It was recently announced on the BBC TV Doctor Who Homepage that the first season of new Doctor Who adventures would be shown on the SCI FI Channel Friday nights starting in March after Battlestar Galactica completed its second season run. It was also announced that SCI FI had the option of picking up the second season as well.
So to bring SF viewers up to speed on this show, let me give you the Cliff Notes' version. Doctor Who is a Time Lord who originates from the planet Gallifrey. Like any Time Lord, he is capable of regenerating 12 times before he finally dies. This unique ability has kept Doctor Who on the BBC for 25 seasons from 1963-1987. Once an actor was tired of playing the part, a new one was hired to continue to play the role. My all-time favorites are the third and fourth Doctors, played respectively by Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. (The latest Who resumes where the classic one ended, with the ninth Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston.)
The vehicle that the Doctor travels in is the TARDIS (which stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space). The outside of the machine resembles a police box, but the inside is almost infinite in size. As the Doctor's assistants announce repeatedly upon entering the TARDIS for the first time, "It's so much bigger on the inside than the outside." The reason why the TARDIS outwardly resembles a police box is that its chameleon circuit has been damaged, and so it remains stuck in that shape when it first landed on Earth in the 1963 pilot episode, entitled "Unearthly Child."
The Doctor has had an assortment of companions over the years, some young and some old. His latest assistant, Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper) is perhaps one of the "hottest" females that ever entered the Tardis. And sparks have definitely ignited beween the two of them in the latest season.
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Article comments
1 - Brent
Oh, and by the way (since I've seen the first season - it aired in Canada last year) it's very very good, and not cheaply done.
2 - Anthony Weight
1963 - 1989 for the classic series, actually, and 26 seasons. :-)
3 - Steve
Yeah, I saw it here in Canada last year too.
Certainly the most expensively produced Dr. Who season I've ever seen (though it still has a few 'cheap' moments, it still being a BBC production!).
Rather different from most seasons, as most of the stories were based on Earth (past, present or future, but usually the present). I hope that element changes in the next season, a present day English town/city is not the most exciting place for a sci fi series lol.
My fave Dr. was Peter Davison (1982-1984), most known here for the 1980's TV series "All Creatures Great & Small" playing Tristan or perhaps more recently playing the lead role in "Campion".
However, I started watching while Tom Baker (1972-1981) was in the role, who really never became well known for any other role that I'm aware of.
The Dr. in the first new season (Eccleston, mentioned in the article) quit at the end because he did not want to be typecast like Baker had been, but I felt he could have hung on for a season or two longer without any worries.
His sidekick, played by Billie Piper, who is also returning for the 2nd season, had a short pop music career in the UK, scoring a couple of No. 1 singles over the course of 2 or 3 albums from 1998-2000, before getting married shortly thereafter, and quitting the music biz.
I've seen at least one episode of almost all the Drs. over the years, Colin Baker (1984-1986) being the only one I couldn't stand.
The new Dr. for the second season (David Tennant, I believe his name is) played Barty Crouch Jr. in the "Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire" by the way (at least when his character was not impersonating Mad Eye Moody anyway lol).
Despite the series long run as mentioned above, I'm surprised the new season has caught on so well in the UK, I wonder if it might be the improved production values.
Anyway, it will be curious to see how the US takes to the new season of Dr. Who.
4 - Justene
This was a great review. I've heard about Dr. Who but never seen it. I was daunted by the idea of starting to watch something with such a huge backstory. The explanation here helps and makes me want to see it.
5 - Joe
Some things worth mentioning. Doctor Who ran to 1989. It is a children's show, not to say that children's show are bad, but there is nothing like the adult level sophistication you seem to imply. The new run was a infinitly better than the Buffy the Vampire type trash that seems so popular these days. But once you get past the initial fan excitement at seeing these favorite characters coming back to life, the show still it suffers from the main problem the old series always did but with few of it's redeming qualities retained. After always showing incredable promise at the start, every episode invarably becomes a huge disappointment by the end. The producer/head writer was the creator of Queer as Folk, as well as many sci-fi children's shows in Britain. He still seems to be way out of his depth with Doctor Who though. The soap opera stuff of the season-long story arc was actually quite good, but the individual stories he contributed (8 out of 13) were trash.
I'm not complaining that he has inserted themes of homosexual tolerence in the show, but does Doctor Who need the sort bathroom innuendo and sodomy jokes in his scripts?
