Dr Who

[Steve Alpe]

Just found an excellent website

http://www.timelash.com

It details all the Doctor Who books, videos, DVDs, etc which are available including those in America Keith. I am going to have to make another wants list to go with my Enid Blyton one to carry around with me now!

[Ming]

Not really related to this thread, seeing that this seems to revolve around the TV series, but I found Gary Russell's Invasion of the Cat-People in our school library today! I have yet to read the book - I was so thrilled at school that I didn't get to read it. I was telling everyone that I met Gary!

[Almas]

Thanks Steve for the link!

Oooooh Ming! Were the other girls quite envious when you told them that?

[Ming]

Most of them probably thought I was weird.

The boys were envious, though.

[Keith Robinson]

Speaking of the Doctor...

I was a die-hard fan for years and years (once I'd grown out of Enid Blyton) and owned over 100 books, something like 110, which at the time (mid/late-eighties) was EVERY Who book available. These were all the original TV stories, which the Doc team were busy novelizing. I stopped watching sometime during Colin Baker's era.

Years later I got to watch all the episodes on UK Gold, a complete story (which ranged from 2-8 episodes) every Sunday morning. It was great reliving it all, but I was also pretty appalled at how bad most of it really it was.

Then Chris. Eck. took over and it was all very promising. Finally, a revamped version for the 21st Century! Okay, so some episodes were bad, REALLY bad, and others were just okay. Only a couple were any good in my opinion, including the one set in WWII with the kids in gas masks, and -- my favorite -- the one with the black hole and that gigantic trapped demon (Satan himself?). That creature was one amazing bit of TV, by ANY standards. I felft very proud to be a Whovian at that moment.

This third series (which in the US started with The Runaway Bride) is so far a load of old codswallop. I thought the "pig creature" in the first series (when the aliens invaded London) was daft, but in the episode I just watched, Daleks in Manhattan, there were full-grown man in boiler suits... with pig heads. It's like a pantomime! And the episode before had a future New York in which people spent literally decades stuck on the motorway. And we had the guy from Father Ted dressed as a cat-person. More pantomime!

I'm getting very tired of it. I guess we should be grateful to Russell Davies for bring the series back with such a bang, but now I wish he would grow up or hand the reins to someone who might treat the series with a bit more respect instead of having everyone prance about like they're in a kids' panto, with so-called villains that make Enid Blyton's villains seem positively evil in comparison!

Despite my disgust though, I cannot stop watching in case something really GOOD should happen.

Yours dejectedly,
A soon-to-be-ex-Doctor-Who-fan-if-this-nonsense-keeps-up.

[Julie2owlsdene]

I started to watch Dr Who again when Chris Eccleston became the new Doctor, and found the series very good. When he left and David Tennant took over I thought it would flop, but I have to say, that he was an even better Dr. and worked well with Rose. I think David Tennant is the best Doctor of all time, and I'm much looking forward to the coming Christmas episode with Kyle and the story line of Titanic.

[Petermax]

Years later I got to watch all the episodes on UK Gold, a complete story (which ranged from 2-8 episodes) every Sunday morning. It was great reliving it all, but I was also pretty appalled at how bad most of it really it was.

I just about tolerated the departure of Jon Pertwee and gradually got used to Tom Baker. All was well until Peter Davison took over the role of Dr Who. I simply could not get over the sight of Tristan from All Creatures Great and Small prancing about in the Tardis! Mr Davisons performance as Tristan was brilliant, just like I imagined him in the James Heriott books but as a twenty-something Time Lord? No way!

Messrs Eccleston and Tennant have played their roles well but there is far too much silliness in many episodes of the resurrected Dr Who series. If only the BBC would enlist Gary Russell as scriptwriter then the series could have some decent storylines.

[Keith Robinson]

I agree with both of you! I think Tennant is better than Eccleston, but to be honest I don't think the Doc is the problem. With the exception of Colin Baker, who was awful, I think all the actors have been pretty well chosen -- even Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy.

My favorites were always Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker though. I mention both because Pertwee was my favorite while reading the books, and Baker was my favorite for watching on TV. I always had a crush on Jo Grant, the third Doc's assistant; sadly, I believe Katy Manning moved to Australia so she never came back for cameos like Liz Sladen did.

My theory is that the Doctor Who TV show did well ever since it aired in 1963 all the way through to the late seventies because the special effects (although bad) didn't stand out as a big issue in those days, and the stories were darker and scarier for kids who didn't have so much on TV to compare it to. From the eighties onwards, TV and cinema got better and better and Doctor Who... well, it just never had the money to move with the times. It became a showcase for terrible rubber monsters and wobbly sets.

This new series certainly has a much better budget and for the most part looks great -- but the stories are silly and camped up, and the show is played for laughs, for a much-too-young audience. I couldn't bear to watch the second part of the recent Dalek one aired in the US, Evolution of the Daleks... that "human Dalek" with it's feebly-moving tentacles... and the utterly useless pig people... (Why didn't the Daleks use the Ogrons, as they did in Pertwee's day?)

