Doctor Who - Moffat/Eleventh Doctor Season Thread

[Funkula]

I have also been watching through The Thick of It due to this news. Obviously he won’t be anywhere close to Tucker on a regular basis, but I do hope they give him a few occasions to get toweringly angry and channel a bit of it. I also hope they let him keep the Scottish accent (if it’s his native accent, I don’t really know).

[BrianRubin]

Watched In the Loop the other night as well. Brilliantly funny. And yeah, I hope they let him keep his accent.

[SlainteMhath]

If they want to keep the angle of “will they or won’t they” romantic possibilities between young good-looking actors alive in the show they can always fall back on Capaldi’s Doctor picking up a female companion from one point in time/space and a male companion from another and have the tension be between companions. This has the added bonus of allowing for endless entertaining quips from the Doctor on the subject.

One thing I DO NOT want to see is more Doctor-centric personal romance. The whole River Song love story plot thread was one of my absolute least favorite bits from the new series. More flitting about the universe foiling the plots of various evil folks and WAY less “the power of love conquers all” BS in the next iteration of Doctor Who please!

[Relayer71]

Pretty happy that they didn’t just cast another foppy haired boy. That fan trailer above is awesome.

I have liked very little over about the show over the past few years, but Matt Smith was a good doctor - shame he was let down by the writing and overall goofiness the show has embraced. I’d love to see it snap back into something more sensible and coherent, like it did a few times during the classic WHO era after getting very comedic. It’d be nice to actually have a story that didn’t get resolved by some power of love deus ex machina, and for the show to be more than a few wacky characters fawning over each other, with at least some dramatic tension and more intelligent sci-fi stories. Hopefully Capaldi motivates Moffatt to change direction and get back to the type of stories he wrote so effectively for Eccleston and Tennant when he wasn’t the showrunner - at least it should end the romantic companion trend.

Totally agree. Smith was a great Doctor but the quality of the stories/writing took a dip (though there were still some great episodes here and there). I still think the Eccleston episodes were some of my favorites of the new era.

[Relayer71]

One thing I DO NOT want to see is more Doctor-centric personal romance. The whole River Song love story plot thread was one of my absolute least favorite bits from the new series. More flitting about the universe foiling the plots of various evil folks and WAY less “the power of love conquers all” BS in the next iteration of Doctor Who please!

Amen! And I’d love to see more episodes taking place in the past with famous historical characters/events. They’ve seemed to focus less on this the past few seasons.

[Freezer-TPF]

Amen! And I’d love to see more episodes taking place in the past with famous historical characters/events. They’ve seemed to focus less on this the past few seasons.

Those are always fun. The ending of the Van Gogh episode really got to me.

[SlainteMhath]

Totally agree! I always like it when he meets and interacts with famous historical characters. I enjoyed the Van Gogh episode as well, one of my favorite Matt Smith performances and some excellent writing.

[Daagar]

Rewatching the first two Matt Smith seasons (wife missed em first time around) and I’m always puzzled that people frown upon them (unless it is the goofy humor that annoys - I love his humor). The Pandorica episodes to end season 5 were ridiculous fun, and I absolutely love the whole Impossible Astronaut thing, as well as the whole Riversong story with them traveling in opposite directions through time. It makes season 7 that much harder to watch (minus the first/last episodes). I don’t really find the Riversong stuff overly mushy/sappy.

[Zylon]

…as well as the whole Riversong story with them traveling in opposite directions through time.

Uh, they aren’t.

[Editer]

Uh, they aren’t.

Uh, yes they are.

[Zylon]

Uh, yes they are.

No, they aren’t. They’re both time travelers. They meet up at basically random points in their respective timelines. Sometimes there be “spoilers!”, sometimes not.

[ShivaX]

No, they aren’t. They’re both time travelers. They meet up at basically random points in their respective timelines. Sometimes there be “spoilers!”, sometimes not.

Er… you need to rewatch things.

[Dan_Theman]

Trouble is, it’s all back to front. My past is his future. We’re traveling in opposite directions. Every time we meet, I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him, but I know that every time that I do he’ll be one step further away. The day is coming when I’ll look into that man’s eyes, my Doctor, and he won’t have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it’s going to kill me.

The thing is, as poetic as that sounds, they never explain why she just doesn’t hop to a point where he knows her better. We only know they refuse to drop any spoilers to each other.

[Rightbug]

Well, the other problem is that, while it was stated they were traveling in opposite directions, we rarely actually saw that in practice. Not surprising, as it would have been logistically challenging and really confusing to pull that off but still…

[Naniad]

To be fair how would they accomplish that? In the Who universe it seems most meetings are not planned. The Doctor and River could visit Amy and Rory in a relatively linear fashion because they lived in the same place so easy to find.

Thing is we know they don’t travel in totally opposite directions otherwise they wouldn’t need the journals. If it was truly opposite they would only get to share the current experience. No need to bother to ask “have we done this yet” since you’ll always know they haven’t.

[Andy_Bates]

Yes, exactly. They are always meeting up at different points in time, but it was simplified over a few seasos to, “We’re traveling in opposite directions through time.” That’s not literally what happens though, and there are multiple times when they meet where it’s not absolute reverse continuity.

[Zylon]

Er… you need to rewatch things.

No, you do.

[soondifferent]

Yes, exactly. They are always meeting up at different points in time, but it was simplified over a few seasos to, “We’re traveling in opposite directions through time.” That’s not literally what happens though, and there are multiple times when they meet where it’s not absolute reverse continuity.

This. It’s a neat and poetic simplification, and since the doctor’s first introduction to her also happens to be her last meeting with him, if you have to plot it as a vector they do vaguely travel in the opposite direction.

[Zylon]

…since the doctor’s first introduction to her also happens to be her last meeting with him…

Not even that anymore. Well, unless you’re only counting her meatbag version.

[unbongwah]

Rewatching the first two Matt Smith seasons (wife missed em first time around) and I’m always puzzled that people frown upon them (unless it is the goofy humor that annoys - I love his humor). The Pandorica episodes to end season 5 were ridiculous fun, and I absolutely love the whole Impossible Astronaut thing, as well as the whole Riversong story with them traveling in opposite directions through time.

As much as I’ve enjoyed Smith’s turn as Doctor, my biggest complaint with the Smith/Moffat era has been his plots depend too heavily on a bunch of arbitrary timey-wimey bullcrap which he then deus ex machinas to resolve. Meanwhile, River has devolved into a Omniscient Plot Device who shows up to drop hints to the Doctor about what’s to come; but when he asks too much, she replies, “SPOILEEEERS!” It was funny the first couple of times to see the Doctor get upstaged on the “smug know-it-all” front, but now it’s just an annoying crutch.