Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room Doctor Who?

Given that I'm a lifelong fan of the show with my own Who website and blog page, I'm surprised I haven't contributed more to this thread!

While I enjoyed this two-parter, it left me feeling rather neutral. Did we really need the weeping angels back? For me they just weren't as effective second time around, which is a shame given that they are probably one of the scariest enemies the show has produced.

Matt Smith is going from strength to strength (which is funny considering this was the first story he shot).

I had River Song down as being a regenerated Rani. Obviously, we didn't find out. I suspect she'll be back...

I am not liking this development

Birdsong was audible

Who's been sleeping in The Garden...?

and without the use of elaborate alien technology, and with my one-finger typing technique, I've just teleported your quote over from one time-related-thread and into another one


Viewed the latest two episodes last night, (I've got into the habit recently of recording shows and watching them as a double-bill). Of the two episodes: The Vampires Of Venice, and Amy's Choice, the former was a typical Who-ish aliens in history romp, and the latter was I think one of the best so far this series...

I'm actually starting to feel disillusioned with the new series. For me, it has 'lost' something.

On Saturday, I suddenly realised that I wouldn't be too bothered if I missed it. For the first time in over 25 years of viewing and loving the show!

Somehow, part of the enjoyment is watching it 'live' at the time of transmission.I suppose nowadays, knowing we have the iPlayer and BBC Three repeat, it's not the end of the world if I happen to miss it. But it was the fact that a certain feeling was gone that alarmed me.

And as such a dedicated and passionate fan, this is a very sorry thing to be saying.

I didn't dislike Saturday's episode, although it did remind me of the "Nannageddon" episode of The Mighty Boosh!!

Over the last 2 days I've spoken to 3 friends who watch the show. One hates it completely; can't stand Matt Smith. The other said he hasn't been as bothered about it and it isn't as good as it was, and the third echoes my own thoughts and feelings, in that the only good thing about the current series (and contrary to his initial misgivings), is Matt Smith.

Matt Smith IS the best thing about the show (luckily!). He is a superb Doctor. He manages to bring together aspects of previous Doctors, such as Tennant, Troughton and Davison yet make it his own. It's amazing how somebody of Matt's age can be both so old and so young at the same time!

I like Karen Gillan but somehow, Amy just isn't doing it for me. But the big disappointment I'm afraid, is Steven Moffat. And it is with huge irony I say this, as when I think about many of my favourite episodes from 2005 onwards - they're his. Some of the most original stories - again, the Moff. A self-confessed lifelong fan too - which in my book made him the perfect and ideal person to take over from RTD, who for me started off good, but slowly let things fall apart.

Now, The Eleventh Hour was brilliant. That really got the new season off to a good start, and The Beast Below, while a little odd, still worked; feeling new and original. But it's been a rapid downhill journey since then, with the utterly dreadful Gatiss travesty and horrendous new Dalek design. That as for me, the first warning sign.

I guess I'm disappointed in the decisions and choices the production team have made. For me it's stopped 'feeling' like Doctor Who, and that's what concerns me.

And I never thought I'd say that, but I am. Looking back, Series 1 with Christopher Eccleston was, for me personally (aside from the farting Slitheen), the best season of the revived show and most true to the spirit of the original show. I thought that was just how modern Doctor Who needed to be. Then he went and left...

So back to the present; and we're about half way through the season. I really hope that soon something is going to come along and change my state of mind.

I have to agree with you Alex.

Its not doing it for me either.

I used to complain about Russell T Davies but I hate to say that it was better when he was running it.

Moffat has been a huge disapointment.

I did really enjoy Saturdays though.

Must be one of the Boosh episodes I've note seen:)

I thought RTD did the first 2 seasons very well, but then it went downhill in the third and fourth, with too many camp moments and overblown, OTT stories, particularly the finalés.

They also used the Daleks too much. The first "Dalek" story was utterly fantastic and the "Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways" was brilliant too. But all the subsequent ones were all poor stories; more like the sort of playground games you'd play as a kid. Consequently the Dalek menace has been diminished and there's no thrill, excitement or surprise because of their over-use, not to mention the fact that they need an original story.

And the hunchback, Teletubbie re-design of the new series has just killed them flat. I'm astounded that both the Terry Nation estate and Mr Moffat agreed to this. You just don't tamper with such a classic design.

Spot on with both points there Alex.

Regarding the Rani, my memory of the original is a bit vague, think it coincided with a time when I’d either lost interest in the show or just left it behind as I got older, but I think you are correct, the River Song role would make complete sense in being that character.

What’s the most redeeming factor about the new series and undoubtedly the glue that’s presently holding it all together? Why yes, it’s that tall wonky-legged and somewhat foppish Mr Smith! For me too he is the whole kit and caboodle, the bee’s knees, the cat’s whisker’s, the big banana in the ‘buy two, get one free’ deal at Sainsbury’s, and besides, he’s actually fun!

