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A rather long, largely incoherent unedited ramble on Doctor Who
In deference to the constant squeeing on flist, I've started watching Doctor Who and Supernatural. Actually this is more out of curiousity than anything else. I respect your opinions and am curious to see what all the squeeing is about.
I'm finding Supernatural more entertaining but that's only because I have a preference for fantasy horror over science-fiction horror. And well, Jensen Ackles is more entertaining to me than David Tennant. Have to admit, I liked Christopher Eccleston better in the role - he was goofy looking, yet had a resonance and his humor was more understated. Tennant is prettier and more romantic but doesn't quite move me as much as Eccleston did, although that could change, found him strangely appealing in Smith & Jones.
At any rate - saw the first two episodes of S3 Doctor Who tonight.
Missed most of Season2, so have no idea what happened to Rose, outside of what the Doctor tells us in the opening two episodes - which get him past Rose and into the next companion. (And well what the flist told me - ie. she was left on a parallel world and lost to him, leaving the door open for her to return.) Rose - left because the actress much like Christopher Ecclesten before her, wanted out of the role. What is it about Doctor Who - it can't seem to hold actors for very long? Course it is set up in much the same way as Law & Order and ER in the US in that the actors are more less replacable. The series doesn't revolve around the characters so much as around their adventures. It is perhaps the least character centric science fiction series I've watched. Which may explain why I can't really get into it. Although, I guess you can argue that the Doctor evolves since he literally changes personalities and shapes as time wears on. But - it still feels more like a science fiction anthology series - to me. Lots of interlinking short stories.
And the set up of Doctor Who is not unlike Quantum Leap, or Highway to Heaven or Touched by an Angel or even Murder She Wrote - where we basically have two people traveling about and helping people. The difference about The Doctor is he can go anywhere/anywhen and chooses to do it not to help people but just for the fun of it. It's in short a bit more light-hearted in nature.
This may explain why actors don't stick with it for long. Anthology series that aren't *character centric* tend to be boring to actors. Or at least that's what some actors have told me. Kyra Sedwick recently stated in an interview that she turned down a starring role in a Law & Order because it wasn't character centric - it was more interested in the plot than the character.
Granted Doctor Who is arguably more character centric than L&O, but it still is more interested in the short story and how the doctor solves it. Not really in why or who the doctor is - although we do get smidgens of that. My favorite episode of the series was in the first season when Christopher Ecclesten revealed to Rose what happened to his people and who he was and his own guilt in the destruction of a race. I think it was the one about the end of Earth and with the oldest earthling, who was little more than stretched skin.
The two episodes I saw today, while a whole lot better than the film I'd watched, did not live up to the promise of that episode. Although I did enjoy bits of them. The second, Smith and Jones was my favorite. I like Martha Jones - she's tougher and smarter - an accomplished woman who doesn't need to escape her life. I don't understand the backlash I've seen on my flist against her - apparently some people in the DW fandom didn't like her?
And preferred the blond and somewhat ditzy Rose, who got my on nerves the second season, which was one of the many reasons I gave up on it. Jones seems a little brighter.
I have mixed feelings about Donna, who is unlike any of the Who companions. Not *magazine* pretty. A little on the whiny side, but not overly so. And she did call him on his crap. But unlike Martha, she has relatively little chemistry with Tennant who looks tiny next to her. I liked her because I identified with her more so than Doctor Jones.
That said, Smith & Jones was the better episode. Less cheesy. And with a little more character development regarding the Doctor. Also for the first time, I found Tennant attractive in the role as opposed to just off-beat.
Runaway has the silly robot santas and Christmas Tree, with a spider woman. Also the Bride being jilted by her groom who works for the evil spider woman creature. What is it with sci-fi and evil spiderwomen? Voyager did the same thing. And I've seen it elsewhere. I know, because I don't like spiders and cringe whenever it pops up. Also why are they always women?
For some reason - we associate spiders with women. Maybe because the female black widow spider is the most famous? Anyhow, didn't mind the silly robot santas - which I found mildly amusing in the Christmas Invasion episode in which Tennant was introduced. That episode was actually a tad more amusing, even though I missed Eccleston during it. The scene with the flying phone booth chasing the taxi driven by the robot santa was amusing.
The show really does feel comical at times - which may be why people love it. Sci-Fi more often than not tends to be on the grim side.
