The Faces of the Doctor

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  • #41191
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @purofilion

    I despise the idea of humiliating people by ‘stars’ who are total dickheads and who demonstrate they ‘like a voice’ because they put their $3000 La Swank heel on the button (being too cool to use their hand, I suppose: or being Neanderthal, they don’t know what hands are for).

    That was the most brilliantly funny and staggeringly accurate assessment of what passes for public culture in these desperate times that I have read in a very long time. Fabulous.

    #41194
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @purofilion

    being Neanderthal, they don’t know what hands are for.

    This is straying off topic, I know, but I think that you are being more than a little unfair to H. Neanderthalensis here, puro.  Granted they weren’t particularly pretty to look at, but they were well adapted to their environment (ice age Europe) and, since they produced some pretty sophisticated, not to say elegant tools, they must have had a good deal of manual dexterity.  It wasn’t their fault that the climate changed, or that H. Sap. came muscling in. Even less are they to blame for the fact that some members of H. Sap have devolved to the kind of specimen who act as judges on shows such as the X Factor 🙂

    Apart from that, I entirely agree with your animadversions on such shows. I once watched The X Factor to see what the fuss was about.  Since then, if I ever switch on the TV and find it tuned to a channel showing any show of that kind, I swiftly switch to something else.  Tastes do vary of course and, as we know all too well, even within Whodom there are strong differences of opinion, but there are limits to what is tolerable!

    Come to think of it, perhaps there should be an episode of Doctor Who set in the world of the Neanderthals, in order to address these misconceptions 😕

     

    #41198
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @mudlark

    There was an entirely respectable Neanderthal butler in Ghostlight, which was one of our forum discussions. He didn’t know what the heck was really going on, but that’s par for the course with Ghostlight.

    Neither did the cast, or the audience. 😉

    #41201
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @bluesqueakpip   Oops! yes, I was forgetting the butler in Ghostlight, and I did watch it and read the forum discussions.  Maybe my lapse of memory is due to the fact that I was as bemused as everyone else 🙂

    On the other hand, recent research on the Neanderthals has revealed a good deal more than was known when Ghostlight first aired.

    #41205
    Anonymous @

    @blenkinsopthebrave

    Thank you sir!

    I was frustrated in the extreme as someone-who-should-not-be named had allowed the remote to go missing and as no-one knows how to change channels without one, we were stuck with Delta Goodrum, and some other over- tatted dummy listening to a woman in a very inappropriate gown trying to sing jazz. Thing is, she mutated into a rap singer for a verse which was truly dreadful but worked insofar as she sported thong underwear and a garter.

    @mudlark

    there was that 2-parter with Eccleston and Rose where the three of them (including Capt. Jack) were cybermatted in to a reality show: there was ‘Big Brother’; a Q&A programme (forgot its name -how appropriate) and one where Trinny & Susannah were about to chop off bits of Capt Jack’s pride in order to “improve his look.”

    I think this was the penultimate ep to Bad Wolf?

    “H. Neanderthalensis”  possibly unfair. But I was being pretty ‘ironic’ and no matter how adaptable they became, the big heads, the weird torso and over-large oafish hands just isn’t a look I prefer 🙂

    Trinny and Susannah would have none of it, that’s for sure.

    #41211
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @purofilion

    You were being ironic, and my tongue was firmly in my cheek 🙂

    And yep, the title of the game show episode was Bad Wolf, and the concluding episode which followed was The Parting of the Ways, wherein the ninth Doctor regenerated.  Truth to tell, I found even this satirical take on game shows a trifle wince-inducing.

    #41212
    Anonymous @

    @mudlark, I know but it took me awhile!

    I enjoyed those episodes -really, I didn’t appreciate Who, then, for the show it is now. A very different more layered tale with glimpses of mythology and fable and good old fashioned ‘person under the blanket’ scares.

    Good stuff. The thing with the heels (& I know what you mean about changing channels!) is that they have these 6 inch sparkly shoes, priced by the ounce, and they bang them on a button -like 6 year olds playing at grown-ups! Ah, that’s what it is, I now realise: just playing. But playing at being people. Gawd, I say.

    #45418
    winston @winston

    Each Doctor in turn has entertained and enlightened me in their own unique way. When I know an actor is leaving the show ,me , like many others try to cast the perfect doctor. We have fave actors we want to take the role, male or female, and we play a fun guessing game. I have never been right and I am always sure that I like the previous Doctor better. Like the Doctor when the Tardis changes.”I don’t like it.”But then the casting is always perfect and the acting always great and there I am right back in love again. This time it is a cross and crusty and funny and caring madman in blue box.

    #45632
    nerys @nerys

    My first Doctor was David Tennant. Hubby and I watched “Smith and Jones” during our trans-Atlantic flight to Denmark back in 2007, and I was hooked. Back in Canada, we watched Doctor Who on the Space channel. Stayed hooked.

    Then, a couple of years ago, we got Netflix. I thought David Tennant could do no wrong, really hadn’t kept up with Matt Smith’s Doctor at all. So when we decided to start with Chris Eccleston’s Doctor, I figured he couldn’t hold a candle to Tennant. I was wrong! I fell in love with the Doctor, his Doctor, all over again. Worked my way through his first season, was rather sad to see him go, then moved on to Tennant and realized, to my surprise, that his first season didn’t exactly hit the ground running. It actually took him (and, I assume, the writers) a while to figure out who this Doctor was. But then that season picked up steam, and I enjoyed watching the development of that version of the Doctor.

    Then Matt Smith’s Doctor came around, and he really did hit the ground running. I was impressed by the strong start to this new Doctor, which was a very different imagining of the role from either Eccleston or Tennant. The only problem is that starting off at such a manic pace means you can only build on that, so by the end of Smith’s run, I felt he was suffering from an overdose of mania and an underwritten companion. It was a relief to slow things down a notch with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, and also see some vastly improved writing for his companion, Clara, who no longer felt like a placeholder but a more fully realized character. The chemistry between them in Seasons 8 and 9 has put them on equal footing, IMO, with all the other great companions and their complex relationships with the Doctor.

    I write this only to point out what is probably true for many others: I enjoy all the Doctors equally, all for different reasons. Admittedly I have only really watched the new-era Doctors. Someday I will set aside some time to play catch-up with the others. I’m sure I will enjoy them, too.

    #45635
    Anonymous @

    @nerys that’s a lovely post to read and it’s great to be reminded that Chris’ Nine isn’t forgotten. I loved him too  and you’re right, despite Ten’s acting chops, it wasn’t entirely smooth whereas considering the new showrunner, new companion and new Doctor, Smith really did “hit the ground running” and whilst “Manic” he did old age and wisdom beautifully.

