Look Who’s back (No spoilage? Pretty please with sugar on?)

[TheLeen]

I confess I haven’t see Dr Who. Ever. None of it, not even old episodes. I read it was on German telly briefly towards the end of the eighties, but somehow I missed that, busy with elementary school as I was.

Soooo, for some time now I’ve been visiting DVD rentals asking them for Who and never got any. Well. My boyfriend said, why don’t you complain to the channel that bought the rights for the new couple of series and never broadcast them? So I google them and what does the first link tell me?

Dr Who, from end of January, Saturdays, 5 PM. (It is now Saturday, 4.45 PM CET.) Eek!
http://www.space-view.de/news/13171058/2007/12/dr_who_ab_januar_2008_auf_pro7.html

But it starts next week :)

Dubbed version. But better than nothing, for a start. (Looked into buying some time ago, but it’s expensive.)

Soon I’ll be knowing what the fuck you lot are talking about.

Topic

[Danny Stephenson]

I’ve watched a few (and I mean like about 3 at most). I waatched the near entirety of the Eccleston episodes on first airing.

I truly believe the theme to be a feat of Audio Engineering excellence, and is among my favorites!

But don’t worry Marleen, you REALLY aren’t the only one who goesn’t get it, when they talk Who.

[Andrew]

New Who is massively accessible. But, Marleen, I’d love to know whether the old variety has brushed your life at all – which is to say, would you recognise an iconic Who villain?

When a Dalek shows up, will it have no iconic status, or do you know OF them without knowing the history?

The reason I ask is because I’m dying to know how (especially) the Daleks are experienced by virgin minds. Because you certainly wouldn’t see your monsters designed and voiced that way now…

[TheLeen]

I know *nothing* of Dr Who. And I’ve been an SF fan, roleplayer, and all that almost all my life. Always communicated with other geeky people as well. First in Germany, and then via internet everywhere. And STILL – nothing.

I vaguely remember having heard the title a few times in my life (not in Germany, mind you) but it only really came to my attention when I got involved with the Dwarf people here – after last September. Now I know some basic terms… time travel… tardis… that dude with the F1-like last name and the new one, David Tennant… erhm… uh… that’s it really. I can’t name any old doctors nor villains.

No idea what Daleks are, an alien race surely. As soon as I find out, I’ll let you know what my virgin mind makes of it, heh. One week time to think of more questions before I dive into the Who universe :)

[Tanya Jones]

Ooh, in that case, I’d love to hear your views on Who when you start watching it!

[TheLeen]

It’s okay to start with the new ones then yeah? Or do you recommend sitting through some 20+ series of old stuff first? Because… the first option sounds more appealing. I can work my way backwards with time.

[Andrew]

Yep, this is gonna be VERY interesting…

[Tanya Jones]

New ones only please! And avoid anything that tells you any back story. I want you PURE.

[Danny Stephenson]

This is a good test, isn’t it? Seeing if the new episodes stand up on their own or rely on prior knowledge in order to understand them.

This WILL be Interesting…

Actually I could be doig this exact same experiment, if I had the time.

[Danny Stephenson]

> F1-like last name

Ecclestone?

[Seb Patrick]

That’s the one, although it’s spelled Eccleston.

You an F1 fan, then, Marleen?

[Danny Stephenson]

I was referring to Bernie, Seb :)

[TheLeen]

I used to watch F1 quite intensely some 10 to 5 years ago. I’m not really following it now.

[Seb Patrick]

You might enjoy some aspects of this, then : http://f1colours.wordpress.com/

If you’re as sad as me and Karl, that is.

[TheLeen]

Yeah I’d found that site in youe links and it’s indeed interesting.
Funny enough, I’m *totally* into… colours. As such.

[James]

To have the vast entity that Who is for the first time is going to be amazing! The question I have is that does new Who explain where a Dalek came from it’s relationship to the Doctor, and it’s deep meaning without taking a little look at the classic series? I’m not talking about just understanding of where it fits in, but the huge history they have together. Do you think this is tranfered into the new series enough to give a logical reply?

