What Would You Improve: Eleventh Doctor Era
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Previous:
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Eighth
Ninth
Tenth
Now for the final part of the What Would You Improve series. What about the Eleventh Doctor's ear, from "The Eleventh Hour" to "The Time of the Doctor" would you improve if you could?
For me, I would give the Paradigm Daleks a darker and more metallic paint job, the white, blue and red ones looked much better in "Asylum", and chose different colors rather than yellow and orange, maybe gray and gold. If they weren't so bright and plastic-like they might have been better received.
River needed to be handled differently in Series 6; introduce Mels before "Let's Kill Hitler" so that the twist there doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere, and end the story with Psycho!River failing to kill the Doctor and running away to try again another day. Keep her as a villain in "The Wedding of River Song", and have her reform her ways towards the end of the story, maybe after hearing the responses to the distress signal, and how there are so many people who want to help the Doctor. After all, if the Doctor is really supposed to be this horrible awful person who has a big war going on, why would people help him?
Extend some episodes in Series 7 by a few minutes, "The Power of Three" the prime example. One of the main themes of that story was the dynamic between Eleven, Amy and Rory, so I felt it was a bit lost on a conclusion that focused solely on the Doctor saving the day with a wave of his screwdriver.
Make "The Time of the Doctor" two part, a 45-minute part one, and a 60-minute part two. I honestly feel the issues I have with this story would be resolved easily if it was allowed to breath and not run at a pace so quick where it tripped over its own feet at times.
Finally, add the Master and Davros in there somewhere, nothing too big, no arc-long stories ending in a big epic two-parter, just a single episode story would be good, and failing that cameos in "The Pandorica Opens" along with all the other villains. I was always disappointed Eleven never got to fight them.
First
Second
Third
Fourth
Fifth
Sixth
Seventh
Eighth
Ninth
Tenth
Now for the final part of the What Would You Improve series. What about the Eleventh Doctor's ear, from "The Eleventh Hour" to "The Time of the Doctor" would you improve if you could?
For me, I would give the Paradigm Daleks a darker and more metallic paint job, the white, blue and red ones looked much better in "Asylum", and chose different colors rather than yellow and orange, maybe gray and gold. If they weren't so bright and plastic-like they might have been better received.
River needed to be handled differently in Series 6; introduce Mels before "Let's Kill Hitler" so that the twist there doesn't feel like it came out of nowhere, and end the story with Psycho!River failing to kill the Doctor and running away to try again another day. Keep her as a villain in "The Wedding of River Song", and have her reform her ways towards the end of the story, maybe after hearing the responses to the distress signal, and how there are so many people who want to help the Doctor. After all, if the Doctor is really supposed to be this horrible awful person who has a big war going on, why would people help him?
Extend some episodes in Series 7 by a few minutes, "The Power of Three" the prime example. One of the main themes of that story was the dynamic between Eleven, Amy and Rory, so I felt it was a bit lost on a conclusion that focused solely on the Doctor saving the day with a wave of his screwdriver.
Make "The Time of the Doctor" two part, a 45-minute part one, and a 60-minute part two. I honestly feel the issues I have with this story would be resolved easily if it was allowed to breath and not run at a pace so quick where it tripped over its own feet at times.
Finally, add the Master and Davros in there somewhere, nothing too big, no arc-long stories ending in a big epic two-parter, just a single episode story would be good, and failing that cameos in "The Pandorica Opens" along with all the other villains. I was always disappointed Eleven never got to fight them.
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I find it such a shame that the only series that gives Matt justice was his first one. 6/7 had the odd good episode, but so many of them were carried by Matt's acting, imo.
Plus just a brief line showing River kept in contact with Amy and Rory would have been nice.
Phoning them once a month fron prison would have been enough. Finally 11 should have healed Amy before she left. "You didn't think I knew why you were so upset ?.Now the scar tissues gone you can have as many babies as you want".
