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I started Doctor Who with the 2nd series (the whole thing), then jumped back to the first. While I certainly agree the show gets better as it goes along, at least technically, I do regret having not started with the first series.
And yeah, Love and Monsters and Fear Her are both shit.
OK, can we just get rid of this whole "first series, 5th series" thing? The show started in 1963. Just name the Doctor. That's all the "series" information we need!
OK, can we just get rid of this whole "first series, 5th series" thing? The show started in 1963. Just name the Doctor. That's all the "series" information we need!
I did 
OK, can we just get rid of this whole "first series, 5th series" thing? The show started in 1963. Just name the Doctor. That's all the "series" information we need!
Sorry, I'm relatively new to the whole Doctor Who culture.
Personally, I've always preferred the 9th Doctor and wish Eccelston had gotten a longer run, than just regenerating in to Tenant.
Besides, technically it is the "first series, second series" from the reboot and Davies' starting to run it.
Speaking of "Fear Her" SFDebris just did is review of that episode and it is appropriately scathing:
http://sfdebris.com/videos/doctorwho/s28e11.asp
Invid wrote:OK, can we just get rid of this whole "first series, 5th series" thing? The show started in 1963. Just name the Doctor. That's all the "series" information we need!
Sorry, I'm relatively new to the whole Doctor Who culture.
Having completed seven series of New Who at this point, I can see a need to distinguish between each series under Tennant's run and Smith's run. And most New Who fans will never go back and watch any significant portion of the show's previous incarnations, so there's no need to placate Old Who fans by having a consistent numbering system. IMO, since they abandoned the serial format, New Who feels like a different beast altogether, anyway, and worthy of a restart.
I didn't like Eccelston's run on the show, but I would be interested to know what he would've been like with a different Companion. Rose was just awful. I started with series 4, and of all the Companions, Donna is still my favorite. Series 4 is also the only series with RTD as showrunner that I actually like, so it seems like as good a place to start as any. Tennant was much less mopey and annoying in series 4, the backstory doesn't loom over it too badly, it's just as polished as later series, and it ends with the beginning of new era. Plus, Catherine Tate's Donna really is really awesome.
There's also the bonus that you get Blink and the Library two-parter in their proper order.
So I decided to give the Doctor a try this week. My only previous Doctor Who-viewing experience was approximately a month's worth of Pertwee episodes when I was a kid and my local station ran the show on weekday afternoons for a while. That and the last few Torchwood series - liked Children of Earth very much, Miracle Day not so much.
So I tried Blink, since most sources say it's a really good episode. It was. Then Zarban recommended going to the other extreme and sampling the silliness of The Unicorn and the Wasp. So I did. Also fun.
That led directly to the library two-parter Cotterpin just mentioned, so I watched those as well just now. That was some twisted crazy stuff. But still fun.
The one impression I kept from those ancient Pertwee episodes, and which seems just as true in the four 21st century Who episodes I just watched (and Torchwood as well), is that one of the themes of Doctor Who is that the universe doesn't give a damn about anybody. Every episode seems to involve one or more random people getting royally farked by random circumstance.
Which is common in television in general, of course - every Law and Order and CSI episode starts with somebody getting murdered, for example - but something about the way Who handles it makes you really really feel bad for those poor random victims the Doctor leaves in his wake. And usually all the Doctor can do is say "yeah, I'm sorry the universe jacked you like that. Welp, gotta go." No wonder the poor guy's half-insane. Same goes for the immortal Jack Harkness from Torchwood, actually. Pretty dark stuff. I like it.
So those were all Tennant episodes obviously. I liked his semi-demented approach to the character, and the loopy sensibility of the show overall. I dunno what other Doctors might be like, maybe someday I'll give one of them a try.
That has reminded me, if anybody hasn't seen Torchwood: Children of Earth - watch it now! It's only five episodes long, but it's one of my favourite pieces of television of all time.
Do you need some sort of context to fully enjoy it?
I've been curious about Who for a long time, but I was scarred by a few minutes of one episode when I was very young (where some monsters come walking ashore from out of the sea)... and then I caught a bit of a christmas special a few years ago and just found it utterly bonkers.
Ya, can someone explain what the hell torchwood IS? How is it connected to Doctor Who? (without spoilers of course).
Do you need some sort of context to fully enjoy it?
Naah. I watched Children of Earth without knowing anything about modern Doctor Who or prior seasons of Torchwood. Loved it.
Here's all the back story you need:
Torchwood is a secret government group that investigates weird shit.
Not necessary to know, but : The connection to Doctor Who is that the leader of Torchwood was one of the Doctor's companions for a while. So he's seen a lot of weird shit.
Also, he's immortal. But you'll get that just from watching Children of Earth itself.
Trey is spot on. As a matter of fact, season 1 of Torchwood is abysmally horrid ("Oh, we are ADULT, see - bring on the nudity and gay sex for... wait what, do we need a reason"?), and Children of Earth is the Pinnacle of it, and can be watched by itself with no more knoweledge than abve.
And for Trey: The good part about Smith as the doctor is that he goes even more loopy. But I think you should bathe in a little more Tennant first 
/Z
Last edited by MasterZap (2013-07-11 18:27:09)
Ya, can someone explain what the hell torchwood IS? How is it connected to Doctor Who? (without spoilers of course).
