@JC
I’d say that series 5 so far has been hardly short on humour!

I’m not making great claims for this being the best series of modern Who so far, because it hasn’t quite lived up to my expectations of what a Moffat led series would be like (his own episodes aside, which have been AMAZING), but it is most certainly a whole bunch better than the point we were in this many episodes into series four. In my opinion, of course.

I respect everyone’s opinions TWWL and perhaps I’m wrong to think what I do of Season 5, at the end of the day, all I’m saying is that Season 5 doesn’t feel the same to me as Seasons 1 to 4 did.

Season 5 feels distant to me at the moment, none of the episodes have really had much impact on me, though as I said, I did enjoy Amy’s Choice and The Eleventh Hour and I’m willing to have my mind changed.

I haven’t hated the other episodes so far, but I haven’t been that interested at the same time.

Well have just watched this one (Twice in the space of 2 hours – dont ask!).

Love Amy Pond (she’s definately growing on me!), and i can see definate parallels between Smith and Troughton. there’s one thing thats really staryed to niggle me tho, being that in the first series with Rose, they ended up dragging her BF into the Afray, and the same with Rory and Amy. Call me old fashioned, but it’s like repeating itself over again – is it something to expect every season from now on? If so it’s already getting boring!

Saying that, i have to admit that this one was good – not my fave (Time of Angels/2) – however looking forward to the next one now. It almost sounds like they’re definately setting the scene for something big (strange as it may seem!)

I was working on game Mods from the age of 16, now I work in the games industry as a career. Boredom is something I spend my whole life trying to avoid; series 5 is one of the few things which has managed to accomplish that for me. Everyone has done some writing at some point, being in a slightly related industry doesn’t make someone more or less qualified. I would say what I have learnt is how important it is to give the viewer something to work with so they then can suspend disbelief, otherwise the fourth wall gets broken. It doesn’t have to be realistic, just be in good taste.

Humour has always been in Who, but it used to be a result of the eccentricities of the main character, the situations were generally pretty dark to keep the kids behind the sofa, but the doctor was an eccentric, and madman with a box, the comic relief fell down to him. The past 4 years were in bad taste, and had the unfortunate consequence of kicking the viewer out of the fantasy.

@Paul
Every series? It’s only happened with Rose and Amy. Martha and Donna didn’t drag along any partners for a trip in the Tardis.

So that wouldn’t make you more qualified then MavAI?………I’m sure you’re not the same, but in my experience, Game Developers attitudes towards mere modders is to patronise them, MadDoc Software did that to us before Rockstar bought them out.

Furthermore, I’m insulted that you believe me to be patronising towards anyone on this site and that you felt you had to demean what I consider to be the only talents I have.

As a rule of this site, I have to respect your opinion but I certainly don’t agree with it.

Firstly you’re choosing to read something into my statement which wasn’t there. I still work as a modder, and it includes working with a healthy mix of games processionals and those with the sense to seek higher paying jobs, all of whom I consider friends and have equal respect for.
Now that pointless explanation is out of the way I feel I have to make another: I clearly stated it didn’t make me more qualified, but perhaps being a fan of the show since I was 3 would? Maybe the new era was popular, but it lost the sense of having something for everyone.

Now most of the old school fans I knew felt totally out in the cold, which is wrong, my parents had been watching since ‘63, through the highs and lows and for the first time (possibly excluding season 24, I’ll have to ask) they felt this new incarnation too pantomime in nature. I was back for Christmas and my mum refused to watch it, came in during Tenants 2000ft fall proclaimed “that’s why I’m not watching” and promptly left again.
Amy’s Choice is a great example of how that has turned around, first watched it with all my family and girlfriend as a group, then later with friends on iplayer, smiles and cheers all round. It’s no longer pushing to limits of bad taste, it’s not cliquey, its returned to its most basic premise, a tea-time show with scares and a witty madman with a box.

I was a fan of the 9th and 10th Doctors, I doubt anyone would expect me to apologise for that.

But I’ll put Seasons 1 to 4 aside, as clearly that’s going to be a contentious issue in which you found no positives.

