Any Whovians here?

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Marshchild

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How many people here are fans of Doctor Who? (I’m one myself (obviously); indeed, perceptive folk may recognize my handle from one of the more obscure Tom Baker serials*.) For those that are, do you prefer the “classic” series or the new one? As someone who grew up with the former, I’m more of a fan of it than the latter one - while I have seen a few stories in the new series that I really liked (and while it certainly puts the classic series to shame in the special effects department), overall I tend to find it a little too… twee, for want of a better word. The newer incarnations of the Doctor also haven’t been eccentric enough for my liking - certainly, his wardrobe seems to have been depressingly “normal”, devoid of the mismatched pieces of clothing and clashing colours that were such a trademark of his predecessors.

*Interestingly, I’ve seen a couple of other handles here from that very same serial: Alzarius and Mistfall. Evidently, despite its obscurity, I’m not the only person it did something for.
 
Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two. I am just one of the Who’s down in Whoville.
 
I’m not a mad fanatic or anything, but I do keep company with the Doctor on occasion. :cool:

I grew up in the era of Tom Baker, and certainly when I think ‘Doctor Who’ I think of him for that very reason.

I can’t say I uniformly love the new series, but I do find a lot of things to enjoy about it - I think David Tennant holds his own quite well. And I like that Martha, for example, became more of a character in her own right than most of the assistants who’ve merely been foils to His Doctorness.
 
My first introduction to the Doctor Who series was when they relaunched a few years ago. I had heard of the series before this, but hadn’t ever had the opportunity to watch it. When it came on SciFi, I decided to give it a shot. I have to say that it seemed somewhat cheezy, but in a rathering endearing way. There was something about it that made me want to come back for more. I really liked the way Chris Eccelston portrayed the character and was sad to see him go, but I have to say that there were far more outstanding episodes during David Tennant’s tenure. I’ve since watched a couple of episodes from the original series, but I have a hard time getting in to them for much the same reason I have a hard time with the original Star Trek series. They may be “better” from a purist point of view, but they’re just not my thing. 🤷 Anyhow, I really enjoy the new series and look forward to each new episode.

-CK
 
I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone on here that’s more obsessed with Doctor Who than me. I’ve seen every episode since 1963 (including listening to the audio tracks of the missing episodes from the 1st and 2nd Doctors that were destroyed back before re-runs existed in the UK). I’ve also had the great fortune of meeting three of the actors to play the Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd), Peter Davison (5th), and Colin Baker (6th).

So… here’s a special treat for all of you Whovians out there. This is the first three minutes from this year’s two-part finale episode, “The End of Time”, which won’t air until Christmas. It was broadcast on the British “Children in Need” special today to help raise money for charity. If you haven’t seen “The Waters of Mars” yet, however, I would avoid watching the clip, as it gives a couple of important things away.

youtube.com/watch?v=fSeMzEuEJ7A
 
Rolltide said:
I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone on here that’s more obsessed with Doctor Who than me. I’ve seen every episode since 1963 (including listening to the audio tracks of the missing episodes from the 1st and 2nd Doctors that were destroyed back before re-runs existed in the UK). I’ve also had the great fortune of meeting three of the actors to play the Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd), Peter Davison (5th), and Colin Baker (6th).

So… here’s a special treat for all of you Whovians out there. This is the first three minutes from this year’s two-part finale episode, “The End of Time”, which won’t air until Christmas. It was broadcast on the British “Children in Need” special today to help raise money for charity. If you haven’t seen “The Waters of Mars” yet, however, I would avoid watching the clip, as it gives a couple of important things away.

youtube.com/watch?v=fSeMzEuEJ7A
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The universe is ending, again? I thought we just went through all of this. 😛

I occasionally watch Doctor Who. My favourite episodes are the ones with Tom Baker as the Doctor, and his companion Leela. I always thought she was really great. 🙂
 
I wrote this back in 2007:

*I’ve loved Doctor Who since the early 80’s and even used to buy the Doctor Who Magazine, novels, and coffee table books in a comic book store where people would look at me like what was a 20 something girl doing with that stuff. When I was bored in work, I’d write down the companions in time-line order. Eric, on the NJ Network, was a Doctor Who geek, who would do interview specials and when the show ended way back when I was so bummed out especially since Ace had asked the Doctor “Who are you?” and it finally seemed like we would get some backstory.

