Tuesday 8 May 2012

Ten vs Eleven


Warning: the following post is a long and random joy-ride by the author. It has little to do with the theme of the blog. If you don't like Doctor Who, feel absolutely free to disregard this - the author has foisted her rabid Whovian ravings upon the Normal Ones too many times…

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Ten vs Eleven. Davies vs Moffat. Rose vs River.
The hate. The arguments. *melodramatic music starts playing* Schisms cracking the fandom apart. Oh, the rivers of tears that separate the groups …
But seriously, there's a lot of dispute, in YouTube comment boxes across the internet and beyond, into forums and - well - if there's a video of Eleven and a lot of people talking about it, chances are at least one of them is saying, "OMG liek David Tennant's Dr Who was soooooososo much better then Matt Smiths .10foreva!!!1!!".
And, though it's rarer, vice versa.
Why, exactly? My thoughts.
Short answer: they're different. Almost opposites in the extremes of character a Doctor can display. And I think Doctor Who is a story that has the ability to touch deeply. Thus, people get impassioned over it… if Ten wins them over, they have a very hard time transitioning from white to black (Or, more accurately, light grey to darker grey. They're still both good guys with two hearts who travel time and space in a beautiful blue box. But I digress). I know this firsthand.
Human Nature and the Family of Blood was my first episode, technically speaking. But my first exposure to Doctor Who was, if my memory serves me (which it might not), the "Space" and "Time" Eleventh Doctor comic relief episodes.

()

I loved that quote from the moment I first laid ears on it.
So, who is my Doctor?
I'm going off on tangents far too much. I just have to confess that My Doctor is Ten. Always has been, and he'd better be forever. But I'm on a bit of an Eleven!high right now. Okay, so maybe the "bit of an" has been going on for months and reached a really kind of distressingly-high-to-non-Whovians peak recently.
Oh for goodness sakes. This post will be pages long. I'm making a list to keep it … shortER.

In order of importance, from least to most, I give you some differences between Ten and Eleven, and Moffat and Davies, and why they might cause squabbles.




The Difference Between Them In:

~CGI
Davies: Inconsistent, but usually rather terrible  /  Moffat: Normally as up-to-date as the budget can get it

Okay, so who really cares?
I do. But that's not good. Doctor Who's foundation is on characters, not their special effects. That's just the way it is, some things will never change…
But I admit that Eleven's era makes my eyes feel happy.
Score one for Moffat.


~High Definition
Davies: Non-existent  /  Moffat: The beauty of it, Iago. The beauty of it…

Plus, series two filmed with an odd glowy effect that didn't seem to be an upside. And I know this is another technicality that shouldn't really matter. But somehow it enhances my viewing experience when I can see every wrinkle in the costumes. (Yes, I know my Shakespeare quote is off).


~Good looks: (let's face it, this comes into play with the fangirls)
Ten: not strictly normal, but still, accessibly handsome in general opinion  /  Eleven: For the girls with odd taste

…What do I say? Personally, I think …Matt… if good looks could melt people…
But, apparently, no one else agrees. And it can't be denied that David's really handsome. Right? 


~Story Arcs
Davies: Very, very subtle. A hint or dropped word.  /  Moffat: Are you following this storyline? Huh? Huh? No? Too bad, here's another plot twist.

A matter of preference, but I think it's a fact that Moffat's era turns some people off, because it's too complicated. Personally? I love it! My brain likes being fed. A lot. It makes me feel thspecial ('special' said with a stupid lisp - sorry, it's a vocabulary word in our family) when I can keep up with what's going on. Plus, if you don't like story arcs, series seven is supposed to be a lot less heavy on that. A very large theme that runs through the differences between Moffat and Davies is now coming into play: emotion. I do have to say that series six, as an arc, lacked it. It was discovering a lot of facts, and not an emotional journey. Whereas "Bad Wolf" was saturated in heart. I thought the cracks in the universe was better with that - that Pandorica scene, where it is revealed that the Doctor was really the 'bad guy' all along - well, that is honestly one of the most beautiful plot twists I've ever seen. (backstory time! "The Pandorica Opens" was my first Eleven episode, so I had no idea what was going on. Me and my brother decided to turn off the episode and not watch its continuation in "The Big Bang" because we were so confused. Cue the Pandorica reveal. We looked at each other and it was agreed: we MUST WATCH MORE OF THIS.)