*Sigh* Does this third series improve at all? Looking back at clips of the second series I was amazed at how much better I thought those episodes were -- especially the giant demon thing in the black hole, as I mentioned.

Just curious as to what episodes and monsters/villains others found the best?

[lizarfau]

There is a fantastic episode in series 3 with stone angels. The doctor's not in it very much, but it was still the most gripping episode I've seen since the revival of Dr Who. It was written by Steven Moffatt, who wrote Press Gang back in the 1980s/1990s. So you will hopefully enjoy that one, Keith!

Overall, I've enjoyed Dr Who since its return. I didn't like Ecclestone as the Doctor - I felt the Doctor had had a personality bypass in that series and was completely overshadowed by the characters of Rose and Captain Jack. I like Tennant's Doctor much better - he's more eccentric. I found Rose's constant harping on about her flipping parents extremely irritating and was glad when she left. But I find Martha's unrequited love for the Doctor irritating as well - why the hell can't today's sidekicks come without issues, the way they used to?! But still, it's one of the very few things I watch on television these days.

But I am rather dreading next season. For one thing, I could not bear the character of Donna in that Christmas episode, and don't really want to suffer 12 weeks of her. (As a side issue, why is it OK for a woman to repeatedly slap a man on TV - if the Doctor had slapped Donna, there would have been an outcry.) As for bringing Kylie in - well, if that's not pantomime, I don't know what is. Does Dr Who really have to resort to bringing in the celebs?

My all-time favourite Doctor was Jon Pertwee, followed by Patrick Troughton, Tom Baker and now David Tennant. But, like someone above, I stopped watching when Tristan from All Creatures Great and Small came into it! I thought Paul McGann was good in that mid-1990s movie, though.

[Moonraker]

For lovers of Doctor Who and Agatha Christie, this looks interesting.

Imagine the good Doctor travelling back in time to Kirrin in the forties....

[Ming]

That looks interesting.

Agatha meeting Dr Who?!!

[Moose]

There was some complete rubbish in the last series, I agree. That New York motorway one was terrible. Hated the daleks in Manhatten one - wanted to scream every time that woman, with her horrendous attempt at a New York accent, came on screen.

The Family of Blood was brilliant though, as was Blink.

Tom Baker was my favourite doctor. My ex and I had most of the stuff that was available on video but alas, he kept them when we split (which was fair enough as technically they belonged to him)

[Keith Robinson]

Last Friday night's episode here in the U.S. was "42" and this was easily the best of the series so far, I think -- which is not really saying much. I thought it was very similar in feel to the one I liked last season, with that giant demon thing, and the black hole. As usual it had its daft aspects -- I mean, if these humans had been taken over by the star's energy (or whatever) and they were hell bent on killing people by opening their eyes at them and burning them... then why on earth did they don those welder helmets??? Just for effect? Tsk.

But it had some good moments, like Martha being ejected in the escape pod (itself something to celebrate); for a moment there it was like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Looking forward to Blink then, if that one's good as you say, Moose. I agree that the "stuck on the motorway" episode was stupid beyond belief. Why was it exactly that the New New Yorkens had British accents? And why was it called a motorway instead of an interstate, highway, freeway, or even expressway? Motorway is so... well, British!!

Also, I think the BBC should send Russell Davies a memo: "Never, ever allow humanoid monsters to wear boiler suits, leather trousers, or suits. With the big bulky alien head-masks that actors have to wear, they always look top-heavy unless their clothing/apparel is also padded out with suitable armor or other bulky materials. Please don't make the monsters look daft. Aren't we trying to get beyond the "man in costume" look? And throw away those pig masks. Who can take an actor with a pig-head seriously? And clearly they can't see where they're going anyway, the way they run about bumping into each other."

David Tennant is brilliant though. Martha's okay except for the whole "anxious mum" thing. *Sigh* Russell Davies is kind of repetitive, isn't he? It was bad enough that we had to suffer Christmas Santas two years in a row, and now we're back to anxious mums again...

[Moose]

Ah have you not got to The Family of Blood yet? I wondered why you'd not mentioned it. Genuine brilliance .. it's up there with THe Satan Pit as one of the highlights of Who as a whole.

Blink is brilliantly conceived though the Doctor and Martha aren't in it that much. Don't let that put you off tho.

[davejeffery]

Ah have you not got to The Family of Blood yet? I wondered why you'd not mentioned it. Genuine brilliance .. it's up there with THe Satan Pit as one of the highlights of Who as a whole.

Blink is brilliantly conceived though the Doctor and Martha aren't in it that much. Don't let that put you off tho.

Moose

I absolutely agree - The Satan Pit is an outstanding factor in the entire 'new-look' Dr Who. Your signature also quote's Roy Batty's epitaph in Bladerunner - now that is cool!!! I'm very much looking forward to the Bladerunner - Final Cut due out this Christmas.

Dave