Doctor Who

I don't get BBC America and I never bothered to watch the show when it was on SciFi/Syfy. I knew the basics -- time traveling alien that regenerates as a new actor every so often and zooms around in a flying police box -- but that was it. But a friend of mine from across the pond had the premiere on his laptop and showed it to me. I was completely enchanted, with a 65 minute jaunt that was totally accessible.

NOTE: SPOILERS

The Doctor has apparently just finished regenerating, and his police box is crashing and burning over London. It crashes into a garden shed behind an old country house in a little English village. From there it takes on the air of a fairy tale, with the Doctor as a most unreliable fairy godparent. Matt Smith is delightful as a good-natured fellow who broadcasts total confidence as everything goes to pieces around him. Living in the house in front of the garden shed is a seven year old Scottish girl named Amelia Pond. She indulges his eccentricities, sure that he has been sent to her to fix the most ominous crack in her wall. As it turns out, he's uniquely qualified for the job but not so great at dealing with the unintended consequences. Events transpire that dramatically transform Amelia's life, until the Doctor meets her again twelve years later, now played by Karen Gillan, armed with her own accumulated eccentricities. Gillan's job is a thankless one, basically to react to the craziness that surrounds the Doctor. What makes her so effective is that the way she reacts is sometimes more surprising than what she is reacting to. Her Amy Pond is pretty in a fairly natural sort of way, but she's allowed to carry a hefty share of the humor. I would be willing to watch a show starring her character even without the Doctor to bounce off of. The dialog, especially between Pond and the Doctor, is constant and unyielding, bringing to mind the meter of speech from "The West Wing".

CONCLUSION: I need to find somebody with BBC America and hope future episodes aren't gutted like the "Life on Mars" eps tended to be.

Based on what I saw of the episodes when I was at the gym working out, I'd never EVER watch Dr Who on BBC America. Specificly, the episode was The Fires of Pompeii, and the whole bloody ending was butchered! Seriously ravaged with a massive spike (with plenty of splinters) up the ass! The entire emotional content and coda was removed!

So, no - I'll keep -ahem- getting them through other means*.

*and before the "You cant pirate! It's wrong! " crowd goes nuts on me, I'll just point to my entire Who collection on DVD, consisting of every single episode (the one that's propped up by my mountain of David Tennant action figures). Aunty Beeb will get her money from me soon enough. I have no guilt here.

Besides, that would mean waiting another 14 days for the episodes. I would surely explode if I had to wait longer. (:

BBC America has stopped editing the episodes, at least for their premiere and possibly all together so edited episodes aren't a concern anymore. If you think BBC America was ruthless with their editing you should be lucky you didn't have to watch Journeys End on the CBC here in Canada. They cut out 20 minutes to fit the 65 minute episode into a 60 minute slot with commercials.You can read a list of the edits here: http://dwin.org/article.php?sid=262 The CBC also decided to skip Voyage of the Damned entirely and it still hasn't aired in english on Canadian tv.

The Eleventh Hour is a good episode with lots of foreshadowing. The new opening titles and theme tune will take awhile to get used to but I'm confidant that Doctor Who is in good hands. Its great to finally have a full season again. I don't know how fans survived the wilderness years of 1989-2005.

Really? Ouch - 20 minutes! That;s sad indeed.

As for the 16 years of nothing - well, I did have Big Finish audios and the novel range to keep me going. But you know the old joke: How many Dr Who fans does it take to change a lightbulb? None - they just sit patiently in the dark and wait for it to come back on. (:

As for the episode, it was good - but it's a bit hard to judge if I like the new guy from it or not, being that he's got the post regeneration jitters and all. Give me a couple more weeks to evaluate him and give him a fair shake, and THEN I'll tell you where he stacks up.

Well, two episodes into it, and the show is still pretty rough. I've not quite warmed to the new guy yet, and the story was good but kind of rough around the edges. Actually, rough is a good way of putting it - yeah sure it's been running for the last 40 years, but with an all new cast and crew (mostly) you really have to come into it like it's a brand new show. It's still in the shakedown portion of the voyage, working the kinks out.

Doesnt help matters that I watched the Sarah Jane episodes with David guest-starring right before I put on the Beast Below - wow, what a contrast between the two doctors. Ah well, I'll give Matt a fair shake before rendering a final judgment.

And of course next week - Daleks! Always cool to get the Daleks! (:

I have no other choice but to get the show using "alternate means." I have one shot to watch the show in its original format with all of its emotional impact left untouched, and the only choices I have are to watch it live on the BBC in the UK (which I can't do since I don't live there), or get it on the Internet.

North America is a territory where for a multitude of boneheaded reasons, foreign productions are routinely butchered beyond recognition, ruling out every single North American broadcaster as a reliable source for high quality BBC television programs. We have no other choice but to obtain them via alternate (and 100% reliable) sources.