    He seems, in interviews, like Capaldi, to be quite the listener? I think there was some manic stuff in the Pandorica Opens with that lovely speech, pitched a little drunkenly with his “you’re distracting me! If you’re up there, with your little spaceships and your guns then think of every black day I ever stopped you and then do….” etc.

    I loved the declamation but it suffered a bit from….pressure of speech? I’m not sure exactly what? I think Hurt or Ten would have done a dazzler there but then I heard someone ask Doctor Number 7 to ‘perform’ that speech during the 50th and I thought it was an odd thing to do: yes, they’re all ‘the Doctor’ but generally these speeches are written just as much for the particular actor as for the Doctor(s) in general. I don’t think McCoy nailed it either, IMO.

    @winston I’m with you – I do that all the time! 🙂

    Kindest, Puro

    #45639
    gamergirlavatar @gamergirlavatar

    @nerys @purofilion nerys, that was a wonderful speech about all The Doctors. I agree with you both about how fantastic the 9th Doctor was. I also agree about how it took awhile for the writers to find out The 10th Doctor personality. After I watched Matts first episode again, I saw that Matt did have a great start. He had to be after coming in after Tennant. Matts doctor was really great at giving speeches do to Matt being a great actor. purofilion, I didn’t think that Matts “I am talking” speech suffered. nerys, I have to disagree with you about Clara being a weak character at first. I think she was wonderful from the start and I think that she was a better companion for The 11th Doctor than Amy (Amy is still a great companion, I just think Clara is better). All The Doctors bring a new life to the show.

    #45678
    nerys @nerys

    Thanks for the kind words, @purofilion and @gamergirlavatar !

    You know what hooked me on Chris Eccleston’s Doctor? “Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once — everybody lives!” I still get chills remembering his unbridled joy and exuberance. In fact, I think I must revisit “The Doctor Dances” again!

    #45681
    Anonymous @

    OK, here we go. I candidly view DW through a Series 1-17 prism. Generally don’t like S18 and thought Davison was a horrible choice. Great actor (his Tristan in All Creatures is very good), but simply never found his voice as the Doctor. I’m not sure the Troughton Rule (leave after 3 seasons) is good advice. Honestly, I find something to like in all the Fab Four; Hartnell’s alien aloofness, Troughton’s hobo, Pertwee’s patrician “man of action” and the Genuine Article’s oafish bohemian masking an intellect that was PROFOUNDLY dangerous as an enemy.

    I’ll be a broken record, but I don’t honestly think Davison ever really found his voice and the indifferent stories of the JNT era never gave him an opportunity.

    Baker II, same deal. Not long enough of a tenure and stories it was hard to get into. I lost interest right around the end of the Davison era.

    Saw the movie in the late 1990s, and Paul McGann could have been a great Doctor. An appropriately alien personality.

    Series 26, Eccleston. I have never seen an Eccleston ep, but the Doctor simply isn’t a skinhead.

    David Tennant. He gets a lot of hate, and a lot of fanboy gush. I saw a lot of the Doctors I grew up in him, so I suppose you can say his performance brought be back in. Despite the unseemly PDAs. His failing as a Doctor was he tried to be TOO human.

    Matt Smith. Never seen a Smith ep, so will defer comment.

    Peter Capaldi, I have already weighed in on elsewhere.

     

    So, I suppose you could say IMO the Doctor is at his best when he’s most quirky, eccentric and alien, and at his worst when he tries to be human.

     

    The best.

    And glurge-tastic WORST.

    #45682
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @plainolddave

    re:the two video clips–yes! Perfect examples.

    As for the rest–mostly in agreement, but…you really must watch Matt Smith. I grew up with Hartnell, fell off the wagon with JNT, but was brought back into the fold by Smith.

    But you must begin watching Smith in order, from his first appearance, and continue.

    #45683
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @plainolddave

    Davison found his Doctor in The Caves of Androzani. I’ve always thought Troughton’s advice to him was unfortunate – if he’d had a fourth series with just Peri … But given the scripts they did have for Colin Baker’s first series, maybe not.

    McCoy is deeply underrated, largely because his first series was bloody awful. He was a brave enough actor to decide it wasn’t working and rework his Doctor almost completely for the final two before the gap series.

    Eccleston – I rate him highly as an actor, but his performance made a lot more sense to me when they retconned it for the Day of the Doctor. Not ‘The Doctor’, but a man trying desperately to become The Doctor again. Likewise, Tennant’s humanness can be seen as an alien trying to adopt himself into another species, since he knows his people are all gone.

    Matt Smith – definitely worth watching. It’s quite astonishing how such a young actor can play such an old character. The Smith era effectively recapitulates the life we never saw on Gallifrey. Friends, marriage, loss and widower hood. Capaldi’s effectively at the same point Hartnell was (Clara being the ‘granddaughter’) – except that he’s not running from Gallifrey, he’s running to it.

    #45684
    gamergirlavatar @gamergirlavatar

    @nerys I love The Doctor Dances. Eccleston got me hook with all of his episodes, which is why I still miss him. Ecclestion showed the real fiery of the time lords, also you’re welcome.

    #45691
    Anonymous @

    @plainolddave

    Nope. I cannot agree. I would have -until I watched that episode again -the “I love You” episode excerpt. I think there’s a place for that. Back then, so no, it’s not “wrong” or whatever adjective you’d choose to use.

    It was a bit marvellous. Just a bit .

    #45695
    Anonymous @

    Addenda: Marie Antoinette and Vincent Van Gough along with DT brought me back in. Was neat, seeing the interactions with historic personalities that Four just hinted at.

    <span class=”useratname”>@purofilion</span>

    This is Doctor Who, not a chick flick. Go watch Four taking leave of Sarah Jane, Leela or Romana. Or Three leaving Jo. Teary-eyed glurge just isn’t the Doctor’s style.

    #45698
    Anonymous @

    @bluesqueakpip @blenkinsopthebrave @plainolddave

    Mr Dave, thanks entirely to you I got my nurse (currently in hospital but no, not incarcerated in a ‘particular’ ward) to organise all of Tennant’s latest seasons (starting with Voyage of the Damned but first the whole of Tennant’s video diary on his way to Blackpool to turn on the Christmas lights) streamed to my little DVD.

    After that, I shall watch the whole of Donna Noble’s series ending with ….Tennant’s extra Number 10 (being vain and all!) and his meeting with Davros Mark 2.