~The Ginger Companion
Davies: Donna Noble  /  Moffat: Amy Pond

Donna. Donna Noble, come to knock Moffat's era to the ground and steal a point. And a whacking big one. Amy strikes me as shallow, annoying, too flirty, and generally not an exceptionally enjoyable companion. Whereas Donna - Donna is, in my opinion - and a lot of other people's - the best NewWho companion yet.


~The Main Romantic Interest
Davies: Rose  /  Moffat: River

Wow, this made it high up on the list of importance, eh? Well, I have one thing to say about River Song. *bangs head* I DO NOT FEEL THE FEELS. The Doctor and Rose - yeah, I used to ship them to death. Someone came along and pointed out that Rose was a really average kind of girl, and suddenly I realized she was right - but Rose and Ten - and even Rose and Eleven, if you like that type of thing (I do so very love it) - most of the time were, and are, more satisfying than Eleven and River. Even though Rose isn't the most well-drawn of characters, she's more loveable than River, to someone tuned like me. Not that Eleven and River don't have their moments - the hints of tragedy in their love story are great, and of course I squee when they kiss. But when River treats the Doctor like dirt, flashing her gun around and blowing off his hats - just no. That is not the River Song I like. The River Song I like is the one who tells the Doctor that he is loved by so many and so much.
But didn't Rose tell the Doctor that by simply being there with him?


~The Doctor's Mercy and Darkness:
Ten: Had cruel moments, but for the most part, expressed a lot of mercy  /  Eleven: Quite ruthless - unobtrusively so, sometimes, however

Yeah. Ten pushed Mother of Mine into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy. But Eleven turned the human race into killers in "The Impossible Astronaut" - he waltzed up, told the Silence he'd give them a chance to surrender, then did the Doctor-equivalent of "lol jk" and set them up for a genocidal fall. Take that how you will. The Team Ten part of the fandom takes it badly. I don't mind it. Ten said "No second chances, I'm that sort of a man" - and maybe his next regeneration was seeping through, because though he himself did have moments like in "The Runaway Bride" and "The Waters of Mars", Eleven has, I think, a much more cold and level way of killing. He's virtually aways ready to kick your butt into everlasting oblivion. He'll lie, with this nice, ernest, straight face - tell you, "Sure, I can save your life, hop on board" - and then he'll slam the TARDIS door in your face (don't believe me when I put it that way? "The Girl Who Waited".) Granted, he has his reasons and they do make sense. But still. Eleven's darker.
Anyway, this is opinion and personal perception, I may not be right.


~Emotions
Ten: expressed liberally, most of the time  /  Eleven: extremely bottled up

Ten swung between lighthearted and contagiously happy, to sad and angsty. And Eleven? Wait, what emotions? Huh? Oh, the one part when he teared up in "Closing Time" or "Flesh and Stone"? That one scene where he yelled at a Dalek? He was blinking back something in his eye at "The Doctor's Wife".
And I think that might be all.
Please don't get me wrong. Eleven can be fantastically happy, and I love that about him. But I'm talking about the emotions that resonate. And bowtie emotions, while amazing, don't make us sob all over the couch, wiping our streaming eyes on our TARDIS-pattern pyjamas and trying not to get the electrical workings of our tightly-clutched sonic screwdrivers too wet - whether from joy, or sadness.
The thing is about emotions - and I'll come back to this - is that Team Ten is measuring the Moffat era by the RTD era. And that's not the right measuring stick. There's a short Ernest Hemingway story that illustrates this so sweetly (#shameless favourite author plug): when you measure temperature by Celsius, it can look dangerously low. And then you switch to Fahrenheit, which was how it was always meant to be, and it's just fine.
And I'm not entirely sure I actually agree with myself, but what I think is that Eleven isn't meant to be emotional. He's so, so old. He can't just cry. And it's his lack of emotion that can stab us. The Lion the Witch and the - sorry, the Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe! That ending! The Doctor is drained of feelings - the years have bled his hearts dry and white. I do know how that feels - though of course, not on the scale that 1000 years of life brings - and that episode actually was really touching to me, because I was going through a period of hardly being able to feel a single thing deep in my soul at the time. And when he wiped away that tear, it was a gorgeous ending that felt tuned to me. But, personal angst stories over. God brought me out of that, and it's not something to scream over at all. Everyone has lows.
Just … imagine having one that dragged your soul down for centuries.
The Eleventh Doctor lives under that.
GUYS. GUYS I LOVE THE DOCTOR'S CHARACTER.