1/ better characterisation, less complicated story arcs
2/ companions with more believable, tangible lives outside of the TARDIS
3/ more comedy for Matt Smith (the man was hilarious when he was allowed to be - they only really tapped that on rare occasions)
4/ far far fewer reference to old Doctor Who continuity
5/ someone like Julie Gardner to keep production from spiralling out of control (and so avoiding the long mid-season breaks and gaps between seasons)
6/ a BBC press officer who was capable of telling the truth
7/ a spin off show
More Rory., an appearance from Jack.
I don't know I enjoyed Matt's era some episodes for very personal reasons. I know a lot of people didn't like The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe but it's incredibly special to me.
Probably the main thing would be less complaints from the fans. Which seems an unfair things to say - people don't like the same things, but I'd often come in here feeling happy and excited about an episode and there would seem to be negative post after negative post which really sucked the fun out of things. But as I say not exactly a fair comment to make people don't have to like it just because I wanted them too
1) More energy, more thrills, more excitement, less snorefests. Nearly every story bar The Eleventh Hour lacks at least one of these, if not all three.
2)No Mid Series breaks
3) More direct continuation of the cliffhangers themselves, no ending the episode with someone in peril then moving the following episode on to a completely different situation.
4)Make the Series 6 Mid-Series 'massive' cliffhanger an actual 'massive' cliffhanger and not a lame duck ending.
5) Series 5 I would make less Arc Heavy and confine the crack in the wall to a few stories until the finale.
6)Series 6 I would equal out the arc rather than it being too heavy first part and scarce the next.
7)Less River Song, and I would have ended her story after Series 5.
8)I'd have an appearance by both Captain Jack and The Master. Would love to have seen how the Eleventh Doctor would get on with them both.
9) I'd make a decent Cyberman story
10) I'd make the changes from the Tennant Era a little more subtle and gradual. Too much too soon made me feel a bit alienated.
11) The stories set in Colchester would actually be made in Colchester.
12)Less killing of Rory and give both him and Amy a decent send off. Had all the impact of being hit by a feather.
13) 50th Anniversary-Should have been more about the 50 years as a whole, not just the New series. I'd get the Ninth Doctor back in it and drop Billie Piper unless she was coming back properly as Rose. I'd also drop the subplots including the Zygons and just have the Daleks as sole adversaries, as they too were celebrating 50 years in 2013.
14) The regeneration. Actually show it properly after the Eleventh Doctors lovely speech. Ruined what could have been a great regeneration.
15) In general terms, I'd hand the show over to someone else to run and have Moffat back as a guest writer where he was at his best. Just my opinion, off course.
2. Three straight-forward, 12-13 episode seasons.
3. Keep the same premise as former seasons. No introducing new ideas that completely changes the way of Doctor Who. It's somewhat disrespectful, but only in my opinion.
4. One story arc per season. For example, Season 5 about the Pandorica, Season 6 about the Doctor's death, Season 7 about something other than Clara and the lovey dovey Amy/Rory business. Why the did a crack reappear in JTTCOTT and TOTD after three years of that arc being resolved? Seemed to me like a way of putting in some nostalgic Matt Smith event to make the viewers go "omg it's the crack", which clearly did not work. Amy's appearance during regen was enough, and a bit exaggerated.
5. 50th anniversary was a bit lame. Should have been made longer (The End of Time was longer than that!) and some references to old who. Billie Piper's appearance was tiresome and didn't make any sense. But on the other hand, when Hurt said about the "bad wolf girl" the Tenth Doctor didn't seem to care much.
6. The regeneration was quite a disappointment. After a big speech I was expecting more of a send off. I must admit I rewinded more than once because I kept missing it.
7. I think Moffat and his crew couldn't wait to leave behind Russell's era, which is quite disrespectful. Watching the Eleventh Hour was a bit like watching a new show or some lame spin-off. A few references to the previous Doctor would have made me feel less uneasy and less feeling like Smith's been thrown to the slaughter.
Also, quick question, how did Amy know about regeneration? In Series 7's TPOT, the Doctor mentioned Amy as being the 'first face he saw', but how could Amy know what that would have meant?
