First, I will say that I have been a Doctor Who fan for a long time. I first found out about the show in the mid-80s when I was a kid, though I never actually got to see many episodes for a long time. I mostly became a fan through reading the Target novelizations and watching a few VHS tapes I was able to find. My local PBS station stopped showing Doctor Who when I was little and did not start again until I was heading off to college.
I was, of course, very excited when they revived the show and have generally enjoyed the new show ever since. I watch it on DVD and my wife and I do not exactly zip through the sets, so we are only about halfway through series 6 at the moment. (We just watched “Let’s Kill Hitler” the other night.)
So far I am not very happy with series 6. Part of my unhappiness is that I cannot stand River Song. I don’t really like the character, and the actress has annoyed me ever since she was on ER. I don’t really know why, but I just don’t like her, and I can’t really believe that she is the Doctor’s great love.
I also do not like the increasingly serialized nature of the show. I prefer more standalone episodes and fewer story arcs. The earlier seasons had looser story arcs that paid off in the finale, but the individual episodes stood alone better, I thought. Now there are whole episodes that make no sense if you have not watched the earlier ones.
Nor am I am a fan of the way in which the whole show seems to have become focused on the Doctor. Instead of just being a wacky guy who goes around having cool adventures and stopping alien invasions, he is now apparently the Most Important Person in the Universe. Everyone has heard of him, which makes no sense in a universe that is billions of years old and contains trillions of galaxies.
I just want the Doctor to be this zany guy who takes people to strange planets and helps people out. I don’t want him to be this grim, legendary figure who bestrides the cosmos like a lonely god.
Anyway, it’s not as if I am going to stop watching the show, because I do still enjoy it. But I would like to know whether I should be looking forward to series 7 or not.