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Okay, this is still bugging me from "A Christmas Carol."

I know the Doctor is more often than not clueless about social situations, but that scene with "What do I do with a crying female??" "I don't know!!" just BUGS. Past Doctors have not been this level of clueless. Well, Nine and Ten for sure haven't been, and while I can't recall specific instances with Classic Doctors, I could picture One saying "Go over and pat her hand, idiot boy!" And then he'd whap him on the head with his cane for good measure.

So. Either Eleven really has become The Stupid One, or he's attempting a level of douchebaggery unattained by past incarnations.

It's stuff like this that make me feel like I just can't get a handle on Eleven. Or maybe I have a handle on him, but I don't want that particular handle. I don't know.

*wanders off muttering*

EDIT: (Instead of making a new rantypants post.) I watched the S6 trailer and felt a bit stabby at the "Stetsons are cool!" line. OMG. I'm seriously developing a Pavlovian hate for any time Eleven says his clothes are cool. I JUST. WHY WON'T IT STOP?

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You're right ... it just doesn't add up. That's why I liked his characterization ~~by RTD of course~~ in Death of the Doctor so much. And it even (sort of) contradicts that line about "what do i do with a crying female." When Jo is getting really choked up about the fact that Eleven is letting Amy/Rory travel with him, but that Jo basically had to leave because she got married, Eleven knows exactly what to say to comfort her and make her feel special again.

Yes! It's characterization whiplash!

MOFFAT. *shakes fist*

I miss RTD.

Now it amuses me to think of he Doctor going, "You know, I don't think I was enough of a douchebag last time, I was mostly only a douche to Jack and sometimes Martha, I think I should try harder this time."

Of course, being me I'll find a way to make this about Rose at some point, because I'm that kind of fan.

*SNORTS*

It would be funny to see Jack and Eleven meet up. "Sorry, who are you again?" XD

Which is why Jack had to change gender to get the Doctor's attention as River. "I thought you'd like me better if I was blond."

IT FITS. :D

Yeah, I think Moffat does a lot of stuff like that just for the humour of it, but what it does is create the inconsistent and/or illogical characterization that bothers so many people about s5. It's a bit like the "Rory is an idiot" gag you mentioned in your post -- it's there for a cheap laugh, but it reflects poorly on Amy. With Eleven, I can handle him being more ~alien than Nine and Ten were, but sometimes it's kind of like he has never met a human before.

*nods* I think too much is being sacrified on the altar of comedy. And the jokes aren't even that funny.

Yeah especially since like... you could write jokes that are in character as well, which makes them funnier. Like, I thought his line about ending up in his room designing a new screwdriver was hilarious, but particularly because it had a note of truth to it.

Yes! This!

This is more of the cartoon stuff you refered to in another post.
It's very Moffat to write men this way, and I know the doctor is NOT good with relationships. I remember nine feebly protesting "but I'm resonating concrete" when Rose asked him to dance.
Still-- it seems to be some other person, not the doctor, saying the lines. ANY of Moffat's male characters could say this. It is not distinctively the doctor.

I've not watched anything else he's done, so I can't speak to non-DW characters. But it really was such a "LOL. MEN DON'T GET FEELINGS" line. Which...was more funny 30 years ago? Maybe Eleven doesn't eat quiche either.

Even in Moffat's Who scripts this is a common theme. He writes men as rather bumbling fools who don't understand emotion.

Now, the doctor IS emotional. he's *always* been emotional, in every incarnation (sometimes more explosively than other times but he's never a Vulcan).

And especially after his time as Ten, the most emo of all his incarnations-- he DOES 'get' feelings.

He also runs from them. Changing the subject, being uncomfortable with it... that I can all understand. Even (maybe especially) distrusting some emotion... I would SURE understand that.

But simply being THIS clueless?

DT was a huge Doctor Who fan-- and he made some objections to some scripts over his time. In The Shakespeare Code, when the Doctor was so clueless about Martha's feelings as they shared a bed- the original script had the doctor actually stripping down before getting in bed. Tennant made an argument that even the doctor-- who did not think 'relationship' first and formost in any situation-- wasn't *that* clueless or callous.

