I thought there previously had been a Doctor Who thread, but I looked around and even searched (this site's search engine is absolutely retarded, btw...) and couldn't find one, so I'm starting one here.

I

I'm a big fan of the 4th doctor, have quite a few of his adventures on DVD.

Favourite story is still "Genesis of the Daleks"

The 9th and 10th doctors have had some good stories too, "The parting of the Ways", "Badwolf", "Doomsday" and one or two others.

Sorry about the first post, but I kind of got cut off writing that message. The boss kind of walked into the room

And so, clearly, I had to close everything out rather rapidly.

Anyhow, so let me give a little background on myself vis a vis this TV series.

While most Americans tend to identify Tom Baker most with the role of The Doctor because he was the single-most shown Doctor here in the States, I started watching Dr. Who in the mid 1980s, and by that point in my local PBS station's broadcast cycle, Peter Davison was the one on.

I actually got to meet Peter when he was on a Dr. Who promotional tour. He was at the local college, right around the time they were building a theater, and they set up there. It was really quite cool to meet him.

There is the thing called the "First Doctor Phenomena" which basically states that, for most people, the first Doctor they see is "their" Doctor from then on. And so, Peter was "my" Doctor. Now, don't misunderstand, I have watched a goodly number of each one's seasons, so I am rather familiar with them all, and I like them all for different reasons.

Anyhow, so then when they started the series up again in 2005, I started watching it again, but it really wasn't until Dave Tennant came on as the 10th Doctor that I felt the show hit it's stride again.

And yes, that would tend to suggest Dave has broken that phenomena for me, as he is now my favorite... well, to be fair, Dave and Peter are sort of co-favorites of mine.

I'll get more into this later, but I'm hoping to hear from more of you folks about your own experiences, likes and dislikes, etc. of this longest-running-science-fiction-series-ever... (Yeah, it's got that distinction, too...)

Just in case anybody's interested...



Note what's *actually* highlighted on the "Standard Equipment" list... heh heh heh...

Is it Davros? Or just a Gold Dalek?

From that trailer it looks like Davros is set to make a comeback.

Tantalizing tidbit from io9.com:

http://io9.com/393538/neil-gaiman-to-write-who

Speculation is that gaiman may write some Doctor Who under Moffat.

I'll bet you loved Time Crash, didn't you? Erm. Are we allowed to talk about that? Anyway. Go find it if you haven't seen it.

Nine was my first, yet he's my second or third, depending on how seriously I'm taking Eight's dialogue at the moment. I'm ever so slightly obsessed by David Tennant and/or Ten (we're not sure which :D) I haven't seen much of Four, but I did go off and watch a bunch of the surviving (read: on YouTube) regeneration episodes. And Trial of a Time Lord.

It all depends on where you live, what episode you're up to now. Let's just say 4x08 is as brilliant as "Blink" was. And in the same vein, thanks, Moffat, you brilliant guy, because I needed a new phobia. Hopefully we won't be adding new ones every year (he wrote The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, and a two-parter that, as series four is the current one, I figure I should just name as 4x08-09, and they've pretty much given me something to be afraid of every time).

Time Crash exists at Youtube.

I am working my way through all ofthe episodes, currently just past the introduction of Leela during the Tom Baker years.

LMAO! I know how you feel.

I watched this last ep late at night in the dark, couldn't sleep for awhile afterwards!

And sadly, I made the same mistake with Blink, and know I will do the same with the resolution of the two-parter. Isn't fandom weird like that?

IMO they are some of the best 4th Doctor episodes when the series was at one of its high points.

I'll second that. I actually liked Talons of Weng Chiang myself.

Did you guys see last night's episode? That was great.

Haven't pulled down er, I mean I haven't watched the last few, yet.

I despise Catherine Tate in Doctor Who in any shape, form, or fashion.

UPDATE: Problem Solved.


Well, I reckon that's your problem, mate.

Doctor Who is going from strength to strength, while BSG isn't.

IMO the main difference between the shows is that the people behind the cameras in DW are fans of the show and it still shows in the way it is done, with BSG it comes across as just another day filming.

Well said, my shadowy friend!

Well, we already know that Darth Marley doesn't like Catherine Tate, who rejoined the 10th Doctor in the 4th Season episode "Partners In Crime". Let's discuss Season 4 Episodes.

They have, thus far, been:

Episode 1: Partners in Crime

Donna Noble, having first accidentally encountered The Doctor in the 2007 Christmas Special "Runaway Bride" finds a return to normal life dismal and soon begins looking for the Doctor. While mutually investigating the Adipose diet pill company The Doctor and Donna must brave the villainous Miss Foster and her sinister hordes to meet again.

Episode 2: The Fires of Pompeii

On their first proper trip in the TARDIS, The Doctor takes Donna to the Roman city of Pompeii the day before Mt. Vesuvius is supposed to erupt, only to have to face the perfectly accurate psychic powers of The Sisterhood, daring the Doctor to change established history.

