Doctor Who

[gordonblu]

I'm a fan of Dr Who...but not the way he's been written these past few years.

Has anyone seen the TV movie that starred Eric Roberts?

I have. Paul McGann was very good as the Doctor, but the film felt a little too "American". There was still some classic Doctor Who vibe to it though.

On a side note I just received the Jon Pertwee episode "Terror of the Autons" for my birthday and am overjoyed as this episode has a rather significant importance for me: I wasn't hiding behind the sofa, it was more of a run down the hall screaming! One of my favorites now!

[The Dark Knight]

Overall I think Smith is the best of the new Doctors. I prefer his alien, awkward and closed off nature. And how old he feels. Moffat is miles better than RTD in my opinion as well. His two seasons have been more consistent and interesting to me. RTD ran the show into the ground in the end. Way too much soap opera and cringe. A suburban crying fest. Series 6 was arc heavy but that's what a serialised drama is. Hell, look at the classic series. As a Lost fan I am overjoyed at such tapestry, where you actually have to think. This is a show about space and time for crying out loud, and I feel as if that potential is being tapped into in a more creative fashion.

[Silver Nemesis]

This is a very touchy subject for me. I first started watching Doctor Who when I was six years old. At that time the show had already been cancelled, the BBC was rerunning old episodes and nobody else seemed to care about it. I developed a passionate love for the show and began religiously collecting issues of the Dr Who magazine, the novelizations, the VHS releases, the toys, and pretty much every other badge, postcard, calendar, annual, TV guide or other product related to the Doctor Who franchise. I spent years trying to collect every single Doctor Who story on VHS. At the age of 14, I was having discontinued videos imported from Australia at a cost of around £40 each (which is a lot of money when you're fourteen). I created several Doctor Who fan sites, actively participated in the online fan community, and regularly bombarded the BBC with letters from fake email accounts telling them to bring the show back. I used to attend Doctor Who conventions whenever I could, even though I was usually the only kid there, since the show had been off the air for so long that all the others fans had grown up. I wrote my own Doctor Who books, comics and scripts. I was even the subject of a short newspaper article, where me and Colin Baker were interviewed and photographed together. I was the biggest Doctor Who fan in the world. And when I was in my late teens I finally completed my collection of Doctor Who videos, having tracked down copies of every single surviving story.

And in case anyone was wondering where my username comes from...



Needless to say, I was thrilled when I heard the show was coming back in 2005. I'd campaigned for years to get the BBC to bring it back, and finally they were doing it.

But then I watched the first season. And my love turned to hatred.

I now despise Doctor Who with a passion. The 2005 revival was an abomination! What had once been the greatest TV show ever made was reduced to a turgid, dumbed-downed, politically correct soap opera for the I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! generation. The Doctor's characterisation changed from that of a highly intelligent Edwardian scientist to a catchphrase-spouting cretin who played second fiddle to Billie Piper. The show that had once dealt with scientific concepts such as cybernetics, entropy and temporal paradoxes, was now dealing with anti-plastic, slightly-psychic-paper and farting aliens. The cheaply realised by imaginatively conceived alien worlds of Gallifrey and Skaro were now replaced with London council estates and the streets of Cardiff. But worst of all, everyone else seemed to love it. And it was just me, the diehard fan who'd been waiting for years for the show to return, who got left out in the cold.

Honestly, what George Lucas did to Star Wars with The Phantom Menace was nothing compared to what Russell T Davies did to Doctor Who.

People keep telling me the show's gotten better in recent years. But I still refuse to watch it. As James Cameron said when asked if he'd return to the Terminator franchise: 'the soup's been pissed in.' And for me there's no going back. Since 2005, I've moved on to others areas of geekdom (Star Wars, The X-Files, Star Trek, etc). But I'm happy to discuss the original REAL series with anyone who wants.

Has anyone seen the TV movie that starred Eric Roberts?

At the time it seemed pretty awful. Though compared to the 2005 revival, it now looks like a masterpiece. I was lucky enough to meet Sylvester McCoy at a train station the year it came out (an incredibly nice man, btw) and even then, just a few months after the movie had been broadcast, there was talk of them making an episode where McCoy wakes up in the TARDIS and realises the whole thing was a bad dream.

