(*Please note, this not not me saying no, this is the mass of Dr. Who fans who believe that disliking their show is something like disliking their religion, which is tough to swallow).
I think that’s what put me off the show to start with, all the “I can’t BELIEVE you’ve never seen Doctor Who, you have no idea what you are missing and you are clearly uncultured.” That attitude gets old fast.
I feel like I’ve given it a fair try–four episodes, which is more than I typically give things I don’t like immediately. I’ll still end up watching out the season because friends get together to watch that and Game of Thrones (which I do enjoy immensely) but I can’t imagine that I’ll fall in love.
(Though I do have to say that I have a hard time getting into Matt Smith’s Doctor, who everyone else just seems to adore like a cute puppy or something).
I’ve really only seen in depth the reboot, but here’s how I see the three doctors that have starred so far:
The 9th One – Christopher Eccleston. I’m sad he only played The Doctor for one season. To me, he was understated and cool, and didn’t really pull out any wackiness unless he had to. He also did ‘serious’ well, when he got serious and dramatic, he got really serious and dramatic, without going overboard with it.
The 10th One – David Tennant. He’s my favorite doctor. He did silly, and he did a LOT of SHOUTY!, and there were manic moments where I just wanted to take a tranquilizer dart to him. Or mail him some Ritalin. However, when he calmed down, he also did serious and somber well.
The previous two doctors seemed to bring a depth to the character that this 11th one just isn’t bringing. I don’t know what it is, but I can watch 9 and 10 over and over again and still enjoy it. With 11, I’m barely even engaged with the stories. I watch them, I enjoy them, I forget about them, I have no real desire to watch them again. Hell, I didn’t even really like the episode where he played *soccer*. Me. Not liking something with soccer in it. Now THAT is bad.
This will result in a deduction of “cool points” in my daughter’s eyes. She adores the Doctor Who reboot (still misses David Tennent). Luckily, you’ve got a surplus of cool. 😉
I like the show, but I also recognize that not everyone likes the same thing. I’m nuts for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, but I’d not demand my Mom watch it. To each his or her own.
I just can’t get into it. Part of it, I’m sure, is watching it six seasons into the reboot–there’s just too much going on that I don’t have a grasp on. But nothing about the show makes me want to go back and get a handle on it.
My own dear older sister thought she had never seen Star Wars till I put it in the DVD player and about half way through she said “Oh wait – is this that movie with the robots and the big space-ape guy? Yeah, I never really cared for it… they put it out on DVD?” which of course lead me in to an hour-long rant about how it’s the most popular/important film of our generation, a unifying bond for every 25-to-35-year-old person, a milestone of popular culture, and…
…And she still didn’t care. She didn’t have the same experiences with it that I had. She didn’t go see it at the “Dirt Theater” on her 6th birthday with Aaron Fowler and Damon Irons and go to ice cream afterwards at The Big Scoop to open presents and almost all those presents were Star Wars Action Figures. She just had a different life, that’s all 🙂
Yeah, we all have the things that we particularly connect with, and will feel nostalgia toward even as others completely miss them, and connect with something else entirely.
It does seem he’s getting a bit redundant, which is a shame as I have admired him as a writer for quite some time.
The more people gush over something to me before I experience it myself, the less likely I am to like it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m just a contrary person by nature or if they’ve built up my expectations to the point where it could never live up to the hype. Battlestar Galactica was one of the few exceptions for me, too.
I think that it is easier to admire him as a writer if you’ve only ready one of his books. Much like Orson Scott Card.
I find myself having exactly the same reaction, except when it’s cool people who like the same things that I do and then I can bond with them in our mutual superiority over Other People who Are Not As Awesome As We. I also get annoyed when things that I like go mainstream and then everybody likes them. Instead of feeling ahead of the curve, I just feel robbed.
This whoooole post was me since 2004…until about three weeks ago. Then Dr Who sucked me in and I blasted through seasons 1 – 6, including the specials, and am now planning to knit The Scarf. I’m not even entirely sure how it happened :s
Some friends have a TV night every week and Doctor Who is part of the lineup, so I guess I’ll be watching the rest of the season and it’ll have that long to try and suck me in. I’m not guessing it will, but stranger things have happened.
Well, I think the most important thing is to not take it too seriously. I know that was my mistake the first time I tried to watch it; once I sat back and was like ok fine, just sock it to me, I enjoyed it so much more. But as to the comment above that the last episode was a sort of bellwether test for new Who viewers? Idk about that. I’d say it was an episode designed to appeal to already-devoted Who fans, who understand enough about the series to get the impact about what happened.