Conclusion:
Sometimes I think I'm just too accepting of everything, of every difference.
But truth is that I love both the Moffat era and the Davies era. And I like the Moffat era, as a whole, more. And I love to love my Who. Am I a mindless consumer that is gobbling up everything I am fed? Or am I radically enjoying myself where the internet is too cynical to feel the feels?
Sometimes I think there is something that the RTD era had that Moffat's missing. And I think it's emotions. But sometimes I think they are there in Moffat's era, and people are just not looking at it the right way. They're using the wrong measuring system. Or they're not looking hard enough, and they miss the way the Doctor's voice shakes and goes up that one note higher when he tells Craig to take Alfie and go.
But sometimes I think the high definition and the beautiful, clean-looking, sharp, constantly mind-engaging atmospheres of Moffat's episodes have lured me in and make me see beauty where it's not.
But sometimes I think reading way deep into the subtext is awesome.
But sometimes I think maybe I'm reading too far.
But sometimes I don't know what to think.
That's where I need you.
But I get the feeling the internet doesn't like it when people yell over and over that they want their readers to comment. Hey, it's only a natural human instinct, to want to share things together.
Hehe, I'm just kidding. Comment if you feel like it, because I WOULD LOVE to hear your thoughts, for however long you want to go on. I could sit here and listen for hours - or, if you want to just dash off without leaving a comment - or with just a one-lined speculation - that's good too.

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That post was such a guilty pleasure. a) I stayed up way too late to write it, b) I feel bad, because even though I think that at least 50% of my small group of followers are Whovians, that post has nothing to do with … anything, and c) I allowed myself to go off on personal opinion tangents. FOR A LONG TIME. Seriously, this was a monster post.
 So please, if you feel like it, let me know if you didn't enjoy it, because I don't have to this kind of thing again. Until the autumn. When I will, God willing, give you a savage dissection of every episode that airs in series seven. But anyway - if you'd rather not read things like this, honestly just let me know.

34 comments:

  1. I'm not normally one for long posts but you had me reading all the way through.

    I was torn to pieces when we lost Ten. Then Eleven showed up and...and I liked him. A lot. I love his attitude and his no-nonsense "if you're doing bad things, I will do bad things to you" attitude. And, honestly, I do like Amy Pond. Second fave to Rose (I feel there's a lot of character to both).

    Don't know that I could choose between Ten and Eleven...but I think Eleven may have the slightest edge. ;)

    Great post!

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    1. Oh, I'm glad!

      So was I. I cried so hard I had a headache when I saw "The End of Time". It took me a long time to get used to Eleven - I really like the way you described him there! That sums him up really well.
      That's okay, I know tons of people who like Amy.

