Nearing The End Of Season 4

[poliphilo]

I love Dr Who, but...

I'm glad that RTD's regime is drawing to an end. I think we need a change of direction- not because I hate what he's done (I don't) but because we know what he's got in his locker now and the tropes are becoming over-familiar. 

The thing I'm most weary of is the doomsday scenario. I've lost count of the number of times the Doctor has saved the earth from total destruction over the past four years. Now he's confronting not just the end of the world but the end of the Universe. And it's going to involve Daleks. Ho hum.

The bigger the story, the sillier the resolution.  An overwhelming threat, all hope lost- and then the day is saved by the power of love or faith or something like that- these final twists are almost always (a) trite and (b) incomprehensible.  Last season's finale involved turning the clocks back to cancel out the horrors of a whole year. It was beyond stupid.  It wouldn't be so bad if RTD didn't seem to take these episodes so seriously. Last night's warm-up for the latest Armageddon, Turn Left, with its dystopian future of atomic holocaust and concentration camps- was exceptionally grim and po-faced. This, we were told on Dr Who Confidential, is what life would be like in a Doctorless universe. Well- ahem- that's the universe we already live in, dontchaknow? 

Under RTD's leadership the show has developed into a compensation fantasy for the Death of God- with the Doctor as an embarrassingly personal Jesus.  He suffers, he dies; he rises again (repeatedly),  he saves us, he dispenses judgement; people are always telling us how wonderful he is. The show in its earlier incarnations was never as religiose as this. If David Tennant weren't such a fun performer- and didn't now have such a reliably earth-bound companion in Catherine Tate-  the character he plays would be insufferable. 

Stephen Moffat is up next. He's always been the best writer in the pack- with a taste, not for apocalypse, but for elegant, intimate spookery. Odds are he'll give us smaller stories and a smaller Doctor. Here's hoping.

Comments

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I disagree about Catherine Tate - or at least the character she plays. It seems that in every episode I've watched so far, she screeching on about you can't let the xxx (fill in the blanks) die, be slaughtered - whatever. Bring back a little more of Martha's cynicism, Puleez - This catch-all sympathies earth-mother reminds me of some of the people I used to know and avoid on NYC's upper West Side when I still lived there. Professional protestersrs - YUK!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Donna Noble is the most strongly-flavoured companion yet and- I agree- she's not always likable, but the saving grace is that she's not in awe of the Doctor; she challenges him, she brings him down to earth- and as RTD's vision of the Doctor becomes increasingly Messianic- so we need someone like her to act as a counterweight.

I tried hard to like Martha Jones, but I'm afraid Freema Agyemen is a much less interesting and charismatic actor than either Billie Piper of Catherine Tate.