Nah, he extended his life by using the powers he gained from a 5-minute stint as Keeper of Traken to take over Nyssa’s dad’s body. Admittedly, that’s not something the Doctor is likely to try, but it shows that it’s not that big a deal.
The Master destroyed half the universe the following week, and that was, you know, an accident.
Put me down as liking Eccleston a lot (except for the cheesy “I’m being an oddball” grin, which wears a bit thin after the first 56 times he flashes it at unexpected moments), and loving what I’ve seen of Tennant so far. Also much love for Rose, Captain Jack and Rose’s mum.
From what we’ve seen so far I think David Tennant is much better than Christopher Eccleston for this part. Eccleston is too earnest and just can’t do comedy, whereas Tennant gives the character the impishness and joie de vivre that a good Doctor should have.
Looking over the list of episodes in the 2005 series, I realise that my other problem with the show is too much Russell T. Davies. The episodes I liked were The Unquiet Dead (the Charles Dickens one, written by Mark Gattiss), The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances (Stephen Moffat) , Father’s Day (Paul Cornell) and The End of the World (Davies) (I didn’t see Dalek).
The other episodes, all written by Davies, seemed uneven and confusing, veering erratically and unsuccessfully between silliness and suspense, and I found some of them frankly difficult to follow.
Still, it looks like there are fewer Davies-scripted episodes in the next series so things may improve.
Just saw the first three episodes last night, and never having before been a Dr Who fan (didn’t watch it much growing up) I liked it a lot. A little less campy than the older ones, perhaps, but stillquirky and creative.
IIRC the Dr Who episodes were an hour long when shown in the UK, whereas when the BBC shows a US show that’s an hour long (eg. Buffy) it’s 45 minutes long without ads. So presumably the US version will get 25% taken out of each episode, that should be more than enough to make it US-friendly.
The Christmas special was 60 minutes, but the regular episodes are only 45 minutes, perhaps with sales to commercial broadcasters in mind. Or perhaps they just felt that was a good length.