Gallifrey Outpost: New Dr Who Discussion

I have been looking for the 'Lost in Time' Boxset for ages. I think it's confined to eBay etc. these days (at least here in Australia that is).

I think those two stories (The Tenth Planet and The Ice Warriors) depended heavily on the success/popularity/viability of the animation which was achieved for the release of The Invasion. I am unsure how the DVD audience responded to The Invasion (personally I thought it was decent enough) and whether or not 2|entertain had intended or still do intend to release those particular stories.

If RTD was still the Show Runner then I would have said that would be a probability, but now that Mr Moffat is on board I think he will move on and only worry about his own characters.

 

^Lost in Time is selling on Amazon.uk for under £12 at the moment. I would think that they, or one of their third-party marketplace sellers, would ship to Australia, though the dvd would be Region 2; CD Wow also have a Region 2 Lost in Time, and I know that they ship to Australia (there is an Australian section to their site), but again, if you don't have a region-free dvd player, not much use to you.

 

in the US, a region-free player runs all of $45. On the other hand, I've run into dvds that don't play on regionfree (?).
Lost In Time doesn't include a lot of episodes that they have, in whole or in part, which to me defeats the purpose. Rather disappointing.
I would love to see more stories restored the way The Invasion was. Much better than the crappy "Infinite Quest" animated nonsense.
Of course, the big hang up is how different the old series was, especially back then. The pacing was much slower, with lots of filler. Just count the number of times the plane took off and landed or you got to see the radar missile thing in The Invasion. So the audience would be limited to the die-hard fans, the people feeling nostalgic who watched the series when it came out (who are going to be in their 50s or senior now), and film/tv history enthusiasts, most of whom probablly wouldn't want to buy the episodes, just watch them.
They do have a lot of stories where just the audio track has survived. They could easily animate to those too.
Personally, I'd like to see more restored.

Sadly, I'm probablly in the vast minority there.

 

I didn't enjoy The Invasion as much as I thought I would, but that was more to do with (as you pointed out) a lot of repetition in the story, and lack of really good dialogue, rather than any disappointment with the animation.

I still cross my fingers that the odd classic episode will turn up somewhere. The last episode of The Tenth Planet would be great, giving us the whole story in a marketable format and the Doctor's first regeneration.

 

Reposting this from the Amph Doctor Who thread:

Someone very nicely typed up some of DWM's Steven Moffat interview and put it on the web [link=http://community.livejournal.com/doctoreleven/143492.html]here[/link].


[blockquote] DWM has heard a rumour that the new Doctor particularly enjoyed The Tomb of the Cybermen...

"He phoned me one evening about The Tomb of the Cybermen and he was on the phone for about 20 minutes!" Steven recalls. "Just raving about it, about how brilliant it was, and how fantastic it was and how much he loved Patrick Troughton. From that point on, I think the bow tie was a given. I don't think there was any getting out of it! [...] I'm absolutely certain from that point on that Matt was just going to wear a bow tie, whatever we did!"

So the bow tie was something that Matt particularly wanted? Was the costume and the overall 'look' for Matt's Doctor ultimately his choice then?

"Well, it's a bizarre story the whole thing..." Steven begins. "We were so far down the road with a completely different look. Costumes had been made, fittings done, we were heading towards the first photocall - mere days before the first day of filming. We had a different look altogether, a bit more piratey, big long coats and all that stuff - and Matt hated it all, so we knew we were in trouble. He hated everything. On the last day - in the last half an hour of the last day we could make this decision - he asked if he could try this jacket. I think it was his, this old tweedy jacket with elbow patches. So he put that on, and he liked that, he liked his tweed jacket and his elbow patches. Then he said, 'Could I try braces?' So he put the braces on, and I'm thinking, 'Yeah, that's not bad.' It wasn't spectacular, it was just okay.

