Feeling a little more childhood bleed away

Ah 2017. You've been a remarkably shitty year for more reasons than I want to write in this post. Corruption, pollution, insanity, threat of war... all the big things.

Funny that I find myself obsessing over tiny things as the year is winding down.

Yeah, I'm not talking about Trump's hands. I'm talking about childhood obsessions I'm finding myself stepping away from.

The first was "Doctor Who".

I've been following "Doctor Who" for most of my life. I was one of the few kids I knew in the U.S. watching the show when I was quite young. No one had even heard of the show, and when watched, the crappy BBC effects really didn't compare with the relatively more sophisticated stuff on American TV.

Still, I found myself utterly fascinated with the adventures of Tom Baker's Doctor gallivanting about on PBS reruns.

I was hooked. I watched it through multiple regenerations fairly faithfully.

It wasn't always a good show by any imagination. No one can sit through John Nathan Turner's era of running the show (poor Colin Baker) and not find one's faith shaken.

I was really excited when the show was revived in the turn of the century mark. Christopher Eccleston's Doctor was rocking and the show had a fun mix of camp and improved effects.

There was still the familiar, uneven writing, but it was overall enjoyable.

Then Steven Moffatt came along.

Moffatt wrote "Blink", the episode that remains my favorite of the series in terms of solid delivery. For all Moffatt's skills in writing stories, his ability as a showrunner was an epic disaster. His story arcs were incoherent garbage. And his efforts to deconstruct the Doctor as a character served only to make the show unwatchable.

When Peter Capaldi came on board as the Doctor, I was jazzed. He was great in "The Thick of It" and his portrayal of the Doctor has been awesome, but the writing... god, the writing...

I gave up after the horrific finale where they finally did away with Clara (an overdone and incoherent companion). The show was just too awful for me to stomach.

I never saw the season with the new Companion. I tried, but... god, it was still terrible.

Now there's a new showrunner and a new Doctor. I want to feel enthusiastic and watch it again, but I can't do it. I feel nothing for the show I loved in my childhood. It feels dead to me.

And that takes me to another bit of my childhood: Star Wars.

Like most kids my age, I grew up to Star Wars. In the schoolyard we pretended to be Jedi smugglers, the perfect combination of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. Let's face it: we all wanted to be Han Solo. He had the cool spaceship, the blaster (he shot first!), and the cool Wookie partner. Luke had a laser sword and super powers, which was cool too. Leia was sassy, smart, and tough. As a boy, I was just starting to learn that those were traits I found attractive in women rather than traits that were annoying on the schoolyard.

Heh.

The prequels did a number on my love of the series. They were beautiful movies so devoid of coherent plot, able acting, and emotion that watching them was like spending a night eating cotton candy. Made me sick and hurt my teeth in the end.

When The Force Awakens came out, I have to admit I had low expectations. I thought it was going to suck ass. Wow, was I wrong! Sure, the movie was a rehash of A New Hope, but it was done well. John Boyega's Finn was (to me) the break-out character as a turncoat Stormtrooper - a character afraid but ultimately able to overcome that fear. Daisy Ridley's Rey was okay. It was nice to see a solid heroine in the lead, though I had some hopes that her journey would have a bit more substance to it. The villains were weak tea, but I had hopes they'd improve beyond their terrible names ("Snoke"? "Kylo Ren"? Seriously?)

And then we got The Last Jedi this month.

TLJ was, frankly, painful to watch.

It was visually good. The comic bits were funny and well-paced. Adam Driver's Ben Solo and Daisy Ridley's Rey had excellent chemistry. Driver actually won me over from ambivalence to liking his character. Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were, as always, outstanding.

The rest was incoherent garbage. A space chase that made no sense. A side plot that wasted Finn entirely. A side character added clumsily to no real effect I can see. A revision of Luke Skywalker that was, quite frankly, character assassination by Rian Johnson (a self-proclaimed Star Wars fan). And Rey's character journey still felt... lacking, which was made worse by confusing and obtuse plot developments.

I have to say, I can't give two shits about Star Wars right now. I don't give a fuck about how Episode 9 will go. I don't care about other trilogies. I don't give a shit about a Han Solo spinoff movie. That bit of childhood nostalgia feels dead now.

Probably for the best.