New Doctor Who!
 

He's coming back.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

If it's true, then I say: YEA!

*Hyp does happy dance*

I adored Dr. Who. :cool:

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

All together now!

DANGA DAN, DANGA DAN, DANGA DAN, DIDDILY DUM;
DANGA DAN, DANGA DAN, DANGA DAN;
WHOOO, OOOO, OOOO :lol:


OK, now is the time for speculation about who can play the good timelord. I think Paul McGann should have first refusal, but after that who would you pick?

It would depend on what kind of Doctor you want. Ian Richardson would be good, but then soo would Richard E Grant, that guy who played the Deamon headmaster, and of course our own Jason Carter.

Suggestions, on a postcard or stuck down enevelope to the concrete doughnut please. :p

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Despite the flaws of the Fox movie, I liked Paul McGann's take on the character, and I'd like to see more of him.

I thought David Warner would be an interesting Doctor, kind of a throwback to the curmudgeonly Hartnell days. But the execs would never go for it.

Jason Carter would bring a lot of fun to the part. :)

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I'd really like to see McGann back in the role. He played it really well and continues to do so in the Big Finish Audio Productions. It would be a waste to have the entirety of one of the Doctor's incarnations consisting of a single TV movie.

I have yet to make a judgement on REG until I hear/see the BBCi webcast in November. It's sort of ironic that he had already played the Doctor in "The Curse of the Fatal Death" as one of the future Doctors (although not the ninth).

I'm curious as to how they'll handle the show with only a six-episode run, though. Hopefully the eps will be longer than before. I mean, back in the old days a six-parter was a season finale!

But hey, anything's better then nothing, right?

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Fear not hypatia its offical

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3140786.stm

I agree that McGann deserves first crack at it since he nailed it so well in the movie.

I have spent endless hours dreaming of the show's return since it ended. The big quetion in my mind is whether they will try to continue on or remake the series and take it back to the begining?

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

According to Shaun Lyon at Outpost Gallifrey:

Shaun has generally been right about these things in the past...

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Thanks for the info, everyone! :cool:

I hope it can actually happen. I also have been hearing of a Red Dwarf movie, but it seems to be something in perpetual limbo.

I'd personally like to see Sylverst McCoy back in the role. But I'm equally sure I'll be happy enough with anyone they pick.

But one serious question: can it be Dr. Who without The Master? :D Even Rowan Adkinson's spoof involved The Master. :lol: The Master having some very bad years, but The Master nonetheless. :D

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Sorry, hyp - the 1996 movie killed off Sylvester McCoy's Doctor. Unless they choose to ignore it, I doubt he'd return - except for maybe a multi-Doctor story. And the Master was in the movie, too. He came back to life as <cough> Eric Roberts.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I now pass you over to my friend :cool:
-----------------

Of course it bloody can! Pardon the language, but the Master, like Davros, unfortunately became an overused and rather tedious villain.

To begin with, the show did perfectly well without him for its first eight years. Secondly, had Roger Delgado not been tragically killed in 1973, it was the production team's acknowledged intention that the Master would have been conclusively killed off in Jon Pertwee's final story. This script, probably to have been titled 'The Final Game', would have finally revealed the true relationship between the Doctor and the Master, and would have ended with the latter sacrificing his life/lives(?) to save the former, resulting in the Doctor's regeneration.

This never happened of course, and after the end of 'Frontier In Space' the Master was not seen again until 'The Deadly Assassin' in 1976.

We're assuming, of course, that the Master died in the Paul McGann movie, but if 'Dirty' Den can return to 'DeadEnders'[sic] after everyone thought that he was dead for fourteen years, I suppose that anything is possible. However, I would not be sorry if the Master did not reappear in the new series. Like Davros, pretty much everything that could be done with the character was done, and in the end he just became a bore.

----------
The Doctor

'We are not of this race, we are not of this earth. We are wanderers in the fourth dimension of space and time.' 'Doctor Who' - The Pilot Episode

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Assuming that would be to ignore all the other instances in which he "died". There are quite a few shows where he had apparently done so at the end only to return again. And in the TV movie, the plot device used - the snake - was actually taken from the novel "First Frontier", part of the series of New Adventures published after the show's demise. The Master's mind now "inhabits" the snake, and all he has to do is find another body. So, even though he can't regenerate anymore, he doesn't really die.

I agree with your friend, though, about the tedious recurrences of the character. Anthony Ainley's performances always came off as a hamfisted attempt to recapture Delgado's portrayal.

And for fans who have kept up with the BBC books, there is another character who has taken the torch from the Master as the Doctor's nemesis - Sabbath. So if the new series does in fact star Paul McGann, it could well be that Sabbath is the new villian as well. Then again, incorporating the key elements of the book series could be messy...

