Doctor Who As Watched By Someone Who Doesn't Really Watch Doctor Who

[Duffy13]

Something concerning the whole meta argument with the audience going on: this episode is actually an inversion of the companion's reactions from the episode that introduced Tennant, the Doctor went from a kind of parent figure (Eccleston) to the dashing and handsome hero that started the 'boyfriend' arc interpretations. The introduction of Capaldi played it in reverse.

They also did the same thing with Tennant's intro where the side characters did all of the work while he recuperated for most of the episode only to take over at the climax. Which interesting enough also culminated in the villain being thrown from a flying craft over London...starting to wonder if these parallels are a bit more on purpose than I first thought.

 

[gridsleep]

I'm not sure what that was that spit up the TARDIS, but it wasn't a dinosaur that anyone has information about. At 65 feet in length a Tyrannosaurus could hardly swallow the entire TARDIS. That thing in the show is nearly as big as Godzilla, which is pure fantasy.
Frankly, I am gratified that they finally have a Doctor who is my age exactly.
Not like Clara? Your friends are buffoons. I'm sorry to have to tell you, but someone has to.
Yes, any Scot is at his happiest when he can loudly proclaim "Oh! This is awful!" If the day doesn't live down to a Scot's worst expectations, it's not trying hard enough. When Scotsman drink they have a damn good reason, so just don't be getting in the way, now.
That tower is actually the Tower of Westminster, as Parliament is met in the Palace of Westminster. Big Ben is the bell, not the tower nor the clock.
The Doctor's new wardrobe looks more like a deacon's suit than a stage magician's, but, difference of opinion, I suppose.
You got a lot more right than you would suspect. Good eye, for a critic.

 

[marscentral]

I think they wanted Clara to be the voice of the audience when she didn't really need to be

Being the voice of the audience is the point of companions in Doctor Who, so it was warranted to dedicate the episode to encourage people to give such a different Doctor an opportunity.

Its also fitting seeing how much fans have rejected Clara herself, despite changing companions being another staple of the series.

And lets not forget the uproar from David Tennant fans* when Matt Smith took the role. If many of those were complaining that the then new Doctor was "too ugly" or "too young", what is to be expected with the arrival of Capaldi?

I didn't really make my point properly. Of course Clara (and other companions) are there to be the audience. My problem here is twofold. Firstly, while it's hard to hide characters with that purpose completely, it was distracting how blatantly she was doing that. It was made worse because Clara is presumably more aware of his nature than most. She should have been giving the others the lecture, not the other way around. Secondly, that role is to provide exposition on things we would otherwise be unaware of, she's someone for the Doctor to explain things to so that we understand what he's doing. She's not there as proxy for a meta lecture on how we should give this new older Doctor a try as we might like him as much as the younger models.

Just for the record, I like Clara and I hope she stays a while longer. I was and still am excited to see what Capaldi does as the Doctor. Overall I liked the episode, it just could have been better.

 

[LaoJim]

It has always baffled me how so many fans can become so....upset might be the simplest term....over a defining characteristic of the show while simultaneously professing their love of everything about the show.

More often than not the show is about the companion's journey. And, by proxy, the audiences journey. It's rarely ever solely, or primarily, about the Doctor. (despite him often being the center of events)

Which brings me to another baffling thought: Why is there so much hate for Clara? I really don't get it. In every instance wherein I asked someone why they disliked her, the answer I got was always the same. It basically boiled down to, "She's not like my favorite companion, so I don't like her."

I can appreciate a new Doctor or Companion not fitting into whatever specific character traits someone might want, and having that detract from a person's enjoyment of a new series, but that doesn't make the new Doctor or new Companion bad.

Speaking for myself, I don't hate Clara by any stretch of the imagination and I certainly don't dislike the actress. The problem with her is she's coming across as Generic Doctor Who Companion (Female) #1523. That is to say there are certain traits that most of the female companions share; they have to be independent and intelligent enough to save the Doctor on occassion, but dumb enough to serve as the target for an exposition dump every now and then, they need to engage in the occassional bit of witty banter, they need to have an unrequited crush on the Doctor, etc. The problem is Clara doesn't really, at this point in the show, have many characteristics outside this main core.

