Doctor Who: On Series Five (because adjectives are subjective)

[beccatoria]

The thing is, it's never the viewer's job to make the telly okay. Sometimes, though, I wonder how much of what we see depends more on us than what's on the screen. Subjectively, much of the criticism of this season confuses me. Subjectively, I have no idea where half of it comes from.

So this chick is driving her boy's car but she's such a shitty driver, she can't help but crash into THE WHOLE UNIVERSE and the boy ends up having to write such a big cheque to fix the situation, he's probably not even gonna exist after it clears.

So this boy, he loves this chick so much, he lets her drive his car, and he never lets anyone drive his car, but this chick, he trusts. So when some jerk carjacks her because he wants some payback on the boy, and crashes his ride into THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, the boy is pretty much willing to write whatever cheque he has to to make things right again; it's the whole universe, after all. And it was his car.

Which story do you like better?

So there's this girl, and she bites psychiatrists. She runs away on the night of her wedding, all legs and lips and short skirts, inappropriately kissing men who aren't interested like some kind of drunken harlot. She gets her boyfriend killed, and when he comes back made of plastic, it's about five minutes before she's yelling at him and trying to kiss strangers at their wedding. But at least someone managed to marry her, so that's something.

So there's this girl, and she bites psychiatrists. She runs away on the night of her wedding, abandoned kid in a grown-up's body. There are too many rooms in her house, so she runs. Too much of her life has been stolen, she's made of gaps, she can't communicate and it takes her boy dying in her arms, and her dying in his before she works it out. It's a wedding, and it's growing up, and it's not the end.

Which story do you like better?

So this roman soldier remembers he used to be a wimp who let his bitchy girlfriend push him around. And he didn't let her wear her ring and figured eventually she'd snap back to reality and realise he's been waiting and deserved her. Instead he died, came back as a roman, waited and deserved her. Shame she was still a bitch.

So there's a roman soldier, and he's not really a real boy. He's the shell of a boy who loved a girl and died for her because he never understood there was more to life than a village. A shell of a boy who tried to wish himself real and failed. A thing-boy who held onto the shell of a memory (from a universe that died in 102 AD) for 2,000 years, because he knew his plastic heart was full of love. It's a wedding, and it's growing up, and it's learning there is more to life than a village, and it's not the end.

Which story do you like better?

There's a mad man in a box. He's frivolous and annoying and has no understanding of the weight of his decisions. He's paternalistic and controlling. He's childish. He's unemotional. He's a collection of disassociated character tics. He's ugly, he's boring, he's got a bow tie.

There's a mad man in a box. He's brand new and ancient. He's quiet, stoic, understated, noble. He's silly, he's childlike, he's easy to read. He's finally more than a collection of disassociated character tics. He's gorgeous, he's intriguing, he's got a bow tie.

Who do you like best? Which man is in which story?

Because this story - it's arbitrary - a series of coincidences masquerading as a fairytale hanging on a half dozen repeated themes because writers only ever tell one story. The out of order, years-apart meetings, repeated voices of the dead, girls who love the Doctor and girls the Doctor loves, time loops, paradoxes, River Song. Throw it all on a board and play pin the plot on the donkey, if we throw enough symbolism out there we can pass it off as myth.

There's a story. It's cyclical and unending. It's about a boy and a girl and a boy and a girl, about magic boxes and magic books, about running away and running back. It's about burning at the centre of time, about creation and destruction in the same instant, about death, about sacrifice, about bedtime stories (the most important things left in the universe). It's about legs and lips and it's all right, we can buy a fez. It's about joy and of course Amy wants to kiss them all, it's a fairytale and no one ought to be a frog. It's about a dozen repeated themes because writers only ever tell one story, but this is a good one. This is the best.

I know which story I like better.

Subjectively:

One of my favourite exercises in writing is to remove all the adjectives and see what's left. The near lack of them is one of the things that renders translated haiku so beautiful to me.

Smith's Doctor has no adjectives.

Tennant's had nothing but.

Comments

[sabaceanbabe.livejournal.com]

This post right here? Is why I stay the frak away from Who fandom. I learned that just in skimming the edges of the edges back when it was Nine and Rose Tyler.

I liked Nine. I liked Rose. I watched all the eps, but never felt them.

Ten? I met him. I thought maybe I could like him, and I did like him some of the time, and I loved what I saw of Martha Jones. But I never did really like Ten all that well, and I still haven't seen all of his series.