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Paul McGann was pretty good, but these are my top three picks for a new Dr., not that any have a chance...

Patrick McGoohan
James Woods
Wayne Alexander

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I do believe the Master has returned from being totally, finally, completely dead even more times than Davros... :)

Messy, indeed. As much as I enjoy (many of) the novels, I don't think those story threads would translate particularly well to the TV screen. They're a bit too convoluted to be explained in dialogue...

And that's without even considering all the people who would be killed in fandom's canon wars... ;)

I suspect that we'll see a new series which, while not actually contradicting much of what came before, doesn't make very many references to it. Assuming rights issues can be worked out, we're probably doomed to see the Daleks, but I'd guess that most of the rest of the "villains" would be original. Though one never knows...

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I would adore seeing any of them in this role, quite frankly. Any of them at all.

I have a soft spot for each, so I'd have trouble choosing if I did have the luxury to do so. :D

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Baddies can be a Villain of the week or an old nemesis or a new one. I just hope there's a good story.

We don't need the doctor fighting Bertie Basset..I mean The Candyman. We need more like The Curse of Fenric, battling against Lovecraft's He Who Shall Not Be Named (aka Hastur)

Oh bum, I named him...ERk....

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I've never seen Dr. Who. Ever.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Remedy that. At once.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Or even sooner, it being a time travel show and everything. :)

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Dr. Who must be British not American . I heard that Alan Davies might play The Doctor
(btw hypatia it is Rowan Atkinson not adkinson !!!)

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I saw a headline about this on some site I landed on by mistake when I clicked the wrong link on some other site (when I should have been working). Just then my phone rang and I had to stop screwing around and do something job-related with my browser and never found my back to where I had been.

But I swear the headline - and this may well have been a gag - said something about Eddie Izzard playing the Doctor.

Personally I think it is a great idea, and one of the few things that might actually induce me to watch something with Dr. Who in the title. (I've tried, but honestly the appeal of the show completely escapes me. And it isn't because of the cheesey shot-on-video look or the sets, costumes and special effects that make Babylon 5 look like The Empire Strikes Back - give me a good story and the rest is unimportant - give me a bad one and the rest don't matter. But Dr. Who just doesn't do it for me. For all the times I've tried to watch it, I don't think I've ever made it through an entire episode.)

But Eddie Izzard... :D

The mind doth truly boggle. I'd have to watch that. ;)

Regards,

Joe

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

How unusual for Joe DM and I to have very different views on a subject. I love Dr Who. However I have been watching it since 1963. It is better in colour.

A single episode of Babylon 5 probably has the same budget as an entire season of Dr Who. The children's department of the BBC has never had much money.

The underlying story is that the stream of time has got tangled up and The Doctor has to untangle it. In a documentary about the children's propaganda of the Cold War I saw this week revealed the Cybermen and Darleks are metaphors for the dangers of communism.
:rolleyes:

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Actually, the Daleks never struck me as metaphors for anything dangerous, as long as I had a stairway to climb. :D

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

A stairway ... or a hat to put over their eye stalk.

I love the Daleks ... but seriousily it took them quite a long time to figured out how to do stairs even though they had conquored huge poritons of the universe!

Also ... even if the Master is dead for good ... we're talking about time travel! They could meet the Master from anytime before he met his final demise. And even if there were rules about such interaction ... this is the Doctor and the Master we're talking about!

Also the Riani who only made a few appearances but 'tis another renegade Time Lord out there. :)

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

The Riani (or Rani?) was a short-lived but excellent villian for Dr. Who. I think, in many ways, my favorite.

Yes, the Daleks had their flaws as perfect conquerors go. But this is one of the things I tend to forgive Dr. Who for. :o

Figure they'd normally just waste the building, but if for some reason they had orders to catch the Doctor alive, they'd have to use more subtle means.

I know, I know, it doesn't explain it. :lol:

But this is Dr. Who. ;)

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

1) Y'think BBC will immediately air Dr. Who in the U.S., or will I have to wait to see how it does in the U.K. before I get to see it on my satellite dish?

2) Y'think they'll use the classic TARDIS control room and set designs, or the H.G. Wells looking design from the 1996 movie?

3) My picks for a new Doctor (if not Paul McGann)...

Ian McDairmid - I think he has a great "Doctor" nose. Y'see it poking out from under that Sith hood in Star Wars?!

Gene Wilder - I know that this ain't gonna happen, but he had such a Who-vian role in "Willy Wonka." He was the master of his element (the chocolate factory) and nothing surprised him there, no matter how weird. He was great at being in control of a seemingly out-of-control situation (very much like the Doctor).