I'm still waiting for them to make that episode. They could explain away the whole 2005- series as a bad cheese dream.

I'm also trying to watch the classic stuff.  I recently saw "The Aztecs," one of the William Hartnell stories and so far, it's the best of the First Doctor stories I've seen.

I'm glad you've been watching the William Hartnell stories, BatmAngelus. I always liked Hartnell, and even more so now since his Doctor is the antithesis of the modern version. The Aztecs was one of his best stories, and one of the best purely historical serials in the show's history. One of the many things I hated about the new series was Russell T Davies' proclamation there'd be no purely historical stories anymore. I love the sci-fi adventures as much as the next person, but there was something special about the purely historical stories, where the adversaries would be real historical figures instead of aliens.

On a side note I just received the Jon Pertwee episode "Terror of the Autons" for my birthday and am overjoyed as this episode has a rather significant importance for me: I wasn't hiding behind the sofa, it was more of a run down the hall screaming! One of my favorites now!

Terror of the Autons is a classic. It was the story that introduced the Master (though some fans speculate the Warlord from The War Games may have been an earlier incarnation of the Master) and Jo Grant. Robert Holmes was probably the single best Doctor Who writer of all time. Apparently the BBC got a lot of complaints about this story when it first aired, specifically because of the scene where the doll comes to life and kills someone. A lot of kids were freaked out by that. Personally, I thought the scene with the Auton hiding in the safe was more frightening.

I'm not against a Doctor Who movie, but I can see why a movie with no ties to the past or current series could turn off the fans.  We'll see what happens.

It's been done before. Back in the sixties Amicus Studios remade two of the serials into feature movies starring Peter Cushing: Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 AD (1966). In the movie canon his name is Dr. Who, as opposed to just The Doctor. And he's a human who built the TARDIS in a laboratory. They're fun films, though a little goofy compared the main series. There have been countless efforts to make more movies, but none of them ever got off the ground. Perhaps this one will.

[BatmAngelus]

Overall I think Smith is the best of the new Doctors. I prefer his alien, awkward and closed off nature. And how old he feels.

Agreed.  Ever since The Eleventh Hour, I've loved his eccentric genius take and how unpredictable he can be.  At times, he can be a complete goofball, like the episodes with Craig/James Corden.  Other times, he's fully in control and feels like he's been saving up his darker, ruthless side for the right occasions (the confrontation with The Silence in 1969 as well as his threat to Colonel "Runaway" this season come to mind).

I hope he stays on for awhile.

And in case anyone was wondering where my username comes from...

Aha!  I actually read the episode name awhile ago, but forgot to ask you about the connection.

People keep telling me the show's gotten better in recent years. But I still refuse to watch it. As James Cameron said when asked if he'd return to the Terminator franchise: 'the soup's been pissed in.' And for me there's no going back. Since 2005, I've moved on to others areas of geekdom (Star Wars, The X-Files, Star Trek, etc). But I'm happy to discuss the original REAL series with anyone who wants.

I'm very sorry to hear about your feelings on this, but I completely understand.  I look forward to discussing more of the classic series with you here since I plan to watch all of the available classic DW episodes at some point.

Just curious, Silver Nemesis, have you distanced yourself from all new DW media or just the revived series?  Because I've heard great things about the Big Finish Audio Productions with the classic Who actors.  (By the way, Big Finish does not have the rights to the revived series, so there are no crossovers to the Russell Davies reboot).
I also read the other day about a Sixth Doctor comic by Grant Morrison, which revealed that the Cybermen were evolved from the Voord and that Mondas was actually Marinus (The canonicity is questionable, but I wasn't surprised that Morrison would do this, considering that he's the same writer who turned the unnamed scientist of Robin Dies At Dawn into a major Batman supervillain).

