The Newly Regenerated Doctor Who Thread

[Darth Marsden]

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

I meant the Christopher Eccleston series.

We know.

Why aren't you happy about going to the Tennant era? Did you like Eccleston?

[Secret Fawful]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

We know.

Why aren't you happy about going to the Tennant era? Did you like Eccleston?

I probably liked him too much. I've read before that most people consider their first Doctor their favorite. But I read an impression of Tennant I didn't like in this thread- namely that he remains continuously cheerful and goofy, and doesn't have the emotional switch the Eccleston Doctor had. And Eccleston's grin was really really charming. I know everyone loves Tennant to death, and his face is less obnoxious to me than the current Doctor's....but....I'm not sure I'll latch onto Tennant.

[Alcoremortis]

Tennant gets pretty damn depressing by the end of his run. I've seen this as something of a trend with Doctors. See, he starts out fun and goofy, and you get to watch as he slowly deteriorates into something completely different by the end. Still funny, just very different. And, at times, a little scary.

[divisionten]

Going to be honest... the Season 1 reboot isn't that good. Not Eccelson's fault- its the combined function of a low budget and not growing its beard quite yet. ldo farting aliens. Why.

[Secret Fawful]

I feel like Eccleston could have only gotten better with a couple more seasons to him. I'm probably more disappointed he only did one if anything. The farting was pretty bad.

[Ribs]

Tennant does a fine job - Christopher Eccleston did a good job too. The entire RTD era (meaning Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant's time on the show) is essentially geared around an eventual ultimate emotional payout that's accomplished both at the conlclusion of The Stolen Earth and eventually when Russell T Davies leaves after The End of Time.

It seems common so many people who start from Series One get attached to Christopher Eccleston and have low expectations for Tennant, but are eventually won over. The ultimate emotional payout hopefully gets the full effect it should on you, though.

And he only left after one series because the Director for the first filming block treated him like a jerk so he quit. So blame him.

[Tjibbbe]

So I finished watching every episode of Doctor Who a while back. I took a little break from Who for a while, but now I'm itching for some more to hold me over until the rest of the season and the anniversary in November. I don't have the time/money to fully explore Big Finish just yet, so for the coming months I decided to limit myself to the various 50th anniversary offerings. That means I'll have a comic, a novel and an audio adventure every month. Should be enough to hold me over!

I bought these three:



Sort of enjoyable, but nothing special. In a way, the story is a sequel to one of Hartnell's worst (The Web Planet), but I actually appreciated their choice of enemy. It doesn't feel like a Tennant/Smith adventure with Hartnell's face smeared over it (apart from one action sequence that the BBC would never be able to afford back in the 60s). Not too fond of the artwork though. The Doctor looks okay, but Ian, Barbara and Vicky don't look anything like themselves (Ian and Barbara look fine on the cover, but the comic itself is drawn by a different artist). It feels short with the story being nothing more than the simple "Doctor arrives, gets taken by monster, monster gets destroyed" with a clue to the overarching story at the beginning and end. Maybe it feels short because the Hartnell's stories always felt like they went on forever, but I hope the story gets more interesting in later issues.



Haven't managed to finish this one yet. It's very short, but it doesn't feel like the first Doctor at all. I heard bad things about this before I bought it, and I wasn't a fan of Colfer to begin with (let's just say I adored Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy back in highschool, before he got his hands on it), but I decided to buy it anyway. Not sure if I'll bother going back to it. Avoid.



This isn't my first time listening to something from Big Finish. I listened to the first season of the New Eight Doctor Adventures (or whatever that was called) a while back and enjoyed it (more the acting than the actual stories). I haven't had a chance to sit down to listen to this completely. This is a slightly different format than the usual Doctor Audios, with Carole Ann Ford playing both the narrator and Susan, and one other male actor for a student at Susan's school (Ford does all the other voices, including the Doctors'). I assume they'll go back to their usual model when they reach Tom Baker. Does anyone know if it's confirmed if 9, 10 and 11 are doing their own voices later in the year? Looking forward to listening to this on a lazy sunday afternoon.

I love the concepts behind these three projects, even if the comic and the novel (especially that one) weren't that special. I'm usually not someone who dives into the extended universe of a franchise I'm fond of, but having these three storylines to follow for the anniversary-year feels like a nice way to end my giant, nerdy classic series marathon of the past couple of years.

