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Dr Who
Dec 25, 2003 5:17:45 GMT -5
Post by Iain on Dec 25, 2003 5:17:45 GMT -5
Well there you have it, the seven actors to appear in the title role of the BBC's 26 year run of the show called Dr Who. Simply state you favorite Doctor and a few lines why, I'd be very interested if a lot of people here even remember the show at all? There is word of a new series in 2005 from England, only time wil tell if interest is still around for it.
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Dr Who
Dec 28, 2003 1:53:24 GMT -5
Post by Chaos on Dec 28, 2003 1:53:24 GMT -5
;D, good place for the info to show up on boss
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Dr Who
Dec 29, 2003 3:38:14 GMT -5
Post by SteelDragon on Dec 29, 2003 3:38:14 GMT -5
I have to ask, why did they call it " Dr.Who "? i didnt see to many episodes and i think i saw a little bit of the movie cuz there was more than one Doctor and my Uncle seemed to know what it was right away. but yeah, why was it called Dr.Who
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Dr Who
Dec 29, 2003 5:27:17 GMT -5
Post by Iain on Dec 29, 2003 5:27:17 GMT -5
www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/The above link has lots of information on Dr Who. The Doctor as he is referred to is a 'time lord' from Gallifery and he travels in a Tardis (time machine) helping people from oppression and alien invasion. When the Doctor gets old or near death his body undergoes a regeneration and his body is totally replaced by a new persona, his mind is the same but his personality is different.(this was a plot idea to explain the change of actors when one wanted to leave the show) A time lord can regenerate 12 times after that he dies The name Dr Who is a play on words, nobody really calls him Dr Who it is to suggest his unknown background.
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Dr Who
Dec 29, 2003 5:46:06 GMT -5
Post by Iain on Dec 29, 2003 5:46:06 GMT -5
The forth Doctor Tom Baker, with his traveling companion Romana.(1979)
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Dr Who
Dec 30, 2003 22:32:13 GMT -5
Post by Runtinator on Dec 30, 2003 22:32:13 GMT -5
Doctor Who got me seriously interested in Science Fiction television in the early 80s. I guess I'm dating myself a bit - some of the people online weren't even born yet in 1980. If Doctor Who had not been so successful, there may not have even been a Star Trek The Next Generation tv show.
Yeh, the Dr Who graphics/models/FX were bad, but the good stories and British humour really made it a great show. I'm looking forward the new Doctor Who tv series in 2005 (once again created by the Bristish, not the Americans).
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Dr Who
Dec 31, 2003 19:23:38 GMT -5
Post by Delacroix on Dec 31, 2003 19:23:38 GMT -5
The new Doctor Who is going to be Richard E Grant who is a quite well known Actor in Britain. I dont know if hes big in the states though. i think he will make a fine Doctor i vote Tom Baker as well because he brought comedy to the role and i like his scarves as well.
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Dr Who
Jan 4, 2004 8:14:25 GMT -5
Post by Alomovo on Jan 4, 2004 8:14:25 GMT -5
Tom Baker was the best doctor, I can't believe they are doing a new series!!!! YAY!!!! and it should be better because they can have better specialFX.
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Dr Who
Jan 5, 2004 6:04:29 GMT -5
Post by Delacroix on Jan 5, 2004 6:04:29 GMT -5
The cheesy special effects were what made Dr Who great though i hope they dont go overboard on it because it will just ruin the legend of Dr Who.