And Runaway did end on a bittersweet note. The Doctor asking Donna to join, and we the audience thinking she would - because what else does she have? Heck he even more or less states that. But she tells him that she can't live his life. Even though she knows he needs someone, if only to stop him from going to far - she can't be that person. It scares her too much. She wants security, stability - all the things Rose and Martha don't appear to want. More to the point - the Doctor scares her a little. His remorseless killing of the arachnid queen's offspring...worried her. (This didn't work for me. Why? The offspring were going to devour the earth? The empress had no qualms about it. And well, aranchids...so admittedly biased. I thought the topic was better addressed in Season 1 - although Tennant's humor makes you think he's more harmless than he is, Eccleston made you think bad boy from the start, Tennant looks too much like a gawky scholar to worry over - which may well be his strength. In that way at least he gives the Doctor a depth that Eccleston couldn't. Also, Doctor Who seems to revisit old ground without moving forward sometimes - I've watched several episodes in S2 and most of S1 and the fact that the Doctor was willing to kill, even exterminate a race, or hurt someone else without always a good reason outside of adventure or kicks is brought up time and again, then dismissed. He's an odd blend of hero/anti-hero. Not jumping around to save the world so much as to see it and experience it. He does care but at the same time doesn't. And the show flips back and forth between the two. I don't believe it will ever resolve it any more than I believed Angel the Series would ever resolve the Angel/Angelus quandry. Nor, do I think it is realistic to resolve that. Because good and evil like it or not reside in all of us, we can do amazingly wonderful things one day and amazingly horrible things the next. I think the fact that the Doctor jumps back and forth between those moral extreems without much commentary or resolution is a strength. I just wish it was clearer - that the spider empress was a little less the mustach twirling villainess. Angel dealt with the quandry better as did Buffy, the villains in those shows seemed to be a little less one-dimensional somehow, same with the Star Trek and Farscape series - Scorpius has got to be the most multi-faceted/multi-dimenisonal villain I've seen. Doctor Who doesn't quite succeed there. I have yet to see a villian on the show, granted I haven't seen all of it so may have missed it, that had enough complexity for me to feel the Doctor was wrong to vanquish it. That said, there are a couple of places, particularly in the first season, where the Doctor's actions did cause others to be hurt - innocents - while he was in the midst of either destroying the villain or due to his actions, the villains showed up when they might not have if he hadn't shown up.
Smith and Jones I felt was a little more multi-faceted. The intergalatic police force fascinated me. It thinks little of endangering the entire population of a planet or over a 1000 people in a hospital to extract one criminal who killed a princess on another planet. They are almost bureaucratical in their pursuit. Cataloguing people. Killing anyone who resists. And hypocritical in regards to how they enforce the law - it's okay for them to kill but no one else. At the end of the episode, it is unclear who is worse the plasma sucking old woman or the police force pursuing her. Have they in fact become as bad as the criminals they pursue?
Martha's family is almost cliche. Rose's family life was a little more complex and far more interesting. But it is early in the arc, so we'll see. The actress playing Martha does not have the same resonance and charisma as Billie Piper did. She's pretty and I like the fact that she's not white. But, she's also not that interesting. Too together. Too bright. That said, I sort of like her. And I like her chemistry with the Doctor. Even if I think she was of the companions a bit too accepting of him, a bit too quickly - although granted that made sense - given her background and the circumstances.
And the hospital on the moon bit was sort of fun. They could have done more, I guess, but it is only an hour show.
Overall? Enjoyed it more than I thought. So will probably watch next week's.
I'm finding Supernatural more entertaining but that's only because I have a preference for fantasy horror over science-fiction horror. And well, Jensen Ackles is more entertaining to me than David Tennant. Have to admit, I liked Christopher Eccleston better in the role - he was goofy looking, yet had a resonance and his humor was more understated. Tennant is prettier and more romantic but doesn't quite move me as much as Eccleston did, although that could change, found him strangely appealing in Smith & Jones.
At any rate - saw the first two episodes of S3 Doctor Who tonight.