[Dave]

I don’t think it matters as the new series re-establishes a new relationship between the Daleks and the Time Lords. Fans of the old series may enjoy sly references to Genesis or Remembrance but the (almost) mutually assured destruction of the TW, means they are only ever a bonus with regards to enjoying the story.

[James]

I agree to a point, but when you have watched the New Who, you have to watch the Classic Who! Never mind the old tales of sets and Chroma key, and strange men in suites, the writng is without doubt amazing!

[Arlene Rimmer BSc SSc]

>I agree to a point, but when you have watched the New Who, you have to watch the Classic Who! Never mind the old tales of sets and Chroma key, and strange men in suites, the writng is without doubt amazing!

Seconded. We can probably recommend you some good Classic Who titles, but that’s probably best left for another time.

[TheLeen]

Okay, so any more things you want my impressions on?

– The Doctor and specifically Eccleston
– The Daleks (whatever they are)
– Do I feel I would have needed any background information that I don’t have
– other… people and things

… ?

Tomorrow :)

[Dave]

What do you think of the blue box thing?
Has Episode 1 made you want to watch Episode 2?
Will it be dubbed or subtitled?

[Tanya Jones]

Yes, do let us know if you think you should have had background information beforehand. Judging from the number of fans that weren’t old enough to see the classic series, I think you’ll be fine.

[Seb Patrick]

I’m just generally curious to see how someone completely brand new would find it. Does a Dalek seem like a genuine threat when you have no idea of the background? Is the general conceit well explained? What do you make of the TARDIS? And, if/when you get to the end of the series… well, some stuff happens that is something of a well-known TV institution in this country, but I’d be VERY interested to see what you make of it…

[Ian Symes]

For me, I’d never been a fan of the original series (due to me being that crucial three or four years younger than most of my friends), but obviously knew a hell of a lot about it. Things like the TARDIS, Daleks, Tom Baker’s Doctor, Cybermen and That Thing That Happens At The End Of The First Series are huge cultural icons. Similarly, even if you’d never sat down and listened to a single Beatles album, you somehow know the names of all four of them, and what the covers to half their albums looked like. I went into the 2005 series with a lot of background info, and loved it. I’ve since become a proper fan of both incarnations, but would I have done without already knowing the basic tenets of the series?

[Seb Patrick]

Ooh, also, Marleen might be the ONLY person in the world to actually get to experience That Thing That Happens At The End Of The First Series as it was originally intended – that is, as a complete, out of the blue, butt-fucking surprise!

[TheLeen]

Oooookay – in order to AVOID that All Capital Letters Butt-fucking Surprise on the internet until the end of series one, are there any sugegstions for precautions? ‘Cause ever since I started explicitly NOT looking at anything Doctor Who related, it seems to be EVERYWHERE.

And, a-ha, the Daleks are a threat then? Boo. ;)

[Ian Symes]

I don’t want to say too much in response to that, spoilers wise, but… just make sure you stick with it, and I think you’ll be very happy by the end of the series.

[TheLeen]

Okay. Here’s my impressions, then.

Throughout the day on the German TV channel Pro7: the trailer. It’s full of special effects and action. It also looks like Doctor Who is going to be a bit of a humourous show.

1700: the opening credits. They’re very short and the music is kind of calm, well in comparison to the very action based teaser trailer anyway. Is that a phone booth, cause it says “police” on it or something? Looks like Star Gate or Sliders so I suppose we’ll get to see different plots in different settings.

1715: first impressions. So far so good. We met Rose (who I find a bit annoying) and also The Doctor (who I also find a bit annoying). They’re dubbed, of course. I imagine the dialogue to be quite a lot better in English. Especially Eccleston. Boyfriend says that there is a whole lot of nonsense going on there (that’s not necessarily a bad thing). I particularly like the display dummies. Cool. I always thought they were creepy, now I know why. We’re both hoping for more craziness later on. Also, it’s nice to see a healthy looking actress of normal weight play Rose. That’s “normal” as in not disgustingly skinny. There is a lot of noise/shouting going on in the first fifteen minutes of the episode. Would like it if they’d pause for a bit a explain what the hell is going on. And: Rose is weird, like, just going home after the house exploded, not freaking out at all.