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by Ribs

The entire RTD era (meaning Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant's time on the show) is essentially geared around an eventual ultimate emotional payout that's accomplished both at the conlclusion of The Stolen Earth and eventually when Russell T Davies leaves after The End of Time.

Absolutely not what I felt. That "finale" was made up on the spot, that was fairly evident. They parked Billie out of the picture hoping she'd come back one day, but then decided for a big wrap up after four and a half Seasons when David decided to retire, so they could completely reboot. It felt every bit as spontaneous as it probably was, and I really didn't like the way it went down.

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful

I feel like Eccleston could have only gotten better with a couple more seasons to him. I'm probably more disappointed he only did one if anything.

The disappointment is justified. Being overwhelmed by one role is one thing - but only after 12 episodes?! If he had continued, and had played the role through Tennant's episodes however, I believe that he would have done a fine job as well. But there is no need for you to worry about Tennant being all goofy. I'm just watching through the Seasons again, have passed Blink just ten minutes ago, and I can say that Tennant gets plenty of opportunity to act solemn, even desperate, and boy he CAN do this. "Human Nature"/"Family of Blood" are episodes where he hardly even smiles that much.

The first Season (2005) hasn't got the best episodes, so don't despair because Eccleston is out of the picture. Good things are coming (not exclusively though).

[Ribs]

Originally Posted by Vainamoinen

Absolutely not what I felt. That "finale" was made up on the spot, that was fairly evident. They parked Billie out of the picture hoping she'd come back one day, but then decided for a big wrap up after four and a half Seasons when David decided to retire, so they could completely reboot. It felt every bit as spontaneous as it probably was, and I really didn't like the way it went down.

Well, to go into a spoiler tag-y argument:
The thing is Russell did clearly have a multi-series plan from the get-go; this is definitely clear. He's been open in the writer's tale about how he had his grand plan for the Master to return at the end of Series Three since before the series came back (which was absolutely brilliant, incedentally [for the uninformed, he pretended for the entire five years between the series announcement and Utopia that he absolutely hated the character of the Master just so he could do that Twist as effectively as possible]). I think it's clear looking at the Christmas Invasion that Russell definitely had, at least at that point, definitely decided he wanted to do a fake-out regeneration. I think that's the emotional climax of the entire era. Russell deliberately, once Billie left, turned the entire show about a man who's lost the love of his life. And he did it verys uccesfully, though I hate the way Martha's treated. But it was all a ploy, an arc made entirely so when the big reunion finally happens in Stolen Earth, it's all the more earth-shatteringly shocking when the cliffhanger happens (it remains the single most effective cliffhanger since the show came back, despite the lackluster resolution).

End of Time, on the other hand, was an afterthought. However, Russell T Davies clearly analyzed and thought over every possibility just so, come the End of Time, the largest amount of the audience felt emotionally distraught as possible. I was incredibly sad upon first viewing of End of Time. Though I hate everything about the basic principles of a reunion tour and the whole I don't want to go thing in the sense it's rejecting the show's change when it's done nothing but encourage it in the past, it's a brilliant piece of showrunning in terms of making the audience feel attached one last time.

So my opinion is RTD clearly, under Tennant from Series 2 to 4, built to the emotional climax/maximum emotional response of Rose and Doctor Who's reunion, but the specials year clearly took the emotional impact of that and used it to build towards the same height for the entire last 20 minutes of End of Time.

I do love both moments in the sense of them being brilliant television, though I really dislike everything about the End of Time in terms of it not being very much in the spirit of Doctor Who as it's come to be.

tl;dr Russell did good job.

[FitzoliverJ]

Yes! It's the 50th Anniversary year, and a classic "Doctor Who" guest star is returning.... just not, unfortunately, to "Doctor Who".

http://forums.comicbookresources.com...iderman-17-yes

Have to take what we can get, yes?

[coolsome]

[Ribs]

Originally Posted by coolsome

But UNIT isn't a top secret orginization! It's essentially just a more military-oriented version of the United Nations (hence the name).

Torchwood, on the other hand, is a name so drenched in secret it took Doctor Who 13 whole weeks to learn what it truly was. And they also drive around in a big van that says "TORCHWOOD" on the side.

[coolsome]

Bloody Torchwood!

[Ribs]

Ooh, apparently Big Finish are announcing a range this Wednesday called "the Early Years", with one of the releases featuring Peter Purves and Jean Marsh as their respective companions. What could it mean?

