Christpher Eccelston Comes Clean About DW.

[Shroom Man 777]

Tennant and Smith deliver it too excitedly and too much like ADHD lemmings. Destro is a bipolar beaver, but his more subdued delivery imparts more emotional impact.

[Crazedwraith]

It's weird, I think I have the totally opposite opinion to Batman;

In fact I can't think of a single hilarious Eccleston episode, including the ones that should have been (like the overweight continuously farting aliens ones).

While this is true. I think its entirely missing the point. The fact that he managed to treat farting aliens seriously is a point in Eccleston's favour. Could Smith or Tennant ever have deleivered the line 'Would you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?' and not have it come off terribly?

May be there are no down right comic episodes in Series 1. But there's plenty of humour. Even the doctor's first scene. 'Hello Rose. I'm The Doctor, *waves bomb* Run for your life!'

Plus There's 'Boom Town' which was hilarious.

Exactly. The Doctor's 'No weapons, No plan' speech at Stonehenge was 100% overproduced meh, but when in Dalek he starts telling the rich villain guy exactly what the alien in his basement is going to do, you get WORRIED.

You're not supposed to get worried by the Stonehenge scene. Did you miss the fact its the Doctor just totally scamming the entire fleet? He even says afterwards 'That should keep them arguing for half an hour' afterwards.

A better of example of the overblown badass speech that's played straigh would be the 'One thing you never but in a trap.' Speech at the end of Time Of Angels.

[Big Orange]

You know, Tennant said he'd love to stay for ages and ages and ages, and then after banging a few cast members decided to leave after a season of horror. I don't think it's hard to look for a motive here.

When Christopher Eccleston was on the show, the atmosphere may have been much more tense and toxic than in later seasons since there may have been a genuine fear on set that NuWho would be a genuine flop and not the most successful prime time sci-fi series since Star Trek: The Next Generation. When Tennant was brought onboard properly, things may have settled down with more relaxed crew and he had more enthusiasm for the role anyway, due to him being a fervant childhood fan. It seems that quite a lot of people complained about Tom Baker outstaying his welcome, I think Tennant departed at the right time and he's still overall popular enough to easily come back in multi-Doctor stories.

BO might not be big on analysis, but even he cogitates that any backlash against Smith will be bundled up with a general backlash against the show's change in face and style. Some people who 'hate Smith' just hate constant River Song wank, stupid endings, soap opera, or even just bow ties. At some point in the future the plebs will eventually get the perspective they need to separate the change to Smith from the change in the show overall.

I don't think really significant numbers of people have turned against the show, yet, what pleased some people this past couple of years has failed to please others who prefered the previous years, while most of the previous years may have not pleased some people at all.

I've think Eccleston's year set the standard (like S3 of TNG), but I like both the Tennant and Smith years to varying extents, with their strengths and weaknesses, the end.

[TC Pilot]

So how many reasons has Eccelston given now for leaving? First it was being afraid of typecasting, then that he was exhausted by the work, and now this.

Whatever the reason was behind him leaving, I think it was good that he did. Season 1 is a pretty tight character arc, with the regeneration basically being the physical manifestation of his own inner transformation (except when his severed hand spontaneously turns into dark, evil Doctor!!1!). Having him lingering on for another season or two wouldn't have really further much in that respect. Though, really, Tennant basically didn't have any sort of character arc, except some really stupid, continuity-breaking, hypocritical "I'm a pacifist space Jesus with an edgy dark side oooooooo, which probably explains why there was more emphasis on pointless season-long memes and more and more ridiculous and grandiose finales.

Strip away all the nostalgia and history of the franchise and just take Season 1 on its own, and it can really stand on its own merits as one of those quality one-season shows Britain's always churning out.... in space.

And they always go "RARGH I AM THE DOCTORB! FEAR MEEE!". Whereas Doctor Destro never really did that, until circumstances really pushed him and shits, which meant that whenever he made grandiose proclamations it actually counted and had emotional significance and shits.

And, of course, there's the fact he basically did everything first, which helps. Threatening to smash the Daleks and save the world from the evil doomsday plot has a lot more impact when it hasn't already been done fifty bajillion times.

It's rather ironic, in a way, that the show seemed to get more melodramatic and cliched as time went on, yet had less and less reason for it. Compare "Parting of the Ways" with, for instance "End of Time" or "Journey's End," with all their dramatic monologues (or just random screaming, for Davros) and unintelligible chorus chantings.

I mean, crap, if you get Mr. Bean or John Cleese from a Monty Python skit and have them go "fear me I are the Doctorb" when, previously, all they were doing was goofing off and being silly in the previous scene, they're not going to be that impressive or emotionally charged or intimidating or gripping, are they?