"And then he said, 'Can I have a bow tie? And I said, 'Absolutely no. Under no circumstances are we having a bow tie! It's retro, outdated, ridiculous, it's a pantomime idea of what Doctor Who is like. We are not having a bow tie!' But Piers said, 'Just let him try it with the bow tie.' So we stuck a bow tie on him and it just looked fantastic. Instantly! And you could tell that he, for the first time since the costume fitting started, was leaping around the room pretending his pen was a sonic screwdriver, and absolutely believing it! Beth [Willis, the third executive producer] had popped out for a while, so we got her back and I thought, well, 'Surely we've just gone mad, so let's see if Beth thinks this looks okay.' She came back in and she loved it. Girls sometimes just smack you round the head and say 'No, you can't wear that, it's ridiculous!' But she didn't - she loved it, too! And that's the reason I signed off on it that day. I mean, he's a clothes horse, Matt, he looks good in anything. But he just stood there in the other costumes chewing his lip and looking miserable. When he wore the bow tie and the braces and the tweedy jacket he was honestly jumping around the room with his pen going 'Fzzzt!' being Doctor Who. I still have the photographs on my iPhone. Here is the previous costume. Look at his face! Look how miserable he is."

Steven leans over to show DWM some pictures on his iPhone of Matt wearing a different costume. Matt does indeed look great - but not at all happy. We whiz through other photos before finally reaching the now familiar attire of the Eleventh Doctor.

"You just see the change in his mood from, frankly, being a bit miserable and convinced we were not going to get there... and suddenly he's happy! Can't take his eyes off himself. In love!"

We flick back to an earlier shot - to an outfit that look a little like something Captain Jack Sparrow wears in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

"He's absolutely not feeling it there," Steven recalls. "He said to me, 'Other people would dress the Doctor like that. I don't think the Doctor would ever dress himself like that.' And he's right. Cos the Doctor doesn't think he's going on an adventure... He thinks he's a scientist and an explorer and a fun guy. Matt's costume is distinct;

 

Over-contrived outfits? You mean like JNT forcing Tom Baker to wear shirts with ? marks on the lapels? Like Peter Davidson's cricket outfit? Like Colin Baker's... where to begin... entire outfit? Like Silvester McCoy's ?-mark umbrellas, sweaters/cardigans, lapels, braces/suspenders, underwear, etc? (OK, the underwear was never seen, but I wouldn't have put it past JNT.)
At least Sylvester McCoy's outfit mostly worked. That made up for the fact that most of the stories didn't.

 

^Yeah. Colin Baker's was the only one I hated, but they all felt too "costumey" to me.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing the new doctor in action.

 

So the Blue Peter 'Make a TARDIS console competition' has concluded and some time in the episodes of block 7 which I think is shooting now or is about to shoot; the following console will make an appearance on the show...

[image=http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/img/c/getinvolved/drwhocompetition/winner/11-12_640x840.jpg]
That is by winner 'Susannah from Lancashire'

I also like one of the other runners-up designs:
[image=http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/img/c/getinvolved/drwhocompetition/winner/6-7_640x840.jpg]
Made by a 6-7 year old, I think this one had potential!

 

Do you know whether it will be from a secondary console-room, an emergency console, or from a flashback? I'm assuming it is from the Doctor's Tardis.

 

The current thought is that either a 'fan', some other character or the Doctor himself creates a makeshift console in order to reach the proper TARDIS.

 

[link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbmMhNe6aA]New Doctor Who Promo[/link]!

 

Still not too keen on the Daleks coming back (and to head off the inevitable arugment, that's more because I'm of the opinion that they need to be rested, and we, and the series, can go a while without them, really), but otherwise, that makes me jazzed about the show.

 

So series 5/1/31/Fnarg officially starts in the UK on the 3rd of April, 17th in America and Canada (I think, though don't quote me) and the 18th for Australia (though it will be on the ABC's website approx. 36 hours before being broadcast on tv!)

Bring on Matt Smith, not long to wait!

 

[link=http://www.radiotimes.com/content/features/galleries/doctorwhocovers/47/mainImage.jpg] Our first good look at the new Tardis interior[/link]. The picture is kind of small as it's a preview of the front cover of The Radio Times which comes out tomorrow. I imagine Tomorrow will bring proper hi-rez images.

It looks very trippy! I'm loving the roundels on the floor, and the elevated console will make for some exciting camerawork of the Doctor piloting the Tardis. I would rather they had kept the white colour scheme of the original series, though.

 

Had a thought at lunch about "the woman in red" during the last two Tennent specials. Instead of being[hl=black] The Doctor's Mother[/hl] which I thought was lame, what if she was [hl=black]Romana[/hl]? Makes slightly more sense. OK, I did say slightly.

