Doctor Who Fans?

[rocklobster]

I wanted to make an announcement: beginning the 16th, I will be writing a blog for Doctor Who reviews. I will concentrate on both the classic and current versions, as well as spin-offs and possibly audio dramas.

[DecooPunk]

I wanted to make an announcement: beginning the 16th, I will be writing a blog for Doctor Who reviews. I will concentrate on both the classic and current versions, as well as spin-offs and possibly audio dramas.

Awesome! I will for sure be following it~
Not many people seem to like/watch the classic series, or maybe I am unlucky and am surrounded by the 10/11th only lovers.
It will be cool to read reveiw of the classic series anywho.

[GeneD]

The Day of the Doctor new trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS1cNjJSGQs

[rocklobster]

Thoughts on the "Night of the Doctor"? I think it's awesome that the show finally did something about the TV movie!

[goldenspines]

^^^^ I was happy we see more of Paul McGann. Sadly, I wasn't impressed with the movie, but I liked him as The Doctor. : D
Also, Rock, you know more of the older Doctor Who references that I do, is Kan/Khan/Kann/?? referenced before this or was it made up just for this minisode?

But that ending! It brings up so much speculation that I can hardly wait for the 50th anniversary.

[rocklobster]

To be honest, I know next to nothing about Paul McGann's era. I haven't read any of the novels nor listened to the audio dramas. What I thought was really cool was at the end, when the Doctor is drinking the goblet, he actually names all the companions from the audio dramas. This means those dramas are now officially canon! Moffat, you sly dog!

[rocklobster]

I guess I should plug the review blog here until my thread for it gets some reviews. Here's the thread where I posted the link: click here Don't be surprised if you see more classic than current. It's inevitable.

[rocklobster]

Okay, I guess everyone here has probably seen "The Day of the Doctor". Thoughts? Gripes?

[MomentOfInertia]

Explains SPOILER: Highlight text to read: why so many Deleks escaped destruction.

[Mr. Rogers]

I was a fan of Dr. Who until they took it off of Netflix

[rocklobster]

It's not off. Technically the next season doesn't begin til August, so maybe they're waiting til them to load up Series 7's episodes. They are on DVD.

[Mr. Rogers]

Well, it wouldn't be a big deal to get them by DVD except that I'm mooching my sister's account. Don't tell the FBI.

[rocklobster]

My review of Spearhead From Space, the first story for Liz Shaw and the Third Doctor.

[rocklobster]

My review of Robot, Tom Baker's first story.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

GoldenSpines, the Sisterhood of Kahn (sp?) were first introduced in the Tom Baker story "The Brain of Morbius".

[rocklobster]

Several days and dollars late, I already told her that in a PM. Sorry.

[Yuki-Anne]

Okay, I finally watched Day of the Doctor. I DO have some gripes...

