NuWhoRevu

Probably some spoilers in here. This review is on the British schedule.

Its been sooo long since this site was updated. But I'm bored, APs are over, and I love writing reviews so here I am! Two years later. (I totally forgot this whole thing existed until I was cleaning up my bookmarks)

So Matt Smith, can we agree he's brilliant? I love his bow tie and his spins, his subtler angst and crooked smile, even his oddly rectangular head is charming. As his darker side so concisely put it his "tawdry quirks" have completely won me over. Although he certainly bears some similarities to Tennant's doctor, his performance feels like everything Tennant wanted to do, but realer, solider, less, well, less Russell T Davies-ized shall we say. I still love DT though, I just think Matt Smith pinned down the essence of the Doctor more precisely. He reminds me of Troughten, which is good because the 2nd doctor is among my favorites.

The writing this season though is a different matter. What with Steven Moffat's legacy, I just assumed he would be a brilliant leader of the show. But I, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I think Russell T Davies might have been a better script editor. Don't get me wrong, Moffat is most certainly the better writer of the two: his characters are multi-faceted and quirky, his writing is a balance of thrills, character development, and laughs, and not to mention relatively angst-less. However, he seems just as apt to throw in naff ideas as RTD was, and is not as adept at building a convincing story arch. RTD, whilst at times ridiculous, knew how to build tension over the series. The finales never payed off because he overreached himself, but up to that point they were good. Stephen Moffat, on the other hand, is skilled at the small picture. He delves into moments in human relationships, he explores thought processes and knows that what we fear isn't a giant, green, gas expelling alien but rather the monster under our bed, the shadow in the corner of our eye. Unfortunately, his focus on the small leads us to lose investment in the big. The crack in the universe is clumsily shoved in, as are references to silence, etc. Besides the clunky series plot arc, the pacing has been off all season. I suspect RTD might have been the better of the two at editing, if not from an ideas standpoint then at least from a timing perspective. Everything this season has been a bit rushed, skipping over the poignant moments to the next giggle or explosion. I think Steven Moffat does have all these skills, he's just too scared to rely solely on his artistic intuitions in fear that he'd lose the Doctor Who RTD built up, and with it the audience. I've seen other products of Moffat's; Jekyll was one of the most skillfully presented shows on television so I'm convinced he can get pacing down, he just wants to preserve RTD's Doctor Who too much and the show is suffering in consequence. Nobody would miss the bring-back-old-friends finales, a few fewer explosions never hurt anybody. I say more character development and subtler scares. Steven Moffat- please ignore the sillier inclinations that this show seems to incite and instead match the quality of writing with Matt Smith's quality of acting. I know it can be done, and if it means relying less on the good ol' Mill, I'm all for it.

If you ignore the rushedness of this season, however, it's shaping up to be, on the whole, rather good I think. Mini review lists ftw! Maybe I'll come back and do more in depth later, but for now I'll rate each out of ten and give a one-ish sentence review.

1. 11th hr: A fun romp, but a bit too expository and lacking any real threat. 8
2. Beast Below: Visually lovely, Amy was good, Smilers a bit pointless though. 7
3. V of Daleks: A rushed mess of assorted ideas that are good individually but not together. 5
4. T of Angels: One genuinely frightening scene, the rest was ok (gah, Riversong). 7
5. Flesh n' Stone: Yay! Real pacing in this one finally! And scary! 9
6. Vamps of Ven: Love Rory, not so much space-fish. 7
7. Amy's Choice: Didn't love this one on viewing, but the more I think about it the more I like it. Fantastic ideas, sub-par execution. 7.5

To me this season so far is about 7ish, which is to say solid, but not overwhelmingly fantastic. Overall dece(nt).