Doctor Who

[The One Bad Ass Outlaw]

With BBC3 airing a "Doctor Who Night" this Sunday and the new series just over a week away, I think it's about time this thread got started.

The episode titles are as follows...

1. New Earth

2. Tooth and Claw

3. School Reunion

4. The Girl in the Fireplace

5. Rise of the Cybermen (Episode 1 of 2)

6. The Age of Steel (Episode 2 of 2)

7. The Idiot's Lantern

8. The Impossible Planet (Part 1 of 2)

9. The Satan Pit (Part 2 of 2)

10. Love and Monsters

11. Fear Her

12. Army of Ghosts (Part 1 of 2)

13. Doomsday (Part 2 of 2)

I'm sceptical about episodes 10 and 11 which sound a bit dodgy, but I can't fricking wait for this new series...

[The LBTN Express]

The minute they announced they were having an 'Eastenders' episode was the minute I decided I won't be bothering to watch this series.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Excuse me if I don't get excited.

Though I might watch the Cybermen episodes for pure nostalgia.

In ye olde days the Doctor would spend a whole series battling against a certain foe (McCoy with the Cybermen, loads of Doctors with the Daleks) but the guy who has written these last two series takes the viewers for morons. I'm not bothering.

[therockbox]

Meh.

It was alright, but I'll only really watch it again if I've got nothing else to do.

[GA!]

Random thoughts: I thought it was quite a stable episode. Not one of their best, and the return of Cassandra was pretty pointless (and the emo death at the end more pointless). I think Tennant's doing quite well in his new role and either it was dubbed over or Billie Piper's got some actual acting talent in her. I think the Face of Boa's (or whatever the hell its called) enigmatic message will play a part in the finale - just because finales need some kind of big build-up. I'm looking forward to next week - because anything that combines Queen Victoria with lycanthropy is surely the greatest story ever told.

[ClaRK! Kent]

The new series is looking pretty stellar, really. Tennant is, IMO, a far superior actor to Eccleston, who was by far the best actor to take the part on when he did it, so theoretically we're onto something good with Tennant this time around.

New Earth was a solid, if not spectacular, episode. The usual "ooh, the future" comic stuff was well-done, I was intensely surprised to learn on BBC3's Dr Who Confidential show just now that Billie did all of the voice stuff for her possession herself, and the Cat-Nun-Nurses were quite cool indeed. Good range for Tennant, from comic through to dark and spooky, which is always nice.

In ye olde days the Doctor would spend a whole series battling against a certain foe (McCoy with the Cybermen, loads of Doctors with the Daleks) but the guy who has written these last two series takes the viewers for morons. I'm not bothering.

[The One Bad Ass Outlaw]

That was great. Tennant's Doctor seems at the same time very different and very much the same to Eccleston's, and Billie was fantastic as Cassandra, and has very nice breasts...the solution at the end seemed a bit too easy though, and the Cat Women, though well-realized, were confusing at times. You could never tell whether they were good or evil (but perhaps that's a good thing).

The story seemed to go too quickly though - perhaps one-hour episodes would be better if we're sticking with individual stories.

[ClaRK! Kent]

Tell that to the BBC. I thought a lot of episodes last year dragged a bit, really. Besides, 45-48 minutes is the standard length of an episode of most SF/Action shows really. Buffy, Smallville, etc are all 48 minutes long, but they just seem like an hour on the schedules because of commercials. The Beeb doesn't have that problem, you're looking at the same length of TV.

I think it was just a fast-paced episode.

[Mj3]

I caught the end of the episode tonight, was good I enjoyed it, Billie Piper, id hit that (and would have done in 1998 wen she first appeared).

Prefer the old episodes though, they were badly acted, the set moved when they ran past it, but it was all gold! Tom Baker's era was the best one.

No celebrity appearances, pretty much unknowns acting in them.

This series....... Needs more Darleks.

[ClaRK! Kent]

Given the ending to the last series, wherein the "only Daleks who survived the Time War" were wiped out by Willow, I mean Rose, I think you're hoping for too much there.

