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What do you dislike the most about the 10th Doctor and his era?
Despite its mainstream popularity to this day, it seems apparent that this Doctor and era isn’t especially popular around here, but what are your main gripes with it as a whole? My biggest gripes are indeed that of the character’s complete moral inconsistency (as covered here many times already) and the era’s adherence to passive audience spectatorship in how the character is frequently portrayed as a godlike figure with few apparent flaws addressed by the narrative (as egged on by Murray Gold’s music).
Some here criticise the McCoy era for its introduction of the character’s godlike qualities, although I didn’t see any trace of sycophantic hero worship towards the Doctor during that era. The programme never usually portrayed him as a perfect figure, as evidenced by the likes of Remembrance of the Daleks and The Curse of Fenric, whereas the Tennant era seems to largely venerate the character to a ridiculous extent.
The likes of Last of the Time Lords and The End of Time serve as notable examples. In the former’s case, the conclusion to the story not only makes fuck all sense, but never provides the audience with any insight into how such a religious fervour induced by the Christ-like Doctor can be damaging to those around him. There’s almost a dogmatic element to the scene, as if RTD inserted it purely to wank over his version of the character.
The End of Time is a similar case- instead of bothering to portray the character through a lens of moral ambiguity (as addressed for about 5 minutes in The Waters of Mars before being casually dropped), the episode spends over 15 minutes glorifying his regeneration in a similarly dogmatic fashion, with the character’s final words “I don’t want to go” awkwardly signposted by Gold’s music as being a sad and tear-jerking moment as opposed to a self-absorbed prat moping over the fact that he had to sacrifice one regeneration to save a man he saw as lesser than him. This is the kind of dogmatic hero-worship that I can see the pragmatism of the original character fundamentally disagreeing with, and it’s why the popularism of the era grates so badly with me these days.
Do you guys agree? What else about the era do you take issue with?
Despite its mainstream popularity to this day, it seems apparent that this Doctor and era isn’t especially popular around here, but what are your main gripes with it as a whole? My biggest gripes are indeed that of the character’s complete moral inconsistency (as covered here many times already) and the era’s adherence to passive audience spectatorship in how the character is frequently portrayed as a godlike figure with few apparent flaws addressed by the narrative (as egged on by Murray Gold’s music).
Some here criticise the McCoy era for its introduction of the character’s godlike qualities, although I didn’t see any trace of sycophantic hero worship towards the Doctor during that era. The programme never usually portrayed him as a perfect figure, as evidenced by the likes of Remembrance of the Daleks and The Curse of Fenric, whereas the Tennant era seems to largely venerate the character to a ridiculous extent.
The likes of Last of the Time Lords and The End of Time serve as notable examples. In the former’s case, the conclusion to the story not only makes fuck all sense, but never provides the audience with any insight into how such a religious fervour induced by the Christ-like Doctor can be damaging to those around him. There’s almost a dogmatic element to the scene, as if RTD inserted it purely to wank over his version of the character.
The End of Time is a similar case- instead of bothering to portray the character through a lens of moral ambiguity (as addressed for about 5 minutes in The Waters of Mars before being casually dropped), the episode spends over 15 minutes glorifying his regeneration in a similarly dogmatic fashion, with the character’s final words “I don’t want to go” awkwardly signposted by Gold’s music as being a sad and tear-jerking moment as opposed to a self-absorbed prat moping over the fact that he had to sacrifice one regeneration to save a man he saw as lesser than him. This is the kind of dogmatic hero-worship that I can see the pragmatism of the original character fundamentally disagreeing with, and it’s why the popularism of the era grates so badly with me these days.
Do you guys agree? What else about the era do you take issue with?
