Brand New Doctor Who

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For those Whovians out there, if you have not heard, Dr. Who returns to the Beeb in late March. But for North American fans, if you are lucky enough to receive the CBC on cable or broadcast, the show begins airing on most CBC stations on Tuesday, April 5th, 2005 @ 8pm.

I just saw a trailer on the CBC of the show and it appears to be up to date, the latest and greatest sci fi special effects. The real question is, will the show be able to capture the original tongue in cheek humor of the original Doctors.

The lead is not your old fuddy duddy, mop top looking Doctor, but rather a young, shaved head, dark suited Brit.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. One of the fan boards mentioned the first episode was leaked to web, but I haven't been able to track that down. But if it's out there, I think I'll wait till it airs, I can't imagine that the web copy would be as clean.

Here is the BBC web address for the show and it has some web interviews and downloads there.


www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/

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Just finished watching the first episode of the New Dr. I think I need a couple more episodes to come to a defiitive conclusion as to how this new series will play out. As usual, the first episode spends a bit of time introducing the stars, I thought the first fifteen minutes had a bit too much domestic chatter, but my girlfriend enjoyed that, as she felt it did give us a handle on the new companion.

The writing wasn't bad, but if you have trouble understanding the british accent, be sure to have closed captioning turned on ;D

The new Dr himself is interesting, yes, he looks like a typical 30 something brit with short hair and black leather jacket. But as you are introduced to him, his character gradually emerges.

In past re-incarnations of the Dr., you observed the transformation from one dr to the next. In the new series, there is no such transition. About ten minutes into the program, the Dr. pops up and prattles on, definitely in a single minded mode and not into idle chit chat with anyone. At first, I wondered if this persona would work, but, again, gradually, a personality does emerge. I think it will be a couple episodes before the actor gets his character down.

So, we don't have a bridge from a past Dr. to the new Dr. and in this episode there is a researcher who has tracked the Dr.s appearances on Earth and, I felt this is where the writers fell down on the job, all the references for this Dr. were the current actor. I kind of wish they had shown photo's of some of the previous Dr's. Oh well.

As for the theme song, they have left it about the same without much alteration, (yeah). The TARDIS has almost the same grinding sound when materializing and de-, but it has a slight twist as it fades. The call box is, for all intents and purposes identical on the outside, but the interior control is quite different from the Baker days. Instead of looking like the inside of a hospital room, the new control room has a darken interior and lots of filmy material about. We don't get much of a view in this episode of the conrol podium, so we'll have to wait and see what kinds of gadgets and lights are on it.

Gone is the two hour, four episode format of old, we now have a one hour program per episode. Undoubtably as the series moves along, there will be two parters, but for now, the series has taken the standard one hour format, so no more cliff hangers!

I think that is enough for now, will post further thoughts as I see more episodes.

Overall, it's worth watching for the moment, especially if you are a Dr. fan.

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