    Without that excerpt you provided, I would never have done it and whilst I do see that Smith’s iteration was brilliant (please do give it your time of day -it’s nothing like Ten’s) I also see that Capaldi is absolutely rocking it -but it’s subtle, whereas nothing with RTD was particularly subtle or nuanced. However, I do believe that without Chris and RTD there’d be no Doctor Who. So, I love it. I just do. I owe it that.

    And Kylie was just great in Voyage of the Damned. A little firecracker -petite with that delightfully strong voice.

    Very happy. 🙂

    #45699
    Anonymous @

    @plainolddave

    what makes you think I like “chick flicks”? I don’t particularly.

    I’ve known you, in the short time that I’ve known you, to be rather rude.

    It would be best, for my health, and for yours, to simply avoid each other’s posts. In order to keep to the gentility of this site you understand. I can love Tennant, Chris, Capaldi and Smith as well as Pertwee (my doctor) without necessarily espousing how one is better or ‘best’ (like Antique Road Show).

    You have an unpleasant way with you: I don’t much like it. Maybe you don’t mean it but I think you do. This is a great Forum and we’re all permitted to have our opinions: I totally agree with you about Four -he was awesome. But in their own way so were Ten and Eleven.

    Let’s agree to disagree without getting ‘het’ up about it. As I say, I loved Four too -and have seen those scenes you mentioned. I agree -they were great. Just terrific. Some of the latter episodes and seasons were too, however.

    #45706
    nerys @nerys

    I think this gets back to different people’s expectations for Doctor Who. Personally I love the emotional resonance that powers so many of the Doctor’s stories. I think one of the reasons I liked Donna so much is because she wore her heart on her sleeve. Her emotional power struck a chord with the Doctor, often at just the time he needed it. The same is true with the other new-era companions and their respective relationships with the Doctor. Without that, I think I would find Doctor Who far less engaging.

    Am I overly sentimental, or somehow bringing the show down because I appreciate an emotionally true story over a fastidiously logical one? I don’t think so. For the record, I don’t like so-called chick flicks. If I can sense the wheels of emotional manipulation turning, I rebel. But when a story draws me in, rather than resorting to maudlin cliches, I’m in. For whatever reason, this works for me in Doctor Who. But obviously it is not to everyone’s tastes.

    #45708
    ichabod @ichabod

    @nerys  by the end of Smith’s run, I felt he was suffering from an overdose of mania and an underwritten companion. It was a relief to slow things down a notch with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, and also see some vastly improved writing for his companion, Clara, who no longer felt like a placeholder but a more fully realized character. The chemistry between them in Seasons 8 and 9 has put them on equal footing, IMO, with all the other great companions and their complex relationships with the Doctor.

    Exactly — couldn’t put it better myself.

    @plainolddave   Teary-eyed glurge just isn’t the Doctor’s style.

    Actually, sometimes it is.  CapDoc has teared up a couple of times (although his voice goes dry and husky rather than wet) and it’s damned effective.  I think maybe it’s not *your* style, which is hardly a problem given all the differing opinions constantly swirling around various elements of this show.  I don’t much care for it in Tennant, myself, but then Tennant in general isn’t to my taste.  But that doesn’t cancel the opinions of those who love him, glurge and all.

    #45709
    Anonymous @

    @nerys

    yes, well said. I tend to have ‘stomach churn’ when people assume, because I’m female (“Oh no” weakness alert) that I must love a facetious chick flick with all its silliness but then again some have been what I’ve enjoyed and needed -at that time, so who nose?  🙂

    Am I overly sentimental, or somehow bringing the show down because I appreciate an emotionally true story over a fastidiously logical one? I don’t think so.

    As others have said, ’emotion’ wins every time and that’s marvellous -logic is ‘perfect’ and sometimes too perfect. But Who has shown over the years that it’s not one thing -not sci-fi or fantasy or adventures or romance -but a combo of all of these. I think it has its own genre -which is “quite right” as Ten would have said.

    #45712
    ichabod @ichabod

    @nerys  Am I overly sentimental, or somehow bringing the show down because I appreciate an emotionally true story over a fastidiously logical one?

    Naw.  You’re going in exactly the direction the creative crew goes in: the Doctor gives a perfectly logical explanation of why “run!” is all the help he’s going to give the villagers in The Girl, and he could well be right, logically speaking.  Then he speaks for an infant’s emotions, and is galvanized into action.  The character itself is a long conflict between the colder, analytical moments of the more alien Doctor in S8, and the Doctor-grounded-in-his-reclaimed-emotions in S9.  Without emotional truth, this show would never have lasted half a century and counting.

    #45713
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @bluesqueakpip   The thing you have to keep in mind with McCoy is that the first two stories  Time and the Rani and Paradise Towers were commissioned before McCoy was even hired on as the Doctor.  They were literally writing these stories for a blank slate.  In particular, Pip and Jane Baker were initially writing the Rani story for Colin Baker, given that the plan was for him to do one more serial to hand over the reins.  So there’s no real sense of any particular character.

    At this point, particularly in the first year, John Nathan Turner was, pretty much in the absence of anything and anyone else, still the main creative force.  But he was burnt out as a creative force.  The whole Colin Baker experience had wrecked him emotionally.   It’s important to realize how much of himself he put into the Colin Baker Doctor – Colin’s character was an avatar for Turner himself, he’d thrown in everything but the kitchen sink to make the first year a success – all the old classics:  Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarans, another Doctor, a reference to Pertwee, H.G. Wells as a supporting character, and it had blown up in his face.  Then Trial of a Time Lord had been a production nightmare and a ratings disaster.  He had nothing left, he tried to quit each time.

    So his approach was just throwing whatever crap occurred to him on the spur of the moment, spectacle and shtick mostly.  We see this where Sylvester entertained peope off set by playing spoons, and Turner actually has him do it onscreen, on the Rani’s breasts.   There’s also the malapropisms, and mangled proverbs – that’s Turner again, mistaking shtick for characterization.   He just disconnected mostly.  Burn out, out of ideas or vision, and rudderless.

    Which left a kind of creative vacuum for Andrew Cartmel to plug his Cartmel Masterplan into, and his notion of reinventing the dark, mysterious, chess-master version of the Doctor that everyone talks about.

    But I think that McCoy’s Doctor is probably as well or better appreciated as the Absurd Doctor.   I mean, look at it this way – the budget is gutted.  They don’t have the resources to do anything resembling the sorts of ambitious stories of the Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker era.  Hell, they don’t have the resources of the Baker era.  Eric Saward the former script editor is gone, having done his best to burn down the house – all of Saward’s contacts are persona non grata.  Robert Holmes is dead.  Peter Grimwade is gone.  It’s just not physically possible to do the show in the classic way.

