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doctor who

I have finished New Who! I also watched Torchwood: Children of Earth and then I tried to watch the Martha Jones episodes of Torchwood and got bored. Now I am rewatching Nine to see if Eccleston is as good as I remembered. (Yes.)

More thoughts on Who that Who fandom has probably already discussed
Watching things all out of order makes the character arc clearer, if anything, and also makes the continuity between Nine and Ten stronger; a lot of the weirdness between Ten and Rose probably shakes out to trying to get Ten up to where Nine was too quickly, so Davies could go on with the arcs he wanted. So far, also, he's either less prone to grandiloquent speeches with Nine or Eccleston delivers them better. A lot of later Ten falls into the same problem as Buffy Season Seven, which is that as many intradiegetic reasons as you may have to make your protagonist's speeches boring and/or questionable, you are in trouble when you bore your audience.

Really I think the biggest problem with Davies' writing on Who (okay, except for the ridiculous plotting) is that he inclines towards tragedy and the regeneration structure of Who inclines towards comedy. It's a mismatch which shows the hand of the author too much when he gets too far from bittersweet romance (Shakespearian, I mean). Torchwood: Children of Earth may not work as a continuation of the Torchwood series, but it works fine as a miniseries on its own. Even Captain Jack's truly terrible acting isn't too much of a handicap, because the series really revolves around Frobisher. I'm not sure what the series' ultimate take on Frobisher is (I certainly don't agree that he's a good man, but I'm not sure how reliable I'm meant to consider his secretary), but damn, the actor delivered.

I get the impression it is unfashionable now, but I do think Ten/Rose are as adorable as a hat full of kittens. And I do adore all of Davies' major companions--I do warm up faster to the emotional intensity of his writing than I do to Moffett's more technically proficient and profoundly better plotted stuff. Though I grant Moffett got me there in the end, and without the drama queen hangover.