Feelings halfway through the series.

Where? As you say no-one here is saying that, so it's a bit like you're offering a rebuttal to an argument you're not getting here. I'd post what you have directly to those people who say that rather than here.

Because I'm not making a rebuttal: merely putting out a thought that's on my mind, and I happen to like the even-keel of here.

I've really enjoyed it. I don't think there's been an episode without flaws yet but that's Doctor Who, really. As a season, it hasn't tingled my molecules the way last season did, but my wife is sitting down and watching it with me without complaining, which is something she hasn't done very much of with the revival series. And there's been a bit more buzz amongst my students which isn't something I've heard at my school before (I've been there for four years, to give it some historical context).

In terms of characters, I love the new team: they don't feel like stereotypes and caricatures the way that Mickey and Jackie did in their first few episodes: they feel like proper people who have chosen to have adventures. My only complaint would be that Yaz feels a bit "Nyssa" in this group: she's there to offer a shoulder and a bit of a moral compass until the writers find a decent angle for her, which is a shame because she comes across as a bit Doctor-y herself: her opening scene showed her using humour and compassion to solve a problem and many of her scenes show her offering some sort of insight or help to others. She's also a person who, going by her career choice, wants to fix things.

The stories have been fairly even in quality: there hasn't been a "Caves/Twin" pairing yet, which is my gold standard for script editing on television. None of them have been "bad" television but I was hoping that this season might fix the endings problem we've had for a few years ie, make them less rushed and tacked on. It is possible that this is a problem with the format rather than the writing.

So far as the Doctor goes, I'm liking Jodie's feel of the character: she's definitely the Doctor, for me, and for those who are wondering when we'll get a real "moment" I think we've had it: the knives/ guns stance in TWWFTE felt like a mission statement to me. It wasn't bombastic or dramatic like previous Doctors but I'm willing to put money on a backlash to a woman making big speeches like that because she'd come across as "shrill" and "overbearing" to a certain subset of the audience. I think we're getting a more low key version of the Doctor - a little bit 2, a touch of 7 - and it will be an interesting change.

Like the issues I have with her (lack of) character, though, this is not so much what she is but rather what she isn't. As you hint other Doctors would act exactly that way but in a more speechifyingly bombastic way....so even in those moments it's a bit "Tennant without the grandstanding" or "Smith without the speeches" rather than something of her own.  

As I said in the other thread this is all fine - the audiences won't care at all (if they even notice) if she's reminiscent of the Doctors they actually liked but when there's so little to say "this is Jodie, pure Jodie", I'm struggling to hang my hat on her being a particularly interesting Doctor. I've seen her pacifism, sense of fun, optimism, dislike of weapons and love of science and exploration put forward as to what marks her character. Yet those are all well-worn aspects of the character from all across the 53 years of the show. Not always but they're certainly recurring elements. They're what can make her "Doctor-ish" to use the fandom term but she's yet to have - and this is the writing not Jodie - something that puts her on the map in terms of what she offers to the ongoing history of the show other than repetition and safety. 

It almost feels like after Capaldi's Doctor didn't capture the public imagination and given the hazards of the gender swap Chibnall has written the most audience friendly, least-challenging version of the character to really make sure it's at least an easy show to watch again. Not a bad idea to get the casuals in, again, but as someone decidedly not a casual fan there's just nothing there that captures my imagination. Tennant never did either really but at least his Doctor felt fresh at the time.

The TARDIS interior is my main issue with the new series. It seems a bit 'Eccleston-lite' in its design.

Well, it is a thread asking for opinions in the present rather than what we hope will happen so I'm certainly more concerned with the here and now rather than what the character might be, or may never be. We've got plenty of future for those debates I like a "show don't tell" approach too and am glad to get that once more.  Still though "fun", "spirit of adventure"....applicable to what, over half the Doctors at various times?  They may be her defining qualities so far but they're so ingrained in the character I think it's almost predictable given the more sombre nature of the Capaldi Doctor that Jodie would be more demonstrative of those traits, but they're nothing we haven't seen from each and every incarnation - albeit in differing doses. Ask the layman in the street what The Doctor is like and you'll get plenty of fun and adventuring answers, Jodie or not.

Well, let's see - we've had things like sudden brilliant flashes of deductive reasoning, thinking out loud, team player - these all serve to make this Doctor distinctive, in my mind anyway. The deductive reasoning mainly, that really made me think "Now this is Thirteen!" every time. I didn't get so much of that with Tsuranga Conundrum or it seemed more diffused than focused this time, which might be why I suddenly found it harder to get around some of the shakiness and shoehorning that's probably been there since the season started - but maybe we're not going to get beaten over the head with it as a trademark every time?

I wouldn't underestimate recurring qualities either though - someone said something to the effect that this Doctor radiates enough enthusiastic curiosity that she's very easy to picture actually taking time to study something for the joy of it, and I very much agree. Thirteen seems to exude this in a way I haven't quite felt since the earliest Doctors, with the possible exception of maybe the Eighth - not exactly something I'd call "well-worn", and maybe it's as capable of making things more accessible to younger viewers as "simplifying" things for them, just by giving them a Doctor they can relate to more?

I like what this does in the sense of the whole story, though - this isn't just the First Doctor leaving Gallifrey behind with a child-like curiosity still intact, this is a Doctor who's somehow regained it even after all that's happened in between. That feels like something new and not just a reboot back to 1963. I think this Doctor still stands to make a distinctive and lasting impression on me as a Doctor who's very notably regenerated not just in body, but in spirit.

Yeah, she's an interesting juxtaposition from what's been seen so far. The Ghost Monument brought a lot of really interesting things to the forefront with her character for me. She uses Venusian aikido to prove that she has the martial skill necessary to strongarm her "competition"... But she doesn't use it. When she asks him whether he's reevaluated his worldview because of her and he snorts: "No," it's just dropped.

In contrast to the Twelfth Doctor's intensity, I think she's at peace with the cosmos. She doesn't need to prove anything, she's just happy to be around.

I'm really struck by her modesty too. It's not a gentle affectation like you'd expect of most incarnations, but a genuine desire to minimalise her impact. Whether the world she visits lets her or not is another story entirely. I'm also getting the impression that the first question for her isn't "Why?" but "How?" instead. Standing in a gallery, looking at a sculpture, she'd be more interested in how the artist made it, then what it meant in that space. She could spend decades working at a watchmaker's, studying the little cogs and gears as they're assembled and disassembled.

I think they could drop Jodie 😜 just joking ...i think