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

[Bara_no_Hime]

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

Wow! Impressive Bob!

This wouldn't have been the episode I would have suggested starting on, but you seem to have enjoyed it none the less.

On a couple points...

Clara Hate - yeah, I don't get that either. I quite like her. I see in this thread that "inconsistent writing" is one of the reasons for the dislike, but that happens to almost all companions now and again.

Regeneration Haze/Insanity - yeah, that happens in many (although no all) of the changes, and often for the specific purpose of building up the contrast with the previous Doctor. Probably the most extreme examples were the 4th to 5th, which had an entire two hour arc devoted to it, and the 6th to 7th which featured amnesia for an episode. Lately we've seen confusion, but nothing to this degree.

Lesbian Couple - The Silurians (that particular type of lizard people) were an Old Who... I hesitate to call them enemies, since they were usually presented sympathetically. Their plots usually were generally thinly veiled references to Native Americans and colonialism, and often put the Doctor into impossible situations where he tried to keep the peace between two sentient races neither of which he wanted to see get wiped out (generally, the Silurians got the short end of the stick, like the Native Americans that partly inspired them). The Silurians returned in the middle of New Who initially with a very similar plot to their original style, but with the Doctor doing a better job of it this time. Madame Vastra, the Silurian you met this episode, is introduced in a "Dirty Dozen" style team-up of former enemies that the Doctor recruits for a particularly dangerous plan. Strax, the potato-headed guy (a Sontaran medic) was also introduced in that episode and later just started showing up with her. Madame Vastra is actually from Victorian London (where she awoke from hibernation) which is why she keeps returning to that time. Her partner, Jenny, is also a native Victorian. Madame Vastra works for Scotland Yard as a consultant and it is heavily implied that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took his inspiration from studying her cases (with Jenny as the inspiration for Watson). And yes, the continued appearances of Madame Vastra and Jenny appears to be due almost entirely to their great acting and incredible chemistry.

Strax - The Sontarans were indeed an old Who enemy, but Strax personally wasn't introduced until New Who (specifically in the Dirty Dozen style episode above). I actually suspect that Strax is meant to be a joke in reference to Futurama (and specifically the news-alien). Whatever the truth, he is comedy gold.

Anyway, I hope that answered a few questions and maybe saved you some time looking stuff up. Ta!

Edit:
This mini episode actually does a fantastic job of introducing Madame Vastra.

 

[DeimosMasque]

Regeneration Haze/Insanity - yeah, that happens in many (although no all) of the changes, and often for the specific purpose of building up the contrast with the previous Doctor. Probably the most extreme examples were the 4th to 5th, which had an entire two hour arc devoted to it, and the 6th to 7th which featured amnesia for an episode. Lately we've seen confusion, but nothing to this degree.

5th to 6th as well as the 6th Doctor goes between being a cavalier to a coward and back. Goes violent to non-violent to back. Insults his previous regenerations, tries to kill his companion because she's "plotting against him." Also lets be honest, that jacket alone is proof of insanity.

OT: I do want to give Bob a lot of credit to going into this with the 12th Doctor's first episode, it's only a rough one to start with because it references a lot of things that have previously happened such as the Impossible Girl, the Clockwork Robots, the Paternoster Gang and such.

From the workprints of the next three episodes however if you keep it up you're in for much awesome set of episodes.

 

[HKFortyRevan]

I know that the last few incarnations were of the boyishly-handsome variety while the new one being (officially) introduced tonight in the person of Peter Capaldi is on the older side and that not everyone is thrilled about this.

This is a bit surprising. From my experience, the reaction to Capaldi's casting has been almost unanimously positive. I guess it's different outside the UK.

Clara was a lot more developed and interesting in this episode than she has been previously. I never disliked her as such, but until that confrontation with the 'Half-Face Man' she never really stood out for me. The main reason being that the head writer, Steven Moffat, has a habit of writing all of his women characters in exactly the same way and Clara was, before Deep Breath at least, no exception to that. She might have clicked with me a lot earlier if I was less familiar with the show. Although that wouldn't change the fact that she was more of a plot device than a character last season.

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)

Not that Let's Kill Hitler wasn't a load of rubbish, but the title for that one is kind of misleading. Hitler shows up for all of about ninety seconds then gets locked in a cupboard.

