Quick musings on resumed Twelfth Doctor rewatch

[vivdunstan]

Recently I rewatched the Matt Smith Doctor Who stories again. And I'm now rewatching Peter Capaldi's run. But it's been tricky to keep going. I think he's one of the best actors ever to play the part, but the characterisation as presented is often so unlikeable. Especially at the start of his run, but also with his treatment of Danny. It's very difficult to relate to this Doctor early on, and to want to watch the series.

I paused my rewatch part way through "Robot of Sherwood" and it took me some months to summon up the enthusiasm to restart. I'm now part way through series 8 episode 6 "The Caretaker". I've enjoyed some of the previous stories more than I expected to. Not least "Time Heist" which I could barely remember anything of. Though I rather yearn for simpler old style storytelling, rather than Steven Moffat esque convoluted timey wimeyness.

But I'm still hating the dislikeable aspects of this Doctor, which are particularly evident in
8. Not so much his alienness, but what I perceive too often as unnecessary cruelty to watch in the series. It feels like experiencing the early Sixth Doctor all over again. But pushing on ...

Comments

[purplecat]

I was listening to The Writer's Room podcast recently discusing Into the Dalek and they were trying to pick apart what it was Moffat was examining in the "I don't like soldiers part". The picked up on that the first thing Journey Blue does in Into the Dalek is point a gun at the Doctor and the first thing the Doctor sees Danny do in Into the Dalek is training children to be cadets and they felt that rather clumsily Moffat was trying to talk about the difference between being a soldier "first and foremost" as opposed to being a soldier "through circumstance".

They also felt part of the point was supposed to be that he's right about Journey Blue but wrong about Danny and the arc was maybe supposed to be about how both Danny and the Doctor needed to change their minds, but that this all got lost in the noise somehow - possibly because Moffat doesn't really know enough about the realities of solidering in the 21st century.

Anyway, it was interesting stuff, and made me think rather more deeply about the whole "I don't like soldiers" thing which I'd previously thought came out of nowhere and was rather silly.