6 - Steve
You are right, Joe, it is primarily a children's show, and that can certainly be seen as a weakness for us adults. Had I not had a familiarity with the show as a kid, I would almost certainly not be watching it now as an adult. I'm not at all sure I'll be watching the whole of the next season. However, I think it's only fair that there are some sci fi shows around like Dr. Who that are directed towards kids.
It's been over 6 months since I watched the show and I can't say I recall the innuendo you are referring to, however, I do find it sad that so many shows (especially if they aren't dramas) insist on going with the lowest common denominator kind of trends in dialogue, instead of taking a more inspired path.
By the way, Justene, re. backstory, I wouldn't worry too much about that, apparently the various directors over the decades have not always been familiar with the Dr. Who canon and so the storylines have not always held to a consistent line on everything!!
There is a book that came out in the last year or two in paperback called "Who's Next" which details the various TV episodes' plots etc. from over the years, which you may find helpful, if you are interested, but it's certainly not necessary for following the new season.
7 - Anthony Weight
Christopher Eccleston didn't quit because he didn't want to be typecast - that was an innacurate story put out by the BBC Press Office without consulting him, and for which they subsequently had to apologise.
8 - Stephen
As a Brit who's already seen the series and bought the box set, I can recommend it!
It's far better than the original series with much higher production values and deeper plots/characters. Don't worry if you've not seen the previous 25 or so series - while this takes off from them (as there are so many fans that would be unimpressed it it was all ignored) it doesn't assume you know any of it. So if you've never seen an episode before it should be self explanitory and easy to pick up.
One thing I found when watching it - while I thought the first episode was very good, I did also think it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. It did seem a little childish in parts. But at the time I shrugged and thought that it was a children's programme so I shouldn't be too harsh.
However, as the series went on it got much, much darker and more serious. So keep with it - by the end of the episode called 'Dalek' (my favourite!) you ought to be hooked!
9 - Henry the real Doctor Who
I remembered Doctor Who since 1974 during my childhood after they show Jon Pertwee then transformed to Tom Baker. I was hooked with Tom Baker - 4th Doctor, he's my all-time favorite through Doctor Who history.
I was so thrilled about the new Doctor Who - Chris Eccleston (some of you may remember him played as bad leader from movie, "Gone in 60 Seconds" with Nicolas Cage and Angelina Jolie). I had heard a lot about him played on there and did quite well doing the role as Doctor Who. Sadly, he won't be on there for 2nd Season, at least that he did get to do the role.
Tom Baker has played a lot in different movies and TV Shows... Only I could remember him played as bad guy was on 'Equalizer' from CBS TV back in the late '80s. One movie which I think was 'Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger' that he played as a sorcerer.
Hopefully some of you could refresh your memory by seeing the old movie or TV show.
"LONG LIVE THE DOCTOR WHO!!!"
Welcome back and may it continue on until 12th doctor, (I heard rumor that it was suppose to be 13, not 12).
10 - Jon
The quality varied a lot over the run, of course, but the old series' characters weren't any less flat and two-dimensional than the new ones. However, the old stories were more subtle and witty. The new series really lacks subtlety and imagination. The new series uses alien invasion as a metaphor for current political policies over and over. Not only is it not subtle it really doesn't say anything profound. A good example of this is the last episode which pretends to be a satire of "reality" TV programs. It simply has the doctor appear on deadly version of Big Brother that turns out to be run by the Daleks. Not really very subtle or imaginative. What's really going on is a phenomenon known as "explotation." What people would ordinarily regard as tasteless or "trashy" is packaged in a moral lesson. But the moral of the story just serves as an excuse for people to watch something they might otherwise think beneath them. Another example is that near the end of the new season the Doctor picks up an appearently bisexual companion. I good comparison for the treatment of a gay rights theme is with the old series episode "Happiness Patrol" which also has more profound things to say about government as well, and says them more profoundly, than the whole of the new series. Compare the sublety of what's being said about Thatcher's regime and how its metaphors translate into relavent examples and brings the requisite evidence forward to justify criticisms. The new series complaints about Bush/Blair regimes loudly enough to be heard, but amounts to little more than an appeal to the knee-jerk negative sentiment these figures have already accumulated. It doesn't really even seem to want to be bothered to put out any effort to expose anything new. Rather, it just assumes that everyone already knows what's gone wrong. And the Daleks becoming religious zealots similarly doesn't seem to be saying much except that religious zealots are crazy and evil. Perhaps this could be viewed in terms of socializing children where simplistic examples might serve the purpose well, and this might account for why most everyone feels the new series seems so childish.