    So if you can’t do something straight on and semi-realistic, you can’t compete with the modern cutting edge of late eighties special effects and Hollywood series and movies…   What do you do?

    You don’t try.  Instead, you go for absurdity – you go full on emphasising the artificiality and the phoniness of the whole thing.  You look straight at the audience, wink and go ‘It’s all absurd shite, but come along anyway, because we’re going to surprise you.  It’ll look fake, but you won’t see it coming.  It will be tosh, but it will be outrageous Tosh, so come on.’

    Personally, I’m not a fan of absurdity.  I’m way to literal.  But I can appreciate it.  And McCoy’s shtick as a comedian was deliberate confrontational absurdity, and you actually see this over and over again in many of his stories – sometimes unpolished, but often there.  It wasn’t all absurdist, but a lot of it was.

    The Absurdist stories –  Paradise Towers, Delta and the Bannermen, the Happiness Patrol, Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Ghost Light.  I count borderline absurd – Time and the Rani, Dragonfire, Silver Nemesis.   Even Curse of Fenric and Battlefield have absurdist elements.   It’s all about exaggerating, emphasising unreal, even ridiculous elements – Just look at the Candyman.

    The only truly non-Absurdist McCoy story, the only McCoy story that plays like classic Who is Remembrance of the Daleks.

    As I said, not my cup of tea, but I can definitely respect and appreciate it.   And I think that directly, or perhaps mostly indirectly, a significant portion of it can be traced back to McCoy’s comedic history.   Certainly both Turner and Cartmel were well aware of it.  Turner tried to play the Doctor as a more conventional clown, he appreciated it but he didn’t get it.  Cartmel seemed to have more of a grasp.  And both men were working under major production and creative limits.

    For my money, I think McCoy is probably the most unique Doctor, because his character and his stories went so fiercely off in the direction of formal absurdism.   There’s probably a fairly good Thesis paper there.

     

    #45714
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @nerys   I’m the opposite myself.  But I recognize that the showrunners are opting for emotional and relationship payoff, and shorting rationality and coherence.   I don’t necessarily see the two as being opposed.  But I do see a prioritization of one and a rather shrifty attitude to the second.   Eh, so it goes.

    #45727
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @plainolddave

    This is Doctor Who, not a chick flick.

    I agree with @purofilion, that’s rude. Also incorrect: ‘Doctor Who is whatever it feels like when it gets up in the morning.’ (Steven Moffat, I think). If they want to do a doomed romance in the middle of an alien invasion, they can. They have.

    And if they want to have a regeneration where the Doctor is lost and lonely and so very much alone that he reacts by falling hard for one of his human companions (even if you argue that it’s the first time ever), they can do that too. You can’t argue that ‘the Doctor doesn’t do that’ because the Doctor is right there on screen doing that. You can certainly argue that it’s not consistent with his past characterisation – but then the Head Writer will point to the destruction of Gallifrey, and the Doctor being the last of his kind.

    He is behaving differently than before because his situation is different from before. He’s changed. He’s grown. And, as the Capaldi Doctor hints, maybe he’ll later see it as a mistake.

    But right now, on screen, he’s doing teary eyed blurge. And later on, he’s going to make other emotional decisions that the pre-Time-War Doctor would never have made, because he’s not that man any more.

    And that’s another reason the show has lasted fifty years: because generations of writers have been able to look back at some great portrayals of the Doctor and say “You know what? He’s not that man any more.”

    Change. It’s built into Doctor Who’s DNA.

    #45731

    @plainolddave

    This is Doctor Who, not a chick flick.

    That’s the sort of gnat-brained fuckwittery that makes you look like a relative of the underbridge family.

    Desist.

    #45732
    Anonymous @

    @bluesqueakpip

    I would say just the opposite; DW has lasted 50 years because it’s a comfortable haven from an ever-changing world; You watched it growing up, your folks watched it growing up, and in some cases THEIR folks watched it growing up. That’s a unique thing for a TV show, almost a singular thing. And I honestly think at least some of the current DW team gets this: PC is starting to act like The Doctor in S34.

    The only other TV show with THAT kind of broad, generational appeal is The Andy Griffith Show. The fan club has THOUSANDS of chapters all over the world.

     

    @purofilon:

    Differences of opinion make for good horse races. And passionate arguments are a Good Thing. They make you think about your view, and they force you to examine the other fellow’s view, too. Our back-and-forth has forced me to examine DW to an extent I haven’t since late in the Peter Davison era. I had felt like I was in a rut and rediscovering DW has been a great way out. I simply don’t see romance as a justified plot device within the DW pale, and 50 years of shows appear to support my view.

     

    There’s an old Russian proverb: Better is the enemy of Good Enough.

    Or the immortal Yogi Berra: Nothing succeeds like success.

    #45735
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    @plainolddave–

    DW has lasted 50 years because it’s a comfortable haven from an ever-changing world

    Sorry, you’re wrong here, I think. Who survived for 50 years because it rolled with the punches. Hartnell’s Who is very much still evolving from a late 50s patrician mindset. By the time you get to Troughton, the counter culture Beatles-esque anti-authoritiarian vibe had kicked in. The Pertwee years are tapping into Bond/Jason King trends and so it goes. You only have to look at The Three Doctors to see how far the show has travelled in its first ten years. You could in fact argue that the show only began to lose its way when it failed to tap into the zeitgeist of the wider culture around it.

    It’s evolution that’s made Who’s success, not it being some kind of comforting fixed point. And the last thing the show should be — any show should be actually — is some kind of security blanket to give the viewer a comforting pat on the head against the big, bad world outside. All the best episodes of New Who — and the ones that get most fondly remembered from the old show — are the ones that pushed the envelope of what the show to that date could do. Hence Blink, The Girl in the Fireplace, Turn Left, Vincent and the Doctor resonate where Journey’s End, New Earth, The Lazarus Experiment etc don’t. Someone once said that good drama should be the emotional equivalent of a punch to the face. Who doesn’t need to go that far but it does need to grow.

    This is Doctor Who, not a chick flick

    Not only is that insulting, it’s wrong. It’s an odd mindset that sees any expression of emotion as equating to ‘chick flick’. Rather limiting and unimaginative to put it mildly. We get the Doctor that the times demand. Baker worked for times he lived and was performing in. And the show was doing something very different then. Personally, while I no doubt loved it when I was a kid, I now find that Baker clip hammy beyond belief and rather irritating. It’s pure pantomime. Compared to the Tennant one, which still has an emotional resonance and power (although it did also lay it on a bit thick for my liking, even at the time).

