C'mon, people!

[cosmolinguist]

I can't see the new Doctor Who until Thursday! So tell me how it was.

Comments

[magister]

Pretty good. Capaldi was great, they remembered to give Clara something to do and there's a slightly harsher feel to it. I liked it. And there's cross-species lesbian snogging.

[cosmolinguist]

People seem to have mostly positive things to say -- though the things they don't like all sound like things I won't like (the baddie being a dark reflection of the Doctor, hints of a Bigger Picture, Moffat being entirely too pleased with his characters and not knowing how to write women, etc). So I'm still really excited, which is good.

There's a chance I'll get to watch it on BBC America in an hour, because of the way today is shaping up, but I wasn't expecting to and won't mind if it has to wait until Thursday after all.

[magister]

Not perfect, but very enjoyable. Good scenes, but a tad disjointed at times.

[cosmolinguist]

My mom said I coud watch Doctor Who, which is on BBC America now, but we put it on and it's just morons talking (they treat all Doctor Who things like the FA Cup now...why do I need to hear what kind of Doctor Wil Wheaton wants?). And then I remembered there are lesbians in this one so I said maybe Mom and I should watch something else. So this will have to wait til I see you, after all.

[matgb]

I need to rewatch it when my brain is working, but from my slightly dazed and sleep deprived state, there may have been a plot, but it existed to shoehorn a bunch of set pieces and references and character stuff.

I liked the character stuff, especially Jenny/Vastra (but, again, not so much Strax-as-comic-relief but I did like the occasional lapses to Strax-as-conquering-Sontaran), and I liked a lot of the set pieces.

But, well, the plot made even less sense than a normal Moff plot does, but I don't think the plot mattered this week, Capaldi is The Doctor, and that's what mattered.

[cosmolinguist]

I do think Strax is more interesting as conquering-Sontaran than as comic relief.

[sfred]

I loved it.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm very glad to hear this. :)

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

Two big fans here saying that the story line was a bit odd, tying in old and new plot lines, but pretty good!

I haven't seen it yet either ...

[cosmolinguist]

I suppose it's inevitable they try to tie in some old stories, to get old fans to like the new Doctor.

[land-girl.livejournal.com]

Ha! I like Malcolm Tucker even more than I like Dr Who so they didn't need to try for me :-)

[cosmolinguist]

I love Malcolm Tucker, too, and I'm very fond of the role Capaldi plays in Neverwhere.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Really good! Definitely one of those scripts where Moffat was actually paying proper attention. Good balance of plot, wit and characterisation (with even Clara suddenly developing a personality), and a nice balance also between doing this story well while linking it in with past story-lines and teasing us with interesting hints of the future. I won't say more for fear of getting spoilery, but it really does feel like the programme has turned a bit of a corner here - and in an entirely good way.

[cosmolinguist]

I'm very glad to hear that! I have thought the show was in need of turning a corner for a while.

And you (and everyone else) needn't fear spoilers around me; not only do I not mind them, but I expect Andrew will tell me about it in great detail, either because he liked it or because he didn't. :)

[cosmolinguist]

He must have read this comment, because all he's told me is that there are eyeballs (which he knows I sometimes don't like) and a dinosaur (which he knows I do like), and that's it! Just to make me be wrong in what I said, I bet. :)

[newandrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Nope -- only just read this now.

[cosmolinguist]

It wasn't a bad guess, though, that you'd rant about it. Are you going to write about it for Mindlesses?

[newandrewhickey.livejournal.com]

No, there's not really much to say about it.

[starbrow.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a bit of a mixed bag. Peter Capaldi was pretty good I think but it's going to take a couple more episodes before he really feels like the Doctor to me. The plot wasn't great, what little there was of it, and I was disappointed in the design of the clockwork droids - I had been expecting prettier monsters, dammit.

I tend to find Clara annoying and she still annoyed me from time to time but maybe less so than at some points last series. I do like the fact that maybe she's starting to get a handle on her faults and at least acknowledge they exist.

All the bits with Jenny and Vastra were fun, aside from that thing that Stephen Moffat does where he sort of slots each half of a couple into a husband/wife role, except it doesn't really work with them for obvious reasons, but he still keeps trying to do it. Why is Jenny the one pouring the tea, indeed.

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of watching it, but it's not one of the ones I'll be watching over and over - I think it's one of the ones that looks dodgier and dodgier the more it's watched.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, I'm not actually as enamored of Jenny and Vastra as a lot of people, because I hate the way Moffat writes them as "look at how clever and progressive I am for thinking up such characters! You love this, don't you? YOU ALL MUST LOVE THESE CHARACTERS!"

I don't expect to watch any of these episodes over and over, but I'm glad it's enjoyable once.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Not amazing. Not dreadful. As series openers go, better than any of RTD's. As new Doctor openers, maybe not as good as The 11th Hour. Probably didn't deserve the feature-length, but then in 45 minutes it would probably have felt a bit rushed.

[cosmolinguist]

It's nice not to have a story that's confined to 45 minutes. I think a lot of them suffer in that format.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

True, quite a few of the 45 minute episodes have a plot that can be summed as 'arrive in location A, find dodgy stuff, run to location B, run back to location A, SAVE THE DAY!'

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah, and so many recent episodes write emotional checks they can't cash: theres not enough time for the audience to develop the emotional investment that'd justify the grandiose set-pieces.

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

It was quite good, and had at least one scene I thought was excellent that I am in the middle of trying to craft a blogpost about for my public blog.

Lizard Sherlock Holmes, the Watson girl and their potato butler have some great scenes and as usual he gets some fine one-liners.

There is a final scene that I am pondering greatly as to what it may signify, though in an episode or three that will most likely be made clear.

Next time it's fucking daleks. Not, not like that #pepperpotonpepperpotaction

[cosmolinguist]

Stuart tells me we might have our first bi companion, and is interested to see what I think of that. I find this intriguing.

As for the fornicating Daleks, like I saw someone say on Facebook, when people's response is "oh christ not the Daleks again" -- as absolutely everyone's seems to be -- it's possible they're failing in their role of the greatest terror in the universe etc. etc.

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

First bi companion? Just wait til Jack gets his paws on them.

[newandrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Remember, Clara is the same character as the girl in the Dalek who said her bisexuality was "just a phase".

But as far as bi companions go, there's Jack (alas), Ace (not explicitly, but no less blatant than Clara), Chris Cwej (character in the books, made bi by Russel T Davies in his only Who novel, Damaged Goods), Bernice Summerfield ("the people of her own time had by and large developed a happy and relaxed and generally unobtrusive ambisexuality."), Iris Wildthyme (described as a "lesbian novelist" in one of Paul Magrs' short stories, but seen to have multiple sexual affairs with men)... (and of course we don't know the sexuality of the vast majority of the characters -- it's certainly possible to read Nyssa, Tegan, and Liz Shaw, among others, as bi).

While checking a detail of this, I ended up on the TARDIS wikia page for "sexuality", which explains what sexuality means within the Doctor Who universe, including lines like "The buttocks was a common focal point of sexuality." and "No matter how one identified, they could still derive sexual pleasure from watching people of another orientation. For instance, Fern "touched himself" while watching pornography that depicted sex between a man and a woman, two women, and two men."

Oh nerds...