Happy to discuss the show with like minded individuals, you know, people who can look at it objectively, who have issues with it, who like some episodes better than others, but who on the whole like the damn show. Tired of trying to talk about it with people whose only intent is to slag it off because it doesn't fit their narrow vision of what Doctor Who should be.
Really? And who exactly posted saying "I didn't like it because it doesn't fit in with what I think Doctor Who should be"? Unless you object to people thinking it shouldn't be silly bollocks.
Hah! Well-put. Anyway, Starkers, am I to assume, then, that you believe that criticisms of this episode, the ones, for example, posted in this thread, suggest that the negative comments come from people who are "not objective" and have "too narrow" of a view of what Doctor Who should be? Are you suggesting there have not been any negative criticisms of this episode in this thread from a poster that seems, in your mind, to actually be "objective"? That all criticisms of the episode come from people who are going to hate it no matter what they put on? If so, I suggest you go back and read, for example, my criticisms (they're not far back), because they come from someone who, as a matter of fact, has an extremely open mind when it comes to what Doctor Who can and should be.
I have also disliked a vast majority of the episodes in the last 2 or 3 seasons - does that disqualify me, in your mind, from being able to objectivally critique the show? I believe that, having objectivally critiqued the show over the last 2 or 3 seasons, I have objectivally arrived at the conclusion that most of it is just not very good.
For the record, I have watched all the Doctor Who produced since 1963, and I have very much admired and enjoyed the vast majority of it. I love most of the surviving Hartnell and Troughton episodes. I adore the first season of Pertwee, but find most of the rest of his tenure "silly bollocks," to steal an eloquent phrase. I love just about all of Tom Baker's stuff, much of Peter Davison's stuff, can't stand Colin Baker's tenure, and liked about half of McCoy. Furthermore, the first 5 years of the Russell Davies years are mostly awesome. So, you can see, I have a very open and inclusive idea of what Doctor Who can and should be. It can be many different things and still be high quality. It can be educational and whimsical, like Hartnell, or pseudo-Gothic, like early Tom Baker, or slapstick comedy like later-Tom Baker, or violent sf like much of Davison, or more character-driven and emotional, like Davies' tenure. And, I am completely open to it becoming something totally new, something unexpected and unasked for, something I've never seen before, something that will surprise me and wow me and make me proud to be watching the most amazing science fiction show currently on television. I am in fact very excited for that to happen.
The last two years, though, when compared, in my mind, to the quality of the show over the last 5 decades, is unreasonably low, and it has something to do with a lot of it being silly bollocks. But again, just to let you know that I can be objective, I was completely taken aback and amazed by The Doctor's Wife - clearly the best episode of the whole Matt Smith tenure so far. I was utterly unsurprised that it won a very deserving Hugo award.
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