    If you had a performance like Baker’s now, the show would fail. He did funny and shouty, sure, but there wasn’t much emotional resonance there at all. You talk about the departures of Romana and Sarah Jane as being how it should be done. I’d say that they come across as unsatisfying dramatically — which is why Liz Sladen’s return in School Reunion worked so well. It was unfinished business.

    The show isn’t just a teatime serial primarily for British kids anymore. It belongs to the world. And it exists in a much larger cultural ecosphere. And that means it has to have a deeper emotional and dramatic resonance. It also means creating more connection with the Doctor.

    As to romance. Even by the end of the original run, the Doctor’s relationship with his companions was becoming something of a nudge-nudge, wink-wink elephant in the room. It had to be addressed and one of the things RTD did brilliantly was integrating that into the show. Not only is it something that there’s no reason shouldn’t happen in Who, it’s something that had to happen.

    But be that as it may, there’s no suggestion of the Doctor being romantically involved with anyone except River now (and he is married to her, so why not). The show has moved through the process and has come out the other side, all the stronger for it.

    But of course this is all utterly subjective, and in Who perhaps more than any other show. What we’re talking about is not really one show but 12, with every actor, every production team, bringing something new to the mix, changing the show and transforming it. It’s probably not possible to enjoy every aspect, every era, as equally. It just doesn’t have the cohesive uniformity of something like, say, Star Trek.

    #45759
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @denvaldron

    Hmmm… yes, I agree you could see the second and third McCoy series as Absurdist in the sense of Pinter or Stoppard. There’s frequently a sense of a menace in the background that we, the audience (and our audience avatar, Ace) can sense but don’t really understand. Ghostlight is definitely a story of people trapped in an incomprehensible world.

    Including the cast. 🙂

    For myself, I tend to distinguish very sharply between the stories that were either written for Colin Baker or were written for ‘generic Doctor’ and those written for McCoy. In the first series, I think they were just desperately going for comedy – as you say, spectacle and schtick. In the second and third, they (or, more likely, Andrew Cartmel) realised that they hadn’t cast a comedian; they’d cast a comic actor.

    And comic actors can play dark as well as funny.

    McCoy in his second and third series is ‘my Doctor’. I’m rare among Whovians: I didn’t imprint like a baby duck on My First Doctor. Instead, it was Sylvester McCoy – with that odd, funny, dark, manipulative and somehow powerful little man – who made me look at the TV screen and think ‘that’s the Doctor. That’s how I see the Doctor.’

    #45761
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @plainOldDave

    it’s a comfortable haven from an ever-changing world;

    I’d disagree. Certainly my parents never watched it when they were growing up. It was a very young show when I was a child, not some traditional haven.

    As @jimthefish says, when Pertwee was on, the other shows I remember being on at the same time were Jason King, The Champions, James Bond in the cinemas. Man from UNCLE and Mission Impossible were the US imports. Pertwee’s Doctor very much tapped into that ‘heroic and slightly super-powered government agent saves the world’ (every Saturday at tea time) genre.

    Tom Baker, on the other hand, tapped into the anti-authoritarian student vibe that was accompanying the massive expansion of higher education in the 1970’s. You can’t go back to Baker – he was very much of his time. Just as you can’t go back to McCoy. An actor such as Capaldi can, however, choose to incorporate certain aspects of their performance into his performance. The man he’s playing may have grown, but he was still once those versions of ‘The Doctor’.

    I don’t think you can say that 50 years of Doctor Who support your view that romance isn’t a justified plot point when Series 2, Series 3, Series 6 and Series 7a of the After Gap Series all had an ongoing romantic arc. As Jim says, times change – we had to go through that arc to get the Doctor to a place (effectively, he’s a widower) where he can say that his Companions are far more like surrogate family than they are romantic interests. He is, after all, married, even if his wife is dead.

    But we had to move through that arc to come out the other side. And the Doctor is different for it, more willing to acknowledge that losing his ‘family’ hurts like hell, every time.

    But that’s the current arc. Probably. 🙂

    #45764
    Anonymous @

    @bluesqueakpip

    A more accurate description would be that the creators of Series 27, Series 28, Series 31 and Series 32a ignored a basic tenet of fictional character development:

    Fictional characters do not radically change worldview and motivation mid-story.

    The Doctor is gentlemanly, he is not a gentleman. As such, he lacks a basic motivation to be a romantic lead.

    As Me said to PC, the Doctor is the man who’s always running away. The “running kind” from the old Merle Haggard song. He simply doesn’t work as a romantic lead, and I hope when Clara finally leaves that it is reminiscent of Leela or Romana II’s exits instead of this introspective stuff.

    #45766
    Anonymous @

    Addendum: Somebody said something about Whovians imprinting on their First Doctor like a duck. While I did catch Tom Baker on Public TV for a few months prior, I quickly joined a fan club and gained a reasonable immersion in Doctors One through Five. Having probably seen episodes from most if not all of the first 20 seasons,  I dare say I have a pretty good idea how The Doctor should react to about any circumstance.

    #45769
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @PlainOldDave

    A more accurate description would be that the creators of Series 27, Series 28, Series 31 and Series 32a ignored a basic tenet of fictional character development:

    Fictional characters do not radically change worldview and motivation mid-story.

    Rubbish.

    Sorry, but there’s no other way to reply to that. Characters in fiction can be dynamic or static. Static characters don’t change. Dynamic characters do. Examples of plausible major worldview changes mid-story would be a political or religious conversion, or the impact of a war.

    It would be perfectly plausible to have a major or minor character change drastically mid story because something reveals to them that the government they’ve served loyally all their life is both evil and corrupt.

    The Doctor is and always has been a dynamic character, not a static one. The difference with the Doctor is that the dynamic state in the Before Gap seasons largely happened at each regeneration. During each regeneration, the Doctor was largely a static character. Which is why the really interesting character development in the Before Gap seasons usually took place at the beginning and end of an actor’s run as The Doctor.

    In the After Gap series, each regeneration is still largely static, but there’s been more of a slow move towards the kind of dynamic character change that audiences expect nowadays.

    In the case of the first series of the After Gap stories, there had been a long gap since the previous TV story (which is why we tend to call it the After Gap series on this forum). During that gap, the new Head Writer decided, the Doctor had not only fought in the Time War – he’d lost it. In fact, he’d killed everyone on his home planet in a (failed) attempt to end the war and at least save the rest of the universe.

    This is an entirely valid backstory reason for a radical change of viewpoint and motivation.