It's been done before. Back in the sixties Amicus Studios remade two of the serials into feature movies starring Peter Cushing: Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) and Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 AD (1966). In the movie canon his name is Dr. Who, as opposed to just The Doctor. And he's a human who built the TARDIS in a laboratory. They're fun films, though a little goofy compared the main series. There have been countless efforts to make more movies, but none of them ever got off the ground. Perhaps this one will.

Ah, yes, I've heard of those and was planning to watch the first one soon (I want to hold off on the second one until I see The Dalek Invasion of Earth).  From the trailer alone, it's rather surreal to see a 1960s remake of the first Daleks story arc with a different cast and in color, no less!

I'm glad you've been watching the William Hartnell stories, BatmAngelus. I always liked Hartnell, and even more so now since his Doctor is the antithesis of the modern version. The Aztecs was one of his best stories, and one of the best purely historical serials in the show's history. One of the many things I hated about the new series was Russell T Davies' proclamation there'd be no purely historical stories anymore. I love the sci-fi adventures as much as the next person, but there was something special about the purely historical stories, where the adversaries would be real historical figures instead of aliens.

That is true, I can't think of a single episode in the revived series that's set in the past and doesn't have an alien antagonist/guest star in addition to the historical guest star.  It's sad that the Marco Polo episodes have been lost, since I found the whole idea of Marco Polo holding the TARDIS hostage to be fascinating. 

What I loved about The Aztecs is that they didn't need to bring in any creatures or alien guests.  It was all character conflicts-  The history teacher attempts to change history by forcing the Aztecs to stop human sacrifice.  The high school science teacher has his work cut out for him when he has to duel a trained and experienced Aztec warrior.  The young Susan nearly falls victim to how the old civilization treated marriage and punished people who spoke out against tradition.  And, of course, the reclusive Doctor develops a fondness for a woman who adores him, but must stay behind in her own timeline.

In general, I think the First Doctor's era is fascinating to watch because this is where it all began.  There's no previous show history or past Doctors to fall back onto.  The Doctor himself is as much of a mystery as the alien planets they encounter.  The only evidence so far that he's an alien is when his granddaughter says in the first episode that they're from another time and another world.  The terms Time Lord or Gallifrey haven't been incorporated yet.  There's no regeneration, no two hearts, no sonic screwdriver. 

The First Doctor himself is hardly a genius, he's always making mistakes (one that nearly costs Ian his life in The Aztecs) and requires his younger companions to take on the physical action.  And yet, Hartnell's Doctor still has the eccentricity, the cleverness, the humor, and occasional ruthlessness that we'd see in all the later Doctors.

The show itself seems to have started out as more of an ensemble (though Ian does most of the fighting and investigating), which brings me to the supporting cast.  Aside from being the very first companions, Ian, Barbara, and Susan are perhaps the most important companions in the entire series.  With Susan, it's obvious- she's The Doctor's granddaughter and, in the earlier episodes, she brings out a softer side to him.  It's rare to come across anyone from The Doctor's family in the series (though I know it's been explored in comics, novels, audiobooks, etc.), so I've always seen her as a special part of the mythos.

As for Ian and Barbara, it was natural for us to see a science teacher and a history teacher wind up in the TARDIS, with their adventures in space and time challenging their expertise.  But there's more to it than that. 

The Doctor goes from despising them in the first episode to genuinely caring about them.  They prove to The Doctor that the human race is not to be looked down upon.  That humans are just as smart and capable as he is and are worth defending.  Ian, in particular, is the man of action- always trying to figure out solutions and speaking out to defend what he feels is right. 

I'd like to think that The Doctor, in some ways, was inspired by these two and took on their qualities for himself, forming the more heroic and active Doctor that would carry the series through the years.

[Silver Nemesis]

Just curious, Silver Nemesis, have you distanced yourself from all new DW media or just the revived series?  Because I've heard great things about the Big Finish Audio Productions with the classic Who actors.  (By the way, Big Finish does not have the rights to the revived series, so there are no crossovers to the Russell Davies reboot).

