Brand new Doctor, same old story... (Spoiler alert!)

Thinking about it my title for this blog is probably a bit harsh, however it does sum up my feelings on the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who and Peter Capaldi's debut as the Time Lord. Let me reassure you this won't be a bad review, there are just a few negative points I need to focus on.

 When they first announced Capaldi as the next Doctor I blogged my feelings on the decision. I was delighted at his casting and had high hopes for what he'd bring. He did not disappoint.
 From the word go I saw that Capaldi was bringing something new to the table. An angrier harsher Doctor but only subtly so as not to make him unlikable. There were elements of what I loved about David Tenant and Christopher Eccleston to be found, and only ever so slightly a touch of Tom Baker. I'm certainly not saying that he just a re hash of past Doctors, he is most definitely his own Doctor and I feel he will be the darker more mature Doctor I'm hoping for. It's hard to judge Capaldi from a single episode but I feel good things are on the horizon...

...if the scripts allow it.

What I'd hated with the latter end of Matt Smith's reign as the Doctor was the silliness. Matt Smith played a fantastic eccentric Doctor and at first they had it nicely balanced. As time went on they started to focus more and more on the eccentricity if Smith's Doctor up until the point it became so slapstick I had to stop watching. The Doctor had become a circus clown.
I had hoped we'd see the end of this with the introduction of Peter Capaldi and see an older more mature Doctor, but I was horrified to find that the slapstick was still there. Yes there should most definitely be that element of eccentricity with the Doctor and Capaldi played it fantastically, but the writers just seemed to feel it necessary to have him clumsily jumping from a window to end up hanging upside down from a tree talking to a horse. Something I would have forgiven with Matt Smith but was so out of place with Capaldi's style. When they allowed Capaldi to act, and boy did he, he was amazing. The writers just need to let him be less of a physical Doctor like Matt Smith was and let him be more about words rather than actions. A thinker not a clown.

Let me just say I did enjoy the episode, it held me for it's entirety but I feel this was mainly down to the introduction of a new Doctor and less because of the story itself. A story which gave me a real feeling of the old "deja vu."

 Just like the body harvesting cyborg villain of the episode the story felt like a mish mash of used parts. It just wasn't the grand spectacle I had expected from a debut episode introducing a new Doctor, it came across more like a mid season episode that would be a bit of filler in the midst of the larger story. At the end it just left me feeling a bit flat, and it started off so promisingly.

 Opening with a (somewhat off scale) Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Thames of Victorian London coughing up the Tardis, I thought "great" we're on for a winner here. But when they killed off said dinosaur in the first ten minutes, probably due to the CGI budget drying up, I could't help but feel the first twang of disappointment that would be reoccurring thing throughout the episode.

 Instead of it becoming the monster movie style epic that it promised to be we instead ended up with a storyline that to me has become a Dr. Who staple, a formulaic go to plot for when all the ideas have run out. As plot red herrings go, it was a corker and would have worked fantastically if it hadn't led to a less than engaging story. You know the one, mysterious creature killing off innocent londoners, ooh how evil, oh wait not evil just ancient and doing what it can to survive the only way it knows how. Cue sympathy for villain and moral dilemma for Doctor who has to vanquish said villain with a tear in his eye and a lump of regret in his throat. It's a good story the first few times, but it's getting a bit old. I'm not saying the giant monster/dinosaur running rampant in London would have been any more original for an episode of Dr. Who, but at least there would have been some action and excitement.

However, what I think they were going for was less about the adventure and more about the characters, with the adventure serving as nothing more than a backdrop. Peter Capaldi puts in a fantastic performance as the newly regenerated Doctor struggling to come to terms with his new identity, baffled by the older face he had "chosen." Delivering lines like 'I'm covered in lines. But I didn't do the frowning. Who frowned me these lines?' The confusion and almost anguish for his lost youthfulness is portrayed marvellously.

Clara has always been a companion who I've disliked or simply felt an overwhelming indifference for. However her own struggles with the Doctor's new identity is very well done as she states 'I don't think I know who the Doctor is anymore.' Her own longing for her Doctor mirrors Capaldi's Doctor's own anguish and confusion. Reminiscent of Rose's struggle to come to terms with the Ecclestone to Tenant regeneration.

For me the highlight was the ending in which the Doctor shows his vulnerability through a time travelling phone call from Matt Smith's Doctor appealing to Clara to help the new Doctor "find himself" so yo speak, a genuinely emotional piece of television.

In summary the episode showed us what a great Doctor Peter Capaldi can be if the writers would just drop the silliness and slapstick. Although a lacklustre story it was still enjoyable and showed us what the future promises.