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The Doctor Who Thread.....


Greg1138

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1. Rose (mainly with Tennant, that was something special)

2. Sarah Jane (her recent appearances only enhanced her character)

3. Jamie (he and Troughton were The Team)

4. 2nd Romana (a perfect compliment to Tom, their off screen chemistry showed on screen)

5. Donna

Other favorites: Jo, Turlough (a unique companion, though he lost his edge as time went on), Ace, Ian and Barbara (the Hartnell era really lost something after they left), Tegan (who doesn't like a smart mouthed Aussie! :P )

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Martha was OK enough in series 3, but her future appearances were so pointless that it really hurt her character IMO. Kind of the opposite of Sarah Jane. And to think it's been in the rumor mill that she'll be back again sometime in this year's specials. :P

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I liked Martha. Didn't really watch it enough/remember enough from my childhood to say much more, although I was not a big fan of Rose, and I hated Ace.

I'm not that fond of either Martha, or Rose, and the least said about Melanie, the better, but Donna Noble made a real impression on me, becoming almost The Doctor's conscience. I also like Zoe, Jo Grant, and Teegan (but not Ad-f***ing-ric!). Also, Ian and Barbara were really good companions.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm a little dubious about this one. Hopefully it'll be good, but I expect it to be more of a placeholder before the last ones.

Speaking of which, some interesting tidbits have snuck out about the last few specials. Two familiar faces have been spotted at location shoots:

Ood Sigma from Planet of the Ood, and the legend himself, Bernard Cribbins (Wilf). Definately adds fuel to the rumors about Donna coming back in some way.

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Guess who's back? Do not click on this link if you don't want to know. Mega spoiler!

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee203/c...b217354f4c6.jpg

(Taken from Life, Doctor Who, and Combom)

BTW,

John Simm

was also spotted filming last week.

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I watched that on YouTube a while back, it's got to be three years old now. But it is good fun. There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff from it as part of Tennett's video diaries on the Series 3 DVD. Nick Briggs playing with his voice modulator is always a hoot.

I guess that next special thingy is tomorrow night, isn't it?

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Yes it was, and it was a bloody good one too....

Planet of the Dead is vastly, VASTLY superior to The Next Doctor...mind you, perhaps it needed to be....not that I can knock that Xmas special really, it just wasn't up to the standard we have come to expect.

Everything was top notch - the witty script, the acting, the supporting cast (I doubt we have seen the end of Michelle Ryan), the effects, the superb score....bloody good stuff.

My only tiny, tiny gripe was that the last 15 minutes seemed dragged out a lot, but to be honest when TV is this much fun, who the hell cares?

So - exactly who will

knock 4 times

?

Greg

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Yes, I enjoyed it as well. It didn't fall off the cliff in the second half the way The Next Doctor did. Michelle Ryan was not only a good companion, she was sultry goodness. Great voice. Considering The Mill had almost no time to work on this (filming wrapped barely 2 months ago) the effects were pretty good. The Dubai shoot added a lot to the production value. And it's always great to have UNIT involved, Malcolm was a lot of fun.

As for the prophecy at the end, well:

"Knock 4 times":

Yes, Greg, has to be the Master. Not only has Simm been confirmed on set for the last two specials, the "drumbeat" theme with him is 4 beats!

"It is returning from the darkenss":

Gallifrey. RTD's resetting everything so Moffat has a clean slate to start with.

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Yep, loved this one, particularly after the near disaster of The Next Doctor (I'm not knocking it for the sake of it - apart from the intrigue of whether Morrissey really was the next doctor, there seemed to be little else of any substance in the episode).

The effects still have a slight 'TV' look to them. I don't know whether that's the budget or just The Mill, but I keep craving for truly hollywood standard sfx in BBC productions.

The music was good, but nothing I'm desperate to rip from the 5.1 mix.

And that HD - wow. Pin-sharp. Even persuaded my brother to sit through it so I could see it direct from BBC HD.

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"Knock 4 times":

Yes, Greg, has to be the Master. Not only has Simm been confirmed on set for the last two specials, the "drumbeat" theme with him is 4 beats!

"It is returning from the darkenss":

Gallifrey. RTD's resetting everything so Moffat has a clean slate to start with.

