Dungeon Master Forum

This completely passed me by, but the new Doctor is Matt Smith:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7808697.stm

I don't know anything about him, but the brief clip here made me smile. He certainly has some mannerisms that are very Doctor-ish.

Will be interesting to see how the series in 2010 turns out, especially with the brilliant Stephen Moffat as chief writer. I suspect it will be overall darker and more scary than Davis's often fairly cheesy writing...

When I heard david tennant was leaving, I wasn't sure

I have no idea about the new guy, but then again Steven Moffat is a good knowledgeable writer

Will be interesting if the valeyard will make an appearance (have an origin story) here...

You can probably still see last Monday's "Doctor Who Confidential" (in which Matt Smith was revealed and from which the clip on your link, Gambit, is taken) on the BBC iPlayer. I'd never heard of him but that's good, I reckon, since it means there are no previous expectations of him because very little is known about him.

Hmm, so he starts in 2010 for you... I wonder how many years it'll be before we see those episodes over here.

I don't watch Doctor Who - bores me to tears!

It is rather silly, indeed. And it is a kids programme, after all (mostly!). But I still find it entertaining

I'm not sure that Doctor Who ever even ran on German TV. None of my friends have seen it, anway (and neither did I).

There was probably some humourless debate on what the doctor's name was, and why were the english people trying to do knock knock jokes at them

I was a big Doctor Who fan before the new series!

Russel T davies killed it for me, he has ruined a brilliant sci-fi universe and turned it into a giant panto.

The only original series villains he didnt ruin was the Cybermen, and Davros (Davros was really good) but unfortunatly the stories they featured in were terrible.
Doctor Who may have started off a kids programme with Hartnell and Troughton but by Jon Pertwee it was being written to appeal to older viewers, it ceased to be a kids programme and became something everyone could watch.

I have heard some people say that it always was a Kids programme, but I dont think thats the case, not only was the original series quite violent at times, but there were references to things that kids would have no knowledge of.

For example,
There is a scene in the Daemons (a Jon Pertwee serial) where the Master talks about the soul being a dated concept and having a more existential view, what sort of kids can even say existential, never mind know what it means?

So I have washed my hands of it, I still love the original series, but too much damage has been done, and Russel T Davies has hurt me too badly

I've been enjoying the new Doctor Who, though of course some episodes have been better than others. Bear in mind that while RTD was the Head Writer, he wasn't completely responsible for every episode - it is generally accepted that anything by Stephen (or is it "Steven"?) Moffat (the new Head Writer) has stood out as being really good - I agree with that and I still think that "Blink" is probably the best episode so far. Hoping for more fantastic-ness once we get to the new series, and hoping that Matt Smith will be good as Eleven .

Stephen Moffat will certainly liven things up a bit. "Blink" was by far the best episode of all the new series.

RTD certainly does do good panto and I'm not a fan of his especially. But I still enjoyed the new stuff for what it was: escapist Saturday night TV. To take it any more seriously is rather a waste of energy in my opinion.

Yeah, it's all just great fun telly, isn't it? Like the current version of "Robin Hood" - it's all just a bit of a laugh, I think. Good, fun, entertaining stuff .

Within the next two hours we'll have the 11th Doctor!

Curse my lack of a tv/tv license, thought I guess I can watch it on iPlayer from 7.40

Funny you should mention it, I'm listening to the commentery for the previous one. Whcih would actually perfectly take me to the new episode infact!

Sad to see David go, no idea about the new guy at all....but I'm going to put all my faith in Stephen Moffat. 2010, a new series after a year of only specials! *bounce*

Edit: That little dancing light is mocking me, telling me to watch the episode now, but aftera two page rant at the bbc licencing people when they demanded money from me, I am honour bound not to

Oooh it was cooooooooooooooooooool. The climax of the whole "knock four times" thing was certainly a surprise. Obviously I'm not gonna say anything here for those who haven't seen it...well, there are the spoiler tags...ooh, something I was wondering, considering how the episode ended -

Spoiler

maybe they're gonna redesign the interior of the TARDIS, considering it just practically all fell apart and exploded and stuff - new Doctor, new Head Writer, new logo...new TARDIS too?

Yeah, just watched it on the delayed player. Suitabkle send off, brilliantly done. Thank god! And yeah, I don't want to spoil it, but that bit was brilliant, I suddenly realised what was happening right after it happened.

And yes, I assume it's a clean slate for Stephen Moffat. Infact, I was surprised that the

Spoiler

time lords didn't stay around

I thought it was a bit rubbish while I was watching it (the main story was bunkum), but upon reflection it was probably a nice way to wrap everything up. The 4 knocks twist was good though as was the final closure goodbyes, even if they were a little LoTR in their length. Wasn't too impressed with the morph from Tennant to Smith -- it was a really quick switch; was much better when it went from Eccleston to Tennant.

