Author Topic: Doctor Who  (Read 34839 times)

Dave the Necrobumper

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Doctor Who
« on: April 09, 2010, 02:42:31 PM »
General discussion about Doctor Who classic and new.

Katebo

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2010, 02:55:14 PM »
Nice. Go go Gadget cut and paste-

Favorite stories:
Hartnell- "The Celestial Toymaker", "The Savages"
Troughton- "The Mind Robber", "The Seeds of Death"
Pertwee- "The Ambassadors of Death", "The Time Warrior"
Baker- "Genesis of the Daleks", "The Deadly Assassin", "The Robots of Death", "The City of Death"
Davison- "Kinda", "The Caves of Androzani"
Baker- "The Two Doctors"
McCoy- "The Curse of Fenric"
McGann- just kidding
Eccleston- "Father's Day", "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", "Parting of the Ways"
Tennant- "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit", "Blink", "Turn Left"

I'd say Tom Baker had the best classic season, but I'd chalk that more up to the writing than him. (Work for the rest of the semester is answering an IT help line- if no one calls, I get to watch TV, hence working my way through the series. There are very few shows that I haven't seen that I want to see that are okay for me to watch at work.)


Favorite Companions:
Hartnell- Ian (group: Ian, Barbara, and Vicki)
Troughton- Jamie (group: Jamie and Zoe)
Pertwee- Joe (group: UNIT- love the Brigadier and the whole gang)
Baker- Leela (group: Leela and K-9)
Davison- Tegan (group: Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, and the Brigadier)
Baker- Peri (group: The Doctor, Peri, Jamie, The Doctor)
McCoy- Ace (group: Ace and the Brigadier)
McGann- just kidding
Eccleston- Rose (group: Rose and Capt. Jack)
Tennant- Donna (group: whole gang together in "Journey's End")

Overall, I'd say Leela and Donna are my favorites, with the Brig, K-9, Sarah Jane, and Jamie not far behind. Urg, but I also love Ian and Barbara... I'm with you on Leela, but Turlough's probably my least favorite of all of 'em.

Dave, your turn.

Melvil

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #2 on: April 09, 2010, 02:59:16 PM »
Just out of curiosity, if someone had no idea what this was all about and wanted to check it out, where would they start?

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #3 on: April 09, 2010, 03:03:20 PM »
Hartnell- Ian (group: Ian, Barbara, and Vicki)
Troughton- Jamie (group: Jamie and Zoe)
Pertwee- Joe (group: UNIT- love the Brigadier and the whole gang)
Baker- Leela (group: Leela and K-9)
Davison- Tegan (group: Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, and the Brigadier)
Baker- Peri (group: The Doctor, Peri, Jamie, The Doctor)
McCoy- Ace (group: Ace and the Brigadier)
McGann- just kidding
Eccleston- Rose (group: Rose and Capt. Jack)
Tennant- Donna (group: whole gang together in "Journey's End")

Overall, I'd say Leela and Donna are my favorites, with the Brig, K-9, Sarah Jane, and Jamie not far behind. Urg, but I also love Ian and Barbara... I'm with you on Leela, but Turlough's probably my least favorite of all of 'em. By the way, should this be a new thread?

Mel would be my least favourite, she just screamed way too much. I generally agree with your favourite companions for each Doctor, except, not a big fan of Tegan (I still remember the talk about the Doctor getting an Australian companion) or Donna. For Tennant I would take Wilfred as my favourite, but I perfer to only consider people who travelled more than one episode/story in a row, so would pick Martha for Tennant.

You mentioned that Tom Baker had the best classic season, but chalked it up to the writing more than him. The writing for his 7 years was the best, but Baker was well suited to the role, having that bit of madness just under the surface, but also a ruthlessness at times, although very conflicted. Case in point would be the Genisis of the Daleks story.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #4 on: April 09, 2010, 03:11:15 PM »
Just out of curiosity, if someone had no idea what this was all about and wanted to check it out, where would they start?

