Really, it's no worse than a number of other Doctor Who, and better than the first Tom Baker or McCoy stories. The main beef at the time was the American Violence, where as the exact same scenes done by a UK crew wouldn't have been commented on. The show had the task of setting up a new series for an audience that had never heard of it, yet keeping it in continuity with the original. I did like making the Doctor half human. it's the kind of retcon that actually makes sense (more so than the entire idea of regeneration, which wasn't invented until the 4th Doctor. Doctor 1 was "rejuvenated" into a younger version of himself, and Doctor 2 just had his face changed into #3).

Favorite story? Gonna depend on mood. The whole e-space trilogy is great. Toss in Earthshock, The Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks, and the above mentioned Silence in the Library.

Favorite Doctor? #6, Colin Baker, which might also answer your third question.

I will go out on a limb and say I liked Adric, the "Weasley Crusher" of Doctor Who.

Oh, now THERE is a good idea! The 5th Pirates movie is actually a reboot of the Oh, God! movies!

In a way, Netflix now is no different than HBO. They get a monthly fee from you, regardless of if you watch anything. Their goal is to give you enough content that you'll keep paying the fee. Just like HBO started doing original stuff to toss in with their airings of movies, concerts and stand up comedy at the beginning, then TV series, so Netflix is doing the same. The difference is, they know exactly how many are watching the originals, so none of that "the ratings don't tell us everything" excuse. Pirating these shows WILL kill them

If you remember that chat, you weren't there, man...

Reduce scarcity of items people need to live, good.
Reduce scarcity of items people need to sell to live, bad.

The DVD is waiting in the mailbox, so I've only listened to the intro so far, but... really? Nobody read at least the Tarzan books as a kid? It's amazing how something can keep going for a century as adaptations and the originals become ignored...

I think they're looking at the movie and asking why it bombed, when obviously whether or not something bombs does in fact have more to do with the marketing and trailers. I thought the books were great fun, even though I didn't get to them until I was an adult (as a kid, I was "above" SF that wasn't realistic). The ads just looked stupid, so I avoided it.

As for why Avatar did well and this didn't... well, a couple things.
a) Avatar was first. Don't discount this. The Avatar experience was new, exciting. Audiences often give the first to do something a pass, coming down harder on later versions that yes may be better.
b) Nobody saw it, so nobody knew John Cater was better. This is the more important thing. The movie doesn't matter if people don't want to see it. I went to a free preview of Titan A.D. years ago. The audience liked it, the comments coming out being things like "Well, it was better than the live action SF we've been getting". But, it bombed. Why? Animated SF just didn't get people into theaters to even see if it was any good. Disney's Treasure Planet suffered the same fate.

I've said it before, I'd love for the Doctor to travel with Susan's kids

See, this is why you shouldn't have continuity in Doctor Who No epic arcs, no main characters or companions with dark secrets. Make the damned thing episodic again, at least for a decade or so...