New Doctor Who: The Matt Smith Era

[skiffy]

Crap. Utter crap. I bought my son the William Hartnell DVD box set - so we'll be using that to purge our senses of the shite we've just watched on TV.

[SPACE 1899]

Originally Posted by skiffy

Crap. Utter crap. I bought my son the William Hartnell DVD box set - so we'll be using that to purge our senses of the shite we've just watched on TV.

Well I hope your son is a patient person - I tried watching a William Hartnell Doctor Who series showing on MSN recently and got totally frustrated by the totally S-L-O-W PACE of the story !!!

[Stu73]

Originally Posted by MkIXHawk

It was better than the 'Cyberking' rubbish that we had last year but I won't be sad to see the end of Russell T 'Fanboy' Davies tenure.
Last year, he reworked 'Transformers', this year, Harry Potter (Voldemort Resurrection), StarGate SG1 - at least, that was my first reaction to the 'Resurrection Gate', and Spiderman 3 (evil spidey leaping around)
At least it wasn't the Daleks and Cybermen this time round

I thought Transformers last year too. This year, I was intrigued by the (new) Master's 'Tony Stark' style repulsor blasts and sporadic flights. It was like life on mars-come-matrix neo-come-iron man. Very unoriginal.
Cant they bring back Jon Pertwee digitally?

[MikeMercury]

I thought it was awful...

The sooner they rid themselves of Russel 'All aliens must look like animals' Davis the better! I don't watch 'Eastenders' through choice and personally I'm fed up with these new Doctors Who's trying to mixi up the 'who-niverse' with Albert Square!!

Always look forward to it - always let down...

[eagleles]

Originally Posted by Century21Slough

Yes every time I watch Doctor Who now I cry too, but I usually think, this can't get any worse can it?

Hear, hear!! We watched it too - usual crap. Wife fell asleep. Had more thrills stripping the turkey!!

Nuff said...

Cheers
Les

[Eagle]

I forced myself to watch it yesterday.

Honestly, Dr Who is utter bilge now. It's verging on the disrespectful, to be honest.

[Retroboy]

Awful RTD garbage yet again . Old Who may be slow , grainy and made of cardboard, but far more engaging . I simply did not care about anyone or anything . The only shining light ...Bernard Cribbins.......again . Even he was not as well served as he should have been , his entry into the Tardis should have been a very special moment but hardly touched upon . And don't get me started on John Simm in skirt and high heels , Delgado must be turning in his grave .

[Mark42]

Originally Posted by MkIXHawk

Last year, he reworked 'Transformers', this year, Harry Potter (Voldemort Resurrection), StarGate SG1 - at least, that was my first reaction to the 'Resurrection Gate', and Spiderman 3 (evil spidey leaping around)

And then the Matrix rip-off, the Hannibal Lecter rip-off and the Star Wars Council Chamber rip-off, and all in one hour - plus the silly shaky changing faces were done in the Dennis Quaid film Innerspace.
No wonder I thought that I had seen it all before.

What a mess, the Time Lords return story, with a Master story and two silly Blue aliens trying to nick a device story.

[skiffy]

Originally Posted by Mark42

What a mess, the Time Lords return story, with a Master story and two silly Blue aliens trying to nick a device story.

.. I'm also thoroughly sick of seeing Mr Tennent with his one-trick 'talk through gritted teeth' acting style.. but that's a whole new can of worms.

[Known Space]

This went way beyond the Planet Terrible and out into the Twilight Zone of Dreadful Awfullness. I used to reserve the phrase "Camper than Xmas" for "Torchwood" but this DW took the biscuit and choked to death on it.
On every single level this was drivel.This had ,I feel, the single lowest amount of originality of any DW episode I have ever forced myself to see,and that was up against some pretty stiff competition. It was as if it had been written by somebody watching some sci fi fans DVD collection whilst not having a clue about why sci fi can be good. I have never been forced to eat so much bloated Xmas Turkey in a single hour.
The only hope that I have is that with the return of the Timelords in the second half (hopefully retitled "THE END OF TENNANT" )they are effectively allowed to reboot the series ala StarTrek. At which point I might probably be tempted to watch it again.
Oh and there was more "Ham" in "Hamlet" than you would have believed possible in a Shakespearean play that did not actually feature any livestock, thanks to Mr Tennant. I kept expecting the Tardis to appear everytime he charged into a room. Poor old Patrick Stewart.

[fireflashfive]

Well contrary to most views here, I loved it! Yeah it's silly in places, but so what? I found it an entertaining hour.

Doug.

[pjskeldon]

It had its moments but overall I was a bit disappointed. Some nice twists - I had expected Lucy to be the one picking up the ring - but some inconsistencies. The master blasting out more power than an F-16 at times and yet captured by three humans.

The quieter moments with Wilfred Mott were a relief. Bernard easily out-acted young David T and seemed to have all the best lines.

Mott - hmm - another name like Yana? I don't know, but I wonder.

Anyway, I will be glued to the final part on New Year's Day. If nothing else I want to see the end of this doctor and the start of the next. I fear the next one may be even worse.

Phil.

[EMPEROR DALEK D L]

I for one will be very pleased at the parting of Who and Russel T. David Tennant is good, but the stories are style over substance imho. There have been only a handful of great stories imho.....Girl in the Fireplace, Blink and thats about it. Its been a waste of time, money and effort.

The special so far is crap imho...all the problems have been listed in previous posts in this thread so I wont mention them again. How on Earth can the Time Lords come back ?....back from where ?...... Oh dear oh dear oh dear !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now with Mr Moffat in charge I have high hopes, though the new Dr worries me...we shall have to see; March isn't to long to wait.


