Doctor Who

POSTED BY: Quicksand
UPDATED: Monday, January 29, 2007 17:20
VIEWED: 12851
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CYBERSNARK

Sunday, December 24, 2006 5:29 PM

He regenerated. Eccleston was the Ninth Doctor, keeping it in the same continuity. The "new" series isn't so much a reboot as a long-awaited continuation.

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

SAB39

Sunday, December 24, 2006 7:50 PM

For those watching on the CBC schedule who are behind the US this may be a mild spoiler, but only ever-so-slightly because it's clear pretty early in the ep in question.

Anyone else think it was just a little bit weird that the guy in Love and Monsters was in love with Moaning Myrtle?

(I know a lot of people didn't like that episode, I did though. Call me weird...)

REGINAROADIE

Sunday, December 24, 2006 9:53 PM

I thought that episode was both weird and interesting. It was kind of cool to see an episode of a sci-fi show from a fan perspective, since that's basically what the ep is, a love letter to the fans. It would be like an ep of FIREFLY where we see someone from the core hearing about the crew of Serenity and their adventures and loving them so much that he or she goes on a quest to find them, and get comedically involved in the criminal underworld of the 'verse and then Serenity shows up like in the last five minutes.

But the ending was a bit weird, seeing her ending up as a face in a stone tile. I mean, what kind of life is that to lead? It's like those quadrapalegics, where their basically a head on a stick. In those cases, then yes to euthanasia (although that's a bit of a tangent I'm not willing to get into at this moment. Sorry about that.)

That's one thing that no one mentions when it comes to who. Everyones ready to heap accolades onto LOST and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA for being all dark and elaborate and all that, but I'm more of a fan of DOCTOR WHO because it can be as dark and deep as those shows (Dalek, Father's Day, the three two parters of the second season), but still be able to find humor in those situations. And yet because of that humor and that "Britishness" (which as a Canadian is the dumbest thing ever, since I think what people think are British I think is universal), it's considered a lesser series. IMHO, I'd prefer a DOCTOR WHO marathon over a GALACTICA marathon.

As per which Doctor I prefer, I have to admit that Tennant has grown on me. He has that manic energy to him that Eccleson didn't have for some reason, which gives him that much of an edge.

And no, I havn't watched TORCHWOOD yet. Been downloading all the eps and plan on watching them in one fall swoop.

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"Wait a minute, you're not Santa! You're not even robots!! How dare you lie in front of Jesus!!!"

RADARRESE

Sunday, December 24, 2006 10:00 PM

Thought I would jump in with my less than 2 cent's worth.

Chris Eccleston is/was my "first" doctor. I am still bemoaning his departure. I personally think that Tennant's doctor is a geek -- much to my daughter's dismay (at least we have something to yell at each other from across the room!).

I agree that the "tone" of the series changed, due, in part, that Russell T. Davies stopped contributing as many storylines as he did in the first season. My feeling is that if an episode is written by Russell T. Davies, then I will like it!

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RadarRese

LESATHER

Monday, December 25, 2006 7:01 AM

I disagree about Russell T. Davies. While I think he has had a great vision in bringing back the series and crafting it to suit a 21st century audience, personally I believe the best episodes so far were NOT written by him and I tend to be disappointed in those which are. It is sort of like George Lucas - great vision/scope, but please dear god, allow someone else to write the words!

"Jayne is a girl's name" - River

FANTY

Monday, December 25, 2006 11:16 PM

Hey, anyone know when runaway bride is coming on? In the third week of january or what? I hated that cliffhanger...

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"Mal, how can you always tell?"
"Fanty's prettier."

FIZZIX

Monday, December 25, 2006 11:18 PM

Tennant looks like this geeky little rat-like kid at our school... But I love him. I was a bit obsessed with Ec... yeah, Mr.-I-can't-bother-spelling-your-name-since-you-agreed-to-exist-for-only-one-ep. Anti spoiler here, but, um, I cried at the end of Series two. I couldn't even properly cry for WASH, and I cried.

