Each to his own but my main gripe was the re-using of already done plots and the others were kinda shallow. The impossible choice on the moon? I recall the beast below. Dinosaurs? Done that too. The "crying cyberman"? I recall the head of Torchwood being converted (Doomsday) and also staying true to her believes. For everything else it seems as if they needed well known places to make the story angle work. Orient Express, Moon, Space shuttle, etc. That's really my main gripe with this season; "seen it, done that, kinda boring!".
THIS POST HAS SERIES 8 SPOILERS. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. SO... ON FORTH? Osgood is dead and I didn't like her anyway. So, ah, yay? Also, I quite like Clara. She's fine as she is and I hope she stays on for another series. We haven't had a companion last more than three series since the 80's. I just don't want all the focus on her and I hope that her stupid boyfriend doesn't come back to life because he was a pointless character. I think if the Twelfth had his character developed during Series 9 and stayed with Clara (who, since her boyfriend is dead, could leave Earth and stay with the Doctor?), there could be some interesting possibilities that could happen. My main gripe was Clara's boyfriend, the extreme focus on Clara, the terribly written episodes (I really think Steven Moffat should step down and stick to doing a few 'treat' episodes per series) and the lack of development on the new Doctor. Seriously. The Twelfth has no personality - and I want to like him. Peter Capaldi makes an excellent Doctor, but I just can't learn to like his Doctor. Erm, anyway; this is ever so slightly off topic...
For the record: I'm not even a die-hard fan and even I (kinda strongly) feel this way. Why? See my comments in the previous post? That is mostly Moffat re-using plots from the 'modern' Doctor Who (I grew up with Tom Baker / Peter Davison thank you very much). And usually all of those come from his own created episodes. Now, by itself that's not reason enough to get skeptical in my opinion. But it looks to me as if Moffat is mostly re-using all his work. Example: I liked the Amy Pond storyline and I also liked how the story intersected in the end. You saw stuff in the season and in the end episode they got explained (the mysterious voice when Amy was blinded). Referring to the Pandorica storyline. I liked! Even got it here on film. (edit: dvd) But the next season.. ok, impossible astronaut, silence (pretty cool & creepy!), sure. But what did it end up with? It had a slightly different twist, but in the end it was still a re-doing of events, with a slightly different approach, but a redoing still. Entertaining for sure, but I still considered the whole thing kinda boring as well. From where I'm standing it simply got worse. The downwards spiral had already been set into motion and it simply continued on. So yeah; I agree with you on this one.
So, here I am, watching some Who after eating lunch and surfing the forums at the same time, and I see this thread. Interesting.
