[Doctor Who]: Still Not Ginger, After All These Years

Mike Danger

Okay! Right, first, general background!

Wikipedia wrote:

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien time-traveller known as "the Doctor" who travels in his space and time-ship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box. With his companions, he explores time and space, solving problems, facing monsters and righting wrongs.

The current TARDIS crew:

The Eleventh Doctor: Matt Smith
After losing longtime companions Amy and Rory, the Doctor had all but given up on adventuring and taken up his neglected noninterference policy. That changed when he met Clara Oswald in 1892 England, a woman mysteriously similar to Oswin Oswald, whom he met -- and lost -- in "Asylum of the Daleks".

Clara Oswald: Jenna-Louise Coleman
The Doctor's new companion, from the modern-day UK. Her connection to her doubles -- Oswin Oswald and the 1892 Clara Oswald -- remains unknown.

THE FUTURE

The Twelfth Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Nothing is known as of yet! Capaldi will assume the role in the 2013 Christmas special and be the Doctor for Season 8 alongside Clara. Probably best known for playing incredibly profane political enforcer Malcolm Tucker on The Thick of It (and its film sequel, In The Loop), Capaldi has also appeared in Neverwhere (as the angel Islington), Doctor Who (as Caecilius in season 4's "The Firest of Pompeii"), and Torchwood (in Children of Earth as John Frobisher). He is also the only Doctor to win an Oscar (Best Live Action Short Film, for directing "Franz Kafka's It's A Wonderful Life")

Where/When To Watch
Doctor Who is off the air and will return for a 50th Anniversary special in November, to be followed by a Christmas special in December and Season 8 some time following that.

50 Years of Doctor Who!
November 23rd will be the 50th anniversary of the premiere of An Unearthly Child, the first Doctor Who serial. The BBC is putting on a special episode written by Steven Moffat. Here's what we know so far!

- It'll be in 3D!

- Matt Smith has given out only one word about the episode: "paintings".

- David Tennant (The Tenth Doctor) and Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) are returning! We don't know what point in their timeline they're coming from, or which version of the Tenth Doctor it'll be.

- Christopher Eccleston (The Ninth Doctor) will not be returning - he was invited to, but declined.

- John Hurt has been cast (SEASON 7 FINALE SPOILERS INSIDE)

as a hitherto unrevealed incarnation/version of the Doctor

. You might know him as the dictator from V for Vendetta, or the guy who gets attacked by the facehugger in Alien, or the little jerk from A Man for All Seasons, or the professor from Hellboy, or Ollivanders from Harry Potter, or...

- Joanna Page of Gavin & Stacey (you might know her as Martin Freeman's 'body double' girlfriend from Love, Actually) will be in it as jilted lover of the Doctor Queen Elizabeth I.

- Jemma Redgrave will be reprising her role from The Power of Three as Kate Stewart, The Brig's daughter and Head of Scientific Research for UNIT.

All of time and space - where do I want to start? [A Quick Primer, and Where to Start]

The recommended place to start for people just hearing about the show now is the First Series (with Christopher Eccleston). While the show will occasionally make reference to episodes and characters from the classic series, it's not necessary to have watched them.

---

Doctor Who first premiered in November 1963 with William Hartnell as the First Doctor, and ran until December 1989 with Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor. This time period is known as "the classic series".

Paul McGann appeared as the Eighth Doctor in a TV movie in 1996. Long unavailable, this was recently released on DVD as "Doctor Who: The Movie"

Christopher Eccleston appeared as the Ninth Doctor when the BBC and executive producer Russell T. Davies resurrected the show in 2005. The numbering for episodes and seasons was restarted, so Eccleston's first series was released as "Doctor Who: The Complete First Series". This is known as the "new series".

David Tennant succeeded Christopher Eccleston in the "Second Series" as the Tenth Doctor, and continued in the role through the "Fourth Series". Between the Fourth and Fifth series, the show went on hiatus, and produced 4 special episodes. These were released as "The Complete Specials", and marked the show's transition from shooting in standard definition to shooting in high definition:

- Planet of the Dead
- The Waters of Mars
- The End of Time, Part 1
- The End of Time, Part 2

Note that Tennant's last Christmas special, "The Next Doctor", was not made available as part of the Series 4 boxset or as part of the Complete Specials set. You can buy it separately as a standalone disc. (Most streaming services will incorporate it in its proper place after the Series 4 finale.)

The End of Time marked David Tennant's exit from the show, as well as the exit of Russell T. Davies from the show's production staff. Tennant was replaced by Matt Smith for the "Fifth Series", and Russell T Davies was replaced by longtime writer for the show Steven Moffat.

As of today (9/11/13), almost all of the new series is available for instant streaming on Netflix. Mini-episode content (Children in Need specials, minisodes, etc.) is missing, and for reasons as yet unknown to me, "A Christmas Carol" (the first 11th Doctor Christmas special) and "Planet of the Dead" are missing. Series 7 episodes are not yet available. Selected episodes from the classic series are also available.

