I was a bit nervous about the new guy, but now I love the 11th Doctor. I think he's the best Doctor since #4, Tom Baker. In a lot of ways Smith reminds me a lot of Doctor #2, Patrick Troughton. Which is funny, since the first Doctor is referenced numerous times this season, which I love.
Also a big improvement is in the companion department. I make no secret of the fact that I've got a massive crush on Karen Gillan/Amy Pond. There's been some mis-steps with the character, and a lot of people don't like that she's a bit aggressive sexually. Personally, I think the character is fine and the actress is hot.
Since this is so long, I've put it under a break. Spoilers ahead, esp for the final two episodes, which won't air in America until the end of next month.
5.01 - The Eleventh Hour: As far as introduction to newly regenerated Doctor stories go, this is pretty alright. We get a glimpse of all the past Doctors, which is always a cheap and easy way of pushing my fanboy button. I was worried with the introduction of #11 at the end of the previous special since it seemed like he was going to be Doctor 10 version 2.0. Luckily, that isn't the case. The episode is slightly longer than usual, and at times it feels like it. Still, it's a good episode and sets up much of the rest of the current series.
5.02 - The Beast Below: I liked this one, even if I could see the resolution coming the second they revealed the secret of the ship (and it's lack of engines). I also liked the Doctor getting really mad at the humans when he realized what they had been doing.
5.03 - Victory To The Daleks: A lot of people didn't like this one. I found it pretty middle of the road. I don't particularly care for the individualized Daleks, since that pretty much goes against their whole way of doing things. Let's face it, the different color Daleks are there so they can sell more toys. (Yes, I'm aware that the old out of continuity Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies had multi-color Daleks.) Still, the unveiling of new Daleks aside, not much really happens in this story, aside from getting the hint that time has been tampered with since Amy doesn't remember the massive Dalek invasion from the end of series 4.
5.04/5.05 - Time Of The Angels / Flesh And Stone: I find the River Song character kind of smug and annoying. (Despite being a Moffat creation, she feels more like she would've come from Davies.) As usual, there's some vague hints about who she is but they might or might not be true. We also get the return of the weeping angels, and a more actiony story for them this time. Moffat called it his "ALIENS", where the second one was more action oriented than the first. He even has space marines. A lot of people started to dislike Amy for trying to have sex with the Doctor at the end of this episode, but I loved how the Doctor wasn't interested. One of the worst things about the previous show-runner (Russel T Davies) was his insistence on making the Doctor romantically interested in his companions and vice versa. A 900 year old alien not being interested in a twentysomething Earth girl makes sense. For instance, I love my dog, but I'm not in love with my dog. To the Doctor a human would be a lower lifeform, really. The best way to play romance in WHO is the Doctor rolling his eyes at his companions who are/aren't but should be a couple. Which is what they're doing now. Great! Anyway, this one set up a major plot point for the finale, and a surprising number of people caught on to what it was and were right.
5.06 - The Vampires Of Venice: Vampires that aren't vampires but are still pretty creepy. I thought this was a good once. I was a bit surprised the Doctor didn't offer to just take the aliens somewhere else, since in most episodes he does only to get turned down. It's all a bit contradictory since the Doctor was pissed about the star whale a few episodes back, but suddenly he's willing to commit genocide because these aliens couldn't remember the name of one of their victims. Anyway, of course, I liked the 1st Doctor reference with the library card.
5.07 - Amy's Choice: An interesting idea where reality and dream collide and the viewer is supposed to be unsure which is which. Of course there's a slight twist, and the reveal of what the villain is works pretty well. Still, I doubt many people thought that the near future Earth bits were the actual reality.
5.08/5.09 - The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood: Didn't really care for this one. Then again, I don't remember particularly enjoying the 3rd Doctor story with the Silurians either. I did like the concept of the Earth seemingly randomly deciding to swallow people whole. I might've liked this one better as a single episode rather than a two-parter.
5.10 - Vincent And The Doctor: I liked this more than I thought I would. It gets bonus points for the referencing the 1st and 2nd Doctors. The pop song at the end during the "emotional" museum scene felt a bit forced. Still, given the writer of the episode (the guy who wrote stuff like LOVE ACTUALLY and BRIDGET JONES' DIARY, which I think are actually among the few decent "chick flicks" out there), it wasn't a surprise. It was a bit surprising to see the Doctor taking a historical figure into the future to see their own impact though.
5.11 - The Lodger: The Doctor as a fish out of water, forced to do ordinary stuff for awhile. I guess this is supposed to be the cheap episode of the season. (See "Love and Monsters" or even "Blink".) Again, happy to see the Doctor not being interested in romance for himself, but noticing that his companions (or stand in companions) clearly should be together. No real resolution to the episode though, since we don't know who or what aliens owned that hidden ship.
