The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
A Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey, [Doctor Who] Thread
Red or Alive
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Most of you know the drill: an extremely long-lived extraterrestrial with loosely defined (but impressive) mastery over time and space explores alien worlds and periods with a number of stoopid hoomans in tow (generally attractive young women, annoying boy geniuses, and mouthy redheads) in his marvellous police box TARDIS. This flexible premise has resulted in the longest-running science-fiction serial in television history (though not without one major hiatus of 16 years, give or take a TV movie) and a milestone in British popular culture.
Even those more or less unaware of the programme and its history are likely to have encountered aspects of the show, most probably the recurring menace of the Daleks (IT'S NOT SPELLED "DARLEK", GAD), roving pepper pots that will engender fear in small children and animals
Anyway, this is the designated area for all torrid fanboy arguments relating to spaces that are bigger on the inside than they are on the outside.
Red or Alive on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Massive Audience, One of the best Audience Appreciation Index figures ever, Best Chart Ranking in the series 45 history... a fitting end to RTD's era, I think, and something for Moffat to aim to beat. Still.. official confirmation comes next week. History books!
There's also a very interesting interview with RTD here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/07/television.bbc
Choice quotes:
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner
Might be a good idea. No more continually typing tags (my trackpad is a whole centimetre away from my keyboard - the effort, man, the effort).
And let's say I've never watched even a single morslet of an episode before.
Where should I start?
Yes, I had thought previously that RTD was like Moore minus the gigantic balls required to actually do something like that and let it stay that way.
Assuming you can lay hands on it then watching from Season 1 of the new series isn't a bad idea, assuming you have the free time. If you do this make sure you find the Christmas Specials as well. This last bit will make much more sense if you've watched the last 4 seasons.
However, there are episodes in the beginning that are bad enough to turn you away from the show if you're not already hooked. You can revisit them when (and I do mean when) the show grabs you by the neck and won't let go. The newer stuff may require a trip to wikipedia.
If you want to see the best of Doctor Who, watch the moffat episodes (the empty child, the doctor dances, and blink). They are pretty self contained and reveal nothing you don't already know from glancing at this thread.
Anyways that would br my vote for the next companion, they could even bring the angels back for an episode. I can't even look at an angel statue anymore without thinking instantly of Blink.
Season 1 of the new series is probably the best place to start, or barring that, season 3, which works as a bit of a re-introduction. I wouldn't recommend going back and watching the old show unless you see the new one and decide you just can't have enough; I love O.G. Who, but I have no illusions about its level of cheese.
It's difficult to put my finger on.
He has no subtlety in his heart.
He is unwilling to change the status quo (make lasting decisions about important characters (such as death)).
He builds up momentum but does not follow through.
His writing is often very clichéd and over-written.
His plots are based on deus ex machinas and technobabble.
He feels the need to justify every deus ex machinas and mcguffins with exposition which take precious minutes.
There is often a lot of fanwankery.
After this, it becomes nitpicking. Suffice to say, he has a lot of flaws. Yes, he has done a lot of the show. He basically resurrected it and restored it to its former glory, but it's time for him to move on. He's not that terrible a writer, but others can do better. I've become used to the good stuff.
[EDIT] Oh yes, I forgot to mention. Jesus Doctor. I know people will disagree, but I fucking hate Jesus Doctor and all Jesus Doctor related material. (Such as, "he's like fire" and "this wonderful, wonderful man")
I think, outside of season finales, most of his episodes are pretty good. It's just that he tries to make the finales too epic and has to come up with a deus ex machina ending when he realises he's put the doctor in a situation that can't be solved with a time travelling phonebox and magic screwdriver.
His reliance on magic reset buttons and "because" endings are less at fault than the fact he doesn't really have interesting stories. Oh no, the world is a giant traffic jam!