And then came Eleven and Amy Pond. And I heard many varied opinions on both, but what I heard the most clearly, because it came from those I trust, was the awesome. And the wonder. And the River. And so I checked out this new series and I fell in love.

Me? I like the second of all those options best, but that's mostly because I don't think whatever show those people with the first options even exists. It's certainly not the one I saw.

Edited to use a more appropriate icon, because now I HAVE some appropriate ones. :D

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

ICONS! I need one of Amy and the Doctor, but currently all my icons revolve around River or crazy old quotes from the Sylvester McCoy era! ;)

I'm wary of warding off the entirety of Whodom with a single post because it's so enormous I'm sure there are good bits to it, but...I have to admit that skirting the edges has left me...unsettled. I loved Harry Potter too, but had a similar reaction to that fandom.

I liked Nine. I liked Rose. I watched all the eps, but never felt them.

That's an interesting way of putting it. I think I agree. I watched them all too, and I liked them both, and perhaps, as characters, at the start, really did love them. It was a feeling that crystalised once or twice during the series - at odd moments, like at the end of the episode about the end of the world, or, unsurprisingly, in the Moffat episodes. But it never came together. It was never coherent enough. It was fun, but it wasn't amazing. It made me smile, or feel sad, but it never really got beyond popcorn emotion. Which, you know, was fine and I still enjoyed it, until Tennant's doctor came along and...like you, I never really liked him. It's a shame - David Tennant is a good actor, but this was...not a show I enjoyed. I've probably seen more than you, because I have seen most of his episodes by now, but I missed a LOT of them on first airing and don't regret that, or the ones I still haven't seen.

I'm so glad you love this New New Who, though. Like you, I think it's just...marvelous. The wonder is a good issue to raise. Makes me think of Farscape, just a little.

but that's mostly because I don't think whatever show those people with the first options even exists. It's certainly not the one I saw.

Yeah, and that's the thing - I agree. I can't see it either. And I've been trying, because so many seem to. So...again...subjectively, carefully, but truthfully, my opinion is that the first story isn't even a representation of what was on screen. I wish the line between interpreting what's on screen via one's personality and experience and preferences, and warping what's on screen because of personal baggage were clearer.

Cus sometimes you can point to a person, like, say, I'm comfortable pointing to Jacob and saying, this is a clear example of you just making shit up,dude. It gets uncomfortable and frustrating when instead of a person you're up against a nebulous mass of fandom opinion that is varied and...too easily stereotyped. But...it's still how I feel and that's why this post probably needs to be clearer but isn't.

I guess I'm just hyper aware that this is a divide I've been on the other side of extremely recently. BSG being the obvious elephant in the room but also Doctor Who itself, since during the RTD era I was the one complaining about the offensive nature of the thing and others were telling me I was just watching it wrong.

IT'S SO HARD!

At least I have likeminded friends. <3

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

I certainly know what story I liked better.

But I do think the subjectivity factor, the ability of me the viewer to make TV make sense, is why I loved Battlestar Galactica in the face of 90% of my f-list HATING IT BEYOND MEASURE.

I also think you are right about Eleven having no adjectives.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

See, BSG is the obvious elephant in the room, but I think it's also worth noting RTD's era of Who as another instance when I (and you, I believe, share my hatred of the Tenth Doctor) were on the other side of the divide.

Ultimately, the line for me is whether I feel I'm being forced to fix the telly via alternate readings (as I did at the end of BSG or during most of Tennant's run), or whether I don't notice if that's what I'm doing, and if I do notice, how far and for how long and to what degree I'm willing to expend that effort. The inability of the universe to provide me with a clear and obvious line regarding where that is, is a point of endless frustration.

So, without attempting to quantify it, I will say another broad area that I was...circling with this very vague post, is about how the show itself changes. I think the reason that I, and 90% your flist, felt the final season of BSG changed and started focusing on different things, themes and ideas, and to see the original things required increasing interpretational effort. Similarly, I imagine, for those who liked RTD's Who, this new era represents their show braking hard left.

I could argue that Who has been on TV for so long, indeed the central regeneration method of its continued existence implies, that such changes are central to it and should be expected; I'm sure you could argue that BSG never changed right up until the end. Neither would really be the point - the point is more perceptual - did our show change direction without us and without our consent? How do we respond to that? If we respond poorly, can we back up our opinions with objective arguments or are we consigned forever to subjectivity?