    I’m sorry that you don’t like romance – it’s a genre that’s produced some of the great classics of literature. It can only add to the depth and complexity of Doctor Who if the programme is allowed to admit that, since its hero is a married man with grandchildren, romance might sometimes cross the Doctor’s path. But your idea that

    he simply doesn’t work as a romantic lead

    is purely your personal opinion. It’s not backed up by the fact that both David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors could work very well as ‘romantic lead’. Admittedly Smith’s Doctor was the type of shy romantic lead who’s always seriously wondering whether his nerves will get the better of him and he’ll end up nipping back to his workshop and inventing a new type of screwdriver – but he did manage to kiss the girl in the end.

    Reader, he married her. 🙂

    #45770
    RandyPan @randypan

    Reader, he married her.

    Oh, double balls and bollocks!

    #45771
    JimTheFish @jimthefish
    Time Lord

    @plainolddave–

    There’s very little to add to what @bluesqueakpip just said. Except:

    Fictional characters do not radically change worldview and motivation mid-story

    Well, take out the ‘radical’ and that’s a highly fallacious statement, I’d say. Fictional characters do nothing else. Or at least they should. Or else, what’s the point of watching them if nothing they experience changes them in any way?

    And between BG and AG (and as to numbering can we stick to the standard Series 1, 2, 3 etc when we’re talking about the AG series? It just makes life simpler) the Doctor did evolve but I wouldn’t say it was radical. As damaged as Ecclestone’s Doctor was, he was still the Doctor, even more so when the ‘gaps’ were filled in by the  Name/Night/Day of the Doctor.  And, as Pip says, just because it took place off screen doesn’t mean that it’s been overly radical or illogical character development.

    he lacks a basic motivation to be a romantic lead

    I don’t think this is true either. The enduring popularity of McGann’s Doctor as well as the phenomenal success of both Tennant and Smith’s Docs suggest otherwise. Besides which, to repeat, he’s not really a romantic lead any longer anyway.

    #45773
    nerys @nerys

    @denvaldron

    I’m the opposite myself.  But I recognize that the showrunners are opting for emotional and relationship payoff, and shorting rationality and coherence.   I don’t necessarily see the two as being opposed.  But I do see a prioritization of one and a rather shrifty attitude to the second.   Eh, so it goes.

    I disagree; I don’t think they’re “shorting” much at all. Perhaps a bit of rationality, but that’s been true throughout the entire run of Doctor Who. The stories gain coherence through the relationships. It’s not all about creating the most logical plot, and I am grateful for that. If I want logic, I’ll watch a documentary on statistics … though I think watching paint dry might be more engaging. Writers are reminded to “know your audience.” I agree that the folks running Doctor Who know their audience quite well, and by and large they write with us in mind. But obviously there are going to be folks with different expectations. You really can’t please all of the people all of the time. As you say, so it goes.

    @bluesqueakpip

    McCoy in his second and third series is ‘my Doctor’. I’m rare among Whovians: I didn’t imprint like a baby duck on My First Doctor. Instead, it was Sylvester McCoy – with that odd, funny, dark, manipulative and somehow powerful little man – who made me look at the TV screen and think ‘that’s the Doctor. That’s how I see the Doctor.’

    I am much the same. Tennant was my first Doctor, so when hubby and I retroactively viewed early seasons of Doctor Who, I was sure I wouldn’t like Eccleston. I was wrong. I found him every bit as much engaging as Tennant. I was also a latecomer to Smith’s Doctor, but loved him too. Same with Capaldi’s Doctor. I thought Tennant could do no wrong, but so far none of them have, in my opinion. (Note to self: Must review earlier eras of the show!)

    #45774
    DenValdron @denvaldron

    @nerys   … though I think watching paint dry might be more engaging.

    Who knows.  Maybe I’m the sort of guy who likes watching paint dry.   😉

    Writers are reminded to “know your audience.” I agree that the folks running Doctor Who know their audience quite well, and by and large they write with us in mind.

    Is that why the audience seems to be going away?  The ratings this season have been between 2/3 and 1/2 of previous seasons.  I don’t think this is explained by changes in television watching, since other programs don’t seem to suffer the same erosion.

    But obviously there are going to be folks with different expectations. You really can’t please all of the people all of the time. As you say, so it goes.

    It’s a big world.  There’s plenty of room in it for everyone.

    #45775
    nerys @nerys

    Audiences are fickle. Some shows that I thought hit their stride artistically were largely abandoned by their audience. So ratings are not always a measure of quality. I wonder if it’s as simple as the new-era Doctor being written, early on, in a rather romantic way, with younger actors in the leading roles. That’s a natural audience draw these days. Now we have an older-looking Doctor who has a very different dynamic with his companion. Not as natural an audience draw (though it certainly worked in earlier eras). Maybe that’s part of it. But it can’t be a matter of favoring logic over emotion. Some of the most illogical stories came at the height of Doctor Who‘s popularity … but that didn’t seem to hurt the ratings any.

    #45776

    @denvaldron

    The ratings this season have been between 2/3 and 1/2 of previous seasons.

    Oh for heaven’s sake. Please try to understand how ratings are put together before commenting. Who’s viewership has been around the 7-8m mark since the return, other than a substantial peak during the Tennent exits specials (to around 11m).

    However, in 2005 there was no iPlayer, very little downloading compared to later years (usenet vs BitTorrent) and, of course, genre shows have particularly geeky viewers. Also, this:

    since other programs don’t seem to suffer the same erosion.

    Is simply wrong. All shows are seeing the same phenomenon. Even “reality” shows are getting sucked in now: if there is no phone vote they are getting time-shifted.

    And they all got blown away by the Rugby World Cup.

    #45779
    Anonymous @

    Seems as though a lot of people are coming at DW with a fundamentally flawed view, that it’s two programs. This is incorrect.

    DW is ONE TV show, that went on a significant hiatus. This is why I call current programs S34 instead of S9; Jon Pertwee was the Doctor for S9.

    DW must be critiqued in light of the entire production run, since November 1963. Has it changed since? In several significant ways; the serial nature has gradually and consistently been whittled away and we’ve seen hour-long and half-hour DWs.

    But what many call distinctions are in reality distinctions with no substantive difference. Doctor Who is still an SF adventure serial about an alien who travels through time and space having, well, adventures with humanoid companions where he saves people in trouble. It is at its best where the lead character, The Doctor, is most eccentric and alien. It is at its worst when he tries to pretend he’s something he’s not and never will be, no matter how much he tries: Human.

    This is why the Hartnell and to some degree Troughton serials struggled; Terry Nation never really made the case for an eccentric, alien Doctor.

    Then came the Trial, Doctor Three, UNIT and the Earth-bound stories. DW really found its dramatic voice under Terence Dicks and the Pertwee Doctor’s saving Earth from innumerable alien races and the dramatic tension between the Doctor, his Companions, the Brigadier, SgtMaj Benton; the extraordinary Doctor and the ordinary Britons.

