Losing my faith

[dalekkiller]

Having looked at the reaction to the Time of the Doctor. I now have real doubts about Moffat. When he took over I was over the moon having been impressed with his stuff under Davies and after his first season I was really happy with what he'd done. But now I'm not so sure I really I'm starting to lose my faith in Moffat.

[Mike Saville]

While I have been disappointed with much of the last season, most of it has been head and shoulders above the banality or simplicity of RTDs stuff. Sure, it was helped by superb performances from Smith throughout, but I think Moffat's biggest flaw is he's tried too hard to write clever stories to shoehorn into 45 minutes. I know he's the commissioning editor and all that, so it's largely his fault, but I don't believe getting rid of him would rid us of Gatiss, so I think the problem would remain.

I don't think the issue is with Moffat. I think it's with the entitled Doctor Who fans who wouldn't be happy with Gaiman written Scorsese directed Who if they pronounced Metebilis wrong. Because almost every non Who fan I spoke to absolutely loved Time of the Doctor. It suffered because it followed the sublime Name of the Doctor and Day of the Doctor on the big screen.

Perhaps that's where they went wrong. They shouldn't have bothered.

[Paul Monk]

I totally love Moffat's Who. It's been clever, inventive and witty and whilst not always successful I appreciate it's ambition. Completely agree with Mike about entitled fans.

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[Perry Vale]

Having looked at the reaction to the Time of the Doctor.

Why is the reaction to Time of the Doctor important to you? All that should matter is what you personally think about it, not what others think.

[Andrew Curnow]

While I have been disappointed with much of the last season, most of it has been head and shoulders above the banality or simplicity of RTDs stuff

I have to say, I think that's more than a touch debatable Mike - isn't it really the same old Hinchcliffe Gothic Versus Williams Comedy argument from the Tom Baker days? As many prefer the former to the latter, but it's more a matter of taste than anything. I prefer the RTD era to the Moffat, just as I prefer Williams to Hinchcliffe, but I think I'd struggle to put together a rational & objective argument to back me up.

Although I've often found myself left cold by the Moffat era, and as I've said before, I absolutely applaud him doing something different. It would have been very easy to carry on in a similar vein to what had worked from 2005; but Who has always thrived & survived on daring to be different, sometimes hugely different. And although season 6 failed to interest me all that much, and although the Clara episodes this year were largely a bit 'flat' for me, on the other hand some of Moffat's episodes have nailed it absolutely - A Christmas Carol remains my favourite Xmas special, and The Day of the Doctor was just a perfectly pitched anniversary special.

[Wayne]

While I have been disappointed with much of the last season, most of it has been head and shoulders above the banality or simplicity of RTDs stuff. Sure, it was helped by superb performances from Smith throughout, but I think Moffat's biggest flaw is he's tried too hard to write clever stories to shoehorn into 45 minutes. I know he's the commissioning editor and all that, so it's largely his fault, but I don't believe getting rid of him would rid us of Gatiss, so I think the problem would remain.

I don't think the issue is with Moffat. I think it's with the entitled Doctor Who fans who wouldn't be happy with Gaiman written Scorsese directed Who if they pronounced Metebilis wrong. Because almost every non Who fan I spoke to absolutely loved Time of the Doctor. It suffered because it followed the sublime Name of the Doctor and Day of the Doctor on the big screen.

Perhaps that's where they went wrong. They shouldn't have bothered.

Show's you want you know.
You can't even spell Metebelis.

Why is the reaction to Time of the Doctor important to you? All that should matter is what you personally think about it, not what others think.

Yep.

[Mike Saville]

Show's you want you know.
You can't even spell Metebelis.
.

Heh heh.

[Tanlee]

I seem to be the opposite here. I have not been a New Who fan since, well since End of the World fell apart from the first scene actually. I used to think Dalek was a brutally hard-hitting masterpiece but now (especially having listened to audios like Dalek Empire, Plague of the Daleks, The Elite, Terror Firma, Lucie Miller/To The Death) I think it's a morally confused mess with (like too many RTD stories) barely the actual substance of a trailer of itself.

