Episode 1410 Talkback: Spotlight on Doctor Who Part One
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We now shine our spotlight onto Doctor Who in honor of the show's 50th anniversary this year. To help us in our discussion we are joined in studio by Dani O'Brien and by Skype by our UK mates Eamonn Clarke and Dave and Angela Williams. In part one we give our thoughts on the show's beginnings in 1963 up until the show ended it's first run in 1989. (1:57:46)
Listen here.
Listen here.
Comments
Part 1!?
Obviously looking forward to giving this one a listen tomorrow.
My favorite Dr. is also my first. I could watch Toothy Tom all day long. Of the new series Doctors, I quite like Eccleston. He was raw and stripped down to the essentials. Gone were the scarf, celery, cat pin, & question mark sweater. We were back to a madman in a box. Loved it.
As far as companions go. MARY TAMM! Romana was as smart as the Doctor, could hold her own, and was drop dead GORGEOUS!
New series companion, this is easy. Donna. I've been watching series 4 episodes On Demand. Donna is this underachieving, brow beaten woman who, when she gets around someone that encourages and builds her up, grows and thrives and becomes the most important person in the universe. Great stuff.
:P
I got into Doctor Who when I was 9 or 10. I remember seeing parts of it on Saturdays on my local PBS station, but for a long time I thought it was The Tomorrow People, which had about the same production value and was re-running on Nickelodeon at the same time. I later asked my friend if he had heard of this show and if he had, what was it about? His response... "Yeah, it's about this scientist who... does... stuff."
Well, with a description like that, I had to check it out! :))
I ended up becoming a fan through a weird confluence of events right around that same time. I saw an episode or two and kinda liked it, though was confused... one was a part of a Davison episode, and one was a Tom Baker (Revenge of the Cybermen, which I rented from the video store as it was the first Doctor Who story released on VHS)... how the hell were these two different guys both the Doctor, and why wasn't his last name Who? Then I found that Doctor Who Technical Manual that Shane mentioned, which showed me some stuff about the monsters and gadgets. That was cool.
Then at around that same time there was a Doctor Who exhibition that traveled the US - a big tractor trailer truck that was like a walk-through museum with a full-sized TARDIS console, displays of the monsters, even a Bessie you could sit and have your picture in, though this was just as Colin Baker was starting, so there was yet ANOTHER guy who was supposed to be the Doctor... more confusing still, but it was awesome to see all this stuff.
Then I saw The Five Doctors, which suddenly explained EVERYTHING (especially how all these guys were the same guy!), and of course introduced me to still more Doctors. I was excited to learn more about all of them, at which point I stumbled into the Target novelizations, which allowed me to explore the back catalog of stories without waiting for them to come up in the rerun cycle or lamenting over the fact that I'd never see them because they were lost. Also, it meant I could read the show as well as watch it, which excited nerdy (or would that be anorak-y?) little me to no end.
And seriously... this was all in a matter of like 2 or 3 months here. The universe pretty much made up its mind that I was going to be a Whovian!
It's a tough call, though, because although there are Doctors I favor, of course, I don't really dislike any of 'em.
As for companions, I didn’t see many with Sarah Jane, so I never really latched onto her. I did like the second Romana though. I am pro-Amy Pond as well, but my favorite companion is probably Ace.
In Baker I Trust.
Matthew
Then, I accidentally tuned into an episode being broadcast on the local PBS channel one afternoon. I was just channel surfing and hit on what I first thought was a soap opera with mild SF themes, but was startled when it ratcheted up into outright melodrama. "What the heck is this?" I wondered, and fished about for info on the cable's info channel. I soon discovered that this was Dr Who, of Jon Pertwee vintage. It took about another week or so for me to work out from watching the show who and what he was, and a Tom Baker episode playing on New York's WPIX (out of order) puzzled me further until I discovered the whole regeneration angle.
From that point on I became fascinated with the show and the character. Pertwee probably remains my favorite Doctor since he was the first one I encountered, but I also enjoyed very much Peter Davison (who I had seen previously on All Creatures Great And Small) and Christopher Eccleston. After all these years, still one of my favorite shows.
