Doctor Who - Series 6.

[Chippiewill]

Show Hide

Yes I am 100% serious that I won't watch Doctor Who anymore

Show Hide

Pfft, when the next season comes about you'll be watching it with the rest of us, even if only to criticise it.

[Accipiter]

Why are you putting things in spoilers that wouldn't spoil anything?

I'm still a fan of Doctor Who tbf, and I highly doubt Fez will quit watching when it comes around next time.

[Fez]

I don't get off on the criticism, never have, and if that's the only thing I can do with Who then I have to stop watching.

[peteyt]

I don't get off on the criticism, never have, and if that's the only thing I can do with Who then I have to stop watching.

Maybe its just me, but I still find it hard to believe anyone who could put up with Russell T Davies's over the top comedy, the fact he liked to try and regularly put his own sexuality into the program, the massive use of cliché endings and the over the top soap like feel, can't sit through Moffat.

Believe me I don't think Moffat is perfect. But I think he's dared to try and do a bit more. He said that last series he wanted to comfort the audience, make people realise that while it was a new doctor, it still was the doctor, and the series just gone was to do the opposite, to pull the rug from under our feet. One of the big things I like, is he tries to use more SC-FI elements. The whole time can be rewritten stuff does get a bit annoying after a while, but it's nice that a show about Time Travel actually uses Time Travel and stuff around it more than it used to.

Obviously everyone has their own opinion. I loved series 1 with Eccleston, the dark wounded doctor we met. But Rose and especially her family got a bit annoying throughout her seasons and then we get Martha and her family. It is quite interesting to notice we have only briefly seen Amy's for the wedding near the end. I also found that Davies made Tennant into what could be classed as en emo doctor, which at first wasn't too bad until it got overused. We ended up with a doctor who'd cry or get angry and grit his teeth.

I do think Moffat went a bit overboard with the arch stuff and as you said turned it into Lost. Take a few of the stuff out and it might have not been as bad. I don't mind an Arch. I really enjoyed the crack arch from the previous season and loved the whole concept of him going back in the second part of the angel - the doctor who talks to Amy in that episode while her eyes are closed in one scene being a doctor from the future, the key thing in a lot of episodes being memory, the whole crack concept covering it.

I think maybe if Moffat is clever and listens he may tone it down. I did hear at one point the next series would all be stand alone episodes, although we know there's the question thing so I wonder if instead it will simply be one hanging arch. If he does that, and keeps the arch going, just not making it too complicated, it might be a really good series in my opinion.

[Fez]

Maybe its just me, but I still find it hard to believe anyone who could put up with Russell T Davies's over the top comedy, the fact he liked to try and regularly put his own sexuality into the program, the massive use of cliché endings and the over the top soap like feel, can't sit through Moffat.

The fact is that the same exact stuff has carried over into Moffat's era. The comedy at play is perfect for the Doctor, all silly and that, Tennant had his funny bits too. There was over the top comedy, yes, but that's evident here as well. Some of the gags in Closing Time were a bit irksome, some of the stuff in The Beast Below wasn't my thing and it was generally wibbly-wobbly in tone throughout Series 5 anyway. The gay agenda is still here, by the way, there's a couple in AGMGTW, the gags in Closing Time, Moffat inserted a 'beard' joke into the Davison thing and Series 5 was full of little nods.

Oh and the cliché endings? They're still here: the power of love, the big reset button, 'remembering into existence' and all manner of things. They're even more blatant with Closing Time (I keep mentioning it, I do actually like the episode) literally having the line of "I beat them with love."

The show doesn't feel like a soap but it does feel like LOST.

Believe me I don't think Moffat is perfect. But I think he's dared to try and do a bit more. He said that last series he wanted to comfort the audience, make people realise that while it was a new doctor, it still was the doctor, and the series just gone was to do the opposite, to pull the rug from under our feet. One of the big things I like, is he tries to use more SC-FI elements. The whole time can be rewritten stuff does get a bit annoying after a while, but it's nice that a show about Time Travel actually uses Time Travel and stuff around it more than it used to.

Series 5 was definitely a failed experiment, in my eyes, with only a few salvageable scraps. Series Six is definitely the better of the Moffat era so far but that philosophy is still intact and I just can't bear to witness it anymore.

Obviously everyone has their own opinion. I loved series 1 with Eccleston, the dark wounded doctor we met. But Rose and especially her family got a bit annoying throughout her seasons and then we get Martha and her family. It is quite interesting to notice we have only briefly seen Amy's for the wedding near the end. I also found that Davies made Tennant into what could be classed as en emo doctor, which at first wasn't too bad until it got overused. We ended up with a doctor who'd cry or get angry and grit his teeth.