With the new series, I was actually crying when Rose was first shown on Sci-Fi and the familiar theme song began. I’ve since been watching ahead of the US curve on youtube when I can and our local PBS station has been showing the first series over and over again on Sundays which is great because it is the un-cut-for-commercials version…I hope they decide to show series two. I love the update but am kind of wary of Russell T. Davies’ world-view creeping in…but if it wasn’t for him, would the new series be so compelling? It’s just good to have the Doctor back in our universe.*

Since then I have loved the updated Rose story and Donna as companion was great. I like the old series in a different way but haven’t seen it, as a whole, for so long. For the new series, my sister is my salvation since she has BBC America and I don’t so I’ve been able to watch this year’s specials and have informed her I needed her to DVR the December/January specials. My nephews say that I am a Dork when I show them old stuff on youtube (adding old Donny Osmond videos into the mix makes me dorkier in their eyes.) I have them watching the Sarah Jane Adventures which I love just for the thought of Sarah Jane being on screen again.

I prefer the quirkiness of Doctor Who to the modern sci-fi that attempts to be more realistic.
 
I was first introduced to Doctor Who back in the Tom Baker days. I can’t say I was an obsessive fan however and eventually the difficulty of figuring out when my local PBS station was airing the show made me give up even trying to watch. But I was always interested in hearing the news about the latest Doctor from my brothers-in-law who had spent their high school years in England.

When the SciFi channel started showing the latest series I was more than happy to watch. I very much liked David Tennant’s doctor. But even though I thought it gave an interesting dimension to the doctor I think there was bit too much ship.
 
snowgarden said:
I wrote this back in 2007:

*I’ve loved Doctor Who since the early 80’s and even used to buy the Doctor Who Magazine, novels, and coffee table books in a comic book store where people would look at me like what was a 20 something girl doing with that stuff. When I was bored in work, I’d write down the companions in time-line order. Eric, on the NJ Network, was a Doctor Who geek, who would do interview specials and when the show ended way back when I was so bummed out especially since Ace had asked the Doctor “Who are you?” and it finally seemed like we would get some backstory.

With the new series, I was actually crying when Rose was first shown on Sci-Fi and the familiar theme song began. I’ve since been watching ahead of the US curve on youtube when I can and our local PBS station has been showing the first series over and over again on Sundays which is great because it is the un-cut-for-commercials version…I hope they decide to show series two. I love the update but am kind of wary of Russell T. Davies’ world-view creeping in…but if it wasn’t for him, would the new series be so compelling? It’s just good to have the Doctor back in our universe.*

Since then I have loved the updated Rose story and Donna as companion was great.
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I liked Donna. I was sad that she had to go back to being unemployed, single, and living with her parents - and not allowed to remember anything about her adventures. But it’s cool that her mother and father were told that she had saved the Universe from being destroyed.
I have them watching the Sarah Jane Adventures which I love just for the thought of Sarah Jane being on screen again.
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OH, yes, I really liked Sarah Jane, too - I loved how she was always bossing those military men around, and they would just follow her around like puppies. 🙂
 
Rolltide said:
I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone on here that’s more obsessed with Doctor Who than me. I’ve seen every episode since 1963 (including listening to the audio tracks of the missing episodes from the 1st and 2nd Doctors that were destroyed back before re-runs existed in the UK). I’ve also had the great fortune of meeting three of the actors to play the Doctor: Patrick Troughton (2nd), Peter Davison (5th), and Colin Baker (6th).
Click to expand...
I remember when I was growing up, I used to devour the Target novelizations of the various Doctor Who stories, and with many of them would think, “Wow, I can’t wait to see the TV version of this one!” I mean, the BBC still had copies of all of them, didn’t they? Didn’t they? Um, no, actually - as it turned out, they didn’t. Upon making this devastating discovery, I consoled myself with the thought that they’d probably only destroyed a few forgettable stories that no-one really cared about anymore. I mean, they wouldn’t have wiped episodes from any of the really cool ones - the ones with the Daleks and Cybermen in them - would they? Would they? Wrong again! Excuse me, I just need to go outside for a moment, and ahem… “vent”.

