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Have now seen Doctor Who 5x01 & 5x02
... so, huh. I saw a lot of squee around my flist but my response was decidedly ... not.
The writing is good. I'm just not getting much sense of a personality off these people! Eleven, to me, feels like a composite of Ten and some of the Eighties doctors; he doesn't stand out as his own person, with his own style. I was much more enthusiastic for him after seeing the preview than I am after watching two episodes of the show! And Amelia ... I'm equally unimpressed; Rose and Martha and Donna were such vivid companions, so there from their very first appearance, but again, I'm not getting that from Amy - I have no feeling for her as a person. I don't understand her; I don't know what she was doing all alone in that house by herself as a child, and while I like the idea of her as a small-town girl who knows everyone in her little town and wants to see the world, I don't get that at all from how she reacts to things - I just don't get her. Again, she feels like a composite of some of the previous companions, but not her own person (yet?). Like I said to my husband after watching, the whole thing felt very generic to me - like it's drawing on elements of the earlier incarnations, but the result is very Doctor-Who-by-the-numbers rather than standing out as each of the previous seasons has done. I don't think I'm going to be dl'ing any more. Maybe at the end of the season, if my whole flist erupts in OMFG! and LOOK WHAT THEY DID!, I'll give it another try.
(The one thing I did love was Queen Elizabeth 10. bwahaha, "I'm the Queen mate, I RULE!" With the guns! Oh, she was awesome. I hope we haven't seen the last of her. I'd take her over either of the actual main characters.)
ETA: I think half the problem (again, IMHO and all of that) is that I feel like we're retreading so much territory with these characters, whereas each previous season of NewWho has struck out somewhere different. Matt Smith is so similar to Tennant in demographic and general style; even his clothing style is not that different. And we've already had the "young working-class Companion, builds her whole world around the Doctor, fiance/boyfriend waiting at home" thing with Rose; Amy just feels like a sort of Rose/Ace/Peri/anyCompanion blend to me. Can't we have something different, for pete's sake? This is the fourth companion in a row from the UK in the early 21st century - it would have been nice to branch out a bit. There are other time periods out there, damn it.
ETA2: When I first saw Amy on the previews, I actually thought that they were going to revisit the character Zoe, in the same way that they revisited Sarah Jane, K-9 and other past characters in earlier seasons; the actress looked so similar to me, especially around the eyes. I was very startled to see her in the policewoman uniform in the first episode and realize it was going to be a completely different character!
The writing is good. I'm just not getting much sense of a personality off these people! Eleven, to me, feels like a composite of Ten and some of the Eighties doctors; he doesn't stand out as his own person, with his own style. I was much more enthusiastic for him after seeing the preview than I am after watching two episodes of the show! And Amelia ... I'm equally unimpressed; Rose and Martha and Donna were such vivid companions, so there from their very first appearance, but again, I'm not getting that from Amy - I have no feeling for her as a person. I don't understand her; I don't know what she was doing all alone in that house by herself as a child, and while I like the idea of her as a small-town girl who knows everyone in her little town and wants to see the world, I don't get that at all from how she reacts to things - I just don't get her. Again, she feels like a composite of some of the previous companions, but not her own person (yet?). Like I said to my husband after watching, the whole thing felt very generic to me - like it's drawing on elements of the earlier incarnations, but the result is very Doctor-Who-by-the-numbers rather than standing out as each of the previous seasons has done. I don't think I'm going to be dl'ing any more. Maybe at the end of the season, if my whole flist erupts in OMFG! and LOOK WHAT THEY DID!, I'll give it another try.
(The one thing I did love was Queen Elizabeth 10. bwahaha, "I'm the Queen mate, I RULE!" With the guns! Oh, she was awesome. I hope we haven't seen the last of her. I'd take her over either of the actual main characters.)
ETA: I think half the problem (again, IMHO and all of that) is that I feel like we're retreading so much territory with these characters, whereas each previous season of NewWho has struck out somewhere different. Matt Smith is so similar to Tennant in demographic and general style; even his clothing style is not that different. And we've already had the "young working-class Companion, builds her whole world around the Doctor, fiance/boyfriend waiting at home" thing with Rose; Amy just feels like a sort of Rose/Ace/Peri/anyCompanion blend to me. Can't we have something different, for pete's sake? This is the fourth companion in a row from the UK in the early 21st century - it would have been nice to branch out a bit. There are other time periods out there, damn it.
ETA2: When I first saw Amy on the previews, I actually thought that they were going to revisit the character Zoe, in the same way that they revisited Sarah Jane, K-9 and other past characters in earlier seasons; the actress looked so similar to me, especially around the eyes. I was very startled to see her in the policewoman uniform in the first episode and realize it was going to be a completely different character!
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I agree with all of this. And it's kind of sad, because I was looking forward to getting new blood in the creative department, and since Moffat's a sharp idea guy, seeing what fresh and interesting ideas he'd bring to it. But the result has been a Who that's much flatter and less interesting than RTD's version, to me at least, and I think what you've said above is precisely why - I'm a character viewer, have always been, and the way that RTD developed his complicated, flawed and likable characters and their friends and family really worked well for me, despite my issues with his writing in other areas. But I think you're absolutely right that Moffat is a plot writer, not a character writer, and while it worked fine when he'd come in and move RTD's vivid, unique characters around on a canvas, when he's the one who has to come up with the characters from scratch - it's not working so well.
I hope that the flaws will iron themselves out and the characters will become more vivid once the writers develop their "voice" and the actors are able to settle into their roles. But if characterization isn't one of Moffat's priorities, then it doesn't give me a lot of hope that the show will develop in a way that's really going to work for me ...
no subject
But RTD, for all the criticisms leveled against him, is a really good writer, and a hard act to follow. I kind of wish Paul Cornell (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0180280/) had gotten the gig - he only wrote a handful of eps, but he's an old-school Who-er like Moffat, only I think he has a stronger grasp of character. Don't know if he was at all interested, but it would've been interesting to see what he'd do with it. (I know he wrote Who novels and I've been meaning to check them out, I know some old school fans like him a lot...)