But it seems to me, with the reboot of the universe, the Daleks forgetting who he is, and that subtle good bye at the end of The End Of Time, that Dr. Who itself is going through a "reboot" almost as if they're shedding the past fifty years. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but I definitely see the pattern.
No, I don't think that's happening. Besides, now is the wrong time to reboot the franchise, especially after we've had nearly seven years building on everything that happened before. No, this is just part of the story Moffat wants to tell which was hinted at with the whole fall of the Eleventh stuff last year.
The Doctor editing himself out of everywhere is what will lead to the question being asked. 11 is planting the seeds of his own end. There is nothing to suggest any kind of reboot going on that I can see.
I get the impression it's the exact opposite - a return to form. The old Doctor wasn't a big shot everyone knew. Ironically, that was Moffit's doing, so he's essentially undoing his own work.
I would argue that Moffat was just expounding, albeit to the extreme, of plenty of stuff we'd seen through RTD's tenure and even before. The Daleks, the Cybermen, and various other races have always known the Doctor from encounter to encounter over the years. With the beginning of the new series though it seemed more and more that despite being the only Time Lord left (or indeed perhaps because of it), everyone knew who he was. Whether intentional or not, the stories were less about the Doctor wandering into aliens and monsters he'd never seen before, and more about the baggage he'd been accumulating from multiple meetups with the same, more popular ones. Moffat was certainly part of this situation, and he was right to craft a story arc involving the Doctor getting OUT of the trouble he'd been getting into by being too well-known. Mark
Yea, Moffat's just toning down the "Time Lord Victorious", and giving the Doctor back the lower profile he used to try to keep (When the Time Lords were always looking over his shoulder). In the Classic Series, after he'd saved the day, and he was thanked, more than once he presented a "Don't mention it...To Anyone. Seriously, not to anyone" And this will all, eventually culminate in "The Fall of the 11th"
That's true. He's effectively replaced laying low so his people can't easily find him (or rather attribute his good deeds to him, thus giving them justification to track him down for interfering), with laying low to avoid becoming a victim of his own success. Even so, I somehow get the feeling that "The Fall" is something that he engineers, a la "Angels Take Manhattan", and just as he thinks he's won and successfully faked his death, he cuts his tongue whilst licking an envelope and regenerates. :P Mark
It's funny. I've long felt that with the exception of River Song, it's very much like when series 5 started, they basically started a completely different series, or maybe a spinoff. We still get references to the old series and the RTD era stuff but at the same time, it all feels different too.
Which could be said of any era of Dr Who. Pertwee's time is very different from Troughton and so on and so forth.
Based on what I've seen of the classic era, it does seem like whenever a new showruner/executive producer takes over it becomes an entirely different show. As for the nu series, The End of Time feltvery much like a series finale and yeah Moffat Who feels like a different series than RTD Who. Meh, it's all par for the course.
Yea, pretty much, that's how the Classic Series ran for 26 Series, and the New Series has run for 7 Series and still going strong. The show is constantly evolving, changing Companions, Changing Doctors, Changing Show Runners and thereby keeping itself fresh and not same old same old. Even when they do a similar story that has been done before, it's different by virtue of the Show Runner, Companions and Doctor Actor who are doing that story.
And with all the changes, you might not like a particular Doctor, but you know in a few years time they'll be another one.
Except for when they do very similar feeling stories that also happen to be only a few episodes apart, like "The Idiot's Lantern" & "Fear Her" in Season 2 or "Night Terrors" & "The God Complex" in Season 6.
Well sure, you should never recycle the same script in the same Season/Series, especially not with only a 13 Ep Commitmient (Plus Christmas Special). Though I gotta say, The God Complex was much more enjoyable to me than Night Terrors. I'd actually lump it in with Fear Her rather than The God Complex, though. I was actually talking about T. Baker/Sarahjane could recycle a Pertwee/Jo Grant script or Davison and his full boat could recycle a Troughton/Zoe-Jamie Script, or Moffat/Smith could recycle an RTD/Eccelston or Tennant Script. File the Serial Numbers off of course (No need to remake it, if it's a Dalek script, redo it as Cybermen...) and it can still feel fresh, because it's that specific Companion/Doctor/Show Runner's first time doing XXXXXXX or YYYYYYY