Part of the problem is that Clara was introduced as the "Impossible Girl", so last series there was a whole mystery about who she was and why different versions of her kept dying in different time periods. Now that's been resolved, we've ended up not knowing much about her at all.

Each of the new companions up to this point have had more distinguishing characteristics.
Rose was from a very lower class (dare I say Chavvy) family and the show made a point of keeping her in constant contact every few episodes with them. This was quite unusual for Doctor Who.
Martha, as a medical doctor, was noticeably more intelligent and competent that the average companion (though a lot of fans didn't like her either)
Donna was a lot more lippy and opinionated.
Amy had a lot of things going on. Firstly there was her strange relationship with the Doctor due to meeting him as a child, secondly there was her relationship with Rory and later other family members (veiled spoiler). It also didn't hurt her popularity that Karen Gillian is gorgeous.
Clara may develop into more of a character in her own right, but at the moment, I'm not sure what there is to distinguish her from anyone else.

 

[deth2munkies]

Well, Bob, to be fair, this is the first episode that I actually thought Clara worked in. She may have a future, but the past season she was just a horrible mess of a character that was just "does things/feels exactly how she needs to for the plot to be interesting" with nothing underneath. I appreciate they actually made her a more rounded character with decent chemistry in this episode and look forward to more.

The Dinosaur woman is Madame Vastra, and she's introduced in my personal favorite episode, "A Good Man Goes to War".

 

[GratchDDO]

Hmmm... sort of had mixed feelings on this episode as they go. Never had any issues with the Clara character. The 3 things I didn't think worked as well as they could have (timing/pacing): 1) the Doctor's not-quite-in-his-right head scenes made him feel a bit too idiot instead of just confused/figuring things out 2) The Go Get the Veil/Magic Words with Clara/Vestra sequence was also "off" 3) The end "conversation"/bad guy - I was never quite in the bad guy's mixed up human/robot characterization/motives.

Just seems more of the parts were written Matt Smith style and not enough "going to the evil/drama side" doctor the older actor is being setup to portray or for the comedy angle they should have started with the Scottish thing and played off that through the rest. For now I'm blaming Moffat and holding my judgements on Capaldi as the Doctor. Compare this one to the Matt Smith introduction episode: The Eleventh Hour. That one (also by Moffat) worked on a whole much better.

 

[medv4380]

Ok, is this a cultural thing? I mean I've heard April O'Neil (classic series) classed as a red head and now Jenna Coleman (Clara), when to me both have clearly got brown (Brunette) hair colour.

He might be thinking that she has images [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titian_hair] of Coleman would qualify her hair as Titan. However, it always looks dark brown on Doctor Who.

I'm glad I looked this up. Know I know what hair color my eldest daughter actually has.

 

[Alex Laird]

Doctor Who As Watched By Someone Who Doesn't Really Watch Doctor Who

Watching Doctor Who as a non-Whovian is a fish-out-of-water kind of experience.

Read Full Article

Don't judge it too harshly, it's gone downhill since Moffat took over. If you're interested I would highly recommend trying watching David Tennant's tenure under the direction of Russell T Davis.

 

[Qage]

I think Bob was pretty spot on with his assessment of the episode. Nice one, Bob.

I actually stopped watching Doctor Who about halfway through Matt Smith's run (for those curious, I stopped watching at the episode titled "Let's Kill Hitler" because the title of the episode told me all I would need to know) because while I felt that Smith did a good job as The Doctor, I feel like he had some real dross to work with in terms of story and script. I did, however, watch a few odd episodes here and there, along with the 50th Anniversary episode and was somewhat looking forward to Capaldi's debut.

