Lately, the show has become like that one friend who is excitable and enthusiastic and has very interesting opinions... about one subject. And only one subject. And that subject is how awesome the Doctor is won't you look at him go isn't his face squishable ooooo there's a mystery about him don't you want to know about his mystery is it's not that all the girls love him that's not a mystery they just want to squish his face all day you want to squish his face too and by the way he's saved the universe like seven times if he died like the whole universe would die with him even though it was doing perfectly fine before he got here with his squishable face etc etc etc. Remember when the finales were about the Daleks or Cybermen destroying a planet for their own reasons, as opposed to kidnapping the Doctor because he's the Doctor? Those were the good old days. (Props to this article for pointing this out).
And speaking of people who talk too much (yes that is how the last paragraph started), the amount of lengthy speeches that tell you the central idea or moral of the story are getting thoroughly out of hand. If I remember correctly, there was an average of one of these per episode back in the halcyon days of 2005, and now they happen once every five minutes. I think I know what they're trying to do; they're trying to make their episodes more quotable, but the most quotable line of all?
Nobody important? Blimey, that's amazing. Do you know in nine hundred years of time and space I've never met anyone who wasn't important before.This is not part of a big speech at all, and brings me to another problem. All these new companions? They have titles, like "The Girl Who Waited", "The Last Centurion", "The Impossible Girl". Rose Tyler never had a title. Martha Jones, Donna Noble, even Captain Jack Harkness who is functionally immortal and has his own spinoff, do not have titles. (While we're at it, if the Doctor is going to run into the same person throughout history why can't it be Captain Jack? You could even marry them off and tell everyone how progressive you are). Rose, Martha and Donna (and while we're at it Sarah Jane) were ordinary people, and they were still important. Because that's the point. Everyone is important. Anyone could get picked up to go on a magical adventure through time and space and save the universe from the Daleks or accidentally get captured by Silurians. You don't have to be spread through the vortex like so much time jam, or the mother of the Doctor's wife, or able to stare at a box for 2000 years, because let's face it most of us have one timeline and an attention span of 5 nanoseconds (which is why we get captured by Silurians).
Now I have chewed your ear off about my problems in general, let's talk about the most recent episode. This is where we need a massive
SPOILER WARNING
Right, first off the whole "look at this mystery it is so mysterious" was grating when you did it with the cracks, and it hasn't improved. I don't need Clara to go "Trenzalore? What's that?" and then watch everyone be very tight-lipped. I can just go "oh, Trenzalore, I wonder what that is" and then when she asks about it later I will be even more impressed because you haven't been telling me how big a secret it is. The same goes for the Doctor's name, but this time I don't care what it is, I care why he's hiding it. All you need to do to intrigue me about that is have someone ask "so what is your real name, anyway?" and the subject to get swiftly changed, with maybe a shot of the asker looking annoyed that he's dodged the question, but no shots of the Doctor looking really sad. Then, after doing this a few more times, you introduce a villain who has found where the Doctor is by using his real name, and it turns out he just wasn't using it because it's really embarrassing, and oh yeah by the way the Master can use the matrix to find me if he learns my real name, but the real point is it translates to "gardening enthusiast" and who wants that following you around for life?
However, just because you have big mysteries doesn't mean you can't be painfully obvious. We all knew she was going to jump into the scar, and also that that might kill her, so she might as well have jumped in right away. If she had looked at the Doctor, said "well I'll get to live a thousand lives this way, that's pretty exciting", and then jumped in, you could have had five more minutes of airtime for a tense chase sequence. Monsters that seem like they've come out of a horror film need more time to patiently stalk the heroes and then swarm in and surround them, until it looks like all hope is lost before the Doctor falls through a trapdoor, or says "Go to your room!" and we get a little bit of time to feel relief before SURPRISE THEY'RE BACK. Instead, they stand around for 30 seconds while exposition happens and then grab people's hearts. They also seem to think they're in a Doctor Seuss book, which I guess is meant to evoke the creepy child image, but just ends up making me wonder why they have this strange compulsion to speak in rhyme (and probably iambic tetrameter but I haven't verified that). Are they controlled by a computer that has very specific language settings? Now that's something I actually care about knowing
I also do actually want to know more about John Hurt's Doctor and the Time War in general. While I am aware it was left up to the imagination for a reason, actually exploring why he had to destroy his own race could potentially be fascinating, especially if there was another option that he didn't see or didn't take. It would also be properly dark. You see, properly dark comes not from seeing horrible things happen, not even horrible things happening to good people, but from seeing the good people turn into monsters. This is why I love Children of Earth, despite the start being completely ropey. Jack does what you've been shouting at heroes to do all along, letting the one die to save the million, and it is horrifying because everything in your bones is telling you not to kill the child, but you know it is necessary and there is no way to reconcile that. Yes, the Doctor does kill, but he does not kill people. He kills machine made of hatred that want you dead so it's alright, it's for the good of the universe. But in the Time War he killed (or trapped outside of space forever) people, people who meant well and were trying to protect the universe because it doesn't know what's best for it, and never really meant to do any harm. That's the kind of thing that scares adults. You'd have to do about five episodes with the equivalent of tribbles afterwards, just to let people recover, but you'd also win my everlasting respect for daring to do it.
And on that lovely note, it is time to
Come out of your caves and remove your earmuffs; the spoilers have returned to their home planet (for now)
Because the last thing I want to leave you with is either grumpiness or too much insight into my grimdark mind, I will say that Jenny, Vastra and Strax are beautiful characters and deserve their own spin-off. If someone who is not Moffat reads the Parasol Protectorate series and then basically films that, but with more lizard and less nudity, the world would be a better place and I may stop being grumpy long enough to appreciate the main series. I can almost guarantee that it won't be another K-9 and Company, if only because it is no longer the 80s.
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