Incidentally, I believe that here in the greater Seattle-Tacoma area we have the only remaining PBS showings of the original series (with the first seven Doctors), and that, for whatever reason, its no longer available anywhere else in the States.
I was also luck that soon after they starting showing Doctor Who they developed a British Sci-FI night so I got to watch shows like Blake's 7, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf.
I love some episodes, some episodes are just okay, and some episodes I just don't care for, but there are enough ones that I love and like to make me come back for more and want to see more. I know I might be in the minority, but the Daleks annoy the hell out of me. I do like the Cyber Men and the Weeping Angels. It's really just the grating voice of the Daleks that bothers me.
My favorite Doctor of the ones I have watched episodes of is definitely David Tenant. And I wasn't even sure if I liked him the first time I watched an episode with him, but he grew on me big time. I love the "weeeeellll" that he does so often.
My favorite companion of the episodes I had seen is probably a tie between Rose and Martha Jones. This might change as I watch more based on things you have all said. I didn't care for Donna Noble. I think she's a good character but she does annoy me at times with her whining. Martha I probably like the best because she's an action girl.
Great stuff. I look forward to listening to the rest of the episode and for part 2.
:\">
It's out for the kindle later this year.
http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Sofa-Celebrity-Memories-ebook/dp/B00DO1Q6GY/
further all of the "new" doctor's 1st episodes were always them being vastly different character-wise from their predecessor, and all of the companions would talk amongst themselves about the transformation and how strange the doctor is acting "now".
"How did you get exposed to Doctor Who": My dad and PBS. My dad was I guess a geek of a different stripe, his tastes running towards Universal and Hammer Horror films, Flash Gordon serials, etc., the stuff he remembered growing up in the 50's. In Nashville, in the late 70's/early 80's Doctor Who came on PBS late Friday Nights at like 9:00. My dad loved it, exposed me to it, and it became are thing. At 5 years old, and I had to be in bed at 8:00 every night except Friday nights, when it would be my dad and I with a bowl of popcorn watching Doctor Who until 10:30-11 at night. We started with Tom Baker, then I think they showed Colin Baker then Peter Davison, and I remember at least one Pertwee.
"On Favorite Doctor:" Probably Tom Baker. Second favorite is Patrick Troughton. Out of the new doctors, probably Matt Smith.
"On Favorite Companion:" Sarah Jane Smith; For the new crowd, Donna Noble.
"On William Hartnell's era": I'm supprised no one brought up how anti-social he was for the first season because it went beyond grumpy. He went out of his way to to get rid of Barbara and Ian that first season or live his life in spite of--not with--them: he hijacks them to prevent them from revealing them in Unearthly Child, he lies about the fluid links so he gets his way in exploring the planet in Dead Planet, he uses the Fast Return Switch to try and dump them off in Edge of Destruction, etc. Also, the structure of his stories mirrored early comic team books with him normally spending very little time with his companions and groupings of them being separated from the Tardis and each other, then coming back together at the end to defeat the menace or simply leave. Highlights for me are:
- The Aztecs: A historical without a trace of science fiction, and a treatise on the ethics of meddling when time traveling and the consequences--"You can't rewrite history! Not one line!"
- The Dalek Invasion of Earth, mainly for the great farewell monologue, though while the point of the invasion was naff' (We'll hollow out the eath to make a...spaceship yeah! a spaceship!), I thought it was a well realized aftermath of an alien invasion.
- The Web Planet: I know this episode annoys a lot of people, but one area I feel like Doctor Who never gets proper credit is for its makeup and cosume design. The sets may ocassionally wobble and Star Wars has better lasers, but I put Doctor Who's alien designs and monster makeup against any other show from the same time period. I think that's why the Web Planet doesn't get enough credit. What other show in 1964 tried so hard to give you a truly alien feeling planet, and I think on that score The Web Planet succeeds.
"On Patrick Troughton's era:" I agree with everthing said by the guests. I really want the rumors of more shows found to be true, but I'm always afraid with Troughton that we have the gems and what was loss was the dregs. I hope that isn't the case.
"On Pertwee's era:" I like the Pertwee era because while the UNIT family could get repetitive, I think you had one of the two best Producer/Script Editor combos the show ever had in Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks. They also brought a lot of social relevance to the show (evil corporations, over-population, environmentalism, etc.)
