Also the red room convo between Jack and Ten in Utopia, where they catch up about his immortality and Rose, is so wonderfully acted and so deeply chilling. I really think Utopia/Sound of the Drums are hugely underrated episods.

Moffat's Who coincidentally broke internationally. Seasons 1-4 of RTD's revival were put on American Netflix shortly before Season 5 started airing in the UK, but before it was airing in the US. Americans watched RTD's Doctor Who on Netflix, loved it, and BBCA started airing it on American TV (though I can't remember…

….What is your point? That because her lifespan may be longer 24 years means less? That it's somehow not a quarter century away? (That part stays constant, btw — a century is 100 years in the 10th century or the 51st.) Because my point about how that deflates ALL of the meaning and weight behind those last 15 minutes…

Your thinking is not wrong, at all.

But at the same time, it's REALLY good character work. Jackie hated the Doctor because when he took her away with no word, no warning, no nothing for A YEAR. She was a mother who had been living for 12 months with the panic and heartbreak of a missing child and so of course when she was confronted by the man who was…

I don't think a night that doesn't last 24 years is brutal, I think it's bittersweet. I think what we actually got was meaningless.

BBCA does REALLY horrible editing on RTD's shows, though. They weren't produced for American television timing and huge, inexplicable chunks go missing. For instance (this one is so obvious it always jumps to mind first), the final beach scene in Journey's End, where Rose confronts the Doctor and the Metacrisis…

Stone cold RTD classics (leaving Moffat-penned eps off the list in the spirit of your comment):
Rose (seriously, it is a PERFECT intro-to-Doctor-Who episode)
Dalek
Father's Day
The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit
Army of Ghosts/Doomsday
Midnight
Turn Left
The Waters of Mars

Elementary is an absolute delight. Johnny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu are the best Holmes and Watson, Moffat's Sherlock doesn't even hold a candle.

There's a way to do the alienness of other planetary nights without sucking all of the weight out of everything he does. 24 years is a little less than a third of a human lifespan, and a really deflating narrative cheat. Why should we care that River is sad that her next adventure will lead to her death? It's a…

I think Season 6 is particularly noxious largely because all those fun little brilliant story bits go… absolutely… NOWHERE.

Moffat's not better at producing the show, Moffat got a much MUCH bigger budget than RTD did throughout his run (and a series of updated TV CGI technology — seriously, don't forget RTD revived DW in 2005), largely thanks to how successful RTD's revival was. RTD's show would have looked slicker had he had that budget…

Honestly, I would be very, very happy if we never see River again. Diminishing returns, y'all.

I was relieved, for the messy first 40 minutes, that Moffat had finally lightened the fuck up with a Christmas special for once (say what you will about RTD, but I really liked that most of his Christmas specials were adventures during the backdrop of Christmas and with some thematic resonance, not anvilicious…

I know. I like it. A lot.

Agreed.

I dunno, I think Ruben's death works largely for how petty and (mostly) pointless it is. Kilgrave kills a lot of people not because he's a bloodthirsty murderer but because it's an easy way to either 1. get them out of his way or 2. get to Jessica. It's easy to imagine him encountering a romantic rival (though one we…

I didn't say "Male privilege," I said "male entitlement" which is different. And I've mentioned several times that it's magnified by mind control — it's not a metaphor, in Jessica Jones it's made quite literal.

It means a lot — it ALWAYS means a lot — to hear men say this aloud, to acknowledge that it's not something we make up and that it is so much more pervasive and ordinary in our lives than you would ever expect.

I really don't think they are. We can reconnect on this in later episode recaps.