I loved the original series because it very rarely took itself seriously. It had a terrible budget, hilarious special effects, frequently laughable monsters, and the cast and crew knew it. The actors/writers would even insert lines to make fun of this (ex. Tom Baker asking another actor if he's sure he's pressing the right buttons as the actor carelessly rubs his fingers unconvincingly over cheap plastic squares in 'Nightmare of Eden'). However, the majority of the writers did take their job to tell imaginative, engaging stories very seriously. This combination of 50% quality story telling and 50% B-movie charm in a relaxed environment ensured that the experience would be entertaining and hilarious regardless of the individual story's quality.
Hindle is a god amongst men.
The new series consistently manages to take itself way too seriously, despite all the sitcom one liners, the plethora of catchphrase based humor, and other painfully smug, 'wacky', self-aware moments. The Doctor can and will go up to hordes of heavily-armed aliens and begin shouting about how huge his dick is and they will legitimately shrink back in fear, often just flat out surrendering as a result. He even seems to derive actual pleasure from knowing that people are afraid of him, and that's terrible on several levels.
In addition, the program has become a soap opera. Ironically, the Oncoming Storm bursts into tears on a hair trigger in displays of emotion that often resemble deranged temper-tantrums rather than any kind of legitimate sorrow.
SURVIVING FATAL INJURIES IS SO UNFAIR, I HATE EVERYTHING |
In the original series, the Doctor was primarily motivated by curiosity. After all, his title was supposed to signify him being a doctor of science, not medicine, and certainly not this cringe inducing "the man who makes people better" bullshit of recent years.
The Doctor would wander into a situation, be completely confused, and begin applying the scientific method in order to figure out what was happening. If he was ever arrogant enough to flat out assume he was right without testing his hypothesis, he'd be proven completely wrong (as with the haunted house in 'The Chase').
What was that about "a dimension consisting of the dark recesses of the human mind"? |
The Doctor: "Oh look, a unique strain of homo reptilia I've never seen before!"
Rory: "How long do their poison sacs take to recharge?"
The Doctor: "Twenty four hours."
Confronted with zombies infected with every known disease? Just mix together every known medicine and spray them with it! BECAUSE SCIENCE IS FOR FUCKING PUSSIES, REAL MEN USE MAGIC.
Bitch, please. I'm trying to cure a disease the real way. |
Just... why.
It's even worse when you combine it with his new and bizarre habit of judging people for being less advanced than him. He goes to museums to dance around in a smug fervor while either shouting "Wrong!" at the exhibits or claiming them as "one of mine". He loves slave-owning humans for exploring the unknown (and prioritizes saving them over their slaves), but then looks down at legitimate scientists (archeologists) with contempt because he's a time traveler and therefore better than them because he's more privileged than they are.
This re-imagining of the Doctor must have just outgrown science. Despite the fact that the
(scientifically curious as ever) seventh Doctor was 953, and the
eleventh is inexplicably 909.
8. The Writing
Every season of the new series can be summed up with this formula: The Doctor hears a mysterious buzzword or prophecy while fighting some (usually misunderstood) aliens. He either murders them or takes pity on them and then murders them anyway. Repeat for about eleven episodes. Finally, the buzzword is revealed to have something to do with the destruction of Earth and/or the universe. The Doctor and/or a companion hits a reset button and everything is fine again until next season when the exact same events happen all over again.
If only Rose had been a fourteen year old boy. Then instead of "Bad Wolf", terrible drawings of dicks would suddenly show up everywhere, accompanied by loud dramatic music. |
Aw yeah. |
Careful there Mickey 2.0, don't think too hard. You might die, again. |
7. The Catchphrases
I could go into detail about how the new series constantly tells you to be impressed by how clever it is and how maddeningly smug this attitude is, but nothing sums it up quite like the catchphrases.
OH MY GOODNESS, I DON'T THINK I CAN CONTAIN THE WACKINESS |
6. The Time War
Nothing says contrived, unoriginal sci-fi/fantasy like making your main character the last of their kind. The decision to have the Doctor genocide his own race is a flimsy plot device to inject a lot of terribly unsubtle drama and angst into a character that doesn't need it. We've already done 'the lonely Doctor' thing before. Go watch the first Doctor era, in which the issue is handled with tact. The return of 'Doctor Who' should have been a celebration, not a funeral.
What really bugs me about it though, is both the fans and writers alike using the time war as a fix-all explanation to waive away every inconsistency. Surely most new series fans reading this will use it to explain at least one thing I bitch about. Oh the Doctor is massively out of character? The time war. The continuity sucks and time mechanics aren't consistent? The time war. The sonic screwdriver can now solidify liquified human remains in order to create some kind of tortured, blowjob dispensing paving stone creature with a human face? Err… uh… the time war?
