Doctor Who: Deep Breath

Story:

The doctor regenerates into Peter Capaldi and pretty much forgets how to interact with other people of any species. Clara gets freaked out even though she’s seen all his regenerations and Madame Vastra overreacts a little to Clara’s reaction.

Thoughts:

Major spoilers ahead for the episode.

This episode goes on for way too long. I was waiting for it to end. I was checking the time even though I had no where else to be. Doctor who shouldn’t be a chore to watch.

I wish that with the new Doctor we’d also get a whole new team behind the scenes as well. I think it’s time. I’m not a fan of Steven Moffat. Not anymore.

We get told in this episode that the Doctor is not Clara’s boyfriend. Okay I get it now lets move on. Nope can’t do that we’ve got to hammer the point home.

It’s probably because I’ve read the Moffat comments preceding this season but I’m done with the whole the Doctor isn’t Clara’s boyfriend thing. I don’t care.

I never wanted a Doctor who flirts with every woman he meets. That’s boring. We’ve got hundreds of male heroes who do that. Nobody asked you to make the Doctor straight and give him a wife you did that on your own.

This just feels like misogyny. Create the situation then blame women for liking it. Or just criticise things women like.

The other irony of the episode is that apparently this is the form the Doctor takes because he doesn’t care about being accepted anymore.

Right so white old men aren’t accepted. I know there’s an ageism thing that happens at the BBC but it rarely happens to men. It’s usually women that are targeted with ageist thinking.

I don’t really understand why Clara’s having so much trouble with the Doctor regenerating. She’s seen all his regenerations. (We had to suffer through her telling the first Doctor which TARDIS to pick) But when has the writing for Clara ever been consistent.

Calling her prejudiced though is going a bit far.

If you wanted to show that the Doctor really didn’t care or discuss prejudices you should have made him black or Asian or a woman. Then you could have shown him having to fight a bit more to gain respect or authority.

That would have been interesting. That’s part of why it gets brought up so much.

Maybe then there would have been a bit more of a point to Clara’s story line this episode.

I’m sure Peter Capaldi will be great. I always hate the new Doctor so I’m not going to comment on his specific version yet. It takes me ages to like a new doctor. I remember being determined to hate David Tenant and Matt Smith before I got used to them.

New companions don’t fare any better with me. I hated Martha for ages and it took until the fourth season for me to like her.

But we’ve had a year of Clara and I just want her gone. I think at first she represented everything I hated about how female characters are portrayed and it’s hard to forget now that she sort of has a personality.

We had Amy who was pretty and skinny and liked to flirt with the Doctor. That’s fine but then we got exactly the same thing with Clara. Except she had no other personality. And she was meant to be special in some way. The impossible girl.

I’m getting really off track.

It feels like too much is going on. Dinosaur then robots then a spaceship and regeneration.

The spaceship is the SS Marie Antoinette which is the sister ship to the SS Madame de Pompadour. The one in ‘the girl in the fireplace’. One of my favourite episodes and one that Moffat wrote before he took over as show runner.

There were a few other things that were references to other episodes. I like that. I’m a creature of habit change doesn’t come easily to me.

We get more of ‘don’t’ do stuff that as a human you have to do. First it was don’t blink, which is scarier than don’t breathe. I’m sure Clara was terrified but watching it I kept thinking well you can breathe a little bit then stop.

Then we get to the kiss that’s not a kiss. Thanks for being inclusive in a way that makes me feel excluded again.

The lesbians aren’t allowed to act like the married couple they are. Kissing just because they have affection towards one another is not allowed. No we’ve got to force it in somewhere by way of the plot.

Then we get the eleventh doctor phoning Clara to tell her to keep traveling with him. I don’t like this at all.

The christmas episode should have tied up all lose ends with Eleven. He’s gone. No more talking to him

How are the viewers meant to let go of the old doctor and embrace the new one when the writers can’t even let go. I know I haven’t let go yet.

Then we get a strange little scene where this episode’s villain who’s just died has a conversation with a woman called Missy in the promised land. She also says the Doctor is her boyfriend and I’m already not liking this.

Despite all the moaning I’ve done in this post it wasn’t a terrible episode. I enjoyed most of it but the parts I didn’t enjoy stand out more to me than the parts I did enjoy. It pushed my buttons the way Doctor Who usually does nowadays.

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