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 - Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 4:50 pm |
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Elmtree
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 20
Location: Joisey
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| Wilma wrote: | | Most the special was pretty good except those drawn out depressing parts (I was pretty depressed at the time I watched and I expected it to make me feel better. |
I find Russell Davies to be rather like his own description of the Tenth Doctor... he's terrible and wonderful and sometimes he needs someone to stop him. Supposedly he was uncertain about that long ending, saying farewell to the companions, but Julie Gardner (the other EP) wanted it to stay. RTD ought to have listened to his instincts.
The episode was fantastic (stupid stuff like surviving a fall from a spaceship not withstanding), UNTIL that long drawn out end, where RTD tried to do Hamlet. Until that point, it might have gone up to be my favorite Who ever. LOTS of great stuff for the classic fans.
But then he went with the sobbing, whining doctor, and he tried to play regeneration as "death" (like death, sure. Actual death? No). He played and overplayed and heaped on the SAD STUFF until it wasn't sad at all. I was hoping an ateroid would smash into the doctor (and take that silly ood out) before he even made it into the TARDIS. And I'm a fan of DT's doctor. But it was TOO flippin' much. Ruined the end.
But the other stuff.. the actual finale plot.. that was awesome.
Blink and Midnight are quite possibly the best Who episodes of nuWho, and maybe all of Who. Not necessarily my favorites, but the best.
Russell Davies wrote Midnight, and when he does well, he REALLY does well (it's only when he goes overboard that it's a problem.. if only someone would sit on him a bit, he'd always write spectacular stories).
| Quote: | | He has this peculiar way of saying 'well' -- I bet even 'well' itself had no idea it could be such an expressive little word. |
He was not the only doctor to do that. DT could channel every single previous doctor, which was incredible. There were bits of all the other ones in there, such as Tom Baker's "Well" to William Hartnell's "Hmm?" As a teen I watched the Tom Baker eps, but only since seeing Midnight a couple of years ago have I gone back to watch classic Who.
What really strikes me is now no matter who played the doctor, and despite some superficial differences, it's always the same character. Different actors playing the exact same character.
I'm going on so long here, I'm gonna break this one into two posts... hope that's okay.l
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| - Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 5:11 pm |
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Primula Baggins
Living in hope
Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 24733
Location: Sailing the luminiferous aether
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Can't wait to read part 2!
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| classic stuff to catch up - Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2010 5:16 pm |
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Elmtree
Joined: 26 Feb 2008
Posts: 20
Location: Joisey
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| Wilma wrote: |
About older Doctor Who (I will watch if I ever get over the theme song, I am still scared), I am a little confused about the plot and some fanboys kind of scare me when they explain stuff.(I have witnessed some hardcore fan debates  ) It seems in the older series the Time Lords were around and the Doctor went on trial and stuff? |
I have Netflix, which enables me to see most of old Who online and order videos of the others (one monthly fee of 8.99 dollars, but not sure if Netflix is available outside the US). I recommend watching "The Beginning"- the first few Hartnell episodes, from An Unearthly Child thru The Daleks.
I recently watched "War Games" with doctor Two, which holds up very well. That is the first show where you find out WHAT he is. Prior to that he's just some alien time traveller, exiled from his own world.
In War Games you find out he's a renegade time lord, who stole the TARDIS (heck, they were gonna junk it anyway, it was outdated), didn't know how to fly it, and was in trouble for violating the Time Lord's Non- Interference Policy. This is not a plot spoiler for War Games, just something you find out by the end.
As punishment for his actions, he is forced to regenerate (they don't call it that yet) and appears in "Spearhead from Space" as the third doctor. Here we see the familiar regeneration trauma, where he's a little "off" at first until the regen completes and he's got his "new persona" figured out. He still has the TARDIS- they allow him to keep it, but remove the knowleged of how to dematerialize it. So he's stuck on earth, and spends a year working for UNIT. Later he has his punishment lifted and it's back to exploring time and space.
But his relationship with the timelords continues to be strained. He regenerates into Doctor Four in "Robot" (which I also recommend-- funny regen confusion). The Time Lords begin to show a flawed side in the doctor four stories, and while they are sworn not to interfere, when they want to they get the Doctor to do their dirty work for them. The start of the time war is really the fourth doctor episode "Genesis of the Daleks" (also highly recommend this one). We see more of Gallifrey and problems with the time lords in other doctor four episodes like "The Deadly Assassin" and "The Invasion of Time."
If you watch those, I think you'll get a feel for the 'history' of the Doctor and his people as well as a feel for the first four doctors as characters.
He has a fairly long rap sheet with the time lords, but that's only one side of things (if you watch the above eps you'll get a feeling for the rest). He was put on Trial again (he's been on trial a number of times, the rogue) in "Trial of a Time Lord" (sixth doctor) but that was a set up by the Master.
To get a feel for Who over the years, my own recommendation for classic eps if you can find them would be the ones listed above (Unearthly Child/Daleks for number one, War Games for number two, Spearhead from Space for number three, Robot, Genesis of the Daleks, The Deadly Assassin, and Invasion of Time for four.