Now that I've seen it, I feel incredibly underwhelmed. As somebody else has said, I don't really feel that Capaldi got a chance to find [I/]his[/I] version of The Doctor. He felt incredibly Matt Smith-y and just generally came across as kind of dumb and awkward. As the Doctor's assistant, Clara has never really inspired me at all, true, I haven't seen many episodes that she's been in, but conversely the episodes I have seen haven't inspired me to want to see her in more episodes if you see what I mean. I think that the reason she's not a very popular assistant is probably because she comes across as being a bit of a bland person (again, from what I have seen). She doesn't seem to actively make decisions or influence any section of the plot in anyway and just seems to be with The Doctor because it's tradition that The Doctor needs an assistant.

And Moffat, if you're going to base the story around a plot from an older, better episode; don't make it the episode in which a new Doctor is debuting. I'm reserved to judge Capaldi at this point because, like Smith, I really feel like he's been shafted in terms of the script he has to work with, especially since this episode was basically second-hand ideas.

 

[Remus]

(Just wait till the thing about 'I remember this face from somewhere' REALLY comes into play) (Hint, Capaldi played a Roman in Pompeii 5 or 6 years ago)

I'm so glad this little reference was in there, and also "Sister ship of the Pompadour", hence the clockworks. Oh and Goffrey's jester was there for a few seconds, right before his eyes were extracted. Showing "The Girl in the Fireplace" the next day in a marathon of some of the best Who episodes was a good refresher. The fact that the Doctor picked a face he has seen before is bound to come up later. Perhaps it's some deep-seated guilt for making Pompeii happen, it being a frozen moment in history or somesuch. His ability to later choose his form was kinda eluded to in "The Day of the Doctor" when the 11th meets his future self, having revisited a face from the past, played by Tom Baker. Overall, not a terrible episode. The typical "love conquers all" trope went up in a ball of flame thankfully. While it would've been interesting to see the Doctor somehow drag a T-Rex back to the Jurassic to see her family again, I know there would have been tons of complaints because this story's been done a few times, just not with a dinosaur.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Doctor Who As Watched By Someone Who Doesn't Really Watch Doctor Who

Watching Doctor Who as a non-Whovian is a fish-out-of-water kind of experience.

Read Full Article

Don't judge it too harshly, it's gone downhill since Moffat took over. If you're interested I would highly recommend trying watching David Tennant's tenure under the direction of Russell T Davis.

Russell T Davis had more consistent writing than Moffat. Davis was relatively good writing throughout his tenure, and Moffat has both the best, and worst, writing of the series. Well, as regular writers. I'm still partial to Neil Gaiman's infrequent episodes.

 

[yeah_so_no]

Part of why a lot of people (including myself) didn't like Clara was because she was written with absolutely zero personality (and "perky" alone does not a personality make) and told over and over that she was amazing, but her actually BEING amazing (other than maybe her very first appearance) was never shown. But this episode, they finally actually gave her a personality! I found myself really liking her this ep, when they finally made her 'human' instead of 'the Impossible Girl,' and a lot of people also seem to feel that way. I've got hope that Clara will actually be interesting now.

 

[ritchards]

Very nice take, and as a long time fan I agree with many of the points you raised about pacing etc.

One nitpick I will point out is that Jenny (the maid) refers to Vastra (Lizard Woman) as "the wife".

 

[nathan-dts]

Clara is a great companion. A hell of a lot better than the Ponds.

 

[nathan-dts]

I think Bob was pretty spot on with his assessment of the episode. Nice one, Bob.

I actually stopped watching Doctor Who about halfway through Matt Smith's run (for those curious, I stopped watching at the episode titled "Let's Kill Hitler" because the title of the episode told me all I would need to know) because while I felt that Smith did a good job as The Doctor, I feel like he had some real dross to work with in terms of story and script. I did, however, watch a few odd episodes here and there, along with the 50th Anniversary episode and was somewhat looking forward to Capaldi's debut.

