Christmas or Custard

Having been watching fourth Doctor serials the past few months, I finally found myself in the mood to revisit some episodes from the revived series. I watched "The Christmas Invasion" last week, the tenth Doctor's first episode, and "The Eleventh Hour" last night, the eleventh Doctor's first episode. And I must say, despite the fact that the episodes Steven Moffat have written for the eleventh Doctor aren't as good as the ones he wrote for the tenth, "The Eleventh Hour" is a far better introduction for a Doctor than "The Christmas Invasion" and it served to really crystallise for me that the show is indeed a lot better under Moffat's control.

I wouldn't call "The Christmas Invasion" bad. Rose Tyler has a bunch of lines that sound more like ruminations on what Doctor Who means to its fans than a character's reaction to the Doctor's incapacitation, and the antagonists go from one form of campy to another--killer Christmas tree followed by Klingon-ish invasion. But Tennant does give a very engaging performance, the plot is satisfyingly funny, and, aside from the meta stuff with Rose, the characters are decently written.

But "The Eleventh Hour" has so much more. There's more life in its story of the little girl with the crack in her wall and the strange man who shows up to ransack the kitchen before settling on fish fingers and custard. The episode's not perfect--particularly in the Doctor's chest beating at the end, but that's more a symptom of modern western culture's sad preoccupation with self-esteem. That Matt Smith is charming enough that I'm not annoyed by an unarmed man going around taunting alien cultures really says something. But I wish it hadn't ended with the Doctor, as he did in "The Christmas Invasion", proclaiming himself Earth's protector. The Doctor isn't a soldier, he's a broker of peace when it comes to it. He sees conflict as puerile. But maybe that's not something children are expected to appreciate anymore.

Anyway, I'm starting to think the eleventh Doctor is actually my favourite of the new series.

Twitter Sonnet #376

Chaos cheese clenched the shivering apple.
Sarcastic sideways rain dropkicks lightning.
Rubber nostrils subsume the last Snapple.
Sharp squares crash the hall of Carol Channing.
Abnormal tartan girds the strange Triscuit.
The weird clan's curved ceiling darkens cable.
Slaughtered bees twist around the eighth circuit.
Nobody should assume they're not Mabel.
Starving menus forget to eat paper.
Entrees know nothing of the poisoned bee.
The black velvet burrito is dapper.
Beefy sand ends at the sour cream sea.
Sherbet bubble wrap melts in a card cone.
Comb over watermelon danced alone.