The View From Drew

Images of this fan anime project has been floating around the net for some time, but now they've posted actual video footage on You Tube.  Nice stuff.

It's "The Rescue" and "The Romans" in one set.  Nice.

In bringing back Doctor Who there were dangers of having things we remember from our youth being crushed.  If you were a die-hard fan of the white roundels on the walls, you were going to be disappointed with the interior of the TARDIS.  If you liked that the Doctor spoke and dressed in a very eccentric fashion, you might be put off by the northern accent and the U-boat captain jumper of Eccleston.  For me, it was the Cybermen.

I always liked the Cybermen, even if they were never consistent in looks or attitude.  They were fun nonetheless as their outfits were the cheesiest of the cheese.  I loved how the Cyberleader of the 80's would make a fist (and you could hear the fabric crinkle as he did) and say, "Excellent."

So, this morning, Mikey's playing with my Doctor Who figures.  He's got a blue box to act as the TARDIS and he's also got dinosaurs to go back in time and Transformers in order to visit the future.  I'm showing him how he can be on Skaro with the Daleks and on Telos with the Cybermen.  I make the Cyberman gesture and say, "Eradicate them!"

He goes, "No, no Daddy.  It's delete."  And he says it with all the monotone that the Cybermen currently have.  It's cool on one level and to be honest, it's more accurate if they are supposed to be emotionless beings. 

But I do miss Bill and Ted Cybermen.  "Excellent!"

Michelle Ryan as the Doctor's companion?

 

 

Apparently, the BBC will announce who the new Doctor is during a special edition Doctor Who Confidential.

From "The Tenth Planet", the very first story featuring the Cybermen and the very last for William Hartnell comes the first Cyberman figure.  They are going to release each of the different versions from the sixties.  How cool is that?

Managed to stay up until midnight.  Watched the last episode of Jekyll and the Doctor Who episode "Fear Her" with Sue as well as started to whittle down some of the backlog of current television on my DVR before the bal dropped.  It was nice.

Today, up early and getting the house in order for the arrival of family as we were too lazy to do it yesterday.  We were lulled by the serenity of the snow falling.

A happy new year to all.  For those new here, I don't do resolutions as I never follow through.  I've worked on who I am in 2008 a great deal and even though it may not have been the best of years in many respects, on a personal note, I feel the best I've felt in many a year.   

 This is how you know it's time to retire Confidential. The Next Doctor runs one hour. Confidential runs one hour and seven minutes.  How is it the show that explains the show runs longer?  I haven't watched either show yet, but I've been very unimpressed with Confidentialfor the last two years.  The show doesn't really take you inside the series, but rather pats the producers on the back for all their hard work.  I want to pat their back too, but I don't need to do it weekly AND at the bloated 45 mintues per usual episode.  It's not like we get any connections with the old series like we did when the show first started, so what's the point?  

EDIT: I cheated and watched Confidential first because this really irked me.  They actually justify the time with another historical look at the Cybermen and RTD take a nostalgic look at Doctor Who references in other shows.  We could have trimmed it down by cutting out the looks back at Christmas specials past as these were covered, in depth, by previous Confidentials.

 

 Don't know if you've all seen this yet, but it's pretty well put together.

 

And so concludes the Doctor Who Viewing Marathon.  Only met up with a few people online, including one woman who has seen every episode since the show premiered back in 1963 when she was six.  It aired on the day of her birthday party.  Very cool.

In watching this again, I'm beginning to put my finger on what was wrong.  This movie reads like some of my stories that never made it.  I wanted to do certain scenes and then wrote story around it.  The problem was, the scenes may have been cool, but there wasn't a story to support it.  That's what happened in this movie.  The whole regeneration scene should have been left out entirely.  Sylvester McCoy reprises his role and appears in the first 25 minutes of the one hour, twenty-five minute movie.  The first plot point twist is perfectly timed as he dies, but the problem is the audience have now seen him and he is taken away.  In doing this, the emotional cord has been severed and a US audience is not so willing to make another connection for fear of losing that person.  Now, if we had started with McGann that would have forced the producers to concentrate more on the rest of the plot.

I also think that the characters of Lee and Grace were dwelt on for too long in their introductions.  Since these weren't going to be recurring characters, they could have had their intros paired down a little more, allowing again for more story development overall.

I'm with Russell T. Davies when he pointed out that this movie, flawed though it is, has a great deal of charm (due in large part to McGann's performance) and has some of the best moments in Doctor Who history.  But, and I'm learning this lesson as I continue as a writer, moments do not a story make.