The short short version is:
(Spoilered for people who don't want to know anything about Torchwood, some spoilers for a couple things that happen in DW surrounding Jack Harkness)
Due to some unfortunate timey-whimey wibbly wobbly things that happened when he was with the Doctor he has become a fixed point in time. Basically, he can't die, like ever, well, he does, but he always comes back to life (Children of Earth makes some very nice use of this to put all sorts of new horrifying nightmares into my nights)
And so this little ragtag group of genius' hunt down and protect earth from all the little baddies the doctor doesn't have time for...basically.
The actual TV run of the show spans the spectrum of campy and horribly cheesy to downright disturbing and thought provoking, so you kinda have to just stick with it sometimes. However yes, Children of Earth is some of the best TV ever created, it's dark, disturbing, horrifying, and just down right damn good.
Miracle Day on the other hand has it's moments, but on the whole is probably on par with some of the more mediocre episodes on the TV run (Had it been given a somewhat larger budget)
Personally, Jack Harkness is my favourite character to come out of all things Who next to the Doctor himself. Given everything we learn about him, he is just such a fascinating character who, unlike the Doc isn't so tightly bound to strict moral guidelines so he has some pretty serious shit in his past.
Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-07-11 18:33:26)
The great thing about Torchwood is that each series sort of reboots itself. Here in the UK it started on BBC Three and moved up the ladder as it went on, so it had to in a way reinvent itself each time for the new audience. As Zap said, the first series is a bit 'Look, we're swearing and we have an alien that feeds on orgasms!', but Children of Earth is just sublime.
Non sequitur to the current topic, but what happened to Intermission #59?
So I actually went by the hub last year and as you can tell I was really happy!
Teague wrote:
Cuz people drop like flies if the first Doctor Who they see is Rose.
Sure, if you start with Eccleston rather than Tennant. With him at least you only have one season of Rose before you start alternating companions at a seasonal rate. I won't defend her, definitely not my favorite companion, but I put up with one season of her with Tennant and then forced myself to watch Series 1 after I'd completed all of his and Smith's episodes...and I only did that for The Face of Boe...
Surprised no one on the panel has watched The Sopranos. I just finished it, and it's really superb. Totally deserving of all the praise heaped on it, and tons of fun to watch.
The one impression I kept from those ancient Pertwee episodes, and which seems just as true in the four 21st century Who episodes I just watched (and Torchwood as well), is that one of the themes of Doctor Who is that the universe doesn't give a damn about anybody. Every episode seems to involve one or more random people getting royally farked by random circumstance.
Yup. If I"m not mistaken, in the About Time books about the original series, they mention in only ONE story of the entire series does nobody die. ONE. The Doctor often seems to not be interested until some poor guy is killed (the 4th Doctor was usually guilty of this).
The idea that the Doctor showing up is a sign for people to panic, as something horrible is going to happen, is a fun one that I think New Who dealt with for a bit.
Just for the fun of it, I looked at the wiki entry for the 1981 Lone Ranger movie. I never saw it in theaters, for the same reason nobody else did: the horrible PR regarding TV Lone Ranger Clayton Moore. Basically, the new owners of the rights forbid the old guy from wearing the mask at county fair appearances, and came out looking like evil bullies (not good in Reagan's new America!). I do remember catching it on TV much later, and thinking it wasn't horrible. I'm now amused to see a) Christopher Lloyd played the bad guy, and b) they re-dubbed the voice of the guy playing the Lone Ranger. That... well, that's a special kind of stupid.
Trey wrote:The one impression I kept from those ancient Pertwee episodes, and which seems just as true in the four 21st century Who episodes I just watched (and Torchwood as well), is that one of the themes of Doctor Who is that the universe doesn't give a damn about anybody. Every episode seems to involve one or more random people getting royally farked by random circumstance.
Yup. If I"m not mistaken, in the About Time books about the original series, they mention in only ONE story of the entire series does nobody die. ONE. The Doctor often seems to not be interested until some poor guy is killed (the 4th Doctor was usually guilty of this).
The idea that the Doctor showing up is a sign for people to panic, as something horrible is going to happen, is a fun one that I think New Who dealt with for a bit.
Yeah, that was a fun part of Rose's research in to the Doctor when she first encounters him. A kind of internet, conspiracy theory, researcher (think British X-Files) tells her that if the Doctor shows up, run.
I think Tenant did a great job and how some excellent episodes, but I wish Eccelston had gone on for longer. I always liked Captain Jack, but Torchwood never grew on me, so I passed on it. I would watch it if Faldor was in it. Though, I was annoyed at how many 9th Doctor episodes occurred in Cardiff. But, now I know where that is:
Never knew it was so close 
So, wait, the panel really likes The Newsroom? I've never watched it, but I thought it was pretty much universally acknowledged to be terrible.
Universally acknowledged? Hell no.
I liked it a lot, interesting characters (Olivia Munn's especially, since she's incredibly smart), some great dynamics between the characters (the two principals in particular), clever writing, and a presentation of the 'ideal news program' that we all want to believe is real somewhere. It's let down by a crass romantic subplot (which was done much better in Studio 60) and it occasionally dips into the bucket of sentimental sanctimony.
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