The episodes that sucked me in as a new viewer were the especially creepy ones, like Blink or The Family of Blood, but I did have to endure the corniness of the first two seasons (love them though I do) to get that far.
ugh I did not mean to talk this much about it 😡
I just started a thread based loosely on this post over at , seems pretty much everybody has at least one thing that everybody adores what they just don’t get. “Glee” seems to be in the lead as far as ungotten shows are concerned…
So,I felt largely the same way. Then I started s1 of the reboot on Netflix, and #9 dragged me in. Everything I loved about him as a Doctor, tho, seemed to be the very things that everyone else hated. (Like, he was in a snit all the time.)
Ferrett posted something the other day that reminded me of this. The entry is about relationships/communication, but it hit on the same levels as to why I hate small talk (and, usually, other people). Hold on… http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1614192.html – basically, if I tell you I don’t like something, I don’t want you to hem and harp about it and try to figure out why I hate it and what might “fix” that – I want you to accept it and move the fuck on with things.
What do you MEAN you don’t like The Ferrett?? Haven’t you read all his blogs about BEES and POLYAMORY and WRITING??? He is so DOWN TO EARTH and FRIENDLY!!
This made me giggle. I enjoy watching an episode here and there, and will even occasionally copy it on DVR when I want to see a follow-up episode, but I’m not a die-hard fan that has to see it every week. I’ve only watched one full episode with the latest doctor and that was a pirate-themed one.
not only have I always felt this way (arkansas public TeeVee used to show this all the time), but it also applies to that other overrated piece of crap known as “Firefly.”
Oh snap, I can’t believe this didn’t start a twenty-comment long argument about how you’re wrong because everything Joss Whedon has touched is solid gold.
Apparently you don’t run with nerdy-enough circles. 😉
libra_dragon May 16, 2011 at 11:27 pm
It’s all good. I am a firm beliver in to each their own.
I love the show even the old ones and don’t expect others to enjoy it.
My husband used to make fun of me watching it and I said once but have you ever seen an episode? and he said no. So then I was like I don’t think you really can make fun of the show. In the end he loved it but if he didn’t I wouldn’t except him to watch it with him or anything.
I’ve only seen the first four episodes of this newest season so I don’t really have a grasp on the breadth of it. However, the people I watched the show with said the most recent episode was an example of a good Doctor Who episode and if I didn’t care for that one, I probably wouldn’t care for any of them.
To be fair when I lived in the states I rarely mentioned I liked who to anyone, particularly being British. The Who fans there seemed to miss the fact that it’s a KID’S show and therefore should be treated as being VERY silly! Personally I don’t think anyone who didn’t grow up with it as a kid would like it. It’s like Marmite, an acquired taste 😉
i tried to watch the season with the ninth doctor, but i COULD. NOT. GET. INTO. IT.
i don’t normally do science fiction (unless it is really bad b-movies and the words “mystery science theater 3000” is anywhere nearby), but i have a lot of friends that dig the shows. and i respect their opinions.
Science fiction can be a hard sell for me, I had to have someone really pull my leg to get me to watch battlestar galactica–and then I loved it. I was hoping Doctor Who would be the same but I just can’t get into it.
And it’s a terrible show not even gonna lie. I love it anyways.
But like. I read the expanded universe novels for it which make the show look sane and well written.
And the show itself hardly ever has evil satanic poodles with hands from outer space.
Hah. I’ve never seen the fuss about Dr. Who. Seen a few episodes here and there and mostly found them to be rather uninspiring. That’s okay, I’ve got plenty of other shows and movies to watch instead.
I tried to watch part of the original series once, but the terrible set, awful lighting and the hilariously badly constructed daleks offended me so much I couldn’t keep watching. (Those daleks – someone got paid to make those? Really?? I mean, really?!)
I mean, I’m all about the camp and bad props in things like the original Star Trek (especially the Carpet Monster one), but Dr. Who was just bad, and not in the Plan 9 from Outer Space way.
Since a commentator above mentioned it was a kid’s show maybe I’ll see if my 4 year old likes it.
Eh – it’s okay. I think if I were 20 years younger, it would have been perfect. I think it’s kind of like Star Wars: our generation grew up with it and saw it when we’re young, so we envision it as some super-awesome, game-changing movie.
But you have a kid sit down in front of it nowadays and watch it? “What the hell is this crap??”
