“No, but that’s not possible. She was sealed into the Seventh Obelisk. I was at the prayer meeting. Well, no, I get that it’s important. An Egyptian goddess loose on the Orient Express…in space! Give us a mo. (to AMY and RORY) Sorry, something’s come up. This will have to be goodbye”

@TWWL Or perhaps you just like to read peoples comments negatively? :)

@Steve
No, I definitely read them correctly, the intention is clear.

@TWWL

Go on then, what has got your back up that you don't think I am allowed to have an opinion….again?……

@Steve
You can have all the opinions you like, I’m just consistantly amused and bemused by how so very, very many of them are negative. Sometimes it seems like almost every post you put up is to give some aspect of the modern show a kick. Just seems odd, that’s all. You would just think that anyone who would frequent a website dedicated to something would do so because they have more positivie than negative things to say.

No reference to this post but I just want to wish David Tennant a happy 41st birthday! :D

@TWWL The problem is the show is failing. SM has no passion for the show and this is showing in the garbage he is delivering. Don’t get me wrong, some of his earlier stories like Blink were amazing. It is blatantly obvious he cares more about Sherlock when you compare the 2 shows. Christmas 2011 was the laziest example of a SM story. If you are so dedicated to driving every one on here to always have positive views of the current show, then you will be sorely disappointed, The only good thing about the current show is Matt Smith himself but there is no chemistry between him and Karen Gillian. You can fool your self all you like but compared between other Doctors and their companions, “classic” and “new” there is nothing to get involved with when watching them. This is my opinion and very much the opinion of everybody I know personally. People are only watching Doctor Who currently out of a sense of duty, not because of their passion for the show. I have yet to find, this website excluded, anyone who will be sorry to see Amy leave.

@TWWL By the way, I will be watching Hand of Fear this evening to watch the best Doctor Who companion EVER last story. Sadly this beautiful and talented actress died a year ago today. Now those final scenes are an incredible tear jerker!

@Steve
Although I didn’t enjoy the latest Christmas Special, I find it harsh to say that SM has been branded lazy. That is your opinion and that is totally fair enough. Opinions do differ from people. OK you could argue at certain times there hasn’t been much chemistry between Matt and Karen but to say there isn’t no chemistry at all is quite a silly thing to say. There is some chemistry between the pair as their characters albeit not all the time. Off set however, there is chemistry between them and it’ll be sad to see Karen and Arthur leave. I am watching Doctor Who out of passion so I don’t think you should assume why people are watching Doctor Who.

@Patrick I am sure you are watching Doctor Who out of passion for the series. My comments referred to those people I had already mentioned, those that I personally know, As for the chemistry, it is well know that people can have chemistry off screen but not on screen. My point is, is that I would like to feel the chemistry. I will give you a strange example. Another show I love is Eureka. The chemistry between the entire cast works so well, that I feel for each of them and have hopes for those characters. Daft as it seems, one of my favorite parings is Deputy Andy .2 and Sarah, Carters AI house. It was incredibly sad when they were separated and incredibly moving when they got back together. This is a huge credit to both the on screen actor and the actress who plays the voice of Sarah. Doctor Who is lacking that chemistry.

Steve:
“The problem is the show is failing.”

As far as I can tell, the only standard by which it is failing is purely subjective. It’s not telling the sorts of stories you enjoy.

All the complaints you’ve made have been made about *every Doctor* since Troughton and perhaps even since Hartnell. There were people who said it wouldn’t be the same when Barbara and Ian left. So you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t immediately embrace your claim that it’s failing when I’ve heard it so many times, even about the sorts of stories you consider “classic”. (In fact, I remember feeling the way you do now when I first encountered Sylvester McCoy’s stories. I like his stories now, with the sting of Colin Baker’s departure now much faded.) So you know people who don’t like the last season of Doctor Who. So what? I know people who don’t like Doctor Who at all; in fact, most of the people I know are not fans or especially interested in watching it at all. Doesn’t mean the millions who keep watching it are figments of my imagination or something. And I don’t think you can get a million people tuning in out of a sense of duty alone.

Doctor Who changes. That is deeply ingrained in its nature. This gives the production team the unparalleled opportunity to tell a huge variety of stories. Inevitably, that also means that it won’t please everybody all the time. There is nothing wrong with that; the alternative is inoffensive blandness.

