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Medecin qui
Sep. 5th, 2011 01:36 amThere's been lots of froth about doctor who, especially since RTD went away. I'm going to say something that might seem heretical here but...
I find it quite dull.
I also find it intensely annoying, partly because there's no science in it, but more because there's no consistancy (which is much worse). The end of the last season, for example: the silurians are all ninja-like, or at least competent soldiers... but somehow not a single one of them got a single shot off when attacked by headless monks. The monks themselves live in the future and have the power to shoot lightning... which explains why they don't need guns! But they only bother shooting lightning when it's important to the plot. These things annoy me. These thing have always annoyed me. They annoy me in cartoons for kids, and they annoy me here. Still, this is a digression from the main thing:
I find it quite dull.
This wasn't (and indeed isn't) always so. Some of the episodes have grabbed me. During the RTD (cue sound of fanboys spitting) days, there were things I still found entertaining. With the new team and the new doctor and Amy, I was still interested. Interested enough that I watched for a perhaps a whole series after I stopped being interested, just on the ghost of that interest. That's not bad, I think.
The question for me is "What did I like about it?". Various things turn up, but one consistant answer is "characters I find sympathetic". As in, understandable. People who are enough like me that I wouldn't just ignore them in real life. The various new series have had a few of these. I liked the Christopher Ecclestone version of the Doctor. I liked Rose. I liked Captain Jack, and no, I didn't want to shag him. I might have liked Martha and Donna, but I'd stopped watching by then. With the new team, I liked the humanoid incarnation of the Tardis. She was fun. I sort of like River, but mostly when she's gunslinging. Her backwards-life plot doesn't make any sense, and I find her less sympathetic the more lovey she gets over the doctor.
Rory doesn't interest me. Somehow he's lived an incredible length of time and seen some incredible things... and he's still "just some bloke". The doctor doesn't interest me - he's a grade A smartarse and hypocrite, but he keeps making the same stupid mistakes and saying the same stupid things, and of everyone in the universe he ought to know better. Seriously, try to count how many times he's made a potentially impossible promise or said "I'm sorry". Not that I'm opposed to apologising, but if you're doing it that much it's either because you take personal responsibility for things you shouldn't, or because you're doing something wrong, and it's the latter with him (see impossible promises). He needs a swift kick in the balls and to start using the technology that's available to him to solve problems instead of just faffing about and hoping for the inexorable hand of plot to save him.
I liked Amy too, at first. I think the problem is those last two words, and the implication they have for the series. "At first". At first, she seemed to be an exciting girl who was free and having fun, adventuring around time and space and doing stuff. Now... now she's not, and I'm bored of her. Maybe she never was? But she seemed it. Either way, now she's a married woman with a (lost) baby and a (found) man and nothing else going on. Fine, but no longer interesting.
I think... I think I am phrasing this badly. Basically, I saw a programme about excitement and adventure and liked it. Then it became a programme about two straight men and one straight woman in a love triangle, with "adventure" and "excitement" as the context. Then it became a show about a woman getting pregnant, with "excitement" and "adventure" being somewhere off in the distance.
Ah fuck it. These put it better than I'll manage:
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/04/the-girl-who-waited-why-i-hate-amy-pond/
http://globalcomment.com/2011/how-doctor-who-became-nurse-rory/
Someone is bound to think that if I'm bored, I should just stop watching and not whinge so much. If you follow the same rationale, you'll not put the effort into typing that. I'm ranting because I'm slightly miffed, not because I think it will help with anything.
I find it quite dull.
I also find it intensely annoying, partly because there's no science in it, but more because there's no consistancy (which is much worse). The end of the last season, for example: the silurians are all ninja-like, or at least competent soldiers... but somehow not a single one of them got a single shot off when attacked by headless monks. The monks themselves live in the future and have the power to shoot lightning... which explains why they don't need guns! But they only bother shooting lightning when it's important to the plot. These things annoy me. These thing have always annoyed me. They annoy me in cartoons for kids, and they annoy me here. Still, this is a digression from the main thing:
I find it quite dull.
This wasn't (and indeed isn't) always so. Some of the episodes have grabbed me. During the RTD (cue sound of fanboys spitting) days, there were things I still found entertaining. With the new team and the new doctor and Amy, I was still interested. Interested enough that I watched for a perhaps a whole series after I stopped being interested, just on the ghost of that interest. That's not bad, I think.
The question for me is "What did I like about it?". Various things turn up, but one consistant answer is "characters I find sympathetic". As in, understandable. People who are enough like me that I wouldn't just ignore them in real life. The various new series have had a few of these. I liked the Christopher Ecclestone version of the Doctor. I liked Rose. I liked Captain Jack, and no, I didn't want to shag him. I might have liked Martha and Donna, but I'd stopped watching by then. With the new team, I liked the humanoid incarnation of the Tardis. She was fun. I sort of like River, but mostly when she's gunslinging. Her backwards-life plot doesn't make any sense, and I find her less sympathetic the more lovey she gets over the doctor.
Rory doesn't interest me. Somehow he's lived an incredible length of time and seen some incredible things... and he's still "just some bloke". The doctor doesn't interest me - he's a grade A smartarse and hypocrite, but he keeps making the same stupid mistakes and saying the same stupid things, and of everyone in the universe he ought to know better. Seriously, try to count how many times he's made a potentially impossible promise or said "I'm sorry". Not that I'm opposed to apologising, but if you're doing it that much it's either because you take personal responsibility for things you shouldn't, or because you're doing something wrong, and it's the latter with him (see impossible promises). He needs a swift kick in the balls and to start using the technology that's available to him to solve problems instead of just faffing about and hoping for the inexorable hand of plot to save him.
I liked Amy too, at first. I think the problem is those last two words, and the implication they have for the series. "At first". At first, she seemed to be an exciting girl who was free and having fun, adventuring around time and space and doing stuff. Now... now she's not, and I'm bored of her. Maybe she never was? But she seemed it. Either way, now she's a married woman with a (lost) baby and a (found) man and nothing else going on. Fine, but no longer interesting.
I think... I think I am phrasing this badly. Basically, I saw a programme about excitement and adventure and liked it. Then it became a programme about two straight men and one straight woman in a love triangle, with "adventure" and "excitement" as the context. Then it became a show about a woman getting pregnant, with "excitement" and "adventure" being somewhere off in the distance.
Ah fuck it. These put it better than I'll manage:
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/04/the-girl-who-waited-why-i-hate-amy-pond/
http://globalcomment.com/2011/how-doctor-who-became-nurse-rory/
Someone is bound to think that if I'm bored, I should just stop watching and not whinge so much. If you follow the same rationale, you'll not put the effort into typing that. I'm ranting because I'm slightly miffed, not because I think it will help with anything.
