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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Doctor Who returns?

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Mister Six, whom all the girls

12:27 / 30.07.04

Lady-"if this picture is anything to go by"

... I don't think it is, actually. It's a pic of them filming, not a publicity shot. If it was a prepared publicity pic, I could understand using it to judge the series. And again, every time the show changes, it looks like shit before you see it (ofcourse sometimes when you see the finished product it IS shit, but there's never been this much preparation for Who before).

Also, from what I can gather, the series hasn't been this big in the public eye since '76 and that is something.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

15:00 / 30.07.04

From Gallifrey One:

Still a candid shot, but a better one.

13:51 / 04.08.04

And we'll get daleks too!

Our Lady Has Left the Building

06:45 / 05.08.04

I'd much prefer the idea if the Daleks were heard more than they were seen. They were supposed to have a great empire of conquered planets in space that we never saw. And the idea of capturing and executing the Master in the McGann TV movie is an intriguing one, in which they become a brutal police force for their empire, I think there's mileage there. But I would prefer a new season of Doctor Who to have all new menaces, rather than rely on old faces to prop it up. Have the Dalek's back directly in a second season perhaps?

Mister Six, whom all the girls

17:13 / 05.08.04

Lady,

Rumor has it that there was a story planned to center around one Dalek, leading into a full blown Dalek tale, perhaps a season finale?

But Russel T Davies et al are planning new creatures and villains, so fear not.

It should be a very strange season as Rose(the companion)'s mom is apparently appearing in many episodes, leading some to believe that the entire season will have a branching story or at least re-connect to Rose's Earth.

Also, they recently filmed in London, at one point on the Thames itself, so the show is already doing new things.

We'll see very soon in any case.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

17:23 / 03.11.04

New Daleks

18:01 / 03.11.04

Oooh, classic. Properly armoured casing for the first time ever. Retractable eye, maybe? It looks hard as nails, anyway. And its gun is still little enough to leave it with a convincing grudge against the universe. Groovy.

I mean, *I* would have ditched the sink plunger, but what do I know? I can’t even predict an election, and anyway, I didn’t really think the beeb would ever go for my idea of equipping each dalek with a chain-whip and a gimp on a lead. Not at teatime.

07:48 / 04.11.04

but...i mean that's cool, it's good-looking for a dale(killalot), but there's still the credibility problem with viewers who aren't as tickled as me by the notion that the universe's deadliest organism has a plunger for a hand. there's still the getting-up-stairs problem* that means the show's top shocks and scares can still be lampooned by comedy-dads. i want there to be a bit where someone runs up the stairs and the dalek just trundles up the wall or onto the ceiling to get them, gravity and 'right side up' disregarded, giving them a skewed, vertiginous menace.

great to have them back though. still give me the willies a bit.

*yeh yeh, mr bronson-sylvester mccoy-floating up the stairs-it looked crap and wasn't scary.

07:56 / 04.11.04

o btw my whovian contact (recently banned by the beeb from visiting any more shoots due to being a pain in the arse) confirms the rumours above that the first dalek story has just the one stalking a spaceship that they're stuck on (so alien), which will build them up as big bads before the next story where there's a fucking army of them (so aliens).

11:03 / 04.11.04

Maybe it's just a sign that I'm getting old, but I can't really see how one Dalek could stalk anybody on anything. They were supposed to be frightening because there were hundreds of the fuckers, all identikit and all with the same purpose. Manage to escape from one bunch and there'd be another pile of them waiting behind the door that you thought was an escape hatch.

One? Feh.

Unless the stalking is being done by its fleshy, brainy insides, in which case cool.

11:08 / 04.11.04

i dunno about that. i think it was the mr. bronson and the daleks story again, but there was an army unit getting done right in by a single dalek until sophie aldred's explosives expertise come and saved them. the objections to a single dalek being scary are surely dependant on how well the episodes themselves are written and played. anyhoo, sclassic post-console narrative innum - one level's end boss is the next level's pissweak footsoldier.

11:28 / 04.11.04

also, the news about new villains and stuff seems like a bit of a shaky assertion at the moment. i've seen shots of autons, daleks, monsters made of tree and moss (a terry nation hardy perennial) and kind of general non-specific aliens from the planet latex. where are the newbs?