The producers of the show have already anounced a spin off called Torchwood (an anagram of Doctor Who). They said it would be more adult and that they didn't mean more violent or sensational, but they genuinely wanted to have more sophisticated stories. Of course the producer, Russel T Davies of Queer as Folk, is the same one who is responsible for writing of the most weak, childish plots I'm criticising here.
The new Dalek episode, by the way, was actually a remake of a popular old audio play by the same author as the episode.
11 - Joanie
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12 - Steve
Thanks for your comments, Jon, will keep my eye open for "Torchwood".
Not sure what the purpose is in putting political elements into a children's TV show, they will almost certainly be over the heads of all but a few...just like the Christian elements of "The Chronicles Of Narnia" are typically over most children's heads, also.
13 - Steve
Thanks Anthony for the clarification re. Eccleston. Was there ever an explanation for his early departure from the series then??
14 - itchii
Jon and Joe you seem to miss a few things here. Doctor Who 2005 isn't a childrens show - its a family show. It single handedly revivded family viewing in the UK. True it takes a few episodes to get into the swing, but so does making any concept drama now.
As for the character of Captain Jack and his omnisexuality (male, female, alien) â€" you're focussing far too much. The show and the character of Jack treat his sexuality as....well not a problem really. They have fun with it and then get on with things.
As for innuendo - fart jokes et al - for goodness sakes get a sense of humour! Take note that the level of humour and wittiness increases as the tone of the show progressively darkens thru the run. You also have a regeneration, a new Doctor, a Christmas Special and the currently being filmed second season to look forward to. Why complain?
If you remember the old series, be glad its back and being done so brilliantly. If you've never seen Doctor Who - go to it with an open mind, the family all together and prepare for some fun.
Steve - Eccleston departed due to his having a single season contract and the sheer heavy workload of the shoot.
15 - Cattlike
I reccommend you do all watch the new series, and get a feel for it. You don't need to have any prior knowledge of the old series to fully enjoy this one.
Just be wary, as a first season of a "new" show, it's a little uneven. The first episode is probably the weakest of the 13. The second feels very different, and the third has a totally different atmosphere to it.
One of the great things about Doctor Who, and particularly this new series, is that every episode IS different - and if you tune in one week and don't particularly like it, well, tune in next week, when you'll probably be in a totally different location, with a totally different writer/director.
For me, the new series doesn't really FULLY swing into gear until episodes 8/9. The first ep is generally the worst. The second episode is totally quirky, like no other, the third is very traditional and quaint, a little contrived in places. 4/5 are a two parter, written/directed/filmed at the same time as the first episode - and there are places where this is obvious, and some of the humour is a tad cringey, if it's not your cup of tea. Episode 6 is the biggun, which lots of people love to pieces - very dark and melodramatic. Episode 7 is the totally-underrated-by-everyone episode, then eps 8 and 9 and 10 are sheer genius, and a bit scarier than the others. (ep 8 is also the emotional rollercoaster.) 11 12 13 all rock :)
Oh, and yeah, it's not a kids show any more than it's an adult show - it is a true family show, one that everyone in the family no matter what age will find something to enjoy.
Try it - family viewing is an all to rare occurence these days.
16 - T. R.
I have to disagree with those who would just chalk Doctor Who up as a kid's show. I agree a family show is more accurate, however I think in comparison to almost any family-oriented show you can find on American television Doctor Who is vastly more subtle and inteligent. It doesn't talk down to kids and can function as an adult show at the same time. I watched the new series, having never seen Doctor Who and found it not only enjoyable but highly rewatchable. The characters are compelling, the acting is top notch and the special effects and production values are about as good as you can find on tv these days. As for the humor, yes sometime you have low brow humor like a fart joke to make kids giggle, but there's also many more subtle humorous moments.
As for the quality of the writing, as with any series, it varies from episode to episode, but overall it's very solid. Battlestar Galactica is probably the only show of comperable writing quality that I've seen for science fiction television in years.
I'd recommend this series to anyone, it has a broad appeal with it's mix of drama, action, and humor, which probably explains some of why it's been such a major hit in the UK.
17 - Joe
Huh? I wasn't complaining about sexuality. I thought it was a clever. Just they way it is poked fun at is lowbrow, don't you think? I didn't say that family entertainment was inferior. This show just never seems to live up to its potential. Yeah, it's ok overall. It's not great. I think it has a lots of potential so if it improves it might be something really great in the next season or two. It's meant to be fun, and it is. The production is good. The writing is still very weak.
I heard Eccleston was overworked and complained of stress-induced eczema and psoriasis. I think this is actually really noticable in the last episode or two.
18 - Kyle Johnson
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