Yeah, Eccleston is one of my favorites, too. Catching the end of an episode without any context whatsoever (I hadn't heard of Who at that point, so was utterly clueless) just wasn't the best introduction to the show. A friend re-introduced me to it a few years later, and I managed to catch up to the end of Tennant's run just in time for Smith to show up. Loved Eccleston, liked Tennant, really loved Smith until he got stuck in too many terrible stories, and I'm still a bit undecided on Capaldi. He's a nice change from Tennant and Smith, feels properly alien, but he's a bit too abrasive for my tastes. It wouldn't hurt to tone down the verbal abuse a tiny bit.
My problem with season 8 was that it stopped being Doctor Who for the most part. The show should have been more accurately titled Clara's relationship problems and her wacky friend. I took real issue when Moffet directly said that Doctor Who should be about the companions as main characters....
That's my problem, too. I don't mind a lot of companion-focus, but I want those companions to be actual
characters, not Super Special Mysterious Snowflakes. Rose, Donna, Martha, Amy, etc., all seemed to have established lives before joining the Doctor, and they always had something to return to (although Amy was running from a wedding). But Clara started out as the Big Mystery, and any characterization just felt tacked on. The writers did a somewhat-decent job trying to fix that in Series 8, but she still hasn't grown on me, and I really wish she had left permanently in the Christmas episode. We already had this problem with Rory and Amy staying on longer than they should have and getting stale. A new companion or two would be nice.
(Still angry about what happened to Osgood in "Death in Heaven." She could've been a good companion, but nooooo, we can't have nice things.)
