I've been seriously busy lately, but for those who are on my private posts list I'm thinking I might actually talk about personal stuff for a change in some upcoming posts. That'll make a change right?
Anyway,![]()
xerinmichellex's relatively recent post about Doctor Who has inspired me to write this. So here goes. (Apparently Tumblr is having a celebrating New Who week. Okay whatever the excuse to talk about Doctor Who... :P)
It's natural that people tend to side most with the Doctor they started with and/or grew up with. Those two tend to be the same. Let's not forget that this a children's show; albeit one that has traditionally led the child viewers to hide behind the sofa. Of course, this show tends to stick with viewers long since they are children, which is what was so wonderful about Capaldi saying he hadn't played the Doctor since he was nine.
My Doctor is therefore quite an underrated one: Sylvester McCoy. And it probably didn't do any harm that I jumped straight in at "Remembrance of the Daleks" where he has companion Ace firmly established and letting him borrow her nitro-9 explosives (and would later famously attack a Dalek with a baseball bat). McCoy was a hard sell for audiences because he'd been involved in some kind of children's show beforehand, which feels odd for me having always known him as a deeply mysterious and often pretty dark incarnation of the Doctor. He often seemed to end storylines by utterly destroying the villain (including with this explosion which was a little bigger than intended. - McCoy walks on calmly though you will notice a slight wince as the edge of the blast hits him.)
Favourite Series/Season:
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For old Who I think it makes most sense to talk about best storylines since they are normally about 5 episodes long. I was very impressed with "Tomb of the Cybermen", but my favourite of all time has got to be my first ever Doctor Who story, which is also to my mind the best Dalek storyline ever, "Remembrance of the Daleks". It's a proper mystery and it took me several watches to fully understand what was going on. (What can I say, my first watch was at the age of 5 and I was having to get to grips with the entire concept of Doctor Who at the same time.) Since my first ever episode involved a Dalek hovering up stairs, I found myself consistently puzzled by subsequent "Daleks can't climb stairs" jokes.
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If forced to pick a NewWho series, for me it would have to be series five. Matt Smith made me take Doctor Who seriously for a change, his run seemed to be moving closer than ever before to the style of the old Classic Who and there was a more consistent arc to that series than in any of the series before or since. And let's not forget cool moments like the episode where the Doctor faces against a villain played by Toby Jones, the run-in with the Silurians which feels like a clear reference to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the Vincent Van Gogh episode which represents Richard Curtis' best work in a long long while.
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Favourite Character:
Well whether we're dealing in Classic Who or New Who my answers feel pretty much inevitable. I'm not going to pick a Doctor, but in both cases I've got to pick female companions. There's the utterly badass "Ace" who dodges laser fire from Cybermen in order to take them down. Then there's the pure force of personality from "Amy Pond" who, inititally at least, doesn't seem to hero-worship the Doctor like previous companions did. Her first response to the Doctor is to blame him for abandoning her so he has to spend his time after that earning back her trust. I'm not judging which of them is better. Classic and New Who are two very different beasts. But they are both very cool.
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Favourite Theme:
Um what? You mean like "Doctor is Jesus" idea that seemed to be played up in series three of New Who? Is that a theme?
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How about the "actions have consequences" theme in "The Girl Who Waited"? I've always enjoyed a good time travel plot and the idea of Amy becoming a bitter woman + badass because she's been forced to survive for decades in a world where medical robots are trying to inject her with 'medicine' that will kill her was pretty neat. The theme actually isn't so different from that in "Torchwood: Children of Earth" i.e. 'what if the Doctor DOESN'T come to save you?"
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And another aspect of the theme there is that all that time Amy has been waiting for Rory and she doesn't really want to give him up to the younger version of herself who hasn't had to sacrifice all that she has to earn him. It's an episode where the Rory/Amy relationship is truly ABOUT the Rory/Amy relationship rather than the awkward love triangle which is occasionally suggested.