Although I can’t help feeling there was still some rudeness to your post, I’ll look past that and state some positives I’ve found about Season 5 in good faith.

The Eleventh Hour, very enjoyable story, some nice continuity backwards to connect old Doctor to new Doctor, Atraxi were interesting and an interesting reaction to the history scan on The Doctor.

The Beast Below, quite enjoyable and I appreciated the storyline and the monsters, disagree with the casting of Liz 10.

Victory of The Daleks, Winston Churchill was cast very well, new Daleks were completely wrong and while feeling the story was incomplete, perhaps the ending left the way open for the story to be continued at the end of the series.

The Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone, I liked how River Song contacted the Doctor and how he turned up just in time to catch her jumping out of the ship, didn’t like how she piloted the Tardis better than the Doctor and seemingly, other Timelords too. Weeping Angels were sinister, I liked how they used the dead guy to speak and were so matter of fact about everything they said. The mystery of who River Song is has remained and remains intriquing.

Vampires of Venice, things start to pick up. The pace is a little quicker and the episode feels like it has a more substantial story. The CGI was a bit dodgy and the solution at the end to just flick a switch underwhelming, but ok.

Amy’s Choice, and despite the clear and massive gulf in opinion between us MavAI, amazingly here we agree. I really enjoyed Amy’s Choice, it was rich in story, made you think and challenged you to keep up……..what Doctor Who should be in my opinion.

The Tenth Doctor was my Doctor, for the many, many people on this site who submitted an entry for the scrapbook sent to David Tennant, he was their Doctor as whoever was yours.

I’m judging Season 5 on its merits as I see them. I’m willing to praise it as much as I’m not afraid to criticise it and while Season 5 isn’t my favourite so far, I’ll continue to give it a chance and give my opinion here, as others do, for what it’s worth.

Rude? From my perspective you firstly implied your opinion to be more important than the majority on the grounds of your interests, and then proceeded to make insinuations about my personality based on my profession.

I have no idea who “my Doctor is”, I don’t think I have one; the marvellous thing about Doctor Who is its capacity for change, I thought Tenant was superb, still do, didn’t have the scripts to work with but a great actor.
Incidentally switch pressing saved the day at the end of every RTD serial cliffhanger (Journeys End, Last of the Timelords etc), the switch on the device in Vampires in Venice was a pretty nice acknowledgement of this, without hurting the episode (without the switch in this instance he’d have just used the sonic screwdriver).

I fully respect everyone’s opinion on this board, and in other comment boxes, I think I’ve shown that. I shared with the community my other interests but did not intend them to represent anything other than a viewpoint on my own creative background.

As it happens, I genuninely believe my opinion to be very much less important than other people’s here.

Clearly I offended you and I have no problems in saying right here that I apologise and I hope you’ll accept it.

Our team’s experience with the software developers, who made the game we had to fix before we modded it, was very far from good, but you’re right, I shouldn’t have generalised and I have no problems apologising for that.

At the end of the day, we’re all Doctor Who fans here and as I’ve said, I regret you saw me sharing my creative interests as some kind of attempt at putting other people down, because I can assure you that wasn’t my intention and I genuinely find other people’s opinions interesting.

Again, hopefully you’ll accept my apology and hopefully we can agree to a truce, even if for nothing else but in the interest of other Doctor Who fans here.

Accepted, sorry if I came off as rude, also didn’t mean to imply your opinions were less meaningful in anyway, just that the changes have re-opened the show back up to a lot of people. The show has changed focus so many times over the years I’ve lost count, however with the RTD era its probably now more impossible than ever to please fans of every one given how completely different they are.

I’m glad we’re all cool now MavAI, actually really hate confrontation, I’m usually the quiet one on our team, lol……..you do make a very valid point though.

I can see how original Doctor Who fans could have felt the difference to a show they loved when RTD revived Doctor Who with his own interpretation applied.

If the show is, as you said, in some ways returning to a more original or recognisable format, it’s understandable how that would appeal and bring back older fans to the franchise to join the fans made during the RTD era.