      Thank you! :D

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  2. I have a feeling a lot of our PMs have already gone into that.
    ~CGI. Last January (2011), I got a friend to watch "Rose" with me, and one of her first questions was, "So when do the effects pick up?" My response: "Well, we had quite a nice Christmas special this year." She became a die-hard Whovian anyway. This to illustrate that Moff wins effects, but characters trump effects.
    ~HD. I honestly never noticed this. I guess my Moff-era screencaps are a bit sharper...
    ~Looks. This should not matter. I think David's better-looking in general, but Matt owns my heart. At least, he did until Tom Hiddleston, but that's another story. Why does no one bring up Christopher Eccleston's looks? ;)
    ~Story arcs. I prefer RTD's. I have a love/hate relationship with Moffat's. It's not that Moffat's too complex for me - I just think that, inevitably, at the end a lot of things are either over-explained or under-explained. At the end of an RTD arc, I felt complete in my soul. I knew what everything had led to, and the next season was a wonderfully unexplored place. I wasn't /worried./ Moffat makes me want to tear his head off because it either seems TOO easy, too much of a cop-out, or something's still a mystery. Or both. After my experience with the LOST fiasco, I have no faith in things left hanging. But there are so many things I love about his writing, and my love/love relationship with Matt balances it out.
    ~Donna is just a better companion. I like Amy, but I have a very bad sense of her character as a whole. Her relationship with the Doctor seems so inconsistent to me. Is he her childhood imaginary friend? Is she a good friend, or does she worship him? When he lets her down, does she hate him? So why is he her hero again?

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    1. We did have a nice Christmas special in terms of effects. That spaceship blowing up was great. Oh, good! Another convert! :D

      I don't know - most people don't seem to bring up Nine in general, which is unfortunate. In an earlier edit of the post I did mention him, but it's mostly Ten vs Eleven, because that seems to be the most heated debates..
      I think Amy was right when she said, in "The Girl Who Waited", that when you get to know someone - as a Doctor, for me - their face becomes them. That's why I think Matt's cute ;)

      That's true. Very true. I am sad for all the story points that don't seem to resolve in Moffat's series. I haven't actually watched Lost - I heard it was good, then I heard it was messed up - anyway, no one seems to like the finale.
      Another good point. He has his good bits and his bad bits, and Matt makes up for quite a bit of it...

      Yes!

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    2. It was the flying fish year. I LOVE that episode SO MUCH.

      Nine deserves his own post! :D He is too underrated. I had watched both Ten and Eleven first, and for awhile I found him prickly and even kind of scary. Then he grabbed hold of my heart and never let go. Sometimes I think I ship Nine/Rose harder than Ten/Rose. It gives me more feels for some reason.

      I was thinking of that very quote to apply to Matt. LOL.

      Don't. Watch. Lost. You are not prepared.

      To be fair, RTD has good and bad bits, too.

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    3. The Christmas episode? Eh, I thought it was okay - not one of my faves. I liked A Christmas Carol better. But I can see how you liked it :)

      Yes! Yes, he does. But I don't think I'd be very qualified to write it. I only watched most of his episodes once through, a while ago. (I know, I should go back. I'm planning on doing it soon).
      I think everyone I know who ships Rose with the Doctor ships Nine harder...

      Well, it does work so well for him :D

      Alright then, I won't. I don't really have time anyway. Like, I'm typing with my arms hanging over a big book full of homework right now. Ugh. Summer, please, please come quicker.

      Drastically so - from Love and Monsters to Midnight.

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    4. No, I meant the flying fish year was the one with the good effects AND one of my favorite, and that was "A Christmas Carol." Not "The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe," - which I liked as well, but didn't have the same magic.

      :P Eugh.

      I assume L&M is the bad bit and Midnight is the good bit? :) I just watched Midnight again and OH MY GOODNESS GOTH MERLIN.

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    5. HAH! I'm so thick! I'm miss thickety thick face... flying fish. Duh. Sorry. lol.

      Of course. Love and Monsters is my least favourite episode ever, whereas Midnight is my absolute top favourite. So obviously there's some variety in there.
      Haha! Now, there's another show everyone is screaming at me to go and watch. But the fandom was right about Sherlock, so I'm guessing it's right about Merlin, too?

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    6. :)

      I enjoyed L&M's format, because Elton was so darn likable, but the end is just so... squicky. I can't watch it again.
      Oh yes! Since you've left Lost, watch Merlin instead! The writing isn't always as good as I'm used to (there are some episodes I skipped under advice that the writers put some unutterably goofy stuff on the table), but the actors sold it for me.
      Sadly, I haven't been able to finish Sherlock Series 2. I got ten minutes into episode 3 before the server was like, "You wanted to hear the dialogue at the same time their mouths moved? LOL no."

