Dr Who

[david_b]

Tom Baker was the Doctor I grew up with, and his stories will always be my favourites.
I have vague recollections of seeing some older DW episodes as a kid in UK, but mostly my DW memories start when I was watching Tom Baker stories on PBS in Ontario.
Had a bunch of the Target novelizations, too.

Same here, pretty much. I noticed 'Masque of Mandragora' on PBS in Wisconsin on a Saturday afternoon, saw mention of him in an early Starlog, read some the Who paperbacks, then a buddy of mine invited me over to watch Who each week at his place, on a Chicago station I couldn't get. All over the course of about 2-3 months.

Getting tired of all the millions spent and hype on cinema special effects after Star Wars, without much script or character substance or even imagination..

I was hooked.


david_b

[Bruce Banner]

Tom Baker was the Doctor I grew up with, and his stories will always be my favourites.
I have vague recollections of seeing some older DW episodes as a kid in UK, but mostly my DW memories start when I was watching Tom Baker stories on PBS in Ontario.
Had a bunch of the Target novelizations, too.

[jwyblejr]

Different twist with The Doctor being the "bad guy",sort of.

[jds1911a1]

I know what you mean on that one, some of the early stuff was good I still enjoy watching, what there is of the hartnell and troughton years, pertwee left me a touch cold to be honest though he did have is moments.

I think with him it was the cost cutting idea of keeping him on earth, you lot the time lord bit for me. but I grew up with tom baker, and all I can say is what were they tinking with the whole E-space/adric thing, that for me was the begining of the end of the doctor, it started it's slide to lower production values and wreteched scripts.

Have you noticed in the last series the trend to borrow elemnts from classic who stories?

Espace and adric was Jon Nathan Turner's creative vein (JNT took over when the Bergandy coat was adopted)

[ctc]

>so where do you dissagree?

Not you; Mike. And Delta City + Daleks seems like a bad idea....

Don C.

[samurainoir]

Raccoon City/Delta City honours Churchill and awaits our Dalek overlords.

[Boris71]

I thought Thats what I said about it CTC? so where do you dissagree?

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I'd KINDA disagree about the first two Doctors. I think the Beeb wanted a kids show, but the folks working on it didn't, so you get kind of a back and forth; especially with the first Doctor. (Who'd alternately be the kindly old man, and who'd alternately leave the two teachers to die at the hands of the bad guy.) I haven't seen too much Troughton, but the bits I have seen swing towards the horror sort of story, and there's a LOT of death in his episodes. (In some ways it reminds me of "The Black Hole.")

Don C.

[Boris71]

I'm not so sure I would agree with you there about the Hartnell and troughton years, I think they were geared to wards the teen market, they were shown after the sport so didn't start til 6pm ish and a lot of the time in the UK familes would be sitting down for food before the fathers/mothers and older teens went out, and in 1963 the stuff they were doing may have been considered to scary for younger children by some parents

we look back now and say what the hell were they thinking, but back then it was kind of good for TV shows at the time, it was given to the childrens department to produce by the BBC as Sci-Fi was stricly for kids and Verity Lambert who was a childrens producer for then childrens department thought it should be more for an older audience like quatermass was so it was given a bit more of an edge

[Mikey]

The Hartnell and Troughton eras were clearly made for children.

By the time of the Pertwee era the direction was clearly changed to entertain "the whole family"

By the late Tom Baker years this direction shifted to entertaining older teens --- This direction stayed until the end of the McCoy era.

The new series (the first couple years) seemed to be geared to entertain a new demographic --- the older teens AND especially girls.

This past season seems to have combined a few demographics into a big mish-mash .... I would say it's geared toward children/family/older teens and girls ....
I think it's trying to hard to appeal to everyone and in the process it's alienating many.