I absolutely have no answer to that, which is something I find frustrating. I guess what this post is really saying is, I don't think the first stories are even on the screen; I don't even think they're viable, rational readings that viewers ought to choose against. I just don't think they're even there.

I believe this fairly strongly, the same way I believe, fairly strongly, that BSG 4.5 was a failure, that Tennant's Doctor was a jerk, that Batman isn't a very admirable person, that Farscape S4 really wasn't that bad, and that Luke Skywalker should have died when he was 43.

I believe that I have rational, solid, objective arguments for these opinions.

I keep looking for the unifying theory of I'm Right to back up why I feel one text is worthy of generosity and trust while another has squandered that right. About how story one says more about the viewer and story two says more about the text.

But I haven't found it. At times, this morass of subjectivity, this freedom to choose your own adventure is comforting. At times, I find it anything but.

I think, in the end, this post is about my own confusion as much as anything. *waves hands vaguely*

But yes, Eleven has absolutely no adjectives. ;)

[emmiere.livejournal.com]

I am not done, but I'm gonna go ahead and pick my subjective story via icon. :)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I APPROVE WHOLEHEARTEDLY! (And hope you let me know what you think when you do get done!)

[chaila.livejournal.com]

IIIIIIIIIIIICON. WELCOME! :DDDD

[nicole-anell.livejournal.com]

So hey. I found out this week that James Callis could've been Eleven, and I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO PROCESS THAT INFORMATION especially in light of fandom.

[/one-track mind]

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

*laughs rather hard*

I was pulling for, uh, I can't spell his name, but the dude from "Serenity" and "Kinky Boots". But now I can't imagine anyone but Matt Smith.

ETA: Is your icon Drop Dead Fred?

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

AHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAA. That's awesome. I actually think Callis could be quite a good Doctor, but...not for Number Eleven as he's so far been cast. He's be more of a...Second Doctor kind of guy. Or perhaps a good version of the Sixth (poor Colin Baker, it wasn't entirely his fault, he got some epically awful scripts).

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

:)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

:D? :D!

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Smith's Doctor has no adjectives.

Tennant's had nothing but.

I don't even know where to go with this except that I kinda love this a lot!

As for your two stories...I actually do think that we make our own reactions, i.e., while there are certain things we can't think/write/talk away, we can always get the second version in our reading. And I saw that second version and I liked it@!

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I'm glad you like it.

Regarding the two stories, I'm...probably circling a lot more confusion in this post than is immediately evident, mainly because I've been on the other side - the side where I can't get the second reading, and I don't think the second reading is even there to be gotten without massive excuses for things that oughtn't be excused, so often recently, I now feel odd flipping back onto the side that's effectively yelling, "But you're interrogating this kitten from the wrong perspective!"

The line between a redemptive reading and an excuse is horribly blurry and perhaps even exactly the same thing sometimes.

In this instance, I'm left unconvinced the first reading is even particularly viable without large amounts of mental gymnastics, but also left with the knowledge, there is nothing tangible, provable, objective on which I can hang my certainty.

Oh telly, why aren't you more like science... ;)

And I'm very, very glad you saw the second version too.

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

<3

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

<333 :)

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

There is such a gulf between RTDs writing and Moffats writing. Or at least their very creative concepts as to what the Doctor should be, and how to tell a story.

Which is odd, because the first couple of seasons of RTD, he was much more Moffat-esque, before rushing off into hyperbole arm-waving and shouting territory, and turning the Doctor into sparkly house-elf Jesus.

It still genuinely astonishes me to hear people in Who fandom reminisce over how much they miss RTDs doctor. Because as much as I love Tennant, he was absolutely wasted in the last couple of seasons of Who.

I suspect fandoms reaction is just one of... having been spoonfed easy stories and simple writing for a couple of years, suddenly they had to process something a bit more complicated. And that's difficult sometimes. So hopefully, next season, unless moffat is ordered to dumb the show down again, people will have adjusted better to it.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

SPARKLY. HOUSE ELF. JESUS. Seriously, I do not think there is a single image which better sums up everything wrong with that era of Who.

