{"id":137581,"date":"2019-01-02T23:34:29","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T06:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/02\/the-doctor-who-new-years-special.html"},"modified":"2019-01-02T23:34:29","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T06:34:29","slug":"the-doctor-who-new-years-special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/01\/02\/the-doctor-who-new-years-special.html","title":{"rendered":"The Doctor Who New Year's Special"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will try to avoid spoilers.<\/p>\n

This end of the year episode (and the only DW fix we're going to get in 2019, alas) is emblematic of everything that worked and didn't work in the current series of the Doctor.<\/p>\n

I love Thirteen. Jodie Whittaker is wonderful, and this outing is no different. I like her Companions<\/del> "fam," too.<\/p>\n

The stories, though, are, um, well they have lots of interesting ideas but some sloppy-as-hell plotting, full of hand-waving and magical thinking and doing stuff just because it will be cool to do. This has always been true to Doctor Who<\/i> to a degree, but has trended upward the last few years to the point where this season is truly much<\/i> more science fantasy than science fiction.<\/p>\n

The episode also featured some interesting Companion character development stuff, which, unfortunately, felt way too divorced from the main action (and, at times, part of the plot sloppiness) to be as effective as I wanted, especially with the too-blatant Chekhov's Gun on the Mantelpiece. <\/p>\n

I can't talk much about the antagonist in this episode without spoilers (though it's nigh-impossible to avoid spoilage about that on social media), except to say that it does break the to-date mold against harkening back to earlier series — that will make some of the audience happy, though I suspect some will in turn be unhappy about how<\/i> the episode does it. I thought it felt relatively fresh in many ways, even as it invoked some Ninth Doctor in my head.<\/p>\n

I doubt the New Years Special will gain or lose the show any fans. I'm peeved we won't have any other Doctor Who until 2020. I will have to just look forward to its return.<\/p>\n

#doctorwho<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/a>\u00a0\n<\/div>\n

Original Post<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will try to avoid spoilers. This end of the year episode (and the only DW fix we're going to get in 2019, alas) is emblematic of everything that worked and didn't work in the current series of the Doctor. I love Thirteen. Jodie Whittaker is wonderful, and this outing is no different. I like … Continue reading “The Doctor Who New Year's Special”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[152],"class_list":["post-137581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plusposts","tag-doctorwho"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/doctor-who-resolution-ending-explained-review5B15D.jpgimgmax=660.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17226,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/04\/26\/doctor-who-the-beast-below.html","url_meta":{"origin":137581,"position":0},"title":"Doctor Who: “The Beast Below”","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 26-Apr-10 8:59pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Please don't hate me ... but I didn't love this episode. Spoilers below ... Okay, so this wasn't a bad episode.\u00a0 It even had a lot of elements to recommend it. That is, perhaps, why realizing that the sum of the parts was greater than the whole is such a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9889,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/15\/tv_reviews_doctor_who_and.html","url_meta":{"origin":137581,"position":1},"title":"TV Reviews: Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 15-Oct-06 5:44pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Doctor Who's Series 2 continues to improve by leaps and bounds. \"School Reunion,\" the most recent episode, is a classic, in a couple of ways. First off, there's the...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9990,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/01\/tenth_doctor_second_serie.html","url_meta":{"origin":137581,"position":2},"title":"Tenth Doctor, Second Series, First Impressions","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Oct-06 8:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"Watched Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion and the \"New Earth\" episode of Doctor Who on the DVR last night. Okay, so David Tennant isn't bad. He hasn't established a...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17281,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/04\/unblogged-bits-tue-4-may-10-2000.html","url_meta":{"origin":137581,"position":3},"title":"Unblogged Bits (Tue. 4-May-10 2000)","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-May-10 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Jim Hill : \"The Art of How to Train Your Dragon\" reveals the film that DreamWorks Animation almost made - Fascinating look at the creative changes that went into the movie (which is excellent).\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Animation \/ Cartoons"","block_context":{"text":"Animation \/ Cartoons","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-cartoons"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27023,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/09\/so-maybe-the-question-is-who-should-we-watch-next.html","url_meta":{"origin":137581,"position":4},"title":"So maybe the question is WHO should we watch next","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Mar-12 11:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I posited a few days ago the question of what we should watch with the Girl after we run out of \"Star Trek\" (TOS) episodes (which we slowed down on dramatically this week because it was standardized testing week for Kay and I wanted to reduce the stress in her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11270,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/10\/07\/doctor_who_the_last_time.html","url_meta":{"origin":137581,"position":5},"title":"Doctor Who: “The Last Time Lord”","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 7-Oct-07 10:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Series 3 Finale!\u00a0 Final Wrap of the Big Story Line and Resolution of Lots of Dangling Arcs (Martha, Jack) and Stuff Like That!\u00a0 And ... ... and ... .......","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}