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What's this? A Doctor Who thread?
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Shapermc
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You know, I'd probably watch more Dr. Who if it wasn't for Tom Baker.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just for you, Shaper, the BBC has obliquely confirmed that the CiN special will be a "very special" episode of Doctor Who.

It's amazing that they actually used that wording. As you can see if you follow to the original listing.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 4:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A Very Special Episode?
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 4:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I know. I wonder if it deals with Jack's pregnancy.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 9:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Or trying to find a cure for AIDS.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And OG is closing, apparently!

Sort of.
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 11:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

OG's announcement wrote:
... I've very much enjoyed the new Doctor Who series since its return in 2003 ...

... These changes will be coming as soon as I'm able to deal with them -- very likely you'll see the splintering off of each section in September. ...


There's a certain irony to how all his references to dates are entirely fucked up.
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Ashura
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 12:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

aderack wrote:
I think the level they hit in Human Nature is about perfect. The only obvious CG elements are a few ray blasts and smoke effects, and that shimmer to the invisible spaceship -- which I understand they did because they couldn't afford to show it. Well bravo for cost-cutting.


What's funny about this is I was about to say 'but what about the spaceship?' I didn't realize it was never completely shown, but you're right. Bravo for them making people not notice a cost-cutting maneuver. Those are always the best.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 5:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote



Yeah, she could just turn out to be the perfect foil for Tennant.

Some other bits: Euros Lyn (The End of the World, The Unquiet Dead, "Pudsey Cutaway", Tooth and Claw, The Girl in the Fireplace, The Idiot's Lantern, Fear Her, The Runaway Bride) is back directing some of S4. And Davies says he has set up New Who to run for twenty or thirty years, with the occasional year-long hiatus (as in 2009) to realign things. Though I realize he was speaking optimistically, that's... pretty interesting.

Also, the dude who directed the first three episodes of Jekyll is doing the first two-parter (presumably the Helen Raynor one) and Alice Troughton (who did two of the better episodes of Torchwood and the first four standard episodes of SJA, half of which are good) (no relation to Pat) is doing at least one.

So. That's Graeme Harper on five (including, presumably, the final three?); Douglas Mackinnon on the probable-Raynor two-parter; Euros Lyn on... an unspecified number; let's say two, probably the Moffat two-parter; Alice Troughton, ditto; James Strong on two (including the Christmas special); and Colin Teague on one. I guess that's the full lineup, then?

That's... not so bad. Teague and Strong are two of the weakest directors yet, and they're being kept to a minimum. Mackinnon sure seems like a good choice. Alice Troughton is 75% promising. Nothing wrong with Graeme Harper, even if he's a bit by-the-book. Euros Lyn is a bit too showy for my tastes; still, he fits Moffat well.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 5:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, there she had it:



Written by Steven Moffat, no less.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 6:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like Catherine Tate. The Catherine Tate Show is actually pretty hilarious (if occasionally over-reliant on catchphrases).

She's got warts though. On her face.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 6:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

She also has honking zonkers.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It looks like Tennant's hair exploded at the thought of doing a multi-doctor story.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think it's scared Davison's into retreat.

Also: starfield sparkles.


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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 8:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aderack, you probably wanted to link it.. LIKE THIS:

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PostPosted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 11:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes... something like that.

This really hasn't been my day.

Well, how about this?



Bonus feature: an exchange, from Somewhere Else on the Internet:

Person #1 wrote:
Let's see...Stephen Moffat, David Tennant, Peter Davison.

With that combination, I'd think almost anything is possible. Moffat has threatened a sequel to The Girl in The Fireplace. Perhaps this is it?

Person #2 wrote:
Which he said would be called "This Time: Fellatio." One would hope that this is not it.




Also: Pudsies.

And:



People are pretending to complain that the celery is all wrong ("not enough leaf!"). Moffat responds:

Steven Moffat wrote:
But it's REAL CELERY. For the first time, the Doctor wears REAL CELERY.