Missed most of Season2, so have no idea what happened to Rose, outside of what the Doctor tells us in the opening two episodes - which get him past Rose and into the next companion. (And well what the flist told me - ie. she was left on a parallel world and lost to him, leaving the door open for her to return.) Rose - left because the actress much like Christopher Ecclesten before her, wanted out of the role. What is it about Doctor Who - it can't seem to hold actors for very long? Course it is set up in much the same way as Law & Order and ER in the US in that the actors are more less replacable. The series doesn't revolve around the characters so much as around their adventures. It is perhaps the least character centric science fiction series I've watched. Which may explain why I can't really get into it. Although, I guess you can argue that the Doctor evolves since he literally changes personalities and shapes as time wears on. But - it still feels more like a science fiction anthology series - to me. Lots of interlinking short stories.
And the set up of Doctor Who is not unlike Quantum Leap, or Highway to Heaven or Touched by an Angel or even Murder She Wrote - where we basically have two people traveling about and helping people. The difference about The Doctor is he can go anywhere/anywhen and chooses to do it not to help people but just for the fun of it. It's in short a bit more light-hearted in nature.
This may explain why actors don't stick with it for long. Anthology series that aren't *character centric* tend to be boring to actors. Or at least that's what some actors have told me. Kyra Sedwick recently stated in an interview that she turned down a starring role in a Law & Order because it wasn't character centric - it was more interested in the plot than the character.
Granted Doctor Who is arguably more character centric than L&O, but it still is more interested in the short story and how the doctor solves it. Not really in why or who the doctor is - although we do get smidgens of that. My favorite episode of the series was in the first season when Christopher Ecclesten revealed to Rose what happened to his people and who he was and his own guilt in the destruction of a race. I think it was the one about the end of Earth and with the oldest earthling, who was little more than stretched skin.
The two episodes I saw today, while a whole lot better than the film I'd watched, did not live up to the promise of that episode. Although I did enjoy bits of them. The second, Smith and Jones was my favorite. I like Martha Jones - she's tougher and smarter - an accomplished woman who doesn't need to escape her life. I don't understand the backlash I've seen on my flist against her - apparently some people in the DW fandom didn't like her?
And preferred the blond and somewhat ditzy Rose, who got my on nerves the second season, which was one of the many reasons I gave up on it. Jones seems a little brighter.
I have mixed feelings about Donna, who is unlike any of the Who companions. Not *magazine* pretty. A little on the whiny side, but not overly so. And she did call him on his crap. But unlike Martha, she has relatively little chemistry with Tennant who looks tiny next to her. I liked her because I identified with her more so than Doctor Jones.
That said, Smith & Jones was the better episode. Less cheesy. And with a little more character development regarding the Doctor. Also for the first time, I found Tennant attractive in the role as opposed to just off-beat.
Runaway has the silly robot santas and Christmas Tree, with a spider woman. Also the Bride being jilted by her groom who works for the evil spider woman creature. What is it with sci-fi and evil spiderwomen? Voyager did the same thing. And I've seen it elsewhere. I know, because I don't like spiders and cringe whenever it pops up. Also why are they always women?
For some reason - we associate spiders with women. Maybe because the female black widow spider is the most famous? Anyhow, didn't mind the silly robot santas - which I found mildly amusing in the Christmas Invasion episode in which Tennant was introduced. That episode was actually a tad more amusing, even though I missed Eccleston during it. The scene with the flying phone booth chasing the taxi driven by the robot santa was amusing.
The show really does feel comical at times - which may be why people love it. Sci-Fi more often than not tends to be on the grim side.