"On Tom Baker:" I think Tom benefited greatly from the other tie for best script editor/producer combo with Phillip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes with the moody gothic horror taste they could, and often did, bring to the series. Douglas Adams was a script editor, but for a very brief period, just the one season before John Nathan Turner became producer.
"On Colin Baker:" I've mentioned the connection between the most people beleive to be the series' high-point for Pertwee and Tom Baker and the combination of a well-oiled producer/script editor team. Colin Baker's era is what I think you get when you have a disjointed one. I find John Nathan Turner to be an important figure during the nadir of the original run, but I can't find much on him. He passed away before the bulk of the DVDs were released so his input isn't present on those. On the one hand it seems he has some responsibility in the shows decline, and Eric Saward seems to imply that Nathan-Turner made several decisions that hurt the show, but hes the only one in any of the interviews to do so. Whether it was a BBC mandate or JNT's preference Saward seemed to feel like he was handicapped with bad directors and neophyte writers instead of being allowed use of veterans to either the show or the craft in general. However, one can't deny that before the decline during Colin Baker's run, JNT presided over a successful tenure for Peter Davison(though it isn't clear exactly when the viewership started to trail off, if it all...ratings never comes into the discussion when people talk about the tumultuous 80's for Doctor Who) and Andrew Cartmel who was a younger script editor didn't seem to have a problem finding good, new writing talent so who knows. What can be said is the two positions responsible for running the ship were decidedly not in-sync during Colin Baker's tenure.
"On Sylvester McCoy:" My third favorite doctor, and sometimes my second depending on my mood. I know Doctor Who had a target on it, and the first season of McCoy has more faults then high-points, but the show was rushed into production with a new script editor who suddenly had to find three scripts with very little time. The second season --with maybe the exception of Silver Nemesis-- is as strong as any other Doctor's season and is probably my third of fourth favorite season from the show. The podcast felt a bit rushed at this point and I know technically the second half has already been recorded and posted, but do any of the participants have anything to say about the 'Cartmel Masterplan'? I know this ground was covered some in the New Adventures as other writers picked up on dangling threads, but does anyone know where he was going with 'the Other' if the show had continued for another season?
The spirit of companions yet to come...
(I just... wanted to see that again.)
I was somewhat aware of what Who was before I ever sat down to watch it, but one day I was at a friend's place and it came on. It was on PBS, so I'm guessing we were playing Nintendo, shut off the console and just left the channel where it was. I remember we saw a dalek, and were overcome with how ridiculously low budget it looked--we were hooked.
We were maybe 16 years old, and it was a Friday or Saturday evening. The Doctor was Peter Davison. The show must have lulled us both into a trance or something, because the next thing we knew we were waking up an hour or so later. This doesn't happen to teenage boys on a weekend night, so we watched it again some time within the next few weeks (and then more times after that). Every time we watched it (it was flipping between Davison and Colin Baker) one of us would pass out. We never had an incident again where both of us would fall asleep. The actor that was playing the Doctor seemed to determine which one of us would pass out (I think Baker was my kryptonite, but I could have that wrong). Watching Who was a test of endurance every time, and someone always lost.
Eventually we found something better to do with our weekend nights.
Over the 90s I probably watched most of the pre-80s stuff when it was repeated on bbc2 on Sunday morning with my mum, who had always been a massive Who fan (we also watched all of Blakes7 together too). I remember taking trips to the Museum of Moving Image and Longleat to see Doctor Who exhibitions.
Of course the Doctor also plays a big part in the back story of one of my favourite Marvel characters, the robotic freelance peacekeeping agent Deaths Head!
I'm actually a bit behind on Doctor Who, (about half way through Matt Smith's second series), as I really hated David Tennant. Thought he started alright, but he just got so pompous by the end, and I hate the idea that every woman, man and alien that the Doctor meets would fall in love with him... so I just stopped after 'the end of time'. Big mistake. Loving Moffat and Smith!
Oh, and as an FYI, my avatar was drawn by Doctor Who magazine cartoonist Baxter (aka Jamie Lenman) as artwork for my band's last album. Check out some of his 'Docor Whoah!' strips at www.jamielenman.com