Trouble with us fans: we think celery looks like thing that just used to be stuck on the Doctor. It doesn't really! Where's that Restoration Team? I want them to go back and put REAL CELERY into Peter's episodes.

He's magnificent, by the way, just magnificent. And yes there's a quick hand-wave explanation for the age thing - but really, when you see him in action, you almost don't need it. He's just the Doctor and you don't argue.

My two favourite Doctors head to head in a scene by me. Sometimes I think the universe is being run entirely for my entertainment.

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PostPosted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've just noticed that nearly any episode not written by Davies, Moffat, or Cornell is... sort of suspect. Though Davies is hit and miss, at least he usually gets the tone right, and if a script doesn't work on one level there are a couple of extra ones idling around to latch onto.

The others, though... well:

The Unquiet Dead: Ih.
Dalek: OK!
School Reunion: Decent, but on further examination there's not much to it.
Rise of the Cybermen: Eeee...
The Idiot's Lantern: Rrrr...
The Impossible Planet: Zzzz...
Fear Her: Well, it's got some nice character stuff anyway.
The Shakespeare Code: Decent, but tries way too hard in places. Also, the core premise bugs me. Best of the historicals, though.
Daleks in Manhattan: Oy.
The Lazarus Experiment: Hey, actually... some clever stuff in here. Interesting pacing.
42: Yeah, why?

Most are decent enough in their own right, and there are a few relative standouts. Dalek, School Reunion, The Shakespeare Code, and The Lazarus Experiment all have something to them. Even they (save Dalek, probably) are more like half a great episode, though. There's something missing. Some other level besides "hey, it's a pretty good Doctor Who script!" I think Lazarus is the most promising, from how irregular it is and from the sensible ways it tends to solve problems.

The rest of them are either by-the-book and dull (the Gatiss scripts, Impossible Planet), badly written (Rise of the Cybermen, Daleks in Manhattan), or kind of pointless and out-of-place (Fear Her, 42).

So in sub-conclusion: Rob Shearman and Stephen Greenhorn need to return. (And hey, Greenhorn is doing so!) Gareth Roberts and Toby Whithouse are inoffensive enough. Everyone else... Hmm.

This dude behind the Pompeii episode, James Moran... if his blog is any indication of his writing voice and talent, then hum. I guess we'll see about him. Keith Temple is a bit of a question mark. He has done a few soaps and kids' shows, but hasn't done much to stand out. Then there's the return of MacRae and Raynor (there's a duo), the two responsible for the worst writing on the show to date. Maybe they'll come off better this time.

Moran and Temple... Will they buck the trend and be excellent? Will Greenhorn fulfill his potential? Are MacRae and Raynor redeemable?

If not, hey. More Moffat than ever, this time. A two-parter and a multi-Doctor special!

* * * *

So. Apparently the series four theme is set up in series three, as usual. It's somewhere in the dialog; the Master makes a reference in one of the last two episodes, and someone else mentions it earlier in the series. From the sound of it, it's a bit less overt. Not a key phrase so much as, well, a theme.

Well. Remember all the stuff in S3 about nonlinearity? Somewhere buried in that are a couple of points. In The Sound of Drums, the Master says something about how screwing around with Time was his right as a Time Lord. "That's what we do," he says. The Doctor denies this. Then back around the first episode, in regard to the tie, the Doctor said something about how interfering with established events was "strictly forbidden, except for cheap tricks." And all right. I've seen this put forward before, and it sounded more plausible than most fan theories.

Then, though, there's the bit about Donna challenging the Doctor about time travel. Where was it...

Quote:
There's one episode in series four which very much hinges on Donna and ... well, you have to talk very carefully around this area, cos it's an inbuilt fault in the whole format of Doctor Who, which is that he changes history freely in the present day, so why when he goes into the past does history seem so fixed?" And Donna brings that up. ... [Donna] asks the questions that no one else ever brings up. 'When we travel into the past, why can't we stop such-and-such terrible thing happening?' That becomes the crux of one of the stories, about how events slam into place.