So I hated the RTD years, and found them to be desperate and tacky and to my mind the only period of the show I can think of that was so calculated to pander towards and achieve mass popularity it clearly had no respect for itself whatsoever.

So Moffat's era was the great white hope, with Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone being the best most exciting and thrilling Who story I'd enjoyed in ages, and up to The Doctor's Wife I'd say he was doing nearly everything right....

Then Let's Kill Hitler made me realize Moffat had lost it and that the show had degenerated into indulgent fanfiction and the Moffat cult of personality had taken over. I'd liked River a lot up till then. After that I'd have been happy if I never saw her again (hence why I didn't mind Tasha Lem being a transparent River-clone because she was at least a fresher, more focused and less bogged down in excess version of River).

The show never quite recovered from that I felt, until Rings of Akhaten onwards it suddenly became must see television again, and possibly even marked for me the first time that the show was something I was compelled to watch for reasons other than doing so out of unshakeable fan loyalty I've occasionally even tried and failed to cure myself of.... but was compelled to watch because for the first time since 1982 it was actually genuinely worth watching.

Name and Day of the Doctor and the Hurt War Doctor was very nearly a dealbreaker for me, and I for a time found it utterly unforgivable that McGann was being denied what should have been his story as the Doctor who fought and ended the war. But the more dissections and hate I directed at the 50th story, the more I found myself faced with elements of it that refused to be dismissed as trash or as not really belonging here, and the more my hate was overwhelmed by the sheer fan love it was written and put together with. And sure McGann could have been the War Doctor, contrary to what Moffat says, and Lucie Miller/To The Death proved this so. But I don't think his romantic Doctor would be right for the relationship Hurt had with the Moment.

And suddenly, unexpectedly, Day of the Doctor became my new favourite New Who story.

I think the problem with Time is that it came too soon and felt like a crammed season's worth of material. Too much of it was left to complacent trust in the unreliable narrator which came off as lazy and neutering to the dramatic edge. Like how exactly does the Doctor and a village of luddites fight and survive for centuries against the Daleks- the biggest military power in the universe? For that matter if the fear his word might bring back the Time Lords is what the Daleks are afraid of.... then why didn't he just leave Trenzalore rather than sabre rattling them with his stubborn continued presence there?

Also, I think the regen sequence shouldn't have shown us a de-aged young Smith again (*except* in the scene where he hallucinates seeing Amy again), and I still think the regen itself was too abrupt. It wasn't bad, but just little things like that could've papered over the cracks and immensely improved it.

[Dino]

When it came back, there was a novelty value for me, that lasted a good while. I didn't even mind the farting aliens (Not even ten years old and yet some people still get bothered by it!).
The novelty renewed when the Doctor regenerated, then sank, then rose again.
I wasn't impressed by the first two series of Matt Smith. I thought he was a good Doctor, and in his last year really improved, but I didn't like the way the show was going. But stuck with it.
Big hopes for Capaldi. And after making my mistake of spoiling the past two episodes (By peeking on two separate other forums) I think my avoiding of spoilers can only be a good thing.
I had no idea what was going to be next in the first series, and I'd like to get to that level again.
So see how it goes, I've got things to do this year and I'm treating the new series as my September reward. My only expectation of it is it'll be a new Doctor Who series.
How long the goodwill lasts remains to be seen!

[Martin Curnow]

I'm never a fan of these sort of threads coz, you see, I love Doctor Who - simple as!

The Twin Dilemma was voted the worst ever story in a DWM poll but if it was being shown on TV right now, I'd watch it.

[Nyder]

People seem to be a lot kinder to Time and the Rani these days too :-)


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[Dirk Gently]

The Twin Dilemma was voted the worst ever story in a DWM poll but if it was being shown on TV right now, I'd watch it.

So would I, but it's also probably the last DVD I'd put on.

[MacNimon]

People seem to be a lot kinder to Time and the Rani these days too :-)

Not everyone, thankfully!