Fact is that the best way to characterize the companions is to show their human side. To show their ties and the people they care about so that when Jackie thinks Rose's dead uncle is back from the grave or Martha's family are put into slavery by the Doctor, we don't roll our eyes and turn of the telly. It got a bit much, yes, but I found Amy's family to be utterly ridiculous. We see them once after being remembered back into existence and everything seems hunky dory.

Oh and the 'Time Lord victorious' stuff towards the end of Tennant's run was incredible. The wibbly-wobbly finale part of Series Four, however, yeah I agree.

I do think Moffat went a bit overboard with the arch stuff and as you said turned it into Lost. Take a few of the stuff out and it might have not been as bad. I don't mind an Arch. I really enjoyed the crack arch from the previous season and loved the whole concept of him going back in the second part of the angel - the doctor who talks to Amy in that episode while her eyes are closed in one scene being a doctor from the future, the key thing in a lot of episodes being memory, the whole crack concept covering it.

I loved that too. Proper clues to talk about and it's a shame it didn't happen more frequently. That kinda stuff I liked, would've been great to have a Silent show up in the background of the episodes or something.

I think maybe if Moffat is clever and listens he may tone it down. I did hear at one point the next series would all be stand alone episodes, although we know there's the question thing so I wonder if instead it will simply be one hanging arch. If he does that, and keeps the arch going, just not making it too complicated, it might be a really good series in my opinion.

I have no idea but I don't want to be lampooned again, Moffat is too clever for his own good. I'll be around for the fiftieth anniversary but I just don't want to watch Who anymore. It bores me with all of his 'revelations' which should revolutionize characters and be game-changers but still feel irrelevant. The 'question' stuff is more interesting as it looks like we're on the Silence's side in this respect, I doubt any of us want to know his name, and it's the Doctor anyway. As for Moffat saying next series will be more stand-alone.

Rule one:

The Doctor lies.

[Chippiewill]

I think what grinds me with Moffat is not the arcs, the arcs and the nudges and the hints and the continuity and the mix-around is all orchaestrated perfectly, Moffat is fantastic at it, because he's prepared to play the long game, he's even been playing the River Song thing since before he was in charge, he'd even defined future plot elements and references way back then. This is what makes Moffat a great writer. Then what lets him down is his pride, he becomes so worked up in having played the long game and keeping it all hidden and all that so when he comes to the reveal he devotes the entire episode towards it, to such an end that :

a) It becomes un-enjoyable because the episode has no substance
b) We can see the plot ending from a mile away
c) The reveal is underwhelming

This recent series really suffered from it due to the two reveals in the series.

[peteyt]

The fact is that the same exact stuff has carried over into Moffat's era. The comedy at play is perfect for the Doctor, all silly and that, Tennant had his funny bits too. There was over the top comedy, yes, but that's evident here as well. Some of the gags in Closing Time were a bit irksome, some of the stuff in The Beast Below wasn't my thing and it was generally wibbly-wobbly in tone throughout Series 5 anyway. The gay agenda is still here, by the way, there's a couple in AGMGTW, the gags in Closing Time, Moffat inserted a 'beard' joke into the Davison thing and Series 5 was full of little nods.

Oh and the cliché endings? They're still here: the power of love, the big reset button, 'remembering into existence' and all manner of things. They're even more blatant with Closing Time (I keep mentioning it, I do actually like the episode) literally having the line of "I beat them with love."

The show doesn't feel like a soap but it does feel like LOST.



Series 5 was definitely a failed experiment, in my eyes, with only a few salvageable scraps. Series Six is definitely the better of the Moffat era so far but that philosophy is still intact and I just can't bear to witness it anymore.



Fact is that the best way to characterize the companions is to show their human side. To show their ties and the people they care about so that when Jackie thinks Rose's dead uncle is back from the grave or Martha's family are put into slavery by the Doctor, we don't roll our eyes and turn of the telly. It got a bit much, yes, but I found Amy's family to be utterly ridiculous. We see them once after being remembered back into existence and everything seems hunky dory.

Oh and the 'Time Lord victorious' stuff towards the end of Tennant's run was incredible. The wibbly-wobbly finale part of Series Four, however, yeah I agree.



I loved that too. Proper clues to talk about and it's a shame it didn't happen more frequently. That kinda stuff I liked, would've been great to have a Silent show up in the background of the episodes or something.



