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Season 5 NON Love - but not quite hate either. Issues & tissues here.

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thefifthdoctor
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« on: September 07, 2010, 05:24:26 pm »

Hi all,

As mentioned by poprockgeek in the "love" thread, and as I am growing to have a lot of respect for her - here's a thread for all of the issues you may have had with Series/Season 5 of Doctor Who.

Now, I need to be very clear right from the off - I certainly don't hate S5 - a few of the episodes have been absolutely timeless & brilliant, but I guess it's only fair to allow people (who knows, I may sit here alone in my musty thread gathering dust) to get any problems or dislikes of it off their chest, out in the open & well, you get the idea I'm sure, we seem to be a pretty decent crowd on here from what I can tell!
(hope you like me as much after this lol!)

So, with no further ado, here is the thread for issues or hates from this past series.
Lastly, I'd like to thank poprockgeek for the nudge & wholeheartedly agree that this thread be for things you didn't like only - keep love to the love thread etc.

Cheers & apologies for possibly annoying anyone with my (to me anyway) lighthearted post in the love thread  Grin
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thefifthdoctor
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« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2010, 05:56:25 pm »

So, there's the intro done.

I've decided to do my post seperately, hope that's ok.

My problems with series 5 (I'm sure I'll forget stuff, always happens!)

First & foremost - to me most of the series felt like the show was being "kidified" - instead of being a pg rated family show, it began to feel like SJA with a (slightly better) effects budget.
This wasn't helped by the schedule juggling of the BBC either.

Amy Pond. Not Amelia, she was brilliant. Nope, sadly my issue is with Amy Pond as portrayed by Karen Gillan.
I'm still unsure how I'm supposed to feel about this loud obnoxious Scottish chick (just to be clear, I'm Scottish myself, so spotting stereotypes comes naturally). Most of the time her acting was straight out of River City - random shouting & arrogance right from the get go - I just didn't know what to think.
I found I disliked the character more & more as the show progressed, even in the finale.
In fact, the only time she won me over was the "Something old.." line.

Ipod/Fat/Skittle Daleks. They just look utterly ridiculous to me. I read somewhere that Moffat loves the old Cushing movies so wanted the colours back - but it felt way too much like merchandising.
Yet the WWII Dalek was absolutely brilliant.

Being spoon fed information. Did you know there was a crack? In time? THAT ONE RIGHT THERE? IT'S THE SAME ONE FROM MY BEDROOM WALL!
Subtlety seemed to be left at home for much of this series, possibly in line with aiming the show more at kids, I dunno, but sometimes working it out on your own is more fun.

Lazy writing. Psychic pollen? Vampires but really watery beasties? More companion/Doctor snogging? Churchill summons the Doctor for....erm, why was it?
I really enjoy The Unquiet Dead, but I think Mark Gatiss proved both with the Idiot's Lantern and now Victory of the Daleks that he isn't up to it. In my opinion at least.
Ok, I admit I'm very biased on the Vampires bit as I want to see full on proper vampires for once.

Lastly, and if you hate me for the above, you may agree on this one;
Graeme Harper & Euros Lynn.
Where were they?

Thank you for reading & if you don't agree or think I'm a twonk now, then that's your choice, but it's only fair to have both sides of the coin I suppose.

Cheers


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« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2010, 06:01:42 pm »

I want character development to return to the show. I saw none in the series. The finale was an incoherent pile of rubbish with maybe a few scenes I genuinely enjoyed. Why? I feel like nothing happened. Or rather, lots happened but didn't happen, no one evolved, nothing changed, and then you had some weird, last-min "wrap it up real quick" ending that just felt cheap.

Journey's End did a better job, and up until now I thought that was the worst finale I've ever seen.

I'd like a female companion who is intelligent and feisty versus merely being bitchy with about three facial expressions. In her defense, she gained the third after The Eleventh Hour. Maybe she had a fourth in Amy's Choice; I admittedly haven't seen it yet.

I'd like River "Mary Sue" Song to go away and never come back.

I liked the monsters better when they were actually scary and not parodies of themselves. The one decent one created was destroyed (Weeping Angels). Why, gods, why?

I actually kinda like Eleven; I just hate his season and the writing. I really wish there were better characters, better portrayals of women, and less of this overly self-conscious attempt to be clever and more of an attempt to just simply do a good scifi drama.

After watching "Rose" it brought it all back to me why I really loved the reboot and it became my favorite show. It's lost a lot of that, and I miss it.

