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Author Topic: Doctor Who  (Read 34841 times)

Katebo

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #20 on: April 20, 2010, 10:13:11 PM »
I love Donna- sure she's loud, but behind that bluster is a terribly insecure woman who needs the Doctor to show her how amazing she is. Plus it's fabulous to have the Doctor travel around with a real friend- an equal in most ways who keeps his ego in check (something Ten had a bit of trouble with) and asks for nothing from him but adventure.

Tim

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #21 on: April 21, 2010, 01:42:46 AM »
My only real problem with Donna was I kept feeling like Catherine Tate was about to break into one of her characters from The Catherine Tate show - "Am I bovvered?". However by the end of the series I felt she had earned her place on Dr Who.

I loved Catherine Tate in "Wild West" with Dawn French - one of my favourite comedies!

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Colleen

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #22 on: April 21, 2010, 06:14:31 AM »


I'm still working my way through Season 4 (I know, it's my hoarding tendency again) and Donna has grown on me.  I HATED the idea of her as a companion at first.  But I agree with Katebo's take on her personality, and I have been impressed with her dramatic acting ability.  Plus, as much as I love the 'shippy aspects of Rose and Martha, it's nice to have a sidekick who is all "no, seriously, we aren't a couple, not gonna happen".

And yeah, I'm so over the Daleks.  But I've just grown to accept that they are going to eventually revisit any bad guy from the classics who had any fan love at all, probably repeatedly, and just hope they manage it okay.  But the Eccleston Dalek episodes were far and away the best because they allowed the character to bounce off the enormity of what he had done himself, and what he had sacrificed, apparently ultimately in vain.  The continuing return of the Daleks is reducing their scariness as the ultimate bad guys but it's fan service that they can't seem to avoid.  On the other hand, I always found the Cybermen ridiculous in the old show (and the Sontarans as well) and both have been not only successful but even scary bad guys on the new series, and so far not as overused as the Daleks.  But I am getting to the point of "Good lord, what DIDN'T survive the Time War?"

CSSchneider - as much as you probably heard my howl of angst from where ever you were when they announced Tennant's departure, I've made peace with it.  I loved loved loved his Doctor but it really was a good time for a change.  Similarly I will love Russell T. Davies forever for bringing the show back so successfully but he had worked through all of his ideas for the show and was beginning to repeat.  When Tennant doesn't have enough meat in an episode, the manic stuff or the lonely god stuff can really begin to grate.

Having two Doctors who literally had the weight of the universe on their shoulders and were dealing with the enormous consequences of multiple genocide was a great way to wipe out memories of the lameness of the last few years of classic Who and the movie disaster, and led to some really great storytelling.  But Matt Smith seems, so far, to be a Doctor who is primarily about the joy of life and new adventure with a side of darkness, rather than the opposite.  I didn't realize how ready for that I was until he arrived.

Tom Baker will always be "my Doctor" but Tennant and Eccleston are right behind him in my personal pantheon.  And every time I go back and revisit Eccleston's season, he *almost* edges out Tennant, and might have had he had longer with the character.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #23 on: April 21, 2010, 02:58:02 PM »
It is a great shame that Eccleston bailed after just one season.

CSSCHNEIDER

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #24 on: April 21, 2010, 04:09:32 PM »
Quote
it's nice to have a sidekick who is all "no, seriously, we aren't a couple, not gonna happen".

That's exactly why I can't stand her.  Its not the attitude, I'm sure that's fine.  Its the accent.  That minging chav accent.  I can take it in small doses (Fish Tank, Happy Go Lucky) but its SOOOO grating.  I shot a film about Chavs once, it was rough for me.
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Colleen

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #25 on: April 21, 2010, 05:10:59 PM »
It is a great shame that Eccleston bailed after just one season.

I'm not sure he is the one that bailed.  From what I've read, Davies had Tennant in mind to play 10 pretty much from the jump, and Tennant knew before the first season began that he would be stepping in as the Doctor after that season.  The news that Eccleston was one-and-done got out pretty early and supposedly Eccleston was pissed about that (the news being out). 
The way it was told in one article I read made it sound like Davies wanted Tennant from the start but couldn't get him til the second season and the whole thing was engineered around that.  But I'd heard previously that Eccleston had only committed to one season.  Maybe he only committed for one but wanted to keep the door open, and was mad that he didn't get the option.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #26 on: April 21, 2010, 08:43:22 PM »
Interesting, I had not heard that, makes me mad at Davies then, because we only have one more incarnation of the Doctor after Smith. That is assuming they do not change the lore. Fortunately that should be years away.

Katebo

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #27 on: April 21, 2010, 08:51:14 PM »
I easily could be wrong, but I've always heard that either 1.) Eccleston only wanted to do one season and planning the one season arc culminating with the regeneration is how Davies got him to sign on in the first place or 2.) Eccleston decided he wanted out not long after starting, so Davies and co. came up how to regenerate him at the end of the season. If RTD had Tennant in mind long in advance to play the Doctor (they'd worked together previously in Casanova) it would make sense that after getting Eccleston to kick off the show (I believe Eccleston and Davies had worked together previously as well) with a one-year caveat, he started thinking almost immediately about who the next Doctor would be.

Colleen

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #28 on: April 21, 2010, 09:01:41 PM »
Interesting, I had not heard that, makes me mad at Davies then, because we only have one more incarnation of the Doctor after Smith. That is assuming they do not change the lore. Fortunately that should be years away.

You know they will.  The Master has already supposedly gone past his 12.

Plus I read somewhere recently that there was something said during Tom Baker's run when he was President of Gallifrey or something that anyone who is president gets a new 12-regeneration cycle.

Not to mention that no peep at all has been breathed of the 12-time limit in the new series.

I think Katebo is probably right, I went back and looked around at various articles on the web and any of them that talk about there being coldness between E. and the Beeb or E. and Davies have more to do with the premature announcement that E. would be leaving at the end of season 1 than that he was forced into only one season.

Watched "The Unquiet Dead" tonight, the one with Charles Dickens in Cardiff at Christmas, from series 1.  Every time I watch an Eccleston episode it reminds me how much I really like his Doctor.

CSSCHNEIDER

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #29 on: April 24, 2010, 06:32:42 PM »
Dr. Who tonight!  Just a friendly reminder!
Taste is discerning, not all encompassing.

It's Not What You're Like, It's What You Like

Know the Difference Between Arts and Crafts

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