It's been back for a week now so what do you think of the returning series so far? Any other thoughts about Doctor Who generally? Rant away!

I won't say anything about the new series yet as I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it! I'll be honest and say that I'm not a fan of Matt Smith's Doctor and last year I was pretty indifferent to watching the series in the latter half, only catching most of it on iPlayer and the Christmas Special a few months late!

As for this year, I haven't seen any yet - just got them all queued up in iPlayer on the PC waiting to be watched but I just can't bring myself to do it!

I enjoy Matt Smith's Doctor. I believe he is one of the best to have graced the role.

This series like the last has been a mixed bag. The return Let's Kill Hitler was fantastic, Night Terrors I spotted the story quickly and the suspense didn't work.

Andy

See, i was the opposite...I spotted the story quickly in Lets kill hitler but took me awhile to figure out Night terrors...although looking back i'm kinda ashamed that it took me as long as it did.

I'm slowly catching up on iPlayer. Four episodes in and I'm not impressed, but to be honest I wasn't expecting to be. There have been odd moments with the episodes so far but nothing has grabbed me. Matt Smith's OTT performance is the real killer for me as it's really got in the way of the stories themselves and been a distraction for me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that previous Doctors were perfect (don't get me started on Sylvester McCoy!) but apart from the odd scenes or moments, I'm not really finding much about Matt Smith that I don't find grates.

I'm loving it , bear in mind though that Matt Smith as had a hard act to follow after David Tennant, which i think he's done really well.

I think the stories in DW are starting to get a little more darker than in Russel .T. Davies era.




p.s. I think in this series the doctors stuck in a time loop, what does anyone else think?

I don't think it is a time loop thats a little too easy.

I do agree there is a darker undercurrent to Matt Smith's Doctor that wasn't always there with David Tennant.

Andy

Agreed though i do like matt Smiths doctor. I think ive just lost interest in it and now i can just pick it up whenever but i wont make a deliberate effort to watch it.

I'm more or less up-to-date now (just not watched last week's yet) and while I haven't been impressed with most, there have been a couple that I have enjoyed although it's usually been Smith's OTT performance that has been the hinderance for me.

I loved the whole Melody / Riversong idea but I thought the climax to the story was rushed and "Let's Kill Hitler" seemed to be nothing more than a vehicle to regenerate Mels into Riversong and after a few minutes Hitler was forgotten about. The Melody / Riversong plotline could have been extended right through to the end of the season, possibly being revealed in the penultimate episode really adding to the drama.

Probably my favourite of the series so far has been "The Girl Who Waited" although I have noticed one trend this year... the emphasis more on Rory and Amy and less on the Doctor - or is that just me?

For me 'The Girl Who Waited' is the one episode in this half of the series that I can say I unreservedly enjoyed. I've felt somewhat disengaged with many of the other episodes through not having any interest in any of the arc-plot related stuff that has been going on to one degree or another in most of them. We already had a year of specials with an arc-plot of "The Doctor is going to die" so it rather feels like crying wolf to do it again.

That said, I still quite like Smith in the role - and I don't feel he is any further over the top than Tennant or Ecclestone were. I think he is different in character but not necessarily that different in absolute flamboyance (and I think he is probably better at giving us flashes of the darker side of the Doctor in many ways).

Karl