Moffat Who simply looks better.

[Captaindemotion]

Vincent and the doctor, I accept it was a good episode, I just hated it though mainly because I'm not a fan of the episodes which go back in time.

Do you ever get the feeling you're watching the wrong show? I mean given that a large proportion of Dr Who episode do, in fact, involve them travelling back in time...

I hate those Star Trek episodes where they travel through space.

I hate those CSI episodes where they solve crimes through forensic science.

I hate those 24 episodes where he fights terrorists.

I hate those West Wing episodes where they get all political.

I hate those BSG episodes where they're on the run from Cylons.

 

[Green Lantern]

Vincent and the doctor, I accept it was a good episode, I just hated it though mainly because I'm not a fan of the episodes which go back in time.

Do you ever get the feeling you're watching the wrong show? I mean given that a large proportion of Dr Who episode do, in fact, involve them travelling back in time...

No, Mainly beacause most of the 70s and 80s episodes don't go back in time, and I love alot of elements of the show such as the master, the time war, daleks, cybermen, all sorts. It's never the back in time episodes I ever watch over and over again, always the present day or future. Maybe a little in the past, not before the Victorians though, probably my limit. The majority of episodes I like are in the future or present day.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

The Christmas specials don't need to stop. They just need to be better, and I think they need to involve the current companions.

Agreed. Somehow, I find it harder to be engaged with the stories when there aren't any regular companions involved. (I like one poster's idea that Lady Christina should have become a companion at the end of "Planet of the Dead," then gotten killed off in "Waters of Mars.")

Just showing my opinion here..........and being a complete asshole at the same time!

Finally! Something we agree on!

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

For what it's worth, Green Lantern, "Amy's Choice" is generally a very popular episode and considered one of the best of Season 5.

Wait, season 5???????????????????????? wait a minite, I thought this one was season 6. Oh god, I mixed titled up! Is Amy choice the one with the dream lord, or episode seven? If so, I messed up truely! I thought Amys choice was episode eleven of season six.

You got them mixed up even after my initial reply to your post made references to the Dream Lord and included 2 clips from the episode?

Amy's Choice was an excellent episode, second best of season five (Vincent and the Doctor coming in first).

No way. Vincent and the doctor sucked. Ok, it may have been good, I just didn't like it. There was no real threat once again. Just some invisible thing. The weeping angel two parter was one of the best in series five. The Eleventh Hour was good too.
[...]
Apart from the Sielence two parter and lets kill Hitler, can't think of any really good episodes [in Season 6].

For me, when it comes to picking my favorite episode of Season 5, I find it really hard to choose between "The Eleventh Hour," "Amy's Choice," "Vincent & the Doctor," and "The Lodger." My interest in the show has less to do with monsters and more to do with emotions and humor. "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Lodger" are among the funniest episodes the show has ever done. And I'd say Amy's grief over Rory's death and Vincent Van Gogh's discovery of how famous he is in the future are some of the most moving scenes in the show's history.

From Season 5, I'm not so crazy about the Weeping Angel 2-parter. It has Amy & River in it, so that counts for a lot in my book. But at the same time, it was the first full episode that Matt Smith ever shot and it shows. In particular, towards the end of the episode, Smith sometimes veers into overly shouty, Tennant-esque territory.

As for Season 6, I'd certainly say that "The Impossible Astronaut," "Day of the Moon," & "Let's Kill Hitler" were some of the biggest highlights of the season. However, I'm also quite fond of "The Doctor's Wife" & "The Girl Who Waited." "The Doctor's Wife" was a brilliantly humorous look back at the Doctor's longest relationship; the one with his TARDIS. (It was so good, I think it would have even worked as the 50th anniversary special.) And while I'm a bit frustrated with the very abrupt ending of "The Girl Who Waited," I love all of the heavy emotions that are running back and forth; between Amy's hatred of the Doctor and her love for Rory and Rory's frustration with the entire situation.

The rest of Season 6 was OK. "The God Complex" was really good. "The Curse of the Black Spot," "Night Terrors," & "Closing Time" were kinda cheesy but decent. "The Rebel Flesh"/"The Almost People" was a decent story but should have just been a 1-parter. "A Good Man Goes to War" & "The Wedding of River Song" were decent entries in a mediocre story-arc. But I certainly can't think of any Moffat episodes that were as unwatchably awful as Season 2's "Love & Monsters" or "Fear Her."

It wouldn't be a flying shark then. Come on, it's Doctor Who, it's not exactly a program that focuses on scientific verisimilitude. In fact, any move in that direction would severely weaken the series, in my opinion.

I'm not looking for total scientific plausibility, but they could at least put some imagination into it. I mean hell, the Drashigs from way back in Carnival of Monsters were pretty nasty predators and didn't look like anything living on Earth. Making them floating sharks was just distractign and took me out of the story.

Well, the planet did seem to be a human colony in the distant future. Perhaps the creature was some kind of aerial evolution of Earth sharks that were introduced to the planet by its human colonists.

Vincent and the doctor, I accept it was a good episode, I just hated it though mainly because I'm not a fan of the episodes which go back in time.

Do you ever get the feeling you're watching the wrong show? I mean given that a large proportion of Dr Who episode do, in fact, involve them travelling back in time...