"Shh! Eleventh!" Classic Doctor Who

There's a ton of material from the classic series, and naturally, varying opinions as to what to watch. Here are some tried-and-true classics for you. A * indicates that the episode is on Netflix Instant Watch (note that Netflix lists new series episodes as "Doctor Who" and classic series episodes as "Classic Doctor Who".

William Hartnell as the First Doctor: An Unearthly Child, The Aztecs*, The Time Meddler

Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor: Tomb of the Cybermen, The Mind Robber*, The War Games

Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor: Spearhead from Space*, Inferno, The Daemons

Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor: City of Death*, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Logopolis

Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor: Kinda, Earthshock, The Caves of Androzani*

Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor: Vengeance on Varos, Revelation of the Daleks, The Two Doctors

Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor: The Curse of Fenric*, Ghost Light, Survival

If you want Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, you'll have to hunt down the movie, as that's all that he appeared in. (There are audio plays, etc., but that's the only time he played him "on film".)

Mr_Rose

Mike Danger wrote:

Okay! Right, first, general background!

Wikipedia wrote:

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a mysterious alien time-traveller known as "the Doctor" who travels in his space and time-ship, the TARDIS, which normally appears from the exterior to be a blue 1950s police box. With his companions, he explores time and space, solving problems, facing monsters and righting wrongs.

(more coming soon!)

Quote needs more "and occasionally stone cold killing a dude" really. That said, I do not ill-judge the doc at all for the end of dinosaurs on a spaceship…

that dude made it quite clear he was going to at least beat, and most likely rape, a woman into being obedient. On top of everything else, including his pathetic 'justification' for the mass murder of thousands of sentients, the only possible sentence was death.

Back to the first ep again:

Who was it that was banging on the 'door' at the back of Oswin's 'cell' then? That a metaphor for the Dalek collective unconsciousness trying to complete the conversion properly? Or something else?

Mike Danger

Re: the second spoiler box: I actually hadn't thought about that, but that makes a whole hell of a lot of sense.

Igort

Still a little upset at the general consensus regarding Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. I loved it, and I have no idea why so few did.

Oh well, can't win 'em all, I guess.

Richy

Igort wrote: »

Still a little upset at the general consensus regarding Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. I loved it, and I have no idea why so few did.

Oh well, can't win 'em all, I guess.

I liked it!

Richy

Then again, I liked Love and Monster too, and most people seem to have hated that one.

Harry Dresden

Jenna-Louise Coleman's companion character is named Clara Oswin.

Richy

So the Asylum of the Daleks prequel in the OP was taken off YouTube. Anyone got a new link? I'd like to see it!

-SPI-

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship was ok, fun enough, but it felt a little bloated. It crammed in too many elements, many that were there without any real reason, and didn't have enough time to really establish any of them or for much to happen in the story. It felt like when they were writing it no-one ever shot down an idea or said no.

Still, not terrible. A light, entertaining mess.

Mike Danger

Yeah, I'm having trouble finding a new source for that Asylum prequel myself. There was some weirdness for a while where it was available on iTunes but not on the BBC site.

azith28

Have we seen any screencaps from the next few episodes? I kinda have a theory that leading up to the big ponds leaving moment that they will be getting older every episode (longer between doctor visits) and that when they do leave, they will be at least in the middle age bracket. That might also explain if the new companion has any direct connection to them (If they managed to have another child) etc.

Dark Raven X

There's clips of them in all 5 episodes (except maybe the Power of Three?)

At the least, there's shots of them in their final episode looking no older than they do now. ;D

Deebaser

I want Mitchell and Webb robots

The Dude With Herpes

I want Mitchell and Webb everything. I want a channel just for Mitchell and Webb. It can have all their sketch shows, Peep Show, play through various interviews and game/comedy show appearances. It could even have their radio shows there.

It would be the best channel.

I will say thought that they should have done more with the robots in Dinosaurs. I'm hoping the off hand, 'picked them up for cheap <somewhere>' comment means we may see them again? Probably not.

Jam Warrior

Yay New Who! I miss Confidential though. Want to see Mitchell and Webb pratting about out takes.

The Wolfman

Are they some big comedy duo or something over there?

I know who David Mitchell is, but only because of QI. For example, clips like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeDjaQNiTog

"Why don't you just type 'Mitchell is a cock'."

The Dude With Herpes

Webb doesn't really do all the game shows like Mitchell does; and that's fine, his humor is not the same sort as Mitchell; but they complement eachother extremely well.

Check out Peep Show or That Mitchell and Webb Look for grand times.

EDIT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCNTU02N9zk
is just an example

or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&NR=1&v=9swKKZy0CCM

I'm gonna stop now or I'll just link the whole damn series.

EDIT EDIT: Ok sorry, this is the one people tend to link as an example; you've probably seen it without knowing who they were
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsNLbK8_rBY

Hakkekage

Just going to leave this here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B0-YTpAMmew

JonBob

Seems like they could have waited on filming for a few days until his Bell's Palsy wore off.

Ravenhpltc24

Ha, I saw that Inspector Spacetime thing the other day. Interesting that the lead actor went ahead and made this webseries himself, without any NBC involvement (or permission?), which is how he got stuck with that lame title.

