New Doctor Who Series

[skybolt]

If you're a fan of Doctor Who (like I am) and are looking forward to the new series, then go ahead and post here. You can even discuss the Doctor Who comic book if you want.

 

The new show has to go back to the seriousness and subtle humor of the 3rd and 4th Doctor episodes (from the 70's) for it to work . We don't need any multi-colored long coats, question marked umbrellas, or circus related sets. We just need good story-telling and believable monsters.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Steeped in the WHO community as I am, I've been following this every moment of every day and it just keeps getting more and more exciting.

[jordanscott]

and i shall chime in as well.

 

Pertwee was my fave Doctor but Baker had the better stories.

 

And as established in a previous thread....Peri and Jo =

[Foolkiller]

I thought the later Doctors (Sylvester McCoy and Colin Baker) got a little further away from what the Doctor was supposed to be about. Although, the season long arc concerning the trial of the Doctor was a pretty good series of shows.

 

I hope to see a bit more solid story telling, and perhaps some better special effects. But a lot of it has to do with finding a guy with the charm and acting ability some of the previous Doctors exhibited. Honestly, what made the show memorable for me were the performances of Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison (my favorites) -- and even the supporting actors like Nicholas Courtney (as the Brigadier) and Elizabeth Sladen (as Sarah Jane Smith), so I'm hoping for a return to better acting more than anything else.

 

The Doctor Who movie on Fox a few years back just was misdirected and awful. I always thought the best episodes were those that did not take place on earth, but removed him further off world.

[awe4one]

When is the series going to be shown in the States? I read somewhere that Sci-Fi turned it down? It starts on 26 Mar on BBC...are people outside the UK going to have to go the Torrent route to see the series?

 

Jim

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

There is currently no official word on a deal for US airing, however an informed source has suggested that an announcement might be coming in early April.

[jordanscott]

When is the series going to be shown in the States? I read somewhere that Sci-Fi turned it down? It starts on 26 Mar on BBC...are people outside the UK going to have to go the Torrent route to see the series?

 

Jim

 

Apparantly the BBC has signed deals with CBC (Canada) and a network in Australia and one in New Zealand, but nothing in the US yet.

 

Last i heard, Scifi had turned it down, BBC America had said it wasn't going to carry it and PBS has not said anything yet.

 

I read on the Gateworld boards that CBC is going to start running it some time in April.

 

For the US though, for the time being it looks like BT is gonna be the only way.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

PBS is a non-issue as it absolutely will never go there. That would be useless to the BBC from a financial and publicity perspective for a new, first-run series. As it stands, after years of PBS stations running the original series, we've dwindled to only three PBS affiliates now running the show (including my local station, Maryland), and several others recently dropped it when they were told that they would not be allowed to renew their agreement. Basically the old show is being removed from PBS syndication as a result of negotiations to sell the new show possibly in a package with reruns of the old; it's the end of an era, but it's all in aid of making the debut of the new series a powerful and widespread splash.

[skybolt]

A lot of non-who fans don't realize how big an impact the show has been to some recent movies.

 

For instance, the "Matrix" was a complete rip-off from the the 1976 episode titled "Deadly Assassin". The Master had created the matrix (as titled in the show) to trap the Doctor in a web of illusions. The Doctor had to be connected into a machine in order to exist inside of the matrix. If he died in the matrix, he would die in real life. The matrix was made up of numbers and equations just like the movie.

 

Another film that took a lot of ideas from Doctor Who was the "Terminator". The whole idea of going back to the past to prevent the future, but winding up actually causing it was first introduced in the 1972 episode "Day of the Daleks". The daleks had invaded and taken over the earth in the 22nd century, and the future human rebels had stolen their time machine to travel back into the past to kill the person responsible for causing WWIII and making the earth an easy target for the daleks to invade. However, since the rebels had the wrong information, they wound up causing WWIII by killing most of the world leaders in the process. The Doctor called it a temporal paradox.

 

I won't even mention Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, since that film was a joke.

[Foolkiller]

I think of those movies as not necessarily rip offs but rather further developments of ideas they probably pulled from Dr. Who. I think a lot of creators pull from other sources... it's only natural.

[skybolt]

I think of those movies as not necessarily rip offs but rather further developments of ideas they probably pulled from Dr. Who. I think a lot of creators pull from other sources... it's only natural.

 

You're right.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Not to dispute the influence WHO may have had, but those aren't strictly the sources for those stories. The Matrix in DOCTOR WHO existed before the Master and his machinations in "The Deadly Assassin" - it was a repository for the memories of Time Lords who had passed away, and it was not composed of equations but an alternate reality of thought and memory housed within some sort of computer mainframe. Certainly similar, but the cyberpunk of the '80s from William Gibson etc. was far more the basis for THE MATRIX film.

