NuWho vs OldWho, are we unfair to the new series?

[Bedlam]

[quote="Korto"]As for Eccleston (who I assume is the guy with the bow-tie)[quote]

Nope Christopher Eccleston was the 9th Doctor (2 doctors ago) he was the first Doctor for the restart and did 1 series in 2005 he was also the invisible guy from Heros and the embodyment of darkness in the Darkness Rising. The current doctor with the Bow Tie is Matt Smith, hes doctor number 11 and will be here this year and next year and possibly more after that. Between then was David Tennent (Doctor 10) who did 4 series (although one was specials only).

[Temujin]

My biggest complaint is the lack of variety in the characters. NuWho has basically been the same guy every time (young, good-looking man), with the same companion (young, good-looking woman who has a crush on the Doctor). They seem to have picked a commercial formulae right at the start, and stuck with it without any deviation that might actually bring interest. What about an older doctor, a female doctor, extra companions, something? It would create a different interaction, and 'simmering sexual tension' gets fucking irritating after a while.
As for the stories, they've deviated a little too often for me away from Sci-Fi and into hooga booga land. Eg, that dalek one back in WW2 England, where "thinking human" or some such rubbish stopped a robot bomb from exploding. Considering how loose Doctor Who's definition of scientific plausibility has been, having to go completely into fantasy is pathetic.

I was actually hoping they would get Sean Pertwee to follow in his fathers footsteps. That would give us an older Dr. again, instead of a still younger one. Not to mention he's a pretty kick ass actor.

[PREDATOR490]

A woman Doctor... what would be hilarious and might make for a nice change however I see less women being able to pull off the role than men at the ages they seem to be going for. Granted, Matt Smith has managed the role pretty well for an unexpected twist so it's possible.

Unfortunatly, I just do not see it happening due to the fact it breaks their formula. Its always a young good looking Doctor with a companion that fancies him or fawns over him.
A female Doctor with a female companion - DW dosent have the balls to try that
A female Doctor with a male companion - Yeah, thats what we need... another Mickey / Rory with a crush on the Doctor.

As for the Doctor himself, an older Doctor isnt required as long as a younger actor can actually pull it off. Matt Smith seems to be doing well so far but if the scripts would stop making him seem like an idiot it he would be fine.
The companions on the other hand could do with being older or at the very least stop being young women that are all too eager to fawn for the Doctor. Instead of having these stupid romance relationships it would be nice to have... a teacher / student like with Ace or just friends like Sarah Jane. Before they decided to retcon Sarah Jane into having a crush on the Doctor...

Personnally, I would love to see Torchwood's Gwen Cooper in the TARDIS...

[Ilya Muromets]

We already have a woman doctor.

Of a sort.

[Revy]

What about having a kid as a companion? Ever since we've had Amy crushing on the Doctor I kept thinking it might have been better if he actually did return in five minutes and pick her up when she was still just a kid. That would have killed any sexual tension stone dead right there, and the actress wasn't as bad as some child actors are. They sort of had something like that with Susan in the Peter Cushing films, didn't they?

We already have a woman doctor.

Of a sort.

Rowan Atkinson as the Doctor? This I have to see. I've never even heard of this before.

I wouldn't mind a female Doctor either, although as Predator pointed out they wouldn't have the balls to do a female Doctor with a female Companion (and even if they did, they'd definitely drop the romance angle there) so they'd probably just have a male companion fawning over her as a vice versa to what we have now. It's especially unlikely to happen with someone like River Song around - as if the BBC would have her being the 'wife' to a female Doctor. Don't think so somehow.

[mr friendly guy]

They sort of had something like that with Susan in the Peter Cushing films, didn't they?

Yes they did.

Rowan Atkinson as the Doctor? This I have to see. I've never even heard of this before.

Its a parody raising money for charity. Its quite funny at the start with the interplay between Atkinson's Doctor and Jonathon Pyrce's Master.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I was going to post this in the current "Cold Blood" thread, but as it is more a gripe about NuWho in general I'm bumping it here.

So...

Is anyone else Sick to Death of the "Each Season has a Mysterious Bad Thing that leads into the season final" business yet?
I mean in Season one we had "BadWolf" which was really almost more of a tease to the Watchers then the Doctor at large. Season two was "Tourchwood" which was just hinted at and lead to Parting of Ways. Then in Season three we got "Saxon" with the Master, then the horrific Season four with the Daleks, again, and NOW. Now we have this bloody "Cracks in Space" nonsense leading to what looks like yet another massive Reset Button.