I think maybe it is more than one story. Because you've got Pompeii, and -- well, there you go. What do you do on Volcano Day?

Then I was just reading about the Ood, and I'd forgotten their backstory. Their story this year is set on the Ood sphere, presumably before they fled, which would be when their hive mind was still active. Historically, a human mining operation destroyed the Hive Mind, which is why the Ood became a slave race. They came to depend on the humans for purpose, such as it was. So... huh. What do you do in that situation?

Then if all this supposition about a younger Davros pans out... well, huh number three.

Then, of course, multi-Doctor story. Though it's not part of the series proper, it certainly seems to be setting something up.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like how you'll continue posting in this thread even if no-one ever replies.

I didn't know there was a doctor who wore a stick of celery on his blazer. Why did he do that?
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 1:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, one collects one's thoughts.

The celery was pretty arbitrary. He was following off Tom Baker, and the producer at the time, John Nathan-Turner, was determined to make Davison's Doctor just as quirky and iconic as Baker's. The cricket outfit on its own was kind of subtle, so JNT fretted for a while on how to garnish it. They couldn't do the scarf again. So... well, there we have it. He never provided a reason; apparently it was just a flash of inspiration.

Davison hates celery. He agreed to the thing on the provision that it be explained by the time he left the role. And indeed it was, in his final serial. Sort of. The Doctor claimed he was allergic to a certain kind of gas, and the celery acted as a sort of a detector. If the gas were present, the celery would turn purple. Then he would eat the celery, and all would be well. And... that was it. It never actually came to use. I guess it's just as well.

Up until then, it's just a big "huh?". He replaces it once or twice (always, as Moffat notes, with "imaginary" celery). I don't think anyone even asks him about it until Androzani.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm guilty of updating this thread (well, the SB one) in the same manner as Aderack. Also, I usually intend to reply, but I'm usually pretty busy.

So, Sun rumours: (don't read if you want to possibly be spoiled!)

Quote:

The Sun reports that Minogue's character, named Astrid Peth, will share a kiss with the Doctor, and that at the end of the special the character "spins off into space in a strange 'half-form' of herself." The article also states:


* The episode is set on board the Titanic, "which has become a spaceship run by arch-baddie Max Capricorn."
* Astrid and the Doctor team up to save the earth from Max's scheme.
* "Astrid tells the Doctor: 'You need someone to look after you -- can I come with you?' He agrees."
* "The special ends with a stunning scene in which the Titanic falls from the sky and looks like crashing on Buckingham Palace."


So they're hinting that Astrid is the Tardis. What can you anagram out of Peth, I wonder? Thep?

Also, that celery thing is interesting, I never noticed it before.

This is interesting, they got Pertwee in it: http://www.doctorwho-devious.com/intro/zagreus.htm

I also watched Dimensions in Time, or, a chunk of it. It's interesting that Tom Baker looked to be in poorer health than Pertwee, who was running around like a wild man during the episode, while Tom Baker sat in his blue screen control room.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

aderack wrote:
Well, one collects one's thoughts.

The celery was pretty arbitrary. He was following off Tom Baker, and the producer at the time, John Nathan-Turner, was determined to make Davison's Doctor just as quirky and iconic as Baker's. The cricket outfit on its own was kind of subtle, so JNT fretted for a while on how to garnish it. They couldn't do the scarf again. So... well, there we have it. He never provided a reason; apparently it was just a flash of inspiration.


That's interesting that they were consciously trying to make each doctor Iconic and different from the last. Christopher Eccleston had his leather jacket and stupid ears... what do you think the defining visual characteristics of the current doctor are?
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

One of them is certainly licking things.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 1:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Harveyjames wrote:
I like how you'll continue posting in this thread even if no-one ever replies.


I'd reply more if he actually posted new messages rather than editing in new stuff into existing posts. (Edits don't send notifications, so I don't see them until someone else replies.)
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 3:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ashura wrote:
I also watched Dimensions in Time, or, a chunk of it. It's interesting that Tom Baker looked to be in poorer health than Pertwee, who was running around like a wild man during the episode, while Tom Baker sat in his blue screen control room.

