Doctor Who

[marceline]

I wish I could figure what it is about this season that isn't working for me. It's not Capaldi. He's perfect. I just don't feel the connection I have with previous seasons. Although this is the first time I have disliked a companion as much as I do Clara. It's not rabid hate or anything but she annoys me terribly.

Supposedly this was intended to be a tribute to the soldiers who fought in WWI. If so I found it...off the mark.

[~bl~]

This link has a story about Capaldi and other famous people saying hello as a wedding surprise. The couple both worked as extras on DW. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/doctor-who-star-peter-capaldi-4562681

[Vee]

I'm only half through Death in Heaven, but while she's very funny, Michelle Gomez (as the Master/Mistress) is also the best, and scariest, incarnation of the character since Geoffrey Beevers' skeletal revenant in The Deadly Assassin all those decades ago.* Her scenes with Osgood and the Doctor in the cargo hold are terrifying.

The show is much darker this year, and has practically reinvented itself - the character exploration of both the Doctor and Clara has been first-rate and executed quite different from the normal dynamic. The tone has been dramatically different since Deep Breath. And I love it. It's almost as though it's a whole new creative team. They knew they could not continue with the Eleventh Doctor's fairy tale mythos, so now we have something much harder-edged. Capaldi is incredible - he invokes the darker, spookier aspects of Tom Baker for me constantly and the warmest and crotchiest parts of Jon Pertwee or Colin Baker, just as this run invokes the Philip Hinchcliffe era - and Jenna Coleman has finally come into her own.

Series 8 has leapt up into my top 3 of post-revival DW, up there with Series 3 and 6 (3, ironically, was only marred by the end of its Master arc). It's excellent.

(* - We'll leave off poor Derek Jacobi, who was incredible but only there for one episode.)

Edited November 10, 2014 by Vee

[DRW50]

The AI on the stories (audience appreciation) is lower than previous seasons, so you probably aren't the only one.

I think the season was, as a whole, better than last season, and several other seasons. I think they've done a decent job with Capaldi and I don't really agree with the claims that the Doctor has been sidelined. I think they've just deemphasized certain elements that needed to be deemphasized, like him being written as a god.

I liked Clara a lot more this season than I did last season, mostly because of the strength of Jenna Coleman's chemistry with Peter Capaldi, and the complexity of their relationship. The episode quality as a whole was better for me, with a few exceptions. I wish they'd done a better job with Danny. I think they just got almost everything wrong with him. My father, who usually doesn't even pay attention to certain elements of the show, hasn't had that much interest in finishing the season because he felt that Danny was abusive and controlling.

Spot the season 5 guest star.

[marceline]

Interesting. I liked Danny. Or more accurately, I liked what Danny could've been. I didn't think Danny was controlling but I wholeheartedly agree that they messed up with him big time. Everything about his relationship with Clara seemed dysfunctional and sketchy. One minute he shows up the next minute they're in LURVE. It was all lies and secrets and plot point baggage. There was never a time when I watched Clara and Danny where I felt like I was watching a real couple that I was supposed to be invested in. They never really resonated with me as a pair.

Edited November 13, 2014 by marceline

[Vee]

Peter Capaldi discusses the show's choice to break from the tone of the past era, including eliminating some 'weepy' scenes. He is also keen on the Doctor meeting Martin Luther King and says he does not want to regenerate for a while.

Jenna Coleman is still an unknown for Series 9. Many speculate she is out at Christmas, but I am not yet convinced.

Edited November 17, 2014 by Vee

[Vee]

And it's time for yet another interview with Peter Capaldi, this one on the radio. He seems to indicate he would like to be around quite a while (at approximately 6:05).

[Vee]

Following his fairly embarrassing Terminator: Genisys (actual spelling) photoshoot with Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke, Matt Smith has signed to do a zombie picture with another GOT star, Natalie Dormer.

[DRW50]

Poor Matt looks mortified on the cover.

I didn't know ratings had gone up 30% on BBC America.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/doctor-who-ratings-season-9-748115

Thanks for the Capaldi interview. He seems very cautious about how long the BBC will want him. I guess any actor would be. I hope he doesn't get any of the blame for writing issues.