Now, I know that in 'modern terms' the tradition of a bib climatic Season final has grown to immense levels. Every action series does it. And while occasionally dropping hints about what is coming can be interesting, at the point where it is now it just feels so bloody FORCED.

Can't we for once have a Season of Doctor who where the Planet, Galaxy, Universe ISN"T about to be destroyed?

[Gramzamber]

It's especially unlikely to happen with someone like River Song around - as if the BBC would have her being the 'wife' to a female Doctor. Don't think so somehow.

On the other hand I'd pay good money to see the look on the current Doctor's face if River Song revealed that she's a lesbian, with the resulting implication dawning on him.

[Srelex]

.

Can't we for once have a Season of Doctor who where the Planet, Galaxy, Universe ISN"T about to be destroyed?

We can't have that, the viewers wouldn't be interested. What's the alternative? The TARDIS toilet being blocked and the Doctor desperately needing to find a plumber before it backs up and floods the interior with shit?

[Coyote]

I just started watching Dr. Who from the start of the 2005 reboot. I have no previous knowledge of Dr. Who except for a vague idea of who & what he was, and I knew (kinda) who the Daleks were.

So from the point of view of someone coming into it totally from outside, I have to say that I find it very easy to get into the series and come along with the events depicted. I don't feel like an "outsider" coming in the middle of a book, which I can presume was the idea of the new series (to make it accessable to new viewers).

It may or may not mean anything that I first watched all of Torchwood before getting curious about Dr. Who.

I don't find Rose to be annoying or a bad character; I think she is (I say "is" because I'm only 2/3rds of the way through the second "new" season, with David Tennant, so for me she still "is" the Companion) a good character for the audience to relate through and use as a tool to explore the Who universe. She asks the right questions to help us newcomers and yet she doesn't come off as a moron.

My only complaints, and they are minor, is that the constant re-discovery of "I'm not dead yet!" Daleks seems to me to be excessive fanservice for the "old guard". They keep finding Daleks again (and Cybermen) re-invented in different timelines, which makes it seem that they are trying too hard to keep the bridge to the old series open. Yeah, on the one hand, it's hard to have the Doctor without Daleks, but still... Find some new Big Bads.

From what I know of the Dr. Who series, the new series seems to me to be more oriented from the start for a global audience, and let's face it, an American audience. The Doctor is younger, and a bit more of an eccentric Action Hero rather than the cerebral, detached commentator I hear used to describe previous incarnations. And having a pretty girl infantuated with the rugged adventuresome fellow would also seem to be a nod towards a more US-oriented viewership.

Interestingly, you can see the contrast in US and UK writing styles in an old Gerry Anderson show, Space: 1999. The first season was written, I guess you could say, "British style" while the second was written "American style", with more "happy endings" and "action". I watched the series a few months ago and the contrast between first and second season is noticeable and almost jarring at first (although some of it may have ben the increased use of special effects, which I hear is also "an American thing").

Someone more versed with the Old Who and the New Who would have to tell me if these observations on writing style have any validity in their opinions, though, since I have zero exposure to Old Who.

[Coyote]

.

Can't we for once have a Season of Doctor who where the Planet, Galaxy, Universe ISN"T about to be destroyed?

We can't have that, the viewers wouldn't be interested. What's the alternative? The TARDIS toilet being blocked and the Doctor desperately needing to find a plumber before it backs up and floods the interior with shit?

I think there's been a number of them. The one I saw yesterday was where the "Devil" was imprisoned on the planet on the cusp of the black hole-- the Devil escaping would have been messy, for sure, but he'd been subdued and imprisoned before so presumably he could be again.

And the one where Rose and the Doctor go to the year 5-billion to watch Old Earth get destroyed... true, a planet was destroyed but that was the event they were supposed to see, and it was by natural causes... but the "Last Human"/Cassandra the Bitchy Trampoline was basically just a thief that was going to let the people on the station die.

The one on New Earth with the cat-nuns infecting people with diseases for experiments was mostly just a moral quandary... releasing the infected just was a tool to make sure the quandary was resolved quickly.

A lot of these have a world or planet in peril of being taken over by unsavory people, but then rescuing kittens from trees isn't really the sort of thing to demand the Doctor's time and efforts. Although at least one episode of trivial pursuits might be amusing as a character-building event.

