Choose your Doctor Who geek

News circled a fandom yesterday, and apparently, I might be in the minority when I confess that I am thrilled it happened. The plain facts are that Russell T. Davies is going to leave Doctor Who and is being replaced by Steven Moffat as lead writer and executive producer. My reaction? I nearly bounced around the office with the news (I resisted because I'm already mocked for watching Doctor Who).

But, apparently, there are folks who think that Moffat's writing of the Doctor is out of character. That, of course, makes me wonder:

1) Is remaining true to the character more important than brilliantly written and executed shows?

2) What were these out-of-characters moments?

3) Are these things that obvious?


I can come up with two out-of-character moments, both in the same episode ("The Girl in the Fireplace"): partying with the French while Rose and Micky are roaming a spaceship, and risking being trapped in France and leaving Rose and Micky to fend for themselves on a spaceship that is going to burn up the replacement human parts already in use. Do these break my heart? Hell no. I mean, don't those of us who claim a loyalty to the new Doctors (Nine and Ten) do so because this guy isn't the guy from the past? Would I expect the Tom Baker Doctor to do anything like that? Hell no, but then that Doctor pisses me off more than not.* But I acknowledge that those moments are a bit out of character, but not enough for me to have truly noticed and whined about. Then again, maybe I think damn good stories and solid plots ("Blink" anyone?) are more important. And maybe, just maybe, people act out of character on occasion, or is a minor slip of character not allowed in real people either?

And so, I am damned excited. I love Moffat and that's even if I ignore Coupling. This is not to say that I don't love RTD, I do. But in the grand scheme, it could have been so much worse (if you don't love Moffat), they could have chosen Uwe Boll to replace RTD.


*I am behind on my Doctor Who past, though. I am trying to catch up, but there's only so much I can do.