Dr Who

[Buster's Uncle]

I do not really disagree with any of that.

[Buster's Uncle]

Why Peter Capaldi has a bigger challenge than any Doctor Who in history
There are more than a few hurdles ahead for the 12th Doctor
The Week
By Mark Juddery | 9:31am ET



No pressure.  (Facebook.com/Doctor Who)



In just a month, 56-year-old Peter Capaldi will make his formal debut as the 12th actor to play one of Britain's most revered television heroes: Doctor Who.

On paper, Capaldi seems like an unusually safe choice to play the titular role in the long-running series. He's a well-respected actor, best known for playing the potty-mouthed political advisor Malcolm Tucker in the comedy The Thick of It. He is the only Doctor Who star so far to win an Oscar (in 1996, for writing and directing the best short film). He is also a recognizable face from — among many things — Local Hero, The Musketeers, World War Z (as a character listed as the "W.H.O. Doctor"), and Doctor Who, on which he played a different role in 2008. (Showrunner Steven Moffat promises that the Doctor's resemblance to this guy will be explained on the show.)

Doctor Who invites such feverish speculation because its very nature is unpredictable. Apart from certain traits (eccentricity, genius, heroism), the Doctor completely changes his personality each time he "regenerates" into a different actor. Naturally, the rumors have started. Is the new Doctor actually evil? (Probably not.) Is he the Doctor's nemesis, the Master, in disguise? (Again, probably not. The fans have vivid imaginations.) Will there be a crossover with Sherlock, Moffat's other Big Show?

But for all the speculation, one thing seems clear: Capaldi, for all his talent, has a tough job ahead of him. Of all the actors who have played the Doctor over the past 50 years, the only one with a comparably daunting task was Patrick Troughton, the second Doctor, who took over from the original, William Hartnell, in 1966. At the time, the idea of changing the hero into someone with no resemblance and a different personality seemed crazy — and while the concept is now central to Doctor Who's very premise, Capaldi's takeover may not be a smooth one:


1. The expectations are sky-high

Capaldi replaces Matt Smith, some 25 years his junior, who came on the show as a little-known young actor best known in Britain for the ensemble drama series Party Animals. The fans, while still mourning the departure of his predecessor David Tennant, accepted him with an open mind. Capaldi has such a great reputation, however, that everyone already presumes greatness. Anything less will disappoint.


2. His sex appeal is questionable

When Doctor Who began in 1963, it was a kids' series — and though it's commonly described as having lasted 50 years, it was actually axed in 1989. When it was revived in 2005 as a prime-time series, the Doctor had a new trait: sex appeal. The new Doctor was played by the surly (but sexy) Christopher Eccleston, who would be replaced by the handsome Tennant, followed by the adorably goofy Smith. All the while, the series' U.S. popularity has grown — Smith was the first Doctor to make the covers of both TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly — making him a tough act for Capaldi, who's decades older, to follow.

Smith proved that the Doctor is now a sex symbol, and the show's new, younger fans expect that to continue. Smith's Doctor had plenty of sexual tension with his travelling companions, and Capaldi has inherited Clara Oswald, played by 28-year-old Jenna Coleman. As he is twice her age, he might keep it to himself this time.


3. Changes are always controversial

However you look at it, Doctor Who is a long-running series (even if it hasn't gone for 50 years non-stop). The classic series, which lasted 26 years, is by far the longest-running science fiction show in television history. But even the revival has already gone on for nine years — longer than any Star Trek series. When a series lasts that long, it occasionally needs renewal. Moffat has already said that big changes are in store beyond the Doctor's new face. Whatever form these changes will take, it remains to be seen whether the fans and casual viewers will like them.


4. His fate is tied to Steven Moffat

And while we're on the subject: Moffat is controversial among passionate Doctor Who fans. He is perhaps the series' all-time most popular writer (readers of Doctor Who Magazine recently voted that he had written the two best stories of the past 50 years). But since becoming showrunner, he has won a lot of haters, unhappy with the direction the show has taken: deviations from the canon, unconvincing twists, a long record of troubling attitudes toward women. If they are angered by his coming changes, Capaldi might be caught in the crossfire.


5. The curse of Doctor Who looms large

Like Superman, the role of the Doctor seems cursed. The character is so revered that, once an actor takes it on, he will be forever known as "the Doctor." Eccleston only played the role for a single season, afraid of typecasting. Even Paul McGann, a popular and highly sought-after actor well before he did Doctor Who, has been branded for life as "the eighth Doctor" — despite his run being comprised of a series of audio plays and one telemovie!

