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.

Star Trek: Into Darkness - SPOILER WARNING!!!

The more I think about this movie the worse it seems to me. Sure it’s fun enough to watch and the action scenes and special effects are all top notch. But the more thought you put into it, the more you realise that JJ Abrams has no idea what he’s dealing with and through that shows no understanding and more importantly no respect to the original films.

In order to talk about this, I’m gonna have to spoil the major twists of the film, so don't read this if you haven’t seen it. Ok, no bitching about spoilers, I’ve warned you.

So John Harrison is actually Khan. This is the first point at which Abrams pisses all over the fan base. Everyone thought this was going to be Khan and rather than using that as a hook he chose to lie about it, then reveal it almost immediately after the character appears on screen.

Thing is, this isn’t Khan. This man is the Joker, or Loki or Mr Silver. A man with an elaborate plan which involves wanting get caught in order to use his opponents as a way of getting what he wants.

This kind of villain stood up in other films, like the Dark Knight and the Avengers, because the central protagonists had a lot of development to do themselves. The central cast of Into Darkness don’t develop at all.

Closer to home, while Benedict Cumberbatch is doing the best with what he’s given, he only seems to have been hired for the job his voice can score 6.5 Ian McKellens on the awesomeness scale.

Wrath of Khan, showed us a villain who was ten times as intelligent as his adversaries, but massively flawed in regards of his ego. In that respect, this film also repeats the end of Wrath of Khan, word for word, with two of the characters swapped. Mr Abrams, that is not paying homage, that’s just ripping off a far better film.

Wrath of Khan was an inter-textual story about, ego, aging, sacrifice and overall appreciating what you have. Into Darkness doesn’t even compare on this, with a thin story about some crazy admiral in Starfleet and the most important villain of the whole franchise being used as a name-drop.

In conclusion, while I got along just fine with the film while watching it, having thought about it now, I can only see it as an insulting use of a villain, whom the writer/director has no understanding of.

Doctor Who: The Name of The Doctor

Of course we were never going to find out what his name is…but you know, we could have found out something at least.

This episode is based on an incredible premise, the grave of the Doctor, but it ends on what I’m sure was intended to be shocking cliff hanger, but just made me tired. Is Moffatt ever going to resolved or conclude anything?

Every single series ends with a new question and at this point it’s just getting tiresome, given how similar these questions always are. I don’t feel very much curiosity as to which version of the Doctor John Hurt is (if any). I just feel frustration that the series ends on something that it in no way built up to and just serves to just get people to say “oooow who’s this?”

Richard E Grant is back as the Great Intelligence, but has very little to do, other than be evil and set up the Clara plot which turns out to not be too different from the Bad Wolf plot…or the cracks in time plot.

Exploring the Doctor’s timeline is pretty cool and the idea that Clara has been in the background the entire time as a million echoes of herself serves as a good explanation of who and what she is.

River is finally resolved in that she can now fade away. I think this was done pretty well ad he appearance in the episode was well handled with only Clara able to see her. This allowed for her to be in the episode, providing help and exposition, without any of the uncomfortable flirting with the Doctor.

River’s exit is also pretty good, but raises another question of how Clara could have survived and  - yeah I’m tired of these now.

In basic terms, this episode is well written and directed enough. It’s visually striking (especially the Doctor’s tomb) but just ends on a frustrating and tiresome note.   

Doctor Who: Nightmare in Silver.

Slow started but not at all bad.

This was a good episode, which managed to breathe life back into a villain that (like the Daleks) had been rather destroyed by the Tenth Doctor era. Ever since the series 2 finale, I haven’t been able to take them seriously. Watching them clunk around at the slowest possible speed just got to be a bit comical in the end.

These new Cybermen (THAT IN NO WAY RESEMBLE MARVEL’S IRON MAN) make sense. Why would a race that want to destroy or convert all other life in the universe, be content to move around everywhere at two and half miles an hour. It’s refreshing to have them visibly overcoming such design flaws.

The other aspect of this episode is of course, seeing how the Doctor handles an evil version of himself. Matt Smith does a good job with what he’s given, but the cybercontorller is so similar to the Doctor, that the audience can find it difficult to figure out which one’s talking.

But the scenes with the Doctor facing off against this version of himself are very good and seem to pick up the Valyard theme that’s been subtly running through this series.

Ok, some bad things. Kids  - no, just no, I did not look this programme up on iplayer to watch a stroppy girl shout at Jenna-Louise Colman. Keep it in the soap operas. Further to that, it seems a bit at the convenience of the plot for this character to be all “she’s not our mother” just in time to get both of them kidnapped. This aspect of the relationship was not set up in any way prior to this episode, so it’s just a bit contrived.

Warwick Davis being the Emperor is  a bit obvious, which means the conclusion of the episode becomes quite predictable, but this can be forgiven,  as well…he’s Warwick Davis!!

Nothing left to say. It started slowly, but was very watchable. No more stroppy kids please and I look forward to The Name of The Doctor.