Now that I've seen it, I feel incredibly underwhelmed. As somebody else has said, I don't really feel that Capaldi got a chance to find [I/]his[/I] version of The Doctor. He felt incredibly Matt Smith-y and just generally came across as kind of dumb and awkward. As the Doctor's assistant, Clara has never really inspired me at all, true, I haven't seen many episodes that she's been in, but conversely the episodes I have seen haven't inspired me to want to see her in more episodes if you see what I mean. I think that the reason she's not a very popular assistant is probably because she comes across as being a bit of a bland person (again, from what I have seen). She doesn't seem to actively make decisions or influence any section of the plot in anyway and just seems to be with The Doctor because it's tradition that The Doctor needs an assistant.

And Moffat, if you're going to base the story around a plot from an older, better episode; don't make it the episode in which a new Doctor is debuting. I'm reserved to judge Capaldi at this point because, like Smith, I really feel like he's been shafted in terms of the script he has to work with, especially since this episode was basically second-hand ideas.

Just figured you should know, Matt Smith started getting a less convoluted story around Clara's introduction, Significantly better than the big bang stuff from his first series.

Same thing happened to David Tennant; he spent the majority of his first episode in a coma so I'd give Capaldi more of a chance.

The revisiting of old ideas seemed to be the theme. It appeared to me to be quite intentional.

 

[Alex Laird]

Russell T Davis had more consistent writing than Moffat. Davis was relatively good writing throughout his tenure, and Moffat has both the best, and worst, writing of the series. Well, as regular writers. I'm still partial to Neil Gaiman's infrequent episodes.

Moffat is a great writer, he has amazing dialog and really excels at single episode stories. However since he has taken over the overarching story-lines of each season have become a jumbled mess; major plot holes, characters without clear and understandable motivation and an over-reliance on gimmicks and Micheal Bay-esque 'Wow' action scenes like Gallifrey and Trenzalore.

*Series 6 Spoilers*

Spoiler

Let take a moment and look at the abduction if Melody Pond story line and see if any of this makes sense - Madame Kovarian wants to kill the Doctor before Trenzalore so she goes back in time and... steals Amy Pond's baby?! This is apparently in order to turn her into a brainwashed assassin (OK, a little bit of a stretch but I'll buy it).

She then drops off the now nine year old Pond-assassin in America in 1969.

This makes no sense.

Melody then waits 42 years, befriends her own parents growing up, allows the Doctor to come and go dozens of times(!?!), then one day decides that the time has come to strike and...

Hijacks the TARDIS in order to go kill Hitler.

Again, this makes no sense.

 

[faefrost]

Well done Bob. For a first time viewer using only info from Nerdsmossis you got the vast majority of things right. Including little details like where some of the characters come from. Particularly impressive was your guess about Strax the big head guy. Yes he is a Sontaran, and old school classic Dr. Who antagonist race. Pretty much Who's equivalent to or satire of Klingons.

I know some have compared Capaldi to Sylvester McCoy, but honestly his look, mannerisms and such remind me a little more of Jon Pertwee, with maybe a dash of Colin Baker thrown in.

If you are going to start trying to make sense of it all then as others have suggested the 2005 re-introduction of the show is the best place to start. The premier episode of that Rose is in a word "fantastic". Chris Ecclesten was one of the shorter of the Doctors runs and they did not quite settle on the tone until halfway through his run, but he still has some astonishingly good episodes in his small pool of 13. I recommend Rose, Dalek and the Empty Child / The Doctor Dances two parter. The two parter is one of the creepiest Who stories that doesn't involve the Weeping Angels and bonus it introduces John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness.

Davis Tennant is often viewed as the most common favorite of the modern Doctors. He strikes a good balance between charismatic charm, pure whimsy and dark, oh my can he go dark. Noteworthy stories; The Girl in the Fireplace (which has a connection to this episode you just watched), School Reunion (just for the return of classic companion Sarah Jane Smith and K9, oh and Buffy's Anthony Head), The Runaway Bride (for introducing what later becomes his BEST companion Catherine Tate as Donna), Blink (which is the first Weeping Angels episode so you may have seen it, but still amazing), honestly there are so many good Tennant episodes, but topping the must see list would be the two part Silence in the Library / Forrest of the Dead and The Waters of Mars (for just how dark and utterly powerful the Doctor is. Do not watch this one until you are well familiar with the character.)

