Doctor Who — Page 50

He also ditched the vest.  Also I could be wrong, but I think the jacket has changed length(perhaps color slightly as well).

Ryan McAvoy said:

Warbler said:

He can't conceive of Clara's boyfriend being math teach because he was a soldier and soldiers can't possibly be smart enough to be math teachers, they can only teach Phy-ed.    Look as the way he talks down to him!

It was a joke playing on the stereotype that PE teachers are often ex-soldiers (It's a stereotype in Britain anyway so maybe the joke doesn't translate?) not the Doctor saying that soldiers are stupid. e.g. He can't believe that Pink isn't a PE teacher, not that he can't believe Pink is a Maths teacher.

Also you've maybe missed the subtext of the episode. He was talking down to him, abusing him and dismissing him because he wasn't sure if he was "good enough" for Clara (Like a protective father). Pink points this out himself at the end of the episode. It's not about The Doctor being nasty, it's about him caring for Clara. Give Capaldi a chance and you'll perhaps see things like this more easily?

Maybe it was a joke and I didn't get it(certainly not the first time that happened).   But maybe one of the reasons the joke was difficult to get was because of how the Doctor treated that female soldier in "Into The Dalek".   I will try to give him more a chance.

Warbler said:

Does this really sound like the Doctor to anyone?   Does this sound like the guy who was friends with Brigadier Sergeant Benton?

Yes it does. The Doctor has always taken an instant dislike to soldiers (and authority figures in general) but when circumstances forced him to, he struck up friendships with several members of UNIT. But still he was still opposed to their methods in each an every episode. See 'Doctor Who and The Silurians' where the Doctor and the Brigadier are almost enemies.

Yes he opposes their methods, but it never seemed to me that he hated all soldiers the way he does in season 8 so far.  Jamie was soldier wasn't he?  The Doctor didn't hate him.   It could be argued that Leela was a soldier, he didn't hate her.   

Also this is the 'post-War Doctor' Doctor. The subtext is that The Doctor is now secretly ashamed of his own soldiers past and acting out on others.

this is possible, however never clearly explained.

Warbler said:

Now lets discuss "Kill The Moom" ...

Any and all criticism of that episode stands. It was a disaster on almost all levels.

glad you agree. 

Warbler said:

I also find his accent very difficult to understand.   Thank God captions are regular thing on tvs nowadays.  He had been a Doctor during the classic era when many tvs didn't have captions, I don't know what I would have done.  But I am sure it is easier for people in the UK to understand him.

His accent isn't that strong as Scottish accents go, but that combined with the very quick way Capaldi speaks probably makes it harder to understand.

I still say thank God for captions.

Did you watch 'The Thick Of It' or the 'In The Loop' movie? Capaldi's accent was much stronger in that and he spoke even faster. It's very funny and worth a watch (If you don't mind swearing... a lot!).

never seen them.

Malcolm Tucker describes Star Wars

^ NSFW!

Wow, the Malcolm guy sure swears a lot.

I love those photos! If only Jo could return for a season...

I've gotta say, this Jamie Mathieson fellow has now penned two of my favorite episodes of Series 8 - Mummy on the Orient Express was great fun, and Flatline was just...awesome. And slightly terrifying. Looking forward to more from him in the future!

Erik Pancakes said:

I love those photos! If only Jo could return for a season...

I've gotta say, this Jamie Mathieson fellow has now penned two of my favorite episodes of Series 8 - Mummy on the Orient Express was great fun, and Flatline was just...awesome. And slightly terrifying. Looking forward to more from him in the future!

 If you say Flatline was better than Mummy on the Orient Express, I can't wait to see it. Mummy is my #1 episode so far this series.

I'll be honest the way the 12th Doctor has pretty much killed the show for me.  He is either stupid and more clueless about how to treat people then Data on Star Trek or he is a heartless bastard who doesn't care about anyone or any thing and doesn't attempt to save anyone and just puts people like Clara through hell and is cruel to them because he likes seeing people in pain and dying. Then there is his treating anyone who picks up a gun to save lives like dirt.

In short the writing this season has turned the Doctor into a bigger villain then the Master.  I really hope Moffat is fired soon because he has destroyed what used to be my favorite show.  There is nothing good about it any more and I hate The Doctor now because he is pure evil and just shows up to watch people die because he thinks it's funny.  He never even tries to save a single person he just mocks people as they die in horrid way.  So i am done with the show until Moffat and all the writers who have worked on this season are gone.

They have not only killed Doctor Who but they are now pissing on the corps.

Wow. I can honestly say I don't get any of that from the Twelfth Doctor. I see a man who has to make hard choices all the time, and has let himself become hardened because of this. He doesn't like seeing people in pain or dying, but he doesn't allow himself the luxury of agonizing about it because it doesn't help anything. He's a very pragmatic Doctor.

I admit his treatment of soldiers this season is odd, but I attribute that to his distaste for war in general after spending a thousand years trapped fighting a seemingly never-ending war on Trenzalore...and that he sees himself in the soldiers he meets, and he hates that.

