Doctor Who

An archive of blog entries about British science-fiction programme Doctor Who.

Sitting Tennant

Today’s Sitting Tennant: The Runaway Bride (from Persephone)

16 July 2008 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

David Tennant and Catherine Tate sitting down in The Runaway Bride

Today’s Sitting Tennant comes from Persephone and is from the Doctor Who episode The Runaway Bride. I had cruelly overlooked it, so better late than never. It’s not the exact same picture, since the original was too small for my wide blog, so I retook it. But that still counts

That still leaves Rosby in the lead still with five entries, but now Persephone is close behind with four entries while Poly, Scott and Toby have two entries each.

Meanwhile, Electric Dragon provided us with another funny caption for the last entry so his witty and amusing (WAA) captions tally stands at two. Marie is still ahead of the pack with five WAA captions, while Persephone and Toby are in second place with four each, Ms Rullsenberg and Electric Dragon are on two, and Poly has one.

Nice.

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery in due course.

Doctor Who – Series two re-evaluation and a meme

14 July 2008 Rob Buckley 27 Comments

The Idiot's Lantern

And so, the block-viewing of Doctor Who continues. We made it through the rest of the Ecclescake series and are now towards the end of series two.

Some further notes then, both on the episodes and the comments on the last entry:

  • If red is indeed the universal colour of campness (cf The Empty Child), is the Dalek Supreme the campest of all the Daleks?
  • Mickey and Rose would have done better to erect an A-frame in the TARDIS console room to redirect the pull of the truck in Parting of the Ways
  • I agree with Stu_N that Christopher E really had trouble with the fun bits, but was great at the darker moments
  • Euros Lyn is a lot better than I recall, except for on The Idiot’s Lantern
  • Joe Ahearne is a really good director, but he’s the “anti-Harper” – sort of “less energy… and action”. He’s great with the character moments and he’s not afraid of a close up, but things really look like they’ve been made on a budget with him and without much energy, unfortunately. I can understand why they didn’t hire him again, but a little disappointed because some of his work was very beautiful
  • Murray Gold: when he’s good, he’s very very good, but when he’s bad, he’s horrid. His work on The Girl in the Fireplace and most of The Impossible Planet is phenomenal, but the rest of the time, ahem, not so good. Shame.
  • Some people, for some reason, like Sylvester McCoy. Did we suffer through Delta and the Bannermen and The Happiness Patrol for nothing? Never forget.

Overall, I’m finding series two less impressive than series one, and Rose and the tenth Doctor really are as irritating together as I recall. Lovely wife is reckoning that about 30% of the episodes are good, 30% okay and 30% not good; I’ve yet to get her to commit on the remaining 10%.

Being the competitive and dedicated sort, she’s also committed herself to getting fully up to speed with 45 years of Who continuity and then to exceed my knowledge so that she will be the master (not The Master). I wish her luck.

Meme of the day: What are your favourite three episodes of nu-Who and why? I’m going to go with:

  1. Turn Left: Because it’s so bleak and miserable, Catherine Tate’s really good in it and Bernard Cribbins is a god
  2. The Family of Blood: because it’s heart-breaking and because the ending is so very, very dark and
  3. Utopia: because it’s so surprising, it speaks to my inner fanboy and because it’s so bleak and miserable.

Leave your faves below or on your own blog, leaving a link below

Sitting Tennant

Today’s Sitting Tennant (from Toby): Midnight

14 July 2008 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

David Tennant in Midnight

Today’s Sitting Tennant comes from Toby and is from the Doctor Who episode Midnight. It is indeed a clear instance of David Tennant sitting. Captions please!

By my reckoning – and counting is so hard – that leaves Rosby in the lead still with five entries, Persephone second with three entries and Poly, Scott and Toby third with two entries each.

On the witty and amusing captions front, though, Marie is just ahead on five WAA captions, Persephone and Toby are in second place with four each, Ms Rullsenberg has two, while Electric Dragon and Poly have one each.

On both fronts, keep up the good work guys (and let me know if either of my tallies is wrong).

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery in due course.

Monday’s viking news

14 July 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Doctor Who

Film

British TV

French TV

US TV

UK TV

Re-evaluating Ecclescakes

11 July 2008 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston

As mentioned elsewhere, I recently introduced my David Tennant/Nationaltreasurejohnbarrowman-loving wife to the very first episode of Doctor Who, An Unearthly Child. She grew up on Sylvester McCoy-era Doctor Who and therefore – as she tactfully puts it – “Never got into the show”.

She loved An Unearthly Child enough that she wanted to watch more old episodes, and after watching Tom Baker classic, The Ark in Space, we’re now watching Christopher Eccleston’s run.

Now I’m on record as not especially liking that first series of nu-Who. But re-watching these episodes again, I’m realising a few things:

  1. BBC3 has a sense of irony: my copy of The Long Game turned out to be the over-run of an England v Wales rugby match
  2. Nationaltreasurejohnbarrowman really could act – I wasn’t imagining it. Clearly, Torchwood sucked the life out of him. I’m hoping he recovers soon, since he is a national treasure who livens up our screens.
  3. Christopher Eccleston and his Doctor were quite fun at times – at least in the beginning. Maybe he just got gloomier as the Daleks turned up towards the end: I’ll update when we’ve finished the rest of the series.
  4. The scripts weren’t as bad as I recalled. The End of the World was quite good, as was The Unquiet Dead. In retrospect, they’re all not bad at all, bar a few poor performances here and there, and I liked the characterisation and character development that occurs during that first series. Even the farting Slitheen aren’t as embarrassingly bad as I’d remembered.

Have I mellowed? Have the goalposts been shifted by later series’ extravagances? Has repeated exposure reduced the impact? With the weight of expectations placed on that first series gone, am I more tolerant of its flaws? Or did I have Who-phobia after years of officially “not liking it much” that I needed to overcome?

What do you think of the episodes? Have you re-watched the Ecclescake episodes recently and changed your mind? Did you always like them? Or am I just going soft and need to go to a reviewing boot camp?