Oh boy, Doctor Who is back! Hopefully after everyone complained about the first half of this season we can all sit down and enjoy the second half together, right?
… Right?
Ok, lets get on with it, then. Switching to the five thoughts format instead of essay format, here are some reactions to this week’s half-season premiere of Doctor Who‘s seventh series.
1. Techno-Paranoia Stories Are Already Outdated
I’ll talk about the good stuff about in the episode in a bit, but I want to start out with the worst: science fiction stories that try and say modern technology is bad are almost unilaterally boring, unimaginative and should be thrown away. It’s all been done before by someone better, someone who had a more relevant thing to say before, because whenever a new story like this happens where wi-fi is the enemy and we have to fear the benevolent Cloud, that’s all there is to it. “Oh, no, you guys, can you imagine, like, what if wi-fi was all bad and stuff?” There’s nothing fascinating being done, nothing interesting being said; it’s just playing off a simplistic idea fueled by pseudo-paranoia that’s better left alone, especially in something like Doctor Who where you have a wealth of history and aliens and all of time and space at your hands to tell a fun sci-fi romp.
It’s 2013. We can come up with more interesting sci-fi than this. We need to stop having everyone make an attempt at being the next George Orwell.
So, if you’re going to do something where you try and provide a twisted parable for the modern age explaining why The Cloud is the future downfall of mankind, just don’t. Or, at the very least, call Charlie Brooker.
(Imagine a Brooker-written Doctor Who. Holy shit.)
2. Jenna-Louise Coleman is Great
I’ve said it before in so many words, but it’s great to have Jenna-Louise Coleman on the show. She was great in the first episode of the season as Oswin, she was charming in the Christmas special, and while I still don’t totally buy all this “companions instantly need to love and flirt with the Doctor” stuff (yes, even after seven seasons), she definitely has a strong on-screen chemistry with Smith. It’s somewhat similar to the relationship between the Doctor and Amy Pond, just with less focus on being sassy and more focus on being clever. And that’s more than welcome.
In fact, there are a lot of clear similarities between Pond and Oswin: the immediate light-hearted, willing-to-believe-anything spirit, the overt sexual aspect as opposed to romantic undertones, the idea of a girl who wanted to have a bigger world but was stalled for one reason or another. The show hasn’t so much removed Amy Pond as it has replaced her, but it still works because there are ultimately enough differences between the two leading ladies that you can overlook the large similarities.
Because Jenna-Lousie Coleman is a scene stealer. And that’s good enough.
It’ll be interesting to see how the new version of Clara/Oswin adjusts to the Doctor Who lifestyle, seeing as we’ve seen two other versions of her handle it in similar-but-different capacities already. In fact, the mystery of her identity is honestly the least interesting facet of her character, so lets hope that Moffat doesn’t lean too hard on that as opposed to developing her in the way that the show developed Amelia Pond nee Williams.
3. I Ride Motorcycles Now. Motorcycles Are Cool.
A motorcycle driving up the side of a building with a low-vfx budget anywhere else would probably just be obscene. On Doctor Who, it’s clever, charming and actually essentially what the show has been missing.
Look: there’s a good case for the darker episodes of Who, and I won’t deny it. If we’re looking at Moffat’s previous output, “Blink” and the “Library” episodes ring out to me for that. But the best of Doctor Who, in my humble opinion, is when it straddles that line between funny and scary, rather than one or the other. That’s where it comes from, after all; in its very existence, Doctor Who and all that comes with it comes from a very silly place and a very silly concept. When the show embraces that to its fullest, it works wonders in a way that other shows can’t capture.
Continued belowWhile I’d still like to see episodes in the rest of the season take things “seriously” (in however we want to define that word within the context of this show), it’s nice to know that Moffat and Smith can still tap into that weird special place that only exists for this show, because Smith’s wacky Doctor needs moments where he can be just that: a mad man in a box.
4. Moffat and his Damn Long Cons/Easter Eggs
When Russel T. Davies ran the show, there was a game you could play with every season: find the recurring link. Whether it be some Bad Wolf spray paint or a Vote Saxon poster, there was always something in every episode that most of the time you couldn’t catch until it was too late and the Master was playing the drums.
With Moffat, it’s more like, “Hey! Check out these billion zillion things that don’t make sense that will only make sense in the last five seconds of the finale when I introduce some timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly … stuff!” That’s why we have stuff like flashbacks and cute nods to Oswin (Oswald FTW) and Clara (“RYCBAR – it’s a nemonic device”) and a missing year in her diary, to tease and prod, and brief moments showing off some new Big Bad to remind you that whether it’s a crack in the wall or the Silence, there’s always someone behind the scenes making life hell. The lack of subtlety is a bit annoying.
But, it’s also slightly addicting. Moffat thumbs his nose at us, but you can’t help but watch slightly transfixed just to see how he’s going to pull it all off. And all the little in-jokes are fun as well, such as a book written by Amelia Williams (and the not-so-subtle Chapter joke – “You’ll cry your eyes out”) or even the return of UNIT, with all associated “who?” dialogue. It’s a mixed bag that seems to be both groan inducing and full of “ah ha!” moments (not the band, though that’d be fun as well).
I guess it’s just one of those things that you either love or hate. It’s pretty easy to be annoyed at it, but for what it’s worth I find it charming in a weird way, like that odd relative who won’t stop telling you stories about the old days that seem too unbelievable to be true, and while sometimes you don’t care otherwise you can’t help but be fascinated about where he’s pulling all that crap from.
5. A Fresh Enough Start
Doctor Who has been running a long time, and every so often as a fan of the series I get asked where people should start. Well, outside of a few missed thoughts (see: the last Christmas special and the series 7 premiere), this seems as good as any to try out the Doctor if you’ve never done so before.
See, the problem with the Ponds is that they stuck around far too long. If Davies proved anything during his five years, it’s that the Doctor needs to keep it fresh, keep changing things up. Moffat’s fascination with the Ponds and the new dynamic/further update to the Who ideas let the show grow a big stagnant, and even though there were still some clever ideas and fun episodes (I still like “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” quite a lot), it became more about the game of fucking with viewers heads than it did actually telling good stories with Doctor Who.
So if there’s one thing that’s inferable from the latest episode, it’s that this seems to ostensibly be a “good enough” switch back to what made Moffat episodes good a while ago: less focus tricks, more storytelling. And if you’re a lapsed-Whovian or someone just looking to see what the fuss is all about, now’s as good a time as any to give it a go.
(And, yes, I know I called the whole wi-fi nonsense bull, because it is, but still.)