    Then came the Genuine Article and the Hinchcliffe-Williams era; Tom Baker introduced an entire CONTINENT to The Doctor. Four could be alien, charmingly British, and absurdly bohemian within a few minutes of each other, and The City of Death (the most watched DW episode ever) is a perfect example of DW at its best. We won’t mention S18 and JNT, other than to note their unfortunate existence.

    All the goodwill that the Genuine Article built was quickly squandered by what might be called a “regent.” Peter Davison’s Doctor never had a chance to develop, as 1) he wasn’t in the role long enough and 2) the production team seemed intent on surgically removing everything that the last three production teams had spent a DECADE building: an eccentric alien saving the world every Saturday. See, good drama involves the viewer and just like in TNG the holodeck episodes set in 20th Century Earth involved the viewer, all the contemporary UK episodes in the Pertwee/Baker era served to involve viewers. While air travel to Britain has always been pricey, at least it’s geography Americans can understand.

    As much as I denigrate DT’s dalliances, there was one relationship he had that was eminently believeable in the larger context of 30+ seasons of DW: The Girl In The Fireplace. It was interesting, seeing the Doctor’s interaction with a historical personality in the class of those he has name-dropped numerous times over the years. While he obviously had a close relationship with Mlle. Antoinette, it was appropriately platonic and alien at the same time. You never had the idea that Marie Antoinette was an FWB, a perception that several Companions have ventured dangerously close to. And I must give credit where credit is due. JNT, during his tenure, adamantly fought any suggestion of companion intimacy.

    I truly enjoy S34, when it appeals to its “better angels” and characters act as we should expect DW personalities to act. However, I deplore the ill-conceived effort to transform one of the most iconic SF franchises in TV history into another angst-laden, thirty-something drama. If I had had a Baker DVD handy at the end of The Woman Who Lived, I would have been tempted to cut off PC and watch something from what Doctor Who can be instead.

    #45780
    Anonymous @

    @plainolddave I think I have to be pedantic  (sorry @pedant) here and suggest that the coy maxim you chose (above) isn’t Russian I’m afraid, though it has been attributed to at least 6 different countries over the past 120 years. There are many similar statements but most would claim a connection with: ‘don’t let the best be the enemy of the good’.

    Quite different in this particular (more correct transl) attributed actually to Voltaire although on that point I’d move over and let our resident French linguist do a triple check on that. As it is though, I’d agree with the original sentiment but firstly one must assume here that members have a more than basic education. Someone here has an MA in Russian History :ahem: 🙂

    I must add with @jimthefish and @bluesqueakpip that we’ve got no way of stapling down Doctor Who into what it ‘once was’ and ‘what it is now’. That really is part of the culture, in Oz, at least, of “being stupid and staying that way”. Things have always evolved with Who -a Doctor who became (almost) a lover to Rose? Why not? It wasn’t really to my taste, either, but I have to say it made me cry (maybe that’s my female weakness, who nose?) as was his relationship with River which you may also find cringe-worthy. Again, Kingston is an awesome actor and played that part with delicious strength and dramatic irony. As a Time Lady (in her way) we can see that she was the perfect ‘type’ for the Doctor  as she first appeared in Silence in the Library. The cracking connection and chemistry she had with Tennant in 2 episodes reminds me that older doctors in the 70s and 80s lacked some chemistry with their ‘companions’ for several dozen episodes! And thank god, they changed. As the Doctor re-motivated himself, then so did the companions.

    No longer just clothes horses for the ‘Dads’ they had a real live ability to add opinions, strengthen the Doctor, be ambitious and even save him when necessary. I thought it was lovely that the Doctor was saved by a companion -he would have been lost to time and the GI otherwise -and then have the Doctor walk into his timestream and save Clara -the one who saves him saves her. It’s a lovely paradox and speaks to the equality of man and woman rather than the cold and dark, Doctor and companion shtick which I think is changing moment by moment. That Missy is a woman is also a treat to us fans of the “ever changing, ever evolving Doctor Who”  (Phil Collinson on the Doctor in 2008). Collinson goes on to state that “the Doctor will never stay the same, in order for the show to keep moving and being interesting to new members of the audience, it can’t be the same old same old. It will die a nasty death otherwise.”

    Certainly that’s not happened. I think those who want the Doctor to remain in the 1970s and 80s will end up with a rudderless and joyless show; lacking the motivation necessary for change. Things must change: only a Church would have the strength to say something is “eternal.” I don’t think the Doctor is ‘eternally unchanging”. To imply that is to suggest that the Doctor really is some kind of prophet-even a Christ, although knowing a little about that (through study but not to the extent of our resident liturgist and theologian), I would add Christ himself completely changed once donning the body of man. Many parables and discussions with the apostles would demonstrate those changes Christ experienced.

    But that young Clara loves the Doctor and hugs him isn’t “unseemly”  – it is a sign and signal of what is most important to her: the man who has saved her, comforted her, went to hell, virtually, for her, to find her Danny. To be in the position of asking the Doctor to change, of saying “yes, you can hug, just try it” and having the Doctor actually capitulate to this in The Girl Who Died is just another sign that companions can steer the Doctor, sometimes -it must not revolve around the Doctor all of the time. It is not about just this one person -this alien. We learn about the Doctors thru the strength and ambitions (and love) of his companions. This is a re-booted show. To begin only where we’d left off would have led to a stalled show in less than a season. (or should I say ‘series’? 🙂

    Kindest,

    Puro

    #45782
    Anonymous @

    Doctor Who is still an SF adventure serial about an alien who travels through time and space having, well, adventures with humanoid companions where he saves people in trouble. It is at its best where the lead character, The Doctor, is most eccentric and alien. It is at its worst when he tries to pretend he’s something he’s not and never will be, no matter how much he tries: Human

    @plaindave

    No, I must disagree on each point. It is a reboot. Had it stayed the same, as I said above, it would have been deleted and corrupted.

    The Doctor is not really the lead anymore -in fact, I joined the ‘watch’ when the companions were interesting and demanded attention -whether in Pertwee’s time, whether Baker or Davidson -and definitely during the time of Tennant with Rose. The very first episode clanks your notion on the head: “Rose” was the title of the 1st program and the media dubbed it a “huge success” from the beginning as she runs into that Tardis and in its very first minute, her life -and the show-  starts with the sound of an annoying alarm where she goes to work in the shop and by the end of that season, she’s working for Torchwood: a total upside down view of this new show.