I think fandom's reaction is perhaps less of having become used to being spoonfed easy stories and more down to fandom having slowly, of a four-year period of filtration, been whittled down to just people who - for whatever reasons they have that are unintelligable to me - genuinely enjoyed RTD's simplistic, coincidental, melodramatic, deus-ex-machinas. So now for them, this is a genuine change, this is genuinely not what they signed up for. Hopefully, if it's not told get dumbed down (which I sort of doubt? I mean, despite Murdoch's media panicking over it, it doesn't appear the ratings have actually dropped when you consider the increase in iPlayer usage over the last two years - and it's been two since the last series, and the fact it was up against the world cup in a changing timeslot during the hottest month we'd had in years?), that hopefully the show will just attract more people to whom it will appeal and those who don't like it will move on?

ROLL ON SEASON 6.

[chaila.livejournal.com]

Pretty much! As you know, I lack a lot of context but have at this point seen most of season 5, a moderately fair amount of season 4, and have read more in the fandom than I ever intended. And even with having seen less than 10 episodes, Ten immediately seemed to me to be nothing but adjectives, and adjectives that were usually about him, dramatics about how everything affected *him* so we would know how epic and important it was. Your point that we bring our own. . . everything to fiction is, I think, a really important one, and yet I am also mindful of feeling like I was being told that I was just looking at the wrong things when I still hated the BSG finale months later. But what has struck me about the criticism of season 5 and the Who fandom is that for these negative stories, I literally *can't see* where half of them come from, especially (shockingly) when it comes to River and Amy. Where it feels like people are adding their own adjectives based on stereotypes or the *idea* of the character (short skirt = prostitute, woman who knows more = smug, etttttc.), instead of the actual more nuanced character I saw. It can be a really fine line between calling out sexism (or racism or any other ism) in a canon and using your own sexism etc. to render a sexist reading that wasn't there. There's always the maxim that intention doesn't matter, but sometimes, I think, in storytelling, it does. Anyway, sorry to always make it about sexism in Who fandom, but that has been the thing that's struck me most in my unwise forays into the wider fandom.

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

So you are watching more than just the River eps. A good idea, or not? I haven't decided what I plan to do. I seem to be mostly watching Leverage these days, instead, but I'll catch up with that soon enough.

I still feel very wary of this show and fandom at large--and (I was going to comment separately on the post, but I think I'll just be lazy and put it all here) everything in this post pretty much reinforces that. Because obviously I know which story I see and prefer, and I feel like remaining in blissful ignorance about the people who see the other one might be the best way to go on this one.

I do feel like there are Important Points to be made about perception somewhere along the way, but I'm not sure I've got the mental capacity for that at the moment. I am reminded of something I tell my students: you can interpret a text however you want to, but in an essay, you have to give me lots of good evidence for your interpretation. That is, you have to convince me, by showing me examples that support your interpretation and by not ignoring important pieces of evidence that might undermine it. With the end of BSG, I could mostly see the evidence that the people who saw it differently than I did were using. Not my interpretation, and occasionally an interpretation that I found personally offensive, but I could see where they were coming from. Whereas to arrive at most of the first interpretations above, there is a lack of textual evidence and/or the ignoring of key pieces of refuting textual evidence. It's the difference between a bad reading and a good reading (viewing? I default to lit terms, obviously). There may be good readings that I disagree with, and there may be bad readings that I want to believe in, but wanting to agree with a particular interpretation (or not) does not actually impinge on how well the interpretation accounts for the evidence.

(Which is not to say that "evidence" in fiction is somehow objective--perception comes in there, as well. But there is an element of good faith and approaching something with an open mind that seems to be absent here.)

Anyway, I will stop being all English professor now, especially since my brain is totally checked out this morning.

[asimaiyat.livejournal.com]

Flailing my hands around inarticulately because I am FILLED WITH FANNISH JOY over this post.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Aww, shucks, thanks. :) Glad you enjoyed it!

[scarfman]

Followed the link from lyssie.

Smith's Doctor has no adjectives.

Tennant's had nothing but.

I particularly like this because I saw it complained on doctorwho around June that someone hadn't been able to pigeonhole Smith's Doctor yet.

As for BSG, I liked the ending if for no other reason than that it means humanity isn't descended from the B Ark after all.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Hello! :) I'm glad you enjoyed reading. I've seen people complaining that Smith's Doctor is hard to get a hold on too. I'm not sure why, because I love him and don't have any such trouble, but I can only guess it's perhaps because he doesn't have a recognisable stereotype? And subtlety is mistaken for blandness?

