everyone what I was insisting they think about it, you'd probably lose interest pretty quickly.

He stated before this season that it was going to be about us destroying the planet. In my opinion, this goes against what sci-fi has been capable of in the past- you tell your story, then let people hear your message in their own voices.
 
I stopped watching after growing up on Tom Baker repeats which I can't even sit through anymore. I've tried the more modern Doctors repeatedly but quickly lost interest. It's a show that's always been very high on my "I wish I could get into this" list (along with Star Trek) because it's extremely imaginative science fiction, very creative, original and inventive. I feel like I'm missing out on one hand but on the other you can't force yourself to enjoy something.
 
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Jodie was saddled with an agenda before her first episode ever premiered.

TO BE CLEAR-I'm not saying this politically or even saying where I stand on the subject. Just sharing the fact. All good?

At,I believe, the NYCC the year either before or the same as the premiere, Chris Chibnall was speaking at a panel, & in answer to a question about what his run would need about, replied that as a creator, he was embarrassed to be a white man.

I knew at that moment that the show was about to become a platform. Not that that is in any way a 'bad' thing, but if I were to create something, then told everyone what I was insisting they think about it, you'd probably lose interest pretty quickly.

He stated before this season that it was going to be about us destroying the planet. In my opinion, this goes against what sci-fi has been capable of in the past- you tell your story, then let people hear your message in their own voices.
I agree to an extent, however I think the issue isn't so much that the show has become political, but rather the bluntness through which these topics are handled.

Since day one, sci-fi has been political. Or rather, it has been philosophical; with these the exploration of these philosophies naturally spilling over into how they are legally codified in the form of political policy. Shows such as Doctor Who and Star Trek never shied away from exploring these ideas, nor did they shy away from taking a stance on which they believed to be the morally better choice.

However what has changed is the level fairness involved in exploring competing ideas. And there is a massive difference between what they did in the past; taking an issue, respecting the nuance that leads to an ethical conundrum before ultimately settling on the better of the two; and what they do now, which is take a controversial hot button issue, state that whoever believes "x" is at best stupid and at worst evil; and refuse to acknowledge that anyone who disagrees with you has any legitimate reason for doing so.

While both are moralizing, at least the former recognizes the common humanity (for lack of a better term) and decency even among those we dislike, and the latter talks down to its audience; both in treating the half of its audience which agree with its messaging that they can't handle even the hypothetical exploration of challenging ideas (which granted, there is much less tolerance for) and the other half of the audience which disagree as almost sub-human monsters who aren't meant to be understood.
 
I agree to an extent, however I think the issue isn't so much that the show has become political, but rather the bluntness through which these topics are handled.

Since day one, sci-fi has been political. Or rather, it has been philosophical; with these the exploration of these philosophies naturally spilling over into how they are legally codified in the form of political policy. Shows such as Doctor Who and Star Trek never shied away from exploring these ideas, nor did they shy away from taking a stance on which they believed to be the morally better choice.

However what has changed is the level fairness involved in exploring competing ideas. And there is a massive difference between what they did in the past; taking an issue, respecting the nuance that leads to an ethical conundrum before ultimately settling on the better of the two; and what they do now, which is take a controversial hot button issue, state that whoever believes "x" is at best stupid and at worst evil; and refuse to acknowledge that anyone who disagrees with you has any legitimate reason for doing so.

While both are moralizing, at least the former recognizes the common humanity (for lack of a better term) and decency even among those we dislike, and the latter talks down to its audience; both in treating the half of its audience which agree with its messaging that they can't handle even the hypothetical exploration of challenging ideas (which granted, there is much less tolerance for) and the other half of the audience which disagree as almost sub-human monsters who aren't meant to be understood.

Ya. I get what you're really saying here without getting booted from the forum.

And you're wrong.
 
We watched the New Years Eve special last night...

While it was great to see Barrowman back, I’m just not feeling the show anymore. The jail scene had a lot of potential, but ended up being short and glossed over.

And a spare TARDIS...? Really...?

And an interesting choice for what companion decided stay. Yaz has been ok, but definitely wouldn’t have been my first choice.

Also not sure how long they’re going to drag out The Doctor’s “I don’t know who I am anymore...” schtick...

I had hopes for Whittaker, but, similar to Capaldi, the writing just doesn’t seem to be there...

As I’ve said before, the show is too complex to go years between seasons...