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Another theme which I need to mention is that the one of "how far will the Doctor go?" The idea of the Doctor having responsibilities isn't really one I remember being explored so often in Classic Who. Sure, he had moral dilemmas and sometimes they would be difficult. But right from the start Hartnell's Doctor was mischievous and would happily lie to those with him to give an excuse for an explore. But with the New Who Doctor there is a sense of personal moral responsibility which seems to be attributed to his guilt over the loss of the Time Lord race, for which he blames himself. That moralism comes to a crescendo with David Tennant who comes to refer to himself as "a man who never would" (which seemed quite at odds with his "no second chances" stance at the beginning of series two). But in series one, the episode "Father's Day" has the Doctor trying to bend the rules for Rose. He's appalled that she breaks the rules of time travel causing serious problems, but he holds back from hanging her out to dry over it - and in the end it is actually neither Rose nor the Doctor who sorts out the issue. In that way it's much closer to a Classic Who style plot where the Doctor has to tackle problems but in the end things often fall into place by themselves (which leads me to wonder in a lot of McCoy's storylines in particular whether he actually knows exactly how things will play out from the start, despite feigning ignorance).
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While never actually stated at the time (since they didn't know that they were being cancelled), McCoy's Doctor was actually going to be revealed as a Time Lord 'God'. I'm reckoning he'd need to be a trickster god really. He says the odd phrase like "I'm much more than just another Time Lord" to indicate what is going on, but it isn't until the non-canon "Death Comes To Time" audio story that it is finally revealed that McCoy is actually a Time Lord god and that Ace was all that time being prepared to become a Time Lord herself. So I'd say that was a pretty cool, theme and while it never made it into canon explicitly, there are plenty of indications of that theme which ARE in canon all through McCoy's run as the Doctor (becoming particularly explicit in the story "Silver Nemesis"). I like to think the Doctor has a particular mysterious side to him and that he's more than just another time lord (even if not actually a deity).
Final Thoughts:
I still need to see season eight having given up after the best prison in the universe turned out to be the one with bizarrely lax security. Perhaps I'll like it overall in the end. Certainly I don't really want to give up on Doctor Who just yet. I also would like to check out a lot more of Classic Who as well as revisiting the various Sylvester McCoy storylines from my childhood. In the end Doctor Who is a series which has its ups and downs - and that's fine because it has the creativity and passion to keep its fans going through both peaks and troughs.
![]()
Anyway,
xerinmichellex's relatively recent post about Doctor Who has inspired me to write this. So here goes. (Apparently Tumblr is having a celebrating New Who week. Okay whatever the excuse to talk about Doctor Who... :P)It's natural that people tend to side most with the Doctor they started with and/or grew up with. Those two tend to be the same. Let's not forget that this a children's show; albeit one that has traditionally led the child viewers to hide behind the sofa. Of course, this show tends to stick with viewers long since they are children, which is what was so wonderful about Capaldi saying he hadn't played the Doctor since he was nine.
My Doctor is therefore quite an underrated one: Sylvester McCoy. And it probably didn't do any harm that I jumped straight in at "Remembrance of the Daleks" where he has companion Ace firmly established and letting him borrow her nitro-9 explosives (and would later famously attack a Dalek with a baseball bat). McCoy was a hard sell for audiences because he'd been involved in some kind of children's show beforehand, which feels odd for me having always known him as a deeply mysterious and often pretty dark incarnation of the Doctor. He often seemed to end storylines by utterly destroying the villain (including with this explosion which was a little bigger than intended. - McCoy walks on calmly though you will notice a slight wince as the edge of the blast hits him.)
Favourite Series/Season:
For old Who I think it makes most sense to talk about best storylines since they are normally about 5 episodes long. I was very impressed with "Tomb of the Cybermen", but my favourite of all time has got to be my first ever Doctor Who story, which is also to my mind the best Dalek storyline ever, "Remembrance of the Daleks". It's a proper mystery and it took me several watches to fully understand what was going on. (What can I say, my first watch was at the age of 5 and I was having to get to grips with the entire concept of Doctor Who at the same time.) Since my first ever episode involved a Dalek hovering up stairs, I found myself consistently puzzled by subsequent "Daleks can't climb stairs" jokes.