I'm going to bet you're right with the darkness thing......as for the other - well - yeah, but that's a pretty loose connection considering the one's we've had before.....I'm gonna bet you're right with the identity but I think there's an awful lot more to it than that.....

Pixie - get this one quick - it's worth it :wave:

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I'm gonna bet you're right with the identity but I think there's an awful lot more to it than that.....

I think you're right there. Plus there's the addition of

Donna and her family being heavily involved in the finale, Wilf has been confirmed as the "official" companion for it.

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Got it. Watched it. Loved it! (A variation on Blackadder's "Found it, pinched it, spent it").

Great fun! Michelle Ryan was terrific. She's the perfect foil for the Doctor! She and Tennent were great together. Damn shame she didn't stick around, and that even if she does return Tennent will have been replaced with that teenager Doctor or whoever he thinks he is... :lol:

The swarm reminded me of Steven King's The Langoliers. Very creepy. Loved the flying bus. Very Harry Potter! I really really enjoyed this episode. Can't wait for The Waters of Mars. Ice Warriors maybe? There was no sign of them in the trailer, but who knows...

I still wish they'd give Tennent his wish and bring back the Zygons for his final story.

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It certainly was better than the last so-called "special"... I'm hopefull that "The Waters of Mars" will bring back that planet's indigenuos life-form. I have also heard a romour that at least one of the remaining specials will be a flashback to-wait for it- The Time War, and will feature one P. McGann esq.

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Old rumors that are almost certainly untrue, unfortunately. But, as I've mentioned before, we are likely to see

the return of Gallifrey and the Time Lords

. Right now the only known returns are Wilf, Donna, and Sylvia (officially announced) and the Master (not official yet).

I'd like to see the Ice Warriors in the next special as well. There was the rumor that the Sea Devils were going to make an appearance, but it looks like that's not happening.

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  • 4 weeks later...

To fill in the long gap between New Who episodes, I have started collecting the classic Who DVD's....up until a few weeks ago I had relied on my own VHS recordings and a few tapes I bought years ago....

So far my collection consists of Robot, Genesis of the Daleks, Destiny of the Daleks, New Beginnings box set, Earthshock, Time Flight and Arc of Infinity....

I am astonished at the work that has gone into these releases....the care and attention given by a team of unpaid geeks has paid off in spades....these releases look and sound amazing. The CGI effects, where available, are not the gaudy and clunky additions I expected - they actually work!! Well, most of them anyway....

Greg - feeling like a schoolkid again...and awaiting delivery of Revelation of the Daleks.

Oh - by the way - for anyone not keeping up with things, Timothy Dalton has been all but confirmed to play a baddy in the upcoming specials, and the good Doctor's Mum makes an appearance in the form of Claire Bloom.

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Might wanna spoiler tag some of that, Greg... :lol:

I agree on the DVD releases. Stunning, absolutely stunning work on decades old episodes. My wife and I are currently in the middle of a Hartnell-through-present viewing marathon (up to "The Green Death" at the moment), and you can clearly see the massive improvement in quality when going from a story on VHS to a story on DVD. Especially some of the black and white episodes, if you've ever seen, for example, the surviving episodes of "The Moonbase" on the old "Patrick Troughton Years" VHS release, compare that to the DVD release on "Lost in Time", the difference is almost literally night and day. The VHS release was dark, blurry, very muddy sound... the DVD is crisp, clear, VidFIRE'd, clean audio... just absolutely stunning. And they do a great job on adding some very good special features. Some releases have more and/or better special features than others, but even the lesser releases have plenty of extras.

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The Doctor Who Restoration team has done almost miraculous work for the Who DVDs. With the right resources (masters surviving, etc) some of them really look like they were just shot yesterday, particularly the film inserts. And the VIDFIRE process invented for the 60s stories, amazing. And the upcoming release of Planet of the Daleks includes an experimental new technique for restoring color to episodes that only exist in black and white, which would be a huge boon for the Pertwee era.

And this is all before getting into the sumptious extras. Documentaries, trailers and continuity announcements, period publicity, comedy skits, isolated scores...and I tell you, I haven't heard a bad commentary yet, no matter what the era.