5.12/5.13 - The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang: The previews gave the twist of this one away to me. A creature feared by most of the universe and all the Doctor's villains gather? Of course the Pandorica was going to be an empty box intended to be a prison for the Doctor. I was more interested in how he was going to get out of it!
Of course they set up an out with the wrist time machine gadget. (The one that it's strongly implied came off of Captain Jack Harkness, arm included.)
There's a bit of a paradox here: the future Doctor goes back and tells Rory to let him out of the Pandorica and stick Amy inside it, which he does. That makes sense until you realize that that event probably wouldn't happen unless the Doctor used the device to go back. So how does he get out of the Pandorica the first time to set up that scenario? How does the Doctor activate the gadget on his opposite wrist when both of his hands are shackled? Notice that every single time he uses it (it's on his left wrist) he has to operate it with his right hand.
I liked the Fez. Fezzes are cool. Well, at least the scene of it's demise was funny.
We get quite a bit of payoff in the finale. We see the theory about two of the same Doctor back in "Flesh And Stone" was correct.
Of course the resolution where Amy is programmed to remember the Doctor and she does is a bit of fuzzy logic. So the Doctor didn't exist anymore up until the point where Amy saw him? Wouldn't that mean all the zillions of times he saved the Earth prior to 2010 didn't happen and we would've been conquered or destroyed by aliens? As we saw in "Wrong Turn" from the tail end of series 4, if the Doctor hadn't survived just "The Runaway Bride" special alone things would've gone really badly for Earth.
Plus if you're going to program somebody to alter reality (like bringing her parents back and eventually the Doctor), couldn't you program her to do things like make sure the Daleks never existed?
An odd thing I noticed, the Doctor says "The silence, whatever it is, is still out there." I took "silence will fall" to mean that everything would go silent because everything would be wiped out, which is what happened at the end of the first part.
We don't get all the answers. We don't know what the Davros sound alike voice that could control the TARDIS is.
At least River Song was a little more tolerable this time.
I'm probably leaving a lot out, but I just dashed this off. It's already incredibly long anyway.
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2 comments:
hrmph. I said I was waiting to comment until you did this and then I dropped the ball and neglected to comment. Guess I've been busy. Most of our views are the same, though I have to admit that I really liked Tennant. Hated the relationship crap but overall I thought he was pretty awesome. I definitely like Smith more than I thought I would. Everyone seems to dislike River Song but I think she's interesting as a character. I also really enjoyed the Victory To The Daleks episode. Not middle of the road to me, that was pretty cool.
Tennant is probably the most popular Doctor since Tom Baker. I just never warmed to him. I don't blame it on him entirely (although for some reason I can't put my finger on, he never really felt like the Doctor to me.) The biggest issue I had with him is that I hated the majority of his stories. I hated the Rose stuff and how horrible the character became with #10. (She was a fine companion with #9.) Then even after she left, not only did he keep mooning over her, she kept coming back.
I suppose a big part of it is how much I liked Eccleston and wish we could've gotten another series or two out of him. Just last night I stumbled across my DVD-R with the first 12 episodes of his single series on it, and watched bits and pieces and forgot how excellent he was in the role. There were some turd episodes in his brief run and you could tell he wasn't very comfortable with the more whimsical scenes he had to do, but when he had to turn on the intensity (see "Dalek") he blew Tennant and his "I'm so so sorry" schtick out of the water. I hadn't seen those episodes in years, and it just reminds me that I need to import the series 1 box set (much cheaper from the UK than getting the US release!). I keep thinking I should get the series 1-4 box set, but then I realize I'd probably never watch series 2-4 again.
Compared to Tennant, Smith just seems more natural and Doctor-ish to me. The problem with 10 is everybody, including that Doctor himself, seemed to worship him. Contrast that to Tom Baker's Doctor where he'd turn up and people would regard him like he was an idiot or a mental patient because the guy was so weird and alien. Smith is a bit closer to that, although, like I said, he reminds me a ton of Troughton's Doctor #2.
As it stands, my top five Doctors...
1) Tom (the iconic Doctor)
2) Hartnell (the original)
3) Smith (bumped Pertwee out of my top 5, spectacular given he's only had one series so far.)
4) Eccleston (my first Doctor, although I vaguely recall seeing a few Tom stories when I was a kid)
5) Troughton (would probably be higher if more of his stories didn't get destroyed)
I think River Song comes across as a bit smug, which I think I wrote in the original post. Still, it'll be interesting to find out exactly who she is, which we're supposed to next year.
I also stumbled across a forgot plot hole in the finale... Amy pats her younger self on the head and touches her a few times and nothing happens. When the sonic screwdrivers touch they create a spark. In "Father's Day" the Doctor warns Rose not to hold herself when she's a baby and when she does things go really badly. So how can Amy pat herself on the head without it anything happening?
My biggest disappointment of series 5 was the lack of the return of the original (Mondas) Cybermen. I could swear it was said they were returning, but instead when the Cybermen briefly appeared it was the crappy fake alternate reality Cybermen.
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