Geronimo! Doctor Who (US Pace)
Just thought I would start a thread for those who are following Doctor Who at the US pace. I thought we already had a thread like this, but apparently not. Enjoy!

I finally caught the episode via BBC America. What a start to the series. I always loved Moffat's stuff, and his take feels really good. Eleven is also a lot of fun -- manic, but not as manic as Ten, serious when needed, but not as serious as Nine, and a touch more ... alien than the others, rather than merely eccentric. The moment on the roof, when Eleven calls the bad guys back to give them the "this world is defended" speech also provided a great callback that not only referenced Ten, but touched on the lineage of all the Doctors. (There's a lot of Tom Baker's Four in Eleven, I think -- the buildup of the eccentricity, maybe.) And Amy Pond hits the ground running too. It took me a bit to warm up to Rose (maybe because I saw her second episode before her first, and she seemed to spend too much of that waiting for the Doctor to save her and merely reacting), but having Amy be a person of action from the start when we first meet her solved that.

I'm going to throw this out there (though I may be speaking to myself, and of course lots of people have already seen the conclusion to this week's episode so know this) -- it was implied in Ten's final episode that the weeping angels were somehow related to the Time Lords, even banished Time Lords. And that one of them was connected to the Doctor -- with guesses that she was his mother, his granddaughter Susan or possibly Romana. And River Song said that the voice was intentionally getting the Doctor angry. As we've seen before, an angry Doctor is a dangerous Doctor. So was that Weeping Angel with some connection trying to communicate with the Doctor and give him a chance? I'll be interested to see.

it was implied in Ten's final episode that the weeping angels were somehow related to the Time Lords, even banished Time Lords. It was? I should rewatch EOT (except I mostly hated it). I don't remember that. I didn't think a two parter about the angels would work because I think the reason Blink was so good was because it was all about the mystery and figuring out what the angels were. But, this first part was very well done. I'm not sure why the voice (creepy voice too) is trying to make the Doctor angry, but I agree that I'm interested to find out.

Ah, I kind of remember that. That's a very interesting connection.

Interesting article on The Time of Angels on io9. They brought up so many things that I missed! The article is spoiler free.

I loved Father Octavian. "I think you've seen me at my best" is a great line. And that article does raise a lot of interesting questions. I'd forgotten about the duck pond with no ducks. I wonder how much of this Steven Moffat had figured out from the start (I suspect he's had a far bigger plan all along that we first suspected in the first episodes) while past seasons felt like they were just being thrown together at the last minute.

I especially liked that part about the Doctor immediately coming back to speak to Amy and wearing his jacket. It seemed rather odd and off at the time. Him coming back so abruptly. If he was the Doctor coming back from the future, that would have made so much sense.

The first Doctor Who Adventure Game has been released!

Oh dear, I think I loved Vincent and The Doctor (and Amy -- and Heee! that in the TARDIS version of translations he ends up with a Scottish accent ... or is that Dutch, Amy?) Just giving The Doctor the chance to do what I'm sure so many of us have wanted to do when thinking of historical characters -- wanting to show them the true impact they had -- even if that didn't change the truth of Vincent's very real issues. But The Doctor is right: Adding to the happiness quotient in anyone's life is a good thing. Also, for what it's worth, I was in Arles a few years back, and the sets were a pretty good recreation from what I recall. (Though the lanes were narrower, but that may be because of changes on the ground.) His painting of the cafe terrace at night? (Recreated for the scene when they first met Vincent.) The building just to the right side of that frame is a hotel. My room looked down on the terrace. It was a mind bender being in the place of that painting for real. Of course that cafe is one of the few spots that it the same as when Vincent was there. And they charge through the nose for a drink there because of that connection.

I loved Vincent and The Doctor. It was such a lovely, sad episode.

Matt Smith plays synthesizer with Orbital on the Doctor Who theme at Glastonbury. Y'know, it's nice to see someone enjoying his life.

First, this is the second time I've seen Matt in that pea coat, and I hope he never takes it off. It looks so amazing on him. "Pea coats are cool," as the Doctor would say. Second, it's great to see Matt really embracing the fan!geek side of Doctor Who. One of the reasons I think that David Tennant was so beloved as the Doctor was because he's a fanboy, too. He knew (and probably still knows) the show backwards and forwards, and it was easy to get excited about a story because he was genuinely very excited about it as well. So, it's fun to see Matt, who, like me, is a part of that "lost generation" that never grew up with a Doctor, going full-on geek for Doctor Who.

Love "The Lodger." Filled with humor, the issues about how hard it is to move on from a comfortable spot, the dangers of not moving on, etc. And it's becoming clearer to me how much I enjoy Matt Smith's take on the Doctor, along with Moffat, of course. He certainly references the former Doctors (and interesting that Moffat has chosen to show the former Doctors at least three times -- in the opener, in Vincent and here -- rather than just referencing them) and at the same time, he feels far more alien than just quirky. He really is "weird," but at the same time has the enthusiasm for humanity and earth and life in general that I love about all the Doctors. Four had a lot of that weirdness about him, which I loved, and which Matt Smith seems to echo quite well. While I liked Tennant's Doctor well enough, his and RTD's take was much more quirky human rather than an alien who happens to look human. (And while some in Who fandom may want to take me to task for this, Tennant's acting tics were getting annoying to me by the end, and that seems for more obvious in retrospect now. Forgive me for this, Tennant devotees, but his style annoys me so much in the version of Hamlet that aired recently, that I can't watch it, and I hadn't realized how much of that was Tennant v. Doctor until then. He has a very *big* style, I think, which just isn't my cuppa. Not that I didn't enjoy his Who, since I think that style matched what their take on the character was. Just that I prefer weird to quirky, I guess.)