 

As for TERMINATOR, the WHO connection is tenuous, as the story most closely associated with inspiring the Cameron film was written a decade earlier than "Day of the Daleks." The Harlan Ellison story "Soldier," produced as an episode of the original OUTER LIMITS in the '60s, is the basis for TERMINATOR, so much so that after Ellison threatened a lawsuit, later prints of the film carried an acknowledgement of the film's debt to Ellison's work.

 

Sorry, sometimes it's hard to hold all this useless info back.

[Aces]

When is the series going to be shown in the States? I read somewhere that Sci-Fi turned it down? It starts on 26 Mar on BBC...are people outside the UK going to have to go the Torrent route to see the series?

 

Jim

 

Apparantly the BBC has signed deals with CBC (Canada) and a network in Australia and one in New Zealand, but nothing in the US yet.

 

Last i heard, Scifi had turned it down, BBC America had said it wasn't going to carry it and PBS has not said anything yet.

 

I read on the Gateworld boards that CBC is going to start running it some time in April.

 

For the US though, for the time being it looks like BT is gonna be the only way.

 

I get the CBC here in western New York.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

 

[jordanscott]

with almost 30 yrs of development, a person can't help but find comparissons or roots for other programmes or movies.

 

what the show lacked in effect it made up for with original writing. ok, sometimes cheesy writing, but it did as much as Blake's 7 and other such in pushing the bounds of SciFi on the general public.

 

i'd really like to see this show succeed with superior writing and less reliance on effects.

[awe4one]

Basically the old show is being removed from PBS syndication as a result of negotiations to sell the new show possibly in a package with reruns of the old; it's the end of an era, but it's all in aid of making the debut of the new series a powerful and widespread splash.

 

If no US carrier can be found in time for the episodes to be run within a few weeks of UK airing, I foresee another Battlestar Galactica fiasco occurring. People will be grabbing episodes off the net within hours after their UK airing and, as a result, the creators will be person_without_enough_empathying about how the series' chances for renewal will be hurt. You'd think syndication rights guys would wake up and realize we're in the 21st Century now and recognize the time of thinking regionally vs globally is becoming obsolete...

 

Jim

[skybolt]

Not to dispute the influence WHO may have had, but those aren't strictly the sources for those stories. The Matrix in DOCTOR WHO existed before the Master and his machinations in "The Deadly Assassin" - it was a repository for the memories of Time Lords who had passed away, and it was not composed of equations but an alternate reality of thought and memory housed within some sort of computer mainframe. Certainly similar, but the cyberpunk of the '80s from William Gibson etc. was far more the basis for THE MATRIX film.

 

As for TERMINATOR, the WHO connection is tenuous, as the story most closely associated with inspiring the Cameron film was written a decade earlier than "Day of the Daleks." The Harlan Ellison story "Soldier," produced as an episode of the original OUTER LIMITS in the '60s, is the basis for TERMINATOR, so much so that after Ellison threatened a lawsuit, later prints of the film carried an acknowledgement of the film's debt to Ellison's work.

 

Sorry, sometimes it's hard to hold all this useless info back.

 

Don't hold back, I love being educated.

 

However, the matrix was shown as a series of equations in the Doctor Who episode, and since it did occur before cyberpunk, I'll give Doctor Who the credit. I won't argue about the Terminator though.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

It is a shame. The first episode of the new series has in fact already been leaked on the Internet in what may be a slightly unfinished cut - or perhaps exactly as it will air - and this has sparked a firestorm in the community of the downloaders and the "won't download"ers. It even brought WHO to Reuters and other global news services, which led some to speculate wildly that it was a planned publicity stunt. Highly unlikely, but this is the world we live in now.

[jordanscott]

Basically the old show is being removed from PBS syndication as a result of negotiations to sell the new show possibly in a package with reruns of the old; it's the end of an era, but it's all in aid of making the debut of the new series a powerful and widespread splash.

 

If no US carrier can be found in time for the episodes to be run within a few weeks of UK airing, I foresee another Battlestar Galactica fiasco occurring. People will be grabbing episodes off the net within hours after their UK airing and, as a result, the creators will be person_without_enough_empathying about how the series' chances for renewal will be hurt. You'd think syndication rights guys would wake up and realize we're in the 21st Century now and would recognize the time of thinking regionally vs globally is becoming obsolete...

 

Jim

 

I never understood the decision to start BSG in the UK. not to sound America-centric. I agree with the above, there's no reason these things can't be timed worldwide. It's done with movies all the time.

 

I know many that have d/led the BSG eps before they aired here but watch the show every week because there's no comparisson tween a 17" monitor with low quality recording and seeing it on TV. The advertising revenue isn't lost. BSG already surpasses SG1 and SGA after only half a season.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

Fair enough. Any chance to give WHO credit for anything, I'm there.