Take your pick:
- he's mouthy
- he's gay
- he put mouthy gay people in a show
- he made the mouthy gay guy kiss the Doctor
- he put a mouthy chav in a show
- he made the Doctor kiss the chav
- he said the Doctor has a granddaughter, thus implying that he has had filthybad sex, unlike one hundred percent most extra loyal card-carrying Whovian
Seriously, I dunno. A lot of it, especially early on, was leftover fannish weirdness from hardcore old-school types. Some of it is legitimate criticism of the show's tone - he really likes to swing for the emotional fences and doesn't hedge his bets with much preemptive irony, so a given episode can either be wrenching and affecting or almost unbearably saccharine and cloying, although hardly any two people seem to consistently agree on which ones are which. A lot of it is casting choices: people who are just bound and determined to hate Catherine Tate because of her show, or the Rose character because of her class. And a lot of it doesn't really make any sense at all.
That might be true. I don't pay attention to the writer unless I really hated the episode (which happens with RTD most). According to tv.com, he wrote Midnight, of which I am a fan. Also, Utopia was pretty great, but I think Derek Jacobi had a lot to do with that.
Correct. I'm enumerating other people's problems with RTD, not my own.
You mean the granddaughter that travelled with the First Doctor?
The Jade Pagoda stuff is all very interesting.
Human Nature/Family of Blood were taken from a book, I believe. And a couple of others too, I think.
Really, I just want more Rob Shearman episodes.
Yes, which got retconned into "she just called him grandfather as a term of affection" in the books because hardcore old-school Who fans have issues about the idea that he reproduced.
Which I'm glad the new series put a kibosh on with the Doc talking about his family and marriage and kids. Denying that stuff is just crazy.
I wonder if the same people who cling so hard to the Doctor's vow of chastity are the same people who have trouble with the Doctor=Jesus stuff in the new series.
That's a nice thing to think that doesn't really jibe with what I've read on the sewers of the internets.
Or the press, large parts of which repeatedly accuse him of "forcing his gay agenda" into Doctor Who. And, no, agenda is not a euphemism.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
That gets him a pass in my book.
Not to mention that without him we wouldn't have the show back at all.
Yes, all the final episodes are terrible, but everything else more than makes up for it.
Also Human Nature/The Family of Blood from last year. Along with Moffat, Paul Cornell is probably one of the better new series writers (having done a few novels in the past, as well as the Shalka webcast). Never actually finished reading the book it's based off, but from what I did get through, I preferred the TV version.
That was just pure wank. I find most of his stuff isn't too crap if you're just sitting down and letting it wash over for the pure enjoyment of it, but not even Jesus Doctor makes it through this process.
Iceberg (only one of the Jade Pagoda novels I read). Definitely one of my favourite NAs made even better by the fact that the Cyberleader wrote it (David Banks also played the Doctor a couple of times in the '89 stage show when Pertwee was unable to).
I've also heard that the opening Timewyrm (sp?) books were pretty good, too. There's a crapload of awesome material in the Virgin and BBC books (as well as BF audios) that really should be put on screen.
Are we entirely sure the Doctor even has the... needed bits for human-like procreation? I mean, he has two hearts, so not everything is the same. There have been hints, like the doctor claiming he has "danced" before, but nothing right-in-your-face conclusive, right?
You can bypass the whole sex discussion with the Doctor simply by making him a grand-father by other means, like asexual reproduction or machine womb testtube babies or whatever. I just want whatever grand-children to share the Doctor's DNA.
If you really take the NAs as canon, then that's how the whole Other-Doctor reincarnation business took place.
As for the Doctor's companions, I love Rose and how important she was to the Doctor even after her term was up. Also it felt more like the Doctor had an extended family what with Mickey, Jackie, and Captain Jack running around. I hate hate hate Donna and they were a little too late in making her sympathetic or likeable. Martha Jones was kind of a non-entity but was pretty cool in her finale, and the Doctor was actually competent rather than relying on a deus ex machina.
Of course, since the NAs aren't canon, insofar as there's a canon at all, this is all a little spurious.
New series has stated that the Doctor was a father the conventional way, old series gave him a grand-daughter. There's a pretty strong indication there that Time Lords have something akin to normal human procreation.
Off-topic: Not enough people read Gunnerkirgg Court.
And River Song, actually - loads of people on OG saying she'll be in series 5. I think they're kind of missing the point of River's story by thinking this, though.
XBL/PSN/Steam: APZonerunner