Thoughts?

 

Slightly? Slightly??!

Try about ten billion times more sense. And no, that's not a joke or anything. Her revelation is a slaggin' joke and ten kinds of stupid. There's a number of women who would make more sense than [hl=black]his mother.[/hl]

 

Well, that Timothy Dalton was supposed to be playing Rassillon was also pretty lame and badly mishandled. Actually, the entire last 2 episodes were pretty much badly mishandled.
Oh well. At least RTD has retired, as he should have done over a year earlier.

 

So 'The Eleventh Hour' has reached UK screens! It was the same but different, very much looking forward to the rest of this series!

 

What I'm looking forward to most: no more Rose! no more contrivances to bring in a character who was supposed to be lost and permanently doomed to a parallel reality. Honestly, it was worse then the Daleks.
"Rose is gone for all time... Except for this special excuse."
"Rose is gone for all time atain... Oh! I thought of another loophole."
"No, she's really gone again. Except not."
AAAAarrrgh. I didn't like her as a companion, and when she brought in her east-enders family baggage, it was even worse.
Hopefully Moffet will leave her gone for good.

 

So, the 11th hour

1. Great opening scene with the Dr hanging out of the Tardis. Glad he managed to miss St George's tower after it had been rebuilt since last time

2. Title music/sequence has been subtly altered, seems much more Tom Bakerish?

3. The post-regenetative Dr has cravings just like the Master did. At least his didn't lead to cannabalism

4. The young Scottish Amelia is lovely, nice to meet a kid on TV who doesn't try to talk 'street' or like the Children's Film Foundation. So heartbreaking for little her waiting for the Dr to return. Did her Aunt really leave a 7 year old girl alone in the house alone? The 'You're Scottish, fry something!" gag is forgiveable as Steven Moffat IS Scottish.

5. You just knew that grown up Amelia couldn't be a real policewoman and had to be a stripper/hooker etc, when did you last see a real WPC with long red-painted fingernails, seamed stockings and a micro-miniskirt (in fact when did you last see a WPC in a skirt?)

6. Ok, I now pronounce Amelia the second sexiest companion ever, just ahead of Peri/Martha, equal with Amazing Grace and just behind Ace.

7. Nice little dig about the shut post office. But what's the significance of the duck pond? And why was the fire engine just parked up by the green?

8. Lovely cameo from Sir Patrick Moore, hope we see more of him. Hope he shacks up with Amelia's aunt.

9. Amelia watches the Dr disrobing? She's interested in him or maybe she's just used to people getting naked because of her job?

10. Who is Amelia marrying? Nurse Ray or himbo Geoff? (Surely he would have no problem getting a girlfriend?) This means that the Dr has a second runaway bride?

11. I think the new Tardis is a little OTT. I think my favourite is still the 7/8th Doctor's version we see in the TV movie. Speaking of which nice to once again see 8th Dr/Paul McGann in the flashbacks, cementing him as canon.

Coming attractions look excellent, looking forward to Spitfires vs Flying Saucers (almost as much as machinegun toting Edwardian Schoolboys vs reanimated scarecrows). Anyone want to bet that Amelia will become a Bride of Dracula (if only temporarily)? Ameila vs crippled Cyberman also looks fun although a bit disturbed by the sight of the Dr with a gun again?

All told, very very good and certainly on a par with the Tennant years. My only complaint would be that the central villain wasn't that good

8/10 maybe even 9?

 

So... The Beast Below and Victory of the Daleks, two very interesting stories indeed!


Matt Smith is awesome, Karen Gillan is brilliant and the new Dalek design is just wrong.

 

When Daleks start reminding you of M&Ms, you know something weird is up.

I am very much enjoying Matt Smith's Doctor. I'm finding that the tone of the show is quite different now, more echoing the original series than the new one (at least in my opinion ). Amy Pond is brilliant - I love that she's Scottish. I've found these past three episodes more enjoyable than most of the earlier seasons of New Who.

 

I'm desperate for something to start watching...I want to give Dr. Who another try.

What's the best way to get up to speed? Do you need to just start from the beginning?

I tried to get into it back in 2005...but even with the so-called "relaunch" I felt I was missing a lot.

thoughts?