Over 50 years and nearly 800 stories, Doctor Who has consistently delivered some of the best science fiction on television, and is currently the most popular sci-fi TV show on the planet. Let that sink in, people like me who have loved the series since back in the olden days.
But it hasn’t been all raisins and glory, oh, no. There’s been some pretty bad mis-steps over the course of those fifty years.
Let’s have a look at ten times when the series…well, wasn’t all it could have been.
10. The Master Race (“The End of Time” Parts 1 and 2, 2009)
Yeah, the Master, decides to clone himself and turn everyone on the Earth into him for t3h evulz! At least I think that’s the reason. It’s really not very clear, and frankly, it’s very stupid. Stupid enough that it muscled out the also very dumb, “bringing the Master back to life using his horcrux” scene, and that’s saying something.
9. The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon (“The Gunfighters”, 1966)
Ok, so the episode itself isn’t great. Sci-fi western stories seldom are (I’m looking at you, Firefly!). For some reason almost everyone seems to think they’re two great tastes that should taste great together, but with the exception of the Red Dwarf episode, “Gunmen of the Apocalypse”, they’ve all pretty much sucked (looking very hard at you, Firefly!).
But silly and bizarre though the plot is (a plot which, mind you, has the Doctor seeking the dental technology of the late 1800s when he has all of time and space to pick from), it’s not nearly as bad as the song. Yes, for some reason, someone decided what this episode really needed was an old West-style ballad. Even that isn’t really horrible, per se, but it plays on and on and on and on, and like every two minutes you get a line from it. It…just…won’t…END! Kind of like my dislike for Firelfy.
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6 Comments
So damn right about everything.
I can add too the web planet with the bees… Just can’t stand this episode lol. The “last chance saloon” one was funny… In all it can be. Not the plot at all which stinks I agree but that was the first time we can hear a song in DW. And what about Steven who MUST sing if he doesn’t want to be killed. A bit wtf but anyway. And I got the cd about this episode that’s kinda: “ballad one” “ballad two” “ballad three” a but endless lol. I assume back in those days that was great ^^ but just by anymore lol
I just love how you treated that both list “iconic/worse”.
Shocked you only found ten – and a pretty obvious ten at that. May I share some of mine?
1. The Pandorica Opens – the ridiculous (and entirely out of nowhere) gathering of the Doctor’s enemies (The Judoon? The Silurians?) to stop the mysterious ‘cracks in the universe’ from occurring. Wouldn’t the Omega army led by Madame Kovarian have made more sense? And why Stonehenge, exactly? Opportunistic setting, hardly necessary.
2. The Doctor’s Wife – this isn’t a misstep, but the fact that Moffat decided this episode was only worthy of 45 minutes instead of the two-hour two-parter it should have been (he gave that to the story whose only point was to – at the last possible moment – introduce us to ‘the flesh’ and thus a deux ex machina excuse for Amy’s odd ‘behavior’ in Season six), shows a colossal lack of sense. You don’t invite one of the finest, best-known writers in the WORLD to give you what might be one of the best episodes EVER and then not give him space to shine. I’d call that a sign of a bad producer.
3. The Big Bang – The end of this episode (Big Bang 2) created a terrible, messy plot hole for this series – please explain how post-Big Bang 2 River Song was in the pre-Big Bang 2 universe (The Time of Angels/etc). Also, please explain how Rory – who, after he went through a crack in the universe – never existed, but was somehow brought back to life as an Auton duplicate complete with Rory’s personality and memories (an example of Moffat’s fairy tale ‘magical explanations’) – and explain further how, once the universe was re-booted and the ‘real’ Rory was brought back, how did he have memories of being something he, technically (I guess) never was? Messy, messy storytelling.