I liked Castrovalva as Five's intro, though many folks seem to find it slow. I just l iked Peter Davison' playing all four previous doctors before five found his 'personality'. 
I've seen very little Six and Seven, though I just watched "Battlefield" with Seven and it's wonderful (got the theatrical cut on DVD... where the segments are cut together to make one coherent story instead of the breaks in the original serial form).
My husband watched Battlefield with me, and said "It really IS always the same character, isn't it? " That is, we could have seen Tennant reading the same lines McCoy was reading in Battlefield. Reminded me of Moffatt's comments on how you always write the doctor the same, because he's the same man, despite the regeneration. It's delightfully obvious as I sit and 'catch up' on all those old shows... despite being different, the doctor is always the doctor.
-eta- a clip from BBC's youtube page: The scene from Spearhead from Space where the third doctor gets his new clothing. The doctors are trying to figure out WHAT he is, and unit is trying to figure out if he's the doctor (since he looks different). And the doctor is trying to escape from all this fuss, of course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns0Vz7ow45s&feature=SeriesPlayList&p=11460D28352EA4B7 Again, I could easily see Tennant (or nearly any other 'doctor' playing this same scene).
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| - Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 7:54 am |
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Wilma
La adan tol
Joined: 02 Dec 2005
Posts: 569
Location: Canada
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About RTD I totally agree I remember seeing the Utopia and the Sound of drums and everyone telling me it was so great and so cool etc. I saw those 2 episodes a couple of years ago and CBC put Doctor Who on hiatus.
I saw last of the Time lords a couple of weeks ago. It was so not worth the wait.   I remember thinking the begining was good and the buildup was so great in the previous 2 episodes. Then the doctor gets turned into some CGI thing, they should have just left him at 150 . I was still ready to go with it, especially since that actress that played Martha played the laugh really well near the end before the reveal. Then they had the reveal   . Basically an "I believe in fairies scene" with the doctor floating in the air (What the hell!!  ) and all the that ... stuff. I can't even describe it, it was just epic fail. Someone should have stopped RTD before that point
I have more to say but I will leave it for another post as I have some homework to do.
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| - Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:17 pm |
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Pearly Di
Elvendork
Joined: 02 Dec 2005
Posts: 1132
Location: The Shire
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RTD's writing is very over the top at times. 
But Midnight is brilliant. 
From the olden days, I got very scared as a ten year old by the big, radioactive slugs in The Green Death (Jon Pertwee/Katy Manning).
From the Baker/Sladen era (which I watched a lot of, at least in their early days), my classic episodes are: Genesis of the Daleks and The Pyramids of Mars (a really great story).
Those walking mummies in Pyramids were scary too.
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| - Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:41 pm |
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Primula Baggins
Living in hope
Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 24733
Location: Sailing the luminiferous aether
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I love Pyramids of Mars for the way they just went for it. down to the evil sidekick playing ominous music on a pipe organ. They literally pulled out all the stops.  It was plushly purple all the way through, and also scary and exciting. And the fourth Doctor (my first) will always be dear to my heart.
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| - Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:19 pm |
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Pearly Di
Elvendork
Joined: 02 Dec 2005
Posts: 1132
Location: The Shire
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| Primula Baggins wrote: | | I love Pyramids of Mars for the way they just went for it. down to the evil sidekick playing ominous music on a pipe organ. |
LOL, yes.
I always remember the bit when the Doc quickly time-travels Sarah-Jane forward to an apocalyptic 1980 to show her what the 'Horus' alien guy is capable of.
| Quote: | | And the fourth Doctor (my first) will always be dear to my heart. |
Oh, he was wonderful. My favourite Doctor, until Tennant. They were both very ... Doctor-y!
I treasure that cliffhanger from Genesis of the Daleks in which Tom Baker emerges from the labatory of Dalek embryos, locked in neck-wrestling with a deadly rubber baby Dalek and going AAAARRRGGGHH.
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"Frodo undertook his quest out of love - to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could ... "
Letter no. 246
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| - Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:30 pm |
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Elentári
Elen of the Ways
Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 1069
Location: Green Hill Country
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Prim - the fourth Doctor, dear Jon Pertwee, was my first too, though I was only about 8 at the time I started watching the programme, and it was towards the end of his tenure, but I have fond memories of Sarah Jane and the Brigadier. My overwhelming memory of that time was the storyline about the spiders that attached themselves to peoples backs!!! You can imagine how that played on my arachnophobia... 
Most of my childhood was spent with Tom Baker, such a screen presence, and rather manic at times. Made Peter Davison seem bland in comparison, but he had his charm. My personal favourite of the "old" TV Doctors came next - Colin Baker. Did you know Baker was the only actor to play the Doctor having played another character prior to taking on the leading role? He played Commander Maxil in the story Arc of Infinity (1983). He actually shot the Doctor, played by Peter Davison. I loved that his Doctor had such a mercurial personality, his wild mood swings gave the character more of an edge.....and of course, he was the only Doctor able to fix the chameleon circuit... 
By that time I think I started to lose interest/outgrow Saturday early evening TV! I didn't watch much of Sylvester McCoy...though I always made a point of watching any episodes that featured The Master.
