The 2007 Doctor Who (and spin-offs) Thread

[Nandor]

Then, this annoying little irk piped up that it was inconsiderate to run a poll about a program that we only know about in Britain. He lives in the Netherlands.

We get BBC here, he could have watched it anytime. Plus, there's always the internet (I always download DW, our BBC is broadcasted in fullscreen <_<). I happen to know quite a few people who watch DW and Torchwood... Maybe he should've checked before he started proclaiming DW is a UK-exclusive

As for the poll, I only know the Ninth and Tenth Doctor, so I'm not in a position to say... Even with those two, I don't really know who I prefer.

[darth_deetoo]

Hmmm, very interesting.

[Escapay]

They've got a poll section, and I thought for a bit of fun, the other day, I'd run a few non-Disney polls.

Who is your favourite Dr. Who?

Who is your favourite James Bond?

Who is your favourite Star Trek captain?

Who is your favourite comic book hero?

Well, even though you're not really asking for it in this thread, figured I'd post mine...

Favorite Doctor: Tenth Doctor (New Series), Fifth Doctor and Sixth Doctor Classic Series)

Favorite Bond: Timothy Dalton

Favorite Star Trek Captain: Captain Hikaru Sulu

Favorite Comic Book Hero: I don't read comic books, but if it were Favorite Comic Book Movie/TV Adaptation Hero, it'd be the Dean Cain incarnation of Superman.

Everyone was joining in, posting responses, no problems. Then, this annoying little irk piped up that it was inconsiderate to run a poll about a program that we only know about in Britain. Initially I just said, So? Don't post!

So he's got all uptight and said I'm being rude and I shouldn't be opening threads that exclude certain members of the board. He lives in the Netherlands. I told him that Dr. Who was an international phenomenon that's been going for over 40 years and is sold all over the world and it's not my fault if he's never heard of it. I suggested that if he doesn't like a post he should just ignore the thread, not hijack a thread and stamp his feet like a petulant child just because he doesn't feel he can participate. So he's had a right go back at me - I've contacted one of the mods, and he's just ignored me and locked the thread.

That little prat!

Scaps

[darth_deetoo]

Apparently the mods actually did deal with it.

[2099net]

For the record Deetoo:

Classic
Davison
Troughton
T Baker
McCoy (the weight being on Seasons 25/26)
W Hartnell
C Baker

New
Tennant
Eccleston

I don't mix versions!

Now I'm not sure how I feel about this, but it appears a new version of Rememberance of the Daleks is coming out, probably exclusively in the rumoured (at least, I think it's still rumour) Davros Boxset

These are new:

00:32:37:15 BACK TO SCHOOL
00:15:14:15 REMEMBERANCES

BBFC Link

Not cool. If they do re-release it as a single disc, it should be a "standard edition" price.

[Escapay]

Classic
Davison
Troughton
T Baker
McCoy (the weight being on Seasons 25/26)
W Hartnell
C Baker

No love for Pertwee, netty?

Now I'm not sure how I feel about this, but it appears a new version of Rememberance of the Daleks is coming out, probably exclusively in the rumoured (at least, I think it's still rumour) Davros Boxset

These are new:

00:32:37:15 BACK TO SCHOOL
00:15:14:15 REMEMBERANCES

BBFC Link

Not cool. If they do re-release it as a single disc, it should be a "standard edition" price.

A Davros Boxset? I take it that means the next Who will be Destiny of the Daleks?

The Remembrance re-release sound good, too. I still haven't had a chance to pick up Ghost Light or Curse of Fenric, so it's been the only Seventh Doctor story in my Who collection (at least until Survival this coming Tuesday). Wonder if it'll also get a new 5.1 mix as well. The price thing doesn't bother me (well, since I got my Remembrance DVD for cheap), but I'd hope it does get a lower price for those who bought it day-and-date.

ETA:

BBFC has passed the following for Destiny of the Daleks

00:08:11:09 DESTINY OF THE DALEKS - PHOTO GALLERY
00:09:25:23 KEN GRIEVE
00:09:33:22 OPTIONAL CGI EFFECTS
00:43:15:08 DAVROS CONNECTIONS
00:03:05:07 PRIME COMPUTER ADVERTS
00:03:42:18 TRAILS & CONTINUITY
00:00:22:23 EASTER EGG

Perhaps the November slot in the UK is another two-story release, with Destiny of the Daleks and a new Remembrance of the Daleks getting a boxset together, along with a Davros Boxset containing those two stories along with Genesis of/Resurrection of/Revelation of the Daleks.

Scaps

[2099net]

No love for Pertwee, netty?

Er. How embarassing! But no, not much love for the "mother hen", but I am rather fond of UNIT and Delgardo's Master from his era. But I think as a Doctor he goes second from last, below Hartnell and above C Baker.

