2011-09-05

danieldwilliam: (Default)
2011-09-05 03:11 pm
Entry tags:

Further Disappointed Whinging About Doctor Who

I’m not enjoying the current series of Doctor Who at all.  I’m getting pretty close to giving up watching it. The two most recent episodes have not helped.
 
Let’s Kill Hitler was rushed and a bit jumbled and involved the death of a major character (again) who was revived with a magic trick we’ve seen before.
 
Night Terrors also felt rushed. Plenty of time spent establishing the premise and the characters and then problem solved in a minute by
 
  1. The Doctor’s huge charisma and empathy creating a profound emotional link which encourages a small scared boy to trust the Doctor, his own father and himself
  2. A stranger who has pushed his way into a small scared boy’s bedroom in the middle of the night shouting platitudes at said boy from inside a wardrobe.
 
    I think the main plot is moving far too quickly. I think it would be better done over two or three seasons. This would also allow more room for better, better paced episodes.
     
    The whole thing feels a little incoherent.
     
    I also think the main plot is being done in a way that treats me as if I were an idiot. I don’t need to be constantly reminded that the Doctor dies in some mysterious way. It was the first thing I was shown. The references to the Doctor’s date of death (replacing the references to Amy’s state of pregnancy) don’t help. The Doctor is a time traveller and the date of a particular event seen from my point of view is pretty irrelevant to a bunch of time travellers. This is particularly the case when the characters are engaged in a story where one is travelling through their relationship in a different direction from the other.
     
    Underpinning all of this is my unease about lazy solutions to problems and lazy story telling. There are some many deus ex machine kicking about that they are beginning to look like Russian dolls
     
     
    I’ll watch the rest of the current series but I can see myself not bothering with the next one.