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hushicho
Fighter
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Posts: 86
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Dr Who
May 19, 2004 22:57:49 GMT -5
Post by hushicho on May 19, 2004 22:57:49 GMT -5
I always adored Jon Pertwee, and especially after meeting him in person when I was younger; it's so easy, I know, for our heroes as children to let us down in person. But he never did. He was just as wonderful in person as he was on the television screen, every bit the Doctor that I knew and loved, and I'll always love him for that. As for the new series, I don't think much of what I've heard from it, and the writers they're getting for it don't seem to have a mind towards the older fans and the way the series was when it was good unfortunately. As far as I'm concerned, Doctor Who ended in 1989, but that's fine by me. In any case, I don't think that the special effects were really ever bad, to be fair. You have to consider the time and budget, and really it irritates me to hear people go on about the 'bad' special effects...they really were excellent for the time! Besides this, a lot of viewers have gotten spoiled with these deluxe extravaganzas with all glitz and no substance. I'd personally rather they save the money on superfluous effects and give me a good story. That was always what carried the show, and ultimately what made people love it; the acting was usually (or should I say unusually) good, which shows every time an alien menace arrives and people take it seriously. It is a testament to every one of those actors that they approached their parts with such conviction, in most cases. Very impressive, very respectable. The stories were also predominantly quite good, aside from a few instances. I think it's good the show ended when it did though. But time will tell if the new series stands up to the old. Personally I just don't know; no matter how good it is, series 'revivals' rarely do particularly well unfortunately. I know there have been many series I've been quite interested in, to see their revivals or 'revamped' reduxes, and it sadly almost never lasts, no matter how well-done it is, because inevitably the group either ends up wanting to move away from its source material and changes too much, or it doesn't do enough and just becomes heavily derivative and unoriginal. Let's hope that the new series is neither one but instead a nice balance. As for me though, I'll probably stick to the DVD releases! I do wish they'd release some better third Doctor DVD titles though. What were they thinking, releasing Carnival of Monsters before The Sea-Devils or Terror of the Autons?? Anyway, there's my two cents and then some! Love! Hushicho
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Dr Who
May 19, 2004 23:35:20 GMT -5
Post by Iain on May 19, 2004 23:35:20 GMT -5
I always adored Jon Pertwee, and especially after meeting him in person when I was younger; it's so easy, I know, for our heroes as children to let us down in person. But he never did. He was just as wonderful in person as he was on the television screen, every bit the Doctor that I knew and loved, and I'll always love him for that. Jon Pertwee was the Doctor I remember from my youth, I grew up on Tom Baker but Jon's storys always seemed a lot more frightening that period where the Doctor was trapped on Earth with onlythe Brigadeer and UNIT to assist him were some of the greatest moments of Dr Who, "Terror of the Autons," was a classic as was "The Deamons" somehow the aliens seemed a lot more menacing if they were bases on the high street of a town just like yours, closer to real life I guess. A Dalek far away on an alien world isnt too bad but put him in your backyard and suddenly he's menacing. I still hold out hope for the new series, the show is very dear to me still, and some viewer became turned off on the show back when Tom Baker left the show, but the show kept going still. I do agree with you about the effects and getting value for your money, it used to cost one million dollars to make an episiode of 'Battlestar Galactica" or "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" back in 1979 for that same value you could make an entire season of 26 episodes of Tom Baker Dr Who. The release rate is unfortunately at the mercy of the BBC international dept, we are lucky I suppose to get them at all, never mind in order. Plus they know Tom Baker sells over here so expect to see more of his titles than any other Doctor.
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hushicho
Fighter
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Dr Who
May 20, 2004 8:38:50 GMT -5
Post by hushicho on May 20, 2004 8:38:50 GMT -5
Mm, that's very true. They do have to go where the money is. And to boot, even if he didn't sell any more than the other Doctors, there's just so many of his episodes that naturally he will get more releases! Personally I think the turning point with the show was around Tom Baker's departure, because then JN-T and Eric Saward were trying to make it more 'mature' and whatnot, and to do that they substituted a lot of death and destruction (especially that awful writer Saward), and tried to stir up tension between the TARDIS crew members, which I don't think anyone really liked; it seemed for a while like they did nothing but argue! Fortunately after the first season of the fifth Doctor things seemed to mellow out just a bit and the stories on the whole got a bit more enjoyable; the sixth Doctor's shaky start nonetheless led to a sterling tenure as Doctor, and the seventh Doctor's uneven but mostly interesting series all spoke volumes that the show still had life in it. Unfortunately I think a lot of people had been turned off by some of the things that some of the writers tried to do, and after Douglas