For Matt Smith, I know he is very well liked, but honestly I always thought the best part of his run was the various and always amazing supporting cast that flow around him. The Eleventh Hour is the initial must see with him. and honestly if you have made it this far you will probably be watching the full run if Smith just to catch up. Day of the Doctor, 50th anniversary special is noteworthy and a must see, although a little disappointing as it isn't what it could have and should have been.

If you do seek to delve into the Classic Who, I would as much as possible start with Tom Baker the 4th Doctor and go forward from there. Jon Pertwee is fun too, although his stuff feels a little more dated and may be better appreciated after Baker, Davidson and the rest. The William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton stuff is a bit harder to watch. Quality on every level is bad (the shows were not well preserved, many are lost to history), pacing and such is very off comparred to todays standards. They are interesting to watch from a historical perspective, but to play catch up it is almost better to simply read episode summaries at least initially.

I would also strongly recommend the recent BBC TV movie "An Adventure in Space and Time" as a must see introduction. It focuses on the creation of the show and it's leads. The SJW in you will love it as it is mostly about Verity Lambert, one of televisions first groundbreaking female producers.

Welcome to Galifrey. All of Space and Time awaits.

 

[Qage]

Snip.

Just figured you should know, Matt Smith started getting a less convoluted story around Clara's introduction, Significantly better than the big bang stuff from his first series.

Same thing happened to David Tennant; he spent the majority of his first episode in a coma so I'd give Capaldi more of a chance.

The revisiting of old ideas seemed to be the theme. It appeared to me to be quite intentional.

Oh really? Maybe I'll go back and give it a shot if I ever get the chance to pick them up on DvD.

This is also true. I'll have to wait and see how Capaldi does, I'm expecting his performance will mostly be gold, it's just the stories and writing I'm concerned about.

I guess so. I personally just thought it a bit lacking in imagination, although I did like the idea of the robot becoming more human than robot and so on. I just felt that, considering Eccleston's intro, Tennant's and Smith's, it just seemed a bit lacking in imagination is all.

 

[Suhi89]

Plus, that last line about 'boyfriend' was less about Clara and more about The Doctor.
He's been a 'young' man so long that it's like he started thinking himself as one.
I think that whole conversation was about HIM realizing he IS an OLD man, no matter the body.

"Lizard Woman", far as I can recall, is suppose to be who Sherlock Holmes is based off of.
Plus she, and her wife, act as a nice little 'go fuck yourself' to modern day anti-marriage equality bigots.
-Because, google it, in Victorian times women COULD and DID marry!

First point, I thought this was extremely clear and I'm surprised to see how many people missed it. He flat out tells Clara it wasn't her misconception (implication was that it was his).

Second point, yeah I like that they are married. I like that they're unashamed to make a plot point out of it. I don't like how unnaturally in your face they are about it. After the 4th or 5th time it was explicitly mentioned I was like, "We get it. You believe in marriage equality Moffatt. Guess what? So do most of us. And you know what else? It's legal now too. Yay."

Didn't realise that women could marry in Victorian times though (although from what I can gather from a 20 second check on google, it was only women and it wasn't the state sanctioned union as we understand it today).

 

[Oskuro]

I'm possibly wrong but to me the problems with Clara as a companion, as well as the uneven first episodes in that season (Asylum of the Daleks onwards) always felt to me as a bit of a rushed job... Almost as if Karen Gillian leaving the show was an unexpected move and Moffat had to improvise.

The same could be said of the rushed tying of loose ends at the end of Matt Smith's run.

So maybe that's a reason why I'm rather lenient and wait out to see how thing pay out. And, in my opinion, the season where Clara was introduced did improve, and she grew on me as a companion.