And Runaway did end on a bittersweet note. The Doctor asking Donna to join, and we the audience thinking she would - because what else does she have? Heck he even more or less states that. But she tells him that she can't live his life. Even though she knows he needs someone, if only to stop him from going to far - she can't be that person. It scares her too much. She wants security, stability - all the things Rose and Martha don't appear to want. More to the point - the Doctor scares her a little. His remorseless killing of the arachnid queen's offspring...worried her. (This didn't work for me. Why? The offspring were going to devour the earth? The empress had no qualms about it. And well, aranchids...so admittedly biased. I thought the topic was better addressed in Season 1 - although Tennant's humor makes you think he's more harmless than he is, Eccleston made you think bad boy from the start, Tennant looks too much like a gawky scholar to worry over - which may well be his strength. In that way at least he gives the Doctor a depth that Eccleston couldn't. Also, Doctor Who seems to revisit old ground without moving forward sometimes - I've watched several episodes in S2 and most of S1 and the fact that the Doctor was willing to kill, even exterminate a race, or hurt someone else without always a good reason outside of adventure or kicks is brought up time and again, then dismissed. He's an odd blend of hero/anti-hero. Not jumping around to save the world so much as to see it and experience it. He does care but at the same time doesn't. And the show flips back and forth between the two. I don't believe it will ever resolve it any more than I believed Angel the Series would ever resolve the Angel/Angelus quandry. Nor, do I think it is realistic to resolve that. Because good and evil like it or not reside in all of us, we can do amazingly wonderful things one day and amazingly horrible things the next. I think the fact that the Doctor jumps back and forth between those moral extreems without much commentary or resolution is a strength. I just wish it was clearer - that the spider empress was a little less the mustach twirling villainess. Angel dealt with the quandry better as did Buffy, the villains in those shows seemed to be a little less one-dimensional somehow, same with the Star Trek and Farscape series - Scorpius has got to be the most multi-faceted/multi-dimenisonal villain I've seen. Doctor Who doesn't quite succeed there. I have yet to see a villian on the show, granted I haven't seen all of it so may have missed it, that had enough complexity for me to feel the Doctor was wrong to vanquish it. That said, there are a couple of places, particularly in the first season, where the Doctor's actions did cause others to be hurt - innocents - while he was in the midst of either destroying the villain or due to his actions, the villains showed up when they might not have if he hadn't shown up.
Smith and Jones I felt was a little more multi-faceted. The intergalatic police force fascinated me. It thinks little of endangering the entire population of a planet or over a 1000 people in a hospital to extract one criminal who killed a princess on another planet. They are almost bureaucratical in their pursuit. Cataloguing people. Killing anyone who resists. And hypocritical in regards to how they enforce the law - it's okay for them to kill but no one else. At the end of the episode, it is unclear who is worse the plasma sucking old woman or the police force pursuing her. Have they in fact become as bad as the criminals they pursue?
Martha's family is almost cliche. Rose's family life was a little more complex and far more interesting. But it is early in the arc, so we'll see. The actress playing Martha does not have the same resonance and charisma as Billie Piper did. She's pretty and I like the fact that she's not white. But, she's also not that interesting. Too together. Too bright. That said, I sort of like her. And I like her chemistry with the Doctor. Even if I think she was of the companions a bit too accepting of him, a bit too quickly - although granted that made sense - given her background and the circumstances.
And the hospital on the moon bit was sort of fun. They could have done more, I guess, but it is only an hour show.
Overall? Enjoyed it more than I thought. So will probably watch next week's.
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I never thought of the series as being an anthology, though, or not character-centered. The Doctor is the central character, but of course he changes, as do his companions. It's really the relationships they have that draw me in. I was a big Rose fan, and a Rose & Doctor fan, and their friendship/relationship/romance really drew me in. They never really defined to each other what they were, but now, of course, she's gone, and the Doctor's lost yet another love in a long line. He's more lonely than ever this season and less inclined to try to get close to someone else.
As for Donna, I think what frightened her was not that the Doctor *would* do what he did; it's that he *could*. He had the know-how, he had the power, he had the will, and he committed genocide right in front of her. While he may not have had a choice in the matter, for him to have that ability and to carry it out is frightening. Especially as he's standing there "like a stranger" while the Empress screamed in anguish over her dying children. I'm not sure I'd be too comfortable around him after that.
As for Martha, it took me a while to really connect with her--the whole season, in fact. Part of it is because Freema Agyeman, while not a bad actress, wasn't as dynamic as Billie Piper; part of it was because I could identify more with Rose and her desire to have more in her life, while Martha seems to have figured it out; and partly because of some choices the writers made that, in retrospect, make sense, but still put me off at the time.
At the end of the season, you might want to take a look back at "The Runaway Bride"--it's almost the season in miniature.
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Agree with your take on Billie Piper vs. Freema - Billie just seems to be a better actress. As does Catherine Tate who plays Donna. Freema is prettier, but I felt there was something lacking, I'm not sure what.
She does however has the best chemistry with Tennant of the three. Piper had better chemistry with Ecclesten.
I don't find the characters evolving that much to be honest. They seem pretty much the same. So, I have troubles getting attached to the show. Part of my problem may well be that I prefer ensemble dramas and comedies.
I need more than one character to latch on to. I'm having the same problems with Supernatural.
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and in fact the finale shows that a seasonal arc was actually in the making (it just wasn't as obvious as the Bad Wolf arc in Eccleston's series) which ties in the weak early episode 'Gridlock'.