I have no idea but I don't want to be lampooned again, Moffat is too clever for his own good. I'll be around for the fiftieth anniversary but I just don't want to watch Who anymore. It bores me with all of his 'revelations' which should revolutionize characters and be game-changers but still feel irrelevant. The 'question' stuff is more interesting as it looks like we're on the Silence's side in this respect, I doubt any of us want to know his name, and it's the Doctor anyway. As for Moffat saying next series will be more stand-alone.

Rule one:

The Doctor lies.

That is my point though. Yeah some of the endings are still cliché, comedy is still used, so if you cut put up with it for Davies, I don't see why you can't put up with it with Moffat.

To me both have their flaws. Davies could write, but seemed to fail with finales. Moffat to me is better, but still not perfect, and the wedding of river song was too compacted, it needed to be longer. I like the fact Moffat has planned the stories a while back although some of the reveals where a bit obvious eventually, River Song being one. But then again, maybe a simple reveal is just as good. I bet if it was something over the top, River Song is this or that, the Rani or something, we'd all be like eh.

I think series 5 was good, because it didn't try to throw too many arch's at us. We had the whole crack thing, that most of it, bar the Tardis Exploding, was fully revealed. It was light to me arch wise. Maybe Moffat will realise he threw too much at us in this series just gone, and tone it down.

My point is there where really bad episodes by Davies, and bad episodes by Moffat. But each had some good stuff in there. Like you mentioned in your review, the girl who waited and the god complex both looked at very human factors. Yet it was able to do it without turning it into a soap.

I enjoyed the idea of Rose leaving and coming back a few days later to discover it was a year. It showed something that the original classic who hadn't, simply how leaving with the doctor could effect others, family etc. That you simply can't just go off and no one will realise your missing. For one episode it was good, but then it was overused. Adding on top of that Mickey, we kind of got a weird love triangle developing. I don't mind a bit of drama but when its used regularly, well I simply got sick of it.

Then to give Rose the other doctor. Why did Davies give the happy ending. I mean Rose had screwed around with Mickey's mind for so long, gets with her finally, although even if partly forced due to the fact she had no choice, only for her to eventually run of with the other doctor. It just didn't make sense to me. It felt like a fairy tale ending and not doctor who.

I enjoyed Waters of Mars, to see another side of the doctor, him realising he's the last timelord and it going to his head, it was quite powerful and a bit spooky. However it then went a bit stupid. I felt the regeneration was drawn out too long, like when emotional scenes put heavy emotional music on, as if they are going you must cry. It didn't feel like a doctor who regeneration to me.

I'm not sure what the worst finale is for new who. For me its a choice between the last of the timelords, time was reversed and everyone in a sense forgotten, because it felt like a it was all just a dream ending or Journey's end with it's press this switch, if daleks take control and get too dangerous, that was conventionally on their own space craft.

Don't get me wrong Moffat isn't perfect, and has some bad episodes. I just feel Davies in the whole is much worse.

[Fez]

That is my point though. Yeah some of the endings are still cliché, comedy is still used, so if you cut put up with it for Davies, I don't see why you can't put up with it with Moffat.

To me both have their flaws. Davies could write, but seemed to fail with finales. Moffat to me is better, but still not perfect, and the wedding of river song was too compacted, it needed to be longer. I like the fact Moffat has planned the stories a while back although some of the reveals where a bit obvious eventually, River Song being one. But then again, maybe a simple reveal is just as good. I bet if it was something over the top, River Song is this or that, the Rani or something, we'd all be like eh.

I think series 5 was good, because it didn't try to throw too many arch's at us. We had the whole crack thing, that most of it, bar the Tardis Exploding, was fully revealed. It was light to me arch wise. Maybe Moffat will realise he threw too much at us in this series just gone, and tone it down.

My point is there where really bad episodes by Davies, and bad episodes by Moffat. But each had some good stuff in there. Like you mentioned in your review, the girl who waited and the god complex both looked at very human factors. Yet it was able to do it without turning it into a soap.

I enjoyed the idea of Rose leaving and coming back a few days later to discover it was a year. It showed something that the original classic who hadn't, simply how leaving with the doctor could effect others, family etc. That you simply can't just go off and no one will realise your missing. For one episode it was good, but then it was overused. Adding on top of that Mickey, we kind of got a weird love triangle developing. I don't mind a bit of drama but when its used regularly, well I simply got sick of it.

Then to give Rose the other doctor. Why did Davies give the happy ending. I mean Rose had screwed around with Mickey's mind for so long, gets with her finally, although even if partly forced due to the fact she had no choice, only for her to eventually run of with the other doctor. It just didn't make sense to me. It felt like a fairy tale ending and not doctor who.