4. Overt sexism in the Moffat era (right from the start) – So Rose is failure of a character when she wants to jump the Doctor and the show jumps the shark when it features an oral sex joke – but no mention of Amy’s open desire for a one-night stand with the Doctor? Is it because Amy was written as a sexually provocative character right from the start (kissogram, riiight)? How about the character of Abigail in A Christmas Carol? At no point does The Doctor attempt to save this woman from her fate – she’s just left frozen, brought out once a year to entertain the men, and through The Doctor’s manipulations, placed in the position of being the love interest of the nasty old man he prefers to reform instead of doing the right thing (like going back in time to stop Amy and Rory’s ship from ever taking off in the first place and, hey, how about saving that woman’s LIFE?). Moffat’s women are, on the whole, the most provocative of the series (Reinette, River Song, Amy) and that isn’t always to the series’ benefit. These women exist only for The Doctor, it seems (even River Song, it turns out, spends most of her life in prison for a crime she didn’t commit – only to emerge when – shock – The Doctor comes to fetch her for a night out or some other related adventure – okay for the Doctor, rotten for River). Short skirts aside, Moffat’s women make the likes of Jo Grant and Leela seem perfectly feminist.
5. Season Six (Matt Smith) – what was the point of this season? What happened, exactly? With so much focus on de-mystifying River Song (and not for the better), Amy and Rory are reduced in relevance (after a serious build up in season five) to just being River’s parents (who needs them anymore – sorry, no pun intended). The Silence create their own problems as villains – if no one can remember them after they’ve turned away, how did the Tardis team know what all those tally marks on their skin were for? Weren’t they disposed of rather easily? Didn’t it seem like the whole season was rushed, written by the seat of someone’s trousers with too many deux ex machina excuses? The Tesselecta are the new Time Lords? Since when? How did the Doctor ‘escape’ frozen time in The Wedding of River Song to join the Tesselecta, or for the Tesselecta ‘robot’ to be stuck in the frozen time period and how did River kissing the robot unfreeze time? How did time get stuck by River ‘not’ shooting the Doctor in the first place? Oh, and how the frilly heck did the Doctor manage to blow up an entire Cyber fleet? I know it looked good in A Good Man Goes to War, but, excuse me – huh? With the what? It’s exhausting just thinking about all of the messy messiness.
My summary: Fairy tales are not what The Doctor is made of and, unfortunately, that is what Moffat and co seem to have in mind in ‘branding’ him for a new generation. The Doctor of old was a scientist who relied on logic to debunk the sort of mystical magical nonsense Moffat employs to tell his stories. A return to science fiction form would be most welcome, but I’ve a feeling the only way this will happen is if we get some brand new blood in charge.
Simon – I’ll answer each of your questions because you obviously don’t pay attention or have a poor understanding of good TV.
1. Kovarian as a member of the silence was responsible for blowing up the TARDIS. The “Alliance” came together to stop the doctor as they believe he’s responsible for the cracks… they have seen what he’s done to them individually and know what he can be capable of plus due to RTD throwing everything including the kitchen sink into his finales Moffatt needed to keep some scale as its what people are used to with something major been dealt with in the series finale.
2. Whilst i kind of agree to an extent The Doctor’s wife should have been a two-parter or at least an hour long, who’s to say Gaiman felt he wasn’t able to stretch the story into a two parter without weakening it. Secondly the premise of the gangers story is quite good it just didn’t quite deliver. We all make mistakes or poor judgements doesn’t make us bad at our jobs, nobody is perfect.
3. It’s a bit wibely wobbly timey wimey and different timelines yes does seem a bit confusing but god forbid we have a tv show about time travel that actually goes into the working of time travel other than hoping from one place to another. The Alliance took the memories Amy had of Romans and Rory to form the trap, Amy remember him to extent due to been a time traveller it’s mentioned in the episode if you pay attention! Again Rory remembers been an Auton because he travelled in time… you call it messy writing but since when has doctor who writing been perfect especially when dealing with time travel something that doesn’t exist and each writer can bend the rules as he sees fit something that has worked for nearly 50 years.