And the Doctor "just shows up to watch people die because he thinks it's funny?" What? He absolutely tries to save people, but when he knows they're beyond saving he moves on to the next thing that might be able to help the next person. Like I said, pragmatic.

I think Twelve will soften quite a bit by next season. As I've said before, they seem to be redoing Hartnell's arc - start off with a grumpy, distant, kind of scary old man that you're not sure if you want to be around, and slowly turn him into a lovable grandpa/mentor character. Which makes sense since he's the first Doctor of a new regenerative cycle, and Hartnell was the first First Doctor.

Anyway, I hope you can come to love Capaldi the way I do. He's not callous or cold, he's pragmatic and impatient, but keeps people at arm's length. Sooner rather than later, he'll grow more fond of people once again, and he'll stop being such a dick to everyone. (But I'll be sad when that happens, because I love how much of a dick he is to everyone. I think it's hilarious.)

AntcuFaalb said:

DrCrowTStarwars: I'm wondering: How much of Classic Doctor Who have you seen?

 Every single episode. I have been watching it since 95. Hartnell at his darkest didn't come close to the 12th Doctor.  For one I have no idea why he is even traveling.  I mean he doesn't seem to enjoy exploring and he doesn't seem to care about anyone or anything,so why is he traveling.  Hartnell's doctor had twinkle in his eye and I always felt like he was at least enjoying the act of exploring a new planet or time so there was something to latch onto.  Also a lot of his darkness when the series started came from his trying to protect his granddaughter Susan.  So there was something understnadable about the way he acted and Hartnell managed to give his Doctor a sense of fun,that is missing from the 12th Doctor.

Sorry Hartnell is my favorite Doctor but I am really not getting a Hartnell vibe from 12.  He just seems more like an asshole who shows up to mock people as they die and is trying to turn Clara into a lying asshole who doesn't care about people just like him.  Sorry I just have yet to see a single likable or relatable character trait in the 12th Doctor so I am not enjoying his time on the show.

I have seen quite alot of Classic Doctor Who, I grew up watching it and I too think the 12th Doctor is callous and cold and a dick.

Doctor Who isn't "Once Upon a Time in America".  There is a big difference between characters that are supposed to be evil and characters that are supposed to be the good guys but are rude jerks.  Also, You can't call how the character was on the original show for over 25 years(with the acception of the first few episodes) and how the character has been in the new show, a fluke.   The Doctor is the hero of the series, he is supposed to be likeable.  At least he has been for the overwheming majority of the time.  

Hartnell wasn't likable to me until somewhere in the middle of his second season (probably somewhere between him abandoning Susan on a mostly-destroyed planet and Ian and Barbara leaving). To me, he was an old, callous dick who thought he was better than everyone, and who intentionally got his companions into trouble just because he got bored. I honestly think Capaldi is more likable than season 1 Hartnell.

So, from 1965 up to now the character as been likeable.  That is more than just a fluke.  The fact the Hartnell wasn't original likeable can be understood because the character and the show were not yet fully developed.   Lots of times characters' personalities change in a show after pilot or the first few episodes. 

Warbler said:

Doctor Who isn't "Once Upon a Time in America".  There is a big difference between characters that are supposed to be evil and characters that are supposed to be the good guys but are rude jerks.  Also, You can't call how the character was on the original show for over 25 years(with the acception of the first few episodes) and how the character has been in the new show, a fluke.   The Doctor is the hero of the series, he is supposed to be likeable.  At least he has been for the overwheming majority of the time.  

 Thank you this isn't a dark story about gangsters and killers.  if that is what you want to watch then you are not a fan of Doctor Who,because you want the show to be something it is not.  Also the first doctor went through an arc in his first 13 episodes and he was likable by the end of Inside the spaceship and even before that he had a reason for doing what he did.  He took Ian and Barbra with him because he was afraid their knowledge of him would disrupt the timeline. In The Daleks he didn't mean to put anyone in danger he just wanted to explore a city that they had no reason to believe their was any danger in and in Inside the spaceship The TARDIS was driving everyone crazy so he thought Ian and Barbra were trying to steal the TARDIS so he did what he had to in order to protect Susan.  At no point did he seem to take joy in the deaths of others and at no point was killing people his ideal option.  Even at the end of the Daleks he expressed regret that the Daleks had to die and he tired to barter for the lives of the Thals. 

Now he seems to travel for no other reason then he wants to mock people as they die and he seems to be trying to turn everyone he meets into a monster.

Now maybe you think turning The Doctor into Jigsaw from the Saw movies makes the show more adult but that isn't what I have ever watched the show for so if that is the road it is going down you can count me out.  That isn't why the show appeals to me and I have no interest in watching the Doctor turned into the biggest dickhead in the history of TV.  Sorry.

