pubs
Holy shit. The new series is going somewhere.
EDIT:
Okay. About the Eccleston thing. Now that the shock is past, and now that it’s clear the season was scripted with this probability in mind, and now that we’ve seen episode two and what it suggests about how the new series will treat its characters, and now that we’ve gone back and read Davies’s comments about his ideas for the show — now where do we sit?
As uncomfortable as it might seem at face value, this could come off as an organic development. Consider the following:
- that the reason Davies “never even considered” bringing back McGann for a regeneration was that he didn’t want to confuse a new audience; he wanted a fresh start
- that the new series is about wonder and horror, and about the relationship between the Doctor and his companion
- that unlike the original Doctor Who, the new series is organized around long-term character arcs
So the question to ask is, what do we get if we kill off the Ninth Doctor and keep Rose on, after the first season? What do we establish by doing this? The answer: a hell of a lot.
It establishes the concept of regeneration right off — or, rather, once the Doctor and Rose have had time to bond, and she’s gotten to think she knows him and become comfortable with who she thinks he is. This allows the show to go into his backstory, and explain that he’s had eight other lives before the one she (and by extension the new audience) knew. And maybe even to visit or flash back to a couple of them, eventually. When the notion has settled in well enough.
This whole concept ties into the innate wonder and horror of the new series. The horror that the Doctor is dead; the wonder that he’s not, and that there’s this whole extra dimension to him that he never mentioned; the horror of realizing even more than before just how alien he is and wondering what else that might imply; the horror of the very nature of the Doctor’s relationship with Rose, of everything she knows about him, coming into question as a result of it; the wonder that even with a new face and personality this can still be the same person; the wonder at all of the centuries and lives of experience and knowledge and pain that Rose had never even had a hint of before.
All of this feeds right into the concept of a character arc. It’s the juiciest kind of meat. This is a cornucopia of material for the Doctor, for Rose, and for their relationship. This is the kind of stuff that the series can work off of for years; that, once it’s established, can carry the series to its eventual end. And until the Doctor regenerates, it ain’t going to get established. All we’ve got is a kind of superficial setup.
Recall that the old series didn’t really get started until Hartnell regenerated into Troughton. Then, suddenly, we had something more to work with. So Hartnell stayed for three seasons, while Eccleston is leaving after one. Eccleston’s episodes are also paced more quickly. We have a lot to establish and we know the rules by now. As Davies said, today all you need to show is the cause and the effect; you don’t need to go through all the motions in between, because we get it already.
Of course it would sort of spoil things if the Doctor were to regenerate after every season. He only has a few lives left, and if the series is to work, he should only lose them when there’s a dramatic purpose to it. So whoever the Tenth Doctor is, he should expect to stick around for a while: Eccleston is a sacrifice to him, after all. He will be what we’ve really been waiting for.
EDIT AGAIN:
And hell. Seems this was all planned after all, and the BBC are just idiots for ruining the surprise.
I was mostly ROFLing at it. But I do actually like the characters, having watched it. Even Bille-fucking-Piper of all people — The idea of plonking believably oridinary people in a sci-fi programme rather than the usual sort. But that’s novel for me because I’m a Laaaaaaaandener.
But god, the only buses they show in the first one are the old Routemaster ones, how tacky.
Maybe because they wanted to sell the series to foreign markets, and the buses make someone think “hey, London!”
There’s some poignant stuff here, that stands out best in contrast to the old series. The deal with Gallifrey being gone, and the Doctor’s feelings about it; the way he reacts toward that one character at the end; the whole sense of wonder that it’s going for. It’s clear now that Davies is interested in the character of the Doctor; where he’s come from and where he’s going, as a person. As his lives are running out, this is a good thing to pay attention to.
i’m missing it??
where and when is the new series?
Re: i’m missing it??
On your favorite bittorrent site.
It’s airing in Canada now. Not North America; Sci-Fi beat everyone else down, then decided not to pick it up, in the end.
Re: i’m missing it??
Dorr. I mean, not the US. It IS in North America. Which is why it’s frustrating and strange.
Not that I have cable anyway.
Re: i’m missing it??
those assholes. thanks for the tip though :).
sci-fi not picking up dr. who = really fucking ridiculous.
So the Doctor has nine strands of DNA as an homage to the previous Doctors. I guess McGann counts.
Seems that’s what’s happening.
Re: i’m missing it??
It is kind of bizarre. I think they were weirded out by its Britishness; they must have thought they were getting something more like the 1996 TV movie.
Re: i’m missing it??
for a channel that seems to be primarily concerned with giving up quality programming for a string of cinematic gems with one-word predatory animal titles, i think it’s getting entirely too much benefit of the doubt from you.
Re: i’m missing it??
Saying it’s airing Canada now may overstate it, somewhat; it doesn’t premiere on CBC until Tuesday.
Of course, all this talk has lead me to both bt the first two episodes and spend far too long reading episode guides for the many many past seasons in an attempt to figure what all this is about.
I’m not sold, although I’ll tune if for any “significant” episodes that reveal more of the fate of the Time Lords and this war.
Re: i’m missing it??
I don’t see that as a very positive remark on my part.
Re: i’m missing it??
TUESDAY WILL BE NOW ON TUESDAY.
…
If the new episodes don’t sell you, torrent a couple of Tom Baker ones.
I don’t know why, but all of a sudden, I REALLY have to see this show. I’m getting a bit of a Farscape-ish feel going on. As that so odd?
Re: i’m missing it??
the tv movie wasn’t that bad though.
Re: i’m missing it??
It was, however, only slightly Anglo-oriented. Just enough not to offend our xenophobic American sensibilities.
Not so odd. Though I didn’t watch much of Farscape. And what I watched, as usual, was before it got “good”, a few seasons in.
Re: i’m missing it??
but we know dr. who is not actually british, so that can’t be a serious flaw, can it?
wait, was the tv movie based in america? i can’t even remember and i’m too lazy to look it up.
i thought it was always “good,” once i got past the muppets
Re: i’m missing it??
It was set in San Francsico, and generally aimed at an American audience. It often poked fun at the Doctor’s apparent Britishness.
Re: i’m missing it??
i don’t remember him acting that british in the tv-movie! though it’s been a while– hrm.
Re: i’m missing it??
That’s just it. He… didn’t, really. He was just foppish, in the typical manner of the character. And that gets interpreted as being British.
…
Of course in the new series, they make jokes about what part of England he sounds like he’s from. Compared to the movie, which was about as Americanized as they could make it (I mean, it was produced for, and co-funded by, Fox), this series is almost self-consciously British, knowing that it’ll get sold abroad. As someone on my friends page observed, every time they show a bus, it must be a red double-decker one. Being from around London herself, she read that as corny. Seems to me it’s there because it’s a foreigner’s symbol for London. Things like that.
It’s doing the postcard thing, figuring that there’s no hiding that the series is British so they might as well play it up. You’d think that would just make it more charming. Instead, I’m thinking it’s repulsing the Sci-Fi people. Because, you know. It’s now headed by the people behind the USA Network (irony interesting!), which is like Fox only more so. MST3K was too quirky for them.
Re: i’m missing it??
Oh, it wasn’t on my friends page; it was the first reply to this entry. Okay then.
Now that I’ve re-read a couple of interviews, it seems Davies is going for wonder and horror. And he wants to make the characters more central, giving them actual arcs for once. I guess he’s succeeding, then.
Well.
As executive producer and chief scriptwriter, Russell T Davies, said the doctor and his new companion “are deliberately running past Big Ben, they’re on Westminster bridge, there are double decker buses, because that’s a great big signal at the start saying, ‘This is British.’”