That's my take

[Boris71]

I am a fan of classic (especially Pre JNT) Dr who and my sentiments are colored by that. The new show is OK and has it's moments but I still prefer the original series despite wobly plywood sets, rubber suits, and flubed dialog in the early years

I know what you mean on that one, some of the early stuff was good I still enjoy watching, what there is of the hartnell and troughton years, pertwee left me a touch cold to be honest though he did have is moments.

I think with him it was the cost cutting idea of keeping him on earth, you lot the time lord bit for me. but I grew up with tom baker, and all I can say is what were they tinking with the whole E-space/adric thing, that for me was the begining of the end of the doctor, it started it's slide to lower production values and wreteched scripts.

Have you noticed in the last series the trend to borrow elemnts from classic who stories?

[jds1911a1]

Wow Thats deep given it's a TV show thats not meant to be real and to entertain us lesser beings who just want to be entertained for 45 mins

and as for "ancient history" what you need to look at is the perspective of that, for me I love real ancient history, back to the egyptians and babalonians etc, and I don't have a pop at the inacurate nature of a mummy movie, but a lot of the audience that is under 18 watching dr who would think of world war 2 as "ancient history" sad but rue, and these days may not even know who churchill was outside of the fact he was britains primeminister in the second world war

I don't see why Shows and movies need to be so disected, I honestly think that shows and movies would be more enjoyed by people if they just got into the world of it for the length and forgot about what isn't accurate or if it's too sterotypical and just watched the damn show

that's me the Deep thinker Boris, I'm sure for a child the Churchill was fine but as a kid I grew up watching World at War (Narrated by Sir Lawrunce Olivier) and still remember how cool it was that Iron Maiden used Churchills "we Shall Fight them at the Beaches" speech as the into to Aces High on Live after death.
I am a fan of classic (especially Pre JNT) Dr who and my sentiments are colored by that. The new show is OK and has it's moments but I still prefer the original series despite wobly plywood sets, rubber suits, and flubed dialog in the early years

[Boris71]

Wow Thats deep given it's a TV show thats not meant to be real and to entertain us lesser beings who just want to be entertained for 45 mins

and as for "ancient history" what you need to look at is the perspective of that, for me I love real ancient history, back to the egyptians and babalonians etc, and I don't have a pop at the inacurate nature of a mummy movie, but a lot of the audience that is under 18 watching dr who would think of world war 2 as "ancient history" sad but rue, and these days may not even know who churchill was outside of the fact he was britains primeminister in the second world war

I don't see why Shows and movies need to be so disected, I honestly think that shows and movies would be more enjoyed by people if they just got into the world of it for the length and forgot about what isn't accurate or if it's too sterotypical and just watched the damn show

[jds1911a1]

Trust me, Churchill is just as popular here today in the US as he is in the UK

The guy will always be known as the man who couldn't be defeated.

I think the reason he wasn't mentioned above is he's still pretty recent, so we don't count him in "ancient" history stories.

Mike you get me dead on.
Firstly I am never a fan of a historical figure potrayal that is pure charicature fat bald guy with a cigar(which the churchill was) and since he lived in the modern era everyone either knows what he looks like or can google a photo, speech or film clip. I am a ww2 historian and that was about the lamest Churchill impression I've ever seen.

The actor they chose for Vincent Van gogh really "looked" like the paintings Van gogh did of himself. Classic who never went too close to meeting modern famous people but Hartnell's met Nero in the Romans, and Richard the Lionhart in Crusades, marco Polo,that was what this felt like to me. the famous people were handled like any "typical" guest character in who
The Victory of the Daleks and Shakepeare code both felt like Gunfighters FORCED and pigionholed with stereotypical portrayals of famous people

[Mikey]

well don't you coun't Winston Churchill from Victory of the Daleks (ep2) as a famous person? or is that just a UK thing?

Trust me, Churchill is just as popular here today in the US as he is in the UK

The guy will always be known as the man who couldn't be defeated.

I think the reason he wasn't mentioned above is he's still pretty recent, so we don't count him in "ancient" history stories.