Good find with the Destiny of the Daleks BBFC ratings. I actually think this is much better than people make out.

Plus it has the wonderful "Spack off!" <strike>Billyfluff</strike> Tommyfluff from the Doctor. (I was going to get Tom Baker to sign his autobiography with "Spack off!" but in the end I got him to sign it "My arms! My legs! My everything!" for me instead (from Nightmare of Eden).

[darth_deetoo]

I don't mind them re-releasing stories, but...

They should make them available as single releases so we're not forced to buy another 3 identical releases (Genesis, Resurrection and Revelation).

And they should focus on the unreleased stuff first! There are so many classics still waiting for any kind of release. We haven't had a black and white release since The Invasion (The Time Meddler should have been out this year but was delayed). Pertwee is woefully unrepresented at the moment. Still a lot of stuff from season 13, 14, 15, 20 and 21. Nothing yet from season 24 (though some might think that's a good thing). Although many seem to think that they are focusing on completing seasons so they can do season sets. If this is true, I suppose what we could potentially see soon are:-

Doctor Who and the Silurians
The Ambassadors of Death
Frontier in Space
Planet of the Daleks
Revenge of the Cybermen
Four to Doomsday
Kinda
Black Orchid
Attack of the Cybermen
Battlefield

Those would complete Seasons 7, 10, 12, 19, 22 and 26.

I suppose with multi-story boxsets being a possibility, then the following wouldn't be a stretch:-

Monsters on Earth - Silurians / Sea-Devils / Warriors of the Deep
Peladon - Curse of Peladon / Monster of Peladon
The Space War - Frontier in Space / Planet of the Daleks
Revenge of the Cybermen / Terror of the Zygons
E-Space Trilogy - Full Circle / State of Decay / Warriors Gate
The Mara - Kinda / Snakedance
Guardian Trilogy - Mawdryn Undead / Terminus / Enlightenment
Trial of a Time Lord

And if they got those out, that would bring the following seasons nearer to completion, with just 2 or 3 stories left to release:-

Season 7 - Ambassadors of Death
Season 13 - Brain of Morbius / Android Invasion / Seeds of Doom
Season 14 - Masque of Mandragora / Deadly Assassin / Face of Evil
Season 20 - Kings Demons / The Five Doctors


I know a Five Doctors reissue will be on the cards eventually too. They could potentially do a VidFired Tomb of the Cybermen, and correct the productions subtitle issues on Vengeance on Varos, but I'd hope these would all be delayed until we have more stories out.

[2099net]

Oh I would love to have a re-released Five Doctors, because I hate with a passion the "Special Edition". Plus, there's so much potential for special features. But on reflection The Five Doctors is the only re-release I can support at this time (or even for a few years).

Stories I would like to see released (not including possible boxsets):

The Keys of Marinus (and I'd love a spoof "a day in the life" type documentary on "Yartek, leader of the alien Voord" on this - and maybe a featurette on the 1st Doctor Who annual to tie into this - it's where his extra long title comes from)

The Rescue (a teriffic little 2 parter)

The War Machines (its almost a proto-type of a UNIT story)

The War Games (goes without saying. I think they are releasing this in 2008 for some of the 45th anniversary celebrations)

Terror of the Autons (I know that they have problems with the colour on this. But 1st Master? What a special features opportunity!)

The Deamons (I'm no fan of Pertwee, but this is the ultimate "unit family" story.)

Planet of the Spiders (Not a great story, but an important one)

The Android Invasion (This isn't at all bad, and was filmed in a village within easy walking distance from my house, so I would love to see this. Also, being the last "proper" UNIT story, I can see the 3rd and final part of the "UNIT Family" documentries going on this.)

The Deadly Assassin (The Fried-Egg Master at his best? Yes please!)

Horns of Nimon (I'm sorry, but I love this. A Doctor Who Christmas panto)

Frontios (I think this, not Caves of Androzani is the best Davison)

The Happiness Patrol (Again, I love this. It shows how far the formula of Doctor Who can be pushed)

Boxset wise, one of The E-Space trilogy or the Black Guardian trilogy has to be released next. I would prefer the E-Space trilogy, but I have a feeling a more logical choice would be the Black Guardian one, being as next month sees a Key to Time boxset.

[darth_deetoo]

I think I'd rather see the Guardian trilogy because we've had such a surplus of Tom stories appearing this year. No less than 11 Tom stories in one year, so I think it's only fair to give a different Doctor a bit more spotlight, though I do hope we see another 4 or 5 Tom's next year. If we can have 3 boxsets this year, 4 if you count the Davros one - I don't see why they couldn't release E-Space, Trial and Guardian sets next year.