4. Moffatt likes strong willed women in his stories, nothing wrong with that its something different. Amy wanting to sleep with The Doctor fits in with her character, The Doc messed her up from a child and its shown she was always obsessed with him growing up suddenly he returns whisks her away, saving the day and saving her life, her reaction is understandable. In Christmas Carol he could have saved her life but it made for a better story that he didn’t, not everyone lives happily ever after it’s called real life! He couldn’t have gone back in time to stop the ship from leaving because that would involve crossing his own timeline (presumably he dropped them off there in 1st place) and was needed for the story take that away and it lessens the story. Finally River is in prison for killing the doctor to convince the universe he’s dead! Yeah it might not be great for River but she seems not to have a bad time of it plus she runs off for adventures whenever she feels like it she stays there out of love for the doctor and could be a subtle metaphor for marriage, the wife stays behind while the husband goes off and only shows up at the end of the day.
5. What happened, bit like Series 4 since Donna doesn’t remember any of it! Series 6 lots happened we find out who River is personally i think its interesting that she’s Amy and Rory’s daughter. Onto the silence they only forget the silence creatures where there not anything else. They were disposed of in D.O.T.M to show how ruthless The Doctor is this something we see in A.G.M.G.T.W and again in W.O.R.S. Who said The Tesselecta were the new time lords? And where you get that from the tesselecta gets involved and interfere’s something time lords (generally) didn’t do. Time wasn’t frozen when he went inside the tesslecta he did that before he went to america and time got stuck because it was a fixed point in time that didn’t happen when it was supposed to! By kissing it the two touched sending them back on beach so time would continue, why it happen again because Moff decides it did all writers on who write their own rules and has always been the case when dealing with time travel as i mentioned earlier. What do you mean how did he do that i don’t know a few explosives might have done the trick and set them off with a detonator inside his TARDIS.
In summary: You obviously don’t pay attention if you did you’d understand now either go back to series 5 and pay attention and realize it largely makes sense and stop whining or quit watching.
The Sixth Doctor’s run was no more awful, aimless, unpleasant or morally confused than the Fifth Doctor’s era was. Envisioning the Sixth Doctor as an unhinged violent thug was no more disastrously wrongheaded than characterising the Fifth Doctor as an appeasement-minded liability and a failure who was more likely than any other Doctor to end a story surrounded by the corpses of people he could have saved. That was the biggest blunder as far as I’m concerned- the characterisation of the Fifth Doctor as a compulsive failure and a loser- taking the previous 18 years of good work to build up the Doctor as an intelligent, formiddable and reassuring hero, and flushing it all down the toilet. No wonder the show lost its ratings and got cancelled.
I think I misinterpreted ‘blunder’ to mean mistakes, as in continuity mistakes, and not a list of ‘things the reviewer thought were dumb’. I was interested in reading the former and, as I soon learned, it was the latter. No matter though, luckily it was mentioned early on that Mr. Swanson does not like Firefly. I backed away muttering, “These are not my people…” 8-/
It’s so terribly cliché of “Whovians” to criticise the 6th Doctor’s coat, yet these same people would gladly see him in that blue-from-head-to-toe atrocity. And you guys always fail to mention how ridiculously crap the 9th Doctor’s costume was, it wasn’t even remotely Doctor-like & that counsel estate buzz-cut & northern accent didn’t help matters either. Look at the first 9 doctors, you can clearly see who’s the odd one out – 9 every time.
@Tom – The show “lost its ratings & got cancelled” not because anything was wrong with it, though that’s a common misconception, those things happened because the BBC put DW on at weird times on odd days & then finally put it up against Coronation Street so that they’d have low-enough figures to justify cancelling it – duh. How many times do Whovians have to be reminded of this? Is Michael Grade’s propaganda really THAT effective? I guess so.
One last thing really does need mentioning – Doctor Who can have no criticism now that Nu-hu(21st century dumbed-down soap for kidz version) has lowered the bar to sub-terrainian levels. For every criticism of Doctor Who there’s like hundreds of more apposite criticisms of Nu-hu.