We think: it’s okay and nice to watch.

1730: Rose’s boyfriend is eaten by a bin and undergoes plastic zombification. I don’t know whether I find this incredibly clever or incredibly silly. Bit of both, probably. Also, Doctor just said that “many planets have a north” (or somesuch) and that made us laugh. Some other things did, too, but this is my favourite line so far. Rose is still weird, thinking her boyfriend is dead and not, well, crying her eyes out or being very very shocked or anything.

1745: Doctor does not succeed in talking lavaplasticblob into letting go of earth and Blob activates the zombie dummies. That’s a bit of a weak start, isn’t he supposed some kind of superhero? Anyway, Rose has to rescue him with an axe and a chain, which is a bit crude as a plot solution. Unanswered questions: when the eye stops transmitting, why do the dummies look like they’re cramping? The arm in the beginning just stopped moving when the signal was blocked. And why didn’t other things attack, like the cables mentioned, toasters and such, or the cellphones they’re all carrying around? And also, he looked into the mirror there like he saw his own face for the first time. Maybe he changes his appearance some time, that would explain all the different actor Doctors. But then why is he on all those old photographs, looking like Eccleston?

1755: The ending of the episode is very short, like the opening credits really. We don’t understand why The Doctor offers Rose to come with him, or why Rose (upon hearing the word timetravel) suddenly changes her mind and takes the offer. Would have been good if we’d gotten to know her motivation, anything from “I wanted to travel through time all my life” to “Mikey, see you in five minutes ’cause Doctor is going to take me back to exactly here and now”. Or maybe just “that’s going to be interesting”.

Newsmag, then second episode.

1810: Tardis on the inside with its air-pumps and such reminds me a bit of Raumpatrouille Orion, that German 1960s SF programme which used flatirons and other household equipment as parts of the spaceships. Does the Doctor eat and sleep there on the “bridge” or does Tardis have more rooms? And again, the opening credits. Now I know that the blue box really is (or is made to look like) a phone booth. The colours of the swirly things, do they mean anything? Like blue = into the past and red = into the future? Or red = travel through space and blue = travel through time?

1830: I like: crazy aliens, especially the flat lady and the big face. And the tree girl is really sweet. I love: Doctor’s mind manipulating paper. The coolest gadget so far, certainly better than the “I can do anything including toasting bread” blue… thingy.

1900: I realise that I forgot to take notes through the entire second episode. The cgi was really good in parts (exploding sun/earth/interior of the space station) and mediocre in others (ships in space reminded me of Babylon Five and I remember that 10 years ago I wasn’t thrilled). I won’t even write down what I think of the walkway & propeller room, that topic was nicely covered in Galaxy Quest ;) Also, The Doctor is quite the MacGyver when it comes to gadgets, but he can’t use his jacket or whatever to hold the lever down so that the tree princess won’t die.

What do I know about The Doctor? He’s a timelord (probably to do with timetravel, eh, and he can feel a planet rotate. That’s cool. Also, princess tree was really fond of him and found his existence comforting, so maybe he’s a bit of a god as well). And his planet exploded, so he’s the last one. And he’s quite smart, most of the time, but sometimes not (or I just can’t figure out his motivations).

Daleks: No Daleks. Did probably blow up Doctor’s planet though.

Overall, I am reminded a kids’ programmes. Again, this isn’t necessarily bad. We do enjoy Doctor Who, however, not as much as we probably would have at age eight. I also think that we think too much.

I have to say that timetravel is a real plot killer, because everytime things get rough you think “okay, now go back in time 10 minutes and everything will be fine”. The fact that The Doctor doesn’t should be explained in some way.

Vincent says that overall, it deserves a “B” for the good special effects and the fact that the show doesn’t seem to take itself seriously. But oh, the plotholes (see: timetravel).

I give it a “C” now with an upwards tendency. It was by no means bad, but expectations had been higher. I suspect that after a couple of episodes I’ll be totally into it, but I thought this would come sooner. The biggest problem for me is that I can’t really relate to any of the two main characters right now, not Rose (who wasn’t helpful in the slightest in the second episode) nor the Doctor, who, albeit funny, is cryptic up to a point where it gets really annoying.

