Doctor Who [8]

Beautiful designs in Robots of Death (they were paid tribute to by being reused in the Tenanat xmas episode aboard the space going Titanic and still looked modern).

Oh Pett-ee-ee-ee ! Im all choked up again !    I think I liked Matt Smith SO much because, thats how ID like MY fella to be, kookie, fun, explosive yet reliable, cheerful, happy go lucky, funny yet dependable & strong. Oh Bolly-olly-hollyhocks !

I dont think its quite sank in yet for me, and probably wont until August when it returns with a new Doctor.

Smith for me was the first NuWho Doctor to feel absolutely genuine. I liked Eccy but he only go the year and it wasnt long enough to become as attached- Tennant I like parts of but felt his performance over time became more and more a greatest hits of Tennant mannerisms than anything else.
So for me Smith was the best of the NUWho Doctors by some way, and I am going to miss him.

I just rewatched The Crimson Horror (the Doctor lite episode of series 7) penned by Gatiss- and really enjoyed it, more than the first time I watched it.
Its very Gatiss containing most of this favourite things- Victorian setting, a macabre set up and some good old fashioned gothic horror, as well as some wonderfully surreal imagery

Spoiler:

Well worth a watch however- an entertaining 45 minutes of Who oddness.

First official pic of the 12th Doctor and Clara as filming gets underway on series 8 -



And some good news regarding a returning writer-

'Phil Ford, whose previous credits include The Waters of Mars, has written episode two.'

Waters of Mars was far and away the best of the Tennant specials so good to see Ford back writing Who again.

I saw this pic earlier on IMDB...it's a little worrying supposed fans of the show didn't realize Capaldi was still wearing Smith's costume 'Hey that costume looks familiar I thought he would have something a bit different...'   

Good news about Ford, The Waters of Mars is definitely one of my fave Tennant eps (apart from that annoying Gadget Gadget robot).

I'm not sure If I want to follow anymore of the leeks or not-I'm think I'm bigging up Capaldi so much I'll only end up being dissapointed.

And I finished Hartnell's run at long last!

Actually Im hoping his outfit isnt too different- he suits that suit. Just so long as we dont get a multicoloured outfit I suppose.

Good work making it through all Hartnells eps- wont take so long to get through 2nd Doctor given, sadly, more are lost than arent.
But whats there is worth the watch- I am a big fan of 2.

Ideally (as I've said before) I want a cross between 1,8 and 2 for Capaldi, sort of a eccentric yet regal age worn professor (it might be cool to see the ?'s make a return as well).

Overall I loved Hartnell as the Doctor-grumpy slighty senile but wise and funny (his final speech to Susan was wonderful), whilst some of the stories (The Web Planet bah!) were frankly overlong and rather boring, I found his arc very interesting and varied with strong storylines (though most of the companions were cyphers) and very very enjoyable if quite formulaic, though Season 3 felt kind of tired with no standouts for me.


I think my fave stories of his were (bare in mind I've only seen each once over the course of four or five months):

The Aztecs
The Keys of Marinius
The Sensorites
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
The Chase

I actually enjoyed the 'Historicals' alot, but I gather they were phased out more or less in Troughton's run?


I haven't seen anything of Troughton really (a part from a few clips of him jumping around like a loony-which is promising on my part!) but I look forward to seeing his eps.

I always find the Chase a weird one- its got a great premise, a great opener but some of the later parts are just, well, odd.

I like the Aztecs as its the first time they start to play with what would eventually become the idea of fixed points in time.

The historicals were phased out yeah, not entirely, but history becomes more somewhere to set a story, rather than an excuse to teach kids history- although when they got it right it worked very well- The Time Meddler springs to mind in that respect.

I think you will enjoy the 2nd Doctor- and then you can join the rest of us old Whovians in cursing the BBC for not keeping more of his episodes  

Pettytyrant101 wrote:

The historicals were phased out yeah, not entirely, but history becomes more somewhere to set a story, rather than an excuse to teach kids history- although when they got it right it worked very well- The Time Meddler springs to mind in that respect.

That is a good point as the serial set in Napoleonic France smacked of 'Let's teach the kiddies about so and so' it just felt contrived to me (though I was very surprised when Hartnell knocked that bloke out-very violent for the doctor!)...that said in some of the new eps I feel the opposite the story is a means to a end-ane excuse to show certain set peices without a decent story to enclose them

I think you will enjoy the 2nd Doctor- and then you can join the rest of us old Whovians in cursing the BBC for not keeping more of his episodes  [/quote]

Hopefully, no doubt in a year or so I'll be joining the rest of you in cursing Mcoy and Baker's storylines.

Second series of Mccoys run has some good stuff in it- Ghostlight and Curse of Fenric come immediately to mind.

Baker- bit trickier- Trial of a Time Lord has some good individual bits in it without it entirely hanging together a whole.

I've heard Baker's B.F stuff is pretty good, but I've only got acess to the DVD's (via a very big Whovian friend), I know he was treated like sh*te on the program but frankly he comes across as a bit of a bitter whiner (seriously did he expect people would want to see a balding fat 6th doctor in that coat in the 50th episode?).