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    7. Yes - every episode of DW, no matter how terrible, seems to have a redeeming moment or two. Elton did have awesomeness. That one line about "You know, when you're a kid, they tell you it's all, grow up, get a job ..." is pretty awesome. But yes, squicky is a good word for it :/

      Okay!! Awesome! I'll check it out.

      Hahahahha! I definitely know the feeling. So you never finished the Reichenbach fall? Oh dear ...

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    8. *headdesk* It's been rough, buddy. Seeing Sherlock jump on every other fanpost and not actually knowing WHY THE HECK.

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    9. Wow! That must be torture!

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  3. First time I've EVER used up a comment wordcount. WOW.
    ~River versus Rose. I never felt the River feels until I discovered madis hartte, whom you also have, I think. She's opened River's character to me in a way no one else could. However, there are still fundamental things about River that bother me. 1) I just think her personality is a bad match for the Doctor's. And she does often treat him like dirt or like an idiot. He needs someone to stop him, but not someone to slap him in the face. One of the things she extols about the Doctor in "Silence in the Library" is that he can turn back an army at the sound of his name, yet when he does that in "AGMGTW," she tears him to shreds for it. AIEIEIE WOMAN. 2) The whole thing where they meet out of order doesn't do it for me. I feel as though all the dramatic moments they've had have only been dramatic because they're out of order, not because they have a relationship that is being wrecked. That's why I like fanfiction, because it creates quiet moments for them to bond and actually learn to love each other. I especially dislike that speech she has to Rory, about how he knew everything about her when they met. "Can you imagine what that does to a girl?" Um... ew. Do not want. 3) The guns. I know they've been explained, but it still botherssss me.
    Rose rarely gets on my nerves, and when she does, I can usually see what in her character is making her do that. Like how she's all epic in "Parting of the Ways" about how you can't just do nothing, then in "The Christmas Invasion" promptly stands around and does nothing. That bothers me, but it makes sense. The one who taught her to never never never give up was the Doctor, and now he's changed without explanation and has no way to help her through this. Just an example. Rose wins for me, every time.
    ~Mercy/Darkness. I agree with you here. I think Eleven's darkness is, in many ways, an outpouring of Ten's last adventures alone. Which leads into
    ~Emotions. You're one of the few people who agrees with me that Eleven is more emotionally withdrawn than Ten. He doesn't share things anymore. He seems happier, initially, but he's only more damaged. MY POOR BABY.
    ~So, I miss RTD, but the Doctor is the same man. Let's be friends.

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    1. Haha! Impressive, but I have this conversation going on fanfiction.net, and for a while we regularly used up the word count on the FANFICTION.NET messaging system. That is massive. haha ;)

      Madis = out of this world. I do love the way she writes River.
      You have a lot of good thoughts on River... I have to agree with you about most of that. Mmm, and with Rose. I don't know... my opinions change a lot. But fact is that Rose wins in general, for sure. But I just can't help not minding almost everyone in Doctor Who. EVERYONE and virtually everything grows on me. It's a bit annoying.

      I know, right! I really wish I could give him a hug. Like a big one... and tell him somehow that it's alright ...

      Let's! :D

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    2. "The good news is, you're very impressive. Bad news, no, I'm not impressed." I'm a little less impressed with myself too, now. Were you sending entire novels to each other??

      I've repeatedly called her OC Melody Williams /my River/, the way Ten is /my Doctor/. In a perfect world, that personality would've been River Song.

      That reminds me of two tumblr thingies.
      http://thedoctorsherlockand.me/post/20123246485
      http://aslanscompass.tumblr.com/post/21613450897

      Yay! 'Ello, my new Canadian friend! :D

      The one we've sadly ignored here is Rory. But there's no debate, is there? He is awesome personified, and that will never change.