My take on it, anyhow.

[Serafina]

I concur with Coyote - on it's own, the new series is excellent (i have recently started watching it, with no previous Dr. Who experience). Definately one of the better sci-fi series out there.

[Crossroads Inc.]

You are pretty spot on Coyote. You mentioned what is considered some of the better episodes in NuWho currently.

A great deal of OldWho had the Doctor usually involved in the galactic equivalent of "saving a cat from a tree" IE
Often he would randomly come into the middle of some situation, find out someone or something was up to no good, and fix it. More often then not it was usually fairly small things. A murder on a Space cruise liner. A group of Colonists plagued by strange monsters, A resort hotel being sabotaged by spies.

It was rare in the old series that an episode actually dealt with GREAT DRAMA! Ie planetary invasions, PLanets being blown up, or galactic Wars. And as far as the universe, I can think of only a single instance in which the Fate of the Universe was put into peril.

For us in NuWho, it feels like they are just going over the top on "DANGER" far too often.. If oyu are just in Season two, you may see what I mean in Season 3 and 4

[Captain Seafort]

It was rare in the old series that an episode actually dealt with GREAT DRAMA! Ie planetary invasions, PLanets being blown up, or galactic Wars. And as far as the universe, I can think of only a single instance in which the Fate of the Universe was put into peril.

Logopolis, I assume?

What about The Three Doctors, Pyramids of Mars, or Genesis of the Daleks? The latter two were, admittedly, only indirect threats of what would happen if Sutekh (sp?) and the Daleks were allowed to continue unchecked, but Omega's attack seemed to be an immediate threat to me.

[Stark]

Uh oh, a list of good DW episodes from s1 and z2 ....

[Big Orange]

In the context of how popular and successful NuWho has been, even in the last couple of years when RTD got complacent and repetitive, then yes a lot of people online can go way overboard with their criticisms. And while ratings are certainly not the end all and be all in how subjectively good episodes can be, here's how the ratings of NuWho episodes compare with the ratings Doctor Who got in the 60s, 70s, and 80s:

Doctor Who Ratings 1963-2009

No recent episode yet is quite as popular as "The City of Death", but consider how quickly the ratings plummeted for Star Trek from the mid 90s onwards, and how niche sci-fi shows like Babylon 5, Farscape, and Stargate SG-1 et al were, the ratings for Doctor Who since 2005 remain very solid and consistant. And it's also in the face of the decline of broadcast television in the last decade, the exapansion of video games, and the rise of the internet.

And here's a big 7000 strong fan pole on all DW episodes from Doctor Who Magizine and how they ranked in popularity (old and new, including the ill fated '96 TV movie):

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You wouldn't know what the 13th most popular episode was.

And how has John Simm of the Master genuinely impacted the quality and popularity of the series? I didn't like him as much as Derick Jacobi and (judging by some clips) Roger Delgado, Simm seemed to be trying too hard, but he still had an air of grave danger to him and was a fairly competent villain that almost successfully outmanoeuvred the Doctor in "The Sound of Drums" and is good at not staying dead. And I personally prefered Julian Bleach to Terry Molloy as Davros.

And hasn't cheesy, sometimes ropey SFX always been Doctor Who's forte? Although physical effects were surprisingly common in S1 of NuWho, solid sets and props are always going to be necessary, and I mostly prefer physical creatures over CGI ones, the CGI does not strike me as especially bad and can measure up to the CGI used in Farscape and Enterprise, making the largely static matte paintings in The Next Generation look quite stilted now. In fact the CGI used in "Fires of Pompeii" has earned Doctor Who a BAFTA Award.

[Night_stalker]

Yeah, the NuWho writers know they have some VERY big shoes to fill, so they have to try and keep the episodes fresh, yet appealing to fans of both old and new at the same time. They do their best but still can't please everyone.

[Stark]

ITT quality = ratings?

Amusingly, the list of stupid people using the term 'nuwho' continues to grow.

[Straha]

Best part of that, Stark? According to the ratings Blink was the worst episode of Season 3.

[Uraniun235]

What the hell happened with Season 18's ratings? Did they get bumped into a shitty timeslot that year?

[Stark]

Best part of that, Stark? According to the ratings Blink was the worst episode of Season 3.

Whoa, I didn't even look at them. That's hilarious. Are they at least normalised for increasing population or TV viewership?

