Doctor Who 10x01, "The Pilot"
Apr. 16th, 2017 10:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitI haven't watched Doctor Who in ages, because I grew disenchanted with Moffat's storytelling and extremely unhappy with his heteronormativity. But I've been lured back in, for the moment at least, by a new companion who is a black woman and a lesbian, by the upcoming return of John Simm as the Master, and by the fact that I do really like Peter Capaldi.
This first episode . . . was not bad. I really like Bill, and I like the fact that the Doctor didn't just whisk her away to new worlds but helped her learn stuff. I like that Bill's sexuality was treated in a completely matter-of-fact way, and I liked the odd, awkward chemistry between Bill and Heather. I like the "foster teacher" relationship between Bill and the Doctor, the element of "foster grand-daughter" is okay too, and I'm hoping that Doctor-companion romance is genuinely off the table (though Moffat has form for "lesbian character falls in love with male hero," so I'm not as certain as I would like to be). The plot was simple, straightforward, surprisingly un-Moffat-like (no doubt because they're trying to bring in new viewers), and that made the emotions of the story work all the better.
On the bad side, was it really necessary to have a fat joke in the first five minutes of the goddamn episode? Was it really necessary to say that Bill's love interest getting fat made Bill no longer interested in her (because we all know that nobody can ever love a fat person, right)?
I could have done without the explicit repudiation of mind-wiping Donna, too. I am practically alone, I know, in the opinion that Ten did the right thing there (my view is that Donna didn't have time to give the matter rational consideration--she was like someone trapped by the leg in a burning car, who is begging not to have her leg cut off, and in the absence of her informed consent to be let die, the first responders are in fact morally obliged to amputate and save her life against her wishes at the time). However, the situation was of course totally different in this episode; the Doctor wasn't planning to mind-wipe Bill to save her life, just for his own convenience. So obviously he had to change his mind so as not to be a monster, but that makes it not really a parallel for the Donna situation even though Moffat tried to present it as such.
Anyway, for now I plan to keep watching. Please, Moffat, don't make me quit again. I'm desperately curious to know what the relationship between Simm!Master and Capaldi!Doctor will be like. On the other hand, I'm really not looking forward to meeting Missy. I've heard she's actually a great iteration of the Master, but I can't help resenting the hell out of the fact that Moffat had to make the Master a woman before he could bear to acknowledge the erotic side of the love/hate relationship between the Master and the Doctor.
This first episode . . . was not bad. I really like Bill, and I like the fact that the Doctor didn't just whisk her away to new worlds but helped her learn stuff. I like that Bill's sexuality was treated in a completely matter-of-fact way, and I liked the odd, awkward chemistry between Bill and Heather. I like the "foster teacher" relationship between Bill and the Doctor, the element of "foster grand-daughter" is okay too, and I'm hoping that Doctor-companion romance is genuinely off the table (though Moffat has form for "lesbian character falls in love with male hero," so I'm not as certain as I would like to be). The plot was simple, straightforward, surprisingly un-Moffat-like (no doubt because they're trying to bring in new viewers), and that made the emotions of the story work all the better.
On the bad side, was it really necessary to have a fat joke in the first five minutes of the goddamn episode? Was it really necessary to say that Bill's love interest getting fat made Bill no longer interested in her (because we all know that nobody can ever love a fat person, right)?
I could have done without the explicit repudiation of mind-wiping Donna, too. I am practically alone, I know, in the opinion that Ten did the right thing there (my view is that Donna didn't have time to give the matter rational consideration--she was like someone trapped by the leg in a burning car, who is begging not to have her leg cut off, and in the absence of her informed consent to be let die, the first responders are in fact morally obliged to amputate and save her life against her wishes at the time). However, the situation was of course totally different in this episode; the Doctor wasn't planning to mind-wipe Bill to save her life, just for his own convenience. So obviously he had to change his mind so as not to be a monster, but that makes it not really a parallel for the Donna situation even though Moffat tried to present it as such.
Anyway, for now I plan to keep watching. Please, Moffat, don't make me quit again. I'm desperately curious to know what the relationship between Simm!Master and Capaldi!Doctor will be like. On the other hand, I'm really not looking forward to meeting Missy. I've heard she's actually a great iteration of the Master, but I can't help resenting the hell out of the fact that Moffat had to make the Master a woman before he could bear to acknowledge the erotic side of the love/hate relationship between the Master and the Doctor.
no subject
Date: 2017-04-19 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-23 05:16 pm (UTC)I don't know who the Matt Lucas character is? I don't get why he's there and I'm not sure it's necessary, so my suspicion is he's there so he can Die Meaningfully at some point...
Simm!Master is very exciting I agree. And Heather is interesting although I would really like Bill to in fact get a clue and fall for the nice girl at the chip counter. But yes, anything, anything at all but Bill falling for a man because he is Special.
10x02 I quite enjoyed - it felt very Second Doctor in the kind of 'oh no, here are some more Earth colonists where everything went wrong' way. But I wasn't sure the emoji bots thing made sense - why have the interface bots at all? It didn't seem necessary. Next week with the Regency looks fun though.