SPOILER: Highlight text to read: 1. The fleshing out of the Ten/Elizabeth I story. What made that idea so great was the lack of detail. It was offhand and largely up to the imagination, and that made it kind of awesome and funny. Moffat just took all of the charming subtlety that made moments like that great, and flushed it down the toilet. It's like someone making a joke, and then someone else in the room then explaining to everybody WHY the joke is so funny. It completely ruins the joke, and having Tennant's doctor marry Elizabeth I on camera was just... lame. And it made the Doctor seem like a total jerk, marrying her and then just... leaving. It explains why she's so ticked at him, but it really made him look awful. Plus the actress was chewing the scenery left and right. She was not great. Leading to my next criticism...
2. I felt like almost everybody was chewing the scenery, actually. Maybe I expected too much, but I felt like Smith and Tennant pulled off two of their WORST performances as the Doctor. There were some serious moments but the gravitas this story required was completely overshadowed by the over-the-top goofiness. It's like they were so focused on, "OMG we've got Smith and Tennant in the same room, THE POSSIBILITIES!" that they let it detract from what could have been an excellent story. This is what bothers me so much about Moffat's writing: EVERY personality has to be SO BIG and SO BOMBASTIC that it overshadows the story. John Hurt's performance was the only one with any semblance of nuance and subtlety.
I mean, I'm watching "The End of Time" now because I want to see how badly "Day of the Doctor" conflicts with what they said in it. And watching it, I'm struck by how well-written and subtle Wilfred Mott is. So many quiet, contemplative moments, so much subtlety, that Moffat's writing completely lacks. Which leads me to...
3. THINK OF THE CHILDREN, DOCTOR! I BET YOU NEVER EVEN COUNTED THE CHILLLLLDREEENNNNN!!!
SUBTLETY, MOFFAT. HAVE YOU HEARD OF IT?! I mean, OF COURSE the Doctor has thought of the children. Is that the best you can do to try to induce some pathos? "How many children are there?" and then show shots of them playing? Showing the Daaleks endangering families and stuff? So campy and heavy-handed. I mean, all up until now we felt the weight of what the Doctor had done without a single mention of "the children! dear gawd the CHILDREN!" And John Hurt's performance would have been enough without it. In fact, the clunky heavy-handedness detracted from what could have and SHOULD HAVE been a fantastic performance.
4. No strong antagonist. I mean, come on, monster-of-the-week level antagonists for something this big? Big red suction-cupper things? So lame. I mean, we've had some STRONG antagonists in the new series (most of which are from the old series). Weeping Angels, Silence, Daaleks, the Master, Cybermen... Heck, Time Lords themselves have been some of the best antagonists in Doctor Who's history. So why would you waste opportunities like that on another STUPID monster-of-the-week? HUGE disappointment.
5. Didn't we already do A Christmas Carol on Doctor Who?
6. The End of Time. Go watch it, then tell me The Day of the Doctor doesn't completely conflict with everything the Doctor says about the Time Lords. How the war changed them. How they are worse than all of his enemies. Saving Gallifrey at the end of The Day of the Doctor doesn't do anything to resolve the fact that the whole point of destroying Gallifrey was to prevent any further atrocities. What about the Ascendency that they were planning, that the Doctor says he had to prevent? Why couldn't they at least address it off-hand, say something like, "Well, if there is no war we don't need to Ascend" or something like that? It's dissatisfyingly inconsistent.

I did like some things about it. I thought John Hurt's performance was understated and pretty good, and I wished they'd given him more time to interact with the other doctors without seeming like a tired babysitter.

[rocklobster]

Yuki, do you know that the Zygons are actually old monsters from Tom Baker's era? They're from the very good episode, "Terror of The Zygons", just recently released on DVD. (They sure took their time), so like a lot of stuff in "Day of the Doctor", they were meant to be a continuity nod. I LOVED the special, especially SPOILER: Highlight text to read: TOM BAKER as the curator OMG THAT WAS SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, here's what I'm really here for. Continuing my series on the regenerations, here's Peter Davison's:
Castrovalva.

[Davidizer13]

Being the casual Doctor Who viewer I am, I tried watching the special, but couldn't get through a half hour of it. The show's really gone down in quality in the last couple seasons; apart from a few bright spots, they are doing a lot worse at balancing their silly and their serious. I get that it's a show for families, and that it's light-hearted all around, but the moments where they're trying to be light are too "HOO HOO LOOK AT US WE'RE SO WHIMSICAL AND GOOFY" to be actually funny, and they clash horribly with the serious moments, which are too over-dramatic to be taken seriously, like the end of the Angels in Manhattan episode. It's even more aggravating when you think of all the episodes where they did drama excellently, the results being the best episodes in the show (Midnight, Turn Left, Blink, The End of Time's first episode, that Daleks in WW2 one, The Waters of Mars). You can have the two coexisting happily in the same plot (Joss Whedon's work, for example). but if done badly, it's lethal.

The problem wasn't the villain's being from an episode from ages ago, though the show's reliance on those is another problem in itself. The problem is that they failed to make shape-shifting body snatching aliens anything to be taken seriously, which is even worse when you remember that they've done it better before in another episode. They've done well at creating drama before, but they've just been dropping the ball countless times, which is worse considering you have all these awesome ideas in their world to play with. Endless amounts of awesome things they have to play with, endless ideas that would be great to explore, and they chose to do things this way. It's a failure of imagination, and hopefully the new Doctor will change that a bit, or maybe they'll get some new writers with him.

[Yuki-Anne]

The problem wasn't the villain's being from an episode from ages ago, though the show's reliance on those is another problem in itself. The problem is that they failed to make shape-shifting body snatching aliens anything to be taken seriously, which is even worse when you remember that they've done it better before in another episode.