WHAT HAS MAGIC DONE |
5. Plagiarism
A large chunk of the new series concepts are stolen nearly word for word from the works of other authors, including the 'Doctor Who - Virgin New Adventures' line of books. I personally think the VNAs are terrible, taking themselves far too seriously and being very transparently written by incredibly angsty fans that think 'Doctor Who' would be legitimately improved by viscera, torture, and rape. Despite my dislike for the novels, plagiarism is still plagiarism.
YOU ARE MAKING EVERYONE VERY UNCOMFORTABLE, PLEASE STOP... WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU'RE DOING. |
However, none of these suspicious similarities compare to the blatant plagiarism committed by Steven regarding 2003's "The Time Traveler's Wife." The title should already sound familiar. The novel is about a man who frequently finds himself involuntarily transported through time. In his series of time jumps, he meets his wife at various points throughout time, and all in a non-linear order. These encounters lead him to meeting her as a young girl which causes her to see him as an imaginary friend throughout her childhood. When he first meets her in linear time (and therefore does not know her, but she knows him already) she is awed by how young he is, and gives him a diary cataloging their encounters, identically mirroring the events of "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead". Madame de Pompadour's character, River's story arc, and Amy's story arc are all ripped off, nearly word for word, from this novel. Even the Weeping Angel's feeding ability is extremely reminiscent of this concept.
(I later found out that the author of "The Time Traveler's Wife" has accepted Steven's use of her novel as inspiration for "The Girl in the Fireplace," however I haven't been able to find any comment concerning his blatant intellectual theft post-2006. Even if she was okay with the plagiarism which spawned Amy and River, that still doesn't make it right to go around stealing ideas that aren't yours and recycle them to this extent.)
You're a bad person if you plagiarize something once, but to do it over and over again in this fashion is abysmal behavior for such a well-regarded writer.
But the recycling and theft is hardly limited to literature. The new series goes so far as to reuse iconic scenes from the classic series as well, while managing to completely miss the point. For instance, the Doctor's "betrayal" of Amy's trust in 'The God Complex' is just a watered down version of the climax to 'The Curse of Fenric'.
I don't know either.
4. The Doctor's Love Life
The Doctor has likely had 'relations' in the past (hence him having a granddaughter). This is presumably with members of his own species, and I have no problem with this. However, I am not okay with the Doctor's new status as a zoophile.
'Journey's End' makes it clear that the Doctor is disgusted to be inside a human body. It's the kind of reaction I could see someone having if they suddenly became a dog: "Eww fuck, I have to lick my own butt now." Understandable, that is until you realize that this new Doctor is frequently and voluntarily inside human bodies (and not in a sci-fi transmogrification kind of way).
Let's move on to the real issue at hand. First, the Doctor falls into a codependent relationship with a very unremarkable Mary Sue. Then, in 'Turn Left,' it's shown that he's so depressed by being separated from her that he would have drowned himself if no one had intervened. Despite this unfathomable codependence, during their supposed 'relationship' he fucks a 18th century courtesan behind her back.
Misplaced my girlfriend in a parallel dimension, sulked a bit, then took out my frustration by drowning hundreds of babies. Well, looks like the only thing left to do is to kill myself. |
3. Broken Time Travel Mechanics
'Doctor Who' writers have never completely agreed on how time travel and changing history should work. However, much of the original series functions on the basis that history is unchangeable. This is very important for two reasons- first because it allows the Doctor to interfere in events he knows nothing about without having to worry about corrupting the timeline, and second because rewriting the past is a lazy solution for lazy writers. However, about half a dozen stories including 'The Time Meddler' and 'Genesis of the Daleks' ignore this rule in order to tell interesting stories about the ethics of interfering with history. Even then, it is always someone other than the Doctor who is trying to alter the course of history. There are a grand total of two times ('Day' and 'Genesis of the Daleks') where the Doctor is placed in a situation to alter history, and actually might have done so. It's always extremely vague on whether or not he has actually changed anything.
Oooooh shit muthafucka yo best get yo sick ass raybands on cause its tha muthafuckin monk all up in this here abbey. |
But the real issue is that the new Doctors use time travel as a tool to solve problems, rather than a means of opening up new and exciting worlds to explore. In 'A Christmas Carol', the Doctor abuses time travel to rewrite a man's personal history right in front of his eyes in order to manipulate him into getting his way (while gloating about it to his face no less). Ignoring all of the abominable moral problems with this, he arrives back where he started to find that the isomorphic computer he was trying to manipulate the man into operating is still there, and that he's changed the man to a point where the computer doesn't even recognize him anymore. The writers clearly chose the easiest path in writing this story. They didn't even bother to think about the complex changes this would cause to the timeline. Instead, only the man's personality is changed and the situation remains exactly the same. Lazy, convenient, and utterly unimaginative.