Meh, on the Dalek front, anyway. They were cool in the last series, but for me they've never been as good as the Cybermen. As the classic Patrick Troughton story Tomb of the Cybermen, and a couple of the Big Finish audios, affirm - the Cybermen were better because they weren't just monosyllabic, hate-filled killers. It's about survival, for the Cybermen, they want their race to live. So, you can have more sympathy with them, which ultimately makes for a better villain. Hopefully, Russell T. Davies has that worked out, and I'm sure he does. He's the best writer in British television, pretty much.

Tom Baker's era was cool. Yes, it had some of the worst companions in the show's history (the second, ugly-as-your-mate's-mum Romana, for instance) and a whole weird season devoted to the Key to Time or whatever it was called, but it was cool. Although it'd have been about 20 times cooler if they'd ever finished making Shada, the abandoned Douglas Adams story. According to the online webcast animation, it's fantastic, so imagine how good it'd have been in its original form.

Still, I'm gonna suggest that Tom Baker was not the best Doctor. For me, it'd have to go...

1. Patrick Troughton

2. Tom Baker

3. William Hartnell

4. Colin Baker

5. Christopher Ecclestone

6. Jon Pertwee

7. Sylvester McCoy

8. Peter Davison

9. Paul McGann

Not counting Tennant, obviously, as he's only had like 2 episodes right now.

Richard E. Grant was quite good in that bbc.co.uk webcast animation they did for the 40th anniversary, mind you.

Edited April 15, 2006 by Sephiroth Clone

[The One Bad Ass Outlaw]

The Cybermen episodes are based on the Big Finish play "Spare Parts" so you've got nothing to worry about there.

I'm stunned at your Doctor rankings though - Baker and McCoy above Davison? And you discount David Tennant because he's only had two episodes, yet you put Paul McGann bottom despite him only ever having one. Mine would look something more like this...

1. Tom Baker

2. Patrick Troughton

3. William Hartnell

4. Christopher Eccleston

5. Peter Davison

6. Jon Pertwee

7. Colin Baker

8. Sylvester McCoy

I won't include McGann because one movie isn't enough to judge but I thought he had the potential to be a great Doctor, and Tennant has the potential to sneak into the top three, being a lot more watchable than Hartnell at times.

[ClaRK! Kent]

I really liked Colin Baker.

Perhaps it's because I met him at a convention/signing when I was about 6, perhaps it's because I've grown to really like the Trial of a Time Lord serial, perhaps it's because he got to hang about with hotpants-wearing Nicola Bryant, perhaps it's because he was a lot darker and a lot more intense than his predecessor.

Davison, as the youngest guy to take on the role to that point (was he younger than Tennant, even? DT is 34 if I recall, was Davison 32 or 33?) seemed to be trying too hard not to be a clone of Tom Baker, but just turned into a wet blanket. Plus, who thought that outfit was a good idea?!

Colin Baker was highly underrated. The whole idea with his Doctor, apparently, was to have him be a bit dark and moody at the beginning and then kinda "strip the layers away" as time went on with him. Of course, the BBC and their general mid-80s fuckwittage put paid to that after about 2 or 3 years.

McCoy wasn't great, but he was a fuck's sight better than Davison.

As for McGann, he had 1 episode which was the complete sum of his "official" time as the Doctor, but he's also voiced numerous Big Finish audios and radio things, and been fairly average in them really.

As for the Cybermen episodes being based on Spare Parts, w00t! I love that one. Surely, if it's set on a parallel Earth and not on Mondas, it's going to be somewhat different though?

[Steeb]

I thought that episode last night was quite fucking excellent. David Tennant, whilst not having quite the grit Eccleston had, is far superior - in my eyes - at doing the comedy, which seems to be quite prominent in these newer series. Plus he got angry....really angry....which was great.

And Billie. Yeah I'd hit it. Plus her acting has come on rather a lot, in my opinion.

[Dingle]

When you have Jon Pertwee that low, you deserve to never discuss Dr. Who... ever. I can't stand too much Patrick Troughton, but that's becaue the flute was overkill.

1. Tom Baker

2. Jon Pertwee

3. William Hartnell

4. Patrick Troughton

5. Peter Davidson

6. Chris Eccleston

7. Sylvester McCoy (Did the wacky thing better than Baker. Baker was fat too. >_>.)

8. Colin Baker (I hated Perry)

[GhostMachine]

Regarding the animation webcast that Richard E. Grant did (`Scream of the Shalka'), I assume that was supposed to be either a future incarnation of the Doctor (ie, 11, 12, or 13) or a much younger first Doctor (since he had a similar hairstyle).