The guy who uploaded the good version of The War Games apparently has a much, much higher quality version of DiT sitting around than is currently in wide distribution. He posted a clip once which cut from his version to the common one, and by comparison his is pretty much DVD quality. Who knows where he got it. He's been putting off posting the full thing, though.

Yeah. Pertwee was pretty spry up until his death. And just around the time he died, he appeared in a whole lot of stuff. He did a couple of radio plays (neither of which is very good), the second of which wasn't broadcast until a year after he died. He plays a gratuitous role in a BBV not-Doctor production called The Airzone Solution.

I wasn't aware of the origin to his Zagreus material. It was of a pretty poor quality, though. I just assumed they lifted it out of some old TV episodes and filtered out the surrounding noise.

Wikipedia says he died in Connecticut. And only a few days after the '96 TV movie, which I did know since the UK version (broadcast shortly after the US airing) was quickly amended to acknowledge his death.

Doctor differentiation: that was largely a JNT thing. Unlike previous producers, he wasn't so much a creative lead as, well, a production one. Mixed in with getting the show made and funded, he was very concerned with branding and potential marketability. Thus the question marks all over the place and the cheesy, then-trendy "neon" logo and starfield opening. He also liked all the lead characters to wear the same clothes in every episode, to make them more identifiable (see seasons 18-19) -- though he did let up after a couple of years.

Probably worth saying that the scarf was a complete accident. The story is pretty old, but basically they gave a whole mess of yarn to an old lady to do the knitting, and somehow she got the idea she was supposed to use all of it. Tom Baker thought it was marvelous, so they went with it (after shortening it considerably). But JNT came in post-Baker, and Tom and his scarf had become famous and iconic. So how do you follow that up and maintain the profile of the character? We need a new affectation, stat!

As for the new series: yeah, Davies deliberately chose not to go down the road of affectation. After the question marks and celery and multicolored dreamcoats of the '80s, he just wanted something halfway plausible that came out of who the Doctor was and wouldn't distract from the actor's performance.

With Eccleston and Tennant they're going more for silhouette than any particular affectation. You'll notice that even when Tennant isn't in his normal outfit he's in something that gives him the same basic shape -- like the bathrobe in Christmas Invasion.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 4:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And then there's the various verbal trademarks
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 6:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

aderack wrote:


Doctor differentiation: that was largely a JNT thing. Unlike previous producers, he wasn't so much a creative lead as, well, a production one. Mixed in with getting the show made and funded, he was very concerned with branding and potential marketability. Thus the question marks all over the place and the cheesy, then-trendy "neon" logo and starfield opening. He also liked all the lead characters to wear the same clothes in every episode, to make them more identifiable (see seasons 18-19) -- though he did let up after a couple of years.

Probably worth saying that the scarf was a complete accident. The story is pretty old, but basically they gave a whole mess of yarn to an old lady to do the knitting, and somehow she got the idea she was supposed to use all of it. Tom Baker thought it was marvelous, so they went with it (after shortening it considerably). But JNT came in post-Baker, and Tom and his scarf had become famous and iconic. So how do you follow that up and maintain the profile of the character? We need a new affectation, stat!

As for the new series: yeah, Davies deliberately chose not to go down the road of affectation. After the question marks and celery and multicolored dreamcoats of the '80s, he just wanted something halfway plausible that came out of who the Doctor was and wouldn't distract from the actor's performance.

With Eccleston and Tennant they're going more for silhouette than any particular affectation. You'll notice that even when Tennant isn't in his normal outfit he's in something that gives him the same basic shape -- like the bathrobe in Christmas Invasion.


Right. Thanks for that, this stuff is fascinating to me. I didn't realise how aware of stuff like branding and marketability they were in England in the 70's.

The celery reminds me of this guy who I used to write comics with telling me his theory about how the leather jacket had lost its potency as a symbol, and if you really wanted to write a 'cool' character nowadays you'd have him carry around a NES controller in his back pocket. I can't remember my exact response but it was along the lines of 'that guy would get his fucking head kicked in'.