I need to have my hubby read this. Mostly I can’t stand that in so many episodes there is some wordor phrase that is repeated a kabillion times. “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTER…” “MUMMY? MUMMY? MUMMY?” Ugh.
Yup, after another Sunday TV night with friends, I started thinking about Doctor Who and Green Eggs & Ham, and the “box, fox” part came to me immediately so I knew I had to get it written down. 🙂
No.*
(*Please note, this not not me saying no, this is the mass of Dr. Who fans who believe that disliking their show is something like disliking their religion, which is tough to swallow).
I think that’s what put me off the show to start with, all the “I can’t BELIEVE you’ve never seen Doctor Who, you have no idea what you are missing and you are clearly uncultured.” That attitude gets old fast.
Also, I strongly feel this way regarding the 60s-80s Dr. Who but rather like the rebooted ones. I like schlock, so sue me.
I have no problem with anyone liking it, I am just tired of shocked gasps when *I* don’t like something.
I’ve tried. I really, really have. I just cannot get into it.
I feel like I’ve given it a fair try–four episodes, which is more than I typically give things I don’t like immediately. I’ll still end up watching out the season because friends get together to watch that and Game of Thrones (which I do enjoy immensely) but I can’t imagine that I’ll fall in love.
It is OK.
I like it enough for both of us.
(Though I do have to say that I have a hard time getting into Matt Smith’s Doctor, who everyone else just seems to adore like a cute puppy or something).
Do all the Doctors have the “look at how strange I am, whoopee!” attitude?
I don’t think so. Chris Eccleston’s doctor was definitely more “oh, for fuck’s sake” than “skipper-dee-dee! I am so QUIRKY!”
That’s an attitude that I’m a little more likely to get behind.
I’ve really only seen in depth the reboot, but here’s how I see the three doctors that have starred so far:
The 9th One – Christopher Eccleston. I’m sad he only played The Doctor for one season. To me, he was understated and cool, and didn’t really pull out any wackiness unless he had to. He also did ‘serious’ well, when he got serious and dramatic, he got really serious and dramatic, without going overboard with it.
The 10th One – David Tennant. He’s my favorite doctor. He did silly, and he did a LOT of SHOUTY!, and there were manic moments where I just wanted to take a tranquilizer dart to him. Or mail him some Ritalin. However, when he calmed down, he also did serious and somber well.
The previous two doctors seemed to bring a depth to the character that this 11th one just isn’t bringing. I don’t know what it is, but I can watch 9 and 10 over and over again and still enjoy it. With 11, I’m barely even engaged with the stories. I watch them, I enjoy them, I forget about them, I have no real desire to watch them again. Hell, I didn’t even really like the episode where he played *soccer*. Me. Not liking something with soccer in it. Now THAT is bad.
hahahahaha! And you say this as a beleaguered Sounders fan, so it carries even more weight. XD
*laugh* That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all day.
Well besides hacked server logs…
I’m glad it made you laugh!
Awesome! I feel the same way 🙂 And I usually love BBC programs
This show is a perfect storm of annoyance for me: Brit humor, people affecting wacky personalities, and time travel.
LOL @ Brit Humor. Also an annoyance for myself.
But I do love me some delorean time travel, mind you…
This will result in a deduction of “cool points” in my daughter’s eyes. She adores the Doctor Who reboot (still misses David Tennent). Luckily, you’ve got a surplus of cool. 😉
I like the show, but I also recognize that not everyone likes the same thing. I’m nuts for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example, but I’d not demand my Mom watch it. To each his or her own.
I just can’t get into it. Part of it, I’m sure, is watching it six seasons into the reboot–there’s just too much going on that I don’t have a grasp on. But nothing about the show makes me want to go back and get a handle on it.
It’s like Star Wars. Unless you grew up with it and had it introduced to you in just the right time frame, you’ll just go “Meh”.
That makes a lot of sense.
My own dear older sister thought she had never seen Star Wars till I put it in the DVD player and about half way through she said “Oh wait – is this that movie with the robots and the big space-ape guy? Yeah, I never really cared for it… they put it out on DVD?” which of course lead me in to an hour-long rant about how it’s the most popular/important film of our generation, a unifying bond for every 25-to-35-year-old person, a milestone of popular culture, and…
…And she still didn’t care. She didn’t have the same experiences with it that I had. She didn’t go see it at the “Dirt Theater” on her 6th birthday with Aaron Fowler and Damon Irons and go to ice cream afterwards at The Big Scoop to open presents and almost all those presents were Star Wars Action Figures. She just had a different life, that’s all 🙂
Yeah, we all have the things that we particularly connect with, and will feel nostalgia toward even as others completely miss them, and connect with something else entirely.
