I refuse to post in the Netflix thread for reasons which are well known to them, so I am starting an Amazon streaming thread.
I have watched many British shows over the years (see my period drama thread, and I'm a decades long AbFab fan, and some other stuff from before the Internet) and I am watching Doctor Who, now. Seriously. That should give me some big number of geek cred tokens or however you measure it. I have Torchwood on the watchlist. ers were talking about these shows years ago, I know, but I am watching them now so it's all new to me.
Thoughts: John Barrowman is almost painfully good looking and Jack Harkness as a character makes me happy. I am only two eps in to the 11th Doctor and still miss David Tennant....does it get better?
Maybe you're just weird and different but I was p well sold on Matt Smith before the end of the first episode. The stories themselves can be hit or miss but he's very consistent. Probably when he stops yelling Geronimo so much is when you'll start to like him.
I like Matt Smith too. In part because of Steven Moffat taking over the helm of the show. Russel T Davies did an excellent job, but Moffat's managed to be even better. The season arcs, in particular, do a great job of tying together whole skeins of threads littered around the individual episodes.
I've recently finished Matt Smith's second season and I feel like I completely wasted my time watching it. The entire season was a circular wank that got you nowhere. There were not one, but two big dramatic finales that accomplished absolutely nothing. I was a big Moffatt fan going into this - Jekyll is one of my all-time favorite shows - but I am not at all happy with the direction he's taken.
I think he has made The Doctor way too much of a superhero. And it's an overall Moffatt failing. I felt he made Sherlock and Moriarty way too much like Batman and The Joker in Sherlock and I'm seeing the same failings here. His Doctor is not only too powerful, but too self-aware of his own power and legend. It just doesn't work for me.
And I hate, HATE, HATE the hero music theme they use for him.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
Doctor Who‘s showrunners can cross one Who veteran off the company Christmas card list: Waris Hussein, the show’s first director, has criticized the show for being too sexy.
No, not sexy in this way. And not sexy in an I-want-to-run-my-fingers-through-David-Tennant‘s-hair way, either.
Says Hussein, who directed the very first episodes back in 1963:
Quote:
“There is an element now, and I know we’re living in a different era, of sexuality that has crept in. The intriguing thing about the original person was that you never quite knew about him and there was a mystery and an unavailability about him. Now we’ve just had a recent rebirth and another girl has joined us, a companion, she actually snogged him.”
He also opined that the Doctor, like Sherlock Holmes, should remain “unavailable” and asked: “Why bring in this element when in fact you needn’t have it there?”
I wanted to love Torchwood, and liked certain elements and characters, but hated others. So I am ambivalent, to this day. And I wasn't even into Dr Who then yet enough to be expecting a sort of Who mark II.
Though I have to say the last couple of seasons, which appeared to be completely self-contained, separate stories just adapted to work in the Torchwood world, were surprisingly good. Well, Children of Earth sticks with you as more disturbing than anything else, but I really liked the second half of Miracle Day.
Oh, and for me, it took about a season to warm to Matt Smith. I think Davies produced better episodes, but Moffat does better arcs.
The Painted Veil is on Amazon Prime now. It used to be on Netflix but they took it down ages ago and I checked AP a couple of months ago and it was only available for rent. I'm psyched to have it free for streaming again because it's one of my favorite re-watching movies.
It's based on a Somerset Maugham story. The setting is 1920s China and the leads are Edward Norton and Naomi Watts in what I think are some of the best performances of their careers. The score is beautiful and the shots of China are breathtaking. Four thumbs up.
When I came to the end of that book I frantically looked for more pages, yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOO, not the END!?!" and hugged the book. Pretty good for a story where, well, essentially nothing thrilling happens.
I really like Matt Smith's boyish enthusiasm as the Doctor, it's totally endearing. But I think my favorite of the three is Eccleston; he had the angst of "last of his kind" mixed with an arrogance that can only come from being basically immortal and omniscient.
I was sorry to see "Torchwood" end. And I like the current Doctor. Couldn't separate my mental image of the last one from that of the character he played in the Harry Potter movies.
I hated the first Matt Smith episode enough that I stopped watching, but recently gave it another go because someone on this forum said Matt Smith was the bestest. I'm glad I did, too, because I ended up loving season 5 and I'm halfway through season 6. I'm not crazy about who the doctor has become either but I'm enjoying the story.