I think top of my list right now would be:-

The Chase - don't know why it gets such bad press, it's a good fun runaround, and I hope they can get any Beatles issues resolved

The War Machines - a cracking Hartnell and early prototype of the UNIT stories

The Ice Warriors - would love to see them animate the missing episodes, though that doesn't seem to be on the cards now

The Dominators - I love the Quarks, I think this is much better than it's given credit for too

The War Games - a bit too long, but worth it just for the trial

Doctor Who and the Silurians - my favourite first season Pertwee, and one of my favourite monsters

The Peladon stories

The Sea Devils - same reason as Silurians.

Planet of the Spiders - pretty much same reason as you.

Terror of the Zygons - Zygons! Need I say more? Really, anything from this season, but especially -

The Seeds of Doom

The Deadly Assassin - another classic.

The Invisible Enemy - first K-9!

Nightmare of Eden - Tom at his most outrageous, I seem to like a lot of stories that people think are rubbish!

The Guardian Trilogy - especially Mawdryn Undead. And for Nyssa in that short skirt in Terminus!

The Twin Dilemma - because it's an important story - even though it's crap!

Trial of a Time Lord - some bits of this are genius, some bits are awful, but I'd love to see it released soon.

Time and the Rani - another story which I think it maligned but I actually feel is the most traditional story out of season 24, and it should get a good extras package.

Silver Nemesis - again, should have a brilliant extras package.

But at the end of the day, as long as they keep the release rate up, I'm not too fussed because I want everything.

Just halfway through Arc of Infinity at the moment. I watched Time Flight earlier in the week and didn't think it was anywhere near as bad as people generally say.

[2099net]

I was going to post on the recent classic releases over here, but decided not to, but I think you may appreciate hearing my views:

Timelash
Timelash is probably the 2nd worst story in Doctor Who ever. (I think the absolute worst is Revenge of the Cybermen by the way). The actual idea isn't that bad, but its incredibly over padded with nonsense. It often gets criticised for its production values, but its really the script that is the root of its reputation.

If a script it good, we can overlook production values (even if those production values include a fat man in a colourful clown-like suit being dangled on a rope over a set made from Christmas decorations for 10 minutes ).

If it was a single 45 minute story it would be much better. What we have instead is a story with padding in all the wrong places and with the most inconsequential of dialogue or actions. Basically we get the Doctor and Peri arguing put into a story which suffers from a illogical double ending, a "I'll explain later" escape and an underdeveloped idea that the Doctor has visited the planet before. All three of these concepts are simply there in the finished script, with little or no thought put forward for them being there. The extra scenes added due to under-running should have expanded upon them.

The documentary is… interesting. In fact, the documentary is fantastic. It's good to see a "making of" which acknowledges production difficulties and even accepts the final product was far from as good as it could have been.

Time-Flight
Time-Flight suffers from the same faults as Timelash really. But it’s a stronger production because it has more in its favour. The prehistoric landscape set in the studio is actually pretty good – much better than its reputation suggests. I also don't mind Kalid and his unmasking as you-know-who because when I watched this as a child, that moment filled me with so much excitement (and as they point out in the commentary, others must have felt the same as the next episode's ratings went up). But the script is a little illogical and far too complex. I must say, Davison's acting also goes a long way to making this hodge-podge more than just acceptable.

I wasn't too keen on the commentary for this. I don't mind people making fun of the programme, God know, us fans do that more than enough. But there seemed to be too much spite from Janet behind the digs on the commentary track for my liking. Janet also didn't really say much in her interview, but its clear she has little appreciation of the show in general while she was on it.

Arc of Infinity
On paper this has all the ingredients of a knockout story, but perhaps there's too many ingredients. It was about this time that the show began to pay attention to the fans too much, and began to celebrate its past too much. Arc isn't bad, but it isn't as good as it should be. It's hard to believe the wonderful Keeper of Traken (which again plundered the show's past) was written and produced by the same people as this. This seems to have a 9-5, get the job done mentality about the production, where as Keeper everyone seemed to be pushing themselves that much harder.

Again, the commentary has barbs about the production, but its all done with more humour – especially with C Baker on board (who although I don't like his Doctor much, it a funny and clever person in real-life and he totally won me over at my 1st convention). I've yet to see any other of the special features.

[darth_deetoo]

I watched the documentaries on Arc last night. Often watch documentaries on Who discs before the actual stories because I've seen the stories that many times before, and it gives me a new insight when actually watching the episodes.

I think the main making of doc is very good. I wish they'd mix up the interviews a bit though, it would have been fun to see Peter and Colin winding each other up on the documentary rather than cutting backwards and forwards between their comments.