Definitely not for nitpickers! But I’ll watch on, two episodes each Saturday, and report. And also, I’ll get my hands on the original version some time which I think will get more love from me, if purely for the British accent.

Edit: Oh yeah and, the preview for the next episode looked pretty neat, something with a ghost lady and 18th century UK, cool.

[TheLeen]

> I don?t want to say too much in response to that, spoilers wise, but? just make sure you stick with it, and I think you?ll be very happy by the end of the series.

I will of course stick with it. I just don’t know if I would without knowing of its iconic status in the UK and especially with people whose taste in telly I largely trust.

Also, I think my postings shouldn’t shift to the end of the discussion thread when I edit a typo. ;)

[Andrew]

This is FASCINATING! Thanks Marleen!

And yeah, what Ian says.

[TheLeen]

Thanks for not spoiling :)
And you’re welcome, heh, never thought I could make someone happy by being confused.

[TheLeen]

Oh, and, thanks to the German dr who forum I now know that Clive was shot by a dummy, Pro7 had cut that scene out so I had no idea. Kinda sad, I’d hoped he’d return in later episodes, the conspiracy theory stuff was kind of cute.

And more info on the German translation, I forgot to mention that The Doctor used the formal/polite way of addressing Rose (as a young woman), the “Sie”. I know you people don’t have that. It’s always a bit difficult in dubbed movies/TV shows because in Germany, between adults we use “Sie” unless we have offered each other the more personal “Du” (or unless we’re workmates or in a club together or whatever). The “Sie” on TV always seems to create a certain distance between characters, and the “offering of Du” obviously never takes place. I’m really curious if, when and how Rose & Doctor will start to use “Du”.

[pfm]

> We met Rose (who I find a bit annoying)

‘Wilson! Wilson! The lo-ery money! Wilson!’ *lol*

Unlike some people I still really LOVE the first episode. I’ve probably seen it more than any other and it never gets old. There’s a certain freshness and sheer joy on display that actually made me well up when I first saw it (yes, I am officially sad). Eccleston as the Doctor is instantly pure class, and even though the chemistry with Billie’s Rose gets better later on, you can still tell they’ve got the casting dead right. Burping bins and lack of real danger at the end aside, it’s top class.

[Seb Patrick]

I have to say that timetravel is a real plot killer, because everytime things get rough you think ?okay, now go back in time 10 minutes and everything will be fine?. The fact that The Doctor doesn?t should be explained in some way.

It is. I can’t remember when they first do it in the new series (perhaps not even until series two – but it’s all about how when you’re part of a timeline, you can’t go back and interfere with it), but it was a regular feature of the old series to point this out. One of the annoying features of the 1996 TV movie, in fact, was that it did just that in order to make everything alright.

the ?I can do anything including toasting bread? blue? thingy.

Oh, you have NO idea…

That?s a bit of a weak start, isn?t he supposed some kind of superhero?

Yes, but one with a very strong moral sense – he almost never uses violence to solve problems, preferring to be all clever and try to sort things out. He’s a scientist – not a fighter.

Does the Doctor eat and sleep there on the ?bridge? or does Tardis have more rooms?

Yes, it has more rooms. Many more rooms – it’s theoretically infinite in size, in fact. In three series (and three Christmas specials) of the new run, though, only ONE other room (a wardrobe) has been seen. I’m hoping this will be rectified at some point.

The colours of the swirly things, do they mean anything? Like blue = into the past and red = into the future?

I can’t remember which way round it is, but… you’ve got this bang on. This is a feature of the new series, not present in the original. A neat touch, I think.

I wish you could see it in the original, though – for Eccleston’s delivery if nothing else. Download, perhaps?

[Ian Symes]

Nice bit of not-giving-anything-away-until-Marleen-finds-out-for-herself there, Seb.

[TheLeen]

Right :p

> Yes, but one with a very strong moral sense – he almost never uses violence to solve problems, preferring to be all clever and try to sort things out. He?s a scientist – not a fighter.