I've been collecting actively for a few years now, here's where I currently stand (the scary thing is I'm probably barely half done with what I want to get):

Hartnell- The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Lost in Time collection

Troughton- Lost in Time collection, Tomb of the Cybermen, The Invasion

Pertwee- Inferno, The Claws of Axos, The Sea Devils, The Green Death, The Time Warrior

T. Baker- The Ark in Space, Genesis of the Daleks, Pyramids of Mars, The Hand of Fear, The Robots of Death, Horror of Fang Rock, City of Death, The Keeper of Traken, Logopolis

Davison- Castrovalva, Earthshock, The Five Doctors (2 disc version), The Caves of Androzani

C. Baker- The Two Doctors

McCoy- Rememberance of the Daleks

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It was released but only as a limited edition - still obtainable but hugely expensive (around £200)....I believe the plan is to release it again as a non-limited edition though so fingers crossed!

Another bit of casting news, this time for The Sarah Jane Adventures....a complete and utter unknown by the name of David Tennant (or something like that), has been confirmed to play some character called "The Doctor" (all sounds a bit farfetched to me) in a 2-parter during Season 3.

Davros - just saw your comment above about spoiler texting the casting stuff - yeah, ok , maybe I should have, but it was so widely reported in the UK press (and no doubt every Who fan-site on the planet) that at the time I didn't see it as necessary. Apologies if people thought otherwise.

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Another bit of casting news, this time for The Sarah Jane Adventures....a complete and utter unknown by the name of David Tennant (or something like that), has been confirmed to play some character called "The Doctor" (all sounds a bit farfetched to me) in a 2-parter during Season 3.

Who?

On a serious note, thank God the ep is being written by Gareth Roberts, who's great, and not Phil Ford, who's not.

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I'd be excited about this, but here in the U.S. we haven't even gotten season two of The Sarah Jane Adventures yet, or the last couple of Doctor Who specials, for that matter. At this rate, Tennant'll still be the Doctor for us by the time Matt Smith is retiring.

Who?

Exactly.

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I'd be excited about this, but here in the U.S. we haven't even gotten season two of The Sarah Jane Adventures yet, or the last couple of Doctor Who specials, for that matter. At this rate, Tennant'll still be the Doctor for us by the time Matt Smith is retiring.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on over here. Sci-Fi has shown no interest in showing the specials even though Who has been successful for them, and there hasn't been a peep about DVD releases either.

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I'm sure Sci-Fi wants to air all the specials over consecutive weeks (they did the same with all the previous ones, after all) ... and probably want to also hold Sarah Jane until it can lead into Doctor Who.

This, to me, is insanity. It's practically begging people to visit torrent sites. I would have done so long ago if my computer could play video worth a damn. It can't.

I'm sure Sci-Fi wants to air all the specials over consecutive weeks (they did the same with all the previous ones, after all) ... and probably want to also hold Sarah Jane until it can lead into Doctor Who.

This, to me, is insanity. It's practically begging people to visit torrent sites. I would have done so long ago if my computer could play video worth a damn. It can't.

Found this news mere minutes after making the above post.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111800422...yid=19&cs=1

No word on Sarah Jane, sadly; otherwise, that's terrific news.

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Found this news mere minutes after making the above post.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111800422...yid=19&cs=1

No word on Sarah Jane, sadly; otherwise, that's terrific news.

Not for those of us that don't get BBC America. It means Sci-Fi has passed on them. I wonder if this means Series 5 won't be on Sci-Fi too.

I suspect on the DVD front they're waiting to release all of them in one box set. That's going to be a long wait.

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Young Scottish lass Karen Gillan announced as the new companion...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8073734.stm

No character name or character profile yet. Seems to lend credence to a rumor I heard some time ago that Moffat was looking to have

a female Jamie McCrimmon type character

as the companion. (Not sure that needed spoiler tags or not but since I spoke of them earlier I figured I better cover my a**)

Looks like a good choice to me! ;)

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No character name or character profile yet. Seems to lend credence to a rumor I heard some time ago that Moffat was looking to have

a female Jamie McCrimmon type character

as the companion.

Yes, I remember that rumor was well, including that she's supposed to be

from the past rather than the present day.

I love how the Moff even gets a couple of woofers in his press releases. That one about the new female exec producer being the one wearing the trousers cracked me up.

Also, it's been annouced that Tennant's Hamlet is going to be filmed for transmission on BBC 2.

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Just watched Human Nature/The Family Of Blood.

