Everything has it's time, everything dies.
After watching the first part of Christopher Eccleston's series of Doctor Who, I have to say. My mind's changed on which series is my favourite.
I think Eccleston's one series is the best story, it has a clear theme that flew over my head. There is a repeated meme that "Everything has it's time, and everything dies." as The Doctor states in the second episode. And it's true, most episodes are about something dying, or something approaching death.
1. The End of the World: The Earth is destroyed and the last pure blooded Human dies. The Doctor states he is the last Time Lord.
2. Dalek: The last Dalek dies.
3. Boom Town: The last of the Slitheen Family dies.
4. Empty Child: The theme of this episode is that there is occasionally a rare subversion, everything dies, but sometimes you get an extra chance. But, as The Doctor says "Just this once.".
5. Father's Day: Rose's father dies, despite the events of the story.
6. Parting of the Ways: The Earth is wiped out. The 9th Doctor dies. But gets an extra chance.
The central theme, as I've made clear, is that everything, without exception, eventually dies. And that you should make the most of it, whether you get lucky or not.
THAT is a problem David Tennant and Matt Smith have, because after evading death for so long as the 9th Doctor, he starts thinking that he and his friends are invulnerable, that they don't have to take responsibility, and that they don't have to let things die. Both David Tennant and Matt Smith have saved the Universe from non-existence twice, and there appears to be no negative consequences for this. In fact, they actually get rewarded. For example, Steven Moffat admitted that in Torchwood, the Cardiff Rift was now never created since Matt Smith saved the Universe that first time. The 11th Doctor even admits that he knows that he's leading people to their deaths, but keeps doing it anyway.
After clearly accepting that everything dies and getting a second chance at his own life, as David Tennant, he goes on more dangerous adventures, kills the Devil himself, because again, screw responsibility, and gets a lot of people killed in the process and ruins the lives of many many people without the villains help. And after Rose herself learns that everything has to end, she gets to have her Dad back by fetching him from a parallel Universe. And after he loses all his companions for reasons that are totally his fault, he moans for a year's worth of episodes, puts himself in more dangerous situations, tries to sacrifice himself several times and then at the last second decides he's not ready because the 10th Doctor's clearly bipolar. And as Matt Smith, the central theme is "Time can be rewritten.", meaning that using his time machine, he can in fact take no responsibility for causing people's deaths, which is an even bigger step backwards in terms of character. Another theme is the consequence of stories and legends, but there's no responsibility involved because he saves the Universe from being erased by wishing really hard. He almost learns his lesson when he is ready to accept his death at the climax of series 6, but changes his mind again for no discernable reason.
I wouldn't have a problem with this if each Doctor was their own story, that they didn't follow on form one another, because each Doctor has a consistent characterisation, but the fact that it's meant to be the same guy gives me the distinct impression that he's just plain refusing to grow up even after being taught the hard way.
I have a lot of friends in real life who refuse to accept responsibility and grow up, and I don't want my fictional characters acting the same way because that's just stupid to watch. Things like Doctor Who are meant to be escapism.
And just so I'm clear, I love Doctor Who, it's one of my favourite, if not my favourite live action TV series, and I like the characters of the 10th and 11th Doctors, they're, on the surface, more fun to watch than the 9th Doctor. I think some of the standalone stories of the 10th and 11th Doctor are better than the 9th Doctor's standalone stories, it's just that when you stand them next to one another, it becomes clear that the reason they're more fun is that they're thinking in the short term, not thinking of responsibility, not knowing things have to end. This is something the writers need to learn too.
I'm no expert writer, I'm not saying I'm more intelligent than Steven Moffat and Russel T David, I think the fact that they built such spectacle proves they're more creative the I could hope to be. But if I were in Steven Moffat's position, I would end the Silence storyline, specifically end it with the 11th Doctor's death, which is the originator of the Silence's name, his Silence, his death.
Everything dies, after all, and it's about time Doctor Who did.
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