2. Less complicated story arcs, and more one/two part stories.
3. Less sex, and "sexy" companions.
4. Companions with more believable lives outside the TARDIS.
Say what you like about his stories, but RTD was much better when it came to "real" characters than SM is.
I'd be lying if I said that I was like any of RTD's companions, but I know people who are. Rose and Donna are they two best examples of normal people. Both of them had a normal, dead end jobs and felt unappreciated at times, which I imagine is how some people watching feel at times too. Rose and her family lived in a council flat, again, I'm sure others watching were/are in the same position.
Compare that to Amy and Clara. Amy was a stripper and when she got bored of that, she became a model, and Clara was a mysterious girl (whatever the heck that is...). Amy and Rory were hardly ever at work, yet they had a house and a car, and never seemed to worry about money.
I know Doctor Who is about a time-travelling police box, so it's hardly a reality show, but people watching want the doctor to come and take them on adventures, so it's better when the doctor is travelling with someone who the audience can identify with. I doubt that anyone watching can identify with SM's companions.
5. No mid-series breaks.
6. Less River Song or better still, no River Song, that way we don't know everything about her past. I was never a big fan of the character, but I did like her a lot more when she was mysterious. Once they spoiled all that, she was nothing more than a desperate old lady who wanted to shag the doctor.
7. Less of the reset button and everyone lives. Rory may have been the best character of a bad bunch, but after watching him die and come back several times, I started to get fed up of him too.
I also think they missed a trick by not having an earlier regeneration of River become a companion. They had an opportunity for us to see River before she became the woman we knew. By making her a companion, we could actually have seen how her and the Doctor really got to know each other. Plus, as they'd given her the ability to regenerate, we wouldn't necessarily have to have Alex Kingston playing a young River. Lots of opportunity that wasn't capitalised on.
I would also not have the Silence turn out to be genetically-engineered confessional priests. What a lame throw-away explanation for what first started out as a wonderfully creepy new alien menace. Similarly, I wouldn't have hand-waved away the exploding TARDIS as "just blow up by Madame Kovarian," with no explanation as to how she achieved this.
Instead, I'd have had the Time Lords be responsible for the blowing up of the TARDIS. They had the skill to actually pull that off and it would have tied in better with them eventually using the crack as an attempt to escape from the bubble universe. As it stood, the Time Lords just took advantage of the crack as a way to try and break back in to our universe. The whole story would have come together so much better if they were actually responsible for blowing up the TARDIS and making sure the Doctor rebooted the universe so they could get their doorway back into our reality.
Heck, maybe it could even have been a future version of the Doctor who was responsible for it all, in order to bring back Gallifrey. That would have been an interesting twist.
Oh and I would have had Amy and Rory properly travel with the Doctor across their time on the show. None of this "picking them up and dropping them home," stuff that they ended up doing. I didn't like that.
Oh, and i hate his police box design, take back to dull battered blue please!
Amy saw River regenerate in Let's Kill Hitler. Also, I'm fairly sure River mentioned the Doctor's regenerations in The Time of Angels.
Actually, I can remember some people here complaining that there were too many Tenth Doctor references in The Eleventh Hour. 'Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey', 'You've had some cowboys in here', even the text message saying 'Duck!' as a reference to the Sally Sparrow message on the wall. And he did wear the Tenth Doctor's clothes throughout most of the episode. Then in The Beast Below, he did the familiar grieving bit over the Time War.
Better pacing and more foreshadowing on Moffat's arcs (for example, introducing Mels sooner. Remember Chekov's Gun, Moffat).
More two-parters.
Less Amy. Sorry, never took to her. No fault of Karen Gillan's, she's a great actress, just how the character was written. She actively hindered the Doctor in her first episode, 'jokingly' teased a man with the threat of death in her third episode, and tried to cheat on her fiance in her fifth episode. She improved later on, but first impressions last, and my earliest impression of her was that she was horrible.
Apart from that, all has been well. I know this has been a rather negative post, but on the whole I like the direction the show has been going in.
A different Christmas special in 2011. Maybe a River centred one.
