linnealurks:

abadplanwellexecuted:

oodlyenough:

moffatlove:

I sometimes wonder if people who prefer the Russell T Davies era ever actually watched it.

silly monsters?? on doctor who???????

well, i never

I watched the fuck out of these.  I’d watch the fuck out of them again.  They’re great episodes with great themes, ideas, and characterization. 

I love the greedy Slitheen (family name, not species, thank you) with their chubby green faces and cunning.  I love that they were both avid hunters AND successfully sneaky, the gas exchange problems aside.  (In fact, I love that flaw, ridiculous as it may be, because why the hell should villains carry out precision-perfect plans all the time?  Evil-doers who snap their fingers and have everything fall into place are using stupid, cheap Plot Powers.  The ones who have to hide in closets and panic over how much they’re farting — those ones I believe.)

I love that when we see one of them return toward the end of the season, we see her as more than just the wooden villain — someone lonely and grieving, selfish and lost.  I love the Doctor’s conversation with her:

MARGARET: You know I’m capable of better.

DOCTOR: It doesn’t mean anything.  

MARGARET: I spared her life.

DOCTOR: You let one of them go, but that’s nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim’s spared because she smiled, because he’s got freckles, because they begged. And that’s how you live with yourself. That’s how you slaughter millions. Because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind’s in the right direction, you happen to be kind.

MARGARET: Only a killer would know that.

That bit still gives me chills, years later.

I loved the altered pig creature, and the way the entire scene introducing it was set up — scary music, a terrifying rustling noise from somewhere in the room, and then the Doctor leans so-very-slowly around the edge of the counTER TO SEE THE ALIEN OHGAWDTHEALIEN—

and he smiles at it and says “hello.”

I love the Isolus, committing such a horrific crime in kidnapping children that you can’t help but imagine that it must be something truly terrible — but no, it’s just a frightened child.  Selfish, certainly, the way children are, and destructive, but not really evil.  I love the scribble “creature” it makes by mistake — another imperfect execution made by a realistic “bad guy”.  

I even love the ridiculous, horrifying, much-hated Absorbaloff (designed by a nine year old kid who won a contest).  I love his alter-ego, Victor Kennedy.  (“Back, back, all of you!  My ExEEEEMa!”)  He’s one of the few just-there-to-be-bad villains, but that’s because he’s not the point of the story.  I love the entire L&M plot because it’s about this group of people who all experienced hardship, tragedy, pain, etc., and so decided to try to find the Doctor but ended up finding each other.  I love the fact that most of them die in the end because life can be hard and the universe isn’t fair and terrible things happen to good people, but fuck it, while they lived, they made music and sculptures and poetry and food and found happiness and brought happiness to others.

I could go on and on and on, through pretty much every episode.  RTD’s stuff wasn’t the holy grail of all perfection (especially since that’s not actually a thing?), and there are valid critiques and criticisms of some of his choices (looking at you, naked Mark Gatiss), but dude.  Duuuude.  

It was fantastic. 

I’ll take strong plots and weak special effects over the opposite any day.