Doctor Who?
You see the series 5 premier yesterday? It was pretty amazing, Matt Smith especially was awesome, and pretty cute to boot. He basically captured the quirky personality of Tennent, and 11 is obviously more reckless than 10.
I like how the character evolves between regenerations. Nine was too serious and became silly, 10 became arrogant and had to become younger and more innocent.
The actress playing the companion Amy Pond is just over mediocre as far as acting ability goes, but she was pretty gorgeous in a normal sort of way.
Besides the actors, the new producer Stephen Moffat is amazing. His film direction is pretty great, and the CGI has improved just enough to keep that must have Dr Who cheesiness.
I like the new Tardis too, but me thinks there is a bit too much modern art glued to the walls; it's a bit cluttered. Hopefully we can see some of the other floors more often too, we only ever saw the closet in series 3 and then only the control room from then on.
I like how the character evolves between regenerations. Nine was too serious and became silly, 10 became arrogant and had to become younger and more innocent.
The actress playing the companion Amy Pond is just over mediocre as far as acting ability goes, but she was pretty gorgeous in a normal sort of way.
Besides the actors, the new producer Stephen Moffat is amazing. His film direction is pretty great, and the CGI has improved just enough to keep that must have Dr Who cheesiness.
I like the new Tardis too, but me thinks there is a bit too much modern art glued to the walls; it's a bit cluttered. Hopefully we can see some of the other floors more often too, we only ever saw the closet in series 3 and then only the control room from then on.
Comments
I really enjoyed Eleventh Hour. I was hoping Matt Smith would be good, and so far he is. He's enjoyable to watch, and you're right, he's different than the Tenth Doctor but has some similarities as well. But I think that, as many people have been saying, there's something of the Second Doctor there as well, which makes sense, since he loved the serial 'Tomb of the Cybermen.'
As for Karen Gillan, well, I don't know, I feel like I'm not good at judging acting ability unless it's really bad. I'm just not terribly picky. Plus it always seems that for every actor, actress, plot, enemy, character, story device, TARDIS, whatever, there are people who say that it's awesome and people who say it's terrible. I don't even know how to judge these things anymore on any sort of objective basis. But I like her.
I also do like the new TARDIS quite a bit. I liked the old one too... but this one seems even weirder and less conventional. I too hope to see more of the TARDIS. The earliest Doctor Who episodes actually showed the Doctor and his companions chilling in the TARDIS occasionally, and we saw bedrooms, food and water machines, and an instrument room. I'd like to see them explore the TARDIS a bit more, since, you know, they DO have to sleep and eat and relax, right?
Bottom line: I do like the new series, even if there are times when it's irritated me, particularly in the latest episode, "Victory of the Daleks." But you gotta figure that when a show has this large of a budget on public television, there will always be creative compromises with the business team.
You asshole.
This thread doesn't exist to me.
I am really not a fan of the overarching "crack in time" theme they're playing this season. It makes me long for the relatively nuanced subtlety of Bad Wolf. ^__^
I didn't care for the WW2 Daleks in the latest episode, or their half-assed efforts to keep bringing back an enemy they keep killing off in such absolute terms. It'll be interesting to see the weeping angels again, except I thought they worked well as a one-off nemesis in Blink (still my favorite episode of the new series).
The Weeping Angels did work well as a one-off, but I think that Moffat is also planning on doing more with them. If I'm not mistaken, some have speculated that exiled Time Lords become Weeping Angels because of the way the Doctor's mother was holding her hands over here eyes in The End of Time. They might be a much more complicated enemy than we previously thought.
And as for Daleks, well.... shit, you're so right. It's always some crazy circumstance that lets them come back in full force later so it never feels like the Doctor gets anywhere with them. There's only so much you can do with an enemy that represents absolute hatred and is immune to most weapons and can disintegrate anything it comes across. Why they haven't just shot the Doctor in the fifteen billion episodes with Daleks in it is beyond me.
I do like the Eleventh Doctor, and Amy Pond is shaping up to be among the best companions of the new series (not that there's a hell of a lot of competition there) but the writing of this season seems to just be more of the same - full of plot holes and unnecessary bombast. Still, it's early in the season, but if things don't shape up by the end I think I might just give up on this series for good, or at least until the next major change in production crews.
Loved when the Doctor started imitating the TARDIS noise.
EDIT: And yes, the Doctor imitating the TARDIS was one of the highlights of the episode. I'm still torn, though, on how to feel about the fact that they've forever stated that the TARDIS doesn't actually have to do that... that sound has been exactly the same since episode 1. It's a staple of the series.
River Song is a cool storyline. I love the idea of a nonlinear relationship (explored at great length with the trolls in Homestuck).
Also, in our quest to watch every single Doctor Who episode ever, Megan and are finishing up the Third Doctor's first season. Though still cheesy at times and with really REALLY bad special effects and costumes, it's quite fun.
Man, that was a totally useless comment, why did I post this?
So I'm thinking you guys are a bit ahead of me.
What bugs me is that they're by a writer that's produced nothing but mediocre to terrible episodes for Doctor Who and yet they keep hiring him. Meanwhile the guy who wrote Dalek, one of the best episodes in the new series' run, has never been brought back.
First Doctor: The Sensorites, The Space Museum, The Ark. There's a few more that I liked (mostly for major plot point arcs and origin stuff) but they only exist as still frames and audio tracks. If you're up for watching reconstructions, watch The Tenth Planet. It's the first appearance of the Cybermen and the last First Doctor serial.
Second Doctor: Tomb of the Cybermen, The Mind Robber, The War Games (lengthy, but it's the end of an era as it's the last Second Doctor serial and the last with Jamie and Zoe, two of my favorite companions). This is the era of the show with the most missing episodes, so if you want to watch some of them you have to sit through reconstructions, which makes it much more painful. But if you're up for it, I can recommend some good stories from among the missing serials.
Third Doctor: Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons (first appearance of the Master!), The Three Doctors, The Green Death, Planet of the Spiders (if only to see the last Third Doctor serial and a RIDICULOUS multi-stage vehicle chase that takes up a whole episode XD). These are the ones that jump at me... The Mutants and Colony in Space are decent as well.
Fourth Doctor: This is where the show really starts to get good. The Third Doctor spent a lot of time on Earth working for UNIT, so it got a bit stale after a while. The Fourth Doctor spends a lot more time in random places and the writing and acting gets better. The first two seasons are also way darker than previous and subsequent Who. There was a wave of concern that the show was getting too violent so supposedly they tamed it down after this. The show also takes a much more friendly format with this Doctor. For the most part, it's 5 4-parters and one 6-parter. If you're going to go straight through, I'd suggest starting with 'Robot', his first serial. If you don't want to go straight through, definitely watch The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, and the Brain of Morbius. But all of the episodes we watched so far (we're on the Fourth Doctor's third season right now, The Hand of Fear) have been a big step up from the rest of the show.
You're definitely in for a rough patch, though.