New Doctor Who (unboxed spoilers)

Cafe Society
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A few random thoughts and impressions.

Not too sure about the theme tune, after hearing it only once. Better than McCoy era, certainly. Maybe It’ll grow on me. Nice graphics, good tunnel effect. Almost as good as 5th season Jon Petwee credits. The Doctor Who logo is still crap, though.

The episode itself, a bit hit and miss. Chris has managed to capture the mixture of eccentricity, intelligence and humour perfectly. Potentially a great Doctor. I like him better than the last three already.

His clothes are too ordinary. The Doctor ought to look eccentic. Not a complete prat, but he should stand out.

Interesting that the Doctor hasn’t seen his face before. Looks like thgis his first adventure in a new body. Did he steal his jacket from Rose’s departmenbt store, maybe?

The TARDIS console room - wonderful walls, but hated the consiole itself. All the loose wiring, it looked like the Peter Cushing movie. Shouldn’t have had the Police Box doors, either. Maybe next season they can use a more traditional hexagonal console with lots of switches, buttons and dials

The 45 minute format didn’t really work for me. Not enough time to really develop the situation. Interesting idea to throw Rose straight into the middle of the story without explaining hiow TheDoctor got involved. Still, we really needed more time for development.

The bit where the arm attacks the Doctor was awful. Really stupid. It looked like something out of a Carry On movie.

The Wheelie bin attack: sticking to the guy’s hands- good. Swallowing him and burping - crap.

Shame they killed off web site geek so quickly He could have been an interesting recurring character.

Overall, definitely the best episode since Caves Of Androzani. I’ll give it 6 out of 10

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I liked it a little better, though more for the sense of “they have the right approach; now they need to adjust a little here and there to get it just right.” I agree the story is rushed, but I kind of expected it; it’s really just an excuse to introduce the Doctor and Rose and to set up their friendship. They did a good job with the Autons; they’re as creepy as ever.

Re: the arm attack, I like how there was no “sting” when it leapt at the Doctor; made it seem more of a surprise, more cruel somehow. I think it was important that they introduce some cheese into it—one thing Doctor Who cannot survive is taking itself too seriously—and I agree that they went over the top, esp. with the belching. But Mickey becoming Autonized, with his Devo hair and weird mannerisms (“Darling/SWEETHEART/Darling/Babe!”) was really well done, and he was scary enough as a headless thing bashing the shit out of everything.

I agree with you on the Doc’s wardrobe (surely the Doctor would know that leather jackets are a cliché?), not so much on the Tardis. I like how you can see the police box doors from the inside; no more obvious cutaways between the white interior doors and the Tardis exterior doors. About time. I’m undecided on the console so far, but I don’t like the swirly columns very much; they clutter the view without adding anything.

The supporting characters were well done (well, all two of them, not counting Mickey). I liked the Website guy too, and it is a shame he bought it so quick. Rose’s mum was well-drawn and had some good dialogue.

A special note on Eccleston: he’s terrific so far. He’s the only Doc since Tom Baker who pulls off that “smiling in the face of danger” attitude, yet he does it in a way that’s totally his own. He brings some great physical energy to the littlest moments, like when he brandishes the tube of “anti-plastic.” When he’s not onscreen, you want him to come back—essential for a good Doctor.

I’d give it a 7/10, for a pretty good story but a very good start. I’m so stoked to have Doctor Who back, especially with this Doctor and this team. I think a lot of good stuff is coming our way.

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Incidentally, Web Site Geek’s web site is actually online

http://www.whoisdoctorwho.co.uk/

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I thought it captured the essence of Doctor Who, in that it was complete and utter crap. The plot made no sense and the special effects were terrible.

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Sod’s friggin law stopped me from watching it.

The TVs at work have worked every single day for 4 years. Then TODAY of all days somene had been pissing about with the wiring upstairs and so no TV.

And no-one on shift who knows how the wiring is set up.

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So don’t watch it then. No skin off my nose.

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Sorry, I thought you were inviting comments.

I thought it was bad, and the BBC will be disappointed if they think this is going to be their Star Trek franchise. The head writer Russell T. Davies is great, but I don’t see many original ideas in his work. He’s just a talented hack who happens to be a Doctor Who fan.

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The plot made perfect sense to me and the effects were fine, at least as good as any other modern sci-fi series.

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Sure I am. But really I have to ask you, if you dislike the original so much, why watch the new one?

