Up Front: You Never Forget Your First
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Apparently a bunch of Dr Who fans are annoyed about the "sexing-up" of the show, as if other female companions spent their years wearing a habit.
Much as it sounds like I'm a self-hating geek, there's going to be a clot of Whovians bitching about absolutely everything. (My favourite: "The center column of the new Tardis looks like a dildo - my life is ruined!" Hey, I thought it looked like the most. terrifying. bong. ever. We all need to get out of the house, now.) There's a lot of PTSD (post-Tennant sulking disorder) out there, but people seem to getting over it.
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I hardened up on Sapphire & Steel. After that, Doctor Who didn't seem quite as scary.
Tom Baker's my doctor too, but I know I saw a lot of Pertwee. I have the feeling they were repeats during the Baker era.
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All this talk about strong 60's female characters and not a mention of Mrs Peel
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Much as it sounds like I'm a self-hating geek, there's going to be a clot of Whovians bitching about absolutely everything.
Uh-huh. While I try to totally avoid that kind of thing, I've seen a couple of people complain that Matt Smith is "doing Tennant". To which my response has been "wait, that's not what they mean" followed by "bwa?"
My daughter rewatched Rose yesterday, the first episode of the new Who, so in the interests of research I joined her. Rose saves the Doctor's life. Right from the outset this is going to be a more balanced relationship.
Also, I remembered the point at which I thought "Yes, I am On Board With This". Mickey gets eaten by a wheelie bin. Which burps. It was all "wow they've got a budget now", but still with the traditional cheese we'd come to know and love.
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There's a lot of PTSD (post-Tennant sulking disorder)
Oh that's wonderful! :-)
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I hardened up on Sapphire & Steel
Okay, yeah, THAT was some scary, scary shit. That's the theme music that makes me feel kind of sick.
Geek trivia moment: Peter Hammond, who wrote S&S, also wrote a couple of episodes of Torchwood, including the one with the carnies coming out of the silent films and stealing people's breath.
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Blake's Seven, anyone?
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Please forgive if already posted but free Dr Who game downloads were worthy of mentioning I think.
Pertwee was my first, from behing the lounge furniture when I dared. Tom Baker was good, the transistion episodes 'Robot' got me in but with such a long run, homework to do, I dipped in and out but at least it primed me for later Douglas Adams. I didn't mind Davidson, perhaps because I wasn't much watching his other TV work, and thought he had some interesting episodes. Colin Baker was no thanks and McCoy a welcome relief, getting back in touch with the flavour of earlier Doctors and until recently Ace was my favourite ompanion. Eccleson was over before got to watch again and I've no complaints with Tennant - he brought new viewers to old and new enemies, generally breathing new life especially in the US 'franchise'. What I fear most of Smith is him merely being a cypher of Doctorhood and hope my fears allayed. And here's hoping Torchwood isn't lying fallow for long.
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Oh that's wonderful! :-)
Oh, spare my blushes. But seriously, I think Tennant was absolutely right: The Doctor is (as Matt Smith put it) the best role in British television history, but you want to leave the room when people are still sad to see you go, and you're still enjoying it. I'm going to commit Whovian blasphemy here, but towards the end of Tom Baker's run it was all too often painfully obvious that his hearts weren't in it any more. (He was also something of a man-diva with ADHD. In the commentary to The Horror of Fang Rock, Louise Jameson [Leela] told an interesting story about their initially rather tense working relationship. Baker apparently thought her character was too "violent", and there was a scene where he kept upstaging her by entering early. She stood her ground and insisted they do the scene, as rehearsed, and three takes later he stopped being such a dick.)
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Okay, yeah, THAT was some scary, scary shit. That's the theme music that makes me feel kind of sick.
Sapphire and Steel wasn't "scary" but did something much more interesting -- I borrowed the DVDs off a friend a while back, and while it looks awfully cheap and downright cheesy in patches there's still this ghastly sense of unease. The things you never looked at twice before are downright malevolent. Deal with it. Or not. Nobody cares.
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Blake's Seven, anyone?
Ah, Sevalan, Sevalan, and your shiny boots of leather.