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    3. Haha... no. We were going off on philosophical tangents about what the Doctor's name might be and such. Lol, *I* am impressed with you. :)

      Oh, I really like that. Melody is amazing. And Braveheart, her baby TARDIS, is just ... I LOVE THAT TARDIS SO MUCH I named my iPod after her. Anyway...

      Oh. My. Gosh. That first thing - I got tears in my eyes without meaning to! Wowww.... I have to bookmark that or something. Thank you so much for sharing that! Ugh... that is heartwrenching.

      Haha, I've seen that other thing. It's so great. "The life of a fangirl really is sad." "What" "What"
      ...somehow no punctuation makes things so much more hilarious to me.

      Yay! Hello! I'm happy that we're officially buddies now. Officialness is cool.

      Rorrrryyyyy! Sadly I've never been able to like him on the same level as the Doctor - but who could resist those epic moments. And I really like reading the "Rory Williams Facts" on the internet. My favourite one is "Death once had a near-Rory experience." Yeah, he's great - the BBC giving us ridiculously high standards for guys again. In a few years I'll be looking my date over, going... "Hmm - okay, but would he wait 2000 years to keep me safe?"

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    4. Ahh, the First Question. I have no opinions on that. I JUST WANT TO KNOW.

      I want an iPod to name after Braveheart! But I'd have to keep explaining, "No, not the movie. I'm not even allowed to see that. No, it's um... it's a ship. A marvellous cherry red police box time ship. Not the TARDIS. A baby TARDIS. Yes, I'm talking about fanfiction again. DON'T JUDGE ME."

      You're very welcome. Same here.

      I had one of those "What" "What" moments about a week ago while trying to explain something related to Loki (haha, again. No one will ever hear the end of him). It's like, "I'm not sure what you heard, crazy person, but I've been minding my own business." As my friend pointed out, there's an even sadder love story. It involves the boy being fictional, but I can't even type it without crying.

      We should have jackets.

      Well, you get to know the Doctor much better. You break your heart over him. But Rory is at least half of the perfect boyfriend. I can't even pick a favorite Rory-as-Chuck-Norris joke.
      TRUE FACTS.

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    5. Me too! And I will be really, really mad if Moffat and co duck out and dodge it. Like, if the name is eventually whispered or something. If it's anticlimactic. And I'm having trouble with the Silence's motivations - they're all, "Tell the Doctor what he must know!" And it seems like they actually want Silence to fall, for a bit in "The Impossible Astronaut", and then apparently they don't....

      haha :)

      Sounds interesting!

      Yes. YES we should.

      That's true. The Doctor's closer to us as an audience. Hahaha, they are full of so much win.

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    6. I used to think that we should never find out the Doctor's name, because it won't live up to our expectations. And what if it's something like... Chris? Not a bad name, but for the Doctor? But that's silly, since his name will be Gallifreyan and maybe he's also sort of the Other from Classic Series. I don't know. But River has to find out sometime, and then we'll probably never see her again. I don't know what my feelings do about this.
      Silents are weird. I think they're in the service of Omega (old Time Lord enemy of the Doctor, not in the Time Lock but in some other kind of trap, from what I understand), whose symbol is all over the Headless Monks stuff.

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    7. Haha, yeah, it had better not be something like Chris. Oooh, yeah! Like the Other! That's awesome. If his name is revealed, I hope it comes with a really huge character revelation.
      Seriously!? I have to watch a Good Man Goes to War and the Wedding of River Song again, then!! (Yeah, the trap was a black hole, right?). I had no idea it was on their stuff! I really hope that clue turns out, that would be amazing.

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    8. The Omega symbol is as far back as the uniforms of the clerics in Time of Angels.

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    9. What the - oh my gosh, you're RIGHT! HOW could I not notice that?! Whoa

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  4. Sorry, I haven't seen enough Eleven to make an entirely informed decision, but I really think nothing can beat David Tennant. And how can you not think he's handsome???? Okay, maybe his chin is a little weird and his eyes are a little buggy but his facial expressions make up for it. :)

    I just love the energy of Ten and how deep he can go emotionally and the rapid fire way he talks and how clueless he can be and how well he and Donna work together (love Donna!)