And Rob had never even played a NES game when he said that. His favorite game at the time was WWF: Taste the Pain. So there's like two levels of pretension there before you even scratch the surface. He dresses like he's in the Godfather now, except he's really fat and ugly so can't really carry it off. Everyone just thinks he's an orthodox Jew. None of this has anything to do with Doctor Who.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This is the MB of the guy who did the fan edit on the Thief and the Cobbler as well as (I'm pretty sure) that McGann -> Regeneration video you linked to long ago. He started posting these, and they're pretty... interesting:

http://ffrevolution.com/InvisionBoard/index.php?showtopic=1565&st=0

The affectations on the new shows are more tools than anything else. Such as the glasses and the psychic paper. They're not there.... just to be there and be iconic as it were. They serve a purpose.

I think there's more mannerisms, though. Licking things. Repeated lines like 'Impossible' and 'I'm so sorry.'

Recently I saw the Eccleston 'Trip of a Lifetime' trailer. I had never seen it before, and man, I had forgotten what kind of presence the guy has.

EDIT: Fixed a typo.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



I like Giles Goddard but he's a horrible cartoonist.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the Second Second Doctor one and the two Hartnells near the end, personally.

I think his coloring is pretty naff though, yes.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's the amatuerish way he uses thick and thin lines and filled-in blacks in his drawings. Plus the way he draws eyes and mouths. Also, the forms all have a gloopiness about them. Not only that, but he has a fairground caricaturist's eye for caricature. So he's pretty naff no matter which way you cut it. I don't know why I've picked this moment to suddenly get all Simon Cowell on his ass, he's a nice guy.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I don't think they're extremely GREAT, but, ouch.

I did like that his first thought wasn't to go anime, though.
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ashura wrote:
Well, I don't think they're extremely GREAT, but, ouch.


Yeah, like I say, I don't know why I'm being so harsh. There's just something a bit end of the pier, Les-Dennis-y about it. Every cartoonist has a character that comes through in their line and shapes, and somehow his character bugs me.

Ashura wrote:
I did like that his first thought wasn't to go anime, though.


Is that aimed at me?
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog porn I've seen.

Or Scooby Doo.

There are a couple good ones, though.

JNT was a real publicity chaser. Beyond the wardrobe and logo issues, he felt it was important to regularly change the theme arrangement. He was really into stunt casting -- which doesn't mean Derek Jacobi as the Master so much as it means some random soap star he met in a pub for a completely inappropriate role just because he agreed to appear in the show. Sometimes directors would say "What? No.". Often they'd shrug and go along.

Similar deal for episode content: he'd tell the script editor that he wanted X, Y, and Z random things that he thought would be big draws or discussion points. Either the editor would grumble and find a way to work them in or he'd ignore the man and do what he felt was best. Saward tended to do the former. Bidmead and Cartmel sort of did the latter. There's a scene in Revelation of the Daleks that Saward still likes to complain about, in which the Doctor is faced with a huge statue of his likeness, that -- for a cliffhanger -- topples over on him. And... all right. Maybe it was a weird idea to just throw out there for no reason. But Saward barely made an effort to justify it in the story, and to this day complains about JNT forcing him to put it in.

Whee.

JNT definitely had his weird notions. Generally, though, when he was paired with people with their own visions, the show worked really well under him -- because he did a really good job at getting the thing made, with the most paltry of resources. And that was basically his full-time job; creativity goes to the creative types.

New series mannerisms and catchphrases: Yeah. Series One was on the verge of ridiculousness with that. It's managed to stay manageable, though. Not sure that the Cybermen needed a new catchphrase. Whatever.