Here, Capaldi has an advantage: he has already been typecast as The Thick of It's Malcolm Tucker. (Indeed, some fans have joked that he will be "the sweary Doctor.") Doctor Who, in which nobody ever swears, is actually a chance to shake off the shackles of his other iconic role. But even if he can shake off Malcolm Tucker, he might well be typecast all over again.

There are hopeful signs in modern actors who have found new work after Doctor Who. Not every Doctor Who star is so typecast with the role that they are forced into a life of Comic-Con appearances and fan book signings; Tennant's career has been going well since Doctor Who, and Smith is in demand since leaving the role. Like them, Capaldi might ride Doctor Who from fame to superstardom — but he has more than a few hurdles to face first.

http://theweek.com/article/index/265153/why-peter-capaldi-has-a-bigger-challenge-than-any-doctor-who-in-history

[Valka]

When it was revived in 2005 as a prime-time series, the Doctor had a new trait: sex appeal

Uh-uh.

Ask any female Tom Baker fan (and many of the male fans, as well) - Tom Baker was, and still is, adored by many.

And how many Doctors were married to their Companions in RL? (Tom Baker and Lalla Ward were married for a short time)
 

[Buster's Uncle]

Eh, none of them ever did it for me...

[cykodennis]

I don't think that i will be too hard for Capaldi.
The great disappointment has (IMO) already happen with the eleventh doctor.
I don't want to say that Matt Smith has done a bad job, surely not, but i think David Tennant was simply unreachable.

Capaldis lucky situation is, that he'll follow up Smith, not Tennant.

[Buster's Uncle]

Everything you ever wanted to know about Doctor Who, but were too embarrassed to ask
Vox.com
Updated by Todd VanDerWerff on August 22, 2014, 1:30 p.m. ET @tvoti 



See, now don't you want to know what this is? There's fire everywhere!  BBC America



A new season of Doctor Who — the eighth since the series' revival in 2005 — begins Saturday night on BBC America at 8:15 p.m. Eastern. The British sci-fi institution — which ran from 1963 to 1989 in in its initial incarnation — commands a legion of fans all over the world, who await Saturday's new episode with feverish anticipation.

There's good reason for this: this premiere features not just the debut of a new season but the debut of a new Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, one of the best actors of his generation and a decidedly odd choice for the role. The Doctor has been played by men of Capaldi's age — 56 — before; he's never been played by a man whose best-known role was as foul-mouthed as Capaldi's role on British political sitcom The Thick of It.

You may be vaguely aware of Doctor Who, but you also might feel intimidated by just how much history there is to the show and feel like you'd have to watch 33 seasons of television to get caught up. To which we would say a.) don't and b.) you couldn't even if you wanted to.

To that end, consider this quick guide to the world of Who.


Who is Doctor Who?

He's the Doctor, that's who!


You're the worst

Right, but that's the joke. Get it? The character is known only as "the Doctor," and thus, the title of the show is a question: Doctor Who?! But nobody really has asked that question since, like, season one of the show, so you'd be forgiven for thinking this an elaborate, medical-themed riff on the "Who's on First" routine.


So who's the Doctor, then?

He's a time-traveling alien from the planet Gallifrey. He makes his way through all of space and time in a spaceship/time machine shaped like a British police box (think of a blue phone booth). This vehicle is called the TARDIS, which is short for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It should be able to assume any form but somehow broke and got stuck on the police box. The TARDIS is larger on the inside than it appears to be on the outside, and it's the greatest vehicle known to man (or alien).

The Doctor and the TARDIS are the two constants of the program, even if the former has been played officially by 12 different actors. (He's also been played by other actors in other instances, but let's not wander too far into the weeds here.)

 

The first 11 Doctors (BBC)


Hold up now, really?

When original Doctor William Hartnell was ailing toward the end of his run on the show, the series' producers hit upon something ingenious: since the Doctor was an alien, he could appear to "die," then stand right up as another actor. This was known as the Doctor's "regeneration." Hartnell was replaced by Patrick Troughton, and a terrific way to periodically refresh the program was discovered. (For more on Hartnell and the early days of Doctor Who, check out last year's excellent TV movie An Adventure in Space and Time.) Matt Smith regenerated into Peter Capaldi at the end of December's Christmas special.

 

Peter Capaldi is the new Doctor. (BBC America)


What's the show like?

Generally, the Doctor and a human companion (at present, Jenna Coleman's Clara) fly around the universe, having sci-fi adventures. Different writers on the show like different things, some enjoying epic science fiction, with others liking to explore the show's roots as a children's educational program. (The Doctor was a time traveler so he could show kids earlier eras.) Current showrunner Moffat loves complicated puzzles, and his seasons have been filled with intricate structures that reveal themselves at the last possible moment. Then the Doctor points his sonic screwdriver at something.