If you can accept lower production quality, the classic episodes starting with the beginning of Tom Baker's years and the story Robot. Watch about 1 or 2 seasons, then go back to the very beginning and work your way through, but beware of cardboard sets and costumes.
If you prefer a bit better production quality start with the beginning of the Eccleston, watch all the new stories, then go back to either the start of Tom Baker or the very beginning.

sdedalus

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #5 on: April 09, 2010, 03:53:26 PM »
We're midway through the third season of the new series (season 2 with David Tennant) and the wife and I both are liking it a lot.  We've never seen any of the earlier ones.
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Katebo

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #6 on: April 09, 2010, 03:57:19 PM »
Melvil, I'd advise starting with Eccleston's season (the premier's called "Rose"). While I enjoy the classic series, it's a very different kind of story telling. The show was (for most of its 26-season run) a 30 minute family show that had one story spanning several episodes (from 2 to 12 weeks, with the early seasons usually having ~6 episodes/story and the later seasons, from Tom Baker on, usually having 4 episodes/story). The current series has ~10 stories in the span of 13 episodes with each episode running ~50 minutes. I'd say check out the new series, see if you like the universe, then check out the classic stories. Plus the entire new series is on YouTube.

Dave, I definitely agree that Tom Baker was great in the role- after the rather human seeming first three Doctors, it was nice to have a Doctor who was so alien and odd. I just wonder what, for example, Colin Baker or Paul McGann would have been able to do with some better scripts. Smith seems to have a bit of the same strangeness that Baker was so good at, which, if it continues past the first story of this season, will be much appreciated after Tennant and Eccleston.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #7 on: April 09, 2010, 04:13:36 PM »
During the Colin Baker years the BBC seemed to be trying to kill off the series and the quality of the writing dropped right off. The writing improved again for the last season of McCoy, but it was doomed. I hate the McGann story, but that was not because of McGann, mainly because of the comment about being half human, which just pissed me off so much, a total denial of the history of the show.

Most people rank Colin Baker as the worst doctor and watching him it is hard to tell what he thinks of the role. I liked his take on the role and think with better stories his would have been a more liked doctor. That said I do remember hearing rumours around the time that there was a lot of tension between him and management, also that he was not well behaved on set or something negative about him. This is all pre-internet and hearing things half a world away.

I was initially disappointed that the new series had moved a 1hr format, but have grown to accept it. I do miss the cliff hanger endings.

Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2010, 09:16:10 PM »
Just saw the first episode with the new Dr. He looks very promising. Still seems way too young, the Dr should be middle aged or older.

Colleen

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Re: Doctor Who
« Reply #9 on: April 18, 2010, 09:31:01 PM »
I felt that dismay when I first saw pictures of Matt Smith but I felt like he absolutely pulls it off and he really does seem like a very old soul in a young body, which goes along with Stephen Moffat's statements about the overall show really being about one character over time.  And I love, love, love the last 15 or so minutes from his arrival at the hospital to the end of the episode, especially the scene on the roof where he really claims the mantle of the Doctor.

And, on a much more base level, I could watch Amy Pond run around in that policewoman outfit all day.  Hubba.

As for the question of where to start, I'm with those who say start with Eccleston if you have never seen the show before at all.  The old shows hooked me way back when but even I have a hard time watching most of them now.  If you want to get a little taste for them I always recommend the "City of Death" episode with Tom Baker's Doctor; it was written by Douglas Adams and is a lot of fun. 

Another recommendation--I've been listening to a podcast called "Bigger on the Inside" with 2 American guys, one who has been a lifelong Who fan and one who had only gotten hooked on the new series, working their way through the entire series from the beginning.  I mainly watched during the Baker/Davison years with a little bit of Pertwee and Colin Baker, which was what most PBS stations showed from the late 70s to mid 80s or so. 

There is also a series of audio plays produced by Big Finish that have quite a few stories mainly featuring Paul McGann's and Sylvester McCoy's Doctors, with some Colin Baker and Peter Davison stories as well.  (So far the BBC has banned them doing any featuring characters from the new series.)  I've only heard one or two but intend to get more now that you can download them instead of buying the CDs, because they are crazy expensive to purchase from England.  The cool thing about those is that the writing is far above what those actors had during their periods as the Doctor and has let them fill out their characters quite a lot, especially in the case of poor Paul McGann who only got that awful TV movie.

If you want to just dip in to one episode of the new series to see if you would like it, I would suggest going with "Father's Day" from series one, or "Blink" from series 3.  Or the first episode with Matt Smith, which is designed around offering a jumping on place for new watchers to the show.