I still have a Doctor Who icon!

[sholio]

I used to post about TV here all the time, but I really haven't had much to post about lately. I think the last show I watched more than a sporadic episode or two of was ... Agent Carter. In March.

However, the new season of Doctor Who (series eight) is up on Netflix, and that's one of the ones Orion and I like watching together, so we watched the first three episodes tonight. I got the general impression from fannish osmosis that a lot of people didn't like this season, but I absolutely loved it. Actually, I think I had more fun tonight than I have watching the show since Donna left.

First of all, I REALLY LOVE THIS DOCTOR. :D

I also talked about this at the time, I think, but I didn't really click with Eleven or Amy. I warmed up to them after awhile, and I DID enjoy it a lot more after Rory started traveling with them, because the Doctor traveling with a married couple was a fun and different dynamic. There were episodes in there I wholeheartedly loved! Plus, there was River Song. But it never felt like "my" era of the show, and the last season in particular, after Amy and Rory left, I spent more time looking down at my computer than up at my TV.

But I loved Twelve immediately. There is something about him that really works for me, I think in part because he's so different from the previous 2000s-era Doctors. He's a bitter, sarcastic asshole. He's not nice. He's rude and he's weird and he can be incredibly cold and even cruel. He feels old. He feels alien. And I am reveling in him -- and in his relationship with Clara.

I've gone from being indifferent to Clara as a Companion, to absolutely loving her. I fell harder for her in half the first episode than in the entire previous season. I love how she doesn't hesitate to call Twelve on his shit, and he calls her on hers. They're each other's reality check, and a mutual insult-fest, and aren't even entirely sure they like each other, but still have each other's back. It really does remind me of the Doctor and Donna, which I think was my favorite (up to now) Doctor/Companion relationship in New Who. (And also the only other one that was explicitly platonic, as this is.)

I also really love that their relationship has somewhere to go. This is something we haven't really seen yet in New Who, the Doctor and Companion not really liking or trusting each other, and staying together mostly out of loyalty to the Doctor's past self. (Rose warmed up to Ten a lot faster than this, I think.) The last couple of Doctor/Companion relationships have started off with immediate, mutual fondness. There wasn't a whole lot of tension, not much push and pull. Here, they're very uncomfortable with each other, and they're both having to learn how to let the other one in. I am really looking forward to seeing them build on that.

I'm also finding the episodes a lot of fun. I don't know if the show has new writers or if it's just that I haven't watched it in long enough that the cliches have acquired some new charm, but it feels fresher than last season. Or, at least, it's reveling in its own ridiculousness in a way I'm really enjoying. The Robin Hood episode was AMAZINGLY dumb, but I couldn't stop laughing the whole way through.

Doctor Who is a show where I've never felt particularly inclined to get into the fandom; I just really like watching the show, and maybe watching a vid now and then. I don't really care about the mythology of it. I just want to be entertained. And so far, I'm finding this season tremendously entertaining, and hope it doesn't completely flame out at the end. (I do know two rather large spoilers about this season, which I'm trying not to think about, in particular who Missy is -- I wish I could've stayed unspoiled about that, because it would've been more fun to guess. Oh, well.)

So, yeah, the tl;dr is that I'm really enjoying this season and I hope this Doctor sticks around for a while.

Comments

[naye]

Oooh, glad to hear you've been enjoying Twelve! I was all Doctore'd out and confused by the shambles that was the last Eleven Christmas special and the first episode with Twelve felt super weak to me, but this gives me hope again! I want to like Twelve, and I want to like Clara, so it's interesting to hear your take on them and their relationship.

[sholio]

haha, yeah, I think Doctor fatigue was one of the big reasons why I was so bored by the last season, and after having a good long break, I've been really delighted by it again. :D Clara has a good give and take with this Doctor, I think -- they're the kind of friends who snark at each other a lot, but really care about each other deep down. I hope you enjoy it if you give it another try!

[rabid_bookwyrm]

I was sooooooooo over Eleven, and the way they handled River and Amy and Rory was a total plothole clusterfuck. So that's why I haven't been watching. I really haven't heard much about Twelve one way or the other, so it's nice to hear he's good. Maybe I'll start with him and catch up some day.

[sholio]

For me, the Eleven/Amy/Rory/River era of the show was a really frustrating mix of stuff I really loved, and stuff I really disliked. And I was completely "meh" about the last series, even though there were some things in there I probably would have liked if I hadn't been, well ... done. So far, Twelve is going a long way to making up for it, though -- at least for me!

[rabid_bookwyrm]

Yeah, I know, I really liked the first Eleven series, but then it got all "agency? what agency? Let's imprison and impregnate Amy and she doesn't even know it and that will be hilarious and fun" and... just... a lot of stuff like that. It was not good.