[Vee]

I know you prefer to be cautious but I have seen zero indication that he is either concerned about the BBC or that the BBC is concerned about him. I don't think he's going anywhere for a good long time. He's just being humble re: the audience, which has embraced him for the most part. And I think the response to this series has been largely very, very positive, especially compared to some of the controversy over Series 7 or 6 (my favorite in years, until now). Everything I have seen indicates that a lot of people think it is a massive shot in the arm for the show, which seemed a bit scattered in S7.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Vee

[DRW50]

I enjoyed the season, for the most part, other than Danny/Clara and Danny in general. It's hard to say how people feel, ignoring the usual bitchers and moaners online. My father's been watching as long as I have and he has, for whatever reason, really disliked the season. But of course that's just him, not a majority view.

It's mostly Moffat's defensive tone (Capaldi saved the show, the ratings are fine) that makes me wonder.

[Vee]

I would be more worried about it if the BBC brass weren't out touting the new series as a huge victory, which they are. (I am also hearing Series 9 is 13 episodes.)

I first noticed the article above over at Gallifrey Base, and most of the commenters there noted that its language seemed slanted to try and prove some thesis. I just feel that if you can make both the long-standing UK fanbase and the perennially anguished American critics who have never gotten over the changing of the guard happy - and they all are happy, for once - then it's a triumph.

There are also wild rumors that Missy/the Master is the Doctor's companion, or at least one of them, for the back half of the upcoming series, but whoooo knows.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Vee

[DRW50]

That's interesting.

I was hoping Journey Blue might be a new companion. I also kind of wonder if they were testing out Frank Skinner.

[DRW50]

Those rumors are still going around about Jenna Coleman agreeing to stay for the first half of season 9. They also claim that

I don't agree with all of this, but I do think Jenna was very, very good this past season.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/nov/28/clara-oswald-jenna-coleman-doctor-who-stay-leaving

[Vee]

I don't know what to think. I do think she really, really came into her own this year, but I don't know where Clara can go next. To me the character was half-baked in Series 7, more of a puzzle box than a person. She was a very nice companion that year, just fine, but mostly a stock companion type, if that makes sense. Jenna has never been the problem.

Looking back at Series 7, which I think was a very scattered year that reacted too hard to criticism of the experimental Series 6 (my favorite of the Moffat era and perhaps my favorite of the revival, until possibly this year), many of those standalone stories do work very well and are a lot of fun - Bells of St. John, Hide, Cold War, Crimson Terror, etc. are all quite decent IMO. I even like Nightmare in Silver. That year's major weakness, IMO, is the forced and somewhat tiresome who-is-Clara mystery, along with the obviously rushed Doctor/Trenzalore stuff that goes into the anniversary, all of which they'd apparently had to collapse into fewer stories in 2013 than originally planned, including Smith's final outing. More than any other year in Moffat's tenure, IMO, it is weaker in spite of some fine stories because of that primary plot thread.

All this led to Clara's character basically being rebooted after Series 7, which is fine - her with Twelve, at Coal Hill School, etc. has been like a whole new start, much like the overall show was dramatically revamped. And it worked. Clara and Twelve's dynamic, their difficult relationship, the exploration of their co-dependence has been something totally new for the show. I just don't know what more they can do. She can do a victory lap like Lis Sladen did with Tom Baker, do another year or at least another several stories; she and Capaldi work well enough together that they could do that. But that would be about it, IMO. I think what Series 8 showed is that once Clara finally came into her own - and then watched the Doctor change himself - she began to grow past life with the Doctor. It used to be what she lived for and couldn't turn away from but she ultimately can't reconcile it with the grown-up life she is building, began building with Danny Pink. That maturation process has been painful and difficult for her but it's ongoing, IMO.

I think it would be a bold move to kill her off or something, but I doubt they will. I like her but I wouldn't mind it. I also wouldn't mind her going bad or turning on him, something they teased more than once this year, especially in the final two-parter, which would have been a hell of a sendoff - Clara driven to her breaking point by all the strife and pain her last year with the Doctor has caused her, at home and traveling with him. I might have preferred that. But I think she'll get a happy ending. After all, there's still Orson Pink to consider.

Edited November 30, 2014 by Vee