We'll have to agree to differ on BSG though, I really didn't like it - I thought it went thematically against a lot of the ideas that had been building up across the series. Plus I wanted humanity to be descended from humans and robots! Instead it looks like we're descended from humans, cavemen and one robot. ALAS. ;)

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

you are such a beautiful writer...

I haven't encountered any of the first-story people, and I'm happy to keep it that way. but we're a fair bit of the way into the season now (original earthlings dwelling deep underground), and I must say I'm less impressed with the writing overall than with, say, season 3's arc. River is really the high point. but Eleven, Amy, and even Rory are so much more appealing than previous iterations. Moffet just has a more subtle hand with character, I think. and Matt Smith is WIN.

anyway, your struggles over reading(s) of this show are very thought provoking.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thank you. *is vaguely british*

As to the season, it's interesting that you say that - I'm not entirely qualified to judge since s3 is the season I've seen least of and when I really stopped giving the show the benefit of the doubt. However, while I agree that River is the high point of the entire thing, I'm definitely going to be interested in what you think after having seen the whole season. Mainly because it's a pattern I've noticed in myself and several others that it's near the end of the season - after the finale - that...suddenly it explodes and is awesome. I'm not saying it'll necessarily happen that way, but certainly I felt the start was promising but not mindblowing (except the River bits), the middle slumped (the lizard people eps are, to my mind, the low point of the season right after two average episodes) and I was less interested, and then the end was just...difficult to describe but made everything retrospectively more fascinating.

So I'll definitely be interested to know what your thoughts are after that. It's almost like a lot of the subtler things that Moffat was seeding throughout the series come to fruition and I have a deeper appreciation of its structure. Even though River Song will always be one of the key reasons why the season works, the season itself appears to acknowledge this in its finale, (though I could just be batshit about her!).

So it's a bit odd. It's not like I suddenly think the more boring episodes are better or anything so much as...emphases shift it had a rather weird and interesting reaction in my brain.

I've certainly seen a lot of assumption that Moffat is simply good at plot and bad at character rather than subtle and I think that's where a lot of these story one ideas come from - this assumption that Moffat isn't thinking, or isn't skilled. It's an easy negative reading to bring if you're already resentful that the show changed.

Anyway, um, in conclusion, the season can't suck because it has River Fucking Song thus all other arguments are invalid? And keep me updated on your viewing!

[mtgat]

This. I have run into a lot of people who are watching the first story, and I am gobsmacked every single time. I cannot imagine not loving Amy or River or Rory or Eleven. I mean, I'm used to the "Your Friends Are Not Watching the Same Show" concept, but come on. This is a fairy tale where the princess got everything she wanted on her own terms. Sign me up for season six.

Thank you for the thoughts and the metaphors and the essay to point to the next time someone argues why this season sucked.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I feel the same way - I understand that there's room for interpretation, but I flat out don't understand how the first story jumps into people's minds. Though in a weird way I'm kind of glad that you have also met people watching the first story, because my flist is fairly insulated from wider Who fandom so lots of people here are "Bzuh?" (I ENVY THEM!) and also I think it's more of an off-LJ thing? So it's kind of nice to know that other people have noticed the same thing.

[tellitslant]

I, um, the first example... there are people saying that? I mean, I shouldn't be shocked (after fandom had its "Alex Kingston is TOO OLLLLLD to wear tight trousers" moment, I should be unshockable), but, GODDAMN, FANDOM.

I do think your comment that the most unimpressed, shall we say, segments of fandom are those that loved the previous incarnation, and are not only dealing with the difference (though really, this is not the show for those who can't handle change) but are trying to read the show the same way. RTD, love him or hate him, was a very surface writer. If those fans read the surface of this series without delving deeper, some (not much, but some) of their... assumptions... take on a little more basis. But really, given that the general attitude has tended to be "If you don't see the sexism/other ism, you're not looking deep enough," there's just no excuse.

I love your line about adjectives and the lack thereof, too. It's really evident when you think about some of the dialogue: Ten was always "blah blah I am The Oncoming Storm and The Lonely God (was that Ten?) and The Epic Capslock," whereas Eleven, right from the beginning, is just, "By the way, did you know I'm the Doctor?" And that's enough.