I feel like Moffat goes for "joke" at the expense of character (this was my main problem with "The Lodger"- it was a joke a minute but did not fit very well with the doctor's character-- it was a cartooning of him, yet again).

In The Shakespeare Code, when the Doctor was so clueless about Martha's feelings as they shared a bed- the original script had the doctor actually stripping down before getting in bed.

lol forever @ this idea. LOL WTF.

My mind instantly went to Blink with them sharing a flat. Ten wandering around in his underwear and scratching himself, while Martha's screaming "GET ME OUT OF HERE" into her pillow every night. XD

Poor, poor Martha.

The scene reads as him hilariously but believably obtuse anyway, since it has him just... laying there and staring at the ceiling and probably humming Snow Patrol to himself, not making any attempt to actually sleep.

I'm so glad DT axed that idea. XD

I should clarify - he was stripping down to his underthings (which could have answered some questions one finds among some fanfic writers, but I digress). The thing is, he was being portrayed as completely clueless- to him he was getting ready to go to sleep-- for her it was a SIGNAL. But DT pointed out that even the doctor would not be THAT clueless about human 'signals' and behavior- he had lived here without the ability to travel at one time, and he's spent enough time on earth in this time period to understand something of how 20th and 21st century humans behave-- it might not come naturally but the data is in the mental databank if he wants to retrieve it.

YES. I completely agree with him.

(which could have answered some questions one finds among some fanfic writers, but I digress)

Jackie would rush in, demanding to know what he has two of. XD

......also wouldn't he then have to like, get dressed again to race after the witch or whatever it is they see in the window?

I mean I know Smith and Jones established that he can put on a full suit + tie in about 10 seconds, but.

I didn't like the "Don't make my mistakes" comment. It was funny in complete isolation - well, slightly. But if Eleven is as much a reaction against emotional over-involvement with companions as we've been led to believe, how exactly would he regard avoiding it as a mistake? Inconsistency, thy name is Moffatt.

I'd have to watch it again, but the way I heard it the first time around was that he was telling the boy to kiss the girl. That he shouldn't make the Doctor's mistakes when it came to that, which made me think of him not kissing Rose and that he considered it a mistake.

I explained the Eleventh Doctor to one of my friends as "He thinks he's cool, but he's actually not."

Urg.

I'm not saying those type of moments with Eleven AREN'T Moffat being an out-of-date douchebag when it comes to men admitting they might be able to ever relate emotionally to anyone ever, but how I've been reasoning characterization to myself like this: Ten got really attached to a lot of people, to the point of actually going back and seeing them after he's said goodbye- he allowed himself to be open to that. And then he lost a LOT, and had to watch it happen; he had involved himself so much that he couldn't completely run away from it. And I think that, like Ten was a distant, insensitive ass to Martha right after he loved and lost Rose, Eleven is distancing himself from getting close to people in this incarnation, deliberately being obtuse or cold so as not to stage a repeat of EoT. He's not always consistent with it, because it isn't really him, but he's still protecting his wounds a bit.

I'd really love to adopt this characterization if I could believe it was intentional.

Yes, well. I believe a lot of things about this season even though I am quite sure that nobody ever intended them. Because it is clear to me that Moffat is a fanfic writer of a clearly mediocre calibre and if I dwell on it too much I get quite ragey. And it's really a shame, because I DO like these characters quite a lot and I think they have potential; I just think that the situational frame and the storytelling used for them is severely underdeveloped and misdirected, as well as badly structured.

tl;dr IT'S CALLED SHOWING NOT TELLING MOFFAT

Bingo! It's like Eleven was the designated carrier of the idiot ball that episode -- Amy's done it, Rory's done it, and it's a trick that always bugs me. There's much about Series 5 and the Xmas special I enjoy, but what entertained me in "Coupling" is not working for me now with this.

I can't stand it when characters are dumbed down for the plot or even for a joke. Bleh.

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