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Dr Who

Started by summoner2183, March 12, 2017, 09:50:10 AM

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summoner2183

Guys, anyone here watches Doctor Who? I know it is one of the longest running series in the BBC, but how good really is it?

Mathim

I think the first four seasons of the 2005 revival were the best, it just went downhill from there. I even stopped watching it after the 6th season.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

wander

Funnily enough, same.

As a Brit, I remember McCoy as a kid being my Doctor, I remember watching the TV movie that followed the end of the series on TV, the Comic Relief sketch, even watched repeats on UKTV Gold with Tom Baker with my uncle.

Though by time the 2005 revival came by, I wasn't immediately too psyched. Initially the Eccleston season came across to me as cheesy and childish, it was only when Tennant came in I took more of an interest. I was getting worn down with Smith's run though. I actually thought he was the best Doctor yet, though the writing of his episodes (nothing to do with the actor or character) were appalling, often confusing, writing themselves into corners to do ass-pulls to get things back on track.

The movie with John Hurt as the War Doctor cemented him as my all-time fave Doctor, though I stopped watching after the first Capaldi episode and haven't watched it since then.

Mathim

#3
Tennant will always be my favorite, Smith was just okay. But yeah, once the show lost Russel T. Davies it wasn't as good, Steven Moffat wasn't able to hold a candle there.

What really annoyed me most was that once season 5 started they basically cut off everything that happened before. All of season 5 basically ignored that there was ever a Rose, Martha, Captain Jack, Donna, etc. What a slap in the face! I know they started referring back in season 6, but too little, too late.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

wander

Well, Tennant's final episode was supposed to be a 'good-bye' of sorts to that era, down to the cameos of those characters.

I felt it was good to lose the quite immature camp Davies had (I seriously cringe at some earlier episodes, even some of Tennants'), though the production then began to have a growing obsession with doing yellow and blue lighting in sets which made everything look nauseous and unattractive.

The thing is, I really did love Doctor Who once, got into the lore and it was my fave show. I wonder what a Smith led Davies show could have been like.

Mathim

I base my opinion on the per capita number of episodes per season I really like, and I get over 50% on seasons 1-4 but less than 30% on seasons 5 and up. I stopped watching before Tennant got his short comeback.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

RedRose

I've only watched the last seasons. I love it, but some of it is overrated. Still, I <3 the oods, the angels and River.
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Mathim

Quote from: RedRose on March 13, 2017, 04:43:59 PM
I've only watched the last seasons. I love it, but some of it is overrated. Still, I <3 the oods, the angels and River.

The Ood were cool, but the Angels lost their appeal after the first appearance. And River annoys the hell out of me. She acts like she thinks she's cooler than everyone and she's not. I hate when people act like they're better or more likable than they can pull off.
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

wander

I like River, though I agree that sorta know-it-all thing is very hard to pull off to be likeable with it at the same time. It's what put me off many Marvel characters, especially the latest Mockingbird run which seemed to have every thought box and speech bubble of the main character talking down to the other characters and the audience.

However, back to Doctor Who... I'm not a fan of the Ood, seem like a bit of the generic alien type you see in the revamp of 'man in a jump-suit and a weird mask' than some other things, also not a fan of many of the newer alien names, they sound like one person made them all up.

I like the SCP that the Angels riffed off more than the statues themselves, though they had potential at least.

One thing I did like about Nu-Who was the earlier series of Torchwood. There were off episodes for sure and some of them quite derivative, however in that series Captain Jack came into his own and quite captivating at times. I disliked the killing off of the team-members when that happened though I will say the 456 were probably one of the best aliens I have seen in media as a whole, being so alien to hit the uncanny valley of wrongness and also be generally unnerving whenever they were on-screen.

Also, the one thing I really liked about Nu-Who was the acting of Matt Smith. Sure most of his episodes were bunk, especially towards the end of his run, however not for a long while has someone made me believe this was an ancient and old man in the body of someone much younger. He looked youthful (if you count late 20s, early 30s that) and yet his body language, how he spoke and general demeanour was of an old and at times doddery and/or fly by night teacher on a field trip... Which is really how someone who's supposed to be around 1000 years old would probably come across.

RubySlippers

Old Who to me was better with some exceptions but face it in a 90 minute per episode time period OW could develop plots, characters per episode more and it made it more interesting especially Doctors 2, 3 and 4. The Nu Who to me is way to rushed to get things done in an hour. Plus there are issues I have how the Time Lords could possibly lose the Time War to the Daleks who they could have dealt with in one attack destroying their home star as it formed if they had to go there or making sure their creator never existed. And there are supposed to be 12 Regenerations so at most  Time Lord would have 13 Lives when they pulled the whole reset it disgusted me they could have had his son or a daughter be the new Doctor and have been bold but nope they had to go there.

Anyway they dropped the ball and could have learned something from Old Who is how to do a story properly and ended it when the Doctor was in his last generation maybe stretching it out as he met his end and did something big with the entire thing.

wander

Yeah, the Daleks were taken out by McCoy when I watched it as a kid and it was originally going to avoid them in the Nu-Who revamp though public outcry brought them back in.