Episode 3: Planet of the Ood

The Doctor takes Donna to her first alien world, and the Ood-Sphere reveals some terrible truths about the human race.

Episode 4: The Sontaran Stratagem

A strange academy of super-smart teens and 20-somethings, started by a child prodigy, find themselves at the epicenter of an incursion by one of The Doctor's old nemesis, the Sontarans. But what is it they are up to?

Episode 5: The Poison Sky

It's a race against time for The Doctor to save the lives of billions of Earthlings, Donna and previous companion Martha Jones against the sinister plans of the Sontarans to turn Earth into a Sontaran cloning world.

Episode 6: The Doctor's Daughter

On the planet Messaline, The Doctor and Donna find themselves in the midst of an endless war, and The Doctor must front his personal past when he meets one of the most important people in his life.

Episode 7: The Unicorn and the Wasp

In 1926, mystery writer Agatha Christie disappeared for 10 days. Was it amnesia, a breakdown, or a Giant Alien Wasp?

Episode 8: Silence In The Library

The Doctor and Donna enter a world of terror inside an abandoned library planet. They're given only one warning: "Count the shadows."

Episode 9: Forest of the Dead

With shadows on the rise, The Doctor must forge an uneasy alliance with a mysterious traveler from his future. But can anyone stop the Vashta Nerada?

Episode 10: Midnight

The Doctor is trapped on the planet Midnight, as the knocking on the wall begins...

It should be mentioned that 4x10 is set as a Donna-light episode, and 4x11 as a Doctor-light episode. And that 4x07-08 will make you afraid of the dark. How are we, in this thread, regarding spoilers? UK airdate? US airdate? Spoiler tags regardless, for this season?

I suspect taht anyone here who cares gets the UK feeds.

I hadn't anticipated the points you raise when I created this thread, so I apologize.

In my defense, I can only say I don't know whether it would be considered appropriate by TPTB for me to create two separate threads for a show that is not the primary purpose of this message board.

If there are no objections, then I have none in creating a second thread, and then naming/renaming each to reflect the spoiler status of each.

Thoughts? Comments?

I think that most of the posters here will be getting the episodes anyway so spoliers probably don't matter.

Just seen Turn Left, and not to give anything away, the Doctor is only in it for about 5 minutes at the beginning and end but it was a good episode, the episode is what would have happened if Donna hadn't been the conpanion in the Runaway Bride, you get to see a very different England.

So net week it looks like it brings everybody together Doctor Who, Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Gang to fight the Daleks, the 4th series looks like it is going to go out with a bang.

I haven't downloaded, er, I mean I haven't "seen" Turn Left yet, but it sounds interesting.

And I'm *definitely* excited about the new Dalek episode.

It is an interesting episode.

It looks like everyone is going to be in the final two episodes, and I have been reading that the last episode will be 60 minutes long, I suppose this is because the series goes into hiatus for a year, with just a couple of specials until season 5 is shown in 2010.

I've said this before but one of the reasons Doctor Who is successful is that the creative team are fans and this shows in everything, in BSG it is seen as a job which also shows, especially when you have the showrunner saying things like "Who Gives a Frak" and "Continuity is for Sisseys" etc.

There are no restrictions on the number of Doctor Who threads!

Morbo has spoken!

-Raycheetah =^[.]~=

Are they not the most overused thing in the new series (possibly with the exception of the TARDIS squeaky door sound effect)?


Woah. That's crazy. The showrunner should totally care about continuity.

I have just seen "The Stolen Earth" and I just have to say that is one of the best episodes of Dr Who I have ever seen, you Dr Who fans are in for such a treat, the episode is 10 out of 10 and it's only the first half, I can't wait for part 2, and there was no whats happening next week, you will know why, I won't give out any spoilers you have to see the episode. Although I will do some bit of dialouge from the episode which I will white out:

Various Earth People : We're recieving a transmission from the Alien Ships.

Alien Ships : Exterminate, Exterminate etc


Harriet Jones : Harriet Jones former Prime Minister

Dalek : Yes, we know how you are

*FLAIL*


CAN IT BE SATURDAY NAO? NEXT SATURDAY?

Isn't there some emergency temporal shift dealie you can do, to shift, temporally, in an emergency, Fizzix?

I hates ta seeya in such a tizzie!

-Raycheetah =^[.]^=

Are you calling me Dalek Caan? Sadly, no, I can't.

DAMN YOU RTD! (YAY NO FORUM FILTER!)

I has a tension-relieving macro!

Would you prefer mebbe James Caan?

-RC =^[.]~=

I'm surprised it's not up on BitTorrent somewhere for me to download um, I mean it's not yet available for viewing. Ahem.

Where are you looking, The torrent has been up for aleast 15 hours, go to eztv and it will be there.

Whut? Your TV cut out? I always have to view mine in parts. Four parts. And put them together using WinRAR to get a usable file in my mind.

Yep, seen it.

I am not as enthused as some, as it leans more towards the SJA end of the DW spectrum, and away from the Torchwood end of things.

