the_deep_magic | Concluding Nonscientific Postscripts on Timey-Wimey Things

Remember when I said I was gonna watch Doctor Who? And then I watched Doctor Who, and then I said I was going to write about watching Doctor Who? Well, this is that.

So, I am all up to date on nu!Who (including this current season, because the intertubez are amazing). I shall divide my commentary up by Doctor to attempt to force some kind of rudimentary structure on my thoughts. Also, I should have been writing this as I went along, because I started watching in... May? And finished season six at the beginning of August? And a shit-ton of Life Stuff has happened since then, so don't expect, like, scholarly analysis. Spoilers for each, obviously.

Nine

They say your first Doctor is your Doctor, but the internet had already primed me with so much Tennant love that Christopher Eccleston didn't quite win me over. Odds are good that, if he'd stayed on for more than one season, I would have gotten a better feel for his Doctor (er, innuendo unintentional) and thus warmed up to him. I did, however, buy the relationship that developed between him and Rose, much more so than I thought I would. Poor Mickey, though. He gets treated so badly by everyone and, especially in this season, doesn't seem to have any self-esteem whatsoever.

As I believe I said before, I initially regretted watching Torchwood before Doctor Who, since it made what was cheesy in the first place seem pay-extra-for-a-double-topping of cheesy. I almost didn't make it through the Slitheen two-parter because the rubber suits were just so, so awful, and I can certainly appreciate a bit of sophmoric humor from time to time, but the constant fart jokes were making me cringe with second-hand embarrassment. However, I quickly got used to it (and I think they must've upped the show's budget) to the point that, when I went back to watch season one of Torchwood to see how it fit back in the Who!verse, I thought Torchwood seemed to take itself way too seriously (evil fairies? bitch, please!).

Anywho (hurrr, I'll only use that once), as dramatic as this season finale was... I didn't quite get the Bad Wolf thing. I get that it's an ontological paradox -- Rose sending a message to herself so she can go back and send the message -- but where did the phrase originally come from? Did it just happen to be the name of the station? What's the significance of that particular phrase? Was I just not paying close enough attention, because I'll allow for that.

Ten

So, yeah, Ten is my Doctor. Due in a large part to my preconceptions of the show, yes, but also because I think David Tennant got the balance right (though I think Matt Smith is growing into it more and more). You have to believe this guy has seen so much that he has trouble taking most things seriously, but also that he can be very, very dangerous -- to the point of coming unhinged -- when pushed. With Christopher Eccleston I only got the latter and Matt Smith I initially only got the former (though, like I said, I think that's changing), but I felt like Tennant nailed it pretty much from the first episode. (Though I suppose you could make the argument that Rose humanized Nine, who had been traveling alone for a long time [??? not familiar with old!Who] so by the time he regenerated he had an easier sense of humor.)

I feel like the season two episodes were really hit (The Girl in the Fireplace, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit) or miss (School Reunion, The Idiot's Lantern), with little in between. I don't find the Cybermen particularly compelling villains, though of course I found Rose's (initial) departure from the show perfectly heartbreaking.

HATED Donna Noble in "The Runaway Bride," but I think I was supposed to, so it worked.

Season three had by far the best stand-alone episodes (The Shakespeare Code, 42, Blink), and Human Nature/The Family of Blood is quite simply one of the best things I've ever seen on television. Except for the stupid fucking scarecrow henchmen that I guess were supposed to scare the kiddies, ugh. Oh, and it took me forever to realize that Jessica Hynes is actually Jessica Stevenson from Spaced, despite the existence of IMDb. The whole Martha-pining-for-the-Doctor subplot throughout the season felt completely tacked on, since I thought David Tennant and Freema Agyeman had excellent platonic chemistry.

Thought the season-ender was great, though the deus ex machina this-literally-never-happened deal was a cop out. C'mon, guys, you were so tapped out you had to steal the ending from the first Superman movie? Really? Really? Jack Harkness for the motherfucking win, though. Why isn't he in all the things? (Innuendo intentional.)