    It doesn’t matter whether you call it Series 39 or series 9 -those things are little preferences, I’d argue. To me, Rose was very much the co- lead -but again these are probably small distinctions. Whether it’s a ‘lead’ issue or a ‘numbering’ issue it matters little.

    The issue of him seemingly human (but of course he can never even pretend to be that- he can just take on human ideas and feelings) as other members suggest, makes perfect sense in the light of the 50th anniversary year: where the Doctor was seen as person with motivations, sadness, loss and depression: a man like any other. Here, his companions (I see the Moment as a companion too) including Clara have an enormous impact on his deliberations and how he was able to change his mind and do something completely unexpected: his companions altered him. So it’s not “one in the lead and the chick in the back seat”. Not at all.

    We understand why the Doctor was the way he was -right when he took Rose to the end of the universe and seems to leave her alone while he has some ‘me’ time with the very beautiful Lady of the Trees. I think (at last) the Doctor was seen as a sexual being. Not some asexual lump with a few alien smiles. He could flirt and joke and take Astrid Peth to earth and kiss her on her way back ‘home’ “into the stars, Astrid, fly, just fly.” Again, he realised that these companions were strong, resolute and definitive: they could make decisions about giving up their lives in order to save others. No wonder this Doctor has problems! People die for him. For the Doctor to ignore that, to be this perfectly alien creature, would make him weak and unknowable -it’s why the producers in 1963 devised a companion: and look at those first 3-5 episodes, how the teachers changed the Doctor -showed him a way that was compassionate and kind. Decent and different. From then on, they kept nudging him in the right direction.

    The 1970s and the ’60s possibly meant you needed a strong male lead and a ‘screamy’ woman in her 20s doing very little except needing to be saved. With the re-boot we have Rose using her gymnastic medallion to save Mickey and the Doctor -how new! How thrilling! If he needed saving, is he more than the Doctor? A man, perhaps?

    For me, at least, a cold and unfeeling alien doesn’t do it for me and it’s probably why I liked Mat Smith the most: he could do cold, barmy, confused, enraged and above all, very, very old, in 15 minutes. But there was a deep well of compassion and love for his humans: He loves to love. He loves seeing Rory and Amy in love and near the end of their time with him, when Amy wishes for a divorce, it is the Doctor, again, who saves them, by being human. I think he’s learnt the art and understanding of humanity -he does this when he meets Van Gogh and Churchill and even Liz 10. It’s the humanity in the Doctor which makes him watchable. It’s how we understand him better – as he changes and re-motivates. And I must give credit where credit is due. JNT, during his tenure, adamantly fought any suggestion of companion intimacy – well, this tells me more about JNT and why I like him even less! Who knows what would have happened if he’d taken that almighty jump that Moffat and RTD ultimately did?

    Anyway, we shall happily agree to disagree. 🙂 It is what makes this Forum a good, decent place. We each bring our own views, our knowledge, opinions and education and with evidence, argue our points. This is terrific, in this quick, internet age.

    #45783
    Anonymous @

    @plainolddave

    I forgot one point -it’s not a Sci-Fi show on its own-not at all. It is adventure, fantasy and possibly a genre all of its own!

    #45784
    Anonymous @

    Doctor Three, UNIT and the Earth-bound stories. DW really found its dramatic voice under Terence Dicks and the Pertwee Doctor’s saving Earth from innumerable alien races and the dramatic tension between the Doctor, his Companions, the Brigadier, SgtMaj Benton; the extraordinary Doctor and the ordinary Britons.

    I must have been 6 or 7 when I watched this -and I loved Pertwee (in rewatch I find him cold and deliberating) but I found it to be, even then, very masculine in orientation -very few allowances for female actors to come to grips with. The Brig, the Sarg, all great characters, but in my opinion, rather stony and lacking in emotion  -although there was humour and a great deal of it was ‘dry,’ something which, in Oz, we had little knowledge of: slapstick being the only type of humour, and that coming from the States, by and large. From what I’ve been told and what I’ve read -I’m happy to be corrected.

    Also, I must add, that on this Forum, and in this place, I’ve left my mind open and my mouth closed (not today evidently 🙂 and this really means I’ve changed so many of my opinions and habits. To be 47 and to be open to change, is rather marvellous, no? I can’t say that I’ll stick to an opinion or belief until I die: change is important. Whether, it’s belief in a show or belief in oneself.

    Kindest to you, Puro.

    #45785
    Anonymous @

    Rhetorical question, don’t answer.

     

    If it’s a reboot, why did the Beeb make a 50th Anniversary special?

    JJ Abrams made the fact of New Trek being a reboot crystal-clear, as did the makers of Battlestar Newlactica. The Beeb has not lifted a finger to disabuse anybody of the notion of DW being a continuation of the 1963-89 run, a fact that speaks louder than any pro or con fanboy argument. When all is said and done, DW is what BBC says it is. And they have made it clear it’s a continuation.

    #45786
    nerys @nerys

    EON’s James Bond has had multiple film reboots, with the most striking probably being the Daniel Craig era. The series also celebrated its 50th anniversary with Skyfall. Reboots and anniversaries are not mutually exclusive.

    #45788
    Anonymous @

    @plainolddave

    Well, clearly you do want someone to answer: it’s what I was suggesting above. Hard as it is, it doesn’t matter whether the Doctor is the lead or the companions are co-leads. It doesn’t matter whether we call it S9 or S 332. Even on this site, our emperor @craig tends to use both as a way of showing the continuation: but the word continuation has, in its definition, the idea of change.

    Nothing stays the same. Who did -f0r awhile, and it died a slow and painful death. Re-energised, it became something utterly new with echoes of the old and so I agree, it’s a re-boot because we call it BG and AG and it’s a continuation: one doesn’t prevent the existence of the other. These are small points which don’t really matter, hugely, in the overall ‘movement’ of the programme. It re-excites it.

    #45791
    Anonymous @

    there has to be an exit for the running kind….there has to be a door…..but within me is the running man

    @plainolddave

    this is one of the better songs of the rather egregious Haggard (in my opinion) and look you can say “this is a flawed view on this forum” but I think it sticks well -as an opinion and that’s why we’re here. And I agree with you, these discussions end up tightening up our arguments but also giving us momentum to recall other, different discussions. It’s like following a different time line -and finding we’ve changed on the (path)way. It’s good that you can remember all 20-odd seasons -I don’t have that kind of memory. 🙂

    @randypan hallo, haven’t see you around in ages! What do you mean “bollocks”  to “reader, I married him”

    This was a reference to a classic novel of its time -do you get the reference and its compatibility to this particular show? I’m sure you do, anyway 🙂

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