Did his strong moral sense leave him when he left Cassandra to dry out? Wasn’t happy about that :\

Speaking of moral sense, I don’t want to download, although I could since I’ll end up buying the DVDs anyway in the end, hm, what to do, what to do.

PS: Oh, I want an infinite wardrobe.

[Seb Patrick]

>Nice bit of not-giving-anything-away-until-Marleen-finds-out-for-herself there, Seb.

What? What did I give away, aside from how annoying the “solve everything” nature of the sonic screwdriver, which she’d already picked up on, is?

Other than that, I’ve not given anything away that’s explicitly mentioned in the series…

[Ian Symes]

Yeah, but they’re all explicitly mentioned *later* in the series.

[Seb Patrick]

I’m struggling to remember a bit where Rose looks out of the window and says “Hey, Doctor, the swirly things are red now, but they were blue before, what’s going on?”

[Ian Symes]

I just meant in terms of explaining The Doctor’s nature and philosophy; I thought the point was that Marleen was supposed to make her mind up without any English influence?

[TheLeen]

*puts fingers in her ears* LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA

Okay, there’s still enough puzzlement left here, please don’t argue.

[Seb Patrick]

Ah, you’re probably right, that probably was giving away a bit much, but I was just trying to answer genuine questions. Ho hum.

[TheLeen]

Regarding the first two episodes of Doctor Who last Saturday on German channelPro7 – there’s a statement of the director responsible for the German dubbing (that was praised by some fans and slated by others). He’d read the fan reactions at drwho.de and thought he’d reply to some of them directly. Sometimes, the Internet scares me. A little.

http://blog.doctorwho-deutschland.de/2008/01/27/statement-des-synchronisateurs/

It’s quite an interesting read… if you can read German. Or Babelfish or something.

And this is the German trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hx5tDRKwmM

Edit: And by the way, the Doctor Who pilot was seen by 10 million people in the UK (or at least that’s what I read), but only 0.84 million in Germany (a meager 4.7% (ep 1) and 3.5% (ep 2) of viewers) which is very disappointing.

[Andrew]

I worry that they’re cutting stuff out. This bodes ill for later content…

[Ben Paddon]

The SciFi Channel are editing out bits of the show to fit in more of their really irritating promos. I don’t watch much TV since moving to the States, but even still it’s just bad. They also edit their own shows – SciFi cut chunks out of Battlestar Galactica too.

Morons.

[TheLeen]

Okay, so today we watched episode 1×03 and 1×04 of Doctor Who and here’s a quick rundown of our impressions.

Episode 1×03 – The Unquiet Dead

The Doctor takes Rose to Victorian England where they encounter some alien zombies, and Charles Dickens.

What we liked:

– the character of Charles Dickens – he looked so real. Yes, he was cool, definitely.
– the costumes.
– a classic “horror” story in Victorian England, complete with classic elements such as the haunted house and a s?ance, nice.
– that the gas beasts were in fact, uhm, evil.
– the fact that Gwyneth (the medium) sacrificed herself.
– and the fact that Gwyneth had actually been dead for a while when she did.

Also, I did like the stage manager at the theatre, because he wore a vest that looked exactly like a pair of socks recently acquired by me in Malta.

Left: The stage manager’s vest. Right: My sock.

What we didn’t like:

– Well, the episode lacked explanations again. How did Mr Dickens know that opening all gas faucets would pull the ghosts out of the bodies? How did anyone know that a fire would kill them (or warp them back into their own dimension)? How did they get that idea in the first place – as the ghosts had existed inside the gas lamps previously?
– The episode could have been a lot scarier, and would have if not for the many, many, many cuts – or so they say over at drwho.de. They should really leave the episodes intact and air them after 8 PM, like you usually do.

And then there’s also an issue we disagree on: I think they’re going way over the top with the colour light effects – every five minutes, some face is tinted green (inside Tardis) or blue or purple or whatever… this struck me while watching last week’s episodes already. I think less would have been more, and that too much colourful light gives the show the air of a stage show (at best) and well, look kind of… cheap. Vin likes the colourful lights though.

Episode 1×04 – Aliens of London (part 1 of 2?)