Precisely. And I maintain that even if they are from the show's history, they still came off as "monster-of-the-week." It's like the creators didn't have enough faith in the gravity of the main story to let it BE the main story. It's like if they'd thrown the green slugs from "The Ark in Space" into "Journey's End." It would have been a distracting non-sequitur, much like the Zygons proved to be.

I LOVED the special, especially SPOILER: Highlight text to read: TOM BAKER as the curator OMG THAT WAS SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think it was "so awesome," because SPOILER: Highlight text to read: WHY?! I mean, you create a fictional universe and an alien who can regenerate but you've got to follow your own dang rules in this fictional universe! Don't get me wrong, I loved Tom Baker, he was my first Doctor and one of the best, but... WHY WAS HE THERE?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlpRBLkgcBo
Is there some kind of place where old regenerations go to age?! Like, you regenerate but the old body isn't gone, it's just put in a museum or a theater somewhere to pop up at opportune moments? Or did he pull a Master and somebody who kissed Doctor Four was then used to resurrect Doctor Four and he's just been living his life out in this museum guarding this painting?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zPByWAGA3w
Look, it's a fictional universe, you can do things like that AS LONG AS YOU PROVIDE SOME KIND OF EXPLANATION. But there's only so much that Deus Ex Machina Bad Wolf/Surprisingly Aged Rose Tyler (smoking, kids. Just don't.) can do before the suspension of disbelief snaps clean in two. And they didn't even say it was something DEMBW/SART even did. Like, did she do it? Or is it a result of the barely explained hole she created? How would the former doctors even know to come rescue Gallifrey if it's something that's still in their future?


And that's my biggest problem with the special, honestly. They were so busy being "whimsical" and cramming every bit of nostalgia they possibly could into it that they never bothered to

[rocklobster]

Continuing my look at each Doctor's first appearance, here's the worst story from Doctor Who's classic period, The Twin Dilemma

[Psycho Molos]

I just now noticed my PBS has new eps. Anyone seen Cold War tonight?

[rocklobster]

Yes, I saw it on DVD. Very good. Loved the Ice Warriors in The Seeds of Doom.
anyway, here's my review of the Seventh Doctor's first appearance, Time and the Rani.

[mysngoeshere56]

I watched the first five episodes years ago, but I thought the series was a bit too bizarre for me. However, I've now decided to give it a second chance (seeing how 98% of my friends are now addicted to it). I've re-watched the first two, and was surprised at how much I forgot from the first episode, though I remembered the second pretty well. I plan to stick this one out for at least the first season. We'll see how it goes.

[rocklobster]

I watched the first five episodes years ago, but I thought the series was a bit too bizarre for me. However, I've now decided to give it a second chance (seeing how 98% of my friends are now addicted to it). I've re-watched the first two, and was surprised at how much I forgot from the first episode, though I remembered the second pretty well. I plan to stick this one out for at least the first season. We'll see how it goes.

Do you mean "Rose" or "An Unearthly Child"?

[rocklobster]

and here's my review of Paul McGann's only TV story: click here

[mysngoeshere56]

I watched the first five episodes years ago, but I thought the series was a bit too bizarre for me. However, I've now decided to give it a second chance (seeing how 98% of my friends are now addicted to it). I've re-watched the first two, and was surprised at how much I forgot from the first episode, though I remembered the second pretty well. I plan to stick this one out for at least the first season. We'll see how it goes.

Do you mean "Rose" or "An Unearthly Child"?

I don't remember the titles... The one I didn't remember much of was when the doctor first met Rose and all the mannequins attacked them (honestly I was surprised - I would think I'd remember something I thought was *that* bizarre), and the one I remembered fairly well was the one when they went forward in time to when the sun made the earth explode.

[rocklobster]

"Rose" was the first episode of the modern day version. "An Unearthly Child" is the first episode of the show proper.

[rocklobster]

speaking of which, here's my review of the first episode of the modern era: click here

[Mr. SmartyPants]

I finished season 5. I'm not even sure if I want to keep up with this show anymore... Tennant and Eccleston were my favorites. And the problem is that since the lead writer changed from Davies to Moffat after season 4, there seems to be a lack of continuity. I much prefer Davies as the lead writer. I don't really like Moffat.