Adams' incredibly good time on the show as script editor, Tom Baker's natural good humor and somewhat silliness was suppressed by subsequent editors, which is a shame. Personally I think Saward and Cartmel were among the worst culprits. To me, they ruined the show. Cartmel's ridiculous obsession with not having TARDIS interior shots led to the sets being struck! As a result, some serials that would logically have had TARDIS interior shots had them eliminated, even though by this time they were much shorter thanks to Cartmel's stunts. Still, the seventh Doctor's seasons were all fairly interesting (excepting the atrocious Greatest Show in the Galaxy) so in a way I felt disappointed that the show ended. Then again, I read recently what Cartmel would've done with the show had it continued on, so perhaps it's just as well it ended on a high note. I know some shows have just gone on until people despised them so much that it made even the 'good old days' of the show seem laborious and tiresome to even watch. So I suppose, for all my complaining, I'm glad that Doctor Who went out nicely and lives in our pleasant memories. I recently picked up The Seeds of Death on DVD, and I have to say it's an absolutely wonderful serial made even better with a lovely commentary. And it's nice that they've finally released it with the original episodic format as well, I have grown to dislike the 'telemovie format' over the years! Of course I'd love to see more adventures of the second Doctor released...I adore Patrick Troughton and I think his adventures were among the best...and they were all adventures, which made them special and scary, and his companions were all treated very kindly, with the avuncular sort of role that is so intrinsic to the Doctor. Then again, I loved all the Doctors, each in his own way. So it's so hard to choose what I'd like to see next! I'm sorry for rambling on, I suppose this is just about the first time I've been able to say what I want. Thanks for reading. Love! Hushicho
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Dr Who
May 20, 2004 21:42:33 GMT -5
Post by Iain on May 20, 2004 21:42:33 GMT -5
Mm, that's very true. They do have to go where the money is. And to boot, even if he didn't sell any more than the other Doctors, there's just so many of his episodes that naturally he will get more releases! And Tom Baker storys tend to do better with the adult audience nowadays, his tales age better and even if you cant be bothered with his story at least his humour and acting is always a delight to watch even in the worst of his storys (Horns of Nimon) he seems to be giving it his all. Personally I think the turning point with the show was around Tom Baker's departure, because then JN-T and Eric Saward were trying to make it more 'mature' and whatnot, and to do that they substituted a lot of death and destruction (especially that awful writer Saward), and tried to stir up tension between the TARDIS crew members, which I don't think anyone really liked; it seemed for a while like they did nothing but argue! Fortunately after the first season of the fifth Doctor things seemed to mellow out just a bit and the stories on the whole got a bit more enjoyable; the sixth Doctor's shaky start nonetheless led to a sterling tenure as Doctor, and the seventh Doctor's uneven but mostly interesting series all spoke volumes that the show still had life in it. Unfortunately I think a lot of people had been turned off by some of the things that some of the writers tried to do, and after Douglas Adams' incredibly good time on the show as script editor, Tom Baker's natural good humor and somewhat silliness was suppressed by subsequent editors, which is a shame. Wow you are really taking me back here, Yes the show did change quite a bit when JNT came on the scene, Tom Bakers last season was probably his most serious and restrained one as we had a new producer take over who wasnt going to take crap from his leading man. Once Saward came in as Script writer the changes towards 80's violence were evident, Saward respected older writers like Robert Holmes and tried to imitate him, but his 'loveable rouges' were 'soliders of fortune' instead, Sawards black humour was allowed to go unchecked as JNT seemed more interested in making the show 'pretty.' Saward did bring the Cybermen back to their old glory days in Earthshock but them he followed it up with the rotten Time Flight a wasted Master story really and now quite dated' since Concorde has been junked. Personally I think Saward and Cartmel were among the worst culprits. To me, they ruined the show. Saward had a breakdown doing the show I think he stressed easy, whle Cartmel's background was ironically comic books and not really t.v. script writing. One wonders what kind of resume you needed in the mid 80's to get hired by JNT besides meeting him at partys. I recently picked up The Seeds of Death on DVD, and I have to say it's an absolutely wonderful serial made even better with a lovely commentary. That is another of my favourite Tom Baker storys, I will have to look out for that one. ;D Look out for Ark in Space Its an excellent DVD presentation really the best audio commentary I have heard yet too (Baker, Lis Sladen and then producer Phillip Hinchcliffe) Plus 'Ark' is a cracking good sci-fi tale too, five years before the movie Alien came up with the same idea about bug-like creatures harvesting humans to breed their own race. I'm sorry for rambling on, I suppose this is just about the first time I've been able to say what I want. Thanks for reading. Love! Hushicho Dont worry about rambling here, I am enjoying these Dr Who discussions, I hardly ever get to talk about my favourite show its nice to finally see some life in this dusty old Who forum. Maybe our comments might even invite other to check this show out.