If you don’t like the new one either, well nobody is gonna *make *you watch. It’s up to you.

And I don’t mind people saying they dislike it, as long as they make reasonable criticisms about what was wrong with it. Just saying “its crap” is no use to anyone. so tell me, what parts of the plot made no sense? Be specific, please.

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I thought that on hearing the trailers, the strings sounded wrong behind it all. The 80s had it right to me.

I was expecting someone much more serious, the humour was welcome.

True, he seemed like he would blend in on the high street too well.

Yeah, it was nice to have a reference to the regeneration that presumably wasn’t expensive enough for Paul McGann.

A bit scrappy, but at least they retained the rising and falling column ok. And the extra space was more deserving of the interior, but nothing we’d not seen in the 3rd movie.

Well, I’ll put it down to being slack because so many are excited after a 16 odd year break :slight_smile:

Yeah, the arm moving by itself was ridiculous. But at least the bin didn’t just simply swallow him, I was expecting something cheesy like the bloke simply falling in and the lid flapping as if to chew. The burp was childish though.

Only if the Doctor was stuck on Earth like Jon Pertwee. I suppose his purpose was to introduce new audiences to the Doctor’s exploits.

I’ll be as generous and say 6/10 as well :stuck_out_tongue:

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First time watcher of the show here. I’m not british either, I got it thru the net…

I thought it was entertaining and interesting. The only thing I didn’t like was that the timing was a bit off: for example, the final fight near the plastic entity seemed to drag on for more then it should and there was an extra obvious pause to save the mother…

The special effects were pretty good for a TV show, but the photoshops were particularly bad (especially the one with the Doctor in the crowd at the JFK shooting).

The plastic arm was ok: me and my wife both jumped when the arm attacked from behind the couch :wink: .

I don’t know why, but the show reminded me somewhat of Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy. The next episode looks pretty cool!

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Possibly the photoshops were deliberately bad to show that Clive is a crank who faked the photo. Rose seemed less than impressed.

Actually, there is a subtle in-joke here that older fans would understand. The first ever episode of Doctor Who was broadcast less than a day after JFK was shot.

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Couple of reasons. Douglas Adams was a writer on the show at about its best period. They are possibly trying to emulate the former glory, and hence are Adams-like.

But, specifically, the next episode trailer seems to be a story where The Doctor goes to a party where the entertainment is watching the End Of The World. A bit Milliways, isn’t it.

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Not hard to be better than Colin Baker and McCoy. And the whole McGann effort was just wrong.

In the interview he did with Jonathon Ross the other night he said they didn’t have any of the clothing gimmick. I think it may be a good decision. It was important in past Doctors, but maybe a bit cheesy now.

Have to disagree. Looking back the old rig-out just screams “studio-setup!” You’re half expecting to see the Blue Peter studio next door in the background.

I thought it was ok. It was chiefly a humour scene.

You’ve got to have a bit for the kids! I thought the special effects on this bit were the weakest, you could see the join between the foreground action and the background.

We never actually saw him killed, it cut away. So who knows. I wonder if his web page is actually to be found?

My overall impressions in the other thread here

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In Peter Morris’s link earlier in this thread, it has a small memoriam note about him.

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I can’t find the original photo online, but I’ll crankily obsessively note that the photoshopping in the JFK motorcade picture involved slightly more than just inserting Eccelston (or Dennis Hopper to my eye, to be honest) into it. The figure behind him and the two to the left of that aren’t in the original. Of these, the first is a copy of the bloke in the brown shirt and white jacket in the front row and the other two derive from the boy immediately in front of where the Doctor appears. In the original photo, there’s the white roof of a parked car where these three are.

As someone who remembers the original from back to the Tom Baker era, I thought it was a promising start. Eccelston was a shade too manic for my taste, but that may have been him playing against Rose’s bewilderment in this episode; if so, he may settle down a bit as the series continues.

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Yes, exactly! That is the first thing that popped into my mind during the preview for the next episode…

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Oops. Sorry, missed that.

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Just a thought, Babylon 5 had a “tribute” to HHGG with the “every race has meatballs line”, there was a similar line when The Doctor informs Rose that everywhere has a North (or some such line) A tenuous possibility :wink:

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Anyone know what Rose said just before she swung on the chain? It started off “I haven’t got any O-levels…” (or maybe it was A-levels), and there was something in there about genetics, but we couldn’t understand any of the rest of it.

Overall, I liked it.