I think I remain primarily a fan of Eccleston's Doctor, but I enjoy Tennant's energy (I'm told that Tennant has employed some quirks which had been hallmarks of earlier doctors, but I wouldn't know about that).
I'll be rewatching the show on Sci-fi... and wishing I got BBC America because they'll be running Torchwood soon (which I think you may enjoy more, it is a lot more 'noir').
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Torchwood is getting the weirdest responses from my flist, which is of course making me incredibly curious about it. They seem to hate it but are watching it and loving it anyway...like it's some sort of quilty pleasure that they feel they have to constantly apologize for? LOL! I keep seeing posts stating: "Well, Torchwood is bad, but..." Or "Saw a review blasting Torchwood and they aren't wrong, but...pets poor little Torchwood." Or - "This just is offensive, but here is my review and expect to see my next one next week."
Not that I'm any better, mind you. But it is interesting.
I think I might like it better because I like the set up better. Group of people from one central institute employeed to investigate strange goings on vs. guy and gal traveling to and from places solving a new mystery with new cast every week. My main problem with Doctor Who is I just don't like the format. Had the same problems with Murder She Wrote, the first season of Supernatural, Touched by an Angel, Quantum Leap, the list goes on. I thought Dead Like Me would be like that - but it wasn't and I was thrilled. Nor was Wonderfalls - which I also thought would go that route.
I'm a fan of the ensemble drama - not the drama that was first made popular by The Fugitive and numerous Western tv series, where the gunfighter goes to a new town each week. It's an episodic format that does really well on television - Bionic Woman, Six Million Dollar Man, Fantasy Island, Love Boat, Have Gun Will Travel, etc - all series that only had one, two or three main players - rest guest stars. Cheaper to make, produce, and great in syndication. The Faith Spin-Off from Buffy was supposed to be in that vein, lone woman traveling across country with her Watcher and a vampire ghost in tow.
It's a format I really hate. Thankfully there aren't that many tv series that do that any more - I think the market got really saturated with them at one point and shifted in a different direction? Doctor Who is one of the few I've seen pop up in that format in quite a while - which may explain why people love it.
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This third series you just started had seemed to have no arc for the longest time, but you'll be amazed (if you stick with it) how they bring things together with a bunch of kick ass episodes at the end that tie all kinds of threads together into something that is really worth your time.
So I do think that RTD is transcending that episodic format you hate....
slowly but surely.
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Doing the same thing with Supernatural - which is actually better than I thought it was. Hey, bored, and there's nothing else on, might as well.
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He does care but at the same time doesn't.
Someone recently compared him to an intergalactic naturalist, he has his favourite species but when push comes to shove they’re not people and he always has the big overall biodiversity picture in mind. Another interpretation which is personally less disturbing (given the romantic overtones) but politically more so would be to liken the Time Lords to the British in the days of Empire with the Doctor as a freelance explorer who’d gone a little native. The rhino police force in Smith and Jones are bureaucratic but do seem to have rules, the Doctor is more flexible but arbitrary and neither of them are accountable to or part of all the peoples they deal with or affect.
As a kids show the function of the monsters in Who was to get the audience cowering behind the sofa rather than angsting over their motivations, it’s more like early Buffy in that respect. They do let the monsters score the occasional philosophical point but they function more as metaphors than characters for the most part. I did like that the way they defeated the empress was essentially to flush her down the plughole.
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Hugh Laurie is making $250,000 an episode, possibly more, which is unheard of in England. I'd be really surprised if Tennant is getting that much. And unlike Tennant Eccleston is more well known in the US and has gotten cast in US shows - Heroes is just one example. So, I can see why he wanted out.
I agree with your take on the Doctor - which is what I found interesting about the character and series. Also on the monsters ...which, sigh, are campy, but are admittedly meant to be. Their existence was the reason I couldn't watch the show as a kid, and find it sort of silly now. That's a personal preference though.
But, will agree that how they killed the empress's kids was fun.
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Episode 3 is great, I think you will enjoy it, but the best is "Blink" which will come later in the season. You must not miss that one!
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We'll see how long I stick with it this round. ;-)
I think I might make it through the season - since I have a DVR to tape it now and can watch whenever, which helps a lot. Also, I'm finding I'm liking the Martha/Doctor dynamic a little bit better than the Rose/Doctor dyanmic, even with my current reservations. Rose and her family really got on my nerves the second season.