AAARRRGGGHHH!

If there was anything - anything! - that made me wish video recorders had been invented about twenty years before they actually had been, it was that discovery; it depresses me to this day to think about it.
Catholic_Kenpo said:
My first introduction to the Doctor Who series was when they relaunched a few years ago. I had heard of the series before this, but hadn’t ever had the opportunity to watch it. When it came on SciFi, I decided to give it a shot. I have to say that it seemed somewhat cheezy, but in a rathering endearing way. There was something about it that made me want to come back for more. I really liked the way Chris Eccelston portrayed the character and was sad to see him go, but I have to say that there were far more outstanding episodes during David Tennant’s tenure. I’ve since watched a couple of episodes from the original series, but I have a hard time getting in to them for much the same reason I have a hard time with the original Star Trek series. They may be “better” from a purist point of view, but they’re just not my thing. 🤷 Anyhow, I really enjoy the new series and look forward to each new episode.

-CK
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Christopher Eccelston wasn’t too bad, except that I think they tried too hard to make him all lovably far-out and crazy right from the get go, rather than letting his character come out over time. As for David Tennant, I admittedly haven’t seen too many of his stories so far, but from those I have, I’d have to say he doesn’t do much for me. I was actually quite disappointed that all those rumours about Eddie Izzard being set to play the Doctor when the series returned turned out to be nothing more than that; I think he would’ve made a great Doctor, particularly if he’d been allowed to wear some of his “action transvestite” ensembles for the part. Now, that would’ve made a memorable character!
 
Marshchild said:
I remember when I was growing up, I used to devour the Target novelizations of the various Doctor Who stories, and with many of them would think, “Wow, I can’t wait to see the TV version of this one!” I mean, the BBC still had copies of all of them, didn’t they? Didn’t they? Um, no, actually - as it turned out, they didn’t. Upon making this devastating discovery, I consoled myself with the thought that they’d probably only destroyed a few forgettable stories that no-one really cared about anymore. I mean, they wouldn’t have wiped episodes from any of the really cool ones - the ones with the Daleks and Cybermen in them - would they? Would they? Wrong again! Excuse me, I just need to go outside for a moment, and ahem… “vent”.

AAARRRGGGHHH!

If there was anything - anything! - that made me wish video recorders had been invented about twenty years before they actually had been, it was that discovery; it depresses me to this day to think about it.
Click to expand...
What is very fortunate is that there were two fans of Doctor Who, one in England, and one in Canada, who enjoyed the show so much that they hooked up reel-to-reel tape recorders to their televisions and recorded the audio soundtracks to EVERY missing episode. Further, the BBC, for archive purposes, took photos of the tv screen every 6 to 10 seconds during each episode to preserve at least some kind of record of these shows. Several enterprising people have paired up the soundtracks (which were officially released on CD with linking narration to explain bits that are not understandable without visual references) with the “telesnaps” and other archived photos to create reconstructions of the missing episodes. It’s certainly not a replacement for the destroyed serials, but it does give fans a way to fill in the gaps and enjoy the missing pieces!

Here’s a link to a reconstruction of the very first missing episode, the classic 7-part “Marco Polo”. This was the fourth episode of the series ever, following “An Unearthly Child”, “The Daleks”, and “Edge of Destruction”, and featuring the First Doctor, William Hartnell.

youtube.com/watch?v=85ALC9CBEfs

This is just the first part of episode 1. To find the other parts, click on the poster’s name to see his other posts.

(By the way, the narrator is William Russel, the actor who played Ian, one of the First Doctor’s original companions!)
 
I was once a fan during the Tom Baker years too and even recently saw some of season one of the more recent run.

The thing that interested me is how the whole thing can be an allegory for catholicism!

The Tardis is the Church (larger on the inside than on the outside!)
The Doctor is the pope (leads the fight against evil. The face/person changes periodically, but the role doesn’t.)
The companions are the saints, whose lives are revolutionized upon entering the Tardis.
The Heart of the Tardis is Christ (and his Holy Spirit seems to give companions the gift of tongues…)

I’m sure there’s lots more parallels.
 
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