Moffat loves the idea of the Doctor as the smartest, cleverest being who ever has lived, and his seasons of the show reflect that idea. The puzzles can be fun, but his seasons can occasionally feel like he's pushing the characters around on a giant board to achieve his various ends. Moffat's predecessor, Russell T. Davies, was fond of big, emotional gestures, and that meant he would conclude episodes or seasons with moments when, say, everybody resurrected the Doctor just by believing in him. Every writer makes his or her mark on the show and the character, which only adds to the series' popularity. The endless malleability is part of the appeal.


This show sounds kind of hokey

It's definitely the sort of show that can be hard to explain without making it sound silly. Doctor Who started as a series for kids, and it has kept at least one toe in that world ever since. What keeps the series from going too far over the top is that it always commits to what it's trying to do. It might be doing something unbelievably corny, but everybody involved really cares about the situations and characters on screen. It helps that the Doctor is such an institution that every actor who plays the role brings prior associations with the character to their portrayal.

But the show also isn't hokey, ultimately, because it carries with it the ultimate blank canvas. A Doctor Who story can, essentially, be about anything. The potential for the show's setting is limitless, which is what makes it so enduring.



Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor (center) and his companions face down the Daleks in an earlier episode. (BBC America)


What about the little salt shaker guys who say "EXTERMINATE!"?

You're talking about Daleks, a species of merciless killing machines and the Doctor's greatest foe, and if there's one reason to anticipate the new season, it's to see Peter Capaldi face off with Daleks.


Do people have allegiances to particular Doctors?

Hello and welcome to the Internet. Of course they do.

Probably the most beloved Doctor — and certainly the longest running — is Tom Baker, who played the Fourth Doctor and wore a fancy scarf. But nearly every Doctor has his adherents. Since the series was revived in 2005, all three actors who have regularly played the Doctor — Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt Smith — have their fans. Since you're new to the fandom, we'll warn you to watch out for Tennant versus Smith fights. They can get nasty.



Matt Smith (left) and David Tennant teamed up for the 50th anniversary special. (BBC America)


Has anybody other than a white guy played the Doctor?

No, and every new Doctor that's revealed to be a white dude prompts greater and greater irritation with this fact. That reached a fever pitch before Capaldi's tenure was announced last fall, and it didn't really go away, even when a much-loved actor like Capaldi was named to the role. Showrunner Steven Moffat didn't help matters, which speaks to some of his seasons' larger issues with roles for women.


So Moffat's seasons have come under fire?

Somewhat. Doctor Who always comes in for criticism, sometimes because of legitimate problems and sometimes because Doctor Who fans are intensely devoted to their program of choice. But the issues critics and fans have raised with Moffat's female characters are particularly troubling.

Moffat's a sterling storyteller, and his seasons have ingenious clockwork structures that the Doctor has to deduce. But this means that for the most part, his female characters (usually the companions, but also River Song, a love interest for the Doctor) are reduced from human beings who drive the story forward to plot devices the Doctor has to figure out.

Moffat writes superficially strong women, who have facility with a quip and are able to think their way out of sticky situations, but they also tend to be reduced to damsels in distress when it comes right down to it, and they react to hugely emotional situations — like, say, having their child taken from them — in largely unbelievable ways.

The question is whether this is specifically a problem with Moffat's writing for women or more a problem with his writing of characters who aren't the Doctor, and it would seem to skew more toward the latter. For one thing, Moffat has written interesting, believable female characters on other shows, like his much loved sitcom Coupling. For another, Moffat clearly just really loves the Doctor and seemingly would prefer to write only for him a lot of the time.


Okay, so... 33 seasons of television. How much of this do I actually have to watch?

Well, 97 episodes of the original series are lost to us, thanks to the BBC recording over them. We have audio tapes of them, which have been matched to production stills, but it's not the same, is it? So you can't watch all of Doctor Who. And you might not want to anyway.

This leaves you with three options.
Pick and choose episodes from the first 26 seasons, then dive into the new show: There are plenty of people out there who will offer you opinions on those first 26 seasons, and you can get a nice overview of every single Doctor before watching the new series. Several highlights from the earlier show are available on Netflix.
Just start with the new series: Yeah, there are seven seasons (and a weird mini-season of specials made with Tennant), but none of them is very long, and they go by quickly. Plus, the first episode tells you everything you need to know to enjoy the show. It's all on Netflix.
Start with the new episode on Saturday: Doctor Who has serialized elements, but rarely ones that are difficult to follow across seasons. Generally, a new Doctor taking over the role is a great time to hop on board, and Saturday's premiere is very welcoming to Who newbies.