And I don't want to know how or why it happens, but do they actually show the Doctor's regeneration into Tennant? I was disappointed that there was no explanation of how and why the Doctor regenerated into the Eccleston incarnation (at least in the episodes I've seen so far - I think Sci-Fi Channel has shown 5 episodes so far, but I've only seen about 3 - the last being the one with Charles Dickens and those gaseous aliens possessing corpses).

As for the Doctors, my list of best to worst:

1. Tom Baker

2. Jon Pertwee (Best dressed Doctor, in my opinion)

3. William Hartnell

4. Peter Davison

5. Sylvester McCoy

6. Christopher Eccleston

7. Patrick Troughton

8. Paul McGann

9. Colin Baker (Worst dressed Doctor. No contest)

Note: Patrick Troughton is listed low only because I have not seen much of him beyond one serial and the Five Doctors special. Colin Baker I did not see much of, but I did see enough to realize he sucked as the Doctor.

[ClaRK! Kent]

They do indeed show the Eccleston -> Tennant regeneration, at the end of the episode "The Parting of the Ways."

As for the 8th -> Eccleston one, you're just s'posed to assume it happened elsewhere. The 8th Doctor's adventures continued in novel format, and there is a novel wherein he regenerates into the 9th Doctor, I believe.

As for Scream of the Shalka, there's a quote in it where the Doctor says about some painter, I can't remember who, "he wanted to paint all nine of me" so... yeah, ninth. Although it's hardly canon now the TV show is back on the air.

Pertwee bored me. Too many gadgets, too much fucking UNIT. Yawn.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

I really didn't enjoy that. It wasn't boring or anything, it was just a very, very poor story. Tennant was fine, but I miss Eccie..... Just a poor episode, Cassandra sucked balls, and the ending was sick enducing. Still, the 'message' from the face of whoever is intriguing, and next weeks show looks like it could be fun. The general rule of thumb I have with Doctor Who is if it isn't written by Russell T. Davies, expect mucho goodness.

Yeah. we wrote next weeks as well.... SOME of his episodes were aright (like the series finale last time), but all series ones best shows weren't done by him and all the worst were. Still, looking forward to next weeks show, looks like it could be cool.

Edited April 16, 2006 by timmayy smothers

[ClaRK! Kent]

I think, considering he's the overall executive producer of the entire show, it's a little much to suggest he has nothing to do with the episodes he didn't get the writing credit for. According to a lot of people, on Dr Who Confidential and stuff, they have a similar writing system to that of Joss Whedon and his team, in that they'll all brainstorm ideas and plotlines with the run of the series in mind - ie: Russell's ideas - and the writers just put the dialogue in mainly.

When Davies writes an episode, it's pretty much just him writing it, on his own, in a room, from the way I understand it - but he's still involved in all of the others.

Besides, how can you say that Rose and Bad Wolf weren't good? They're two of the best episodes in the show's canon! Madman!

I'm gonna put money right now on the Face of Boe's message being that some Time Lords survived the Time War. You heard it here first.

[The One Bad Ass Outlaw]

I doubt it - I seem to remember Davies saying something about the Time Lords and Gallifrey being one of the aspects which made it unappealing to the mainstream audience. Or something.

Of course, I would love to see the Time Lords return, but I just can't see it happening. And apparently episodes 12 and 13 are absolutely massive, so the return of the Time Lords would just make the majority of the audience, who haven't analyzed every episode in any depth, go "what the fuck?"

[Timmoru Suzuki]

I think, considering he's the overall executive producer of the entire show, it's a little much to suggest he has nothing to do with the episodes he didn't get the writing credit for. According to a lot of people, on Dr Who Confidential and stuff, they have a similar writing system to that of Joss Whedon and his team, in that they'll all brainstorm ideas and plotlines with the run of the series in mind - ie: Russell's ideas - and the writers just put the dialogue in mainly.

When Davies writes an episode, it's pretty much just him writing it, on his own, in a room, from the way I understand it - but he's still involved in all of the others.

Besides, how can you say that Rose and Bad Wolf weren't good? They're two of the best episodes in the show's canon! Madman!