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| Series 8 Episode Posters by Stuart Manning |
If
you’ve been listening to Earth Station Who
– and you should be – then you know that I wasn’t very happy
with this most recent season of Doctor
Who.
It
seems like the two most vocal groups online are those that hate
Stephen Moffat and those that hate those that hate Stephen Moffat.
Both groups consist of a bunch of loud, overly involved asshats that
are clearly unfamiliar with the term “middle ground”. I think
they’d get along really well if it weren’t for Stephen Moffat.
Moffat
is clearly a fan. He’s doing what he thinks is best for the show. I
don’t agree with him. It’s as simple as that. And I don’t give
a tinker’s cuss what anybody
else thinks.
I don’t like it. Now, I do enjoy discussing it. I think it’s fun
to hear dissenting opinions. But nobody is ever going to convince me
that the focal point of my favorite television show ever in the
history of television should be the romantic situation between two
Earthlings. And before you go pointing at Rory and Amy let me just
say that their relationship was much more of a secondary concern and
did not at any point overshadow the Doctor himself.
I
think my biggest issue with folks who don’t agree with me is that
they think that I should just shut up and enjoy it because it’s
Doctor
Who.
That is the dumbest, most vacuous viewpoint I have ever heard in my
entire life. Just because something has a certain label on it I am
supposed to accept it, nay; embrace
it?
Despite the fact that I am not happy with the quality of the
storytelling or the direction of the narratives?
Absurd.
Why
do these people even care what I think? Am I so powerful and wise
that my dissatisfaction with Doctor
Who is
impinging on their enjoyment? If so, I appreciate the validation, but
you should probably work on your personal character development a
bit.
And
before you do, here’s a tip – it probably won’t involve a cute,
multiracial couple of Earth humans.
Before
I get into the specific episodes, here’s what I think about the
main characters we saw this season.
The
Doctor
– Peter Capaldi is wonderful. I love the moments where he channels
the classic Doctors and I love the touch he has put on the character.
I wish he weren’t written as silly quite so frequently. Before
series 8 started we were told that Capaldi’s Doctor was going to be
darker and more serious. That simply has not been the case.
Clara
Oswald
– Shoot her out of an airlock. I think Jenna Coleman is adorable
and there have been moments where Clara has been a fantastic
character. But overall I find her annoying and antagonistic. Making
her relationship with Danny Pink the focal point of the season did
not help her.
Danny
Pink –
I actually liked Danny until he was reduced into a sniveling Clara
junkie for the last part of the season. Samuel Anderson did a
fantastic job of portraying a potentially interesting character. Pink
had layers and it would have been very interesting to see how his
soldier background and similar experiences with the Doctor could have
played out. Instead, he was used as a storytelling device and killed
off.
Missy
– I was happy to see the Master back in action and I feel like
Michelle Gomez was brilliant. Much like the Doctor, though, I felt
like she was portrayed as too silly. The moments where she is
proclaiming herself to be “bananas” and when her sinister actions
are undermined by whimsical musical cues drove me nuts. It could have
been such a great performance and a powerful comeback from John Sims’
lamentable portrayal.
Now
that that’s out of the way, here’s a rundown of what the BBC
refer to as Series 8, but what is actually the thirty-fourth season
of Doctor
Who.
These are all just the thoughts I have when looking back at each
episode. For more immediate impressions and detailed reviews be sure
to listen to the corresponding ESW episode, linked after each
section.
“Deep
Breath”
– I think this is one of the worst regeneration stories I’ve
seen. Madame Vastra and Jenny are absolutely overwhelming with their
political agenda. The Doctor is silly. There are moments of intensity
and wonderful little callbacks to classic Who,
but overall he’s absurd. The sequence of him falling down the tree
is awful. The sound effect when somebody is rendered unconscious (I
actually can’t remember right now if it was the Doctor rendering or
being rendered) was a low point in the entire history of the show. I
was thoroughly disgusted with that.
The
story itself is a mess. It jumps around from one absurd situation to
another, only finally settling down when the Doctor and Clara meet in
the restaurant and Clara had a few moments to try to stop being such
a self-absorbed asshole. Am I the only person that thought she was
being a complete and utter jackass for this story? And Matt Smith’s
cameo at the end – as the only thing that convinced Clara to stay
with the Doctor (thanks for that, Eleven) felt so
cheap and unnecessary. It was like Smith was giving the audience
permission to like Capaldi. I don’t know if that scene was more
patronizing or pandering.