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hushicho
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Posts: 86
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Dr Who
May 24, 2004 22:29:50 GMT -5
Post by hushicho on May 24, 2004 22:29:50 GMT -5
Tom was always so magnificent in the role, but then so were the others! I really think Tom's unfairly compared to the others and, although I hate to say overrated, I think in some ways he is; a lot of Public TV stations here in the US (where Dr Who got its start here) ran only Tom Baker's episodes from the beginning and repeated them for quite some time, before any other Doctor was picked up. I remember the first screening of 'Logopolis' being particularly traumatising for me as a child!
Well, I think JN-T was a man who had his own ideas for Dr Who, and I think honestly it was more a case of Tom not taking crap from him, so he left. From all I've heard, JN-T was very insistent on getting his own way and often would blow up at people, and Tom (unlike some of the other cast) refused to take it since of course he had seniority and vast popularity, and JN-T had...well...nothing going for him at all when he stepped in. From everything I've heard, Tom left the role on good terms but left it chiefly because Nathan-Turner was trying to take it in a direction that Tom did not agree with for the character, and he wasn't about to back down and change the way he played the Doctor as he had played the character for years and surely knew him better than anyone at the time! In fact, Nyssa's addition to the TARDIS crew, if I recall correctly, was chiefly Tom's doing and his insistent influence after enjoying working with her so much in 'The Keeper of Traken'.
But also, Tom I think was ready to hand off the role to someone who could bring it some new life. The fourth Doctor's best, arguably, were the various instances in which his alien nature shone through and ended up saving the day. He didn't have to, but he chose to, and because of that it made it all the more clear of his alien nature. This is why I don't see some people's problems with the sixth Doctor; on the whole he was much more likable than the fourth, who tended much more towards moodiness, condescension, and outright violence! Sarah-Jane even began to act more alien herself in her travels with the Doctor...look at 'The Brain of Morbius' and 'The Seeds of Death' for examples of her doing just as much as the Doctor and putting people in their places just as neatly as the Doctor ever would! And look at 'The Invasion of Time', for example, to see a fourth Doctor acting at his most Machiavellian, definitely putting any sort of sixth Doctor complaints to rest!
Yeah, this was always a problem with me: Saward purported time and again to idolise Robert Holmes, and yet in comparison Saward's scripts had almost nothing in common with them. Whereas Holmes' scripts injected lively characters with interesting personalities and sympathetic plights, none taking too much spotlight from Doctor and friends but instead emphasising the human element of the plot...Saward seemed to take far too much care to make his characters outshine the TARDIS crew, almost preferentially treating them, even though they were almost all consistently crap; Richard Mace in 'The Awakening' was probably the most intolerable of all his characters, but in that episode again we have Saward butchering the personalities of the TARDIS crew for some misguided attempts at recapturing the first Doctor's crew dynamic. Apparently, even though everyone else saw very plainly that the first TARDIS crew cared for each other despite occasional bickering, Saward thought that bickering without any sign of them liking each other underneath it would work better. As a result in many of his episodes the fifth Doctor yaps off like a constipated hornet!
I have to say, I do wonder where the thought of the fifth Doctor being the 'nice one' comes from? He's nowhere near as genuinely kind as the second...in fact, he's often more bad-tempered than the first at his worst! I suppose it's Peter Davison's naturally good-tempered personality coming through, as he is a genuinely kind person by all reports. But as for the fifth Doctor being 'nice'...hardly!
Back to the topic though, I don't think Saward had much of a sense of humour at all. Either that or it just didn't seem funny in most of his bleak, unenjoyable scripts. I will give him 'Revelation of the Daleks' though...that was a genuinely clever, interesting story, but it was too little and too late as far as I'm concerned. Why couldn't we have had that level of colour and action with 'Earthshock'? Why couldn't 'Resurrection of the Daleks' have been that entertaining?
