It Wasn’t Perfect But It Was Powerful: Doctor Who Series 9

Emily Rose

screen-capture-1

This series wasn’t perfect, this show isn’t perfect, just like – and most importantly – the Doctor isn’t the perfect person he often gets made out to be. I don’t know if this is the best season of the modern Who era or not. I don’t know if this show still has the same sensibilities it had before it hit bottom, or if it’s still building itself back up again. Here is what I know:

  1. Peter Capaldi is perfect. 
  2. I cried during almost every single episode this season. 
  3. I didn’t care about Clara, because I could never understand why the Doctor did. I don’t think the show ever told me. But tonight, during Clara’s (final) goodbye, I didn’t want her to leave.

I am very lucky to have Doctor Who in my life. Sometimes sticking around has been hard, but I still believe it’s worth it. The Doctor’s story is always going to be worth it, no matter how dismal, or tangled, or sad it gets. Tonight I saw Doctor Who brought to a place that was never possible before. It was rough getting here, but I’m so glad to be able to see it through.

#CapaldiForever

Emily Rose

Season 9 of Doctor Who just started, and while there’s currently no end for the 12th Doctor in sight, I can’t help but already worry about the day he finally leaves. I never, ever want the reign of Peter Capaldi to end, but change is the nature of Doctor Who, and it’s all the more meaningful because of it. How can a show last for 50 years? Because it doesn’t just overcome change, it’s woven with it, and reflects on the inevitability and requirement for change in every human life as it powers through. I know Peter Capaldi has to leave, or the show wouldn’t be Doctor Who any more. But still, with all my heart, I don’t want him to.

None of us are any strangers to regeneration. I haven’t been around long enough to have done it eleven times, but I’ve certainly done it before. I did it with 9, and 10, and 11. Every time, I made it through. Each were extremely sad, and while I earnestly cried for all of them, 10’s departure weighed heaviest on my heart. I walked around for weeks with the absence encamped in the back of my brain, knowing he was gone and things would never be the way they used to be. This is a television show we’re talking about. To have that much power, it’s got to be scarily good.

There are always DVDs to cling to – a major difference in experiencing loss in real life versus on a TV show. It definitely helps. Past Doctors are never really gone. Take it from the 1st: One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.

It doesn’t any make it less hard to watch your Doctor leave.

Doctor Who will fill the void. They’ll fill it with something just as beautiful and terrifying – something that never could have happened without letting go. It will be worth it. Nothing is stable in life or fiction, and Doctor Who touches hearts so deeply because it knows that. Things change – permanently. Nothing ever stops changing, and because of that, nothing ever stops. The perpetual regeneration of Doctor Who is what causes it to matter, and what makes it the rare story that will last forever. Throughout all of time and space. 

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It’s Doctor Who Season Again – Finally

Emily Rose

A homemade knitted Dalek in one hand and a Sonic Screwdriver in the other, with a mix of Blue Curacao and vodka they’re calling The TARDIS in the cup holder – I’m thinking, This better be good. I curled my hair for this.

I went to The Angelika in Dallas for the series 9 premiere of Doctor Who. Of course it was good. With Peter Capaldi as The Doctor they’ll never do wrong. It was a free showing thanks to bigfanboy.com and the fact they were streaming directly from BBC America. I’ve never watched Doctor Who on BBC America before, so I wasn’t expecting commercials. I’m fundamentally against inserting commercials into BBC shows that weren’t meant to be split up, and in a full, dark theater packed with viewers transfixed on the narrative’s every move, it was abundantly clear why. Doctor Who, when it’s good, has a flow that’s a crime to break (although I’ve started to feel like most Steven Moffat scripts could cut the first twenty minutes and immediately improve by at least 15 percent). We all sat together, snapped out of our collective trance, and began analyzing the structure of each ad’s marketing strategy instead. The interruption of the storyline for commercials was a jarring reminder of the intrusion of commercial interests into the pure enjoyment of the show. It made me wonder about the impact on both the viewers’ experience and the network’s paycheck.

We cheered at the good parts. The Twelfth Doctor is a rockstar, and he got the applause he deserves. There’s always something transcendent about watching something important for the first time with a huge group of people. It just about made up for splitting up the time with suspension-breaking commercials.

Twelfth Doctor Costume Reveal

Emily Rose

DOCTOR WHO

Peter Capaldi’s ‘Twelfth Doctor’ costume was revealed earlier today, serving as an effective distraction from the fact there won’t be any actual episodes for seven or eight months. Possibly the only thing signature to this incarnation is the bright jacket lining – a look that Capaldi has sported before:

pcap in pink

It may be coincidental, but each new actor has had at least some degree of input on their new suit. Legend says David Tennant was inspired to put on the converse after seeing Jamie Oliver on Michael Parkinson’s talk show.

jaime in pink
It took some extreme Google ingenuity, but I tracked down a photo of the historical event.

The release of this one photo comes with a swarm of questions beyond how much input Peter Capaldi had, such as – How many manips and cosplays can a fandom make out of one promo shot? How can so much speculation get squeezed out of one announcement? Of course, with eight (unnecessary) months to go, this one photo is going to have to last.

The thing is, everyone loved Matt Smith, and David Tennant, and Christopher Eccleston, and Paul McGann before him, but with this new Doctor comes new hope that Doctor Who will be good again. It’s been easy to blame one certain showrunner for the mess that’s come out of recent series, but no one completely knows why everything’s gone wrong. Still, there’s a lot of excitement around a rumor that Capaldi’s already been arguing with Moffat over scripts. (He’s an Oscar winning writer!) Unlike last regeneration, this Doctor change doesn’t mean a regime change, but there were two quotes included in this press release:

“He’s woven the future from the cloth of the past. Simple, stark, and back to basics. No frills, no scarf, no messing, just 100 per cent Rebel Time Lord.” –Peter Capaldi

 

“New Doctor, new era, and of course new clothes. Monsters of the universe, the vacation is over – Capaldi is suited and booted and coming to get you!” –Steven Moffat

Out of the two, Capaldi’s version sounds like the Doctor Who I want to watch.