Do you have some episodes I should watch before Saturday's premiere?

We're going to go with five from the new series. Episodes from the older series are generally best worked into after indulging in the more modern show.

"Father's Day": This terrific installment from Eccleston's first and only season reflects how well Davies handled the problems and sorrows of the companions.
"The Girl in the Fireplace": Moffat wrote this one-off during Davies's tenure, and it's a lovely, moving romance told in one hour, with time travel as the unifying element.
"Midnight": Another Davies episode features Tennant at his best and a great, involving conceit straight out of The Twilight Zone.
"Vincent and the Doctor": Smith's Eleventh Doctor runs into Vincent Van Gogh in a lovely tale of art, depression, and commerce.
"The Doctor's Wife": An ingenious episode written by acclaimed author Neil Gaiman reveals the true identity of the woman in the title.

 

Jenna Coleman plays Clara. (BBC America)


Have you seen it?

The premiere? Yes.


How is it?

I'm not going to spoil you!


No, seriously!

It's pretty good! It occasionally seems petrified that the audience will stop watching because the Doctor is now older than any of his prior incarnations in the new series, and it works that idea into the subtext (and the text) as often as possible. To a degree, every first episode for every new Doctor is about defining who that new Doctor will be and acknowledging that, yes, things are different for everybody, and this premiere is certainly guilty of that. It also falls prey to Moffat's frequent mythologizing of the show's past.

But once the episode finally lets Capaldi get his feet under him and pairs him up with Coleman for some gloriously fun scenes, the episode hits the rails in vintage Who fashion. And fans will almost certainly enjoy the episode's final moments.


How's Capaldi? What kind of Doctor is he?

He is about what you'd expect a Peter Capaldi Doctor to be, and that's, predictably, awesome. But he's also game for anything, and that includes grand goofiness. It's easy to be hopeful about his tenure after watching the premiere.


Give me one more tidbit!

Okay, I'll give you two: there's a dinosaur, and the Doctor rides a horse in his pajamas.


Last one: has anyone ever tried to remake this in America?

Sort of. The Eighth Doctor was a one-off TV movie character whom Moffat resurrected for a short to celebrate the Doctor's 50th anniversary last year. Played by Paul McGann, he was British, sure, but he was meant to be the lead of a new series to air on Fox, rather than the BBC, and that TV movie (from 1996) was the pilot for that prospective series. Fortunately, nobody seemed too interested in a Doctor Who that would be an American co-production, so we didn't have to bear the indignity of this show being on Fox.


They would have canceled it anyway

Yeah, you're probably right.


The new season of Doctor Who debuts Saturday night on BBC America at 8:15 p.m. Eastern.

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/22/6055755/doctor-who-explained-who-is-doctor-who

---

Must remember to check Daily Motion tomorrow...

[Valka]

I signed up for a free one-month promotion of the Space Channel so I could watch this, and it was so interesting, I fell asleep. Literally.

[Buster's Uncle]

[WatchDW.com]_S08E01_Part_1

[Buster's Uncle]

[WatchDW.com]_S08E01_Part_2

[Buster's Uncle]

...There was something very wrong with that episode.  There were a good many moments I loved, but between them, especially in the first 2/3, I kept pausing to play freecell...

Lame villain, and it took too long to get moving.  They shouldn't indulge themselves with double-length series premiers unless they have twice as much story to tell.  This could use a phantom edit.  Less Vastra, less Jenny, and more Strax - but not a lot more Strax...

[Buster's Uncle]

Doctor Who Extra - Deep Breath

[t_ras]

I love Doctor who! I liked Tennant the most (Though I only know the last three)

[Buster's Uncle]

[Mylochka]

Just watched the new episode (Thanks for the link, BU!).  Story wasn't all that stellar, but I had low expectations. The first story with a new doctor is never really about an interesting plot or villain.  The solution to whatever mystery that comes up is usually tied to the doctor finally remembering he knows stuff about things...

I found the dialogue to be very witty.  Particularly liked the Scottish jokes. And Clara... Well, I've always thought she was pretty cute, but when she turned up in that Victorian costume with her hair all in curls, she was so adorable that I passed out for a few seconds.  When I woke up, she and my boy Strax were having a conversation that was so precious I passed out again.  Don't know how impressed I am with the new doctor, but I now desperately want a Clara Barbie doll...

[Buster's Uncle]

Barbie's not perky enough, and her eyes are too small.