Thursday, April 22, 2010

Another Installment of Random Links: Doctor Who Edition

Doctor Who regeneration was 'modelled on LSD trips': And here I thought the Doctor was just high on life. I also kind of love this article's discussion of how people have reacted badly to various regenerations. Ah, the more things change...

Ages of Doctor Who actors on their debuts: Are the Doctor's actors getting younger? The answer is "yes," but some of the old ones were younger than you might think.

Everything You Need To Know About Doctor Who: A newbie's guide to what the show is about, including who the heck this Doctor guy is and where he came from. I might have a tiny nitpick or two, and I think anybody who's been watching the new series has probably already picked most of this stuff up by now even if they've never seen the original, but it's not a bad introduction, anyway. Warning: this contains spoilers through the end of Tennant's run, including the specials, which I know several people reading this still haven't seen. Specifically, you should probably skip the last couple of paragraphs in part 3 if you haven't yet seen "The End of Time." Otherwise, you should be okay.

Doctor Who slays Saint George: The Doctor for Patron Saint of England! You know it makes sense.

6 comments:

  1. I thought the AV Club also offered a pretty good primer on the show:

    http://www.avclub.com/articles/doctor-who,39924/

    I think "The Eleventh Hour" is a good as place as any for new viewers to start, but it's nice to have a guide when delving into the classic series (as I've been doing off and on, most recently with "Tomb of the Cybermen.")

    And I recently heard an interview with Stephen Moffat --

    http://www.maximumfun.org/sound-young-america/doctor-who-writer-stephen-moffat-and-stars-matt-smith-and-karen-gillan-interview

    -- where we exclaimed in mock horror that he'd realized that, with only one exception, he was now older than every actor was when they started playing the Doctor.

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  2. Hmm. That AV Club one is quite good, except that I have to strenuously disagree with sentiments like: "When it was finally allowed to die in 1989, the show had become gratingly ham-fisted and nonsensical." While there may be a few scripts in the last couple of seasons about which you could fairly say one or both of those things, the final season, IMHO, also contained some episodes that stand right up there with the best things the show has ever done. (Damned McCoy haters. Mutter, grumble.)

    And, yeah, I don't see why "The Eleventh Hour" wouldn't be a perfect okay place to start, although I don't think I'd send anybody into it cold, without at least a little idea of who the heck this guy was and what the heck was currently wrong with him. :)

    Also, yay, "Tomb of the Cybermen!" Definitely one of the best of the Troughton eps, I think.

    And poor Moffat. Those kinds of realizations are always difficult. :)

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  3. For some reason, seeing the actors' ages reduced to a formula tickles me immensely.

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  4. I very much agree about the last season of Classic Who being something of a renaissance. It was so frustrating to have the show cancelled when it was, IMO, better than it had been for at least six years.

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  5. By the way, I finally say the first episode with the Matt Smith. He's no David Tennant but I rather liked him and enjoyed the episode too. A few kind of goofy things here and there, but I can live with it. Off to go hiking!

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  6. I like the fact that he's not David Tennant. (Not that I didn't like Tennant, but new blood ought to be new blood.) Also the goofiness. A bit of goofiness in Doctor Who is a good thing.

    Enjoy your hiking! I'm working... again... for the 7th day in a row... for 12 hours. Sigh.

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