I did like the aspect of The Doctor being someone who ended both the Time Lords and Daleks to keep the Time War running rough-shod over the rest of the Universe and the PTSD he had to do with that (some of the best scenes with Eccleston and Tennant acted out were of his regrets to those times and the people he lost)... Though yeah, as pointed out the Daleks could have been taken out easily, though when you're dealing with them also being able to time-travel and do the same thing, it's hard to write something satisfying with something like that, though interesting things with paradoxes and multiple timelines could have been introduced which would have been super-interesting, though probably not best for an escapist adventure series on 7pm prime-time TV for the whole family to sit and enjoy, perhaps.

As for the regenerations, Davies himself said that the regenerations would keep going past the last one, the example he gave in an interview would be they'd do it even if The Doctor had to go and find a legendary artefact of [insert mystic name here] to enable it to happen. I think what they went with was a little more touching and emotional, though does go against a little of what canon made before with how the Time Lords and Doctor behaved around each other. Yes, the Doctor had saved their asses multiple times, though also he was a thorn in their side, someone barely tolerated by them, often set off on suicide missions by them and also... HE SEALED THEM AWAY from the Universe/KILLED THEM ALL.

I was more disappointed when it was revealed he sealed them into a pocket-dimension instead of wiping them all out as was what was enthused in the Eccleston/early Tennant era. I did like the John Hurt movie in regards to the hope-spot of bringing Gallifrey back, even though I did enjoy the thought of New-Earth being on the surface of Gallifrey. Less a fan of the lampshade of the retcon of the sealing away/wiping out thing of John Hurt to Smith's Doctors believing he killed them all not sealed them off due to timey-wimey bollocks, as it falls apart due to End of Time's Tennant's dialogue and it's just a bit of a cop-out, though that's just me and being pedantic, in all honesty.

As for a story of the last regeneration and ending threads, they did a similar thing in the McCoy era as the series was being cancelled. It would have been neat for Smith's Doctor to tip his hand to that era of Old-Who, especially as McCoy was my Doctor as a young 'un, though at least he didn't have to deal with prancing about in 'Sonic Sunglasses' and pandering to the fandom as Capaldi's Doctor. ^^;;

Gena Windstarr

I have loved that show since i was like.. 12 [ i dun wanna give my real age but i will say i am over 30 lol ] I love the classic who, tom baker being my fave.  I love the new one too and its so sad to see actors and actresses from the classic ones dieing off.

I guess it depends on how much you like sci fi, or british tv in general.  Im not an overly big sci fi person but doctor who, and another classic brit sci fi called blakes 7 are favs of mine. When i was a kid i watched reruns of the original tomorrow people, a sci fi more for kids/teens.  Iv`e been a fan of brit com / sci fi / horror since childhood. thank you pbs!
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Beorning

I love Dr Who as a whole, as I started watching in early teens, back when BBC was re-running the Jon Pertwee episodes. The series coming back in the 2000s psyched me totally and I quite like the revival series. That said, I prefer the Davies era to the Moffat era: Matt Smith has grown on me, but Amy Pond and River Song annoyed me totally. I liked Clara and I do think that Capaldi is very good as the Doctor... but the last seasons I didn't really like. The show has become too quirky and self-conscious, while it should be, IMHO, about solid SF stories...

And don't get me started on Missy  >:(

Mathim

I think them spending basically all of season 5 pretending the previous 4 seasons' most important characters and events stopped being important at all (like a retcon, practically) was a huge mistake but more than that, the idea that two people as completely lacking in chemistry and even lacking in any ability to adequately demonstrate that there is a motivation for them to want to marry as Amy and Rory, was just insufferable. So while I didn't dislike Amy, I did dislike Rory but for a few choice moments, but those were mostly in season 6. I think both seasons peaked with their first episodes, and while I watched Tennant just continue to blow me away with every episode, Smith didn't exceed himself after The Eleventh Hour in season five, or beyond the two-part beginning of season 6. I know it's not his fault, the writing didn't do its job well enough.

I hate River Song. Hate, hate, hate her. She just fails at every turn to be endearing, trying too hard to be 'cool' when that's the Doctor's job. They should have gotten someone closer to Matt Smith's age for it to be a better try. Or let the one who played 'Mels' before she regenerated into the River we are most familiar with, be the one we stayed with most of the time. At least she was cuter.

I wish Torchwood hadn't just ended, I mean, I would have preferred we not have even gotten to Children of Earth because of what happened there, but if we just saw the last three members of Torchwood as they were left at the end of Parting of the Ways, I would have been okay with that. Then they could have made a spin-off about Captain Jack and what he was up to while he was a Time Agent, whatever the hell that's all about. They never did go into any great detail about that, did they?
Considering a permanent retirement from Elliquiy, but you can find me on Blue Moon (under the same username).

Hunter

Quote from: RedRose on March 13, 2017, 04:43:59 PM
I've only watched the last seasons. I love it, but some of it is overrated. Still, I <3 the oods, the angels and River.

I personally like Tom Baker the best...and the Key to Time arc was quite enjoyable.