Sean
 
We watched the New Years Eve special last night...

While it was great to see Barrowman back, I’m just not feeling the show anymore. The jail scene had a lot of potential, but ended up being short and glossed over.

And a spare TARDIS...? Really...?

And an interesting choice for what companion decided stay. Yaz has been ok, but definitely wouldn’t have been my first choice.

Also not sure how long they’re going to drag out The Doctor’s “I don’t know who I am anymore...” schtick...

I had hopes for Whittaker, but, similar to Capaldi, the writing just doesn’t seem to be there...

As I’ve said before, the show is too complex to go years between seasons...

Sean


The thing is, the long stretches between seasons should mean more time to write and refine scripts, better ideas, writing etc. That hasn't been the case since they started these long gaps during Matt Smiths run, and it has progressively gotten worse. Some Later Matt smith scripts are dreadful, and as much as I love Capaldi's performance, many of his had enormous gaps but still making mediocre scripts at best.

More importantly we haven't had a 13 defining speech or moment yet. Where's her Pandorica, 11th Hour, Zygon Inversion or Heaven Sent speech? There was a start of a "I am the Doctor" heroic speech in Villa Diodati, but it was brief and promptly forgotten, back to her reacting to the cybermen, reacting to The Master, reacting to Ruth, reacting to the destruction of Gallifrey.

I don't doubt her acting ability. Its the writing, it's always the writing. Ask Colin Baker.
 
The thing is, the long stretches between seasons should mean more time to write and refine scripts, better ideas, writing etc. That hasn't been the case since they started these long gaps during Matt Smiths run, and it has progressively gotten worse. Some Later Matt smith scripts are dreadful, and as much as I love Capaldi's performance, many of his had enormous gaps but still making mediocre scripts at best.

More importantly we haven't had a 13 defining speech or moment yet. Where's her Pandorica, 11th Hour, Zygon Inversion or Heaven Sent speech? There was a start of a "I am the Doctor" heroic speech in Villa Diodati, but it was brief and promptly forgotten, back to her reacting to the cybermen, reacting to The Master, reacting to Ruth, reacting to the destruction of Gallifrey.

I don't doubt her acting ability. Its the writing, it's always the writing. Ask Colin Baker.
...& Paul McGann.
 
We watched the New Years Eve special last night...

While it was great to see Barrowman back, I’m just not feeling the show anymore. The jail scene had a lot of potential, but ended up being short and glossed over.

And a spare TARDIS...? Really...?

And an interesting choice for what companion decided stay. Yaz has been ok, but definitely wouldn’t have been my first choice.

Also not sure how long they’re going to drag out The Doctor’s “I don’t know who I am anymore...” schtick...

I had hopes for Whittaker, but, similar to Capaldi, the writing just doesn’t seem to be there...

As I’ve said before, the show is too complex to go years between seasons...

Sean
Well...the Tardis bit was from the finale of the prior season. They were on Gallifrey and there were Tardis' there for the taking.
 
Well...the Tardis bit was from the finale of the prior season. They were on Gallifrey and there were Tardis' there for the taking.
And beyond the huge remaining question of how a single Time Lord can completely destroy the entire civilization with little resistance, a spare Tardis is an insanely rare tool to have lying around that The Doctor essentially threw out just to win a single battle against a few Daleks.

Its not just the lack of speeches that were the problem, but the small chances she did have to define her characterization were squandered. Graham tells her an insanely personal story about the depression he has felt since the death of his wife, and instead of doing a single thing to comfort him in any way they instead choose to play the whole thing for an attempt at laughs as she awkwardly wanders away.
The 10th Doctor allowed himself to die and regenerate just to save Wilf because being the Doctor meant that this kind of sacrifice was necessary, and yet 13 allows people to let themselves die for her all the time without any protest because she agrees that she is more important than them.
 
I was just saying they didn't pull the tardis out of thin air for the new years show is all.

Don't get me started on the stupidity of wiping out the timelords so easily. The whole premise of the 50th anniversary was that it still existed and there was a way to bring it back if the doctor could find it. NOT to dump the whole thing in the trash and say they were leeches along, etc. Or the stupidity of all the time lords were dead - yet, somehow the master could turn their bodies into cybermen who had the ability to regenerate even though the dead timelords.....couldn't.

The whole (last 6-7 years) thing would be much more believable if the entire plan was for the BBC to run the show into the ground so they didn't have to do it anymore.
 
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