You've never seen the last episode of Blackadder, have you?

Hell, Rowan Atkinson should be the Doctor... he's done it before already.

[Crossroads Inc.]

"They are not Breasts ok, They are Dalek 'bumps'...And they are VERY Firm!"

[Big Orange]

Though, really, Tennant basically didn't have any sort of character arc, except some really stupid, continuity-breaking, hypocritical "I'm a pacifist space Jesus with an edgy dark side oooooooo, which probably explains why there was more emphasis on pointless season-long memes and more and more ridiculous and grandiose finales.

Well in S1 there was the Bad Wolf meme and "The Parting of the Ways" had some religious overtones (there's Jesus undertones in "The Doctor Dances"), not that it was bad in itself, but with Tennant they kept on flogging the successful S1 formula.

[Shroom Man 777]

I mean, crap, if you get Mr. Bean or John Cleese from a Monty Python skit and have them go "fear me I are the Doctorb" when, previously, all they were doing was goofing off and being silly in the previous scene, they're not going to be that impressive or emotionally charged or intimidating or gripping, are they?

You've never seen the last episode of Blackadder, have you?

Hell, Rowan Atkinson should be the Doctor... he's done it before already.

That was him being resigned and finally accepting his fate after a season's worth of slimey squirming and weasling out, so it was compelling. It was not a grandiose attempt at being super epic awesome. It was him accepting the inevitability of death and it was really bloody sad. So it worked.

Ten and Eleven just come off as try hards.

[Stark]

Episode order didn't help; Tennant had a brutal (almost perverse) orgy of revenge porn right before a story about how he needs an elaborate plot wagering the entire human race as collateral to forgive someone much, much worse.

When they plotting the season, that should REALLY have come up.

If it had 'worked', 10 being on the edge of revenge orgies could have been interesting, because we got to see more of him and S1 was about the darkness inside him. It was so inconsistent (and not even consistently inconsistent) that it never built up any momentum.

Seriously, Shroom has it; not only is I AM TEH DOCTORB amazingly lame, it's also narratively cheap and cheats the audience. Rather than seeing the Doctor do anything, or learning anything about anyone, we just get 'hells yeah dawg I am the ultimate badass, I'm gonna pound you flat raaaaaar' pro wrestling dialogue. S1 showed that the Time War was a great way to really, really lower the Doctor's profile and get back to the 70s style of showing the Doctor being able to do things rather than juvenalia like 'the show is called Doctor HARDASS'. Let's just jump to the part where the Doctor is awesome and get the finale over with!

[Shroom Man 777]

I think they got too drunk off their own success. In S1, the uncertainty between success and failure forced them to work hard to develop compelling shit. Whereas by the later seasons, having a solid and insane fanbase, they could afford to get lazy and they figured they could get away with it just by appeasing the fans with some fanservice with the Doctorb being rawr awesome cause the fans lap that stuff up and shit. In S1, their plots were actually workable and the performances were stellar. By S4, it was pure self indulgent gratuitous crazy stuffs.

[Revy]

"If the Doctor is dealing with life forms that he's defeated on multiple occasions, it's not like they haven't noticed. It's not like they haven't written it down. You are going to be able to stand up at Stonehenge and say "Who's first? Look at the score sheet, and take your best shot." It's going to happen. At the same time, he can't keep doing that. It could be quite damaging for the show. So it's something that I'm bring to a head, and kind of ending."

Quote from Moffat, I think. So it seems as if he at least knows they can't keep pulling that kind of thing. Whether or not he does anything about it remains to be seen.

[Patrick Degan]

The sad fact is, NuWho jumped the shark with "Parting Of The Ways" and that was inevitable with the set up of the entire Bad Wolf plot thread: because it's clear that the whole reason for that was to help set up Rusty's lame-ass Torchwood spin off show and the creative integrity of Doctor Who got partly sacrificed for it. The rest of it came down to Rusty continually trying to outdo himself on story arcs combined with a schizoid construction of Ten as Dark Badass and "the most wonderful man in the world" in one package. Ever since POTW, Doctor Who has played out rather like really bad fanzine fiction.

[Stark]

I think they got too drunk off their own success. In S1, the uncertainty between success and failure forced them to work hard to develop compelling shit. Whereas by the later seasons, having a solid and insane fanbase, they could afford to get lazy and they figured they could get away with it just by appeasing the fans with some fanservice with the Doctorb being rawr awesome cause the fans lap that stuff up and shit. In S1, their plots were actually workable and the performances were stellar. By S4, it was pure self indulgent gratuitous crazy stuffs.