If forced to pick a NewWho series, for me it would have to be series five. Matt Smith made me take Doctor Who seriously for a change, his run seemed to be moving closer than ever before to the style of the old Classic Who and there was a more consistent arc to that series than in any of the series before or since. And let's not forget cool moments like the episode where the Doctor faces against a villain played by Toby Jones, the run-in with the Silurians which feels like a clear reference to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the Vincent Van Gogh episode which represents Richard Curtis' best work in a long long while.
Favourite Character:
Well whether we're dealing in Classic Who or New Who my answers feel pretty much inevitable. I'm not going to pick a Doctor, but in both cases I've got to pick female companions. There's the utterly badass "Ace" who dodges laser fire from Cybermen in order to take them down. Then there's the pure force of personality from "Amy Pond" who, inititally at least, doesn't seem to hero-worship the Doctor like previous companions did. Her first response to the Doctor is to blame him for abandoning her so he has to spend his time after that earning back her trust. I'm not judging which of them is better. Classic and New Who are two very different beasts. But they are both very cool.
Favourite Theme:
Um what? You mean like "Doctor is Jesus" idea that seemed to be played up in series three of New Who? Is that a theme?
How about the "actions have consequences" theme in "The Girl Who Waited"? I've always enjoyed a good time travel plot and the idea of Amy becoming a bitter woman + badass because she's been forced to survive for decades in a world where medical robots are trying to inject her with 'medicine' that will kill her was pretty neat. The theme actually isn't so different from that in "Torchwood: Children of Earth" i.e. 'what if the Doctor DOESN'T come to save you?"
And another aspect of the theme there is that all that time Amy has been waiting for Rory and she doesn't really want to give him up to the younger version of herself who hasn't had to sacrifice all that she has to earn him. It's an episode where the Rory/Amy relationship is truly ABOUT the Rory/Amy relationship rather than the awkward love triangle which is occasionally suggested.
Another theme which I need to mention is that the one of "how far will the Doctor go?" The idea of the Doctor having responsibilities isn't really one I remember being explored so often in Classic Who. Sure, he had moral dilemmas and sometimes they would be difficult. But right from the start Hartnell's Doctor was mischievous and would happily lie to those with him to give an excuse for an explore. But with the New Who Doctor there is a sense of personal moral responsibility which seems to be attributed to his guilt over the loss of the Time Lord race, for which he blames himself. That moralism comes to a crescendo with David Tennant who comes to refer to himself as "a man who never would" (which seemed quite at odds with his "no second chances" stance at the beginning of series two). But in series one, the episode "Father's Day" has the Doctor trying to bend the rules for Rose. He's appalled that she breaks the rules of time travel causing serious problems, but he holds back from hanging her out to dry over it - and in the end it is actually neither Rose nor the Doctor who sorts out the issue. In that way it's much closer to a Classic Who style plot where the Doctor has to tackle problems but in the end things often fall into place by themselves (which leads me to wonder in a lot of McCoy's storylines in particular whether he actually knows exactly how things will play out from the start, despite feigning ignorance).
While never actually stated at the time (since they didn't know that they were being cancelled), McCoy's Doctor was actually going to be revealed as a Time Lord 'God'. I'm reckoning he'd need to be a trickster god really. He says the odd phrase like "I'm much more than just another Time Lord" to indicate what is going on, but it isn't until the non-canon "Death Comes To Time" audio story that it is finally revealed that McCoy is actually a Time Lord god and that Ace was all that time being prepared to become a Time Lord herself. So I'd say that was a pretty cool, theme and while it never made it into canon explicitly, there are plenty of indications of that theme which ARE in canon all through McCoy's run as the Doctor (becoming particularly explicit in the story "Silver Nemesis"). I like to think the Doctor has a particular mysterious side to him and that he's more than just another time lord (even if not actually a deity).
Final Thoughts:
I still need to see season eight having given up after the best prison in the universe turned out to be the one with bizarrely lax security. Perhaps I'll like it overall in the end. Certainly I don't really want to give up on Doctor Who just yet. I also would like to check out a lot more of Classic Who as well as revisiting the various Sylvester McCoy storylines from my childhood. In the end Doctor Who is a series which has its ups and downs - and that's fine because it has the creativity and passion to keep its fans going through both peaks and troughs.
