Doctor Who [10]

he was no more exuberant than Smith, and his mannerisms were far less irritating than Smiths, that's for sure.- Figg

Difference for me was that I felt that behind the quirks of 11 was real depth in the character, real issues underlying him and real fears and worries. There wasn't anything beyond Tennant quirks- that was the whole thing unless you count whiny as depth of character.

If you found him embarrassing then that was far less embarrassing than River Song crooning 'spoilers sweetie' every 5 minutes. *gag*

Actually she doesn't say it as often as you might think. Bit like how people think 10 said Allonsi all the time, he didn't but he did say it with a regularity that gives the impression it was more frequent than it was.
It seems more obvious with River because she obviously isn't in that many episodes compared to how often the Doctor is.

Though I am rather glad 12 doesn't seem to have a catchphrase foisted on him in the way all the other NuWho Doctors have.

'Allons-y!' has a certain reckless headlong joie de vivre about it that I like.

So your objection is not to River having a catchphrase or how often its used- just that you personally dont like her particular catchphrase?

I am willing to bet that 10 says either Allonsy or 'Im so sorry' far more times in his run than River ever says her catchphrase.
And at least there is a plot point to Rivers.

my objection to Rivers catchphrase is that its cringeworthy and naff.

It was highly effective- it added to the mystery of the character and was a simple quick way of conveying the information that she was from the Doctors future and knew future events in his life- from a writing point of view it was hugely useful easy to remember plot device, that a new viewer who had neever seen her before could quickly get the meaning and importance of.

10's Allonsy and 11's Geronimo were just exclamations devoid of any other meaning.
Which is why I am glad 12 doesnt have a catchphrase forced on him.

'spoilers' is naff.

It does quickly and effectively tell the viewer all they need to know however. Which saves a lengthy explanation being shoehorned in every time she appears in an episode.
From a writing point of view I can see the usefulness of it.

Can I point out that 11's sortie took 1000 years?

Right, no edit on the mobile view.

A goodbye episode is a goodbye to an actor, a face, a voice, an era. It will be emo one way or the other.

Yes it is but- you would ever have caught Baker, or Pertwee or Hartnell moping about feeling sorry for themselves for half the episode, they would never have gone out on such a whiny line either, and they didn't need to contradict everything we know about regeneration and make it harder for the team and actor coming in to be accepted by the audience.

only you could call Tennants exit whiney. its was heartbreakingly human emotion he was having. Everybody else was crying with him. Smiths exit left me flat, just didn't cut the mustard, actually I cant exactly remember it, so that speaks volumes.

I am most certainly not alone in finding 10's exit bad, whiny and contradictory.
End of Time often comes up in polls for worst regen story, and usually doesn't score to well in polls for best xmas episode either.
For example a poll for best xmas episode on Gallifrey Base has End of Time on 53 votes, compared to 230 for a Xmas Carol and 229 for Last Xmas at the other end of the poll. Even Xmas Invasion scores 191 and the Doctor spends nearly all of it in bed and it has that terribly choreographed fake looking sword fight in it.
So no, on this one I am certainly not a lone voice. A lot fans seem to find it just as painful to watch as I do, and not for the reasons RTD was hoping.

not really fussed about polls, I liked it and that's enough for me.

No beef there Figg- just pointing out on End of Time I am not a lone voice.

plenty of people like it too.

Not saying there aren't- plenty people like TH films too.

I was just defending myself against the statement its just me who thinks this way about End of Time.

ok fair enough

For Figg (thought it might jog your memory!)

I love it when Who makes it way into the fabric of society, even when the event has nothing to do with Who!
In this case the New Year fireworks celebration in London (I never saw it at the time due to excessive New Year cheer )

Interesting goings on in the Who ratings.

The xmas episode was down on previous years by about a million viewers, but then so was all of UK xmas tv. Not sure whats going on there. But not a single program on the BBC over xmas broke 10 million viewers.

In the end- excluding i-player, Who got 8.24 million viewers, which placed it 7th in the overall chart- with mainly the usual suspects making up the top slots ie soaps and reality shows.
The final two episodes of Miranda also finished higher, but given it was the final episodes thats not to big a surprise- Mrs Brown took the top spot with 9.69 million. With only it and Call the Midwife managing more than 9 million viewers.

Good news overseas though where series 8 continues to break the records for viewers for Who.
It topped Canadian channel Space xmas viewing chart-

'SPACE have reported that the Christmas Special Last Christmas not only ranked as the channel's most popular show over Christmas, but also the highest ranked programme on the channel so far this broadcast year.'

BBC America figures have doubled in the last year too.

'BBC America have revealed that Doctor Who had its highest rated season ever on the channel, finishing with the Christmas Special. The Twelfth Doctor’s first Christmas special more than doubled the viewership of the Eleventh Doctor’s first Christmas special, A Christmas Carol in 2010. BBC AMERICA was the #1 network on Twitter and Tumblr and Doctor Who: Last Christmas was the #1 show on both platforms in all of television in Primetime (excluding sports) on December 25. Doctor Who is pacing as one of Twitter’s top 10 most-tweeted original dramas in all of cable for 2014. Peter Capaldi’s first season as the Doctor, with co-star Jenna Coleman as Clara, delivered BBC AMERICA its highest rated season ever.'


As usual hysterical newspaper reports that viewing figure are down are not telling the whole story- overnights are down- a trend thats has been going on across the board on TV as viewing habits change- a lot of those new viewing habits are not included in the final figures, such as apple, netflix, watching on mobile devices ect as the BBC haven't worked out a way yet to accurately calculate them.

'series 8 had an average consolidated audience of 7.4m – in line with the previous 3 series. Outside of the first series and series 4 (David Tennant’s last), all series have been within 0.5m of each other. Each episode of series 8 had an average timeshift audience of 2.1m, giving a 39% increase on the overnight. Deep Breath (ep 1 of series 8 ) was the most watched regular series episode since Matt Smith’s debut at the start of series 5, four years prior.'

Another fake bit of reporting is claiming the show has lost millions of viewers since the last xmas episode- which neglects to take into account it was the 50th anniversary year and the xmas episode was a regen story which always attracts more casual viewers and boosts the figures, as it did for Tennant and Smith.

The British Press like to paint everything as a disaster- when the truth is its a show entering its 8 series and 10th year since its return with only a variance of 0.5 million in its viewers over the entire 10 year period whilst increasing viewers overseas- any program would kill for that consistency and reach in viewing figures over such a time period.

Bit of Who fun from Babelcolour -