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Thirty Days of Doctor Who: Day Three
Aug. 5th, 2010 08:15 pmDay 03 - Your Favourite New Series Episode
While The Empty Child/The Doctor Dance was a huge hit in 2005, I get the impression that fandom has moved on a little in the years since - there are other episodes that seem to come higher in the polls, like The Girl in the Fire Place, Blink and Human Nature. All of those are great and all, but for me there has been no better Doctor Who than this made since before I learned to tie my shoes. (And very little of it even then. It's my third-favourite of all time after City of Death and The Caves of Androzani. Maybe I'll tell you why I love that so much on one of the free-form days of this meme.) Despite the fact that I prefer the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors to the Ninth, it's this story that's closet to perfect for me. (My favourite Tenth Doctor outing, btw, is Midnight. With Eleven it is clearly too soon to tell.)
It's not just great because it's funny and scary and clever, and because the Doctor dances and TODAY EVERYBODY LIVES. It's because, this, for me, is the moment when the new series climbs out of its chrysalis, shakes its wings, and sores up into the sky.
It's as though Steven Moffat had a list of all the things Doctor Who writers could never, ever have got away with on TV before now and was working his way down it. Budget for scene where companion hangs off barrage balloon in middle of London Blitz while wearing a Union Jack t-shirt? Check. Day saved by homeless single teenage mother reuniting with her son in crowning moment of heartwarming? Check. The Doctor's sexuality repeatedly alluded to with dance-related metaphor? Check. Sympathetic gay soldier and completely random man having affair with local butcher? Check. Omni-sexual time traveller companion who spends début episodes hitting on the existing female companion, the Doctor and anyone else that happens to be going past? Check, check and double-check!
And it's great because you think it's all about sex and then it turns out that it's really all about family. (And sex.) Things like The Empty Child are the reason it's worth making Doctor Who in the 21st century at all.
( The rest of the days. )
While The Empty Child/The Doctor Dance was a huge hit in 2005, I get the impression that fandom has moved on a little in the years since - there are other episodes that seem to come higher in the polls, like The Girl in the Fire Place, Blink and Human Nature. All of those are great and all, but for me there has been no better Doctor Who than this made since before I learned to tie my shoes. (And very little of it even then. It's my third-favourite of all time after City of Death and The Caves of Androzani. Maybe I'll tell you why I love that so much on one of the free-form days of this meme.) Despite the fact that I prefer the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors to the Ninth, it's this story that's closet to perfect for me. (My favourite Tenth Doctor outing, btw, is Midnight. With Eleven it is clearly too soon to tell.)
It's not just great because it's funny and scary and clever, and because the Doctor dances and TODAY EVERYBODY LIVES. It's because, this, for me, is the moment when the new series climbs out of its chrysalis, shakes its wings, and sores up into the sky.
It's as though Steven Moffat had a list of all the things Doctor Who writers could never, ever have got away with on TV before now and was working his way down it. Budget for scene where companion hangs off barrage balloon in middle of London Blitz while wearing a Union Jack t-shirt? Check. Day saved by homeless single teenage mother reuniting with her son in crowning moment of heartwarming? Check. The Doctor's sexuality repeatedly alluded to with dance-related metaphor? Check. Sympathetic gay soldier and completely random man having affair with local butcher? Check. Omni-sexual time traveller companion who spends début episodes hitting on the existing female companion, the Doctor and anyone else that happens to be going past? Check, check and double-check!
And it's great because you think it's all about sex and then it turns out that it's really all about family. (And sex.) Things like The Empty Child are the reason it's worth making Doctor Who in the 21st century at all.
( The rest of the days. )