 

[Qage]

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)

Not that Let's Kill Hitler wasn't a load of rubbish, but the title for that one is kind of misleading. Hitler shows up for all of about ninety seconds then gets locked in a cupboard.

Huh, seriously? So then it literally only served as an excuse to name an episode of Doctor Who [I/]Let's Kill Hitler[/I]?

 

[HKFortyRevan]

Huh, seriously? So then it literally only served as an excuse to name an episode of Doctor Who [I/]Let's Kill Hitler[/I]?

Pretty much, yeah. I guess the title also alludes to the 'Teselecta' (a shape-shifting robot used to punish historic war criminals), which is an important element of the story, but both the setting and the Hitler cameo are still massively superficial.

 

[Alex Laird]

Huh, seriously? So then it literally only served as an excuse to name an episode of Doctor Who [I/]Let's Kill Hitler[/I]?

Bingo

 

[Adam Locking]

Question: I get that this is still meta-on-meta talking to Clara but really talking to the audience stuff, but do they really feel that's necessary? I get that people historically get really attached to their first/preferred/favorite Doctors, but are they really expecting that there are enough fans devoted enough to be included in this lecture to actually need it? Is there really a reasonable worry that Matt Smith's departure is going to take that much of the audience away with him?

A lot of people consider it a large risk for an older actor to play The Doctor, as the actors have been getting younger nearly ever time, to the point this regeneration marks the switch-over of the youngest ever Doctor and the oldest (tied with the first Doctor, William Hartnell). Like many "risky" ventures, like Guardians of the Galaxy or Bravely Default, I suspect the fear is completely unfounded.

 

[DeimosMasque]

Huh, seriously? So then it literally only served as an excuse to name an episode of Doctor Who [I/]Let's Kill Hitler[/I]?

Bingo

Yup, it was a title designed to answer that question "If you have a time machine and I have a gun, well Let's Kill Hitler."

The episode while not one of the best is important for a story arc of a specific character so I forgive the misleading title for that.

 

[Nurb]

Who are the angry folks that don't like the shift from "boyishly handsome" to the older dude?

 

[Matthewmagic]

The thing is that the show saw a significant drop in quality after Russel T. Davis left. While I like Moffat, he writes some really good characters, he seems unable to write interesting things for them to do.

He is really good with suspense, I remember getting all excited about the river song arc which I wont spoil here. Yet, once we found out the answer to the mystery of River, everything kinda fell apart didn't it. We got less and less river stories. Amy and Rory got less interesting things to do. Even Matt Smith didn't always feel entirely nessecary. Alot of the time it felt like they called superman to pick a cat out of a tree, ala let's kill hitler.

I'm still going to watch but Doctor Who is now a show I view just to see some of the fun character interactions as apposed to the awesome time and space adventures that got me into the show in the beginning.

 

[Matthewmagic]

Also I think I see where they are going with this story arc and I'm not a fan.

Religion v. Science as an analogy for good v. evil? I'm not a religious person, at all. I don't demonize religion though as Moffat does sometimes. I know religion has done some aweful things, and it has also done some wonderful things. Yet making science out as the force for unequivocal good? Hey science, a prayer did not destroy hiroshima. Js.

Now if the writing gets clever and shows them both for what they are. Religion as a force for compelling people to do good, but also a tool for compelling people to do horrible things. Science, a source of knowledge that in the right hands could save the world, and in the wrong hands could destroy it. I will be hopping back on board the way I did in the good old river song days.

 

[mrverbal]

Sure enough, moments later he turns up "disguised" as one of the automatons that's been there the whole time (Good! I like it when time-travel actually gets used to do things other than set up what era a story is taking place), thus revealing that briefly stranding Clara served mainly to set up the trick to outwitting these automatons: If you don't breath, they think you're a robot, too, and stop advancing.

you've...grossly misunderstood what happened there. The doctor pulled the face off (and presumably killed) one of the alcove automata as Clara is trying to get out of the room.

 

[Qage]

Huh, seriously? So then it literally only served as an excuse to name an episode of Doctor Who [I/]Let's Kill Hitler[/I]?

Pretty much, yeah. I guess the title also alludes to the 'Teselecta' (a shape-shifting robot used to punish historic war criminals), which is an important element of the story, but both the setting and the Hitler cameo are still massively superficial.

