My review of Doctor Who: Series 8, episode one.

[capri0mni]

...I don't think I've done a New Who episode review since Series 1, episode five (?) So Team Moffat and Capaldi must have done something right to get me my fannish energy back. Good job, them.

In pro-fun troll tradition, I shall praise what I enjoyed before criticizing what I didn't (in reverse squee order, rather than chronological)

1. Capaldi -- all of him. But specifically, his sense of timing and rhythm. And the way he inhabited his body as he shifted, gradually, into his new character.
   
   
2. The obligatory "I'm am the Doctor" moment, where he discovers/defines his new character (as much for himself as for his audience) during the final confrontation with the Big Baddie of the episode. I've seen clips of the previous Great Confrontations in New Who. And now that I have the minimum three points that can define can define a curve, I shall make broad-stroke statements about Ten, Eleven and Twelve. Ten's confrontation was a theatrical imitation of John Wayne swagger. Eleven was the one who chased the monsters out from under the bed (Q.V. The scene where he carries little Amelia up to bed, and whispers a bedtime story in her ear before going to reboot the universe). Twelve is the Populist Hero: The one who prefers life up close, even if it means hanging around in the stink and the muck. "Those people down there. They are never small to me." Q.V. the first scene where he is fully "sane," coming during a conversation with a homeless man.
   
   
3. Madame Vastra's stern talk with Clara about her assumptions regarding regeneration, especially her metaphor for the Doctor's appearance being a veil he "chooses" to wear (Albeit subconsciously) in order to gain acceptance from people -- especially human people. ...As I'm typing this, I'm remembering Second Doctor's complaints about each of the faces the High Council tried to pick for him before his forced regeneration -- how paranoid he was about how people would judge him. Bringing my experience into my viewing, that whole scene just reeked of ability-privilege awareness. Q.V.: "When did you stop wearing your veil?" "When you stopped seeing it."
   
   
4. The Doctor's post-regeneration addlepatedness. It gave me a real sense of watching linked concepts in his brain rearranging themselves (in a poignant note, it reminded me of conversations with my father, after his cancer metastasized to parts of his brain ... only in this case, I was watching someone's relationship with language coming together, instead of falling apart).
   
   
5. "You can't see me, can you? You look right at me, and you can't see me. Do you have any idea what that's like?" More ableism/disablism metaphor, ftw. (Q.V. also "Thumbthick" from the Brothers Grimm -- the running joke about how people can here him shouting, but he's utterly invisible to them).
   
   
6. The particular way in which Clara had trouble wrapping her head around the Doctor's regeneration. This came very close to being painfully out of character and a plot hole the size of Belgium. But what saved it for me was that her trouble came from jumping to the wrong conclusions. And that is a very human trait.
   
   
7. "Am I home?" "If you want to be..." That tentative, hopeful, smile. I have this feeling we won't see much of it. But it really is sweet -- He's not always Furious!Face.

And now, for the things I didn't like (in ascending order of annoyance, this time):

1. Someday, we'll get a CGI theropod dinosaur with feathers...
   
   
2. I was mildly disappointed that we didn't get a "Previously..." scene recapping the Doctor's regeneration. Yes, yes... I know that that scene has been replayed over and over on the Internets, and a great number of fans can already quote it line for line. And that if Moffat had included it, his critics in fandom would likely have torn him a new one, for "padding." But I was hoping that I could use this episode to introduce Audrey to Doctor Who, since she has absolutely no idea what it is, besides it being a show I like. But the way this episode starts is just too jarring for that.
   
   
3. The way Ms. Giganotosaurus (she was far too large to be a T-Rex) was used as a proxy for the fangirls, to receive the Doctor's proclamations about how he won't be flirting, anymore. That was just a bit too hammer-handed, for me. OTOH, his rooftop speech where he promises to keep her safe, and take her home, only to helplessly watch her be killed before that speech is finished, is perhaps, a perfect summation of the Doctor/Companion relationship from Vicki onward. [/wry grin]
   
   
4. The way the Doctor had all those lines about how he'd seen this before, and he should remember. Maybe saying it once, would have been okay. But they weren't needed to heighten the tension, or clarify the nature of the conflict. Again, I was watching this with an eye toward sharing it with my housemate, and all these lines did was give the (totally unnecessary) sense that we were coming in at the middle of the story, when the story was strong enough, plotwise, to stand on its own without them.
   
   And finally, the thing that annoyed me most of all about the episode:
   
   
5. The Loony-Toons style "Boi-oing!" sound effect, when the Doctor finally falls asleep. I figure they put that in there to reassure the youngest members of the audience that the Doctor was unhurt... But still. Pulled me right out of the moment.
   
   In conclusion, the final score:
   
   Squeeful things = 7
   Annoying things = 5
   
   Importance of Squeeful things: High
   Importance of Annoying things: Low

Comments

[vilakins]

Ooh, interesting perspectives, and you've thought about it all a lot more than I did - and know more about old DW than I do.

I agree that some of it was heavy-handed (yes, we get it the first time) and Clara was stubbornly obtuse which was a bit OOC, but there were interesting bits thrown in like Twelve wondering where he'd seen his face before and wondering why he'd chosen it. One person said that maybe he was saying to himself that even if he can't save everyone (in Pompeii) he can always do something, even if it's saving just one family.

I was very sorry he couldn't save the lonely dinosaur.

So he didn't use to choose his appearance? If so, I wonder why it's changed - because he broke free of Gallifrey?

[capri0mni]

and know more about old DW than I do

Could be. When/what was your introduction to the show?

So he didn't use to choose his appearance?

Nope. As a matter of fact, when he regenerates from Four to Five, he stares at himself in a hall mirror, and says: "That's the trouble with regeneration: you never know quite what you're going to get." (here). His companion Romana -- a "Timelady" (god, I hate that gender-locked convention, but anyway)-- managed to choose her appearance when she regenerated, though, taking the identity of Princess Astra, whose life was sacrificed when she was transformed into a part of The Key to Time, as a sort of memorial to her. But until now, the Doctor himself has never managed it (though Ten stopping his regeneration before it was complete is perhaps part of that skill). Of course, Romana was a much better student at the Academy than he was.

If so, I wonder why it's changed

I have a sneaking suspicion that "Missy" is a behind it, at least, in part. And her motivations are far from noble.