Mcoy on the other hand the only real praise I've heard is from a friend who worships Peter Jackson and thought The Children of Hurin (the only Tolkien book he's read) was boring because there wasn't enough action modern dialogue or hobbits.

So you'll understand why I'm cautious.

McCoy is far from my favourite Doctor- but Ace is an excellent companion of the time and they work well together.
Of the Mccoy era Id say Remembrance of the Daleks (despite some ropey effects- although the shuttle landing is pretty impressive all considering what they had to work with budget wise), Ghostlight (which is just wonderfully weird, esoteric and a little camp) and Curse of Fenric- are all well worth the time.

As to Colin- given he does the BF stuff, and he turns up for the conferences, and he was in the Fiveish Doctors sending himself up- I am inclined to believe his so called 'whining' about the 50th was in fact a wind up and part of the set up for the Fiveish Doctors.

I've only seen one McCoy story, which was Silver Nemesis. And I really didn't like that one. There were some promising story aspects, but the feel and just everything else felt off to me.

Might be a bit unfair to judge him on just that however.   

It would be very unfair to judge him on Silver Nemesis, or in fact anything from his first series (The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is probably as good as it gets, and its not that good), but series two they quite dramatically changed the sort of Doctor 7 was- in the first series he is sort of a jester type (all the usual McCoy tropes- playing spoons, juggling, lot of physical humour) in the 2nd series he becomes more of a manipulator, a chess player (quite literally in Curse of Fenric) and they start to hint that the Doctor is 'more than just a Time Lord' and it all gets a lot more interesting regards his character.
Of all the Doctors 7 changes most between his first series and his second.


Here's Ghost Light- an, quirky, atmospheric episode that is one of the first to really hint at this new side to 7- its also a good Ace episode as it concerns her background-

"I was five when the show started. I don’t remember Doctor Who not being part of my life, and it became a part of growing up, along with The Beatles, National Health spectacles, and fog. And it runs deep. It’s in my DNA."- Peter Capaldi.

Well, these are different- two songs about Who ( I prefer the second one myself)-

I'll keep that in mind if I get around to watching any more McCoy Petty.   

The episodes I mention are definitely all worth a watch for any Whovian. But sadly the rest (with maybe the exception of Survival-the final classic series episode) I cant so readily recommend.

Just watched an interview with Moffat where he was talking about the future of television.

He was proposing that the whole notion of scheduling and episode length was on the way out- "Why be stuck making all episodes the same length? Why not have a 6 minute episode followed by a two hour episode? If you have an idea say for a half hour Sherlock story instead of 50 minutes- why not? Why not just make it? We made a prequel to series 7 (of Doctor Who) called Pond Life- it was less than ten minutes long but 6 million people watched it- that's not extra content, that's a tv show. People are downloading and watching at their own convenience, not dictated to by a television scheduler. Your book shelf doesn't tell you what to read or for how long, why should your tv tell you what to watch?"

Interesting idea,
And on that theme, why should BBC tell me to buy a licence ?
I think there should be some sort of PAYG system, I hardly EVER turn on my TV. I turn it on to watch what I want, soon as its finished, I turn TV off.

You dont need a licence Azriel- I dont have one and there is a perfectly legal way to do it- first get rid of any set top boxes, aerials ect, then just watch everything online.
Go to the bbc website and go to the license fee section and somewhere there is an option to fill out an exemption form saying you dont watch live tv.

You only need a tv license to watch live tv- its a very handy loophole.

OH THANKYOU PETTY !   

Here in fjordlandia you actually have to have the television signal reciever thing removed from the telvision to get out of the licence fee.

Then again there's no licence fee for online viewing here at all, so maybe we shouldn't complain.   

Keeping with the McCoy era heres a fan trailer for the final series of classic Who-



And heres a nice little 11 era tribute vid-



And for no other reason than I love the epiosde, the Long Sng scene from Rings of Akaten-

From the Mirror-

"A creative decision - as opposed to a contractual one - was behind Peter Capaldi keeping his native Scottish accent as the Doctor, the BBC has been quoted as saying. According to an unnamed "insider", Capaldi "was delighted when he found out he could play the part with his own voice. It gives his character a stronger identity as well."

(The article takes pains to point out that fellow Scot David Tennant used an English accent because then showrunner Russell T Davies didn't want the Doctor "touring the regions". It neglects to mention that the Highlands-set episode Tooth and Claw did see Tennant talking with a Scottish brogue. Sylvester McCoy, of course, kept his Scottish accent as the Doctor.)- Gallifrey Base


I rather like the theory that the Doctors next regen can be influenced by the depth of attachment to people in his previous- so 10 sounded like a cockney because of 9's relationship with Rose.
11 got his because 10 only travelled with english accents therefore kept the english, but having lost Rose was no longer cockney (to painful a reminder for him).
And 12 is Scottish sounding because of the effect of Amy on 11.

Theres nothing I know of in cannon to support it, but then its Who canon we are talking about, and I like the idea.