Suberb writing and acting, especially from Tennant as John Smith and Jessica Hynes as Nurse Redfern.

It is a brilliant story, also one of my favourites.

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Why exactly did Lucy Saxon gunned down her husband?

I'm not sure there's a definitive answer. In the commentary there's a lot of talk of the implied abuse Lucy's suffered at the hands of the Master (notice her black eye) and that she just snapped and took the opportunity to hurt him. But personally I've always thought it might have been part of a deeper plan, should the Doctor end up thwarting the Master's plans again. Don't forget the red figernailed hand that picked up the ring at the end, and it's been all but officially confirmed that the Master is going to figure heavily in Tennant's finale.

The last 5 minutes or so of Utopia is still quite possibly the best moment new Who has produced to date.

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:rolleyes:
Still waiting for the BBC to rerelease Key To Time in R2. :fouetaa:

:banghead: They recently have.

It's been reissued in R1, but it's still OOP in R2 <_<

Pixie, I watched "The Ribos Operation", last week, in R2, as I do not own a R1 player! P.s. "Delta and the Bannermen" is out in July, and "The War Games" is on its way...

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Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last Of The Timelords.

Good...very good. but the last episode is lacking a bit.

Why exactly did Lucy Saxon gunned down her husband?

The goodbye scene between Martha and The Doctor is great though.

The end just reeked of a lack of ideas to me. It all went fine until RTD decided time could just reset itself and all would be good.

Seems to be an occasional problem with Who - they have a great story, but get out of the final situation by making something up seemingly on the spot.

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Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last Of The Timelords.

Good...very good. but the last episode is lacking a bit.

"A bit"? LotTL is IMHO one of the worst episodes ever, Classic Series and New Series. Nonsensical plot contrivances (Gollum/Dobby Doctor... WTF?), ridiculous reset button ending, floating Christ-figure Doctor with magical powers who is restored because people "believe in him" and say his name all at the same time (again, WTF?)... Ugh. Just do not like it at all. Dreading it when we get their in our marathon.

That having been said, loved "Utopia" (Jacobi delightedly proclaiming who he is sent thrills through me on first viewing), "Sound of Drums" was OK but I had a problem with the insane Master as opposed to the Classic Series Master. Enjoyed the flashback to Gallifrey though. (And a minor American quibble... why is does the President of the United States refer to himself as the "President-Elect"? Either he's the President or he isn't yet, you can't be both... and if he's not, why did they send him?)

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Seems to be an occasional problem with Who - they have a great story, but get out of the final situation by making something up seemingly on the spot.

TNG 2 parters had the same problem. A great part one with a fantastic cliffhanger, and a part two that does not really deliver the goods (Best Of Both Words, Redemption, Reunification etc...)

The last 5 minutes or so of Utopia is still quite possibly the best moment new Who has produced to date.

Derek Jacobi's final few minutes were indeed fantastic.

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It makes me wish Jacobi had gotten a full ep as the Master, despite how good Simm is too. Have you seen Series 4 yet Steef? Davros' return is handled almost as well.

I agree with some of the criticisms of the Series 3 finale. The last ep does not quite live up to the setup, yet every time I watch it I still love it. Simm plays the Master more as a Joss Whedon style villan than the traditional characterization, but I think it works great, especially up against Tennant's Doctor. And the cell phone conversation between them in The Sound of Drums gave almost gave me goose bumps the first time I saw it, that's what us longtime fans live to see.

Rich, that whole President elect thing might just be a misunderstanding of the terminology.

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Is that the one with the master dancing to the scissor sisters?

Yeah, do not want at all. That was the last new-Who I watched. Put me off completely. Well, that and Catherine Tate.

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My wife and I were both dreading her return after her frankly annoying appearance in "The Runaway Bride". "What is RTD thinking?!?" was our thinking at the time. That completely changed with Series 4. She's absolutely wonderful, and we hated to see her go.

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I'll second that - she took my breath away - seriously - I had no idea she was remotely capable of the performances she gave....if you need persuading, watch the last 5 minutes of "The Fires of Pompeii" - if that doesn't change your mind, probably nothing will.

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if you need persuading, watch the last 5 minutes of "The Fires of Pompeii" - if that doesn't change your mind, probably nothing will.

Or all of Turn Left.

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