Regards Neil

[dukedexter]

Originally Posted by Eagle

I forced myself to watch it yesterday.

Honestly, Dr Who is utter bilge now. It's verging on the disrespectful, to be honest.

Yep. Plotless drivel. Only it's not a surprise to find that any more.
We're all keeping our fingers crossed that the guy directing the UFO film shows it some respect and understanding - RTD professes to be a Who fan yet is behind this soulless, plotless reworking of Who.

His stuff doesn't have a fraction of the depth of the best 70s stuff; as a writer he has absolutely nothing to say. Steven Moffatt's won several Hugos, so the future's looking rosier. Meanwhile RTD can stay at home and polish all his 'TV Quick' awards.

[Tim Smith]

It aired here last night. Overall I enjoyed it, as it seemed to be your basic 2000 era Dr. Who. The biggest complaint I have would be the inclusions of a certain political figure (not the queen...I have no beef with her), who once more is treated like the savior of the universe, I'd say a lot more here, but eventually "the truth will point to itself". Made me want to puke. You'd think in a sci fi show you could get away from that garbage for a while.
I am interested in seeing how the timelords are brought back.
Of coarse, that also begs the question that if the time war was so darned important, why have we not seen that, other than a fan promo on Youtube?

[JMChladek]

They aired part one on BBC America in the states on Saturday (only a couple days behind the UK, probably to curb the Youtube and Bittorrent downloads). I think Earth just became the new Gallofrey since with this Master race, most probably ended up regenerating (sex changes in regenerations though? It sort of was alluded to, but never done). So in a few (re)generations, you would have different Timelords with different personalities. DonnaDoctor I figure is the older woman in white as she sort of looks like an older version of Catherine Tate. She didn't change because her DNA was already altered a little from being fully human and the Master's whatever probably "stabilized" it.

I was sort of expecting the Ood to become the new Timelords, given that they seem to have a perception beyond linear time now. Who knows, maybe they will once things are put right again.

Granted I am a Yank, so maybe I don't quite have the same grasp on Doctor Who that many of you guys across the pond do. But I have watched most of Who from Pertwee onwards. As such, while Davies Doctor Who stories may not be up to what one expects the Doctor to be, IMHO they are LIGHT YEARS ahead of what John Nathan Turner was turning out in the later years (after Peter Davidson). Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy had their talents WASTED in those years with the crap that was being turned out. There were only a few rays of sunshine, but for those even he had to bring back the Cybermen and the Daleks. It seems like Who always ends up coming back to that, so it is practically impossible for it to break away fully.

For me, Doctor Who has gone in a bit of a direction I didn't expect. But that helped to at least make part one entertaining. Part 2 should be fun I hope. I admit I can't entirely figure out how it will end and that is refreshing.

BTW, we got confirmation of ONE thing, James Bond really IS a Timelord!!! (thanks to Timothy Dalton's appearance)

[Conrad Turner]

Arse Gravy of the first distillation!

It comes to something that I would rather watch repeats of the "Sarah Jane Adventures" or this years "Torchwood" than "Dr Who". It's a good job that Mr Moffatt is taking over next year, as has been mentioned before. The best in Dr Who recently has been "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Blink", and "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the dead".

I don't know if Steven Moffatt is going to increase the quality of "Dr Who" again, and if so, what that will do to the quality of "Torchwood", but if he doesn't then it will kill my interest in the new version stone dead.

But even so, they are already making a mistake with this special - the Doctor of Colin Baker/Sylvester McCoy's eras suffered from the fact that previously too much had been said about his people and planet, much of it conflicting (sometimes other races were banned from Gallifrey, others weren't). Sylvester was at least trying to put some of that unknown back into the character that was seen with Will Hartnell and to a slightly lesser extent Pat Troughton - his regeneration story after all, included the Time Lords and, presumably, a trial by the "Celestial Intervention Agency" which forced him to change his appearance and exiled him to Earth. Now they have had a more mysterious Doctor again, and just before SM takes over, they run down the "Let's spill the beans about the Doctor, the Timelords, and everything" route just to spoil it for him. Sour grapes if you ask me!

[DX-SFX]

Perhaps he's taking a shower and it's all a dream?

[dukedexter]

Originally Posted by JMChladek

As such, while Davies Doctor Who stories may not be up to what one expects the Doctor to be, IMHO they are LIGHT YEARS ahead of what John Nathan Turner was turning out in the later years (after Peter Davidson). Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy had their talents WASTED in those years with the crap that was being turned out. There were only a few rays of sunshine, but for those even he had to bring back the Cybermen and the Daleks. It seems like Who always ends up coming back to that, so it is practically impossible for it to break away fully.

To be fair to JNT, there are more positives in his era than just the Dalek and Cyberman stories - Caves of Androzani, Vengeance on Varos, Curse of Fenric are three highlights of these Doctors off the top of my head. Each one of these has a strong plot and plenty of interesting metaphor going on, more so than a whole series of RTD's hogwash put together... but yes, these's also some tripe in that period. RTD's not interested in anything like a plot, he wants to get straight to the next 'emotional moment' as soon as possible and manipulates the feeble runaround plot to do so. Bringing back past companions as often as he does is just feeble. Move on, man!

I remember the Master as suave and devious - the other day he was at a burger stand in a hoodie with convenient special powers. Tosh.

JNT's problem was that he couldn't distinguish between Caves of Androzani and The Twin Dilemma!

[pjskeldon]

I must admit, as I watched the first part of the Christmas special, that I could not see Roger Delgado performing like a bunch of amateur pantomime characters when the Master started taking over. The image of RD in a frock sums up how far towards slapstick comedy Doctor Who has lurched in recent series.

Sad.

Phil.