Ten’s Era wasn’t all that good.

With the return of David Tennant to the role of the Tenth Doctor this November the revised fandom is started to really pick up speed. I’ve seen a pretty good fan made trailer for the 50^th anniversary episode and a whole load of Facebook posts about it and particularly about how awesome things were during the tenth Doctor’s run.

Thing is, things really weren’t awesome during the tenth Doctor’s run. They were pretty crappy to be honest. The love story with Rose was clichéd and over the top and a great chunk of the episodes (across the whole run) lacked inspiration or any essence of new ideas.

There have been a couple of crappy episodes since Eleven took over (that one the pirates, that one with the plastic people, that one with the Dinosaurs  - seriously, what were they thinking with that episode?), but overall Matt Smith’s run has been fairly consistent in terms of quality.

The Tenth Doc’s era was host to one series that I would be willing to sit through again (that being series 3) and even at that I’d choose any of the Eleventh era series’ over that.

Getting on to the elephant in the room, Ten’s exit, while being the pinnacle of sadness for some, was, as far as I’m concerned a boring, over the top and slightly self-indulgent trudge fest.

The only thing that got any kind of emotion out of me from “The End of Time” was the Tenth Doctor miserable musings about regeneration. And the emotion that that happened to evoke in me was a mixture of anger and annoyance. It seemed to me that Russell T Davies was using the opportunity to tell fans; “the new Who isn’t going to half as good as this one.” You’d think from it, that David Tennat was the first person to play the Doctor and that Davies was the first person to run the show.

The entire self-indulgent, somewhat confrontational monologue is not I the spirit of this show that has been constantly changing for the best part of 50 years.

There you have it, Ten’s run wasn’t all that good ad the series under Moffat is much better.

Stuff that Annoys Me 2

“It wasn’t made for you”

In relation to television I’ve heard this excuse used a couple of times. One of these was from Matthew Graham. In response to the negative reaction of the older fans to his episode of Doctor Who “Fear Her” he said  "Well, it's a shame that they have, but it wasn't meant for them"

Let me explain why this statement holds absolutely no validity whatsoever. Doctor Who is the most popular Science Fiction show I the UK and draws in viewers of all ages. To even suggest that it would be alright to let down half these viewers for the sake of impressing the other half is just plain stupid. It’s also an insulting thing to say to a fan of the show. Graham is implying that there’s nothing wrong with how he wrote the episode, but that those who reacted badly to it are the ones with the problem. He could have reacted to the criticism by asking himself what he did wrong and what he could have done better. Instead, the only thing he seems to have asked himself seems to be, “what could possibly be wrong with the people who didn't like my work?”

Also, looking at the episode more specifically, the main antagonist (Chloe Webber) suffers from a constant fear that her dead, alcoholic, abusive father will come back to life and beat her to death. Written for the kids was that Matthew?

Star Wars is going to be the same again

With his latest Star Trek film, JJ Abrams has proved that he has no understanding of subject matter, deeper meaning or character motivation. He knows how to put on a loud light show and that’s exactly what Star Wars has been for the last few years anyway. Abrams would appear to understand as little about what the original Star Wars meant as George Lucus, to be honest.

The fact that people are obsessed with twilight and not Buffy

From the first to the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there is a love story constantly running between the characters of Buffy and Angel. When broken down to it’s core elements, this love story is essentially the same as that Bella and Edward in Twilight. However, it is executed so much better in Buffy. Like Bella, Buffy is in love with a dangerous vampire who struggles with his own love for her, not to mention his bloodlust and true demonic nature. Unlike Bella, Buffy is able to draw a line between love and complete and utter devotion. She is capable operating without Angel, she regularly addresses the fact that they shouldn’t be together simply because he’s 226 years older than her  - yeah the fact that Edward Cullen is a paedophile for purposes US law is never addressed is it?

Buffy is essentially a far better role model than Bella, she exists in a similar universe and even goes through the same love story, but comes out of it as a stronger character, whereas Bella just concludes that it’s about time she surrendered everything to Edward and embraced traditional marriage.