I don't like the way the "Trip of a Lifetime" and... Tennant Sequel trailers are edited. The premises behind each are pretty weak, too. Yeah, though. Eccleston pretty much sells it on presence alone. Filmed well, too. On actual film stock, I understand!
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 12:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I seem to remember in the 80's Dr. Who was viewed as being pretty awful and dated and liked only by scary nerds, which is presumably why it got the axe. These days, it's a hit show that the whole family gather round to watch. This is quite an achievement, since before the new Dr. Who came along it'd be hard to imagine science fiction drama doing so well in a mainstream slot.

This makes me wonder what role Dr. Who had at the peak of its popularity. Was it ever a family show, originally?
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 1:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Harveyjames wrote:
Ashura wrote:
I did like that his first thought wasn't to go anime, though.


Is that aimed at me?


Huh? No, actually, you're an artist? I don't know if I've seen any of your art? My own art, as crappy as it is, is also pretty anime influenced. That's not the problem.

There's this trend where people will do really poor anime interpretations of characters.. like so

Mind you, this persons' other art is actually pretty decent, maybe a bit better now that I look at their recent stuff, but mainly because it's anime fanart. I always like to see a less generic anime approach when it comes to adapting stuff like this into animation. Not that an anime look can't look great, but it has to be done juuuuust right. This came up in a conversation about what makes weaboo weaboo over on MechaFetus.

Enough tangent, though:

I've seen some bad Sonic the Hedgehog porn in my time on the interweb, so you must've been lucky. Also, ironically, the designer of all of the Scooby Doo characters (Iwao Takamoto) was Japanese. (Passed away this year, so sad.)

The Cybermen's new catchphrase (DELETE!) is.. well, not even that cool. Of course, they can't use the assimilate deal.. even though the borg are kind of like goth leather ripoffs of Cybermen.

This JNT stuff is actually really fascinating. Anything you suggest reading, Aderack? I've read a lot of stuff, but never read any of this surprisingly.

I've never seen the Tennant one, anywhere to view it?

EDIT: On the Eccleston trailer, pop in Season 2, Disk 1, and watch the previews. They have a better edited version on there without all of that weird echo shit all over the place. This is the version I watched and I can see why this version on Youtube bugs you.

EDIT 2: Is there a list of Series 1 + 2 easter eggs anywhere?
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 3:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ashura wrote:

Huh? No, actually, you're an artist? I don't know if I've seen any of your art? My own art, as crappy as it is, is also pretty anime influenced. That's not the problem.

There's this trend where people will do really poor anime interpretations of characters.. like so


Hey, you're pretty good! My stuff is at harveyjames.livejournal.com

That Doctor who fanart you linked to is atrocious. Like I don't mind that this person wants to emulate the style of japanese cartoons, but at least make the characters look like who they're meant to be. Like Rose doesn't even have lips in his drawing. Mickey looks like Brock from Pokemon with black skin. But even Brock has squinty eyes- these guys all have exactly the same face!

I think the worst thing about anime fandom is that it gives a lot of kids the idea that the most important thing is to copy the surface details of a drawing and get things as slick and shiny as possible, without paying attention to the solid principles of cartooning like observation, caricature and construction. Well, the smart ones figure it out.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 6:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Incidentally, the Sontaran two-parter is currently being filmed here, and... features UNIT.

Harveyjames wrote:
I seem to remember in the 80's Dr. Who was viewed as being pretty awful and dated and liked only by scary nerds, which is presumably why it got the axe. These days, it's a hit show that the whole family gather round to watch. This is quite an achievement, since before the new Dr. Who came along it'd be hard to imagine science fiction drama doing so well in a mainstream slot.

Trying to edit "videogames" into this quote somehow.

There's a bit of that. It was definitely having problems by the 1980s. Part of that came from a deadly lack of creative direction for a few years, which it only recovered from too late. Part of it was unfortunate (sometimes deliberately unfortunate) scheduling. During the McCoy era it was put up against Coronation Street, basically to kill it. Yet it still held on for a few years. Part of it was that -- I'm not kidding -- it still had the same budget per episode in 1989 that it did in 1963. Without accounting for inflation. Or decimalization.

