Gallifrey Outpost: New Dr Who Discussion

Yeah, but I kinda miss the cybermen with the Jaguar pilot suits (Earthshock to Silver Nemesis). The new series ones are neat, but they are also very heavy-handed and brutish. Maybe some hybrid mid-step? Maybe the cybermen from the previous series could show up, then evolve? THEY weren't destroyed in the Time Wars (as far as I know).

 

Yeah... no. The eyestalks are silly, too. Their voices are screechy and dorky. Sorry, but even them doing their swarm thing in the series four finale, I'm still not impressed.

TIEPilot is right. They've been way too drawn out and almost all their appearances save 'Dalek' have been silly and painfully awkward in how they're brought back.

 

Yes, the daleks were much better in the days when they were simply THERE, a force for destruction within the universe. Now they've been made this rediculous super-power that just isn't as effective. Oh for the days of "Rememberance of the Daleks", "Genesis of the Daleks" and "Resurrection of the Daleks." Heck, even Space War & Planet of the Daleks...

 

Yeah... I wasn't scared of them in Classic Who, either. I have never been scared of the Daleks at any time or episode or serial or series... ever.

 

You mean "Frontier in Space", right?

 

Uh, yeah. ooops.

 

Hee.

Speaking of those two stories, I picked them up on DVD a while ago, and generally enjoyed them.

 

I posted this in the Dr. Who UK thread and I haven't gotten a reply so I'll try again here...

I just got hooked! And It's getting worse each day. I used to watch reruns of the early to late 70's Dr. Who episodes when I was a kid but I ignored the reboot until last week. I started watching it now that it's in daily syndication here in Canada and I want more. Lots more! I'm still on the Christopher Eccleston episodes with a few Matt Smith episodes thrown in and I'm remembering how much I loved everything about the show. It's so starkly opposite to the American nihilistic take on Sci-fi. It's so...not grimy.

So now that I'm watching every day I'm wondering if there are some books that I might like or might help me navigate through the smog of Dr. Who continuity. Can one even follow its continuity? Have any decent tie-in novels been written? If so which are the best and in what order should I go? More importantly how are the comics? Didn't John Ostrander write a couple?

 

I haven't been here on the boards since the season started. I have all kinds of joy for the past season. The Lodger and The Big Bang tie for my favorite episodes of this current Doctor. If you want more details, you can PM me to find out where my DW blog is.

 

So...I remember a few years back watching some of the Eccleston Who, but for some reason I mixed the Satan Pit ep with Eccleston's Doctor...weird.

Anyway I've been watching the new series every week, some of the older Tennant reruns on BBC America, Netflix etc. I love the series.

So, how long typically does each actor last as the Doctor? I know Eccleston's turn was very short lived, and that Tennant had several series and several companions...so I guess another question would be whether the Doctor switches companions often?

I find Daleks to be hilarious. They are supposed to be hateful, spiteful and scary, but they just don't look it...and the voices....

My brother and I even made up a parody in which the Doctor regenerates into a Dalek, and takes companions around and at the end of every encounter the companion is either killed in a horrific accident or exterminated by the Doctor Dalek. I think it's hilarious.

Looking forward to the Season Finale this Saturday and the Christmas special....hopefully around Christmastime...when does BBCA air the specials if we here in America are a few weeks off?

Also enjoyed seeing Captain Panaka AKA Hugh Quarshie in Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks. Wasn't the new Spider-Man actor in those episodes too?

 

First Doctor lasted 3.25 years.
Second doctor was 2.75 years.
3rd did 5 years
4th was 7--and still the longest running with about 65 hours of episodes
5th was 3
6th only got 2 (and much problems with politics, show (temporarily) cancelled, and other fun)
7th only got 3, because the BBC pulled the plug. He was planning on doing another season.
8th got the crappy US-made for FOX-TV "special." Patrick Troughton (2nd) is quoted by several of his successors as saying "Great show. Only do it for 3 years, then go."

It needs to be mentioned that the early seasons weren't the short 13-episodes than we have now. They were 40+ episodes. It wasn't until the 3rd that the season started to be shortened to 26. And the main reason for the season being chopped down to 13 was BBC budgetting and the fact the snobby, nose-in-the-air BBC execs didn't think the silly children's show was worth spending money.
So, Eccleson's comment about having done 2 season's worth of Doctor Who was incrediblly stupid, topped only by his performance in G.I.Joe.

As for companions, some only last 2 episodes (that is episodes, not full stories), while others last years. Sarah Jane Smith was one of the longest at 3.32 seasons. The Brigadier is arguablly the longest, but that's cheating (he isn't seen for several seasons, then makes a cameo). Most seem to last about 3 years--Nyssa, Teegan, Jo Grant, Jamie, and Ian & Barbara.
Only 2 companions have been killed, one in 1965 (Cassandra?) and one in 1982 (Adric).

 

I adored the finale of this one. The Centurion was a fantastic parallel to "Amy Pond, the girl who waited" from "The Eleventh Hour." We did a lot of cheering, laughing hysterically and agreeing that the fez sucked.

 

It had been established pretty much that to them, The Doctor is a grave and serious threat to the universe. I think, even given the Daleks' pathological hatred of all that lives, I doubt they'd be willing to let the universe get blown up.

Maybe not then, but then again, unlike their whole time in the RTD era, they weren't brought out for their yearly appearance, only to be swept back under the rug again till their needed next year, so they're obviously coming back next year. Maybe then?

To quote Eleven himself, fez's are cool.

 

Time to go back to "The Dalek Masterplan", starring William Hartnel (1st Doctor), when the Daleks team up with a dozen other races in a plan to destroy the human alliance with a Time Destructor.
Daleks have also used Ogrons and other races as slaves, worked with The Master, and The Meddling Monk.

If the Daleks are back, after being destroyed in the time wars, what ever happened to the Thals? Maybe they can come back again. Don't think we've seen them since Genesis of the Daleks.

THe Daleks don't want to destroy the universe (where would they have to live), just everything in it that isn't a Dalek or product of Dalek science. The Kaleds were very much an analog of Nazi Germany, complete with a race war and racial purity.

In the Big Finish Productions story "Davros", the Kaled scientists, after doing what was necessary to save his life, gave Davros a poison injector to 'humanely' end his life rather than live in his crippled condition.

 

If the universe ended like it did, it would've taken the Daleks with it. They don't want that.

 

It took about fifteen years, but the rights issues regarding the TV movie have been cleared up, meaning it's finally going to be released in North America.

http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2010/08/tv-movie-coming-to-north-america.html

 

You make it sound like that's a good thing.
I honestly wish the TV movie had never been made.
Or that it was instead remade. Propperly.
Or that Sylvester McCoy had been allowed to do the whole movie.

Or any of a dozen other ways that the movie could have been done better than the crapfest that it was.

 

Well, I think it's a good thing. If you don't, that's perfectly fine.

 

I like the TV movie. It contains my favorite scene in Who history. So nyah!

 

Which one?

 

Then it should also be mentioned that those early seasons were produced more along the lines of soap operas, with all the padding issues that genre suggests.

It takes four or five episodes of Dark Shadows to get through what takes one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for example.