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Date Posted: 06:40:55 05/20/06 Sat
Author: Celebaelin
Subject: New Dr Who series: overall minireview so far - no spoilers
In reply to: Celebaelin 's message, "New Dr Who series" on 22:30:05 04/23/06 Sun

OK, time to tell those who are interested something you might want to know. How does it compare with BtVS? Well, in the broadest possible terms here's what I think. David Tennant continues to be great in a way that recent Doctors simply haven't been. I personally don't think that aggression sits very well on his shoulders so dealing with the conflicts which arise with his henchmen breaks the suspension of disbelief slightly. Insofar as there is an ensemble cast they are more than competent, I must say that I have been particularly surprised by how good Billie Piper is, I don’t know if you’ve seen her in the States but I didn’t expect her to be able to be convincing but she is – if perhaps just a little bit too mockney ’Cor blimey gov’nor. Noel Clarke I’d not seen before that I can recall but I can’t fault his performance at all and in recent episodes (tonights’ airs in about 4 hours) is starting to come into his own as a character. The supporting cast, because there is no consistency other than those three I suspect, are rather less convincing. Mentioning no names but characters with more than a single line seem to fare rather less well in terms of delivery than would be expected. On the other hand the supporting cast consists almost entirely of villains of one form or another so perhaps they can be forgiven for failing to be convincing. As I said no spoilers here but if there were a human or human-looking nutjob who wanted to destroy the world with explosive celery just how would he look or sound?

Now, the target audience issue. I think there is an attempt to make the appeal broader, certainly there always used to be a stigma attached to Dr Who of being a childrens’ program. Certainly I remember it being said by my parents last time I was a regular viewer (as an excuse for why they’d suddenly rush in through the door in the middle of doing ‘adult things’ to find out what was going on but would have me explain rather than stay and watch) but that was OK because I was a child at the time. If my recent taste is anything to judge by I might have watched the Pertwee/Baker episodes anyway, but I digress. The program will obviously appeal to children and its Saturday night slot is the same one it always occupied although the proceeding programming is less ‘Auntie Beeb’. There was a time when you had to watch the News beforehand in order to get the beginning of Dr Who – shocking! So is it a childrens’ program? Not really. It’s not got any of the harder elements of violence or sexual issues that distinguished Buffy but, well, like I said no spoilers. Assuming that kids aren’t inured to the horror genre but the video game society (and even then I bet they’re not inured to that bit) there should still be a fair portion of hiding behind the sofa, and quiet exclamations of Yes! from the older viewers.

Very vague spoiler on writing style follows – see bottom of page. If you dare!

So in conclusion? Big thumbs up. I would gladly sell my house and all its contents to fund the BBC (Brit. joke).
























Finally I wholeheartedly welcome the return of the cliffhanger ending it really does improve my enjoyment. I asked my sister, seven years my elder, what she thought of the disappearance of the cliffhanger (she hadn’t seen any so far it seems, although she told me she’d watched the Ecclestone ones) and she simply said “Oh no, no that won’t do at all.” Alright, she’s not that ‘far back’ but you get the idea – she disapproved.

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Replies:

  • There were other reviews of Dr. Who if you go back far enough... -- Masq, 16:27:31 06/09/06 Fri
  • Re: There were other reviews of Dr. Who if you go back far enough... -- Celebaelin, 05:57:05 06/11/06 Sun
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