I enjoyed the latest Christmas Special, but I can respect not liking it as well. It’s very much a Christmas thing; you have to be in that sort of a mood. I didn’t much care for “The Wedding of River Song,” though. It seemed a bit of a let-down, in many respects, and had too much in it, inadequately developed. (At least it wasn’t “Journey’s End”, which clearly took the “kitchen sink” approach.) But there have been some fabulous stories this season, as there have been in every season. “The Doctor’s Wife” is one of my all-time favorites now, and I quite like “The God Complex” as well. I enjoyed a lot of the others, but I think those were the ones that had the biggest impact on me this season.

Like Patrick, I certainly watch out of passion, not duty. Why would anyone watch a science fiction show out of *duty*? Maybe if it’s because your cousin is an extra in one scene or something, then you’d be watching out of duty. But I seriously doubt millions of viewers have cousins on the set that they’re obligated to watch.

@Steve
I’m not ‘fooling’ myself about anything, don’t be silly.

As you say, those are your OPINIONS, not facts, others can and do think differently. And yeah, some will think the same. And Moffatt clearly has a passion for Who, it’s absurd to suggest otherwise just because you don’t happen to like what he’s putting on screen.

And it’s not a case of me wanting everybody to say positive things all the time, that would be silly, more the fact that almost every post you put up is negative, which is tiresome and a bit odd. But you know, it’s my fault for continuing to read them and then replying.

@TWWL @TWWL Yer, you are fooling yourself. Your comments come across very much that because you don’t like my comments, you think I am wrong to air them.

@Calli Arcale I agree with most of your points.

I remember the comments in the papers about Tom Baker and his first season, the paper hated him but ultimately he became the most popular Doctor. And poor Peter Davison suffered a huge backlash after Tom left. But then again I also remember the horror that Tom Baker stories caused people like Mary Whitehouse.

Doctor Who changes certainly but surely it’s core values need to be the same, just updated. I never thought about the “inoffensive blandness” of the last season (Not your words, mine) I did think SM had a need to soap opera the show.

I said last Christmas story was lazy but I never said I did nto enjoy it. I also enjoyed “The Doctor’s Wife” despite the cuts due to over budget and I loved “The God Complex”. “The God Complex” was pure Doctor Who for me, No Soap Opera drama. The fact that stories like Closing Time had minimal story ruined the episode. I was shocked to find, when I went through the Doctor Who annuals that the character Sally Sparrow was not an original character and Blink is not an original story either. Which accounts for SM inability to create new characters for the show, It’s very true that a lot of Doctor Who is either earlier stories re-written but in SM cases, he is not producing anything new.

Funnily enough, I was thinking the other day about the similarities between the Weeping Angels and the Silence.

With the Weeping Angels, you look away and they move and either kill you or send you back in time.

With the Silence, you look away and you forget them.

I dont like it when they rehash old stories but at least sm wants to bring in new monsters sometimes they are a bit ridiculous but at least they try I liked the god complex it made the doctor see himself in a new light that he likes being praised too

Blink is loosely based upon Steven Moffat’s own short story “‘What I Did on My Christmas Holidays’ by Sally Sparrow.” It featured the Ninth Doctor and a twelve-year-old Sally, the message under the wallpaper, and the paradoxical video (this one on tape). Everything else was new work by Moffat. I think we can all (or most of us, at least) agree that it was an amazing and scary episode, no matter that it was an adaptation of his earlier written work.
Blink is not the only great episode to do this. In fact, two of my other favorites from the Davies era, Human Nature/Family of Blood and Dalek, were both loose adaptations of their authors’ older writings or audio plays.
Anyways….
I love that this comment thread has turned into a bit of a “God Complex” praise fest. If I may join in…I honestly believe that The God Complex is the best episode of the New Series. It has everything a Doctor Who story should have–mystery, comedy, clever people, traitors, creepiness, continuity, character development, character deconstruction, character reconstruction, tragedy, aliens, good writing…the list goes on. I’ve heard that Toby Whithouse will be writing for Series 7. So very exciting!

@Steve
(SIGHS) Oh Steve…

@TWWL (Blushes) Yes…….