I enjoyed Waters of Mars, to see another side of the doctor, him realising he's the last timelord and it going to his head, it was quite powerful and a bit spooky. However it then went a bit stupid. I felt the regeneration was drawn out too long, like when emotional scenes put heavy emotional music on, as if they are going you must cry. It didn't feel like a doctor who regeneration to me.

I'm not sure what the worst finale is for new who. For me its a choice between the last of the timelords, time was reversed and everyone in a sense forgotten, because it felt like a it was all just a dream ending or Journey's end with it's press this switch, if daleks take control and get too dangerous, that was conventionally on their own space craft.

Don't get me wrong Moffat isn't perfect, and has some bad episodes. I just feel Davies in the whole is much worse.

Perhaps I'm being unfair in comparison but with the Davies series we usually got a handful of mediocre episodes, one to three bad ones and then the rest were excellent. With Moffat it's just mediocre ep after mediocre ep for me and for it all to just hang on the 'silly string' looseness of the plot arcs then that just doesn't feel right. The ratio of 'excellent' episodes, the only reason I join in this show, is much less in the Moff era. There was only The God Complex, Girl Who Waited and Doctor's Wife that really stood out to me. The rest were either shallow, medicore, barely good or something else entirely. Let's Kill Hitler teeters on the edges of good, as does Night Terrors and Closing Time, but it has this irrelevant insertion of a plot arc and then power of love (which was done right in LKH, others not so much) everywhere.

Rose shouldn't have come back after series two. The Series Four finale is much worse than the Third one, which is horrible anyway with Jesus Doctor, because it just destroys all characterization for the 'epicly' epic'.

Davies did write good finales, already got two up on Moffat (Series One and Two, End of Time doesn't count) so I don't see your point there. Yeah, he got carried away, but Moffat seemed carried away from The Eleventh Hour.

Series Five < Series Six because Series 5 contains more flaws: Amy is a terribly inconsistent character/otherwise plot device, the finale is one giant explosion of amazingness then sudden and absolute disappointment, Van Gogh's episode is the only good one of the entire series apart from Eleventh Hour and a lot of River teasing and cracks and LOST structure blossoming.

I prefer Davies because I feel more... into his era's episodes more than I have with Moffat's. There's diamonds in the rough, certainly, but the comparison to Davies just shoots Moffat into 'plot-guy' status and Davies into 'character-guy' status. They're a world apart now, a shame, but Doctor Who (to me) will always be a character driven show. It's why I will probably always prefer Davies. For every World War Three/Aliens in London we got a Satan Pit/Impossible Planet, for every Lazarus Experiment we got a Midnight, for every Planet of the Ood we got a Blink so on and so forth. With NewNewWho it seems for every Van Gogh episode we have Cold Blood, Vampires in Venice, The Hungry Earth, Victory of the Daleks, The Beast Below, The Big Bang, The Pandorica Opens. The ratio has increased with Series Six, thank god, but I think it's impossible to take it anymore.

I don't want to watch whatever this NewNewWho is. If it's better than Davies' era, to you, then fine. Maybe I've grown too accustomed and picky and otherwise protective of what Who is but I.. didn't expect such massive tone shifts. I can't get behind such philosophy because it doesn't really energize me. River Song's identity really never caught on to me, I speculated yet, but not heavily. The cracks seemed just a hint to me and the Doctor's death was the only real good hook and that was rubbished away in a five minute conclusion. What I can get behind is the Doctor being the Time lord victorious, of dealing with a depressed artist, making his companions lose his faith in him, becoming utterly powerless, rendering himself human, being trapped back in time and having to wibbly-wobbly his way back, having to leave behind an older version of his companion and rewrite time. All that stuff. Human stuff.

[peteyt]

Perhaps I'm being unfair in comparison but with the Davies series we usually got a handful of mediocre episodes, one to three bad ones and then the rest were excellent. With Moffat it's just mediocre ep after mediocre ep for me and for it all to just hang on the 'silly string' looseness of the plot arcs then that just doesn't feel right. The ratio of 'excellent' episodes, the only reason I join in this show, is much less in the Moff era. There was only The God Complex, Girl Who Waited and Doctor's Wife that really stood out to me. The rest were either shallow, medicore, barely good or something else entirely. Let's Kill Hitler teeters on the edges of good, as does Night Terrors and Closing Time, but it has this irrelevant insertion of a plot arc and then power of love (which was done right in LKH, others not so much) everywhere.