Thiiiis. This so much. Also, Neil Gaiman writes the same damn book over and over.
I think Battlestar Galactica was the only thing that people were drooling over that I actually liked when I watched it.
It does seem he’s getting a bit redundant, which is a shame as I have admired him as a writer for quite some time.
The more people gush over something to me before I experience it myself, the less likely I am to like it. I don’t know if it’s because I’m just a contrary person by nature or if they’ve built up my expectations to the point where it could never live up to the hype. Battlestar Galactica was one of the few exceptions for me, too.
I think that it is easier to admire him as a writer if you’ve only ready one of his books. Much like Orson Scott Card.
I find myself having exactly the same reaction, except when it’s cool people who like the same things that I do and then I can bond with them in our mutual superiority over Other People who Are Not As Awesome As We. I also get annoyed when things that I like go mainstream and then everybody likes them. Instead of feeling ahead of the curve, I just feel robbed.
I can’t BELIEVE you’ve never seen Doctor Who, you have no idea what you are missing and you are clearly uncultured.
<3
This whoooole post was me since 2004…until about three weeks ago. Then Dr Who sucked me in and I blasted through seasons 1 – 6, including the specials, and am now planning to knit The Scarf. I’m not even entirely sure how it happened :s
Some friends have a TV night every week and Doctor Who is part of the lineup, so I guess I’ll be watching the rest of the season and it’ll have that long to try and suck me in. I’m not guessing it will, but stranger things have happened.
Well, I think the most important thing is to not take it too seriously. I know that was my mistake the first time I tried to watch it; once I sat back and was like ok fine, just sock it to me, I enjoyed it so much more. But as to the comment above that the last episode was a sort of bellwether test for new Who viewers? Idk about that. I’d say it was an episode designed to appeal to already-devoted Who fans, who understand enough about the series to get the impact about what happened.
The episodes that sucked me in as a new viewer were the especially creepy ones, like Blink or The Family of Blood, but I did have to endure the corniness of the first two seasons (love them though I do) to get that far.
ugh I did not mean to talk this much about it 😡
hahahaha people have reccommended Blink to me a lot so I suppose I will have to give it a try.
I just started a thread based loosely on this post over at, seems pretty much everybody has at least one thing that everybody adores what they just don’t get. “Glee” seems to be in the lead as far as ungotten shows are concerned…
I can’t stand Glee, either. I just put in my application for that comm, it looks interesting!
You’re not already a member??? Hang on, I think I have invite power or something… (since I am not unlike a GAWD to them…)
So,I felt largely the same way. Then I started s1 of the reboot on Netflix, and #9 dragged me in. Everything I loved about him as a Doctor, tho, seemed to be the very things that everyone else hated. (Like, he was in a snit all the time.)
Ferrett posted something the other day that reminded me of this. The entry is about relationships/communication, but it hit on the same levels as to why I hate small talk (and, usually, other people). Hold on… http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1614192.html – basically, if I tell you I don’t like something, I don’t want you to hem and harp about it and try to figure out why I hate it and what might “fix” that – I want you to accept it and move the fuck on with things.
While I agree with what he’s said, good god I also dislike that internet-fame-digging twathole.
What do you MEAN you don’t like The Ferrett?? Haven’t you read all his blogs about BEES and POLYAMORY and WRITING??? He is so DOWN TO EARTH and FRIENDLY!!
=D
WHY CAN’T I AVOID REPLYING WHEN I KNOW I’M BEING BAITED?!
It’s the tone of his writing more than anything; it’s too easy to read everything he writes as calculating and insincere.
This made me giggle. I enjoy watching an episode here and there, and will even occasionally copy it on DVR when I want to see a follow-up episode, but I’m not a die-hard fan that has to see it every week. I’ve only watched one full episode with the latest doctor and that was a pirate-themed one.
I’m glad it made you laugh!
I lolled. I like Doctor Who, but I swear if I hear another person say “I CAN HAS TARDIS?” I’m going to go batshit.
hahahahaha
I tried to like Dr. Who, but I just don’t care. I don’t dislike it or anything, but I do not feel in any way compelled to watch.
It bores the pants off of me.
not only have I always felt this way (arkansas public TeeVee used to show this all the time), but it also applies to that other overrated piece of crap known as “Firefly.”