Out of all the then "modern-day" Dalek stories, this is the best.  I never had a problem with the different Dalek factions.  Frankly, if the Daleks are so superior, who would be good enough among them to lead them?  I liked Rob Shearman's use of reverse logic in the Big Finish audio "Jubilee" when it came to that.

This is another story set in the past, days after the Doctor originally departed from 1963 with Ian, Barbara, and Susan in fact.  He has to retrieve the Hand of Omega, a powerful weapon, before the Daleks get it.  But the Daleks are in factions and fighting over who should have it and survive.  Some great dialogue, if a bit too melodramtic at times, there are lots of things that go boom and plenty of "EXTERMINATE!"

I'm watching "Remembrance of the Daleks" now and I just realized that this marathon has a little of everything that Doctor Who is remembered for.  Besides featuring all ten Doctors, we have a Dalek episode, two Master stories, four stories set in the past, two regenerations, and companions with multiple Doctors.  The only thing missing is K9.

This was the first Colin Baker story I ever saw.  It was at a convention I was attending with jafinnola  and her boyfriend at the time.  I was impressed with the new TARDIS console, something I hadn't seen yet as we were in the early days of Davison on television in New York.  I remember, even then, not being impressed with Peri.  They had already started toning down the arguing factor that was prevalent in the early episodes, so she was much more tolerable.

What impressed me the most was the Rani.  Here was someone who was what the Master should have been.  His appearances, in the end, were more Dick Dasterly type stuff rather than being something more malevolent.  Sadly, the writers who created the character, Pip and Jane Baker, seemed to forget who she was when they brought her back for Slyvester McCoy's first story, "Time and the Rani."

I also liked this one because I like the historicals best of all.  I also liked that the alien tech did not overwhelm the story.  The Rani and the Master both had to contend with the limitations of the time, as well as the Doctor, and it shows.  I wish the new series would do a stright forward historical though.  I think they're afraid they'll lose their audience.

In any event, much of Colin Baker's turn as the Doctor has been maligned, but this story stands out as one of his best.

Peter Davison's swan song is one of those stories that either the viewer really loves or really hates, and not for the reasons that one might think of.  Those that dislike it are put off by the more grown-up themes the episode presents.  The thing is, such elements carried on into Colin Baker's run.  The problem was that it was hard to take it seriously when he was wearing such a ridiculous coat.

Anyway, those who love it see it as the Doctor finally coming to grips with himself and who he is as a person.  He had been so cocky for so long and to die by something as simple as falling off a tower was a bit humbling.  He spends his time in the fifth personal making mistakes and second guessing himself.  He then encounters his old selves in "The Five Doctors" and comes to the conclusion that, "I am definitely not the man I was."  His final season is a mixed bag when he not only fails to save the lives of everyone in an underwater defense complex in "Warriors of the Deep" to losing his friend, Tegan, who had seen her fair share of death in "Resurrection of the Daleks".  By the time we get to "Caves", he has come to realize that he needs to slow down and appreciate things such as something as simple as speding time with his companion exploring an alien planet.  Sadly, they get caught up in the affairs of the world and its twin which leads to his need to regenerate.

Davison was and is my Doctor and it was sad the first time I saw the regeneration even though by the time I had seen it, Slyvester McCoy was moving into the role in England and I was aware of that.  It still bothered me.

I had the pleasure of having my fan produced Doctor Who audio drama, "The Chronic Rift", the swan song of the fan Doctor in the production, favorably compared by many to "Caves".  

This story holds a special place in my heart.  I wouldn't call it my all-time favorite, but it was the very first Doctor Who story I have saw.  And it turns out I didn't even see the first episode, I only heard it.  It was in the days before New York City had cable - 1986.  kradical  had been urging me to watch the show for ages.  I decided to try it one night.  Doctor Who was playing on the local PBS station, channel 31.  You had to have some pretty good rabbit ears in order to pick up the signal.  I didn't.

I tuned in that night and part one of the episode was playing.  I barely saw anything, but I heard the dialogue and the familiar sting and theme song at the end.  I was hooked, based on the theme song alone.  I went out and bought a signal booster the next day and the rest was history.

This was the 4th Doctor I liked.  It was early on his run and he hadn't become the powerful, cocky guy he was destined to become.  By the time we got to the end of his run, I was ready and eager to see him go.  Here, while confident, he was still not perfect.  He made mistakes.  And besides, we had Sarah Jane and Harry in the story, another plus.

As we watched this, Eddie pointed out to me that the Wyrrn cocoon was simply bubble wrap.  Sadly, with the crappy reception on my TV, I didn't catch that right away.  Eddie thought it was cool and wanted to try it himself.