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I tried to get into Doctor Who when the revival started, and couldn't. Something about Christopher Eccleston's weird, manic energy turned me off, and Rose was just kind of... there.
I gave it another shot at the behest of my current girlfriend, and liked it better with someone beside me to kind of guide me into it. She started me on another Eccleston episode involving WWII, Captain Jack, and creepy gas-mask-alien-ghost-things, which I found quite good although I could still take or leave Eccleston and Rose. Then she skipped me to the two-part season finale Eccleston farewell party, which I understood none of, but she assured me was required viewing to proceed into the Tennant years.
I liked Tennant much better; somehow he seems a better fit for the show's goofy mix of camp and gravitas. Rose grew on me after a while, but I wasn't sorry when she left either. The character I was most surprised to find myself starting to like was Mickey. He started off so annoying, constantly vying for Rose's attention and just generally being the Xander of the group. I mean, seriously, dude. She's just not into you, and she's not pretending otherwise. Get over it. Imagine my surprise when he actually did, and became a better character for it.
Martha Jones is probably my favorite companion so far, followed by Donna. Unfortunately Martha seemed to kind of get short shrift from the writers. Everyone else gets to absorb the Deus Ex Machina Vortex and blow up Daleks with their mind or fuck a cloned Gallifreyan hand and become a super genius or something, and she just... kind of hangs around for a while, and then leaves. Oh well.
I thought Donna was only so-so at first; her "sass" (for lack of a better term) could be off-putting at times, but she never moped about either, which is more than I can say for a lot of the other companions. It's not until you see rather a lot of her and start to read between the lines that you see this core of sadness and real toughness beneath her brash exterior.
She's a woman in a quietly depressing situation. She clearly wants a man, and has reached a point in her life where the prospects for finding one aren't that great, but she doesn't let that make her desperate or lower her standards. She's still living with her mom at thirty-whatever, stuck in a series of shitty jobs with long gaps between them, clearly capable of doing more but with little opportunity to actually do so. As for her mom, she clearly loves her, but she also constantly puts her down in that way that only a parent can.
A lot of people in that situation would just quietly die inside and drift through the rest of their lives, but not Donna. Even if nobody seems to have much use for her, she'll squeeze as much joy and as much FUN out of life as she can. She'll be loud, and she'll be obnoxious, and she'll MAKE people notice her and not give a shit if they don't care for what they see. I respect that. It's tragic what happens to her, but it's not a bad ending either, because whether she's in a secretarial pool in Nowhere, England or on an alien planet or a thousand years in the past, she's still HER and nothing changes that. That's pretty cool.
I'm a little ways into the Matt Smith era now, and I'm not sure how I feel about him. He's all right, I guess, but his character is just a little too self-consciously nerd-chic and eccentric in a practiced "oh look at me aren't I just so quirky" way for me to instantly glom onto him the way I did with Tennant. Speaking of whom, his final moments as Doctor were kind of shit. Felt totally out of character, pissing and whining about the lousy hand life had dealt him and whimpering at the knock of inevitability at the door instead of facing his fate like a man. What a lousy sendoff for such a cool character.
I'm really hoping that they do something more with Amy Pond, and soon, because as of right now I kind of hate her. Her actress is hot, and I get the impression she could probably be likable if she were playing a different kind of character, but the way she's written I just want to slap some sense into her stupid solipsistic face.
I just don't understand how the audience is expected to sympathize with her. Ooh, her feet got a widdle cold the night before her wedding, so she ran away instead of facing the situation she'd put herself in and threw herself at another man. And then when she's rebuffed, and her fiancee discovers her attempted infidelity, does she, A.) recognize this as a warning sign that maybe she's not made for matrimony with this particular man and break it off? Or, B.) regret her impulsive decision, re-commit to her fiancee, and give him an honest and heartfelt apology?
No, she prances back to him and expects him to act as if nothing ever happened; expects him to be GRATEFUL, actually, that she's deigned to give him a crack at the Doctor's table scraps, all while keeping him at arm's length and never displaying any actual attraction or affection for him. He must be the only man in the world who can marry a woman and still be in the Friend Zone.
(Oh, sure, she "chose" him in that one episode with the two parallel worlds... because he's dying, which to her drama-queen brain makes him the most interesting man in the room. How long does that last when he's not dying any more and the drama dries up?)
So yeah, really hoping the writers either pull a last-minute saving throw to redeem her character or else drop her out the nearest airlock.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Oh yeah, I also went back and watched a little Fourth Doctor stuff at one point. I was home sick from work that day so I kind of drifted in and out, but I remember that it was cool seeing a Doctor that wasn't always the smartest guy in the room, who could be put out of sorts or caught off-guard, who wasn't this big legendary Oncoming Storm that conquered the Whiznaks of Zoozlesnooze and punched Bigfoot in the nuts or whatever. Just a guy in a scarf trying to deal with a bunch of stuffed shirts and weirdos and Refusing the Call whenever he thinks he can get away with it. Makes for a more interesting dynamic than the modern Doctors.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
I have seen every episode of Doctor Who that is still in existence at some point or another, and I think your analysis of Tom Baker's doctor is spot on, @Ben. He really was a hero rather than a superhero, and a clever man rather than a genius. Judged in the whole of the range of Doctor Who figures, he was the most human and the one the audience could most identify with. Doctors One (William Hartnell) and Two (Peter Troughton) were intentionally strange and alien. Doctors Three (Jon Pertwee) and Five (Peter Davidson) tried to be too hip for their respective eras, they were too cool to be human. Doctor six was a hollow imitation of four (heck, Colin Baker was Tom Baker's nephew - they hired him in part for the resemblance), Doctor Seven (Sylvester McCoy) was grim, angry, and just generally wrapped up in a ball of early 90s angst, he really prefigured Smith's doctor. And the Eighth - dealing with American gangsta' drive-bys, CIA agents, etc., ugh.
All men are great men, most fail to see the greatness in themselves.
Power, Passion, Principle and Purpose: The Wild Man Project
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"Keep practicing the behaviors you want to reinforce. You will gradually change the wiring in your brain." - Serenity
"The universe doesn't give you what you ask for with your thoughts; it gives you what you demand with your actions." - Steve Maraboli (via Rapunzel)
"Choose to enjoy the shit that makes up your life." - AlphaBelle
The writing sucks.
SPOILERS:
The circle of people surrounding that one robot to kill it by bouncing the laser around at JUST THE RIGHT ANGLES - stupid and unnecessary
The sheriff letting the Doctor just walk away (surrounded by robots!) after Robin and Clara jump out the window. Then, not even 5 minutes later, says the line "why won't he die??" - terrible
Shooting the fucking gold arrow - Are you fucking kidding me?
Also, I didn't think "Into the Dalek" was much to write home about either.
Primer it is not.
Perhaps it's the contrast of super-serious, grumpy Doctor put in the ridiculous plot that bothered me. It just didn't seem to fit for me, whereas perhaps it wouldn't have it it had been Tennant or Smith's Doctors.
But I still think the arrow would be stupid with any of them.