If Moffat wants to write dark sci-fi with no heroes of any kind then he should create a new show along the lines of the new BSG and I wish him luck and all the viewers that want to see that could go watch the new show.  I just wish he would stop trying to turn Doctor Who into something it is not and has never been.

AntcuFaalb said:

Warbler said:

The Doctor is the hero of the series, he is supposed to be likeable.

This gets to the root of my question: Why?

I don't think "that's the way it always has been" is a good excuse to not change things when the time comes to make a decision.

The Doctor is supposed to be a dynamic character, no? Maybe this unlikable Doctor will learn something in the course of doing unlikable un-Doctor-y things and his next regeneration will pop out someone much more down-to-Earth.

But meanwhile we are stuck with a doctor that is "doing unlikeable un-Doctor-y things", and you don't see a problem.    Actually,  "that's the way it always has been" is a good reason not to change things.    When he is a certain way for over 30 years, in multiple regenerations, its kinda difficult to explain the change now. 

As for your "Why?",

1. normally the good guys are likeable.  Its kinda difficult for a good guy not to be likeable.   Its normally considered good to be likeable.

2.  This Doctor isn't a "cool" not likeable.  He's not a guy that "you love to hate".  He is really unlikeable as in "I hate watching hime, I get no enjoyment out of watching" kind of unlikeable.  

3.  Its kinda difficult to make an enjoyable show when the main character is unlikeable.  Yeah, you can make him evil or unlikeable to the rest of the characters in the show.  But unlikeable to the audience?  That just doesn't work.

The crux of it, though, isn't that he's unlikeable - it's that you don't like him. Which is fine. But you keep arguing as if it's not physically possible for anyone to like him.

Which is clearly not the case, as I - and from what I can tell, the majority of Who fans - do like the Twelfth Doctor quite a bit. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that, as of now, he's my favorite Doctor of the revived series.

That's not to say you have to like him. It's fine that you don't. But to say that he's not a likable character at all seems wildly inaccurate at best when so many people do like him.

And I think the change is perfectly justified - he confronted his mortality for a millennium on Trenzalore as the Eleventh Doctor, fighting an endless war, knowing that he could do nothing to end the war except die. So he accepted that. Then, he was suddenly granted a whole new lease on life - an entire new set of regenerations. How is that not going to mess him up psychologically? He was ready to die, accepted it, and then it turns out, whoops! Nope! You get to live!

So this whole season is about Twelve thinking he didn't deserve a new lease on life. That he should have died on Trenzalore after spending a thousand years doing nothing but killing. Sure, he did it to save the lives of others, but that's the thing - that turned him into an ends-justify-the-means person. That's why he seems to not care about death - he's seen so much death at this point that it's a numbers game to him. Sacrifice one to save fifty. Sacrifice fifty to save a thousand. Sacrifice a thousand to save a million. The needs of the many and all that.

But now he's starting to see Clara change into this (in Flatline), and that, in my opinion, will be the beginning of his "softening."

I say once more - you may not like him this season, but at least give him a chance next season. I'm betting he'll be more "likeable" for you once he's dealt with his inner "did I deserve a new life?" demons.

For the record, I don't agreed with DrCrow, that the Doctor enjoys and mocks people when they die. 

Warbler said:

AntcuFaalb said:

Warbler said:

The Doctor is the hero of the series, he is supposed to be likeable.

This gets to the root of my question: Why?

I don't think "that's the way it always has been" is a good excuse to not change things when the time comes to make a decision.

The Doctor is supposed to be a dynamic character, no? Maybe this unlikable Doctor will learn something in the course of doing unlikable un-Doctor-y things and his next regeneration will pop out someone much more down-to-Earth.

But meanwhile we are stuck with a doctor that is "doing unlikeable un-Doctor-y things", and you don't see a problem.    Actually,  "that's the way it always has been" is a good reason not to change things.    When he is a certain way for over 30 years, in multiple regenerations, its kinda difficult to explain the change now. 

As for your "Why?",

1. normally the good guys are likeable.  Its kinda difficult for a good guy not to be likeable.   Its normally considered good to be likeable.

2.  This Doctor isn't a "cool" not likeable.  He's not a guy that "you love to hate".  He is really unlikeable as in "I hate watching hime, I get no enjoyment out of watching" kind of unlikeable.  

3.  Its kinda difficult to make an enjoyable show when the main character is unlikeable.  Yeah, you can make him evil or unlikeable to the rest of the characters in the show.  But unlikeable to the audience?  That just doesn't work.

 Yeah why would i watch something when I don't like the character the story revolves around?  That is why the prequels failed.  Anikin was a whiny brat,Padme was so stupid she married a guy after he told her is slaughtered a whole village of people,and the Jedi came off as a weird cult that kidnapped children if they had a microbe in their blood.  It's hard to be invested in a story if you don't care about the characters.  Sorry that is just how I see it.  The 12th Doctor is the only Doctor I can't stand and so I don't care what happens to him and so I don't care about the story any more.  Sorry.