“Into
the Dalek”
– This one wasn’t as painful as the series premiere, but it still
wasn’t great. It was here that we were introduced to this Doctor’s
massive loathing of and disrespect for the military. It’s so
inexplicably strong that at the end of this story he tells a young
woman that had been helping them that she can’t come along in the
TARDIS because she’s a soldier. While the Doctor has always had a
bit of a contentious relationship with any military, I find the
disdain and outright hostility shown in this season to be
distasteful. And my issue isn’t even so much the Doctor’s
feelings towards the military as it is the lack of reason for it.
The
story was actually very good. Capaldi got to flesh out his Doctor a
bit more now that the regeneration stuff was done with. I thought his
attitude towards the people that were doomed to die was interesting.
It’s not so much that he didn’t care that they were dying as it
was that the Doctor was going to use their inevitable deaths to save
lives.
I
did find the logic of this Dalek being good to be intensely flawed.
Just because it wants to destroy other Daleks doesn’t make it
“good”.
“Robot
of Sherwood”
– I loved this one and had an absolute blast watching it. Don’t
mistake my criticism of the Doctor’s silliness as a an indictment
on silliness in general. I think it’s perfectly fine to insert a
“darker” and “more serious” Doctor into a silly world. And
that’s sort of what happened here.
The
story felt very much like a classic Who
story, with the Doctor and Clara encountering the supposed real Robin
Hood. There was an evil alien and a robot menace and overall it was a
superb nod to the old – seemingly abandoned – idea of following
the Doctor and his companions on one-off adventures that were more or
less stumbled into. Which is, of course, the way I prefer my Doctor
Who.
This
episode also caused me to clarify the concept of “earned
silliness”. The end scene with the golden arrow was absolutely
absurd. But the story up to that point had been so much fun and so
enjoyable that I felt that silliness had been earned.
“Listen”
– This was mostly boring crap. After a fantastic opening – one of
the best of the new series – that depicts the Doctor supposedly
talking to a mysterious entity in the TARDIS, we get a convoluted
story that does all kinds of things that I don’t like. Once again
we have a character that is in the “most _________ person in the
universe” position with Danny Pink’s descendant, Orson, being the
last human of all time. We have several unexplained events that were
seemingly filmed just because they seemed cool – the opening scene
(who was the Doctor talking to and who moved the chalk?) and the
bedroom scene (what was under the sheet?). Some folks seemed fine
with just waving that stuff away. I am not one of those folks.’
This
is the episode where the concept of Stephen Moffat doing things just
because they look cool started to materialize. I had been sort of
aware of it before, but starting here and over the course of the rest
of this season I really started to feel like Moffat is a guy that
will put forth a shitty story concept with no explanation just
because he thinks it’s cool or funny. He will also torpedo good
drama just to work in a corny joke.
“Time
Heist”
– I had such high expectations for this story. Obviously that
sentence is never going to be followed with, “And they were met
every step of the way!”
While
Capaldi was once again a very good Doctor, the execution of this
exciting concept was just bad. There was so
much
standing around and talking. I fell asleep twice trying to watch this
one and I honestly still don’t remember everything that happened. I
did like the ending. The point of the story was the Doctor rescuing a
captive alien and I found that to be very worthwhile. But the road to
get to that reveal was rough. We did get some good supporting
characters, though. I could see any of them being solid companions.
Particularly when compared against the current roster.
“The
Caretaker”
– Despite Danny and Clara being featured somewhat front and center
in this story, it wasn’t terrible. I was amused at the Doctor
running around in the background, clearly having an agenda and
knowing what was going on. I found his treatment of Danny Pink
extremely distasteful and, quite frankly, forced. We still do not
have a satisfactory narrative reason for the Doctor’s suddenly
intensified dislike of the military. All season long it felt
incredibly artificial to me.
The
villain in this one was – like the episode – utterly disposable.
“Kill
the Moon”
– I do not understand for the life of me how you make an episode
with this title without involving Strax, who hates
the moon.
Otherwise
I really dug the concept here. There are some flaws with the science
of the moon being a giant egg, but for the most part the story
getting us to that revelation was good enough to warrant the silly. I
thought Hermione Norris was excellent as Lundvik and that Ellis
George was near-intolerable as Courtney. I get that social media is a
thing, but Courtney was so precociously modern that it was annoying.
Additionally, it isn’t going to play well in the future. Even ten
years from now all of her dialogue is going to seem very dated and
odd.
I
feel like the decision making scene could have been handled a little
better and while the dynamic between the Doctor and Clara was very
interesting, it hardly had any impact on the rest of the season.
Again, Moffat likes to do things in the now without consideration for
the past or the future.
“Mummy
on the Orient Express”
– Once again I let myself get excited for an episode. It sounded
like such a great concept. But I didn’t like the fact that the
titular mummy was some kind of ghost mummy that only the victims
could see. It felt like lazy storytelling to me – a way to have
this menacing creature but not have an entire train full of
characters having to deal with it. The terror felt artificial.
