[Perry] Doctor Who: The Good Bits

The following post will contain some minor spoilers for the Doctor Who TV series. 

It took me a while to get around to it, I will admit, but now? I know what a sonic screwdriver is. I know the sound the Tardis makes as it arrives. I can instantly recognize the opening “oooeeeoooooo…” sound that marks the beginning of the theme song.

Having finally finished burning through the series, geek cred intact, I wanted to share some thoughts on the series as a whole. It’ll be a little long so I’ve split it into two parts. The Good Bits will be this week, and the Bad Bits will follow next week.

Let’s get started.

The Doctors

Three different men had their tenure as the Doctor while I watched the show. They were all good in different ways, but there was definitely one that I enjoyed more than the others.

To me, David Tennant was THE Doctor. I thought he brought a perfect mix of gravity and levity to the role, slipping back and forth between a man who’s burdened with regret, and a man who’s able to find wonder and distraction in the smallest things.

His outfit symbolized this with the suit effect overall, but with a mop of unruly brown hair and running shoes to complete the ensemble. Lord, that man could run.

At the same time? I also enjoyed Matt Smith’s portrayal of the character as well. To be sure, it took longer for Matt Smith to grow on me as the Doctor, especially after Tennant’s emotional farewell. In time, though? I grew to love a lot of Smith’s mannerisms and methods, forgiving him the flaws that I now attribute primarily to the writing.

The Companions

Compared to the Doctors, the companions were a bit more of a mixed bag.

Donna Noble took a while to grow on me, but once I started to understand the kind of relationship she had with the Doctor, I found her to be a wonderful foil. Especially when considering the trail of broken hearts he’s left in his wake, to see him with a companion that didn’t think of him in that way in the least was a joy in and of itself.

Donna’s exit from the show was also a fairly emotional moment, hitting that bittersweet tone that the show seems to hit so well and so often. It was also an event that highlighted her relationship with her parents, and featured more of the wonderful Wilfred, Donna’s grandfather.

My favorite companions, though? Without a doubt were Amelia Pond and Rory Williams.

There was an interesting shifting and prickly dynamic that the three of them shared. It began with Amelia carrying a huge torch for the Doctor, despite the fact that she was engaged to Rory and that made things…tense. More than a little awkward, especially when Rory began to travel with them as well, dealing with his vague feelings of inadequacy and jealousy.

If that was the only note the relationship between the three of them took, it would be largely forgettable. But it went beyond that.

They sort of grew around each other. Amelia and Rory eventually got married and the Doctor fit into their lives, not as a romantic foil, but more as family.

The sense of family that the three of them give off in later episodes is a wonderful one, to be sure. In later episodes, the Ponds settle down and try to live their normal lives, punctuated by the occasional frenetic visit from the Doctor and you’re left with the strong sense that they’re playing the parents while the Doctor plays the role of an unruly, excitable child.

It’s a strong dynamic that shifts in little ways, just enough to keep things interesting.

Last, but not least? Is Clara, Matt Smith’s “impossible girl.”

Glancing around online once the series was done, I noted that there were actually a lot of people that didn’t like Clara much. They leveled against her the criticism that she was a flat character and sort of stereotypical Doctor bait (attractive, fiery, female with the hots for the Doctor in a short skirt), but despite that? I loved her.

I thought her story was decently handled and her rapid, pitter patter banter with the Doctor (moreso than any other companion) really made her stand out to me as more than an equal to his wit, if not his experience and intellect.

Enemies

What’s a man without enemies, right?

I will admit that a lot of the early villains didn’t do much for me…at all. Primarily, I think the problem was that they were reminiscent throwbacks to the early episodes of Doctor Who. The villains looked old fashioned, came off as hokey and did NOT instill a sense of threat at all.

Enemies like the Daleks and the Cybermen? Threatening creatures in the lore, to be sure, but they looked too old fashioned and clunky to really be frightening.

This DID change, though. Thankfully.

Later on in the series, we were introduced to the weeping angels, one of the more memorable villains I’ve ever seen.

There was also The Silence, who had such a wonderful concept behind them. The Silence were aliens who lived on earth alongside humans, but had the strange property of erasing themselves from your memory as soon as you couldn’t see one. In essence, this ‘explained’ the times where you might have suddenly felt irrationally afraid (coming upstairs from a dark basement?) and you didn’t know why. It was because you’d just seen one of the Silence but you could no longer remember.

Hells, late in the final current season of the show, they even revamped some of the classic villains. The Dalek looked goofier than ever, going with a whole Power Rangers color scheme, but the Cybermen actually turned into something quite threatening, even if Gaiman (writer of that episode) DID rip off the borg from Star Trek to do it.

The Writing and Memorable Episodes

There were a lot of these.

When I think back to the run of the show that I’ve seen, several episodes easily burst into light as bright spots.

The first time you meet the weeping angels. The first time you meet River Song. The time when Rose left the show? The Girl in the Fireplace episode? Man, that was heart wrenching.

And to counter the heart wrenching, how about the unexpected laughter that bursts out of you when you find out who the Face of Boe really is? Or, when they’re all standing around with Tennant and flying the Tardis? He gives each and every one of them a button to push or a lever to pull…till he gets to Jackie. Then he just stops short and just says, “…No, Jackie. No, no. Not you. Don’t touch anything. Just…stand back.” Hilarity.

When David Tennant finally left the show? How powerful was that? I felt like someone had socked me in the gut. I almost didn’t want to keep going with the damned show.

Or the whole thing with Amy and Rory? A lot of the high points of their relationship made for some damned powerful TV. Like the point where Rory does the whole centurion thing to wait for her to come out of the box? Or the Two Streams Facility episode, where there’s a turnabout to the waiting, and the utterly cold lump that forms in your throat at the end of that.

Hells, even the way they left the show together, with the weeping angels in the hotel in Manhattan.

There were a lot of high points to the show. Granted, there was a fair bit of filler-y episodic episodes as well, but I felt that the bright points made up for the dross in a big way. The show may not have always hit the right notes, but when it did? It nails them.

I think it’s good when you finish a long series and you can still clearly remember a lot of the big emotional moments as if you’d just watched them.

Conclusion to the Good Bits

There’s definitely a lot that the show really does RIGHT. It’s not always on point, but when the show nails an episode, it really just knocks it right out of the park.

The Doctor is essentially a 900+ year old alien and we’re given a way to relate to him. To understand his struggles, his burden, and his guilt. We’re with him on his journey to try and forget the awful things he’s done by doing good things and saving others.

It’s a wonderful trip to be a part of and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the series.

Most of it, anyway.

Next week, we’ll be taking a look at some of the problems that the show has had, and we’ll come to a final verdict.

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