Dr. Who -- It's bigger on the inside!

[Emi]

Although I haven't seen the first three seasons of Dr. Who, I have to say that it is by far the most intriguing show I have seen on SciFi. I know it is on BBC America, but I don't get that. Sadly.

Anyway, I'm starting this thread to talk about The Doctor and all of his lovely "mates".

And there's also the new Doctor... Matt Smith. Any comments?

[Septimus]

My father was a big fan of doctor who. i watched a few episodes but i guess i kind of forgot about a while ago.

[Kathy Li]

I've been watching Doctor Who since the new show started up; prior to that, I was only really familiar with the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker. I used to watch the show after school when I was a kid, so the new show, with all of its callbacks to the older series has been a blast. I remember Sarah Jane Smith. I think the fourth series has been the best so far, and I'm a little sad that we're only getting four specials this year, and then we say goodbye to Russell T. Davies as the showrunner, and then Steven Moffat takes over, and we'll probably be on a different rollercoaster ride. Probably just as much fun (or more), though.

I also watch the two spin-off shows, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood. Of the two, SJA is the stronger show, partly because they're actually following the traditional Who format (serials in half-hour parts). Torchwood's first season was just... ewwwww. It got stronger in the second year, though. I'm actually kind of happy we only get a five-part miniseries this year with Torchwood, in direct contrast to Who.

I've only seen Matt Smith in one thing (the two adaptations of Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart series: The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North), and he seems like a really good actor. And Steven Moffat knows how to cast, no question. Jekyll was proof enough of that. So I'm not worried about where things are going.

It is kind of funny though that, as someone once pointed out, as the Doctor gets older, he finds the need to keep regenerating himself into younger and younger incarnations. One is also wondering if they're going to have to find some story workaround for the 12-regenerations limit for Time Lords. OTOH (depending on how you count the season 4 finale), we still have three more doctors to go.

Also, Emi, you may want to reread High Wizardry, and about the Man in the Bar.

[alla]

And I'd just thought of coming in here and starting a Doctor Who thread

I started watching Doctor Who after reading, participating in and becoming fascinated by the Man in the bar thread (http://www.youngwizards.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61. That topic kinda devolved into the 'Dr. Who fan club' thread... Uhoh, I cringe at some of my early posts in there, oh well, its a good discussion, anyway). I fell in love with it after watching Rose, and then gobbled up the old series that was being shown on ABC here (that's Australian Broadcasting Corporation - our national one), nightly. I used to race home from uni to watch it. I fell in love with Tom Baker's Scarf (yes, I think it deserves a capital letter), and I have even knitted a long scarf of my own. Its only 11ft long though, I can't wear anything bigger.

I really enjoyed the first season of the "New Who", but it just got even better from there. I think that the third series has been the best one so far. Its sad that we only have four more specials with David Tennant (who is my Favourite Doctor), but I guess all great actors have to move on. I look forward to seeing him in other stuff too .

I haven't seen much of the new guy. I'm going to have to watch the Sally Lockhart mysteries again to check him out. I don't doubt that he's going to be awesome though.

With regards to the producer change, I'm curious to see if the episodes and story arcs will become darker, as Stephen Moffat has been the man to write the 'scarier' (Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Blink, Silence in the library/Forest of the Dead) episodes so far. Will be good to see, anyway.

I've watched Torchwood, but I didn't really get into the Sarah Jane Adventures. Sarah Jane always kinda annoyed me. I'm not sure why.

Has anyone heard anything about when the next special is being shown? I can't wait And what did people think of the Christmas episode? I enjoyed it. It was a good twist, although it didn't seem quite as epic as the other two seemed.

[Kathy Li]

At Comic-Con last year, someone asked Steven Moffat about the possible tone change, and his answer was something like, "are you worried that the show will become darker and scarier because that's what I do? Yeah, well, tough."

He was a blast and a half, that man.

He did make the point that for each of the individual writers working on Doctor Who, that they write what they remember best and loved most about the show when they were kids. For Moffat, it's the scary creature stuff. For one of the other writers, it's one the big grand space opera stuff. Because it's a team of writers, each with a slightly different take, you're going to get a variety of tones, and yet they'll all work together to make sure it's still Whovian.

I am sad, though, that Neil Gaiman has repeatedly said there's no truth to the rumor that he's writing a Who episode. But he did once say, iirc, that he doesn't want to because he loves the show so much as something from his childhood, and working on it would completely change how he'd enjoy the show.

Also, I once got to chat with Terry Pratchett about the first season of the show. He looooooved "The Empty Child"; Billie Piper not so much.

Tom Galloway also asked Moffat a really interesting question, which was whether the tenth Doctor is the Doctor that River Song knows, and Moffat said that she does know him, but that he's not the only version of the Doctor she knows.

The thing you have to know about Moffat, is that while he does great horror-based stuff like Jekyll and "Blink", he's also the guy who wrote the sitcom, Coupling, and "Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death". He's one funny guy. He's also the screenwriter of the Stephen Spielberg Tintin movie. Like his Russell T. Davies, Moffat is one big fanboy who remembers the original fondly and in exhaustive detail.

[alla]

*sigh* I think I need to move closer to the action. Australia doesn't really have any conventions - well, we had GenCon Australia last winter (Second biggest attendance, and second only to GenCon Indy), but thats it. It was good, and I hope more decide to come over here. I miss out on all the 'convention news'

I wouldn't mind it becoming darker.

