So... The Doctor (Spoilers)

[lotjx]

The Olympics probably have a lot to do with this. There are rumors already starting that part of the reason for 2012 is light is to make the budget to get the past Doctors for one of the 2013 episodes or the Christmas special.

[Fourmyle of Ceres]

There's always Inspector Spacetime...

http://io9.com/5844151/it-only-took-a-few-days-for-communitys-doctor-who-spoof-to-become-a-full+blown-internet-meme/gallery/1

[Jonas]

I have to admit... I hate Amy. I find the character extremely dislikable, and the acting usually sub-par. (A lot like Torchwood's Gwen Cooper, really.)

More than that... I hate the 11th Doctor. I realize the Doctor is different from incarnation to incarnation, but the current one is clearly the winner of the Upper-Class Twit of the Year competition. Even his TARDIS looks like an office.

The RTD seasons were flawed, sometimes ridiculously so, but at their core were characters that I liked and moments that moved me. Right now the show has completely lost me.

[Chipmunk]

Also, the correct answer is Sarah Jane Smith for best companion ever.

+1

When I heard Elizabeth had passed beyond the veil, it was almost as bad as hearing of Andreas' voyage.

I'm just glad she had the opportunity to go in style, with School Reunion and (almost three decades late) the SJS Adventures series.

Even Barrowman admits he stole from that character to play Captain Jack.

Shiny! If you've got a link or two about that, I'd enjoy reading it.
I generally abhor "video diaries", but David Tennant's were generally fun, and the parts with Cap'n Jack were doubly so. Only thing better than one Who-fan-boy is two of them, working off each other.


If we're going to rank Companions, K-9 also "must" be on the top five list. I'm still thinking about my other three (leaning to Jo-Jo-Grant, since she was my first, and Leela, since she kicked butt, and possibly Ace because she was that rare thing, a generally believable female Geek).

Honorable mention does have to be given to Rose.
I introduced Who to two PBS-deprived friends (yes, Iowa is weird), and Rose was a significant factor in hooking both of them. She was an excellent foil for Dr.Eccleston.

The saddest thing for me is that the kids have lost interest, and it is going to take something special to win them back, but such is life.

Khannnnnnn!!!

{in Delenn's voice} Butt-butt-butt...
they're still willing to watch old, good eps, right?!?
If not, that's a Geek tragedy.

If they're old enough, shift them over to Babylon 5, mainly for itself, but ostensibly to "fill in" the time until they fix Who (it has lost its way before, and been fixed).

And there's also Steven Moffat's Sherlock, which (delightfully) reminds me of Eccleston's Who (with a bit of BBT's Sheldon Cooper).
His Holmes reminds me of Wash (from Firefly), with just the right amount of Garibaldi.

[OmahaStar]

Yikes. Two of your top five are my absolute worst two characters in the history of television.

[lotjx]

Robot dogs rock, they even made mention of it in Closing Time. Rose started off fine, but got to clingy and she getting the Doctor while Donna got mind wiped left a bad taste in people's mouths. So, the Doctor is not dead, good, but I can't buy him being low profile. Loved seeing Charles Dickens back.

[I love Lyta]

Have to say I am a fan of DW since the early teenage times. But I have to agree with those who state that this season was the worst and boring ever.
Really, Karen makes me drool all over my keyboard. But right now am fed up with her character. Also I'd say eversince Rory joined them on their voyages things went downhill. When I saw "The Girl who waited" I thought I might have zapped into a soap opera instead of watching an ep of DW...
Heck, even the last ep was crap. And I just can't get into the new Doctor either. The only thing worse than this year's season of DW was this year's season of Torchwood, which was the untoppable cream of the crap.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Have to say I am a fan of DW since the early teenage times. But I have to agree with those who state that this season was the worst and boring ever.
Really, Karen makes me drool all over my keyboard. But right now am fed up with her character. Also I'd say eversince Rory joined them on their voyages things went downhill. When I saw "The Girl who waited" I thought I might have zapped into a soap opera instead of watching an ep of DW...
Heck, even the last ep was crap. And I just can't get into the new Doctor either. The only thing worse than this year's season of DW was this year's season of Torchwood, which was the untoppable cream of the crap.

I haven't seen the season finale or whatever yet, but the one before that lost my interest pretty severely. It was cool seeing the little "Here's what Amy's accomplished!" which is pretty funny since Karen Gillan came from modelling to begin with. The little nods to the overall plot were the only redeeming part of the episode that seemed to be centered around one big gay joke?

The whole Amy/Rory/Doctor triangle at the beginning was really cool, and since Amy/Rory were solidified as a couple it kind of made the personal parts more boring. I thought they really didn't capititalize on the beginning episodes having her creepy obsession with the doctor which could have made a lot more conflict if they didn't resolve it so soon.

Yup, as I've always said, show needs more Karen Gillan. Less everything else.

[DGTWoodward]

I know that this may seem odd coming from a fan of of arc-centric stories like B5, but this season had too many things working against it for it to be anything like as well done as the previous one (which i thought was excellent!).

The show had roughly a half-and-half mix between full-arc and minimum-arc stories. Though, the mid-season break did pretty much enforce which eps were going to where in the overall sequence, and that just added to the show's disjointed feel. There seemed to be far too many 'red herrings/clues' to keep track of which may be step-ups for next year (who/what was in the Doctor's hotel room?) or may not be...the significance (or not) of the Doctor's changing clothes...Top Hat & Tails, red bow, blue bow, regular jacket, long coat.

The introduction of a previously unseen, unknown or even unmentioned character of 'Mels' with the added expectation that a person this integral to the story would just be believable so very late in the story...considering her true identity (Wow, it's difficult being cryptic!). Considering Moffatt had from the middle of Tennant's tenure as DW to work all this out, she should have been there right from the start of the Doctor/Pond story.

Only that way would the revelation have had the real 'pop' she should have had, instead of the "You what?" she ended up getting.

There are several other things but these. I think are the main ones. Sadly, there will be another mid season break, it seems, for the next season too. Luckily, it does not seem to have affected the ratings badly this time around...but it will.

The UK is not the USA. We DO NOT have mid-season breaks. We have shows commissioned, they are all filmed and then they are all broadcast, one-per-week, and they do not stop half way through...until now, with the advent of PAY TV/cable/SKY services and where our imported shows usually follow the US screenings only by two weeks or so, some times only a couple of days.

But our own home-grown stuff...NEVER until this season of Dr Who.

The poor old American audiences get mid-season breaks for most the time, and seem to be treated like idiots for the rest of it. As an observer, it's a minor miracle that anything gets passed one season on the networks, it all seems so chaotic. As evidence (as an aside), I remember a story told to a convention audience by the late, lovely Jeff Conaway (RIP ) about how he was sick in bed and awoke in the middle of the night, could not sleep, he turned on the TV at that insane hour and found B5...at the time and to him a totally new show!

If anything needed to change first and foremost...that mid-season cliff-hanger has to go. After the opener (which usually resolves the sequence of the previous season) there just are not enough eps in a 13 part series to build any expectation for another halfway cliff-hanger. If anything is going to kill Dr Who again, it is going to be this stop-start-stop-start story telling technique.