My Doctor Who series 8 Rant

Below is a bit of a rant after watching the final episode of this series of Doctor Who. If you’ve not watched the series there are some spoilers below.

I have to confess the conclusion of series 8 of Nu-Who has left me with mixed feelings. On the one hand I think we have a terrific new Doctor in the cranky almost permanently angry Peter Capaldi but on the other hand we’ve had some truly dreadful episodes. So while I have loved the new Doctor I have to say this series as a whole I have found to be deeply disappointing compared with the previous seven. One thing I think I haven’t liked is that now DW is on far too late. It’s meant to be a family show yet most of the episodes for this series were starting at 8.30 which is not far off the ‘watershed’ for adult programmes. And yes this series has been dark but so were some of the stories from the Hartnell and Troughton days and those weren’t shown this late in the evening. You can be dark and still keep your audience. Plus there is some vim and vigour missing from this series. Previous series have made a big thing about running. This series I don’t think there’s been any. Well maybe in one episode. So maybe that accounts for a rather staid feel to this series.

There also seems to have been the usual problem of a terrific build up followed by a horrendously pat climax. The episode ‘Listen’ for instance is a great example of this. There was a really great hook to this episode, something unseen watching, listening to people. The wonderfully creepy scene in the child’s bedroom with the ‘thing’ under the bed clothes. Really unsettling. The build-up in this was superb. Then the ending was a little bit ‘oh it was all a dream tra-la-la’. AAARRRGGGHHHH. The build up with Missy was very erratic as well. The first couple of episodes she was there then she was forgotten about for a bit, then back again, then forgotten again, oh and now she’s back again. So by the time we got to the climax it didn’t really feel like it had been building towards this over the entire series. Another thing Moffat does is seem to forget plot points. At the end of Matt Smith’s run we came back to the mention of ‘the woman in the shop’ who gave Clara the Doctor’s number. In the final episode it was even mentioned again, this time making out that The Master had put the two together for a reason. Oooh interesting. This was then promptly forgotten about and if the conclusion of the episode is the final goodbye it seemed to be for Clara this plot point which was built up into a potential major element will never go anywhere. Moffat is the master of building towers he never intends to finish which for me is really infuriating.

Making The Master a woman, even if it was only for this series was a stupid idea. It made no sense especially when you consider where we last saw The Master when he faced off with Rassilon. If only they had been a bit more ballsy and had Michelle Gomez, who was absolutely superb, as a corrupted Romana, going after the Doctor because of what he ‘did’ to Gallifrey in the time war, (something we now know to be not true) could have been absolutely fantastic. Or if they had to bring a character back why not the Rani? But no, we have the gimmick of making a male time lord (a character who for 40 years has been a bloke) suddenly become a woman for no justifiable reason whatsoever. No matter how awesome Michelle Gomez was I still think it’s a naff idea. It’s almost as if Moffat is trying to justify saying to people that it might be okay now to have a female Doctor. It won’t. The Doctor is a bloke. The end. It’s not even an argument. In the same way John Shaft is not a white guy, The Doctor is not a woman.

Clara got some great material in this series, probably meatier stuff than any previous companion has had but it was all just a little bit too contrived. Or at least it felt that way. Suddenly she’s a teacher at a school who nips out for long adventures between classes? And because she travels through time and space no one else is the wiser. Really? Ugghhh what a terrible idea. Danny Pink was rather a well-played character but I never really got any feel for chemistry between them. Plus he was an annoying character to be brought in as a boyfriend and then take him away right at the end. It seemed a waste, especially as his conflict/disdain with the Doctor was awesome. I would have loved to have seen that continue.

Am I the only one who misses the days when the Doctor would get a companion, disappear for a few years with them going here there and everywhere never being tied back to on recurring place and then they say goodbye and he goes off to find someone new? I can’t be can I?

I was left feeling a little bit, ‘was that it?’ when the credits rolled on this series.

So an annoying series, full of a mixture of terrible episodes and terrific episodes. Some bad ideas and some wonderful ones (The Brigadier as Cyberman saluting and finally being saluted was f**king brilliant) and we’re kind of right back to where we were last Christmas, with the Doctor finally remembering that he was going to try and find Gallifrey, something that he never really mentioned for this entire series until right at the very end. Which will now be forgotten about because the next episode is the Christmas special.

I didn’t really like this series. Once I get the DVD box set (I have all the others so I will be buying this too) I imagine this will become the least watched of my collection. But that by no means I will stop watching. You can’t please everyone all of the time so just because I didn’t like everything in this series doesn’t mean I’m about to throw my toys out of my pram and give up on it. That’s never going to happen. I’ll be watching at Christmas and next year when series nine is on. Hoping for a return to form, for something better. We have a great new Doctor we just need a great new series to match him.

P.S. Moffat sort out the theme tune, it sounded like a whiny cat getting put through a washing machine rather than the Doctor Who theme.