That's an interesting tidbit about River Song. I wonder if she'll be a companion in this year's specials, or if their adventures will be off screen. It would be cool either way

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

The thing you have to know about Moffat, is that while he does great horror-based stuff like Jekyll and "Blink", he's also the guy who wrote the sitcom, Coupling, and "Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Death".

Lately I've been wondering: with Moffat writing, could we see Joanna Lumley as a real Doctor? Wouldn't it be hilarious if he actually managed to make the end of "Curse of Fatal Death" work in-canon? (Of course, it would make the rest of us stuff him in-cannon and blast him into orbit... :-) )

I'm going to have to watch the Sally Lockhart mysteries again to check him out.

For a second, my mind went to "The Sally Sparrow Mysteries" -- another DW spinoff? :-)

Torchwood's first season was just... ewwwww. It got stronger in the second year, though.

Yeah. I really liked "Dead Man Walking" -- especially the injoke they tossed out for Stephen Donaldson fans. :-) "Meat" was deeper than it looked, and "Something Borrowed" absolutely hilarious -- especially the Rhys as Ash moment. And hey, we got Spike for three episodes! Of course, "Exit Wounds" put "DAVIES YOU BASTARD!" right up next to "WHEDON YOU BASTARD!" in Donna's and my fannish vocabulary...

[Emi]

Also, Emi, you may want to reread High Wizardry, and about the Man in the Bar.

Ah, now that you have mentioned it I do kind of think that's a tad bit ironic. Is DD a Who fan too?

I'm so mad that I can't see the Christmas special!!!! Why oh why do I have to live in a household with no BBC America? Hahaha. Does anyone know if it would be on Youtube? J said that he watched it on the Korean YouTube... but I don't know if it's on there...

alla: And I'd just thought of coming in here and starting a Doctor Who thread

I beat you to the punch. Haha. Great minds think alike.

[Kathy Li]

Ah, now that you have mentioned it I do kind of think that's a tad bit ironic. Is DD a Who fan too?

Big time. She was a fan of the Fifth Doctor back when I met her in the late '80s.

I'm so mad that I can't see the Christmas special!!!! Why oh why do I have to live in a household with no BBC America?

Well, that's not the reason you haven't seen it.

BBC America airs Doctor Who AFTER Sci-Fi Channel does. If any cable network in the USA picks up the Christmas special first, it'll be Sci-Fi Channel. It's just that Sci-Fi Channel always lumps the Christmas special in with the next series, rather than air it on Christmas Day, like it is in the UK.

You also seem to have the misunderstanding (a natural one. A lot of folks do) that BBC America is the same channel/company as the BBC. It isn't. In fact, a great deal of what BBCA airs over here is non-BBC material, stuff made for ITV, SkyOne, or Channel 4. BBCA is, in fact, part of the Discovery Channel. I guess that what was happening is that the Discovery Channel was purchasing so much BBC documentary content (and then redubbing it to sound American, a practice I despise--I would've preferred watching Planet Eart with David Attenborough over Sigourney Weaver any day, thank you) that they just decided to start picking up some of the dramatic programming that A&E and BRAVO weren't picking up any more.

You'd be surprised how many of these "different" networks really are the same company. Take NBC Universal. They're NBC, USA, Sci-Fi, Bravo, CNBC, MSNBC, Trio, and Universal HD.

[Emi]

Kathy: That's so interesting! I thought BBCA was a part of BBC. Haha. Well that's good to know I guess. I know I'm not missing out on a lot then...

I love that DD is a Dr. Who fan. That's just so cool. I need to see the old Dr. Who shows.

I've been watching a lot of the third and fourth season episodes lately... it's kind of interesting to rewatch the episodes and find that you missed something that you didn't catch the first time around. That always happens to me... I think it's because my sister likes to talk through the show sometimes.

[Dragon Writer]

I missed an entire season - same with torchwood. I've been catching up on the former, though... Admittidly, I've been doing so while not-so-secretly knowing the ending, but hey, that wasn't my fault!
If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have known there was a seaso to see.

[alla]

[ame="http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=vAk2HjHSGbo"]YouTube - The Dalek Song[/ame]

Sorry guys... Tana brought this up on MSN, and I just had to share it XD. I challenge people to pass the word around and see how many people get it stuck in their heads. Back in 2005 when it was first done, I managed to get it stuck in 35 people's heads; never mind the people that they then went on to show it to. That was fun

What is the delay like between the UK showing them and the US showing them (the new series, I mean). Here, the best wait has been the month inbetween the latest christmas special; it is usually 13 weeks after the first ep airs in the UK that it is shown here.

[Kathy Li]

I think we were pretty closely behind the last time--only trailing by a week or three. Canada was a lot farther behind. It's just that the Christmas special gets saved up as the season opener on Sci-Fi. Given the whole New York Comic-Con preview of Torchwood thing, I'm wondering if we're going to get the five-parter miniseries of Torchwood or the four Doctor Who specials first.

[hazeleyedcappy]

I'm going to be awfully lazy and just post without reading the posts before me.

I really like Doctor Who. I'm a bit leery about Matt Smith though. I just got so attached to David and Christopher... I've only been watching it for the past few years, but I have a very clear idea of what I expect of the Doctor... I should stop blathering and get back to studying though... *sigh*

[Dragon Writer]

I knew I was in trouble the moment I saw the Lammas. I still don't regre listening to the song though - and now to share it with the world! Or just the catharsis forum.