By the mid-'80s it was kind of a miracle that they could even get the show on the air. That it didn't look too much shabbier than it had in the '70s was a weird sort of triumph. Of course, at the same time the budget got really ridiculously dumb, and the BBC started to do weird things with the scheduling, the script editor changed over from the dry braniac Bidmead (I mean, for better or for worse, one of his episodes is called "Logopolis") to this dude named Saward who really didn't have any vision for the show except that it should be as depressing and violent as he could get away with. And he didn't have much writing talent either. And he hated both Davison and Colin Baker in the role. And he was always squabbling with JNT over stupid things.

So the BBC got pissed off and put the show on hiatus for 18 months to give JNT and Saward a chance to get their act together. Everyone went apeshit, and somehow when the following season went into production Saward still hadn't managed to pull together enough scripts. I don't know what the hell he was doing all that time. After that, the BBC demanded that they fire Colin Baker (who, as the lead, took the brunt of people's ire toward the show at that time) and make the show more lighthearted.

Although the side effect was one of the best Doctor/companion teams ever and one of the most visionary script editors being hired to replace the fleeing Saward, the show was just too damaged -- internally, as a production, in terms of its public perception. A lot of people didn't even realize it was still on, or had come back after the hiatus. Those who did generally treated it like a dead fish. A shame, since the last couple of years in particular are some of the strongest since the '60s. If only it had the budget and the schedule...

Quote:
This makes me wonder what role Dr. Who had at the peak of its popularity. Was it ever a family show, originally?

Well, in the '60s it was popular enough to spin off two feature film remakes staring Peter Cushing. There's also all sorts of pop culture junk like this from the period. It was the Daleks that really captured the public's imagination at the time, thus the six lengthy serials over four years (and movies!). Eventually the fad died out, though, and the Daleks were old news, and the show was just a TV serial that had been going on for a while. The Troughton era was, amongst other things, a bit of a fumble for a replacement monster. The Cybermen effectively took the role as Dalek stand-ins, though this era also turned up the Ice Warriors, Yeti, and a bunch of poorly conceived almost-Daleks like the Quarks.

When the show was re-conceived in color for Pertwee, they initially pitched it as a sort of Avengers knock-off. And that worked long enough to get people watching again. Then Tom Baker came along and... I think something bizarre like 80% of the UK population was watching City of Death. Anyway, that's when the show actually became hip and stable; about twelve to eighteen years after it started. After that, it was all about trying to cling to some shred of that cultural impact.

EDIT: Oh, and yeah. Originally it was totally a family show. The new series is probably closest to the Hartnell era, in all kinds of ways. Back then, there was actually ongoing character development. Stories all led into each other. It was really vibrant and experimental and polished for the time. And it was semi-educational! Sort of! What's interesting is that the protagonists were, really, a couple of high school teachers. There was a kid for the kids to identify with, and this old geezer known as "the Doctor" who served as a plot device, but it was Ian and Barbara who drove all the action. And they were intelligent, sympathetic, motivated adults.

And... well, it was theoretically a children's show, yet it was produced by the drama department, by a bunch of female and minority twentysomethings who had no standing in the BBC, mostly for their own amusement. So you can kind of see where a lot of its original tone comes from.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 6:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ashura wrote:
[Huh? No, actually, you're an artist? I don't know if I've seen any of your art?

Oh, I... remember some of his illustrations...

Not surprised about the Scooby Doo guy. Even seems the right style for the era.

About JNT: I don't know! This is just stuff you pick up here and there. There's a lot of gabble in the documentaries on the '80s DVDs. There's a decent amount of behind-the-scenes stuff here.

The Tennant trailer: I can't find it on Youtube; my only conclusion is that the BBC has been asking them to remove it for some reason. I've a copy of it archived somewhere. Is it not on the series 2 DVD, somewhere?

Not sure about easter eggs on the new series discs. I know there's going to be at least one on the series three set.

Yeah, the shorter "Trip of a Lifetime" trailer is way better. Unfortunately, being so familiar with the long one, I see "long one + edits" rather than a decently edited trailer. Wheee.

