Series Nine - DOCTOR MEH! - Warped Factor - Words in the Key of Geek.

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Series Nine - DOCTOR MEH!

How was that series nine opener for Stacy Embry? Er... Meh...


Meh....
Meh?
MEH!

Three letters and a world of expression for the sheer unadulterated boredom I felt about the two-part opener for Doctor Who series nine. I can say the young Davros, Joey Price, was compelling and I wanted more of him, and a few more guitar licks as the Doctor electronically courted Clara....but to think Steven Moffat saddled Blink director, Hettie Macdonald, with this disintegrating sewage only makes me nauseous. We've been anxious for her return and she got this simplistic tale, a green screen parade with dodgy pixelating effects?

See, I don't care about Davros or the Daleks. Maybe I needed to have grown up with them?... Yet that can't be true as I enjoyed both the series seven opening episode, Asylum of the Daleks, and seeing them with Nine in Parting of the Ways, so it's not them. No, I think it's because the concepts used in The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar were basic, and after the tank intro, and because there was no new story here, I was bored.

The Doctor planted "mercy" and saved Clara. Hmmmm, where have we seen that before? Just a year ago when she planted the entire "fear is a super-power" in Listen. Promise me that the circle is complete and we don't have to see another of this pattern? Another planting "something old, something new, something borrowed and the bluest blue...." Recycling may be good for the planet, but for a television series?

Are we really revisiting plot devices as often as Dalek episodes?


Sure, Missy is a stunner, and Capaldi has reinvented Tennant's swagger and Smith's affability into bringing "all of him to the party", but after this truly boring pair of episodes I'd vote to jettison the "Doctor and Clara Oswald in the TARDIS" and follow Michelle Gomez instead. (Of course, the antagonist is always memorable and the Master masters that statement - in many incarnations.) I liked her even more than last season, which just adds to the mystery as both she and the Doctor were "on" in these episodes. The transitions were excellent, young Davros was compelling, Coleman as Clara was strong... and yet I was still left experiencing MEH.

Multiple viewings have raised the very real specter of being unable to see viability in series nine. Whether it's something that can be solved with the BBC replacing Capaldi, Moffat stepping down to focus on Sherlock, Coleman leaving to play Queen Victoria or... I don't know? I've, sadly, lost the will to continue with Doctor Who as it is right now and I need your help, reader. Please tell me why am I wrong. What did I miss, overlook, diminish misunderstand? I'm asking... sincerely asking, that you to help me lose my MEH. I don't want it and the Doctor doesn't deserve it.

Risk-adverse, Stacy would not even enter the TARDIS in case it suddenly set to motion. Yet, gentle reader, she feels compelled to clarify that she writes opinion or editorial pieces. By using logic and reasoning, she always hopes to coherently provoke honest discourse.

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