Tom Baker, best Doctor ever?

[tch]

To add romance to Doctor Who isn't nessicarily bad, but to do it so much, and so heavy handed is.
Adding new bits and tweaking stuff is what has kept the series going this long, but it got out of control during the Tennant era and went from a rare special bit to a weak gimmick: Let's see who the Doctor will get snogged by this episode.

People site the romance as making the show more realistic or adult/mature, when it actually comes across as pretty adolescent.
I like new monsters and some of the themes of looking more at the repercussions of traveling through time and taking people with you, but the romance feels forced.

[The Cloaked One]

New monsters is not a problem. I mean when Baker's tenure came up, basically all of his serials starred a unique monster with only 2 encounters with the Daleks and 1 with the Cybermen. The New series introducing new monsters gives me no beef. The Daleks showing up every season, however, is a bit much.
The New series is more or less limited to the old series so long as it calls itself Doctor Who. It doesn't call itself Doctor What, Doctor When, or even Doctor Who: a spinoff. In order to keep the series going it needs to keep in spirit what old who had going.
The first four doctors built off of each other very well. Every time a new idea was introduced, the next doctor kept faithful to it and expanded on it. The fifth was the first sort of departure from what they had going with a weaker Doctor and more emphasis on the companions.
New Who ought to be refreshing and adding to the story, not be swinging back and forth and bringing out elements that virtually did not exist in the old series.
In many ways, New Who is basically its own series and there has been a lot of work done to change it from the old show, to make them two separate identities... We'll just have to see where Moffat goes with things.

[Prydonian]

I would hardly call the story arc with Rose Tyler a romance. More like one-sided juvenile crush gone horribly wrong.

[tch]

Or you could say, the Rose arc was the Doctor's mid-life crisis.
He got a leather jacket and a young blonde. All he was lacking was having the Tardis painted bright red and adding a sun roof.
Or maybe getting an ear pierced or a tatoo.

[metalheadjay]

Personally, I don't think the modern series should even be called "Doctor Who". It's such a lackluster departure from the classic era of the first 4 Doctors. Maybe "Tardis redux" or "The Time Traveling Doctor". Something to that effect.



Clara Listensprechen said:
One must stay tuned to find out, mustn't one? I'm sure that's the whole idea, but that's the part that makes being a yankee without BBC America access such torture. If I'm to see all that on PBS, I have to wait til next year.

* I have BBC America and believe me...you're not missing anything worthwhile.

Jay

[Clara Listensprechen]

----

[The Cloaked One]

Clara, you got a lot of hits on that last one alright. XD Politics, definitely: The Third Doctor dealing with the alien alliance both times, Harry's remark about a British Prime minister in Arc in Space, etc, though I was never a huge fan of incorporating such things.
The 'morality' of the show was more or less lost when the 'Doctor' was lost. From Hartnell to Troughton to Baker, they all had presence and they made the rules loud as they went. Tennant could have done that except that the format of the series had been changed to a drama where such things don't matter so much. It's more about the explosions, high speed, Tardis in flame, that sort of thing.
I mean "Bad Wolf" was New Who trying to be cool for the kids by putting graffiti over everything.

Eccleston was the Doc's midlife crisis? XD good one. I have nothing against the actor, he was solid, he just was not the Doctor. He could've played a million other roles, but he was not the Doctor. He reminded me way too much of Bundy.
It's also funny to note, ignoring the Seventh Doctor (Maybe he was exaggerating like the Third), that the ninth was 900 years old, then tenth was 901, and the eleventh was 907. He's definitely suffering a midlife something.

[Prydonian]

Well, Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor supposedly once claimed to be thousands of years old, and the american advert for the TV Movie (with Paul McGann, but NOT on the newly released DVD) states the Doctor and the Master have been enemies for over 1000 years.

[MCH]

Pry,
Maybe Doc three wanted to impress someone or maybe it was a sarcastic remark, lol. As for the other instance? *shrugs* Who knows why Beeb does what it does. Although there is something else. Have you ever forgotten exactly how old you were for an instant when the question comes up? Well, imagine being hundreds of years old.

Hey Doctor, how old are you dude? "I don't know, seven hundred, nine hundred a thousand. Can't you see I'm concentrating on this concentrical, threaded, trans dimensional hot dog maker? Dont you understand, you walking ameba, the balance of universal Harmonious rhythms of my bowls is in jeopardy! Why don't you go and make yourself useful by unclogging the loo, hmmm?"

MCH

[Prydonian]

MCH,


Yeah last year I forgot how old I was. I thought I was 32 when I was really 33, so who knows what the Doctor goes through? I found your post most creative and very witty! AS for the TV Movie, i know a lot of brits apparently consider it the black sheep of the family, but I like it well enough for a Master story.