11:55 / 04.11.04

I’ve been assuming that most of the rumours are coming from the Outpost Galaxy forum - where it seems they’ve figured out that they’ve got a few tabloid journalists lurking among them, and so they’re inventing things to discuss. And that the lone dalek/spaceship thing is one of those - only I think it’s a museum now, not a spaceship. I’m surprised to find it might actually be going to happen.

Last good one was daleks with spider legs. So, no newb monster rumours because geeky forums don’t spend much time talking about such things. Stands to reason.

sclassic post-console narrative innum - one level's end boss is the next level's pissweak footsoldier.

And now I *really* want a story about the fleshy, brainy insides first. Before we get to the scarey armoured version. You should start a rumour.

16:52 / 04.11.04

Gambit> Yeah, but in the Mr Bronson ep the lone Dalek is just sitting in the middle of a road while the entire army tries to feed it machine gun pie. It's not so much stalking as staring out.

I think the only way that we could end up with the fleshy, brainy insides is if we revisited the first Davros story. Genesis of the Daleks? Something like that. Either that or we have a post-dustbin race of Daleks in a later story.

Talking of which, the Doctor can travel backwards and forwards in time. How come he's never travelled to a period where the Daleks have died out and thought to ask the people there what happened?

20:44 / 04.11.04

perhaps because the daleks will never be ultimately destroyed...

21:04 / 04.11.04

Can I just say that this:

...seems really boring and lacklustre? Like some generic button whipped up for a corporate website?

07:24 / 05.11.04

Very Farscape, I thought.

15:14 / 08.11.04

Talking of which, the Doctor can travel backwards and forwards in time. How come he's never travelled to a period where the Daleks have died out and thought to ask the people there what happened?

Didn't the Doctor once travel to a point super-far in the future where the Daleks were a force of good in the universe? Does anyone else remember this?

Mister Six, whom all the girls

15:55 / 03.12.04

...First official look at the new Doctor Who series... in real player format

I'm at work, so I canna see it.

Mister Six, whom all the girls

20:36 / 03.12.04

Well... it doesn't say much. It'll feature an actor insisting he is the Doctor, there'll be danger and the police box will disappear with a radiophonic whoosh.

I'm psyched.

09:39 / 06.03.05

Errm. Did anyone else know that the first episode has been leaked? I find it hard to believe it was an accident.

16:59 / 06.03.05

If it's been leaked is it available on bit torrent yet?

20:53 / 06.03.05

Here and there. UKNova banned it within about an hour of it going up. I'm sure it's everywhere by now.

Oh all right, I feel a bit dirty for seeing it too early, but it's gooooooooooooooood.

08:22 / 08.03.05

You seen it?! Jealous now.

09:19 / 08.03.05

As one slashdot person said yesterday Maybe it will boost ratings, instead; the public buzz about "leaks" is still far ahead of the average viewer's ability to actually find and download...

10:20 / 08.03.05

I just watched it, it was alright I guess. I've never really seen Dr. Who before so I've got no frame of reference but it wasn't bad - there's was a lot more slapstick comedy than I imagined (fighting with a dummy arm).

I guess it's up to the hardcore fans to decide how it measures up.

19:02 / 09.03.05

I'm in the same boat, not being a Dr. Who fan.
It was enjoyable enough. A good laugh and Eccelson (sp) is channeling his inner Tom Baker, a good sense of manic energy.

It was a lot funnier than I was expecting. It'll beinteresting to see what the hardocre fans make of it.

19:28 / 09.03.05

I do consider myself a fan, but I know the hardcore will hate it, because they've got it right and gone for family-ish entertainment with an edge of horror and a big glob of humour instead of pandering to the obsessives. Eccleston is brilliant (oh, I so want to quote some lines) even in the bad slapstick bits.
Having watched a ton of Who lately, I shall scream if I hear anyone say something along the lines of: "oh, they've made it childish and camp". So many of the "classics" are terrible shite with serious plot holes and plodding stories which could have been wrapped up in ten minutes were it not for the mugging of all the old drama queens trying to earn their fees. Davies has at least tried to apply some sort of intellectual rigour and craft to his script and direction.
All that stuff in the papers (and how dare the fecking Guardian post spoilers on the whole plot when even the tabloids wouldn't go that far) about how it's soundbite TV for the ADHD generation is bollocks. It's shaky here and there, yes, but there's nowt wrong with economy in storytelling and there is not an inch of slack. It bears repeated viewing and still gets laughs and thrills. Good enough for me. And cocking crikey is that new control room beautiful? You can see it from OUTSIDE AS WELL! Enough, no spoiling.