Oh snap, I can’t believe this didn’t start a twenty-comment long argument about how you’re wrong because everything Joss Whedon has touched is solid gold.
…ive never even heard of dr. who. apparently i am missing something gigantic???
Apparently you don’t run with nerdy-enough circles. 😉
It’s all good. I am a firm beliver in to each their own.
I love the show even the old ones and don’t expect others to enjoy it.
My husband used to make fun of me watching it and I said once but have you ever seen an episode? and he said no. So then I was like I don’t think you really can make fun of the show. In the end he loved it but if he didn’t I wouldn’t except him to watch it with him or anything.
I’ve only seen the first four episodes of this newest season so I don’t really have a grasp on the breadth of it. However, the people I watched the show with said the most recent episode was an example of a good Doctor Who episode and if I didn’t care for that one, I probably wouldn’t care for any of them.
That’s hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To be fair when I lived in the states I rarely mentioned I liked who to anyone, particularly being British. The Who fans there seemed to miss the fact that it’s a KID’S show and therefore should be treated as being VERY silly! Personally I don’t think anyone who didn’t grow up with it as a kid would like it. It’s like Marmite, an acquired taste 😉
ooooooooooh, I wasn’t aware it was a kids’ show, which does make a difference.
Yeah it’s totally not meant to be taken seriously but rather be something that makes little kids hide behind the sofa.
I watched to old, old, incredibly old school Dr. Who’s, but this new generation is crap, imo. You made me rofl honey!
I haven’t seen anything other than episodes from this newest season so I don’t really have a basis for comparison.
i tried to watch the season with the ninth doctor, but i COULD. NOT. GET. INTO. IT.
i don’t normally do science fiction (unless it is really bad b-movies and the words “mystery science theater 3000” is anywhere nearby), but i have a lot of friends that dig the shows. and i respect their opinions.
Science fiction can be a hard sell for me, I had to have someone really pull my leg to get me to watch battlestar galactica–and then I loved it. I was hoping Doctor Who would be the same but I just can’t get into it.
That’s kind of brilliant actually.
And it’s a terrible show not even gonna lie. I love it anyways.
But like. I read the expanded universe novels for it which make the show look sane and well written.
And the show itself hardly ever has evil satanic poodles with hands from outer space.
See, evil satanic poodles I feel I could get behind.
Hah. I’ve never seen the fuss about Dr. Who. Seen a few episodes here and there and mostly found them to be rather uninspiring. That’s okay, I’ve got plenty of other shows and movies to watch instead.
cheers,
Phil
Yup, there are plenty of other things to see and do. Have you been watching Game of Thrones?
I am a massive fan of the books, but as I don’t have cable, I’m not watching the series currently. I’ll have to wait till it’s released on Blu-ray.
That is, assuming that I don’t use some other questionably moral method to obtain the episodes. 🙂
cheers,
Phil
It is AWESOME. I think you’ll like it a lot!
I tried to watch part of the original series once, but the terrible set, awful lighting and the hilariously badly constructed daleks offended me so much I couldn’t keep watching. (Those daleks – someone got paid to make those? Really?? I mean, really?!)
I mean, I’m all about the camp and bad props in things like the original Star Trek (especially the Carpet Monster one), but Dr. Who was just bad, and not in the Plan 9 from Outer Space way.
Since a commentator above mentioned it was a kid’s show maybe I’ll see if my 4 year old likes it.
hahahaha So it wasn’t so bad it was good but so bad it was terrible?
Exactly!
I got to see a live broadcast of the MST3K guys doing Plan 9 From Outer Space. I think I am still permanently injured from the hilarity. 🙂
Eh – it’s okay. I think if I were 20 years younger, it would have been perfect. I think it’s kind of like Star Wars: our generation grew up with it and saw it when we’re young, so we envision it as some super-awesome, game-changing movie.
But you have a kid sit down in front of it nowadays and watch it? “What the hell is this crap??”
Think this might be a similar situation.
You’re probably right.
I need to have my hubby read this. Mostly I can’t stand that in so many episodes there is some wordor phrase that is repeated a kabillion times. “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTER…” “MUMMY? MUMMY? MUMMY?” Ugh.
Hahaha! Did you make this?
I think it’s pretty silly, but my lover loves it. It makes for good pillow TV. 😉
Yup, after another Sunday TV night with friends, I started thinking about Doctor Who and Green Eggs & Ham, and the “box, fox” part came to me immediately so I knew I had to get it written down. 🙂
Hahahahaha!