As for the choice of the new Doctor and companion, I definitely like. And while the look of the new Doctor Who is miles ahead of what was presented from the sixties to the eighties, by keeping the technique of occasionally replacing the Doctor and companion at regular intervals, this ensures we have a fresh new crew at the helm without altering the general premise of the show. It's a fantastic anti-boredom device.

Churchill and Daleks working together? What the...

 Matt and Karen are doing fine. Scripts need a bit of work but I am sure we are in fine hands with Moffit. Give it time people. The first couple of episodes with Eccelston were a bit wet as well.

Seriouly, if I suffered through horrible episodes like Cyberwoman and Countrycide - AND still made it to the end of the season - a couple of weak episodes at the start of a season with a new Doctor isn't going to put me off.

Aren't Cyberwoman and Countrycide from Torchwood?

To be honest, I actually liked Countrycide very much.

I agree that we still haven't had the "knock-out" ep like "Blink" or "The Girl in the Fireplace." The adventures have been mild, at worst. I think the Doctor and Amy are just fine, though, and I have enjoyed their interaction. And yes, I can't wait for Daleks defending Britain in WWII. LOL.

Yeah, but that's more or less the point - if it were not thanks to my loyalty to the parent program, I would have given up on Torchwood long before the end of the first season. So if I can make it through a season of shit (more or less), and come out the other end with awesome episodes like Children of Earth, then I can put up with a couple of "Meh" Who episodes while they find their feet.

As a "Doctor Who" newbie, I have to ask: are the companions usually as independent as Amy Pond? She more or less forces the Doctor to treat her as an equal, even when he clearly doesn't intend to. She doesn't take it for granted that this ancient extraterrestrial with vast, practically omnipotent knowledge will make the right decisions.

I think the second episode was about further fleshing out the new Doctor's personality; underneath the happy-go-lucky, breezy surface is an arrogant, angry, deeply passionate intellect that respects and admires compassion but isn't necessarily compassionate by first instinct.

That depends on when in the series you are talking about. Back in the 60's, the roll of the companion was largely someone to scream at the monsters and trip over things and twist their ankles. Later in the 70's, they were tougher, womens libbers with spunk and fire (And occasionally moments of screaming at the monsters and twisting ankles). Sarah Jane, Leela and Romana were pretty independent - and in the case of Romana, a peer of the Doctor.

In the 80's, the companion was more eye candy that anything (Peri, for example) - except for Ace, who attacked Daleks with a baseball bat.

Actually Ace was more or less where the series would take Rose, a well developed character with episodes dedicated to fleshing out her backstory. She took no shit and was very much the equal of the Doctor.

I disagree with a lot of what Tony said! ;-)  :-)

Who companions have pretty much always been smart, independent characters. In the 60s, the first two (human) companions, Ian and Barbara, were teachers.  Dr Who started off more as an educational show (focus on historicals), with monsters occasionally thrown in.  The Doctor had several companions accompany him at the time.  The scriptwriters would generally split the companions up so that one pairing would have to rescue the other.

For most of the time after the Doctor's second regeneration, there would be one companion only - and that companion was invariably a pretty girl.  Sometimes she'd be a bit wishy-washy (Jo, Peri) but much more often than not she'd be independent and headstrong - all the better for going wandering off and getting herself into trouble.

80's companions more eye-candy than anything?  Nah.  Nyssa was beautiful but intellectual.  Teagan was a short, loud-mouthed Aussie.  Adric a maths genius.  Turlough wanted to kill the Doctor.  Peri *was* eye-candy!  Mel definitely not eye-candy and had a terribly shrill scream but was very independent too - and did boss the Doctor about.  Ace was just a yob.

My favourite periods of Who have been whenever there were multiple companions - and usually the second (male) companion was excellent, from Ian, to Jamie, the Brigadier, Harry and Turlough.  (forget Adric, ha!).  I hope New Who will add some more companions and it make it less about the Doctor... unfortunately I don't see that happening.

Adam, your question is rather like the question that always gets asked of the new Bond girl, "Is your character stronger, more independent, than the past Bond girls?"  With a few exceptions, they always *were* strong and independent. :-)

I'll give you that Barbra was a strong, well written character, but Susan couldnt go 30 feet without screaming or twisting an ankle - so much so that Carol Anne Ford left the series because her part had degenerated into helpless damsel in distress. Heck, Victoria killed a monster of the week by screaming into the PA system in Fury from the Deep.


But still she was the weakest of the 5th Doctor era - and even she too succumbed to gratuitous eye candy for no good reason, when apparently one of the sysmptems of the Lazars Plague was "Take off all your clothes down to your underwear".

Nyssa the weakest?!  Take that back! :-D  I adored Nyssa....  yes, I was about 5 at the time, but she was miles better than Adric despite her being totally underused.  Her strip-down on Terminus was more weird than anything else, but that was such a strange story anyway.  If you include the introduction of Peri that's just two intentionally-gratuitous moments in the whole of 80's Who.  Include the other Peri "wobbles" and that's still not enough to back up your original statement! :-P

Okay, I should clarify - she was the weakest of the female companions. If you throw Adric into the mix, then yeah, she's not the lowest on the ladder. Still, she was never my favorite of the bunch*. But yeah, fair enough.

