Do You Still Like the New Doctor Who?

I was in a discussion earlier with some Doctor Who fans and they all seemed to be watching it out of habit and the hope that the writing will get better. Honestly, I'm in the same place.

The stories have no logic anymore and they seem to not care about continuity with the original series. Which would be fine, if it were a reboot and not a continuation.

I don't really like Capaldi's Doctor. Not the actor, and though they've toned him down, he's still a jerk. He reminds me too much of Colin Baker, whom I couldn't stand, but at least Colin Baker's Doctor cared about people. This Doctor doesn't seem to care if people die, unless it's Clara. They have this weird aging rock star/groupie vibe that was very off putting.

I was wondering how the people on this board felt.

The writing is hit and miss, some episodes are great, some are mediocre. The Doctor is arrogant sometimes but he always upholds his moral code and tries to save those he can. There really isn't much continuity even from one season to another or sometimes episode to episode. The actor playing the Doctor has been allowed to bring in a lot of his own likes into the character.

But I love the show and will watch it as long as I can.

But, then again, I just described how I felt about Jon Pertwee as the Doctor...and the Classic series. I have always felt the same about the NuWho series as well. It still is my favorite TV show.

And he is my favorite.

NuWho has a very different energy from Classic Who, but when you get right down to it, two things have ALWAYS been true about this show: continuity has always been a bit patched-together along the way, and the writing has always been hit or miss, for varying reasons.

Regarding the continuity, the old series was making up continuity as it went, and sometimes (well, often) ignored things that had been said or done earlier. I always chalked it up to the Doctor's memory, which was patchy after a number of regenerations and, of course, the out-of-order life of a time traveler. The new series has a tighter continuity overall, but season-to-season continuity has been reduced greatly. Of course, when it was tighter, people complained about that, so really, what the heck can the writers do to appease the fans at this point?

Regarding the writing, NuWho tends to move a lot faster than Classic Who, sometimes TOO fast, and tosses out ideas and developments that sound great in the now, but don't hold up to much thought after the fact. Classic Who padded stories to fill set numbers of episodes, which resulted in entirely different kinds of pacing issues (namely, lulls in the forward thrust of the story). The show has never been perfect in the writing department, but honestly, I don't mind. It's still great entertainment.

I love Capaldi. He reminds me of what Colin Baker set out to do and was never able to finish: an echo of Hartnell's trajectory in the role. Hartnell went from cantankerous to grandfatherly; Colin tried to go from moody, vainglorious blowhard to professorial uncle, but didn't get time to do so on TV (thank the gods he got to finish the journey in the audio dramas). Capaldi has been following a trajectory, too; he has evolved a great deal, despite having few instincts toward niceness and relying on pre-prepared sentiments on cards to get it right (I love this touch). It's a development that echoes previous Doctors while being fresh and unique unto itself.

I'm not as excited by the show right now as I was during Matt Smith's tenure, but I still love it. I've been watching DW since I was a child. Not every era was to my liking, but I kept watching, and over time, I've learned to appreciate what each era managed to get right. Sometimes it took a while (I didn't enjoy many of Peter Davison's episodes until about 6 years ago), but it happened.

I prefer Classic Who over NuWho. I just think that the new series loses some of what made the classics, well, classics.

My wife and I have discussed this at length. We both think that the classic series had more substance. By this, I mean that the original series had multiple episodes to tell their stories, while the new series has one story where they have to quickly tell it in either one or two episodes. To me, the older episodes built more tension and suspense. Like in "The War Games," you had 10 episodes! It's still one of my favorites. What a story!

We think that it all comes down to the fact that t.v. audiences nowadays (for the most part) just don't have the attention span to last more than 2 or 3 episodes anymore. They want it now. Instant gratification. But good stories need time to build.

That's just my opinion. Don't get me wrong though, there are a number of NuWho episodes that are great, even with only one episode. I just think that overall, the stories need to be longer and the audience needs to learn some patience.

D84 wrote:

I was in a discussion earlier with some Doctor Who fans and they all seemed to be watching it out of habit and the hope that the writing will get better.  Honestly, I'm in the same place.  

The stories have no logic anymore and they seem to not care about continuity with the original series.  Which would be fine, if it were a reboot and not a continuation.

I don't really like Capaldi's Doctor.  Not the actor, and though they've toned him down, he's still a jerk.  He reminds me too much of Colin Baker, whom I couldn't stand, but at least Colin Baker's Doctor cared about people.  This Doctor doesn't seem to care if people die, unless it's Clara.  They have this weird aging rock star/groupie vibe that was very off putting.

I was wondering how the people on this board felt.  

Couldn't agree more.

Only now it is obvious the writing isn't going to get any better, and I don't even watch out of habit anymore.  Thanks to Moffet and Chibnail, I no longer have hope for the series at all.