I pretty much severed all ties to the franchise after 2005. But before then, I was a big fan of the Big Finish productions and had corresponded with some of the production staff. I've still got most of them on CD somewhere. They're very good as I recall. It was especially nice that they gave Colin Baker a chance to shine. He'd mostly been saddled with bad scripts when playing the Doctor on television (a big exception being Revelation of the Daleks, which was awesome). But the audio dramas allowed him to approach the character as he'd originally intended, and I remember one year he was even voted the most popular Doctor by readers of the DW Magazine. But I haven't followed the Big Finish dramas since 2005.

I also read the other day about a Sixth Doctor comic by Grant Morrison, which revealed that the Cybermen were evolved from the Voord and that Mondas was actually Marinus (The canonicity is questionable, but I wasn't surprised that Morrison would do this, considering that he's the same writer who turned the unnamed scientist of Robin Dies At Dawn into a major Batman supervillain).

I vaguely remember reading that story, but I'm pretty sure it isn't canonical. The Sixth Doctor comics were generally really weird and inconsistent with the direction the TV show was taking at the time. Morrison wasn't a well known writer back then. A lot of young British comic writers, including Alan Moore, cut their teeth writing for the Doctor Who comics. The results were very hit and miss. And the Sixth Doctor comics were, for the most part, misses.

Out of interest, have you seen The Keys of Marinus? It's a brilliant story. I'd rank it alongside The Aztecs, The Romans and The Chase as one of the best Hartnell stories.

Ah, yes, I've heard of those and was planning to watch the first one soon (I want to hold off on the second one until I see The Dalek Invasion of Earth).  From the trailer alone, it's rather surreal to see a 1960s remake of the first Daleks story arc with a different cast and in color, no less!

They're very trippy and slightly camp. But they're also a lot of fun and have production values far beyond those of the TV series. I actually think the movie of Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 AD is much better than the TV serial on which it was based. The story is all about Earth being invaded, but they never convincingly conveyed an adequate sense of scale in the original serial. Not even with the added CGI effects on the DVD release. The best they could do was show a couple of Daleks crossing Westminster Bridge. Whereas in the movie they show some impressive battles between the Daleks and the human resistance fighters. The special effects were quite good for the time too.


I agree with everything you say about The Aztecs and the Hartnell era in general. Back then the series had a good balance between plot and character development. And that in turn allowed the stories to explore serious themes concerning the moral implications of time travel. The emotional and psychological interplay between the TARDIS crewmembers yielded some real character development as the series progressed.

I'd argue that the Hartnell Doctor underwent more character development than most of the other Doctors combined. In the first three serials he's very much an anti-hero. In An Unearthly Child he kidnaps Ian and Barbara against their will. Later in the story he almost bludgeons an injured caveman to death with a rock. There's a scene in the Terrence Dicks novel The Eight Doctors where the Paul McGann Doctor travels back to that scene and has to talk his earlier incarnation out of killing the caveman. It just shows how drastically the character changed over time.

Then in The Daleks he lies to his companions about the fluid link's mercury supply being depleted so they'll have to let him explore the city. That selfish act leads to everyone getting captured by the Daleks and contaminated with radiation poisoning. And in The Edge of Destruction he outright tries to jettison Ian and Barbara into the space/time vortex when he wrongly suspects them of mutiny. It's only at the end of that story, when he realises his error, that he finally starts to appreciate the value of his human companions and begins to defrost emotionally.

As far as historical stories go, the last purely historical one was the Peter Davison story Black Orchid. All the others after that point featured aliens or other sci-fi elements. But the best historical adventures were during the Hartnell era. If you haven't already seen it, you should check out The Romans. It's more tongue in cheek than The Aztecs, but is still a terrific story. The fight scenes in it were choreographed by Peter Diamond, who also plays a slave that Ian befriends and later has to fight when they're both trained as gladiators. Later in his career, Diamond went on to choreograph all the lightsaber duels in the original Star Wars trilogy. He also coordinated the stunt work on Superman II, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Highlander films (he also played Fasil, the first opponent Connor Macleod fights in the first Highlander film). So there're some fun action scenes in it.

Just out of interest, do you have any favourite stories from the original 1963-1989 series? This question applies to anyone who's a fan of the show. I'd be interested to know which eras people like the best.