More cameos in The Day Of The Doctor from former companions. Possibl Master/Davros ones during the Gllifrey scenes. Would've gotten rid of the Liz 1 plot for starters.
Both Rory and River appearing in The Time Of The Doctor, no Cybermen, Sontaras or Weeping Angels in that one.
Resolved some plotline a lot earlier as well.
No River.
Better characterisation of Clara.
No split seasons.
But I disliked the Doctor's overgrown child quirkiness: plumbing a kitchen so lemonade came out of the taps; obsessed with toggle switches; not understanding why a married couple wouldn't want to sleep in bunk beds; not understanding why blokes didn't greet each other with air kisses; saying 'humany wumany'...
I'd have made Amy less aggressively sexual towards the Doctor on the night before her wedding. I'd have softened out the damaged, spiky elements of her character sooner. In fact, I'd have softened out the tendency of many of the female companion figures to talk in sassy, 'Down boy!', 'snog box' one-liners. [Note - Kate Stewart is exempt from this criticism, in that I find her, in being sardonic, bright, capable and pragmatic, much more like a real woman and much less like a collection of catchphrases and putdowns.]
I'd have eliminated much of the Melody Pond story arc, and have had River fulfilling her original premise of meeting the Doctor in opposite/reverse order, culminating in a story where he knew her but she didn't know him. I wouldn't have given River Time Lord/regenerative abilities.
But I'd have kept Matt, because, regardless of the above, he was always great
2) No splits! We would have had a full-run Series 6 in 2011, followed by 4 specials in 2012 to bid farewell to the Ponds, and a FULL 13-episode Series 7 in 2013 to lead-in to the 50th as well as give Matt and Jenna some more time together.
3) None of those hideous, "instagrammed" Series 7A Titles.
4) Newly recorded audio from Docs 4-8 during the 90-minute long 50th.
5) As much as I love a majority of Murray's music. A little less of the 'plinky-plonky', 'twinkle-dee-dee' music during tense situations.
6) Dead is dead. By continuously bringing back characters from the dead there are no stakes. Raise the stakes. Dead is dead.
7) A little bit more continuity between episodes. Going from the emotional trauma of having lost their daughter and missing her childhood (ish) into 'Night Terrors' where everything is all happy travelling again, though the production schedule didn't allow for references, it would have been nice to see some more emotional baggage carried across episodes, rather than hitting the reset button every week.
8) Victory of the Daleks was essentially an advertisement for the new line-up of Dalek toys. Absolutely horrendous, tacky, plastic power rangers. They could at least have tried to make them look somewhat metallic (which admittedly they did later on). Awful!
Ditch all the emocon cue card catchphrases. In the entire history of the show, for all its good and bad, those catchphrases are the one thing I can say I truly despise, all three series worth of them.
Amy Pond and Rory to have left at the end of series 5.
Series 6 to have had River Song as a full time companion and through her adventures with The Doctor, over 13 episodes, we see the connection form that was hinted at in the Library two parter. All done via real dialogue, genuine character connection and interaction, and not wise cracking gun tooting MILF innuendo. River Song, a kind, compassionate and intellectual woman that the viewer relates to on a human level. Not the River Song we got, as if written by a 14 year boy that likes video games.
The series 6 arc would have been River Song's 'Benjamin Button' storyline with the Doctor and the series finale being the final connection leading up to the Library 2 parter.
Series 5 would have also introduced underlying, subtle mentions about the Doctor's regeneration limit, This slight secondary arc builds up and carries on right through to Time Of The Doctor. (Much like how the time war arc was placed throughout the RTD era)
The only episode I would keep from series 6 would be The Doctors Wife, substitute the Ponds with River Song.
Amen, Amen and Amen.
I would add that: No Moffat.
Oh, and get rid of the stupid, asinine leaf. It is the worst reasoning/plot hook/Deus ex machina ever.
Now, the Silence arc. See, I liked the idea. I would have been all for a three-year underlying storyline. But it was hampered by issues, regardless of how much was planned in advance.