Was this the "Time War" clip you meant?
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 11:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

aderack wrote:
Incidentally, the Sontaran two-parter is currently being filmed here, and... features UNIT.


What's the name of that estate?
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 1:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You know it's actually rare for sci-fi fans to be able to discuss the show they love in terms that are detached from the universe of the show. Usually Star Trek fans don't talk about writers and producers, they just talk about 'could a B-class federation vessel REALLY take on a Klingon Battleship, like in episode 912 Stardate 816432?' and whether Janeway will get it on with Tuvok. So all this is pretty refreshing to listen to.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Westacular wrote:
What's the name of that estate?

Oh. What is it called? It's something like Portmeirion that isn't Portmeirion.

EDIT: Margam House. Close enough.

I'd not mind having a house like that. So long as it was all paid for.

And the "real-world" Cyberman would totally have put up a better fight against the Daleks!!

(No they wouldn't.)
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some of the more recent figures are pretty interesting.

http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/doctorredshoesglassesface.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/dalekthayfigure.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/dalekthayrear.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/dalekthayhead.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/utopiaset.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/utopiasetboxed.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/themasterface1.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/weepingangel1.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/screamingangel.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/hoixfigure.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/wirefigure1.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/tobyfigure.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/jackharknessemptychild.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/mickeyfigure.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/drconstantinefigure.jpg
http://www.doctorwhotoys.net/gelthzombieface.jpg

They're even catching up on S1 and S2 things that they missed the first time around, and (along with a bunch of re-releases and repaints) are making separate lines out of them.
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2007 8:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, that's the time war clip I think the Thief and the Cobbler dude/Tygerbug edited. Or at least, he posted it on Youtube at one point.

There is some real surreality to this thread:
http://ffrevolution.com/InvisionBoard/index.php?showtopic=1112

It's starts out weird and just turns into a kind of.. uh.. bizarro version of our thread.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 1:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ashura wrote:
I've never seen the Tennant one, anywhere to view it?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/doctorwho/ram/trail2006?size=16x9&bgc=CC0000&nbram=1&bbram=1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1

Officially poor quality.

Why does everyone in that thread have a character or actor's name?

Oh dear. Toward the end of the thread is a page from what looks like a yearbook, with much of the content in the school newspaper article I mentioned a while back but couldn't relocate -- in which David MacDonald talks of meeting Derek Jacobi and playing the Doctor.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 10:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

aderack wrote:
Oh dear. Toward the end of the thread is a page from what looks like a yearbook, with much of the content in the school newspaper article I mentioned a while back but couldn't relocate -- in which David MacDonald talks of meeting Derek Jacobi and playing the Doctor.


Wow. The author was apparently unaware of the meaning and spelling of fetish. That thing reads like one of "Philippe's Friday Facts" from Achewood.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 12:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I never saw my highschool yearbook but apparently my only mention in there was in the 'Most likely to grow up to be...' section, and I got 'most likely to grow up to be Jarvis Cocker'. How can I grow up to be someone who's already alive?
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 1:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

In my (graduating) high school yearbook, they oversold the nickname/favourite memory/etc stuff that's normally below the grad photos -- there weren't enough pages to have those boxes for everybody, so they sold the slips you fill in that information with for a couple dollars, but they sold far too many. So the yearbook editors just arbitrarily picked their friends / popular people as the ones who actually had the blurbs with their names. A lot of people were pissed off. Myself included. A couple of my friends wrote stuff that played off each others, and only made sense when you read both, and the forms were handed in at the exact same time, but only one of them was actually printed. It made no sense, and it made no sense.
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Something in the article that's not in the yearbook is a line like "Who knows? He may even come to be as popular as [Random Mystery Person Who Probably Graduated From Here Once]."
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 3:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Huh? That is in the yearbook scan you linked: "... as famous as Peter Howitt (Joey, from 'BREAD'), who was also a pupil at Paisley Grammar School."
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2007 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh.

Well, I'm sure that newspaper reporter is enjoying a fine career at IGN.
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