Sorry, that was a lot of hate given this thread was supposedly more dislike than hate, but I just haven't been happy with the show so far. I genuinely hope things change in S6. At the very least, I'll be watching the Gaiman written ep.
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« Reply #3 on: September 07, 2010, 06:03:59 pm »

First & foremost - to me most of the series felt like the show was being "kidified" - instead of being a pg rated family show, it began to feel like SJA with a (slightly better) effects budget.
This wasn't helped by the schedule juggling of the BBC either.

There was a quote elsewhere that the reboot started out as being a smart, scifi adult drama that was family friendly into something that was more of a kids' show in S5--and I agree. I prefer the smart, scifi adult drama style.
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thefifthdoctor
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« Reply #4 on: September 07, 2010, 08:31:10 pm »

I agree with a good chunk of what you were saying, especially regarding strong female characters.

I'm not a fan of River - Alex Kingston plays her as way too smug - and I've mentioned Amy already.

Probably the only female character of note in S5 was Meera Syal (sp) in the Silurians story.
More down to her natural likeability than anything else.

Matt himself is certainly not an issue for me. He did the best he could with what he was given, I feel.

Regarding parody monsters, I'd say that's definitely the Daleks, especially now Apple have given them an overhaul.

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« Reply #5 on: September 08, 2010, 09:10:59 am »

I find myself almost completely agreeing with the OP (and as always BlueRose speaks much sense). Firstly, starting with the positives, I thought Matt Smith was wonderful as the Doctor. In fact there were times that I was watching the show just for him, to see how he developed. He sparkled and menaced and confused in equal measure. His delivery was often pitch perfect and it was a joy to actually see an actor grow into a role. Some of the stories were superb and I actually did like the idea of the dream lord (wasn't mad keen on the story into which he was placed). I thought Rory was wonderful and would have liked him as the central companion. My first thought is this; why not try the Doc and a male companion in a buddy-movie style - it works very well on Supernatural. Finally, I loved the TARDIS interior and the scoring of the episodes by Murray Gold was peerless.

Ok, now for the not so good. I have three main issues with s 5. The first was Amy. She was just plain dislikable. I couldn't warm to her because she was just too abrasive and self centred. I am all in favour of strong female characters but I actually don't think she was one. I think she was a male idea of a strong female character. And she got me even later than thefifthdoctor because it wasn't until 'You are late for my wedding' that I started to like her - only for her to ruin it with the 'snog in the bushes comment'. Little Amelia - although impractical - would have been ideal (though like I said, why not be a bit brave and just go with Doc and Rory).

My second issue is this.. Have we slipped back to the Pertwee era without anyone telling me? Has the Doctor been exiled to Earth again? Because there sure were a lot of Earth based stories and it stuck out like a sore thumb. A brief run down shows that all but 2 of the stories were set wholly or substantially on Earth (3 if you don't count the Beast Below). This is just not what I expect. Sure there will be a number of shows based on Earth but not virtually the whole season.

My final issue is of the whole story arc theme. IMHO the whole season could have been compacted into one episode (or a good two parter) yet the story arc was telegraphed throughout the season and then not really sorted out in the finale. I like story arcs to a point where they are subtly woven into the fabric of the season without affecting the story telling. If I was a newbie watching TPA/TBB I wouldn't have much of an idea what was going on - compare that to TPOTW or Doomsday. Even though you missed the arc, you would have been into the story in no time. With TPO & TBB not only would a newbie be a little confused but also (as I was) scratching my head thinking so what has been sorted and what is still up in the air. On a lot of levels I adored TPO & TBB, was blown away by the scale of the story telling but both eps had some problems as well.

Season 5 felt different - and it was always going to feel different. I think my problem is that I expected MS to need a little time to grow, but I didn't take account of the fact the Steven Moffat would need to grow as a show runner, however, I think he does. I think he needs to look at the successes in the season as well as the failures and move the show on. I will be more concerned if Seasons 6 & 7 have the same flaws as Season 5.

Good OP - I don't hate season 5 and there are large parts that I love, but as I said in another post, I think it is a work in progress.
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« Reply #6 on: September 08, 2010, 12:01:24 pm »

What irks me is that RTD needed no time to grow and Moff already had penned episodes--so what's the prob?

I think unless he drastically changes his MO, what you see is what you get unfortunately. Between that and the awful, awful handling of the regeneration which utterly ruined 46 years of continuity...I'm not real keen, sad to say. If I treated it as a spinoff, maybe...but that's about it because I just don't see the old show anymore.
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