I
understand what they were doing with the Doctor and Clara in this
one, but I just found it annoying. The Doctor is far too sentimental
about her and she is too much of an ass. I was fine with the concept
of the mummy and the idea of some mystery entity – still
unexplained, by the way – putting all of those experts on the train
in order to study it. Once again, we had a solid story concept that
was executed poorly.
“Flatline”
– This episode was another one that put me to sleep. I thought the
creatures were fairly creepy and I think that Clara was actually
pretty good. But other than that it’s another insignificant
throwaway.
“In
the Forest of the Night”
– In a surprise twist, this one wasn’t as bad as I expected. It
wasn’t good, mind you; but I liked the concept and it earned a
whole extra point from me for depicting the Doctor’s outrage at the
idea of overmedicating kids.
If
there is one cause out of all the causes that I can get behind,
that’s it. I was “diagnosed” with ADD when I was a kid and put
on Ritalin by my well-meaning but gullible and under-informed mother.
I know what it did to me. I felt like my soul had been chained and
locked into a steel ball and was screaming to get out. This torture
is being inflicted upon kids today by the thousands
if not more. And all because parents are too lazy to be parents and
pharmaceutical companies are an evil more insidious than any
terrorist has ever been and operate freely within our borders.
Uh…
sorry. I got off on a rant. Here’s us talking about “In the
Forest of the Night”!
“Dark
Water”
– The first part of the season finale wasn’t bad, but it sure was
boring. Everything
that happened was telegraphed, except maybe for the big reveal that
Missy was the Master. I liked that. I also liked the visual of the
skeletons in the tanks of Dark Water, even though it was apparent
they were going to be Cybermen even before they explained that the
Water concealed everything but organic matter.
I
dug the idea of the dead souls being stolen and of the zombie
Cyberman army. I’m still not clear on why the Master needed the
souls, but whatever. Basically, if you excise Clara and Pink’s
relationship from this episode I liked everything else. I think the
whole storyline could have been just as effective if Pink had been a
companion this whole time rather than the whole onerous story of his
relationship with Clara.
Also,
how lame was it that Pink just got hit by a car? I mean, really?
That’s
how the guy goes out? This, to me, was another example of the lazy
writing that has become a trademark of Moffat’s era. They know what
they want to do, but they don’t know how to get there so “fuck
it, he walks in front of a car” happens.
I
missed being part of this episode of ESW
because I was still
hung over from the greatest Halloween party ever, but you should
still give it a listen.
“Death
in Heaven”
– I said about as much as I had to say about this one in last week’s post.
Overall I liked it. I found the second viewing more enjoyable than
the first. I think if I had the time I could edit this and “Dark
Water” down to a very good hour of Doctor
Who.
Not much could be done about Danny Pink’s ignominious demise, but
otherwise there’s some good stuff if you cut away the crap.
I
feel like one of the major themes of the season is great ideas with
poor execution. Or, if you need me to be sensitive to other people’s
opinions, execution that I don’t agree with. We have a saying on
Earth
Station Who
– “Bad Doctor
Who is
still better than most of the other stuff on television”. I put
that in quotes, but I think it’s been said several different ways.
My point is that I, personally, have never said it because I don’t
necessarily agree with it. To a certain extent, bad Doctor
Who is
the worst
thing on television because I don’t give a shit if Duck
Dynasty
or The
Vampire Diaries
or Friday
Night Sportsball
is bad. But when Doctor
Who is
bad it breaks my heart. I want to love
Doctor
Who,
but Stephen Moffat’s run has been challenging me more and more with
each season.
And
yeah – I blame Moffat. How the heck can I not
blame Moffat? He’s in charge. He’s running the show. I didn’t
have this problem with Davies. The last time I was this dissatisfied
with Who
was when Colin Baker started airing in the States, and I don’t
think I was even this unhappy with the show then. It’s just that I
had only been watching for a few years at that point and the
franchise wasn’t a part of my soul yet. It’s been over two
decades since then and it is much
more significant to me now. I can’t
just stop watching.
But
I can certainly stop spending my money on it. I never did buy the
last season and I won’t be buying this one, either. Sure Capaldi is
great. You know what else is great? Reese’s peanut butter. But if
you wrap Reese’s peanut butter in dog shit I am not going to eat
it.
For
the first time in my life I am not looking forward to the next season
of Doctor
Who. I
was relieved when this season concluded; happy that I wouldn’t be
disappointed anymore. Once Moffat leaves I will start to hope again.
In the meantime, if you enjoyed this season, I hope you'll preorder it here and help Needless Things!:
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