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May not be smart, and it may not please you, but you're definitely gonna see what I have to say.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 6:11 PM

I was practically in love with the first season (9th Doctor) of Doctor Who. Being a big scifi fan, people are often surprised to discover that I’ve never really watched much of the older Doctor Who series, but apart from the paucity of these episodes on American TV, I could never really get into them when I was young. Part of the reason was the Britishness of the show, but that’s usually a low hanging barrier. The first few times that you watch a British show, it just seems stupid, but then, like picking up a dialect, the more you watch it the more you begin to understand the nuances and the intelligence of the show. But entertainment television is very competitive and very much a trivial pastime, despite its popularity, and few people are going to take the time to understand a show’s cultural vernacular when there are lots of shows that require much less thought.

The third problem is that Americans have always been used to relatively elaborate and expensive props and visual images on tv and movies. And this is why American tv and movies have always been in a category by themselves. Even in Europe today, American movies are not referred too as “foreign films,” they are “American films.” And although European films (and even Eastern films) are catching up or have caught up, the fact remains that many Americans never accepted a “police box” as a low budget alternative to a space-time ship, not when they could watch Captain Kirk and the Starship Enterprise.

The fourth reason, and perhaps the strongest reason for some, is the length of the show. It’s hard to come into a serial show half way through the season and understand what’s going on, much less a few seasons into the show. It’s practically impossible to come into a show in the 14th season, when there have been multiple cast changes, to even begin understanding what’s going on, particularly when you have to overcome a cultural and linguistic dialect. Ironically, the strength of the story may actually compound this problem, as it is more difficult to catch up with a deeply involved and complex storyline then with one suffering from a diminutive and substandard plot.

These are rather superficial, but nonetheless important reason why I and many other Americans never really got involved in the whole Doctor Who thing. So I was really interested in seeing these new series. Even though many Brits view it as being a continuation of the older series, it was treated as a completely new beginning, I imagine, to bring in many potential Doctor Who fans who simply don’t have the time to sit and watch 26 years of reruns.

It certainly got my attention and I’ve not missed an episode since. It’s become one of my favorite shows. That’s not to say that I don’t have some problems with it. There does seem to be some British quirks to it that I don’t really get. The whole interaction between the Doctor and Rose in the second season just seems hard to swallow sometimes. I want to smack them for acting like 12 year old girls. The change from Eccleston to Tennant was hard on me. I suppose I may still be suffering from side-effect of the Coy and Vance thing, but I don’t like my main characters to change actors on me. And I really liked Eccleston as the Doctor, and while many people have assured me that Tennant is as good or better, he’s not. He’s not even close. That’s not to say that Tennant was bad. His lighthearted personally coupled with a babbling stream of consciousness brings a psychopathic façade to the doctor that seems out of character sometimes; on the other hand it suggests a depth of complexity that may actually be in tune with a hyperintelligent extraterrestrial personality. I warmed up to him eventually, but he was never able to bring the depth of passion and gravity to the character that Eccleston did.

In any event, I suppose all Doctor Who fans have their favorite Doctors and I’m just glad to join the myriad of Brits who have probably spent hours contemplating the various personality and character developments of the various

JAKE7

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 8:53 PM

I liked both the recent Doctors. Tom Baker will always be my favorite, as he's the one playing the Doctor when I started watching (I watched the Tom Baker-Peter Davidson years -- I couldn't stand the Colin Baker version). I was really happy with the way C.E. (sorry, I don't know how to spell the last name, so I'm reducing the poor guy to initials) portrayed the doctor. To me, he was very reminiscent of the Tom Baker version.

I was upset when I found he'd left and we were going to have a new doctor, but I found that I like David Tennet. As someone else said earlier, I did want to cry at the end of season/series 2.

Can't wait for season 3!

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MAL: Everybody's makin' a fuss.
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"They just float out there, sending out raver breeding parties..."

DESKTOPHIPPIE

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 8:56 PM

So who saw the Christmas episode? I enjoyed it. It was a heck of a lot better than I thought it would be! Lots of silliness, but still really good.

Then again, I'm one of those nutcases who really likes David Tennant.

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