No, Mainly beacause most of the 70s and 80s episodes don't go back in time, and I love alot of elements of the show such as the master, the time war, daleks, cybermen, all sorts. It's never the back in time episodes I ever watch over and over again, always the present day or future. Maybe a little in the past, not before the Victorians though, probably my limit. The majority of episodes I like are in the future or present day.

To be fair, disliking historical episodes is not an unprecedented attitude. Traditionally, back in the 1960s, historical episodes weren't as popular as future/space/alien episodes. That's the reason why there were hardly any historical stories at all during the Patrick Troughton & Jon Pertwee years. It might also help explain why, of all the episodes from the 1st couple William Hartnell seasons, all of the missing episodes are from historical stories ("Marco Polo" 1-7, "Reign of Terror" 4&5, and "The Crusade" 2&4).

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Worth remembering that Night Terrors was supposed to air in the first half of the series, but it and the curse of the black spot changed places.

I was wondering about that, since clips from "Night Terrors" seemed to frequently appear in the promotional trailers for the 1st half of Season 7. In the long run, I think they probably would have been better off keeping it that way. At the very least, it would have increased the distance between "Night Terrors" & "The God Complex;" 2 episodes with very similar themes. (Which is somewhat reminiscent of Season 2's near pairing of "The Idiot's Lantern" & "Fear Her.")

But then, overall, I think splitting Season 6 into 2 halves really disrupted the rhythm of the season. I'm hoping that won't be the case with the mid-season split of Season 7.

Spoiler: Season 7; mild stuff nearly everyone knows about

Since they're doing an actual change of companions during the mid-season break, I would think that that would provide a natural narrative break that won't be nearly as disruptive as the mid-season hiatus was in Season 6.

That line might've have more of an effect on me had Bwen not the same thing of Jack Harkness in the first season finale of Torchwood and she did did so much better than Amy did here.

I dunno. (Frankly, it's been a while since I've seen much of Torchwood, but keeping that in mind...) I think it's a line that has much more resonance in an Amy/Doctor context than in a Gwen/Jack one.

Torchwood was a much more adult show and Gwen & Jack's relationship was a much more adult one. The fact that weird shit might lead to someone important getting killed should be expected. That's their job.

On the other hand, Doctor Who is much more of a fairy tale romp, particularly during the 11th Doctor & Amy years. Amy left for a series of fun hijinks with her childhood imaginary friend because she (and the audience) knows that, deep down, the Doctor will keep her & hers safe. And so, when the Doctor fails to save a beloved companion, it absolutely shatters that fundamental sense of security. It reveals just how irresponsible the Doctor is when he gets his companions involved with all this hairy alien stuff without really conveying to them the dangers involved. When Amy asks, "Then what is the point of you?" it works on a meta level as well as a character level.

Plus, from a personal standpoint, I just find Amy to be a much more engaging character than Gwen. (Although, they both made the right move of marrying a nice guy named R. Williams.)

The line in fact had the same context Gwen said it after Rhys was dead in End Of Days and personally I think Gwen is a much stronger character than Amy.

Well, yes, Gwen was grieving over Rhys in "End of Days" the same way that Amy was grieving over Rory in "Amy's Choice." So, in that respect, the context was the same. But my point was that the line feels much more powerful and much more cutting when directed towards such a mythic figure as the Doctor. I think Amy (and the audience) put a lot more faith in the Doctor than Gwen ever put in Jack.

 

[DWF]

^^^Different audiences and for me Gwen's cursing made the line more powerful and for me personally Eve Myles is a much better actor than Karen Gillian.

 

[Starkers]

Vincent and the doctor, I accept it was a good episode, I just hated it though mainly because I'm not a fan of the episodes which go back in time.

Do you ever get the feeling you're watching the wrong show? I mean given that a large proportion of Dr Who episode do, in fact, involve them travelling back in time...

I hate those Star Trek episodes where they travel through space.

I hate those CSI episodes where they solve crimes through forensic science.

I hate those 24 episodes where he fights terrorists.

I hate those West Wing episodes where they get all political.

I hate those BSG episodes where they're on the run from Cylons.

 

[VDCNI]

To be fair, disliking historical episodes is not an unprecedented attitude. Traditionally, back in the 1960s, historical episodes weren't as popular as future/space/alien episodes. That's the reason why there were hardly any historical stories at all during the Patrick Troughton & Jon Pertwee years. It might also help explain why, of all the episodes from the 1st couple William Hartnell seasons, all of the missing episodes are from historical stories ("Marco Polo" 1-7, "Reign of Terror" 4&5, and "The Crusade" 2&4).

That's the story one production team tried to sell as the producer himself, Innes Lloyd, didn't like the historicals but there's no real data to back that up. Outside of the Dalek stories the ratings weren't that different.

 

[Sindatur]

I wouldn't really compare Hartnell Historicals to later "Travel Back In Time" stories. The Hartnell Historicals were pretty much just a visit to the past, no SciFi, other than the TARDIS bringing them and carrying them away after. The later Travel to the past stories generally have an Alien or Supernatural enemy or some other SciFi thing to fight/solve.