I think you're a bit harsh on Colin Baker's Doctor really. I've always been a subscriber to the theory that generally, all the Doctor's have been very similar, regardless of who's playing them, and I never really had a problem with Colin Baker's Doctor. What I think went wrong with the Sixth Doctor was on the production and script side of things, and I always thought it was a bad move to have the Doctor wildly out of character for one story at the end of the 21st season, and to still be fairly unpredictable in the first couple of stories in the 22nd. We unfortunately went from a mild mannered 5th Doctor, to a wildly unpredictable and irascible 6th Doctor, and I think it turned off a lot of fans, and so unfortunately they chose to switch sides and follow The A-Team. An over-reliance on old monsters in the 22nd season, and then the attempt to cancel the show by Michael Grade, did immeasurable damage to Doctor Who in the mid-80's, which was still very popular during Peter Davison's tenure.

Although having said that, David Tennant had an erratic first episode with a long gap before his first season. And Tom Baker had an over reliance on old monsters in his first season. And arguably they are the most popular Doctor's in the show's history.

[Loomis]

Just a quick addition to the rankings:


Classic WHO
Pertwee FTW!
Troughton
T Baker
McCoy
W Hartnell
Davison
C Baker

New WHO
Tennant
Eccleston

Bond: Sean Connery. No question.

Star Trek Captain: Captain Janeway

Comic Book Hero: Green Arrow

-----------------------------------------------------------

For the Doctor Who stories I'd like to see released:

Trial of a Time Lord Boxset: Yes, most of the episodes were pants, but they did kind of kill off Peri.

War Games - What an awesome release this could possibly be!

Doctor Who and the Silurians
The Ambassadors of Death
Complete Pertwee's first season and get some great shots of shonky rockets heading into space while you are at it.

The Daemons - Probably one of my "most wanted" releases. The Master tries to escape by throwing a cape over someone. Brilliant!

Day of the Daleks - The good old days when "invasion force" meant "three".

Paradise Towers - Have a soft spot for this episode for some reason...

[2099net]

More on the box design and the individual covers for the Key to Time boxset.

[yamiiguy]

I'm going to Collectormania Glasgow...Paul McGann, Nicholas Briggs, Anthony Head and Paul Kasey will be there

[Loomis]

You think it would be possible to produce a quality box like this for the decent years, but evidently not.

Still, for all the naysayers that prefer season sets to focused releases, if this is the result, then count me out of season sets. We get more value per square inch on a Doctor Who release than any other TV show.

[Escapay]

Day of the Daleks - The good old days when "invasion force" meant "three".

That looks really impressive! I like how the Key to Time opens up and how there's a plastic covering for it. Much like the new series sets.

Scaps

[darth_deetoo]

It doesn't look very wide for 6 DVD cases. I'm wondering if these are going to be slimline cases, it looks about the right width for those. Having said that, the original picture of just the outer box that was posted looked wider. It's hard to say with promotional images. I'm assuming The Armageddon Factor contains 2 discs. Looks like there's a 2 disc set logo above the BBFC certificate. It does look nice though. Got my copy for just over £44 now. Asda are doing a promotional offer where you get 10% off if you spend over £30. The price is around £49 on the Asda website, with the 10% off brings it down to around £44. Only problem is they aren't very quick at sending stuff out, at least not with back catalogue stuff - have to wait and see what they're like with pre-orders.

[2099net]

I think it will hold 6 "normal" DVD cases, as the whole point is that the <strike>sad obessive</strike> fans can choose to display the stories on their shelves without the packaging in order. This will be more of an issue when non-sequential story boxsets are released.

After this initial release, the Key To Time set will be re-issued as a digipack according to some. Amazon is listing the set as "limited" for this reason - probably.

And on to the wonderful Martha Jones. The BBC has issued a Press Release about her role in Torchwood (including a great pic - check out Tosh, she looks really cool).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressr ... wood.shtml

Freema Agyeman says: "Martha has grown up a lot since Doctor Who. She's now a fully qualified doctor and a bit hardened by life experiences. When she finds out that Captain Jack needs her help, she joins Torchwood for a while. She continues to develop her knowledge of alien intelligence, but this time keeping her feet on the ground.

"These will be invaluable skills to take back with her on future adventures with The Doctor. She outgrew The Doctor, in a sense, and so the next time they meet it will be in a more professional capacity. I'm so proud of her journey and who she has become.

[darth_deetoo]

I don't mind non-sequential stories being released, especially if there's a linking theme like Peladon or Silurians / Sea-Devils. It'll get the stories out quicker and it's good value for money. I'll just collapse the slipcases down and store them somewhere flat and slot the discs into the right place on my shelf. And it doesn't bother me if Key to Time was in slim cases, as they're all consecutive stories and it's a special box anyway.

I've got a bit of a higgledy shelf with Hi Def discs and normal discs now anyway. Even my Hi Def discs are a bit of a mixed bag with some Blu Ray, some HD-DVD and some of them being US imports.