On the whole I wasn't massively impressed with this last two parter, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Moffat and Smith will do with the Doctor. Could be very, very interesting

@Ameena:

Spoiler

Yep, the new Tardis has a whole new "desktop theme".

Check out the new site for clip teaser: http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/newyear/

@Beo: Two page rant about the TV licence? Do tell!

Ooh and something else I forgot to mention but had wondered - that mysterious lady (the one who kept appearing in front of Wilf)...my theory is that she's

Spoiler

the Doctor's mum

. There are probably plenty of other possibilities too

Spoiler

(you know, maybe she's his sister or daughter or former wife or something - just because she looks so much older than him is irrelevant, given the Time Lord ability to regenerate)

, but that was just the first one I thought of.

Yeah, I think just like River Song's actual relationship to the doctor, there's an obvious line to draw, but they've made sure thye don't explicitly say anything just for the fun of it


Oh, and the two page rant on tv license. Back last February when we had the terrible snowy weather and it was just as bad underfoot to walk, I came home later on a Friday evening to find a snotogram 'you owe us TV license' posted under my door, talking about it being a 'final demand' and so on.

Of ocurse, it's obviously just a scare tactic, since I'd only been in this place three months, had no TV nor watched anything live online (the two reasons you need a license, watching the feed delayed and radio don't require one), and of course had not received any previous reminder.

Also, their set up is that the note and the website had a hundred ways to instantly pay, yet mysteriously in this technological age the only way I could contact anyone to comment on this was to write s PEN AND PAPER LETTER

So yeah, fought into work the next day to type up, print then post a tow page letter calling them out on their slopy posting - made worse by the weather conditions - and the deplorable nature of the scare tactics, pointing out that if I were someone older or someone younger living on their own, I might just have been bullied into paying something I didn't have to, and that basicaly their letter was almost fraudulent. Oh, did I mention it didn't have my name even on it, just 'the occupier'?

Got an apology letter back with a week or so, though it was a little bit weasily worded about the contents of the original demand.



anyway, so given taking that high moral ground, kinda don't think I can go and watch live stuff that needs a licence now Might ocnvert my old computre or this new computer to a TV watching computer at some point and get a licence, and maybe even sky or something, but for now happy enough to just avoid TV except for the rare shows I watch online


So yeah, there we go


The main story was maybe blown off a little too fast, but I thoguht the main plot blows of this second epiosde undid the horror of the firts episode, and more importantly every actual character beat was fantastic.

Hang on, are you saying you don't need a licence to watch iPlayer catchups online? (Or even on cable come to that)

Last time I checked, nope. I was surprised about that. You just can't watch the shows live. I'll find the link and double-check if you like, if that's how you watch TV normally

I didn't care for the tennis shoes the latest Dr. Who wore.
My son told me they had replaced him.
Did they also retire his tennis shoes?

And tonight we in the UK (and anyone that gets to join in sooner or later) get to see the new doctor in action.

Woohoo! Been looking forward to it for a while now - hope it turns out to be cool . There's also "Doctor Who Confidential" following immediately afterwards, once again, on errmmm actually I forget which...BBC3 I think (if not then BBC4 but I'm pretty sure it's on BBC3).

Geronimooooooooooooooooo!

I just realised how late it is and that I have no food in the house. Better get out and stock up for the early evening Doctoring fun!

Well, I think that managed to hit all the right notes, and was also pretty funny. And the little mini-advert for the continued series at the end makes me want to see the whole series right now

Yeah, I think it was a pretty great start. Smith is great, all wild eyes, cheek and wit. I think he'll go far with this. "You're Scottish, fry me something!"

Gillan was awesome -- a really good initial setup at the start give her a lot of potentially interesting conflicts with him in the series to come. I think she played it really well and there's definitely a great screen chemistry between them, they seem very natural together. It doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous too I briefly went out with a girl who had similarly long flowing flaming red hair, brought back some awesome memories

I'm not going to do any geek nitpicking, I'm very happy

Oh, I forgot to say that I thought the little bit when facing off the big eye ship thing, where they showed all the past Doctors, was a great touch. It was obviously to show the alien the history of who they were dealing with, but it was also a great visual message of passing on the baton. Very well done.

EDIT: Wow, that didn't take long, new credit/theme on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEOsM1ryWsc

Yaaay that was groovy-cool . Lots of amusing moments and a load of fun - bring on the rest of the series .

I hadn't noticed it on other Stephen Moffatt scripts, but there were some loving touches of foreshadowing little things. The only example I can think of is Amy's really short skirt/shorts when you first see her grown up. I think I rolled my eyes slightly thinking 'uhuh' but then of course that paid off. There were one or two other little things like that with beats to notice that pay off a little later.

Alo, he STILL hasn't killed anyone onscreen yet! Assuming the

Spoiler

creature wasn't lying, then only the other doctor was killed offscreen.

Hmmm, I might have to watch it again, I'm not sure I understand the skirt/foreshadowing thing?