On to season four --ended up loving Donna Noble, as her character was actually given room to grow and change, like one would imagine would happen if one were taken on crazy time-and-space travel adventures. I also liked the progression of the companions as getting older and more mature, instead of "we've got to have a younger, hotter girl every season!" Bless you, non-American TV. The season itself was uneven, but Donna had the biggest impact on the Doctor out of all the companions, and her fate in "Journey's End" was shockingly tragic. It wasn't even bittersweet like "Doomsday," which you pretty much expected -- it was just bitter, but necessary, and I think it was a really ballsy move by the writers even though it hurt.

Oh, and "Midnight" was perhaps the only Doctor Who episode that I found genuinely frightening. ("Blink" was awesome -- one of the best episodes of the show -- but it didn't quite scare me.) I love the base-under-siege trope when it's done well (see: The X Files' "Ice").

As for the specials, "The Next Doctor" and "The Planet of Dead" were pretty meh (especially the latter), but "The Waters of Mars" was superb (hah, base-under-siege again), with the Doctor finally going too far and realizing it. Really, really excellent performances all around and great character development. "The End of Time" was okay, but the ending was maudlin compared with "Journey's End." Plus, Martha and Mickey getting together? What?

Eleven

I really, really was not expecting to like anything from season five on -- not just because there was a new Doctor, but because I knew the aesthetic of the whole show changed, and I was sure I would be comparing it to seasons two through four-and-a-half and just sighing about the Good Old Days. But even though it took Matt Smith most of the season, I think, to really get into the character's head, I ended up continuing to enjoy the show just as much. I was glad that Rory went from being Mickey-Redux to a real, fleshed-out character who genuinely loves Amy (and who is actually pretty damned attractive in his own, geeky right).

I also thought that Russell T. Davies had started over-relying on the Daleks as villains, so I was glad that they were mostly absent from season five. Didn't like what they did with the Weeping Angels, though -- at first I was excited to see them brought back, but that two-parter kind of ruined their mystique by changing the rules (they're shown moving, they no longer cover their eyes, an image of an Angel is an Angel, etc.). As awesome as they were, they ought to have been left as one-off villains.

As far as Steven Moffat's supposed sexism -- I only heard of that recently, after I'd finished watching through season six. Whatever he's said in interviews (I honestly don't know -- all that I see is wank about it, not whatever it is he actually said), I don't think it comes through on the show, and I'm usually fairly sensitive to these things. This isn't to say that no one is allowed to take issue with Moffat's creative work or that the sexism isn't there, just that I didn't personally see it during a casual watch.

Season six was pretty consistently awesome. The only thing that really, truly never made sense to me was Rory and Amy's reaction to realizing River was their daughter. Perhaps this is a function of the episodes being filmed out of order, but Amy's never really given space to grieve that her child was stolen from her, or that they'll never get to raise her, especially given the later revelation that Amy can't have any more children. It's just "wow, okay, shocking plot twist, now a few more one-shot episodes and let's wrap this season up." Their only daughter was stolen from them and they never really even attempted to get her back.

"The Doctor's Wife" is brilliant, but, well: Neil Gaiman. Not much more to say.

I'm a little unsure of this season so far -- the whole "Rory and Amy broke up over a serious issue, no wait they're back together and it's okay" thing was just bizarre. I guess they're setting up their departure from the show, but it's kind of an ass way to go about it. And everybody seemed kind of OOC in the Wild West episode, but it's very different watching from week to week versus binging on four episodes at a time, so I'm not passing any judgment yet.

Okay, I probably left out about a million things I meant to say, but I've been writing this for too long. One general question I did have: DW (and Torchwood, to some extent) features a lot of interracial romantic relationships. Are they more common in the UK than in the US, or was this a choice on the part of the writers/producers/whoever? (Yes, I do live in the South, but Florida and Georgia actually have the same percentage of interracial marriages as New York, and actually more than a lot of the New England states, so it's not Segregationville.) Anyway, it just jumped out as different to me (in a good way) and I wondered if it was a conscious choice or a reflection of different demographics.