John Vickery - Neroon the Time Lord!

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I doubt they'd use the 1996 control room, if the set even still exists. I thought the TARDIS set design was one of the strongest points of the tele-movie.

I'd wager that they'll update the design, but keep it closer to the classic set.

Anyone else remember the wood panelled "secondary control room" used in a few Tom Baker epsodes?

I liked that style more than the traditional white.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Not a gag, but not official.

Comic Izzard tipped as new Dr Who

Tom Baker (Doctor #4, for the unfortunate who don't know) said Izzard had the part, but the BBC said it hasn't made a final decision yet.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Having Eddie Izzard as the Doctor might just get me to watch the series again, which I haven't done since Tom Baker left :)

Having said that, Alan Davies or Richard E Grant would be good, too

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

If you're gonna wish, ya might as well wish big.

Sean Connery.
:cool:

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

No no....too big. ;) Paul McGann for me. :D

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Patrick McGoohan and Wayne Alexander are British, so that just leaves out James Woods of my three picks, but I know they won't happen.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

No, the Beeb would never (in a million years of Sundays) cast an American in the role of the Doctor. They didn't even cast an American to play an American (ie Nicola Bryant).

And it's all the more evident in the TV movie (a joint production w/BBC) where a Brit was cast in the lead amongst a mainly American cast. And of all the presumed flaws and loose interpretations of that production, the thing that annoyed me the most was that the Master was played by an American.

Doctor Who is British and should stay that way. It's part of its charm, and something that American actors/producers can hardly emulate.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

The choice - Bill Nighy.
Story in the Sunday Times

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Alan Cumming??

He has flair...

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I just hope they don't ruin it. I've read some interviews with the writer and I'm not convinced he is the right choice.

He has mentioned a few times about updating the show for a 'modern audience' - to me this suggests romance and relationships, and eventually the show will become a soap opera. This would totally ruin it for me.

The movie with Paul McGann was ruined for pretty much these reasons (although McGann was good in the role). The Doctor simply does not get romantically involved with people, that's not his way.

The writer also said something like "I would like the show to be more like Babylon 5" which is a good thiing to say, but he followed this with "but I've never seen the show". How can he want it to be like something he has never seen? Statements like this give me no faith or confidence in him at all.

As for who to play the part. I would not be disapointed if Paul McGann returned for the part, but I think that Alan Davies would really do justice to the Doctor :) I noticed that someone mentioned Wayne Alexanda - he could be very good in the rle too. I'm not too sure about Eddie Izzard though.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

This is something I'll never understand - why people get so worked up over the fact that he kissed a girl. Oh my God.

To be honest, I didn't notice any romantic inclinations during the entire film. Grace may seem to have been attracted to him, but that was about it. Everyone just get over it. Please.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Didn't the movie pretty much waste the idea of any kind of time-line, too? :confused:

I don't think the Doctor could (should?) have done what he did. Wasn't that the reason Adric had to be wasted? :confused:

Or was it just because of his badge for "Mathematical Excellence"? :mad:

:lol: :p

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

I don't want a soap opera either, but I think that there have been sexual undertones with the Doctor and some of his companions. I wouldn't object to it going further, any more than I objected to the relationship between Sheridan and Delenn, but that certainly shouldn't be the main theme, or a constant major element.

It is strange that he wants it to be like B5, but hasn't SEEN B5. Well, maybe he has heard about its story arc, and means that, or, maybe he'll WATCH B5, and be inspired! Anyway, I have BBC America, and hope they carry the new Dr.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

Adric's demise had nothing to do with the space-time continuum or the badge for mathmatical excellence.

I remember the end of Earthshock well. That badge, the silent credits.

And all the while, our group gathered around the dormitory TV cheered.

Adric was Doctor Who's Wesley Crusher. Or more properly, Wesley Crusher was ST:TNG's Adric.

For some reason, both incited vocal fan hatred.

Re: New Doctor Who!
 

"For some reason?" I don't know about Dr. Who-boy, but Crusher was hated for many reasons, all of them justified, and he should have been shoved out an airlock somewhere around the 3rd episode of S1. I can only assume Aldric or Elritch of Adric was equally obnoxious and deserving of a slow, painful death.

For those of us who haven't followed the series but are thinking about tuning in for Eddie Izzard, Tachyon TV has thoughtfully posted a draft of the opening narration for the new series. :)

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the show I remember from my intermittent attempts to understand its appeal. OTOH I also thought Alan Davies was very good in Jonathan Creek, the kind of likeable actor who you don't mind having in your house for an hour a week, so I might have to check out the Doc's new incarnation even if Eddie Izzard doesn't get the role.

Regards,

Joe