Jump to content
IGNORED

Doctor Who

FishyFish

By FishyFish
in Film, TV & Radio

 Share

Recommended Posts

Garwoofoo

Garwoofoo

Posted
Posted

I think my favourite Smith episodes have been The Eleventh Hour, The Time of Angels, Vincent and the Doctor, Asylum of the Daleks and the Day of the Doctor.

The worst episodes for me were The Hungry Earth, The Rebel Flesh and The Bells of Saint John.

Overall it's been a disappointing few years, although none of that was due to Smith himself. It feels like he was rarely given the opportunity to live up to his promise.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Commander Jameson

Commander Jameson

Posted
Posted

Smith feels like Brosnan doing Bond; could have been amazing, but often let down by poor stories and scripts. But even the very best episodes never reached the heights of Human Nature/Family of Blood/Blink-levels.

My favourite Smith episodes are:

Amy's Choice

Let's Kill Hitler

The Girl Who Waited

The God Complex

Hide

Even with that list, I was struggling to pick out many highlights.

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Fury4k

Fury4k

Posted
Posted

Nah, because then once he's gone it's all over. He's obviously going to end up with extra, if not infinite lives. The Tom Baker bit in the anniversary episode made that obvious. Although it's pretty obvious the BBC wouldn't want to kill the show anyway

Link to comment
Share on other sites
NEG

NEG

Posted
Posted

Amy's Choice introduced a great character element and it would be nice to see it/him again.

Vincent and The Doctor was just amazing

Eleventh Hour was a pretty great introduction during the days of which I figured I'd never grow to like this guy.

Doctor's Wife is okay. I don't rate it as highly as some but the writing quality is apparent.

The one with the black cubes was quite fun until the end.

The one set in the hotel with the sad clown was okay, good concept.

Have to admit the babysitting episodes were quite amusing too.

The one with the killer bin bags sticks in my mind as memorable, but mainly only for that one scene. Both amusing and frightening in the only way Doctor Who could manage.

The rest has been pretty forgettable to me. The Amy arc conclusion was rubbish. The baby name reveal arc was rubbish. Every Angels episode since the first was rubbish. Pretty much all of River Song's appearances were face aching. The robot Doctor regenerating to make everyone forget about him was rubbish. Clara has zero personality. Every Dalek episode has been sub-par.

I wish they'd concentrate less on story arcs overall. It's felt like Moffat concentrates on them far more then RTD ever did. Theres a difference between name-dropping a mcguffin once per episode and dealing with it over the course of many episodes, vs only dealing with the mcguffin at the end of the series. The former gives me a headache.

Overall Matt Smith's had more good and okay episodes then I first imagined I'd write about.

1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
HarMGM

HarMGM

Posted
Posted

Looks like i'm a bit the opposite when it comes to Matt Smith then. Liked his tenure far more than Tennant's or Eccleston to be honest. Not to say I don't love Human Nature, Girl in the Fireplace, The Empty Child et all. But for every single one of those highlights, Tennant (and Eccleston) had some god awful ones like Evolution of the Daleks, The Long Game, The Last of the Timelords and Fear Her. Not to mention the only good season finale out of those early years that still holds up is Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways.

Smith on the other hand has some of my favourite episode's out of the new series. The ones i'd say are 'the best' are:

1)The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon

2)The Doctor's Wife

3)The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang

4)The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone

5)Amy's Choice

The only outright 'bad' episodes that Smith has had that I can think of have been Curse of the Blackspot, Wedding of River Song and The Rings of Akhaten. Even then most of those have little moments of brilliance...with the exception of Curse.

The biggest problem i've had with Smiths tenure is that nothing has been able to live up to his first full series. Series 6 had some great eps but then was wildly uneven in terms of the River Song storyline and series 7, whilst having episodes that I like a lot like Asylum of the Daleks(the only decent Dalek episode the New show has done since 'Dalek as far as I'm concerned) it doesn't have an outright homerun. Even 'Hide' manages to cock up its story with the love story reveal.

4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gabe

Gabe

Posted
Posted

I'm not a massive Who fan (recall seeing some of the late 80s run but nothing after that) and it was only by chance catching some of Smith in The Big Bang that got me interested. Even then, I have only seen up to The Angels Take Manhattan, as I tend to wait for the Blurays to come out than watch them weekly.

So my last experience was the dreadful first 5 episodes of season 7, which I thought were uniformly terrible. I guess that's because Amy and Rory had to go and the format changed from having a long story arc to more individual episodes - as a consequence it all felt rather disjointed and detached and was not enjoyable.

Prior to that though, seasons 5 and 6 had some really good stuff that played on the central charm of the 3 characters and some of the best episodes were those that played-off on the insecurities of them all, rather than villain-of-the-week stuff. Whilst not one of those types, and more of a standalone episode, Vincent and the Doctor was beautiful and sad, but with a good message at the end. It made my then-girlfriend cry like a baby, too.

So I'll miss Smith. I think he did a great job, exuding a youthfulness that belied experience and wisdom and he brought a more toned-down energy to things (admittedly that comment is based on my belief that Tennant was a bit more frenetic and twitchy).

3
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Gabe

Gabe

Posted
Posted

Why?

Mainly because I'm not that much of a fan, and when I do decide to watch them I prefer to do so in one go (rented through Lovefilm). The only reason I even ended up starting watching after seeing the clip I mentioned above was because somebody bought me the series 5 set - I never looked to seek it out.

Like I say, I haven't watched anything pre-Smith but it was very much the interplay of that trio that kept me watching, rather than any inherent Who love - hence why I thought the first part of series 7 just felt wrong to me, as it had lost a little something both narratively - the distancing of the Doctor and Amy/Rory and direction - the switching to standalone episodes (which I read something about Moffatt wanting to focus more on in future).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Use of this website is subject to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Guidelines.

  I accept