[DaveJB]

What the hell happened with Season 18's ratings? Did they get bumped into a shitty timeslot that year?

I believe that Season 18 was the first year in quite a while that ITV had a strong Saturday night lineup, and Doctor Who's rating suffered accordingly. To be honest though, Doctor Who's ratings just generally sucked throughout most of the 80s. If anything, the Davison period was an outlier within that decade (probably because it was switched to a midweek slot until Colin Baker showed up).

Are they at least normalised for increasing population or TV viewership?

The figures that BO posted are just the raw viewing figures, which aren't easily comparable to those of the 1963-1989 period. What you really need to look at when comparing these things is the audience share and weekly rankings, and by those metrics the post-2005 series is doing more consistently well than at any point since the early Tom Baker years.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure no-one in this or any other recent thread has claimed the show isn't successful in the ratings, so I'm not sure what BO was trying to prove by posting those audience figures.

[mr friendly guy]

It was rare in the old series that an episode actually dealt with GREAT DRAMA! Ie planetary invasions, PLanets being blown up, or galactic Wars. And as far as the universe, I can think of only a single instance in which the Fate of the Universe was put into peril.

Logopolis, I assume?

What about The Three Doctors, Pyramids of Mars, or Genesis of the Daleks? The latter two were, admittedly, only indirect threats of what would happen if Sutekh (sp?) and the Daleks were allowed to continue unchecked, but Omega's attack seemed to be an immediate threat to me.

Lets not forget the Key to Time Sextant where he couldn't let the embodiment of Evil get the Key to time could he? That would be bad especially since they planned to turn "two halves of the universe at war with each other" because they are just a bunch of sick individuals.

Also the Black Guardian trilogy, namely in Enlightenment where he had to deny the Eternals the Prize or else the universe would turn to shit.

Arguable ones include the Invasion of Time, because saving Gallifrey would prevent the Sontarans getting hold of advance time travel and also "The State of Decay", where he couldn't allow the Time Lord's old enemy to escape from E-space.

Again Logopolis was the most obvious "Doctor saves the universe" episode.

Ones where the Doctor doesn't quite have to save the entire universe includes -"Colony in Space" where he had to stop the master getting hold of the Doomsday weapon, "Frontier in space / Planet of the Daleks" where he had to save the Earth and Draconian empires, "The Dalek Masterplan" where he saves the Earth plus allies, and wait, how many times has he saved the planet Earth again?

Methinks some people need to watch the classic series more before mouthing off about the Doctor needing to save the planet, galaxy, universe for the upteempth time.

[Stark]

It's 'mouthing off' to talk about hopelessly overused plotting? How about you look at overblown finale/season? The old series went years without stupid crap, it's impossible to go a few episodes without it now.

But yeah I better not 'mouth off'!

Amusingly the Master's constant acquisition of deadly whatevers was at least backed up by charisma, so the 3rd period is probably the simplest.

Styling Genesis as saving the universe is frankly fucking absurd.

Uh oh, maybe a dozen RTD finales in 28 years! lol

[Crossroads Inc.]

Perhaps I should have clarified my statement regarding the new series being overly obsessed with saving the world, galaxy, universe.

I will admit that the Classic Dr. Who often had to save a world or planet from something. What gets to me are the "Season Finally" something I feel is an almost forced plot device on the new series.

The end of season episodes in the past did indeed used to be a bit longer then the others. Especially as the series went on past the third Doctor. However they were often just "extended" normal episodes, usually a bit bigger budget and more action.

however in the new series, since S1, we have had a formulaic, and at this point, cliched case of: "Something bad happening during season, at the end of the seasons, it is revealed in dramatic fashion and threatens everything with DOOM"

S1: Bad Wold/Parting of Ways: Daleks return from oblivion and threaten to first take over the Earth, then the Universe!

S2: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday: Daleks return from oblivion and threaten to first take over the Earth, then the Universe! And also fight a bunch of Cybermen.

S3: Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords: The Master returns from oblivion and takes over the world and then tries to take over the Galaxy!

S4: The Stolen Earth/Journeys End: Daleks return from oblivion and steal the Earth (and a bunch of other planets) and then threaten to destroy the Universe!

Notice a trend in all that? While the seasons themselves, especially S1 and S2 were somewhat ok and promising, the forcing of them to lead up to a conclusion that has basically been copied and redone for EVERY season since then makes my stomach churn.