*At least on television. She's been handled much better in the Big Finish audio range and Sarah Sutton's gotten a chance to show off her acting chops there.

Anyway, off I go to watch Victory of the Daleks. . . .

Why should Amy Pond have remembered the Daleks?

I haven't seen Victory of the Daleks yet so I don't really know what you're referring to but the Daleks invaded London sometime in 2007 in the season 2 episode Doomsday where they openly fought the Cybermen and at some point in 2009 the Daleks moved the Earth halfway across the galaxy and invaded the planet in full force for the season 4 finale. There's no way these events could be covered up so Amy and the rest of the world should be aware of the Daleks, assuming she comes from a point after 2007.

That makes sense; thanks! BTW, what's the policy for this thread? Should we assume that spoiler tags should be used until BBC America has aired an episode?

Finally finished watching Victory of the Daleks. It's the most uneven episode of the three.

Good bits:
* The Doctor finally clicked with me. His anger at the daleks was brilliant stuff, and I loved how he held everyone hostage with a cookie - a total Tom Baker move.
* The chemestry between Amy and the Doctor is finally starting to come together. Sure she didnt have much to do in the epsisode (save for the ending), but she worked well with the Doctor while doing it.

Not so good bits
* The plot was complete rubbish. Now, grant you - it's no more insane a dalek plan that carving out the core of a planet to install an engine so they can drive it around the universe, so I'll give that a pass. However putting together space worth spitfires from hypothetical plans AND training the RAF pilots to fly said spitfires all in the spane of about 10 minuets - that's crazy! Even with your check the brain at the door moments, I still enjoyed the episode mostly.
* The redesigned daleks! Blech! Phooey! The eye stalk is cool and I kind of dig the gunstick shoulder area, and I really like the Color Coded for Your Convenience color scheme the Daleks now sport (very Peter Cushing), but the Hunchback Daleks totally ruin the classic lines of the species. What the hell were they smoking!

I did like how they've finally stopped wiping out the daleks for the last time once and for all!, leaving them free to show up again later without the "I fell through time/I'm the last of my race" nonsense. It was fine for a while, but turning up the last of their kind five or six times now strains credibility. I'm good with Daleks just wandering the universe being evil.

Ah well, noit every episode is going to be pure gold. I 'm really interested in  next weeks episode, and how they can sustain the Weeping Angels as more than just one trick pony bad guys.

Problem with that is - what's the statute of limitations on spoilers? Canada is running beind the US (I believe), and Austrailia/New Zeleand (two big markets overseas) even further behind than that. Somebody, somewhere is going to get spoiled, unless we discuss the series six months down the road.

Canada just aired the first episode this past Saturday night.  FYI.  Not sure where the US is, but I know BBC aired episode 3 (Daleks) Saturday.

The episodes premiere in Canada and the US on the same date and time.

Watched The Eleventh Hour last night (PVRed from BBCAmerica Sat.).  Liked it pretty well.  While I thought there were a few rough edges, they were a lot smaller than expected. 

I think Matt Smith will fit in the role of the Doctor quickly, and the actress who play Amy is cute. 

Liked the food scene and thought the ending displaying the Doctors in succession was cool.

Looking forward to seeing where this season (series) takes us!

Despite what some of you may have already read about it, I absolutely LOVED the third ep. and gotta get me a set of the new bad guys for my home theater room.

Second ep was good, but I think we are still waiting on the "outta-the'ballpark" episode, like Blink was.

I found the third episode to be "okay." I was a bit distracted by the set since I've visited the cabinet war rooms a couple of years ago, and I was comparing what was in the episode with what I saw at the museum.

The set was way bigger than the actual place. And I suspect Churchill wasn't calling the Doctor from "the loo."

Next week will be very delicate. "Blink" was a masterstroke of creative writing, imagination and scary stuff. It'll be a very tough act to follow now that we know exactly what the Weeping Angels are.

This is starting to get interesting. The one thing I don't understand about the show is this: why, if you have a time machine, should there be any consequences to your actions? For instance, what would stop the Doctor from taking the TARDIS into Churchill's cabinet war room five minutes after they arrived in the last episode and warning himself not to identify the Daleks to themselves? It seems that, as long as the Doctor survives, no decision need have any lasting consequence.

I'm guessing that Dr. Green's wife from "E.R." has appeared on the show before. Does the show assume a certain amount of audience background knowledge for her character, or is she roughly as mysterious as she appeared to be to Amy Pond (and me)?

The stone angels are absolutely terrifying. I really enjoyed the idea that photography of them essentially becomes them, at least as long as the original image exists, because that ties in well with certain religions that believe being photographed is allowed a piece of your soul to be taken away.

The question does have to raised however: with thousands of stone angels in such close quarters how do they avoid looking at each other? It seems to me like they would all lock each other in place as they tried to surround the exploration party.