JonBob

Yeah, he tried to run a Kickstarter campaign for the series, and drew the ire of NBC. He got some "populist hero" credibility for it, but it's a pretty cut-and-dried case of IP law here.

Dark Raven X

He drew the ire of NBC specifically? Not the BBC?

Cause I'd think as an obvious parody of Doctor Who, they've got no right to forbid it. :P

The Dude With Herpes

Yeah, it was NBC that led to this. It didn't fall under the BBC because it was Inspector Spacetime which was on an NBC IP, itself covered by parody protections; but the guy was making his thing specifically Inspector Spacetime and not a parody of a parody (though, it did end up as that, now; due to the NBC stuff).

Ravenhpltc24

Dark Raven X wrote: »

He drew the ire of NBC specifically? Not the BBC?

Cause I'd think as an obvious parody of Doctor Who, they've got no right to forbid it. :P

Yes, that would make more sense, wouldn't it? I've searched for a BBC response to Inspector Spacetime, can't find any. Guess that means they're ok with it? But since "Inspector Spacetime" is a copyrighted creation of NBC, they get to tell the dude he's not allowed to profit from a full version.

The Dude With Herpes

As I said, NBC was protected because Inspector Spacetime was a parody, and in of itself was not made to make money; thus the BBC doesn't really have any say in the matter. If NBC decided to develop a TV show called Inspector Spacetime then the BBC might have a thing or two to say.

The guy got in trouble with NBC because Inspector Spacetime is owned by them. Had he called his thing Detective Chronoverse and made it a parody of a parody he would have been fine, but he called it Inspector Spacetime specifically and thus wasn't a parody under copyright law, so the CaD was actually pretty legitimate.

Custom Special

Don't have BBC cable, but apparently am lucky enough that Comcast adds the new episodes a day after air!
My wife and I were so excited to see those show up after the new stuff started.

Daleks was awesome. Dinosaurs, Brian Pond was the best.

Krathoon

David Mitchell losing his shit is always comedy gold. He also has a soapbox web series that is pretty funny.

Zilla360

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRr7H3woFn4

On his twitter account, he eats pizza. Everywhere.

Ravenhpltc24

Spoiler for tomorrow's episode! For real, guys.

DOCTOR, why you gotta be so violent lately? Hmm?

Dark Raven X

OK so it's totally a thing this series then.

Krathoon

I do wonder if we are now going to see why people were wanting to kill him. Maybe, it is actually over what he hasn't done yet.

Richy

Krathoon wrote: »

I do wonder if we are now going to see why people were wanting to kill him. Maybe, it is actually over what he hasn't done yet.

That would be fun.

Then I wonder what he'd do. He could try to avoid doing the thing and spare himself the trouble of having people trying to kill him. Or he could do it willingly to keep history on track. Or he could do it accidentally while trying to prevent himself from doing it. Or decide it was too important a thing and needed doing and screw the consequences to himself.

Dark Raven X

That horse line is gonna cause trouble. :I

Bogart

Hmm. That was kinda dumb.

Quical

Dumb? Man I enjoyed it a lot. Hope I'm not the odd one out again.

Found him pointing a gun and essentially holding it at Kahler-Jex so that he can be executed very chilling and I guess this is a theme the Doctor is sticking with this season. Wowie, dark places. Enjoyed The Gunslinger in general, too. His fizzing in and out as he approached was a nice touch.

Bogart

I liked the moral quandary aspect, but the whole thing made no sense. I don't mind the odd plot hole here and there, as that's not really what I watch Who for, but the whole thing just required everybody to act in a certain way because that's what the plot required.

The sheriff and Rory leave the jail only so that Amy can have a gun pointed at her. The gunslinger doesn't enter town only so he can, at noon, enter town for a showdown. And the ending was, astonishingly, the ending to The Three Amigos.

Grislo

New episode was fine, but also very much a fluff piece.

A little heavy on western tropes, which wasn't always a good thing.

Looks like next week will be more interesting, though.

Bogart

If you have a great idea for a scene but no idea how to get any of your characters into that scene you end up with tonight's episode.

Euphoriac

Basically;
'Let's make the doctor a sheriff for an episode!'
'Ok, what will he be doing?'
'Who cares!? He's wearing a stetson! He said stetsons are cool in a previous episode!'

Krathoon

The part where the marshal got shot was kind of silly. The cyborg could have simply shot the alien doctor after that. If the alien doctor ran behind the crowd, it would have made more sense. What was the point of Rory and the sheriff's little trip anyway?

They need to tighten up the stories some more. I notice this as the key difference between Moffat and Davies. Moffat is willing to go weird, but Davies has more structure.

EliteBattleman

Krathoon wrote: »

The part where the marshal got shot was kind of silly. The cyborg could have simply shot the alien doctor after that. If the alien doctor ran behind the crowd, it would have made more sense. What was the point of Rory and the sheriff's little trip anyway?

They were all told that the Gunslinger would simply kill anyone that leaves town. As such, Rory and Crichton ran out to draw his fire so that the Doctor could get to the Tardis. Of course, he didn't go to the Tardis anyway because he stumbled onto the other alien dude's ship alarm, which drew Gunslinger's focus back away from Rory/Crichton.