I will also admit that even Orcini, Kara, and the rest of the motley crew on Necros are surprisingly likable for Saward characters, so where was he hiding them all those years anyway? Jane Hampden was nice, but then again she was mainly Eric Pringle's creation, and then there was that atrocious Will Chandler who was apparently added into the script of 'The Awakening' because Saward wanted a token historical cabbagehead. I'm so glad he didn't end up travelling with the Doctor as JN-T and Saward had discussed! He was absolutely awful!!
Even though some fans dismiss Holmes' episodes as 'formulaic' or whatnot, even if the earlier Who serials had more of a formula, at least it worked and at least the situations were unique enough to be memorable and engaging. It doesn't really matter how unique a situation is in a show if it doesn't entertain you by watching it. If you find yourself bored or annoyed or wanting to switch the channel, ultimately I think the writer has failed.
Honestly I thought 'Earthshock' was every bit as bad as 'Time-Flight'; I think the tide is turning that way even in the opinion of a lot of Who fans who formerly put it endlessly up on a pedestal. If you look at it plainly, it really is nothing but a bunch of poorly-strung-together 'shocks', which don't hold up to repeated viewings. Although it was indeed shocking at the time that the Cybermen had returned, and equally shocking that one of the Doctor's companions was being written out, if you look at it after a screening or two you see how weak the plot really is and how implausible all the concepts are.
Even in the first twenty minutes there are innumerable continuity errors; in one scene the radar is said to pick up signs from only alien life forms, yet in the very next the entire team in the caverns is shown on it along with the Doctor, Nyssa, and Tegan, who is a human! It furthermore even detects that the Doctor has two hearts...something that you must wonder why such a sensor was built into the thing? Then later in the story, it's plain to see that one of the troops of Scott's group gets grabbed by a Cyberman going into the TARDIS, then she's back again and someone else is gone, then she's gone again! And there are so many other questions, such as: how did the Cybermen get to Earth to plant the bomb that they were going to explode before they invaded? Why explode a bomb before invading anyway? Why were thousands of Cybermen left on the freighter, to blow up on impact with Earth? Why were they there in the first place, instead of smuggled in, in lower quantities, to attract less attention? How were they planning to evacuate the freighter if the TARDIS hadn't coincidentally been there? And so on...just so many plot holes and horrible writing. [contd]
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hushicho
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Dr Who
May 24, 2004 22:30:12 GMT -5
Post by hushicho on May 24, 2004 22:30:12 GMT -5
[contd from previous post] That's not to say it was all bad though; Tegan got some of her best writing of the first season on her own with Scott's group, giving a more gentle and sympathetic side of her character that we had not really seen much of up to this point. Furthermore, Adric also actually got to do something for once before shuffling off...this was another weakness of Saward's scriptwriting though as he hadn't worked it into hardly anything else beforehand, and nobody had made good use of the boy since his introduction in 'Full Circle', which was a waste of a potentially magnificent character. Nyssa was all but forgotten in this; I know she wasn't intended to be in the TARDIS crew originally and was a last-minute addition, but come on...Saward's the script editor. Having her be stranded in the TARDIS for over half the serial for no reason other than plot convenience was pathetic. In fact, so many things in this story happened solely for plot expediency rather than making sense. Even the Doctor's token request of Adric to do some multiplication...a simple product that any grade-school child could've done with their eyes closed! 'Time-Flight' really was very awful throughout; the BBC got all the location filming permissions and everything, yet saw fit to use the cheapest set imaginable (cheap even for Dr Who), and CSO for some of the airport scenes! I mean, good grief! They could've at least had genuine exterior scenes at the airport, but several of them were achieved using CSO, which of course looked atrocious. I think the whole Concorde thing was very nice though and is now a neat little piece of history; I'm not so concerned about them being dated, since the Doctor and his companions were there in the 80s, and not in present day obviously; ultimately anything in a contemporary setting, made in the past, is going to appear dated in the future (look at the 60s adventures for example), so I don't mind that so much. Kind of nostalgic really, which makes 'Time-Flight' perhaps a bit more watchable for it. Still, it's unfortunate that it's a whole lot of nothing crammed into nearly two hours of suffering. I did think there were some particularly good aspects to 'Time-Flight' though; for one, the fact that the Doctor throws around his bureaucratic