[BatmAngelus]

I pretty much severed all ties to the franchise after 2005. But before then, I was a big fan of the Big Finish productions and had corresponded with some of the production staff. I've still got most of them on CD somewhere. They're very good as I recall. It was especially nice that they gave Colin Baker a chance to shine. He'd mostly been saddled with bad scripts when playing the Doctor on television (a big exception being Revelation of the Daleks, which was awesome). But the audio dramas allowed him to approach the character as he'd originally intended, and I remember one year he was even voted the most popular Doctor by readers of the DW Magazine. But I haven't followed the Big Finish dramas since 2005.

Ah, cool, I had heard that about Colin Baker, too, when I was at Comikaze.  I'll definitely check out his stories in Big Finish, as well as Paul McGann's, when I get the chance.

Out of interest, have you seen The Keys of Marinus? It's a brilliant story. I'd rank it alongside The Aztecs, The Romans and The Chase as one of the best Hartnell stories.

Yep.  I've been slowly watching the available Doctor Who series in order (so it'll probably take me a long time to answer your question about which classic era was my favorite).

Before Aztecs, Marinus was my favorite of the Hartnell era.  To add to your analysis on the First Doctor- the fact that he steps in to defend Ian on trial says a ton about how far their relationship had evolved. 

I'll let you know what I think of The Romans and The Chase when I get to them. 

How about you, Silver Nemesis, do you have a favorite era and favorite Doctor?

[Silver Nemesis]

I'll definitely check out his stories in Big Finish, as well as Paul McGann's, when I get the chance.

Paul McGann's TV movie was disappointing, but he acquitted himself in the Big Finnish audio dramas. It's best to listen to his stories in the correct order, as they follow a story arc rather than being standalone adventures. The other Doctors' stories can be listened to in any order though.

If you do get any of the Big Finish dramas be sure to let me know what you think of them. I'd be interested to know how you feel they hold up compared to the TV episodes and whether you think some Doctors work better on the radio than television (especially Baker).

How about you, Silver Nemesis, do you have a favorite era and favorite Doctor?

That's a tough one. I like pretty much all of the original series.

When I was kid I liked the Jon Pertwee era best. My all time favourite story was The Sea Devils, and there were plenty of other classics from that period that I would rewatch on an almost weekly basis: Spearhead From Space, The Silurians, Inferno, Terror of the Autons, The Daemons, The Curse of Peladon, Carnival of Monsters, Frontier in Space/Planet of the Daleks (essentially one epic 12-part story spread over two serials), The Green Death, The Time Warrior and Death to the Daleks were all superb.

Peter Davison was in my opinion the weakest of the original seven Doctors. Having said that, he still had some great stories like Kinda, Enlightenment and The Five Doctors. Earthshock is probably the second best Cybermen story after Tomb of the Cybermen. And The Caves of Androzani is arguably the greatest Doctor Who story from any era. If you haven't already seen that one, then you're in for a real treat when you do. The villain – Sharez Jek – never appeared in any other serials. But I'd still rank him alongside Davros and the Master as one of the greatest Dr Who villains ever.



Overall, I'd say Hartnell and McCoy are my favourite Doctors. But my favourite eras in terms of stories would be the Hartnell and Pertwee seasons.

[BatmAngelus]

^ I'll definitely check those out.  Thanks for the suggestions 

Today, they released the title of the Christmas Special, The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe, along with a trailer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_111119_02/The_Christmas_Special_The_Doctor_The_Widow_and_The_Wardrobe

It seems like this will be a sci-fi take on a Narnia-type world, much like last year's Christmas Special was a Doctor Who twist on A Christmas Carol.

[BatmAngelus]

Did anyone catch this year's Christmas Special?

I thought it was alright, but last year's was much better.  I found this one rather slow through most of the story, mainly 'cause it was hard to tell what was going on for the first half and there wasn't a ton of conflict until we got to the middle of it.  The last 10-15 minutes, though, were great and it was hard not to get teary-eyed over Madge and Reg's love story.

[The Dark Knight]

I thought it was alright, but last year's was much better.

Agreed.