Strike, dear mistress, and cure my heart.
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Blake's Seven, anyone?
Hear hear. I have very few fond memories of Doctor Who (though I certainly watched a fair bit of the original series), but Blake 7 was a revelation to me when I was about 9 or so.
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Ah, Sevalan, Sevalan, and your shiny boots of leather.
Strike, dear mistress, and cure my heart.
Reminds me too strongly of Anita McNaught, I'm afraid.
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Reminds me too strongly of Anita McNaught,
Yes indeed.
I'm afraid.
Wait, what?
Please forgive if already posted but free Dr Who game downloads were worthy of mentioning I think.
Tim, you have made my daughter's day. Well, in a sort of "now desperately hanging out for June" kind of of way.
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Sapphire and Steel wasn't "scary" but did something much more interesting -- I borrowed the DVDs off a friend a while back, and while it looks awfully cheap and downright cheesy in patches there's still this ghastly sense of unease.
Hell yeah, the children home alone, the soldiers trapped at the railway station, very unsettling stuff.
Dr Who, Blakes 7 etc... were more easily digested but still great when compared to their American counterparts such as Gilligan's Island and Happy Days. We only watched those shows because they were on TV, it was the Brit stuff we really looked forward to.
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Reminds me too strongly of Anita McNaught, I'm afraid
And how is that a problem? :)
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Ah, Sevalan, Sevalan, and your shiny boots of leather.
And those faabulous gowns. :) Girls, just because you're taking over the galaxy one abandoned quarry at a time there's no reason to let yourself go. Is it just me, or was British television run for a long time by some seriously kinky men?
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3410,
taking over the galaxy one abandoned quarry at a time
heh.
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Does anyone else remember Chris Eccleston playing Iago in the modern-day BBC retelling of Othello? Wow, he was scarily good.
If you get a chance, see the version of The Revenger's Tragedy that Alex Cox directed a few years ago. Eccleston is excellent as the doomed protagonist, and Eddie Izzard makes a good fist of the preening fop. Plus, it's set in post-apocalyptic Liverpool, which is quite hard to tell apart from pre-apocalyptic Liverpool.
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Plus, it's set in post-apocalyptic Liverpool, which is quite hard to tell apart from pre-apocalyptic Liverpool.
yup.
Alex Cox
I have mad love for this guy since BBC2 gave him a late night slot on sundays back when I was a teenager, which he used to show weird leftfield cult films. Including, it must be noted, a couple of his own ('Repo Man' and 'Walker').
Moviedrome, it was called. He'd introduce each film with a 10-minute spiel of interesting facts and vignettes. Really turned me on to some cool shit.
I've just discovered the full lists of the films he showed are on his website.
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Moviedrome, it was called. He'd introduce each film with a 10-minute spiel of interesting facts and vignettes. Really turned me on to some cool shit.
Now, if I was running a television network that would be perfect, cheap-as-chips local content and a way to raise the cultural IQ of the midnight ghetto....
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Is it just me, or was British television run for a long time by some seriously kinky men?
You say that like it's a bad thing?
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In the commentary to The Horror of Fang Rock, Louise Jameson [Leela] told an interesting story about their initially rather tense working relationship
I'll always remember Horror of Fang Rock for that time a Max Headroom wannabe butted in...
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Here's a rather lovely interview regarding the forthcoming Doctor Who games.
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My 'first' was Jon Pertwee. I can recall seeing the first episode of his Doctor's debut 'Spearhead from Space', when it screened in NZ in March 1975. I was 6 years old. In the late 1980s I started up a Doctor Who fanzine called 'Time Space Visualiser'. This publication gradually evolved over many issues, taking on an international following. Some of the new series writers (including current executive producer Steven Moffat), count among its former readers and contributors to my fanzine. In 1999 I helped find a missing Doctor Who episode in Auckland and returned it to the BBC. I am currently writing a book about Doctor Who for a UK publisher, and regularly work on the BBC Doctor Who DVDs as a 'production information subtitle' scriptwriter. So what began as a childhood fascination with a television programme has now become my job.
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