Too much technobabble, the Doctor is great, yadda-yadda.

And I will hate it if they screw things up to keep Donna Noble alive.
It will be worse than the Kateebuck clone in BSG.

Nothing, I repeat NOTHING can be as bad as that.

I can't wait for the next episode, 65 minutes long.

*whine* We still don't know what Skiffy's doin' to that. *desperately wishes for 1.5 hr timeslot* Maybe tomorrow they'll have a better AUG schedule out.

But really, though. That is not how you end an episode!! Not if you want your audience alive to watch it by the next week!

It amazes me that the Beeb would show military people saluting and genuflecting before the Doctor, considering he is:

1. Not a part of the U.K. military chain-of-command;
2. Not a soldier of any kind;
3. Not even a citizen of the planet.

But then again, considering the comments of Dave, et al, elsewhere on this board vis a vis the continual neutering of the military in general by the U.K. specifically and Europe in general, I suppose it really shouldn't surprise me. That's what you get from people who don't have enough respect for the military to do it proper justice.

</rant>

Why not, the Doctor is after all THE MAN. Seriously though, its done as a mark of respect, also the doctor is regarded as an UNIT advisor.

I am just bemoaning the decline of the Senior Service (the Navy), the RAF and the Army are doing pretty well at the moment. Are you saying the writers of Doctor Who don't show the military any respect or the politicans ?

First off, I was going to respond to your post in Rank Structure vis a vis watching and discussing Dr. Who. However, as you're clearly here in this thread, I guess I'll just eighty-six that response. Damn. What a fine little bit of good-natured sarcasm that would have been... :)

Anyhow, to your points about my points about writers not showing due respect to the military, et al...

I'm afraid RTD and his successor are, in this respect, even worse than RDM and DE. Military do not salute non-military, at least not in any kind of official manner. So, to show British military as, what -- fanboys? -- of The Doctor and extending to him courtesies reserved exclusively for members of the military is so wrong as to be worse than the dragging of one's fingernails down a chalk board.

It's also completely out of compliance and keeping with Dr. Who tradition. Alister Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart never saluted The Doctor, nor did any of his either commissioned officer nor enlisted man lieutenants. Ever. So for a General-rank officer to salute an alien, foreign-national civilian is just out of character with the history of the series. Mind you, I'm a civilian, never have served in the military, and even I get this.

I mean, imagine -- try if you might -- Admiral Adama saluting The Doctor. That shit just wouldn't happen. I mean, even RDM isn't that brainless. Well, maybe. I dunno. But I don't *think* so.

Were I in "Dr. Who Series Runner/Producer"'s shoes, I can guarantee you it wouldn't happen. I mean, not short of some military officer being in some kind of exotic mind-control circumstance where he could be made to salute a frog or something.

Are you talking about The Sontaren Experiment/The Poison Sky because that is the only time he has met UNIT this series.

Anyway I'm sure I've seen the same thing on US TV etc, So its not just RTD and Co.

I'll ask the question in RS and see what they say.

In Turn Left, members of UNIT and/or Torchwood (but they're in uniform, so I'm assuming it's UNIT) salute anyone associated with The Doctor, just like in The Sontaran Experiment and The Poison Sky.

And why the hell is it that only "bad guy" military are portrayed semi-pseudo correctly? Is the point being made that a "real" military is a bad thing? Or that you have to be dumb, ignorant, stupid or evil to be a soldier? Maybe that's going a bit far, but it just seems like it's in line with the left's anti-military agenda.

Sorry, I don't mean to turn this thread into a political shooting match. It's just that present-day politics have permeated and insinuated themselves into nearly every facet of our lives, and when I see it in Dr. Who, I find it revolting and disgusting. It's worse than Dr. Who being treated as a "for kids" show.

I wouldn't say Doctor Who is a kid's show But it is a family show with a target audience 3 and up.

Mike about the whole Military issue in Doctor Who's case you may be reading a little too much into the fact some of the soliders saluted non-military people, the way I see it, It was done as a sign of respect for the person concerned, nothing more.

I suppose it's minor, but it's a real annoyance for me.

And "3 and up"? Well, what else do you call someone who's 3, other than a kid?

The BBC describe Dr Who as a family show.

So what did you think of "The Stolen Earth" I for one cannot wait for next Saturday especially as the episode is going to be about 60 minuites long, woohoo.

Dave:

Thanks for reminding me. I forgot! oh noes!!!!11111

I'll let you know as soon as I D/L it as soon as I get to see it.

EDIT: Problem resolved. Reversed the 4 and the 9.

Most interesting. What the hell was not to like about that episode, huh? I mean, given this is Doctor Who we're talking about here.

Hmm... Now I'm going to have to start that Dr. Who Spoilers Thread...

Tommorrow is the day when the extended episode of Doctor Who is shown and there is nothing until the Christmas special, then there are the specials for 2009 and then the 5th season for 2010.

I've just relised something, The 5th series of Doctor Who starts the same year as the Space Shuttle retires, coincidence I think not.