All that glitters: in which you don't get to piss on the Author's parade.

There are few things that can alternately make me feel orgasmically ecstatic and slash-my-wrist-lengthwise grumpy as that most magnificent of mythologies, Doctor Who. This post may very well take on the tone of the former rather than the latter, but first we’ll have to do a couple of things.

            First, we are going to have to pretend that The Girl Who Died never happened. We will pretend that we never had to deal with that idiotic central character and stupid villains straight out of Hagar the Horrible.  We could do these things, but I’ve expunged them from my memory. Having done that, I feel better already.

            Now we can concentrate on the fun stuff, which were the four episodes preceding it. Yup, you heard me right: I loved ‘em. There a new season of new Doctor Who out, and I’m loving it. After each one (remember: we’re pretending The Girl Who Died never happened) I got up and danced a jig with a concrete grin. I was twelve years old again, happy and innocent and on-top of the world. Pay no attention to the naysayers of the International Billie Piper Brigade: the season openers of the latest Doctor Who, a double whammy of two parters, were wonderful, marvellous and magical. Not a trace of Russel T. Davies’ idiotic dues ex-Machina or adolescent sexual inuendoes. Never a scintilla of Stephen Moffat’s cleverer-than thou plot manglations. Just Daleks. And Dark Corridors. And cliff-hangers. And a genuine love of the franchise.

            I loved the hand mines. I will always love Davros. I have finally gotten used to Peter Capaldi and realized that I actually love having an older, grouchier Doctor. I loved the spectacle of him riding around in Davros’ chair, which will surely be the defining moment of his Doctorhood. Hell, I even loved Missy – whose snooty Marry Poppins gone bad approach to the Master is much closer to the Roger Delgado/Anthony Ainley ideal than that twerp John Sim ever was.

            It was, in short, classic Doctor Who that my twelve year old self could have enjoyed, without reservation or qualification. Sure there was a little timey-whimey-blimey crap towards the end, but it was easily ignored. For once, I wasn’t wistfully longing for the past, but just enjoying the present, without even having to try.

            It will not last, I know. It never does. Sooner or later the creative team will want to tinker and tamper, and the outcry from the Billie Piper Legion will ensure such episodes as these are never repeated. But for now. . .