Rose shouldn't have come back after series two. The Series Four finale is much worse than the Third one, which is horrible anyway with Jesus Doctor, because it just destroys all characterization for the 'epicly' epic'.

Davies did write good finales, already got two up on Moffat (Series One and Two, End of Time doesn't count) so I don't see your point there. Yeah, he got carried away, but Moffat seemed carried away from The Eleventh Hour.

Series Five < Series Six because Series 5 contains more flaws: Amy is a terribly inconsistent character/otherwise plot device, the finale is one giant explosion of amazingness then sudden and absolute disappointment, Van Gogh's episode is the only good one of the entire series apart from Eleventh Hour and a lot of River teasing and cracks and LOST structure blossoming.

I prefer Davies because I feel more... into his era's episodes more than I have with Moffat's. There's diamonds in the rough, certainly, but the comparison to Davies just shoots Moffat into 'plot-guy' status and Davies into 'character-guy' status. They're a world apart now, a shame, but Doctor Who (to me) will always be a character driven show. It's why I will probably always prefer Davies. For every World War Three/Aliens in London we got a Satan Pit/Impossible Planet, for every Lazarus Experiment we got a Midnight, for every Planet of the Ood we got a Blink so on and so forth. With NewNewWho it seems for every Van Gogh episode we have Cold Blood, Vampires in Venice, The Hungry Earth, Victory of the Daleks, The Beast Below, The Big Bang, The Pandorica Opens. The ratio has increased with Series Six, thank god, but I think it's impossible to take it anymore.

I don't want to watch whatever this NewNewWho is. If it's better than Davies' era, to you, then fine. Maybe I've grown too accustomed and picky and otherwise protective of what Who is but I.. didn't expect such massive tone shifts. I can't get behind such philosophy because it doesn't really energize me. River Song's identity really never caught on to me, I speculated yet, but not heavily. The cracks seemed just a hint to me and the Doctor's death was the only real good hook and that was rubbished away in a five minute conclusion. What I can get behind is the Doctor being the Time lord victorious, of dealing with a depressed artist, making his companions lose his faith in him, becoming utterly powerless, rendering himself human, being trapped back in time and having to wibbly-wobbly his way back, having to leave behind an older version of his companion and rewrite time. All that stuff. Human stuff.

I found series 5 to be just right at times. Yeah there are bad stories, but its nothing new. I liked the fact that we got little hints of the cracks, but it didn't try to throw too many plot points at us and as I mentioned in my last post, I liked the hidden stuff, the fact that memory played an important part.

Series 6 to me was good, it just relied too much on the plot stuff. For example the Silluian episode wasn't the best, but it was okay, and it had the cracks near the end, but it wasn't the main part of the story. Also I liked the episode because it looked at something quite human, the whole concept of conflict.

Amy did annoy me originally but looking back, I think it may have been a good thing. She was getting married and stuff, and tried to get off with the doctor, but isn't that real. How many people have been going out with people and fancied their girlfriends best mates and you hear about people all the time ending up having sex with someone else just before their wedding. The whole thing that happened in that episode, the nearly dying and Rory not there to help and then the doctor being there, someone who's played an important role in his life in a sense from early on, it just all lead to one thing, a moment of confusion for her.

What then happened is slowly Amy and Rory became close, Rory was able to accept there would always be something between them, but knew he had her and the doctor didn't want Amy and this led to a married couple on the Tardis. I liked the dynamic, I liked the fact there was someone else so it wasn't just a girl and the doctor, girl fancies Doctor, Rose/Martha thing.

Davies might have brought human stuff into the series, but sometimes a SC-FI series needs a little bit of SC-FI and at times I found we got a drama, romantic kind of thing, with some characters feeling similar to past characters. It's one thing I actually liked about Donna, the fact she was just a friend, it was a nice change. I also liked the change's we saw in her, which made the ending quite powerful when she forgot about the doctor and was back as her old self. This however was deeply let down by the whole pressing the button and destroying the Daleks thing.

With Amy and Rory Moffat could have easily went for the Rose Mickey scenario, but that got so tiresome and so annoying at least for me. I felt sorry for Mickey, and even when travelling with the doctor he felt like a spare part, the two ignoring him. While as while Rory might not be as big as Amy he does seem to have a purpose, and the three seem to get along like a team or even a family. So to me that kind of is human like.

I hope with the next series, we'll get a bit more adventure, the doctor having to get clever to get out of situations. He won't be able to simply tell people who he is - something that Moffat has done, but I kind of feel like Davies began.

I definitely will keep watching.

[iBlueBox]

made my day.