Have to say that I loved Paul McGann's portrayal of THe Doctor in the TV movie...maybe it was my age by then, but he was the first Doctor I actually found sexy!!!  Wish things had worked out for him to have featured in a new TV series.
Still Ecclestone and Tennant have done wonders for the franchise and hopefully we can look forward to even more delights with Matt Smith.
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Last edited by Elentári on Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:09 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| - Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:39 pm |
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Primula Baggins
Living in hope
Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 24733
Location: Sailing the luminiferous aether
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Yeeks, I lost count: I thought Baker was fourth?
I saw only a few Pertwee episodes, but liked him as the Doctor very well. (One was The Green Death, a great episode by any standards.) However, as a card-carrying (literally) science fiction geek, I don't care so much for the Earth-bound nature of some of the Pertwee episodes. The Doctor has always spent a lot of time on more or less contemporary Earth, of course, but I love having that leavened with wild adventures through time or space or both. A lot of science fiction television has gotten terribly closed in over the years, set in futures only incrementally different from the here and now and limited to Earth (because anything else is too geeky for the marketing department). I want space travel! Babylon 5, Farscape, Firefly . . . and Doctor Who, when he gets off Earth.
(Battlestar Galactica, as stunningly wonderful as it was, was not exactly the kind of sweeping, scary, joyous adventure I'm thinking of; it was set in space, far away from Earth, but it was always and only about eternal human failings, and thus too grim to qualify.)
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| - Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 8:39 pm |
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Elentári
Elen of the Ways
Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 1069
Location: Green Hill Country
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Oops, you're right - my bad...don't know why I automatically thought of Pertwee as number 4...
but it's interesting that you mentioned the earthbound nature of ome of his episodes, because I felt that the "modern" series have been far more earthbound than the original series!
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“You can only come to the morning through the shadows." ~ JRRT
"There is an exquisite melody in every heart. If we listen closely, we can hear each other's song. A friend knows the song in your heart and responds with beautiful harmony."
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Avatar by Ed Org
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| - Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:01 pm |
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Primula Baggins
Living in hope
Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 24733
Location: Sailing the luminiferous aether
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I agree about the proportion of Earthbound eps being higher. But the "out there" episodes have more impact in the modern show, I think, partly because the effects are better. Some of the old episodes set in space or on other worlds felt closed in because they were videotaped on small sets, with limited possibilities for creating aliens or views of alien cities or ships in space.
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| - Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2010 11:43 pm |
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Wilma
La adan tol
Joined: 02 Dec 2005
Posts: 569
Location: Canada
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*limited typing ability*
I heard Doctor Who will be premiering this Saturday on the BBC. Who will be watching? (I have seen few trailers, it looks like fun.)
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| - Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 8:48 am |
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Alatar
of Vinyamar
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
Posts: 3763
Location: Ireland
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I'm working tonight, but you can be sure its set to record! Hope to watch it tomorrow with the kids.
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The Vinyamars on Stage! This time at Bag End
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| - Posted: Sat Apr 03, 2010 3:12 pm |
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Primula Baggins
Living in hope
Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 24733
Location: Sailing the luminiferous aether
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Wilma, did you hurt your hand or something? I hope you're OK! 
We won't see the new Doctor for some time here, alas, but I'm eagerly waiting to hear what you luckier people think.
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| - Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 12:14 am |
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Wilma
La adan tol
Joined: 02 Dec 2005
Posts: 569
Location: Canada
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It premieres in Canada on the 17th
I am going to bad and download (I need to feel better.) I want to see how I feel about Matt Smith's portrayal of the Doctor.
Due to my living conditions at the beginning of the school year, an old neck injury was seriously aggravated. Due to my schedule and commuting my symptoms have become 100 times worse, so I can't type or write with my right hand. I have to delay at least one of my final exams until June  . I have been lurking for the past couple of months but I just not been able to reply to posts in the fashion I would like as quickly as I would like. So my posts have to be short.
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| - Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 12:29 am |
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Primula Baggins
Living in hope
Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 24733
Location: Sailing the luminiferous aether
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I'm sorry you're hurt, Wilma! I hope you do feel better soon.
And I look forward to hearing what you think of the new Doctor. Mr. Prim and I always take a while to warm up to a new one, even if we end up thinking he's great.
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| - Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 5:34 am |
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Wilma
La adan tol
Joined: 02 Dec 2005
Posts: 569
Location: Canada
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Just saw it.
I will leave a happy face to sum up my response as I don't want to spoil.
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| - Posted: Sun Apr 04, 2010 6:12 am |
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Primula Baggins
Living in hope
Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 24733
Location: Sailing the luminiferous aether
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 You make me very happy!
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| - Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 10:21 am |
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Alatar
of Vinyamar
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
Posts: 3763
Location: Ireland
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The Vinyamars on Stage! This time at Bag End
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| - Posted: Mon Apr 05, 2010 5:09 pm |
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WampusCat
Mrs. Delgado's heart's desire
Joined: 02 Dec 2005
Posts: 5114
Location: land of surprises
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is insanely jealous of Wilma and Alatar
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