weight at the beginning and actually uses his UNIT affiliation for something really impressed me. It seems like almost every time he's on Earth in the 80s and in trouble, he never calls in a favour or calls upon his high-up contacts! Even in the third Doctor's adventures, he was constantly calling upon his resources. As you were saying earlier though, I think Saward was again trying to push the Master into too many adventures to try and recapture the feel of earlier eras, and it became so ridiculous after a while. I think The Completely Useless Encyclopedia said it best with the entry 'So you escaped from Castrovalva...', detailing that it got less and less plausible every time the Master popped up after facing certain destruction. I've heard mixed stories though on how Saward felt about the Master, so it could've been Nathan-Turner's influence, I don't know. Either way, even though Anthony Ainley's a sterling actor, I think you can certainly get too much of a good thing. And by using the Master in turkeys like 'Time-Flight', it really cheapens the character. Especially when he thinks the camera isn't on him. Oh yes, I agree with that totally. And all the people he met had these very lofty ideas for the show which impressed him, and that was good and everything, but none of them seemed to really have a respect for what had gone before, and they all wanted the change NOW. It was never gradual with them, it was always very abrupt and sudden; in their defence, though, I don't think Saward or Cartmel had enough experience under their belts, or talent to make up for lack of experience, to make it palatable to most of the viewers who'd followed for so long. Going from Douglas Adams' masterful script editing almost immediately to someone like Saward's makes it very, very obvious the change in quality of the writer. What they should've done was the gradual change of the earlier eras, which would've made it more palatable and better-received by the viewing public at large I think. For example, with the third Doctor UNIT were very gradually thinned out of the stories until they stopped appearing regularly just into the fourth Doctor's stint. With Saward and Cartmel, they would've just had UNIT stop being there one day I'd imagine! It was like that with the TARDIS interior issue with Cartmel, making a lot of scenes in 'Silver Nemesis', 'The Curse of Fenric', and 'Ghost Light', to name a few, extremely awkward and irritating for their level of inane voice-overs with shots of the TARDIS exterior and nobody around. No, no, 'The Seeds of Death', not 'The Seeds of Doom' -- similar title, but 'Doom' is fourth, while 'Death' is second. Ice Warriors rather than the Krinoid. I have wanted that DVD for a long while. Perhaps I'll pick it up soon. I love all the commentary people, so I think it can't help but be interesting. I had so many problems with my Key to Time boxed sets that I had to send one back, then sent the next one back for the same problem, and the same with the next; I think it may have been Amazon.com's group of shipments because the 'Androids of Tara' disc was always the faulty one. But the commentaries with those serials were hilarious and wonderful, Mary Tamm is brilliant and witty and Tom was getting on so well with her. I think someone actually went back and proved that Ridley Scott had ripped off a lot of 'Ark in Space's scenes in Alien!! I'm not really surprised though, because I actually saw 'Ark' before Alien, and I have to say the first time I actually confused the two! So I really think a lot of people don't give Dr Who enough credit...it's been ripped off by the best! As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! Anyway, I hope you don't think I despise the fifth through seventh Doctors...in fact, I love them all very much in different ways. They're all very different atmospheres, all very different feels to their episodes, so really it's difficult to compare them to each other at all. They're so vastly different due to the different sort of ambiance that the creative directors tried to promote with each season/Doctor/story. I have quite a few fifth Doctor adventures that I esteem very highly, and I have more of his DVD adventures than any other Doctor currently! Although I have to admit some of that's because of commentary. But overall, even if the writing was sometimes lacking, the fifth, sixth, and seventh Doctors were all quite likable. At times I think the personalities of the actors playing Doctors and companions carried the tales more than the dialogue or plot (or lack thereof!), and that's part of what makes us love Dr Who I think, as a programme. Ultimately it doesn't matter how cutting-edge it is, as long as it's fun. I hope the people involved with the new series remember that, as they well should. Otherwise I don't think they'll be able to recapture the magic that was and is Doctor Who, and will always be Doctor Who in my mind. It's a comfort show, it makes you feel secure to experience it. For a little while, you can be in that world and be terrified but at the same time feel totally safe. That's what makes it so special, to me. Sorry for rambling again. Love! Hushicho
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