    There's just no other Doctor for me. :)

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    1. What? WHAT? Who said anything about Ten not being handsome? Ten's VERY good looking!!!! Of course! I was just trying to be objective, because I don't know what other people might think.

      I agree! Ten's great.

      But I do think you should watch more Eleven.... I wish you could come over to watch it. That would be so fun. But I do understand, I had the same Ten-withdrawal syndrome at the beginning...

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    2. If I ever visit Canada, I'll stop by to visit and we can watch Doctor Who together. :)

      I think I'll eventually watch more Eleven... I just need a few more years to mourn David Tennant. Especially after that finale *sniff*

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    3. Yay!

      I understand. *pats your shoulder*

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  5. Visiting from Lauren's blog. Nice to meet you, Micah! I'm a new follower. Hope to see you around.

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    1. Hello! It's nice to meet you!! :D Welcome, welcome.

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  6. I just read this entire post. I'm not usually one for long posts either, but your way of writing intrigued me.

    I've seen one episode of Doctor Who. Well, one and a quarter. I watched The Eleventh Hour and loved it. However, I started watching the beginning of the second episode, The Beast Below, & it creeped me out. I feel kind of ashamed saying this. It was just disturbing. Maybe someday I'll get up the courage to watch it, though! I absolutely love the characters. And your analysis was so fascinating to read; thank you for posting it!

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    1. That's funny to me, since "The Beast Below" was my favorite of that season. The last ten to fifteen minutes are beautifully heartbreaking, and they proved for me that Matt Smith was the Doctor and Amy could be his companion. :)

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    2. Thanks, Sky!

      Oh, that's completely alright. I'm kind of a sucker for the Doctor Who brand of horror - I JUST LOVE IT - and the Beast Below looked, to me, like it was going to be awesome like that - or, you know, scary. What with the children and the poem and everything. But trust me, that episode kind of flops in terms of general scariness. Like, the beginning is definitely as bad as it gets, and it decreases. And I know, in a lot of people's terms, the episode rather flops in all directions. But I am with Lostariel - the last ten to fifteen minutes ARE gorgeous. They really are. Character-wise. And aesthetically, with this one shot of the Doctor looking out the window at all these stars that's just dazzling. But the character stuff is at the core of the awesomeness, and I'm glad you do like the characters. And I hope you do work up that courage!

      Oh, thanks! It was my pleasure!

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    3. *waves to Lostariel*

      Ohhhh reeeeallllyyy... Okay, this is good. I was believing that, after the initial snippet, the episode would gradually get worse in terms of scariness. Now that I know that it decreases, that greatly boosts my courage to try it again. ;) Also, the mention of how beautiful the last ten to fifteen minutes are is tantalizing. I love heartbreaking character-driven moments like that. And I'll admit that I'm desperate for a show that makes me feel deeply! Doctor Who may just be that show.

      Yesyesyes. The characters. Love. Them. To. Death. Rory is hilarious. I like Amy as well, and the Doctor... oh, the Doctor. I think you already know why he's so awesome. He just has so much depth. They all do, and I love that.

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    4. *waves back*
      Doctor is is definitely just that show for a character-lover.

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    5. That's what I thought, too, but some of it actually borders on ridiculous after a while xD That's why the episode isn't very popular. Watch out when/if you get to "Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone," though. Doctor Who NEVER scares me, but the other day, when I was watching those for the fifth time, it was making me jump and giving me chills. And actually sending the thought "maybe I should turn this off agh" through my mind. *On the fifth time*.
      But again, there are tons of episodes that AREN'T scary, so yeah.

      Yes, I think it just might :D

      He does! yeah, all of them, but mostly the Doctor. Lostariel's right, it's very character driven. It's fun to watch it with a critical eye, too. I was watching "The God Complex" with criticism and it was just delicious to pick out "Oh, that was a great character moment. Oh, that was really revealing of inner struggle. GOSH HOW DID THEY DO THIS"


      Sorry for rambling :D

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