I wonder how much S1 had to be developed before it was sold to the BBC? It's possible it was polished for ages, and they simply didn't have the production systems set up to vet or polish ongoing stuff. Look at Jack; in S1 he was a typical RTD character - but FLASH GORDON. By S3 there was typical RTD action... only really stale. The team is now (as far as I can tell) a bunch of fans from the 80s, which is never a good idea for quality.

Quote from Moffat, I think. So it seems as if he at least knows they can't keep pulling that kind of thing. Whether or not he does anything about it remains to be seen

Protip, it damaged the show ages ago and he's not helping. Imagine if James Bond kept saying HAHA NOW YOU'VE CAUGHT ME YOU'RE IN TROUBLE and the villain kept getting the shakes and pooping their pants? How does it make sense for guys who are after the Doctor to be ready to vomit in fear when they catch him? A missed opportunity is even that they should have known they could manipulate him due to his better nature.

Patrick, Torchwood COULD have been good. After the first 3 episodes, it was NEVER going to be good. I mean shit, fucking FRINGE is better.

[Big Orange]

NuWho has not genuinely Jumped the Shark, though it's certainly been more hit 'n miss with Tennant (sometimes too lurid) and Smith (S5 felt rather bland in places). Rusty had a long period of pre-planning leading up to Eccleston's year but then faced more tightly packed script deadlines after that (with TW and TSJA complicating things). Steven Moffat has mostly been OK, but will never top "Blink", and I wouldn't mind if the series took a breather after this year.

Torchwood had a rather poor first season (Chris Chibnall is the Kenneth Biller of UK television sci-fi), turned around a bit in its second year, peaked with the genuinely excellent Children of Earth, and is now just OK, but almost unrecognisible with Miracle Day.

[DaveJB]

Quote from Moffat, I think. So it seems as if he at least knows they can't keep pulling that kind of thing. Whether or not he does anything about it remains to be seen.

I think he already has, somewhat. The only real time where Eleven pulled the "I am the Doctor and I am awesome" speech and scared an enemy off was in The Eleventh Hour, and it was A) part of a cute little moment acknowledging the show's history, and B) said to aliens who were leaving anyway. On all the other occasions it's either made no real difference (The Time of Angels and The Pandorica Opens), been played for laughs (The Lodger) or just plain blown up in the Doctor's face (Victory of the Daleks).

The sad fact is, NuWho jumped the shark with "Parting Of The Ways" and that was inevitable with the set up of the entire Bad Wolf plot thread: because it's clear that the whole reason for that was to help set up Rusty's lame-ass Torchwood spin off show and the creative integrity of Doctor Who got partly sacrificed for it.

The "Bad Wolf" plot thread was very clumsily executed, but it had nothing to do with Torchwood, which wasn't even conceived of until production on NuWho S1 had almost ended. The S2 plot arc was the one dedicated to setting up Torchwood, and frankly I didn't find that one too objectionable either - it wasn't until later on when they started trash-talking UNIT in favour of Torchwood that it really got annoying.

[Big Orange]

And as an political/corporate entity Torchwood was all but effectively destroyed almost as soon as they were introduced anyway (while UNIT carried and got cool toys like the Valiant).

[DaveJB]

Well, yeah, the primary branch of Torchwood did get destroyed (being slap bang in the middle of a war between Daleks and Cybermen is never good for one's survival prospects) - most of the subsequent comparisons were between UNIT and Captain Jack's Torchwood. Credit where it's due, UNIT actually came out of the Sontaran two-parter not too badly, but it REALLY got offensive in Journey's End (yeah, knocking that episode again, who'd have thunk it?) when they depicted UNIT as a bunch of genocidal lunatics, and then proceeded to have Jack trash-talk them in favour of three people in a cave under Cardiff Bay.

[Stark]

If we rebrand 'fanservice' a 'cute moment acknowledging show history', is it less terrible?

UNIT was systematically assassinated after S2; full of thugs or fascists, running space gitmo and blowing up the world, compared to their first two reappearances and their hilariously awesome 70s showing. It's a laugh that you could remove the Valiant (ps probably a good idea) and it'd change nothing but two FX shots after its original story.

The lamest part about Torchwood is they deliberately forswore any direct link to DW (which was probably a good idea) without bothering to tell the DW guys, so Torchwood has awesome supertech labs all over the world... but not in the actual show Torchwood, which was more about joyriding fish head aliens being chased by retards.

[Big Orange]

Credit where it's due, UNIT actually came out of the Sontaran two-parter not too badly, but it REALLY got offensive in Journey's End (yeah, knocking that episode again, who'd have thunk it?) when they depicted UNIT as a bunch of genocidal lunatics, and then proceeded to have Jack trash-talk them in favour of three people in a cave under Cardiff Bay.