Do you know, the Time Lords once told me not to use my powers to completely and utterly break people? You know what I said to them? Nothing. Dead people can't hear. |
2. The Villains
A series can have bad protagonists and still be carried by threatening antagonists, easily. However, a (massively contrived) alliance between most of the new Doctor Who villains could only manage to lock the Doctor in a box… a box opened in about five minutes by the Doctor's trademark magic wand that they should all know about by now (despite it clearly being stated that it was deadlocked and therefore immune to the Sonic Screwdriver in the previous episode).
Who honestly thought this was a good idea. |
Well what about the Weeping Angels? Yeah, they'd probably be pretty scary if their primary attack wasn't to safely transport people back in time to happily live out the rest of their lives in peace. Sure they start snapping necks later on, but they're immediately ruined by the demonstration that they'll automatically lock up if they think someone might be looking at them, combined with the fact that they are really bad judges of this, and that their extremely convenient paranoia seems to be completely involuntary. They're like some kind of joke species straight out of 'Hitchhiker's Guide' now, except they're expected to be taken 100% seriously. These unfortunate, laughable characteristics coupled with a bunch of stupidly overpowered new abilities (that they should have abused liberally in 'Blink') dulls the concept considerably.
1. The Doctor is a Hypocritical, Genocidal Psychopath
The Doctor has always avoided violence, but understood that it was sometimes an unfortunate necessity. When the peaceful alternatives ran out and negotiations failed, the Doctor would stand up and directly fight back, often all by himself.
What was that about 'a man who never would'?
The new Doctors, on the other hand, are permanently glued to a high horse upon which they chastise scared, relatively defenseless people for using weapons to protect themselves against clearly hostile life forms. This would be almost tolerable, except for the fact that the Doctor is now a bloodthirsty, genocidal maniac.
For instance, the Doctor runs into some Scaroth rip-offs who are advancing human technology through subliminal suggestion. Unlike Scaroth, they aren't interested in obtaining the power of time travel and wiping out an entire planet's worth of species. No. They just want space suits. Because "they look cool." What monsters.
Hey Doctor, way to look compassionate and not at all like a crazed killer eagerly anticipating the impending bloodshed. |
He then informs them that he's already subliminally reprogrammed practically every human to murder their race on sight, for 'a thousand generations'. That's right, not content with a millennium of unwavering genocide, he also forces billions upon billions of people to become unreasoning murderers. I am hard pressed to think of anything any of the villains have done in this entire franchise that even comes close to how vile and horrible this is.
(Edit from the future: Sure enough, the aliens that pissed the Doctor off turned out to just be a tiny sect of a religion that exists within their species. The rest of them are actually pretty decent people. Good fucking job, you goddamn monster.)
Whoever this guy is, he clearly murdered the Doctor, stole his TARDIS, and is masquerading around as him in order to score with Earth women.
In Closing
Since 2005, what we've been watching isn't 'Doctor Who'. It's a self-aggrandizing, fan-produced soap opera inspired by Doctor Who. The continuity is a disaster, returning characters are twisted parodies of their former selves, and the Twilight-inspired romance mechanics are sickening (codependent, ancient non-human falls in love with unremarkable Mary Sues). Yet the drama takes itself super seriously, which completely ruins any "so bad it's good" entertainment value it might have had.
'Doctor Who' ended in 1989, and with good reason. Everything since has been done purely for money or to fulfill basement-dwelling fanboys' wet dreams, and should be disregarded accordingly.
A little personal background/disclaimer to dissuade inevitable strawmen arguments that I've heard several times: I started watching 'Doctor Who' only a year before the new series was announced. I was ecstatic about having brand new, high budget 'Doctor Who' on television, and so I willfully blinded myself and set about enjoying the first three seasons without question. I tried to like it very, very hard and nearly succeeded, if only it hadn't been for the ever-declining quality of the program.
This blog isn't the product of some old, miserable wreck of a fan viewing the show through rose-tinted glasses (despite sounding like one). And before you call me a hipster, you're the ones defending a show featuring a swooshy-haired, smug asshole dressed in tight-fitting thrift store clothing who drives a time machine fitted with a typewriter, phonograph, and thrusting anal beads in the central column.