And since everyone else is doing it...
Jan. 3rd, 2010 08:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angelophileYeah, David Tennant's last episodes of Doctor Who aired. Although, to be perfectly frank, the last episode was not a Doctor Who story. It was a David Tennant is leaving story, which is all well and good, but was pure navel gazing from another perspective. The whole thing seemed a bit too self-congratulatory, "excuse us while we pat ourselves on the back for thirty minutes, audience", rather than attempting to write a memorable climax to the run.
Of course, the first trailer of the Matt Smith series is out already, which demonstrates that A) Matt's surprised look when he punches someone is adorable and B) I am going to be crushing on Karen Gillan something rotten.
Initial impressions are extremely positive - I'm certainly not one of those who consider Tennant the only true Doctor - I recall watching the last Tom Baker story, Peter Davison's run, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and reading all the Target Doctor Who novelizations when I was a kid and pre-home video releases of the classic stories, so I'm familiar with all the incarnations. Tennant's been a good Doctor, but the last episode of his run was, frankly, horribly self-indulgent on the part of Russell T Davis and I'm certainly not wailing and gnashing my teeth over his departure - on the contrary, after a year or so since his announcement about his leaving, I'm looking forward to some fresh blood.
I'm still kinda bugged by how sef indulgent the whole thing was. I could understand the fuss if Tennant was the first actor to play the role, but he's number ten, and the second in the new series. Okay, his departure should have been dramatic, but damn, the whole thing wasn't dramatic and had more endings than Lord of the Rings. The whole thing felt like it was more about RTD and DT's departures than it was a regeneration story. It finally got good in the last few minutes when, at long last, the regeneration happened and Eleven popped up. And I immediately warmed to him simply because I was thinking AT LAST. But he made a very favourable first impression anyway.
One person I really will miss - lovable, wonderful Wilf. Okay, so the Star Wars moment was, frankly, excruciatingly embarrassing and clearly put in to give Bernard Cribbins an action treat to top his "paintgun and a Dalek" moment that was his idea last year, but aside from that, why Bernard's not got a knighthood is a mystery to me, and he better clear up at the television awards this year, after he acted everyone else off screen, often without even saying a word. The most effective scenes (possibly the only ones) in the final two parter were where it was just Bernard and David Tennant having a quiet moment, where he proved that he could get the tears welling up with just a word or a gesture - actually, far more effectively than all of Tennant's moping or raging.
There was so much silly with the plot that it's hard to know where to start. I will credit John Simm for relishing the daftness of the plot, though. It turned me off, but he seemed to be having fun with it, and his enthusiasm was kind of infectious, especially as he appeared to have reigned in the wackiness. I'd still rather have a Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes, though, rather than a Jeffrey Goines.
According to the audio commentary for the episode the mysterious Time Lord woman was meant to be the Doctor's mother. Not sure where that came from, but I suspect it was probably that Carole Ann Ford didn't fancy popping up as Susan or Lalla Ward as Romana, despite the reference on the script to the two female Time Lords who refused to go along with the others' plans clearly suggesting those two characters. However, since it wasn't expressly started on screen, I chose to believe that the mysterious woman was one of them anyway. So there.
I'm not going to comment much on the individual goodbyes section, because, like Donna, I fear if I think about it too hard my head will explode. Except, of course, it didn't, because of plot muguffin number five, but moving swiftly on....
I do have to say, Mickey, you can do so much better. Also: random.
But the Jack part is the big that mildly annoyed me the most - not least because he's Moffat's creation anyway, and the Gran Moff's not going anywhere, but coming on the tail of Torchwood: Children of Earth it just seemed horribly misjudged. I half expected the note to read:
"Hi Jack!
Sorry I couldn't come to Earth and help out, so your lover was killed and you had to kill your grandchild.
Let me make up for it by getting you some cock from a random obscure character from a previous adventure.
Yours
The Doctor.
PS I have the longest death scene in history."
The Doctor: Intergalactic space pimp.
Of course, the first trailer of the Matt Smith series is out already, which demonstrates that A) Matt's surprised look when he punches someone is adorable and B) I am going to be crushing on Karen Gillan something rotten.
Initial impressions are extremely positive - I'm certainly not one of those who consider Tennant the only true Doctor - I recall watching the last Tom Baker story, Peter Davison's run, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and reading all the Target Doctor Who novelizations when I was a kid and pre-home video releases of the classic stories, so I'm familiar with all the incarnations. Tennant's been a good Doctor, but the last episode of his run was, frankly, horribly self-indulgent on the part of Russell T Davis and I'm certainly not wailing and gnashing my teeth over his departure - on the contrary, after a year or so since his announcement about his leaving, I'm looking forward to some fresh blood.
I'm still kinda bugged by how sef indulgent the whole thing was. I could understand the fuss if Tennant was the first actor to play the role, but he's number ten, and the second in the new series. Okay, his departure should have been dramatic, but damn, the whole thing wasn't dramatic and had more endings than Lord of the Rings. The whole thing felt like it was more about RTD and DT's departures than it was a regeneration story. It finally got good in the last few minutes when, at long last, the regeneration happened and Eleven popped up. And I immediately warmed to him simply because I was thinking AT LAST. But he made a very favourable first impression anyway.
One person I really will miss - lovable, wonderful Wilf. Okay, so the Star Wars moment was, frankly, excruciatingly embarrassing and clearly put in to give Bernard Cribbins an action treat to top his "paintgun and a Dalek" moment that was his idea last year, but aside from that, why Bernard's not got a knighthood is a mystery to me, and he better clear up at the television awards this year, after he acted everyone else off screen, often without even saying a word. The most effective scenes (possibly the only ones) in the final two parter were where it was just Bernard and David Tennant having a quiet moment, where he proved that he could get the tears welling up with just a word or a gesture - actually, far more effectively than all of Tennant's moping or raging.
There was so much silly with the plot that it's hard to know where to start. I will credit John Simm for relishing the daftness of the plot, though. It turned me off, but he seemed to be having fun with it, and his enthusiasm was kind of infectious, especially as he appeared to have reigned in the wackiness. I'd still rather have a Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes, though, rather than a Jeffrey Goines.
According to the audio commentary for the episode the mysterious Time Lord woman was meant to be the Doctor's mother. Not sure where that came from, but I suspect it was probably that Carole Ann Ford didn't fancy popping up as Susan or Lalla Ward as Romana, despite the reference on the script to the two female Time Lords who refused to go along with the others' plans clearly suggesting those two characters. However, since it wasn't expressly started on screen, I chose to believe that the mysterious woman was one of them anyway. So there.
I'm not going to comment much on the individual goodbyes section, because, like Donna, I fear if I think about it too hard my head will explode. Except, of course, it didn't, because of plot muguffin number five, but moving swiftly on....
I do have to say, Mickey, you can do so much better. Also: random.
But the Jack part is the big that mildly annoyed me the most - not least because he's Moffat's creation anyway, and the Gran Moff's not going anywhere, but coming on the tail of Torchwood: Children of Earth it just seemed horribly misjudged. I half expected the note to read:
"Hi Jack!
Sorry I couldn't come to Earth and help out, so your lover was killed and you had to kill your grandchild.
Let me make up for it by getting you some cock from a random obscure character from a previous adventure.
Yours
The Doctor.
PS I have the longest death scene in history."
The Doctor: Intergalactic space pimp.