Amy and Rory should have had two series, not two and a half and The Snowmen should have taken the place of The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe. I didn't and still don't mind the split in Series Six. It worked, narratively. The break in Series Seven? Well, that's the thing... there wasn't a narrative.
Some say that Moffat had no choice but to drop the Silence for Series Seven. They aren't mentioned. That great big part of the storyline vanishes until Time of The Doctor. Some say it was pushed aside for the "movie-of-the-week" format. Some say it was to give Clara a clean slate with a story of her own - which ended up falling back on Trenzalore.
Up until Wedding of River Song, I was invested in the storyline. But it took over two years to come back in force. It was a good idea to change up the storytelling format in this way - but the timing wasn't right.
Some believe Moffat is incapable of running the show, but his first series remains my favourite of the revival. There is little I would change in Series 5 - apart from the toning down of some of Amy's lines. I look forward to his second unbroken series - hoping that in the long-term, he has it thought through a bit more than the first time.
One can always look at particular episodes that could be improved, but I wouldn't change much about Series 5, which is my favourite of C21 Who so far. Although I agree that the 'new' Daleks in VOTD weren't a success and although there is much to enjoy in the earlier parts, that is the weakest story of the series for me.
Apart from a few average episodes, I like Series 6 a lot more than most, by the look of it and thought the spring run/summer break/autumn run/Xmas special structure worked pretty well.
Whatever the reasons, I thought the way Series 7 was split was not good, though. Matt's third year felt very fragmented, almost like two seperate series. And although I still thought the quality was often good and sometimes great, this worked against it.
Hmm, not much improvements suggested there, sorry! But Matt's era is up there with Hartnells, Tom's and Peter D's for me. A lot of this is down to Mr Smith, who I thought was pretty much perfect from the off. A fourth series with Matt, Jenna, new TARDIS interior, etc would've been my ideal, but hey. A certain Mr Capaldi is a-coming and I'm very excited at the prospect.
FWIW I don't think there was much wrong with 11's era. Matt's performance was never less than stellar.
I like long, complicated arcs that reward the audience for paying attention (and not just having the TV on in the background or tweeting during a broadcast). The odd random insertion of a phrase (is in 10's era (which I also enjoyed, BTW)) does not make for a good arc in my book. For me even 11's arcs were not complicated enough.
That said, 11's arcs could have been handled/timed much better - e.g. Mel's sudden appearance and equally sudden regeneration.
Certain two parters should have been just one part (e.g. TRF,TAP) while other single eps should have been two (VotD, TPo3).
In general many stories needed an extra 5 or 10 minutes to do justice to the new concept or character introduced.
Over and out.
It didn't make any sense and looked shoehorned in for his last story.
I didn't mind the War Doctor, but the 10th Doctor metacrisis thing could have been washed over.
But I do have a couple of gripes.
1. The TARDIS exploding.
Without fore-knowledge, in the context of the story, it just happened for absolutely no reason. It left us hanging, and that made it hard to be invested. The Universe ended for some reason. The main characters survived for some reason. Then the Doctor fixed it somehow.
At least with the season 2 arc, you knew that the Silence were the threat, and they hated the Doctor because he has become too much of a warrior, so they needed him dead.
I don't care much about how they blew up the TARDIS, but why exactly did that cause every star in the universe to explode? Can all TARDISs do that? And shouldn't the Silence have thought about tampering with technology they don't understand.
It's mainly the why that bothers me. I know the TARDIS is a powerful ship, but why did it blow up the universe? I would have done without it.
2. The little things.
Steven Moffat insists that there can't be plot holes or inconsistencies in Doctor Who, because time is constantly in flux. This, combined with "the Doctor lies" or "doesn't know what he's talking about sometimes", are basically ways to explain away any little problems that may arise from a show with 50 years of continuity.
I like that in a way., but sometimes it seems like he uses all that as an excuse to not even try. Even along adjacent episodes or even within episodes. Like in Day of the Doctor, the Daleks don't shoot themselves in the cross-fire, they're destroyed by the shock-wave of Gallifrey disappearing. Or Gallifrey being in another dimension instead of being frozen in a painting. Just fixing little things like that.