[Perry] Doctor Who: The Bad Bits

The following post will contain more spoilers for Doctor Who than you can shake a stick at.

Let the stick shaking begin!

So last week, we talked about some of the good points about Doctor Who. And to be fair, there are a lot of high points about the series and things worth watching.

But let’s talk about some of the things that fall a little flat.

Martha Jones

This character? Was rubbish. Do you know what she was? She was sort of the polar opposite of the rebound girl.

She came in as the second companion since the season restarted and David Tennant picks her up shortly after losing Rose to the alternate universe.

The Doctor is very, very clearly not interested in any kind of romantic relationship…but it’s clear from the start that Martha wants just that. And to watch her sort of moon after the Doctor for an entire season was…just, sort of awkward.

I might be alone in this opinion, but watching her struggle to catch the Doctor’s eye when he’s CLEARLY not interested was like watching a car wreck about to happen.

Filler Episodes

There are a fair amount of filler episodes sprinkled throughout the series.

Now, I’m not saying that filler is bad all the time. In any long running series, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll have a fluffy episode here or there.

But in all honesty, I feel like the ratio between good episodes to filler/fluff episodes in Doctor Who is skewed a little bit the wrong way.

And it wouldn’t be as bad if the filler episodes were entertaining themselves, but largely speaking, the filler episodes are horribly mediocre, if not downright wastes of time.

The two that really just jump into mind is one where David Tennant and companion visit Agatha Christie? And there’s a whole thing about a murder mystery and how one of the guests at the house is some…alien…wasp guy? Because the mother had an affair with an alien wasp man way, way before and had some mutant, alien wasp man baby?

What the shit.

Or how about the random one about the group of people who struggle to track down the Doctor because they think he’s a mystery, and then one of the new group members turns out to be a human eating alien and then at the end, one group member continues his romance with another group member…who’s turned into a face set in a slab of concrete?

Just…no.

Steven Moffat

This is going to be a bit of a multi-tiered point.

Steven Moffat was an on again/off again writer for the show and took over as head writer once Matt Smith began his tenure as the Doctor.

Now, Moffat’s writing when he was responsible for one or two episodes a season? Was pretty spectacular. Things like the first appearance of the weeping angels and the girl in the fireplace episode were high points of their respective seasons and it was all Moffat’s work.

After he took over, though? Something happened.

It’s almost as if…

Think of an author who writes absolutely amazing short stories…but when he tries to write a novel? Trash.

It’s that sort of situation.

In small doses, Moffat’s contributions to the show seem brilliant and play out well. Given free rein, though, and something horrible happens.

It feels as if he falls in love with making things as needlessly convoluted as possible, and then trying to tie it together in the last two episodes of each season. Over and over again, we see this happen.

It just gets to be too much. And what’s worse is that this escalates from season to season, growing more and more convoluted each time until we culminate with the Time of the Doctor episode, where Matt Smith bows out of the series and that episode? Just…culminates in this giant shit show that seems to make no fucking sense.

Steven Moffat: Women

Moffat writing women seems…a prickly subject.

I’ll preface this by saying that largely speaking, I didn’t really have much problem with the female characters as characters. My issues stemmed from how certain female characters were treated.

Every one of Moffat’s female characters were Doctor bait. They were all spunky, fiery attitude, lot of talk back, and all of them hopelessly attracted to the Doctor.

Amelia Pond started that way, but she had Rory (her eventual husband) to balance it out and the Ponds and the Doctor had this strangely familial relationship that I really enjoyed.

But many of the other women all suffer the same problems.

What I found to be the most egregious case was in the Time of the Doctor episode (noticing a trend?).

There’s a high priestess character, Tasha Lem?

Lord, you couldn’t have written MORE of a ‘sex kitten’ character if you tried, really.

I mean, here’s this woman who’s smart enough, ambitious enough, and filled with enough conviction to rise to the number one spot in this giant church…and she just melts into a little puddle of horny goo anytime the Doctor shows up.

Even worse, after she gets “possessed” by a dalek, she’s unable to fight it off. All of her strength of personality, conviction…none of it is enough. But throw the Doctor into the scene? Have him taunt her and slap her to piss her off and THEN she can fight off the possession?

I call bullshit.

Steven Moffat: Clara

I liked Clara as a character. I know that a lot of people didn’t, but I liked her pitter patter back and forth with the Doctor and I liked her story.

But I felt like she was cheated. And cheated in a big way.

For starters, she didn’t have a lot of time, only about half a season to make her debut as a companion…and it’s a shame that so much of that season was WASTED with filler nonsense when it could have used more to strengthen her relationship with the Doctor.

Hells, get rid of the filler episodes and throw in a few more episodes to reinforce the whole “impossible girl” scenario. Spend 2-3 more episodes at the start of her debut with a few other times she’s died to save the Doctor in the past and THEN bring out the ‘final’ Clara with whom to solve the mystery.

The Impossible Girl mystery itself, I thought was fine…but the way the Doctor saves her? Just randomly jumps into the vortex and snatches her out (nevermind how, that apparently doesn’t matter), and bippity, boppity, home again, home again?

That’s just sloppy.

Even worse?

I felt like she got completely cheated at the end.

When Matt Smith is regenerating, there’s this whole bit where he says his goodbye (but he’s speaking to the audience, not Clara), and then he has a vision of Amy Pond coming back to say goodbye….and then poof, regenerate.

The whole time he’s having visions of Amy, Clara just gets to stand at the side, crying? And no goodbye for her?

Fuck that.

For god’s sake, how do you DO that and think it’s a good idea?

I mean, yeah, I’m aware that Amy and the Doctor had this special thing…but didn’t Clara? Amy and Rory jumped off a building to break them all out of a paradox, Clara jumped into a vortex that intersected the Doctor’s life and saved his life over, and over, and over again…

But Amy and the Doctor gets this heartfelt goodbye, and then Amy gets to horn in on what SHOULD be Clara and the Doctor’s goodbye?

Where’s the fairness?!

Lord, I’m getting riled up again and it’s been week since I finished up.

I just felt like she got SO cheated, and that whole ending bit left a HORRIBLE taste in my mouth.

Minor Things

1) The long awaited Day of the Doctor episode almost ended well. The two future Doctors finally accept the actions of their past self and almost destroy Gallifrey together to stop the war…but then, cop out time! Random bullshit solution to save the day.

Way to fuck up the tension you’d JUST built up.

2) The “Doctor? Doctor who?” joke just gets so overused to stop even being groanworthy and just makes me want to turn it off or watch something else.

Especially? ESPECIALLY when you turn that shitty joke into the basis of an ENTIRE SEASON (the last Matt Smith season), with some cosmic signal, reaching all of time and space going “Doctor who?” to know if it’s safe for Gallifrey to come over?

Really?

3) There’s something that bugged me about Rory.

The Doctor was 900 years old when I first met him (Christopher Eccleston). And he had this wealth of experience and whatever…

Well, due to the whole Pandorica mystery thing, Rory ends up being over two THOUSAND years old. And he states in a later episode that he can still remember most of that time, if he concentrates.

…I’m sorry, doesn’t that warrant making him a little more mature? Giving him a little more depth of character? Changing his character in ANY WAY?

No? He’s just going to be the same old Rory?

Okay…

Conclusion

There was a lot to love about Doctor Who, but also a lot to hate, really.

It’s up in the air as to whether I’ll continue watching it now that Peter Capaldi’s taken the reins.

I guess we’ll see when the time comes.

 

Related posts:

[Perry] Doctor Who: The Good Bits
Supernatural – Eye of the Tiger Extra
[Perry] Game of Thrones: Red Wedding