Still haven't seen it

[avevale_intelligencer]

Re this post.

Well, lots of people seem to be going "ooh" and "wow" and "gosh" and such like, so I'm guessing the episode wasn't an anticlimax.

Revised prediction: modified number 4 (with soy sauce and a pancake roll). We don't get to learn the Doctor's name, or if we do it doesn't matter. Instead, having teased us for weeks with The Name Of The Doctor, His Greatest Secret, The First Question and so on and so on, the episode suddenly goes into "what on earth are you bothering about trivia like his name for? There are giant fizzing wardrobes laying waste to the galaxy! Look!! Explosions!!! Lesbian Silurian detective lady!!! Whoosh!! BANG!! Who cares about his name? Who really wants to know the answer to 'Doctor Who?'??? This is FUN!!!!"

Or maybe there's an option 5, somewhere outside the realms of the logic I learned. We shall see. Well, I shall see. You lot already have.

Why do I keep watching it? Good question. Maybe I just can't crush out the last flickering ember of hope that one day it will turn back into the programme I loved. One day, maybe, I will be wowed in spite of myself, and not left going "hang on, that doesn't make sense..."

Hope. It's a real pain sometimes.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

If you haven't seen this article by Charlie Jane Anders on io9, you should read it. I think you will appreciate what she's saying, and likely agree with large swathes of it.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Thank you, yes. I think she's right on all counts.

[inamac.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. Dr Who used to be an action/adventure show in which the plots had a beginning, a middle and an end, the characters acted sensibly and the viewer was not left thinking 'well, what was all that about, then?'

Now it's just existential nonsense. (Though I was gratified that the Doctor was waving his sonic Deus ex Machina around in this case to absolutely no effect.) I still have no idea who or what Clara is/was - and no interest in working it out.

I'm quite looking forward to the 'making of' drama (even though it's written by Gatiss), but am dreading the mess that they will surely make of the actual 50th anniversary episode. And I thought they'd been told about dragging in 'name' actors for ratings.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

With regard to the "name" actors that have appeared in the last few eps, at least, I have no problems whatever with their performances. Diana Rigg was a more than creditable villain, and Willow-as-hidden-Emperor was a joy to watch (aside from the scripting issues in both eps, but those aren't the actors' faults). And the one in the finale's Big Reveal (not mentioning in case Zander hasn't yet seen it) has a history of excellent work, so if the name value is helpful, I doubt he'll just phone it in.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

After I'd seen it, I commented on FB to the effect of "what an extraordinarily easy way to get fans all around the world going 'ooh' and 'wow' and 'gosh' and 'you have to see this' and not telling anyone why." He certainly gave his one line all the oomph he could muster; but then, I have no problems witih the acting in nuWho at all. The acting is fine, the special effects are fine, the music is still pretty good, though they're overusing the bum-bum-bum-di-bum-bum-bum-di 7/8 bit, I think. I just wish all these resources were going into making something that more closely resembled Doctor Who as I knew it.

I was amused, again on FB, by a graphic of alleged comments from fans bemoaning the oldness and ugliness of "the new Doctor." Are people really that shallow and dim? Well, I am, of course, but I mean other people. I'm hoping he's going to be the Valeyard, but I suspect they'll just chuck another lump of continuity on the fire and shoe-horn him in between Eight and Nine. There is,of course, no way a true replacement Doctor would be played by anyone over twenty now. They've committed to this path, and they'll follow it to the end.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

(And yes, I do now have Pogo in my head saying "they is too many bums in yo' music...")

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I also hope he's he Valeyard, but if they decided that he was Eight, aged as a result of the Time War he never wanted to fight -- and that as a result, he chose to abandon being "The Doctor" for the duration of it -- I could give them the benefit of the doubt, provided it was written well. Of course, unless that writing was by Mark Gatiss or Neil Gaiman, I'd give long odds against being able to accomplish the task.

Amusingly enough, at Lunacon there was a panel on Doctor Who, and I took the opportunity to ask the panelists (all experts in their knowledge of the show) whether the increasing darkness we've been seeing in The Doctor since about the last year of Ten meant that we'd see the Valeyard, and they unanimously dismissed the idea. (As a result, I really DO want this to be the Valeyard, because "I told you so" is always satisfying, in that schadenfreudey way. osewalrus has coined the term "Cassandrafreude" for what I'd feel in the event.)

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Oh, and, er...I was right. Except about the wardrobes.