New Doctor Who series tonight....

[Glow worm]

I stumbled upon this radio series called Journey into Space from the 1950's the other night. It's brilliant and I'm completely hooked. The series is set in the 'unimaginably far-flung future' - 1971!

It's followed by the radio flavoured version of Dr Who as well, in ' The Creature from the Pit' (though I keep falling asleep by then!) where the blurb says 'The Time Lord aims to save the doomed planet, but the odds are 74,384,338 to 11 against' Or thereabouts!

 

[captain nemo1701]

That's a bit harsh I think. I recently raided my brother's collection for some Tom Baker era stories and while I accept that there are some really bad ones, there are also ones like "City of Death", The Talons of Weng Chiang", "The Stones of Blood" and "Genesis of the Daleks" which still stand up to scrutiny.

How about 'The Horror of Fang Rock', 'Pyramids of Mars' and my favourite, 'The Seeds of Doom'. All cracking stories.
The problem with the current show is it's format - everything has to be wrapped up in a neat 45 minute package due to world syndication (yep, we have bowed to the US-style of show, with 15 mins or so free to squeeze in adverts. It happened with Star Trek, good stories rushed to a conclusion to wrap up the episode). The old shows were 30 mins with cliffhanger, but part of say,a two or three hour long story which allowed characters to breath and have backgrounds etc. Now, whenever they have a new character in the show, the establishing dialogue is cut so short, they almost speak in sentences of two words. This means that they all seem to know each other in about 2 minutes - no time for relationships, but a lot of running about. Usually by about the 42nd minute, the Doctor has figured it all out and it's brought neatly to a conclusion by minute 45. Just enough time left for the end credits and ...Next time on Dr Who..... .

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

4 stories out of 41.(170 odd programmes) That is you will have to admit Bad I mean really bad.

There's no pleasing some people.

I grabbed a selection coz I was in the mood for reliving a bit of my childhood, I didn't watch every single story he did (Doug doesn't have them all anyhow) and I didn't imply those were the only good ones.

 

[tadpole]

There's no pleasing some people.

I grabbed a selection coz I was in the mood for reliving a bit of my childhood, I didn't watch every single story he did (Doug doesn't have them all anyhow) and I didn't imply those were the only good ones.

And some are too easy to please, watch any old WDS providing it's view through the rose tinted glasses of Yester-year

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

And some are too easy to please, watch any old WDS providing it's view through the rose tinted glasses of Yester-year

 

[on the road]

The mistake they're making is having each episode a one off. In the old series each one was usually a four parter, each about 25 minutes long. The episodes now are 50 minutes, equivalent to two 25 minutes episodes in old money so the story line's not as good.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

If that's his new companion, I thought she had an excellent début.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

The mistake they're making is having each episode a one off. In the old series each one was usually a four parter, each about 25 minutes long. The episodes now are 50 minutes, equivalent to two 25 minutes episodes in old money so the story line's not as good.

Yes, I'd agree with that.

However the story has to be good enough to sustain multiple episodes - the bad stories of the old series tended to be where the storyline was just enough to fill two episodes but they'd stretched it out to four.

A mix of one and two parters would work with the new format.

 

[TheDoctor]

Well, I quite liked it.
SPOILER
The ending did remind me of the one of the Cybermen ones, where they had the emotion inhibitor devices switched off and could see what they had been turned into. The Dalek screaming 'I am not a Dalek' was somewhat sad. I didn't quite see that coming...
Well written overall, I thought.

 

[ufkacbln]

The mistake they're making is having each episode a one off. In the old series each one was usually a four parter, each about 25 minutes long. The episodes now are 50 minutes, equivalent to two 25 minutes episodes in old money so the story line's not as good.

I think there are two problems these days, which are (at least partially) linked.

The biggest one is attention span. Modern children (and some adults) as a whole have very short attention spans and this is reflected in the simplification of plot lines and the KISS principle

Secondly the US market. Again known for attention span deficit, but also a lot of the plots were too "British" for the USA.

 

[Hitchington]

That's a bit harsh I think. I recently raided my brother's collection for some Tom Baker era stories and while I accept that there are some really bad ones, there are also ones like "City of Death", The Talons of Weng Chiang", "The Stones of Blood" and "Genesis of the Daleks" which still stand up to scrutiny.

Yeah, I watched Genesis of the Daleks a couple of years ago and yes the sets were cheap and it it was dated yet it had a seriousness and a sinister edge that I feel it lacking from some of the new ones. Other stories that stood out for me were The Ark in Space, The Brain of Morbius and The Pyramids of Mars.

 

[MontyVeda]

IMO this episode was mostly pants... I enjoyed aspects but Daleks taking human form for me, lacked imagination... they just nicked that from the newish Battlestar Gallactica series.

I also find it a bit boring that we have Daleks in every series. Are they worried toy sales will suffer if they leave the Daleks alone for a year or three? Same with the recurrance of the Blink angles.... bloody brilliant story that was... but we don't need it rehashed.

I do like Matt Smith. Much more than Tennant or Eccleston, but he's no Tom Baker.

 

[PaulB]

I am happy to say I have never once seen an episode of any Doctor Who. I may have seen a few seconds here and there but this is one programme I never bothered with. Star Trek is another one I wouldn't watch as well.

 

[Frankieabbott]

It hasn't been the same since the era of the original Master (Roger Delgado) and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. ("5 rounds rapid fire").

 

[ufkacbln]

It hasn't been the same since the era of the original Master (Roger Delgado) and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. ("5 rounds rapid fire").

Unfortunately they are "otherwise engaged" and will not be re-appearing.