What we liked:

– Two times in as many episodes, Doctor gets the time wrong.
– Cute, cuddly pig-“alien”, aww I wanted to hug it and tell it that it’s safe. Just… it wasn’t safe. It died. That made me sad.
– Non-standard, clumsy alien invaders with slight, let’s call it “flaws”.
– Oh yes, cliffhanger!

We didn’t like:

– Remind me, why don’t they just enter Tardis and hop back twelve months? Didn’t Doctor just say that time is sometuing dynamic, flowing, and that it can change just like that? The old timetravel plot killer issue.
– The security at 10, Downing Street was a joke. Makes for a bigger mess so I suppose that’s not all bad. But still.
– Oh noes, cliffhanger!

And: again – too much of the damn light. The zipper effect would have been cooler without it. Says I. Like I said, Vin likes it the way it is, with the blue light.

Overall impressions:

I preferred the first episode – I just loved the overall style (although the face of the zombies wouldn’t have had to glow if it were for me). Vin, and (judging by a poll at drwho.de) the majority of viewers today, liked the second one better.

The Doctor seems to be a bit of a scatterbrain, does he really have a clue of anything or is he just drifting in and out of history, messing around? With a good portion of serendipity like only heroes have (Captain Future did the same…)

Daleks: still no daleks!

[Phil]

>We didn?t like:
>- Oh noes, cliffhanger!

I have never, ever enjoyed experiencing a cliffhanger. Sorry. I got frustrated at the end of series VI of Dwarf (the lack of a proper ending is the ONLY thing holding Out of Time back from being One Of The Best Episodes Of Anything Ever), I got frustrated at the end of Venture Bros. season two (the first season cliffhanger felt both natural and necessary, but the second season cliffhanger really seemed like they just felt obligated to have another), I got frustrated that I had to wait until the next year to find out Who Shot Mr. Burns…even as a kid when Duck Tales would run multi-part stories I’d get irritated.

I don’t know. I don’t mind breaking episodes into parts, per se, and I certainly don’t mind someone producing an extra-long episode to facilitate a story that might take longer to tell…but it’s just so easy to do a cliffhanger wrongly, and have it exist solely as a cheap way to get the audience enthusiastic about next week’s/year’s/series’s episode.

If it’s artistically justified, go for it. But I can count on one hand the cliffhangers that have been, in my experience.

Also, I’ve never seen Doctor Who, ever, so these are general comments only.

[Ben Paddon]

Cliffhangers have been a part of Doctor Who since it began back in the 60s. It did start out life as a serial, after all. All but one of the six stories in the Key to Time series from 1978 were made up of six 25-minute episodes, and the last story was made up of eight. Doctor Who and cliffhanger-endings go together like peas and carrots, so to bring back the show and not have them in some capacity would be criminal.

My major gripe with the cliffhanger at the end of “Aliens of London” was that they showed the “Next Time…” clip immediately afterwards, diffusing the tension and rendering the entire point of the cliffhanger pointless because… well, you know what’s going to happen now. Apparently when it aired Steve Moffat lept to his phone and called RTD to get him to make sure it didn’t happen in future episodes. And it didn’t.

Don’t mess with the Moff.

[TheLeen]

Well, it happened in Germany yesterday and I’m pretty certain that our tv channel, Pro7, doesn’t a) know or b) care about that ^

My guess is it’ll happen each and every time.

[Tanya Jones]

Marleen, it’s interesting that you’ve picked out traditional aspects of the show to comment on. Ben’s right in saying that DW has always had cliffhangers; I guess it looks a little odd in the new series because the episodes are more self-contained, rather than having 6 episodes in a story. Modern TV practices mean that there’s often spoilers because the executives are so worried about people not coming back, annoyingly.

The Doctor is, and has always been, a bit inconsistent. DW was first conceived as a kid’s show where they could go anywhere and do anything; there wasn’t a solid SF story to back the plots up, so although there is a sort of canon that has been built up over the years, it is all over the place. Try not to think of it as pure SF, and you’ll be able to cope :)

[TheLeen]

Well, in the last two episodes there was a good portion of humour – which (I suppose) I would have enjoyed even more if I got to see Who in English. I’ll focus on that ;p

[Author]

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