The New New Who

I am a geek. Sure, I generally hide it well but I am a geek at heart, on par with an MIT graduate according to one personality test I took.

Knowing that, it should come as no surprise that I'm a Dr Who fan but I have a sort love hate relationship with the newest incarnations of the Doctor.

Russell T Davies was a hack. His plots were full of holes and as his seasons progressed, he seemed to become more and more enamoured of his own prowess and indulged in writing some of the worse TV ever.

Christopher Eccleston's series was the best. RTD's head wast too big and Christopher Eccleston has enough gravitas that I could overlook the gaping plot holes in favour of some great acting. Even Billie Piper was good, I think being with Chris made her up her game.

David Tennant was a fun doctor, i liked him, but he didn't have the same prowess as Chris so I could forgive less, and of course the show started believing it's own hype and the problems got bigger. There are some stand outs in David's era, but not many. And as for Rose's character, oh sweetheart, what did they do to you? Once you were a kick ass companion, by the end you were a whiney, love sick brat travelling between dimensions for a man who left you behind (and did so again when you found him, albeit with a pale imitation of himself to keep you happy). We must placate the wimens, after all. It's not like a woman ever survived having a broken heart and moved on to live a good life.

And don't even get me started about what they did with Martha. Talk about missing an opportunity.

I was pleased when I heard that RTD was standing down and Stephen Moffat was taking over. I had liked most of his episodes in the past and was hopeful he would improve the show.

I was also pleased when he said he wouldn't be bringing back any old bad guys. To be honest, I'm getting a little tired of the Daleks or Cybermen being behind every other plot.

However, after viewing the pilot, my hopes are fading. Talk about self indulgent!

The first 10 minutes were just about having fun. They told us nothing about the characters or the new doctor and the humour was childish in the extreme. The plot points that were revealed in those 10 minutes could easily have been compressed into 60 seconds.

And so it continued for the rest of the episode, culminating with a preview of the rest of the series and who should show up prominently in that preview. The weeping angels, the Daleks AND the Cybermen. Now the weaping angels we've only seen once, i dont mind them coming back, but must the Daleks and Cybermen show up every frickin series! Use some imagination! There's a whole universe out there, why not show a little diversity!

And while we're on that subject, aliens who have human looking eyeballs as their... communicators? most likely aliens wouldn't look a thing like us, so why would they model their technology on human eyeballs? Human eyes aren't even that good, as eyes go, many other species have much better vision than we do.

My high hopes have been dashed.

Will i continue to watch? Probably. It is Dr Who, a staple of my childhood.

But I wasn't desperate to see this episode, I didn't watch it when it aired as I used to in season 1 of New Who. Who has been relegated from cant miss TV to filler TV, what I watch when there's nothing else on. It's just such a shame, it has so much potential that's being wasted.

But to end on a high(er) point, I think I like the new companion, however the marriage and slight romantic vibes are giving me pause. And after both Rose and Martha, can you blame me for being worried?