[FitzoliverJ]

Y'know, you've really got to start citing all your Big Finish news!

(Hmm... "The Early Years" was the title of the B7 audio series chronicling adventures of the characters before "Blake's 7". Could it be something similar? I gather "Return of the Rocket Men" is partly set in Steven's past, and of course Sara Kingdom had lots of adventures with Daleks and whatnot. Certainly more mileage than some of the other companions for prequel adventures - marvel! as Perpugilliam Brown looks at plants! thrill! to the sounds of Victoria Waterfield running her father's household!)

[Ribs]

Originally Posted by FitzoliverJ

Y'know, you've really got to start citing all your Big Finish news!

(Hmm... "The Early Years" was the title of the B7 audio series chronicling adventures of the characters before "Blake's 7". Could it be something similar? I gather "Return of the Rocket Men" is partly set in Steven's past, and of course Sara Kingdom had lots of adventures with Daleks and whatnot. Certainly more mileage than some of the other companions for prequel adventures - marvel! as Perpugilliam Brown looks at plants! thrill! to the sounds of Victoria Waterfield running her father's household!)

Peter Purves and Jean Marsh did a panel on stage at a convention together, and said it. They also said they'd be doing it together, so it seems more likely it'll be original stories done in the format of the First Doctor Lost Stories (meaning third-person Companion Chronicles that are 2 or 3 hours long).

It's nice to see Jean Marsh is returning to work though, her stroke a year and a half ago was really quite sad as she's someone I like from a number of non-Doctor Who things as well.

[Tjibbbe]

Listened to the first part of Destiny of the Doctor and really liked it. The story wasn't very strong, especially towards the end, but Carole Ann Ford did a fine job narrating the story (even though her Hartnell sounds a bit weird), and the dialogue sounded like the original characters as well. The atmosphere was well done, and there was a nice tease to what I think was the eleventh Doctor calling a radio station and requesting a song for Susan. I found out that all the episodes are going to be in this format, with one companion narrating and doing all the voices, and one new actor playing one new character. Bit of a shame, I hoped they would be full audio plays starting with the Fourth Doctor.

Still, I just found out that the second episode (the Troughton one) is already available on AudioGo, and cheaper than on Big Finish, so I bought that one too. Couldn't wait for that one, because he's my favorite Doctor by far. Listened to the beginning and I'm already impressed by Jamie's version of the second Doctor. He sounds almost exactly like him! Quite a nice surprise. Can't comment on the story yet until I've had enough time to listen to all of it.

[Ribs]

Originally Posted by Tjibbbe

Listened to the first part of Destiny of the Doctor and really liked it. The story wasn't very strong, especially towards the end, but Carole Ann Ford did a fine job narrating the story (even though her Hartnell sounds a bit weird), and the dialogue sounded like the original characters as well. The atmosphere was well done, and there was a nice tease to what I think was the eleventh Doctor calling a radio station and requesting a song for Susan. I found out that all the episodes are going to be in this format, with one companion narrating and doing all the voices, and one new actor playing one new character. Bit of a shame, I hoped they would be full audio plays starting with the Fourth Doctor.

It's the wrong attitude, I think; there are absolutely positives and stories you can't tell by using the enhanced format, and it also happens to make them considerably cheaper as well. That said, it'll all be narrarated by mostly companions - seeing as McGann's will likely be Eight during the Time War, it's probably McGann with a guest on his, and I'd also put it not past David Tennant to be doing it on his, simply as he's apparently so willing to do it from every oppurtunity people have asked him.

[Darth Marsden]

I'll be interested to see what they do for the 9th Doctor in that format. I would say Noel Clark, but...

[Ribs]

Originally Posted by Darth Marsden

I'll be interested to see what they do for the 9th Doctor in that format. I would say Noel Clark, but...

Given Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston would sooner drop dead then return, John Barrowman seems the safe bet, especially as AudioGo have worked with him in the past and may be able to pull the strings on behalf of Big Finish. Noel Clarke is pretty likely too, though he might be a bit "I don't need Doctor Who, I'm in Star Trek now!". Similarly, Big Finish has worked with Arthur Darvill so he's rather likely for it, but fun-fact they almost cast Matt Smith to play a companion one time so there's a chance they'd be able to bring him in too.