Their nukes wired into the crust of the Earth were only to be used in the most extreme last restort circumstances (like a Dalek invasion), not to be used for shits 'n giggles, and major nation states in real life collectively posses 23,000 officially known nuclear warheads (and other WMDs) that can easily decimate huge chunks of the world's population easily anyway, while UNIT in a 1960s story had nukes that could blow up planets. The Osterhagen array was pulpy and extreme, but not completely out of character for a military organization that's kinda sinister (a powerful military that's above national governments).

[Thanas]

The lamest part about Torchwood is they deliberately forswore any direct link to DW (which was probably a good idea) without bothering to tell the DW guys, so Torchwood has awesome supertech labs all over the world... but not in the actual show Torchwood, which was more about joyriding fish head aliens being chased by retards.

Now now Stark, we all know that all it needed was Rose and her dad's money to jumpstart things in that alternative universe.

[Stark]

PROTIP: 24 weapons that can make the planet explode might make better weapons than G36s for fighting aliens. UNIT is only 'kinda sinister' because the writers hate the military and vomit on it as often as possible; thirty years ago they refused to attack private property without a reason, remember? They're 'above' national governments in that way that civil servants and national military authorities can stymie them.

[Thanas]

PROTIP: 24 weapons that can make the planet explode might make better weapons than G36s for fighting aliens. UNIT is only 'kinda sinister' because the writers hate the military and vomit on it as often as possible; thirty years ago they refused to attack private property without a reason, remember? They're 'above' national governments in that way that civil servants and national military authorities can stymie them.

But if UNIT were competent we would not need the doctor to save the day every damn time. Which is the inherent problem with UNIT.

[Stark]

In Seeds of Doom, the Doctor didn't save the day; he called for an airstrike. But then, he didn't say HARRISON CHASE I AM THE DOCTORB FEAR ME either, nor did he have a ready-made solution to everything, nor did everyone invovled automatically defer to him.

Actually, Seeds of Doom is a good example of a serial being funny as all shit as well as the Doctor being dead-serious 'this will destroy the entire world YOU HAVE NO CHANCE SCORBY' and having UNIT be wary, but competent and well-equipped (and apparently with transforming Harriers on 5m standby).

It also makes me think anyone invovled in the UNIT DATING CONTROVERSY is a fucking moron, since all those stories clearly and obviuosly take place in an alternate Earth. Petty thug is unimpressed by laser cannons, and yet readily identifies them? TOTALLY 1976 DOODS.

[TC Pilot]

One of the things I particularly liked about the early seasons of the new series was that they actually made some effort to acknowledge that it's damn impossible to cover up all this alien invasion stuff. Of course, then we go from a giant laser cannon in the center of London blowing up a pyramid-sized space ship that just mind controlled a third of the population and an army of robots fighting flying trash cans to the Prime Minister (nice of them to rebuild 10 Downing Street and Big Ben, by the way) making the amazing announcement that there's aliens around.

That, and it's hilarious how Van Stanton (who apparently overthrows Obama next year just cuz) apparently didn't know about the army of trash cans that had just teleported Earth into deep space and shot up the place. Guess he's just some insane guy living underground. Then again, who the hell in their right mind cares about DW continuity?

Once Tennant had started to get really grating and stale (or at least when the episodes did), I found his character to be much more interesting if you assume going into each episode that the Doctor knows exactly what he's doing at all times... something the 11th Doctor flat-out said this season. It's staggering in that respect how postively evil he is.

[The Romulan Republic]

One of the things I particularly liked about the early seasons of the new series was that they actually made some effort to acknowledge that it's damn impossible to cover up all this alien invasion stuff. Of course, then we go from a giant laser cannon in the center of London blowing up a pyramid-sized space ship that just mind controlled a third of the population and an army of robots fighting flying trash cans to the Prime Minister (nice of them to rebuild 10 Downing Street and Big Ben, by the way) making the amazing announcement that there's aliens around.

That, and it's hilarious how Van Stanton (who apparently overthrows Obama next year just cuz) apparently didn't know about the army of trash cans that had just teleported Earth into deep space and shot up the place. Guess he's just some insane guy living underground. Then again, who the hell in their right mind cares about DW continuity?

Well, as its part of the premise that the Time Line is regularly altered, yeah.

[Stark]

The attempt to keep the show grounded in 'present day' sure is a giant hole full of retcons. If they'd been smart they would have just branched it off like the old show; nothing directly refers to present-day events or people anyway, and it'd still be close enough to sell the soap opera stuff. There's a reason Pete's World was far more interesting than We All Forgot About The Space Titanic Flying Past world, and it's not just scifi guns.