They should probably remove the burp, though. That's my only complaint.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:22 / 10.03.05

What the idiot in the Guardian ignored was the fact that in the good old days the average Doctor Who adventure was cumulatively between 90 minutes and anything up to 180 minutes. When you've got to tell a story in 40 minutes (presumerably that length to make it easy to sell to the US market) you don't have the time for the 'landing somewhere new, getting mistrusted by the locals, locked up, getting free, companion twists her ankle, someone gets killed in a grisly manner' part of the story). Plus, compare a story from say, mid-period Tom Baker with a William Hartnell story, the Baker story will move a lot quicker, and work to a completely different set of rules than the Hartnell story.

So basically, shut up stupid Guardian journo, you smell of poo!

I'll hold off on more profound comment until the new series is shown on TV, but I thought that, as it has to effectively reintroduce the concepts of the Doctor, the TARDIS and so on, (in much the same way as Next Gen reintroduces the Star Trek universe) it did a pretty good job. And I presume that the scene with Mark Benton in his shed is giving a heads up for some of the stories we can expect to see this season?

Time Out has a much better article (not only because Time Out are wee) from Russell about how he's waited his whole life to write this, and Chris Eccleston is doing this because he wants to do something that isn't grim involving dead babies and stuff.

The Guardian blog is also pushing the idea that the show has been allowed to 'escape' to drum up enthusiasm, but who knows?

17:46 / 10.03.05

I think most Dr Who fans will love this new series no matter what it is like because - hey - it's new Dr Who.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:47 / 11.03.05

I guess, sleaze, but only to an extent...isn't everyone pretty much agreed on the shiteness of the McGann one?

(and how dare the fecking Guardian post spoilers on the whole plot when even the tabloids wouldn't go that far)

Yeah, that fucked me off something chronic. "Worse" than the programme being leaked in the first place- also thrown into the middle of the article without warning.

08:08 / 11.03.05

Oh I don't think there are many fans that thought the TV movie version was goos but it was widely welcomed because it WAS new Who - And the Dr Who fans I know all seemed to like the idea of McGann as Who as well as elements of the TV movie - it was just a pity that it was saddled with such a crappy script that misunderstood a myriad of core Who concepts...

So, yeah - I figure that most Who fans will respond to New Who favourably because it represents a continuation of their much loved show... the fortunate thing in this instance is that with Russel T Davis (and his talented cohorts) involved this looks set to be some of trhe best Who seen for many a year (yeah yeah, i know that it doesn't have to try hard to be the best who for 16 years already...)

09:12 / 15.03.05

i'm not much of the whovian slave, i think i qualify only as a 'regular viewer', and not that for sixteen years ov course, but i caught the first new episode last night and i'm very pleased to have it return. don't want to give much away, but i think people will get quite an early-buffy feel (piper looks and acts great - again, early buffy) from it. i'm wary of being too hyperbolic because it wasn't perfect i suppose, but i don't think i'm wrong in having detected a great amount of energy, a feel of real rushing fun and have-i-seen-this-before-?-novelty. explosions, deeply silly action, not-too-much on the xfiles conspracy angle, (but a nod to it), a bit of grange hill and eastenders in there too. proper saturday tea-time fun i'd say.

09:41 / 15.03.05

Yeah, I finally saw this last night and would echo Gumbitch's sentiments. The new Who is fun. I want to see the second episode now. Which is i guess the best response you can hope for...

10:32 / 15.03.05

I downloaded this mainly out of curiosity, never having been a massive fan of the Doctor.
And...it's good - really, really good. As people have already said there's a genuine sense of fun about it (not something I ever thought I'd say about a programme starring Christopher Eccleston).
While the effects are a touch lo-fi in places, it just adds to the proper 'saturday tea-time' feel of it all - rogue wheelybins rock!

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