Dr. Who Primer for the Uneducated and Culturally Ignorant!

Yeah, I was pretty sad to read that. She was a good one. And only 63, too.

Life is never fair.

Aaaannnd The 12th Doctor Who Is ...




http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/04/208918780/aaaannnd-the-12th-doctor-who-is

Well...he looks sufficiently sinister!

I liked Peter Davison best in the role of Dr. Who. Tom Baker was good, and i saw almost all of those episodes. Earlier Doctors sucked and the early shows were embarrassingly amateurish from a television production point of view. After the Davison Doctor, i no longer attempted to follow the series.



Leela was the main reason to watch the fourth Doctor.

I couldn't tell one Dr from any other. I once watched the show when the DARLAKs were these huge paper cones with really squeaky high pitched voices that only said something like "Eradicate', or something like that. There was never anything that grabbed me. It was on the same level as those early Japanese versions of Godzilla. Amateurish was the key word.

It's Dalek, and they were saying "exterminate." Yeah, they were pretty cheesy. The fourth and fifth doctors didn't have to deal with that crap. They came from the early days, when almost all of the outdoor scenes were shot in a gravel pit.

My rule was to hive such stuff a one time chance and a simple followup later in the year. I did that with the early "WHO" and found it of no interest and badly done. I had to be very selective with my TV watching in those days.
Today, Id say give me a season of Breaking Bad or FAlling Skies and I can watch, fully entertained.

I fell in love with Dr. Who as a kid (the Tom Baker years). Production values? who cared? The characters and the stories were great. For a budding engineering geek it was the most imaginative TV there was (except maybe the Twilight Zone). And there are lots of us loved the Daleks.

The latest incarnation (with Matt Smith) is very well done. Production values are good (much better than the original) and the overarching stories are very well written. The girl who waited, the birth of River Song, the weeping Angels menace are all incredible stories. Yet they still kept the creativity and sense of nerdy fun that gained the original show such a cult following.

My eight year old somewhat nerdy daughter now has the Dr. Who bug. She is happy to yell out "exterminate" in her most menacing Dalek voice when prompted.

The only reaason I sit up and take notice when Dr Who is mentioned is because back in 2008 I knitted a very long "Dr Who" scarf ... over 22 ft of it and I followed the original colour code as acccurately as possible. It won a grand price at the local Annual Show that year.
Later on I sent away for 3 Dr Who DVDs with Tom Baker as the Doc because he was the only Doc that wore a scarf.
I'm still kntting Dr Who scarves but to my own "design" which is basically very long and very colourful.
I get a lot of enjoyment out of perusing the Dr Who web site/s. If only I could get engrossed in all of the Dr Who shows .... perhaps I haven't tried hard enough.
I liked it when the stories includes pieces of history and/or ancient history like the episode done on the destruction of Pompii when it was covered in lava from the erupting volcano Vesuvius in AD 79.

They keep including pieces of history in fun ways in the new series.

During the Matt Smith era we meet Vincent Van Gogh (who plays an important part in an overarching plot line), Queen Victoria (who hates the Doctor even though she seeks his help), Richard Nixon, Winston Churchill, Queen Cleopatra, William Shakespeare and others.

For some reason I actually enjoy the show, even though I find the plotting to be horrible.

The doctor has this magic wand, you see, called a "sonic screwdriver," that I find to be an insulting plot device.

Furthermore, most episodes follow exactly the same plot: Mysterious happenings, inconsequential deaths, villain revealed, villain confronted, explication by the doctor, some kind of standoff, magical solution to the problem.

I really don't know why I keep watching. A few of the characters are fun, I suppose. And the show almost rises to the level of self-parody on occasion, which can be fun to watch.

Really?

You don't find the overarching story lines to be really good? The battle at Demon's Run was an amazing series with a great set up over a season, as was the Pandorica. Then there is the back story if Amy and Rory's relationship with each other and with the Doctor, and the Doctor's evolving and complex relationship with River Song. And there is the continuing struggle of the Doctor still wrestling with his identity and his personal demons.

I think you are really missing the depth of the story lines and character development.

There is great storytelling in Doctor Who.

I am really interested to see where they go with Clara as a character. The souffle girl idea was a brilliant introduction. Amy was "the girl who waited"... Clara says "my job is to save the Doctor". They are hinting that this is "saving" as in finding redemption more than saving his butt from danger (although she does that as well).

They have been playing up the dark side of the doctor for two seasons. He has been forced to face the in a painful way the bad things he has done and the number of people he has killed. And he has been brought face to face with his own character flaws in spite of his great power. In addition, he realizes he has been powerless to save the people that he cares the most about.

A key component of the story line is that this demigod is being forced to face his own flaws and failures in a very real (and painful) way. I find this story line very appealing and the writers have been doing a good job at exploring this side of his character.

28 Reasons The Doctor Would Make A Terrible Boyfriend
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ailbhemalone/29-reasons-doctor-who-would-make-a-terrible-boyfriend

I think Dr. Who is a very important imaginarium avatar for the modern age.

If you think about how various social celebrities such as the Hollywood (USA) movie star Leo DiCaprio and the TV-glittering English Prince William can both be cast as persuasive Halloween-ready avatar embodiments of the fun American comic book consumerism avatar hero Richie Rich, you see the philosophical relevance of culture manipulation avatars such as Dr. Who. Society today is after all marked by a politically conscious body transformation readiness.

I myself think that the celebrity-archaeological American extra-marital scandal involving teenager Amy Fisher and Italian-American married man Joey Buttafuoco which resulted in the widely publicized murder attempt of Buttafuoco's wife effectively makes Fisher and Buttafuoco like modern fantasy deification myth "movie" avatars such as the sneaky Mr. and Mrs. Smith (in the spy game imaginarium of today from the Brangelina Hollywood film), perhaps making me (a society anthropologist if you will) the society optimism avatar Chef Smurf (a little fellow who cooks up pastry holograms).

Dr. Who is a "comic book" guy who explores science-fiction dominions such as genetic cloning and Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and psychoactive psychiatrics, lifestyle intellectual topics that are debated much today.

Dr. Who is the new Sherlock Holmes.

Dr. Who is a fun read indeed.

The Definitive Ranking Of "Doctor Who" Companions
The Doctor says his friends have always been the best of him. But who was the best out of them?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/danmartin/the-definitive-ranking-of-doctor-who-companions

And Doctor Who will soon be having its 50th anniversary special soon (even in some movie theaters):
‘Doctor Who’ 50th Anniversary: BBC AMERICA Announces 3D Screening Events
http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2013/10/doctor-50th-anniversary-special-bbc-america-announces-3d-screening-events/

http://blog.worldswithoutend.com/2013/11/the-day-of-the-doctor-the-second-tv-trailer/

Google’s Playable "Doctor Who" Doodle Is Adorable
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/googles-playable-doctor-who-doodle-is-adorable

Just finished episode 14 of season 7 and danged if I'm pretty darn confused.

Episode 14? I only thought there were 13 episodes in season 7.

Do you mean the anniversary special?