Everyone else said it first and better, but I had to chime in and say YES. And also, I am friending you, as I meant to like two weeks ago and didn't. FYI. :)

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I am also especially partial to the assumption that they'll need to RECAST HER if we ever see their first meeting, because obviously there needs to be a younger, hotter version. OH FANDOM. But yeah, people are saying the first thing. It's actually something I've seen more off-LJ than on it, although I admit I don't travel widely in LJ-based Who circles. But, I would recommend you steer clear of TWoP and Gallifrey Base.

I think you make a really good point about the superficial nature of RTD Who. I think it's also why Moffat comes under fire on race and sexuality issues. I mean, frankly, I think I would appreciate if Moffat threw in a few more references to the existence of gay people and while I will never, ever have anything but love for Liz X and wish Nasreen had been in a better two-parter, I can't say this season has been at the forefront of the diversity army or anything. But it frustrates me no end to see people talking about how oppressive Moffat's Who is as compared to Davies' because he was about equality and representation in only the MOST superficial of ways. Like, if you want to make it a numbers game, he probably wins, but when you look at what he did with those character, it gets icky very fast. And Not Having As Many Oppressed Groups (of whatever sort) certainly isn't the answer either (Mammoth!Fail here we come!) but...it's different, it's not some fresh hell, and RTD Who was...not any kind of success. But a very superficial reading leads many to believe it was.

(See also my rage re: the idea that the Doctor is an exploration of what it means to be the Other. Because, no, he's not. He's a young, handsome, able-bodied, intelligent, affluent, healthy, white male. Who, on top of all that, gets to be special. You could certainly use the character to explore the issues of the other, since he's an alien. But that nearly never comes up except to give him manpain, and if it did, it would still be worth asking, why have we come up with this giant narrative excuse to make our "Other POV character" everything we privilege in the real world? I think Moffat walks this tightrope far better. In many ways, we are all Other to the Doctor, and while it then has got to be careful not to fall into paternalistic, colonialist narratives, I think that's a different and more interesting take than Rusty's.)

Ten was always "blah blah I am The Oncoming Storm and The Lonely God (was that Ten?) and The Epic Capslock,"

BWHAHAHAHAHA! Awesome, and also yes. And hi! And welcome! :)

[be-themoon.livejournal.com]

You. YOU ARE SO AWESOME. AGAIN.

I think I want to friend you. May I?

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Of course you can friend me. I have a totally guilt-free and open friending/defriending/commenting policy. People can friend, defriend, comment-erratically-without-friending, lurk as they please. If people are here I like to know it's cus they want to be! :) The only thing I'd mention is that I don't always friend back straight away - I hope that's not a problem but understand if it is. I like to keep my flist very small and manageable and unlike many others, it doesn't serve as an allpurpose reading list for me - I do a lot of manual surfing over to others' LJs.

But, um, yes, friend away if you want to! And welcome! And thank you again! (Also, leverage icon yay!)

[sea_thoughts]

Um, well, I like the second story better. BECAUSE THAT'S THE ONE WHICH WAS ON THE SCREEN. *headdesk*

There's been so much misogyny over Amy, it... IDEK.

Also, Eleven is 'controlling'? Excuse me while I die of laughter. I don't see Eleven wiping someone's memory so they can live a pathetic half-life obsessed with popular culture because HE thinks that's better.

Smith's Doctor has no adjectives.

Tennant's had nothing but.

THIS. THIS SO MUCH. I got so tired of the epithets piled on Ten... Eleven is the Doctor. JUST the Doctor.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's definitely how I feel about it. And I don't know where to even begin with Amy and the misogyny. It's just...genuinely shocking and surprising to me, even as someone who knows that even the female-dominated parts of LJ fandom can have quite a lot of gender fail.

I think that there is a controlling side to Eleven at times - for example, while I liked the episode, I was disturbed by his fury at Amy at the end of The Beast Below and threats to take her home. But it's something that has disappeared through the series and I'm even beginning to think was mostly there (much as some of the lines and tone of parts of the Eleventh Hour) to ease the transition from Tennant. And at least Amy was right at the end and the Doctor...didn't apologise but...perhaps recanted.

As no, I can't even see him forcing Donna into that life if Donna told him she'd rather go out in a blaze of glory, though perhaps I'm just biased because I'm so moved by how understated the Eleventh Doctor seems to be.

Like you say, he's just the Doctor, and doesn't need anything else.