In the climax of The Vampires Of Venice was that an unintentional homage to another geeky adventurer, silent movie star Harold Lloyd who dangled high up in the air clinging to a clock hand, as Matt’s doc’ climbed up the Venetian tower, popped open that globe, and hastily found the off-switch like a Mr Bond fumbling with Goldfinger’s dastardly bomb, and just in the nick of time. Yeah, such a time-honoured resolution, phew, I’m just surprised we didn’t see a countdown. Matt’s scenes, such as, his breaking into the school and confronting the ravishing, or ravenous ‘students’ while looking in the mirror, and his later flirtatious confrontation with Calvierri show what a charmingly cheeky chap he is, and with his likeable characterisation and developing body language in the role, all of which made up for having an otherwise predictable plot scenario.


Recording and watching a double-bill of TV serial shows has become a bit of a practical necessity for me, rather than by design, and it definitely adds to the entertainment value, but having a double dose can sometimes make up for what might in reality be two shows of lesser quality, generously giving them the appearance of one stronger episode in my memory. The Vampires Of Venice probably falls into that category, with it’s lobster-tailed creatures fitting nicely into slightly creepy Venetian attire as if it were a story borne from out of the sumptuous BBC costume department. It really was just another routine day in the world of production-line Who stories, and this was the type that only goes one of two particular ways with the established format, either as a Supernatural Infiltration, or, as an Alien Invasion.

Though of course these stories are always a bit of both and we no longer expect to be surprised beyond that, but is this nonchalance towards the familiarity of the stories a good or a bad thing for the regular audience, now that we’re way beyond the exhaustibility of story possibilities and tumbling down so many routes with the new post-modern Who, the parody route, the ‘so self-aware we’re hip route’. Can they go any further now without just ending the show and having it go off into indefinite hibernation again? Or until such time as another re-awakening will allow us to view it as having been ‘re-invented’, when in fact all we will actually be doing 20 years from now is viewing the same-old-same-old, but in a newer age.


It’s still a good romp, and it’s still the best home-produced fantasy light entertainment but presently I think the crux of the matter is that Moffat is basically just ‘a good TV producer’ and that’s all, is he bringing enough originality on board, has he really re-defined the show?

Apart from squashing a few Daleks out of shape, and sticking some camouflage and kit bags on the old ones (much as the schoolboy me loved that image), I’m not really seeing it. He states he wants a fairytale, but again, the show hasn’t gone all Dark Crystal on us, I’m still waiting to see if he has a real artists hand, or is someone with a fantastique vision to bring to a prime-time show that really has to just fit itself into a scheduled tea-time slot.

How risky will the show be allowed to be, we know RT Davies was a genuine innovator with a history of individual and successful TV work, and thus his deeply personal and unshakably strong vision of just who his ‘Who’ is was given free reign to be a new and defining template, so, it’s success is established in a particular manner, and they wouldn’t want it derailed by anything too challenging, or worse still, too arty rearing it’s bare arsed head. Now none of that matters as long as the show remains enjoyable, thanks to Matt I am enjoying it, and I think Amy is okay, her boyfriend though is completely underplayed, he really should be more comically annoying or irritating in some dumb way, which I think would contribute for more friction between the characters.


To be honest, I was momentarily un-convinced at the arrival of the first series, but I’ve always liked Christopher Eccleston, and immediately loved his (Davies’s) radical portrayal of the Doc, and the high production values to the show were like Christmas had finally arrived in Who-dom, with the BBC Grinch at long last being a genuine good fairy towards the spirit of the series.

But I hated some of the Star Wars Cantina aliens style of CGI-ism that was now a part and parcel of it’s visuals, and the non-stop annoying music in the background which unnecessarily ‘heightened’ every scene, and I grudgingly put-up with the ever increasing touches of Australian tea-time soap-opera bordering on musical theatre hysterics, until I (perhaps like many other older fans) eventually donned my tux and top-hat, pulled on the white gloves and tap-shoes, spun a silver-topped cane in the air and joined in with the chorus line. Yes, I really wanted hard Sci-Fi merged with Surreality, A 2001 Space Odyssey meets David Lynch and crash-lands in some mythical part of our dark and miserable country, but we got Russell instead, who took it so far down his street and enthusiastically convinced us that his was a great place to be after all, and now he’s up and gone and left us there with a dithering feeling about whether it’s possible to continue to stay true to that place, like Uncle Walt Disney has died and the corporation is struggling to continue, and will it ultimately fail miserably unless we get a new flamboyant Uncle Sparkle at the helm again...


Perhaps we could do a lot worse than Steven Moffat. Remember that dark moment in the 90’s when Steven Spielberg had drawn up his evil plans to resurrect the show stateside? His middle-aged mogul ideas of ‘hipness’ still haunt my imagination - a tardis console with a pair of holographic lips on the time rotor, and a baseball hat wearing streetwise companion who teaches the lips to rap.

Now that’s what I call a lucky escape,
or can we be sure? especially if you consider the connection that exists today between the two Stevens…

I'd like to see the show go darker and more mysterious; perhaps take itself a little more seriously. Maybe more like Torchwood but without the sex, gore and overtly homosexual bits.

I am glad the show came back how it did - for that I guess I'm eternally grateful. And of course I'd rather have it back as it is than if it had never been resurrected or done by Spielberg!

I do remember in the late 90s, Alan Yentob wanted to get his hands on it, and he had some exciting plans, as did a bloke by the name of Dan Freedman, whom I saw discussing his plans for it at a convention. Obviously neither saw the light of day.