BAEDA and Doctor Who

First off, if anyone is reading this and hasn't seen the first episode of season six, then I suggest you leave this till later...

Well, it's obvious by now that BEDA has failed... I have not posted one blog entry every day of April so far and, in all honesty, I'm not bothered. The other day I read and entry by someone else whom is taking part in BEDA and she was talking about how it can be a hindrance to creativity and that it can just become "here's what I did today because I can't think of an interesting post to make." I kinda feel like that's the way my posts were going... Just random accounts of stuff I did during my day and that may be reasonable semi-interesting to read every now and then, but it's not something you want every day. I think if I was going to do BEDA again (maybe in August) I'd try and think of a theme for my posts... That's something I've noticed other bloggers doing; making up some thematic posts and posting those alongside their more normal posts. I like that idea and so that is what I may do in future. Anyway, I have decided that from now on I will be taking part in BAEDA; yes, that's Blog Almost Every Day in April/ August. If I have nothing worthwhile blogging about then there's not much point me splurging out some random dross about how I slept in late or about how much I love sleeping late or whatevs. So yeah, I can't guarantee that posts will be daily... But they'll be almost daily.

Anyway, on with the main bloggy body. Yesterday, Doctor Who season six, episode one entitled "The Impossible Astronaut" aired. It was quite the unusual episode for me because it jumped straight into the action and wasn't like "ohai, it's time to gently ease everything back into place." It threw everything and everyone at you and was like BOOOM, enjoy. It was a really hair-raising episode, having the Doctor die in the first episode... That was a crazy touch and totally blew all of everyone's theories out of the water. I was thinking back over all the past first episodes and it was by far the most action packed and the darkest too; series 1 was the shop dummies; series 2, the cat-sisters and that random virus infected people; series 3, the Judoon platoon upon the moon and the plasmavore; series 4, the adipose creatures; series 5, the Atraxi and prisoner zero... Then comes along series 6 with the Silence and the astronaut! For a very long time, the Weeping Angels were the creepiest monsters on Doctor Who (although the creepiness got knocked down a level after the Time of Angels/ Flesh and Stone) but they now pale into insignificance behind the creepiness of the Silence. When you turn away from them, you forget they exist... I think that they've really outdone themselves with this creature, I think they've really gone to town and it really shows.
But I do have a slight complaint about the episode. Now, I have nothing against the show becoming more sophisticated and a bit more ~adult~, that's the way TV shows progress and evolve into their next form. However, I felt that it made slightly too extreme a jump for my taste. I like that the show is getting a bit darker, but this felt as if it was at the level of a final episode for me and didn't feel too Doctor Who-ish. I've always felt like it's been a bit of a quirky, slightly klunky Sci-Fi show that was at it's heart a very British programme which was something I loved. But I feel like they're trying to make it more "sexy" and I hate it when people do that to shows because it's such an American thing. They try to make it all slick and smooth and suave, but that's never been Doctor Who... But I jump to conclusions. I've only seen the first episode and I don't know how the rest of the series will turn out. I just hope that the lines between Torchwood and Doctor Who don't become blurred.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how the series progresses because one thing I really like about Moffat's style is how strong the plot arcs are. The crack; major recurring theme through the whole of series five, and I think that the Silence are going to be the same. I like that; I like the way his writing is slimline and honed. There's no real flabby, extra characters to weigh everything down and that was one of the major flaws with the Davies' writing: there was Martha, Rose, Sarah-Jane, Jack, Jackie, Mickey, Pete... the list goes on and on. Okay, some of those characters are decent, fun to have around and pretty welcome whenever they pop up but you get what I mean. There's none of those dead-weight characters that keep popping up again... and again. But I really do hope that they don't try and force Doctor Who into becoming "sexy" because of the opening American Market... It just won't work, from what I can see.

And that's my lot on season six, episode one. Goodnight and until next time, K.B.O.