we are rarely inside the Doctor's head enough to identify with him in the strict sense rather than enjoy him as the motive force of the story.
In fairness, I should note that part of the reason the Rose approached worked well was because they were starting the series up again. For people like me, who had never watched Classic Who and had only the vaguest acquired-by-osmosis understanding of the story world, it helped a lot to have a clueless lens character (I like that term, thanks) we could follow in making those initial discoveries. Possibly Moffat thinks that got old after a while, and now audiences know enough that the Doctor can be our lens character. While that might be true in a strictly pragmatic sense (I don't really need the TARDIS and all the rest of it explained again), I think it fails in a character sense, because the Doctor is an alien. A thousand-year-old shapechanging alien who frequently pulls the solution to a plot problem out of his ear. He makes a bad lens character because his perspective is not and cannot be mine. I'm reminded of how Jack Sparrow was better as a loose cannon rolling around in the vicinity of some more straightforward characters, rather than the central agent they tried to make him into for the fourth movie; I'm also reminded of Dorothy Dunnett never once giving you Lymond's point of view in The Game of Kings. Certain characters work better when they're slightly off-center.
She's a collection of plot necessities. I am hoping Moffat lets her evolve into a person this season. He seems to be starting.
That's good. I think I even liked her as a collection of plot necessities better than what Amy and Rory turned into by the end of their bit, which was a pair of Doctor groupies who really only seemed to exist to marvel at his coolness.
I put up with all the handwaving for that.
I don't mind handwaving so long as it's entertaining, and is headed somewhere interesting. That sounds like it qualifies.
I don't mean that he needed to embody the same philosophical questions: I mean I'm not sure he had any philosophical questions until his run was nearly over. (If desired, some discussion here in comments to my post about "The Day of the Doctor.")
Ah, gotcha. I will avoid the link for now, because I suspect therein lie spoilers, but I agree with you for the most part. The closest they came to asking any interesting questions with Eleven before that ep was probably the part around Demon's Run, which may be in the stuff you missed; that's the bit that made me realize, whoa, this Doctor is a lot harder and colder than the previous two. Because really, when you get a character saying "the Doctor has a message for you" and then spaceships start exploding in the background, followed by the character saying "would you like me to repeat that?" . . . they tried at least a little to explore that, the notion of the Doctor losing his sense of compassion, but it never quite paid off for me.
no subject
In fairness, I should note that part of the reason the Rose approached worked well was because they were starting the series up again. For people like me, who had never watched Classic Who and had only the vaguest acquired-by-osmosis understanding of the story world, it helped a lot to have a clueless lens character (I like that term, thanks) we could follow in making those initial discoveries. Possibly Moffat thinks that got old after a while, and now audiences know enough that the Doctor can be our lens character. While that might be true in a strictly pragmatic sense (I don't really need the TARDIS and all the rest of it explained again), I think it fails in a character sense, because the Doctor is an alien. A thousand-year-old shapechanging alien who frequently pulls the solution to a plot problem out of his ear. He makes a bad lens character because his perspective is not and cannot be mine. I'm reminded of how Jack Sparrow was better as a loose cannon rolling around in the vicinity of some more straightforward characters, rather than the central agent they tried to make him into for the fourth movie; I'm also reminded of Dorothy Dunnett never once giving you Lymond's point of view in The Game of Kings. Certain characters work better when they're slightly off-center.
She's a collection of plot necessities. I am hoping Moffat lets her evolve into a person this season. He seems to be starting.
That's good. I think I even liked her as a collection of plot necessities better than what Amy and Rory turned into by the end of their bit, which was a pair of Doctor groupies who really only seemed to exist to marvel at his coolness.
I put up with all the handwaving for that.
I don't mind handwaving so long as it's entertaining, and is headed somewhere interesting. That sounds like it qualifies.
I don't mean that he needed to embody the same philosophical questions: I mean I'm not sure he had any philosophical questions until his run was nearly over. (If desired, some discussion here in comments to my post about "The Day of the Doctor.")
Ah, gotcha. I will avoid the link for now, because I suspect therein lie spoilers, but I agree with you for the most part. The closest they came to asking any interesting questions with Eleven before that ep was probably the part around Demon's Run, which may be in the stuff you missed; that's the bit that made me realize, whoa, this Doctor is a lot harder and colder than the previous two. Because really, when you get a character saying "the Doctor has a message for you" and then spaceships start exploding in the background, followed by the character saying "would you like me to repeat that?" . . . they tried at least a little to explore that, the notion of the Doctor losing his sense of compassion, but it never quite paid off for me.