I was never a huge fan of Moffat's writing and that doesn't exactly give me hope.

 

[small]

The ep for me was all over the place and a mess, but they usually are the first episode of a new doctor, but yeah only saved by everyones favourite trio of victorians for me

 

[shadowmagus]

This was a great read Bob. As someone who was much in the same boat as you (knew of The Doctor but never committed to watching), I had much the same thoughts as you. I don't understand the Clara hate, as I feel Capaldi and her had a really good dynamic despite her being essentially a stand-in for the horde of angry Who fans who lost their young Doctor, which I think is more a disservice to the actress then anything. I was really confused by L.W. and her lover but damn that girl was smoking hot so...whatever.

Regardless, I really liked the first episode and feel good about the series. As I stated in another post though, I like Peter Capaldi very much as an actor so I feel like he'll be able to pull a lot even out of bad writing.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

5th to 6th as well as the 6th Doctor goes between being a cavalier to a coward and back. Goes violent to non-violent to back. Insults his previous regenerations, tries to kill his companion because she's "plotting against him." Also lets be honest, that jacket alone is proof of insanity.

I didn't mention that one because "The Twin Dilemma" is generally considered one of the worst written episodes of Doctor Who ever, and the inconsistencies in his character seem less like regeneration sickness and more like terrible writing. A fact not helped by him doing all of the things you described in later episodes (to one degree or other).

When I was younger, I used to think Colin Baker was an awful actor. Then I listened to some of his Big Finish Doctor Who episodes and realized he's actually quite good - he was just given awful scripts.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Tip: next time, please include your opinion in the first bit.
I wanted to know how you liked it, to see if I should try getting into the whole thing too.
Instead you spoil every detail first...

About the first page; exactly my story (and knowledge of the show)

 

[Wolf In A Bear Suit]

Well that's all pretty spot on I think.
Just on the companion thing, I think my personal list goes
1. Donna
2. Rose
3. Clara
4. Amy
5. Everything else
6. Martha

As someone who wasn't a fan of Matt Smith or his episodes, I'm really optimistic about Capaldi. I think he's an excellent actor who's great for the role. I'm just hope it's taken in a better direction this series as I hated last season. The only character who really grates on my nerves is River Song. I pray they don't bring her back too. I don't mind the Lesards or Strax in moderation.

 

[HKFortyRevan]

Huh, seriously? So then it literally only served as an excuse to name an episode of Doctor Who [I/]Let's Kill Hitler[/I]?

Pretty much, yeah. I guess the title also alludes to the 'Teselecta' (a shape-shifting robot used to punish historic war criminals), which is an important element of the story, but both the setting and the Hitler cameo are still massively superficial.

I was never a huge fan of Moffat's writing and that doesn't exactly give me hope.

Yeah, it's not very good. Let's Kill Hitler pretty much marked the start of the decline in Moffat's writing for the show. So if you weren't fond of the first half of Smith's tenure, you probably made the right choice skipping the second half.

 

[Shjade]

Sure enough, moments later he turns up "disguised" as one of the automatons that's been there the whole time (Good! I like it when time-travel actually gets used to do things other than set up what era a story is taking place), thus revealing that briefly stranding Clara served mainly to set up the trick to outwitting these automatons: If you don't breath, they think you're a robot, too, and stop advancing.

you've...grossly misunderstood what happened there. The doctor pulled the face off (and presumably killed) one of the alcove automata as Clara is trying to get out of the room.

While that might be true (hard to say?), I like Bob's interpretation better. Mostly because it doesn't involve the Doctor killing someone right before having a big struggle over whether or not he's willing to kill someone.

Regarding Who companions: I've always thought Clara was alright if a little overly hyped up by the writing (the whole "Impossible Girl," super-hacker thing), certainly far more palatable than either Rose or Donna much of the time.

Seriously, I'm sure saying this will turn the thread into a hot mess, but I don't understand why I keep seeing people name Donna as "the best companion." She's a whiny (extremely so in many cases) damsel in distress with a couple of spotlight moments. Why do people make a big deal about this? I'm not really the type to pick an outright favorite in this category, but if I had to, it'd be Martha: good mix of agency, development, competence and range. Rose and Donna were both just too...grating for me. Amy and Clara both have high and low points - which, I gather from opinions here, is more a quality of Moffat's writing inconsistency than anything.