Russell T Davies yes/no

[Cutter John]

Its true. I'm sure Directors cast Tom Baker because they want a tall, imposing, slightly mad character. Or if Brian Blessed isn't available.

Honestly I don't have a problem with Matt either. I just see a younger version of Troughton's Doctor. I wouldn't mind seeing him do a bit more rightous indignation though.

 

[Starkers]

The Silver Chair, Blackadder, but most importantly-- interviews. I enjoy Tom a lot, but it's plain that he pretty much just plays himself whenever he's on screen! But it works.

Some people are actors -- they are very good at pretending that they are other people. And some people are stars -- they are very good at pretending that other people are them.

Tom Baker is not an actor, he is a star.

I like that description

Tennant it probably my least favourite of the three modern Doctors, but I still liked him. He always just seemed to be trying too hard, I guess being a fan hampered him in that respect. His joy was wonderful at times though (when he saw Sarah Jane, or when he clapped eyes on the werewolf) Sometimes he was just too damn manic for me, and the gurning put me off as well. Good actor and a good Doctor though.

For me Tennant and Eccleston both acted at being the Doctor, Smith just seems to naturally be the Doctor.

 

[Phily B]

The Christmas special with Catherine Tate is on BBC One now for some reason, I still prefered RTDs approach to DW and how he based it off Buffy.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It's funny, to me Smith is the closest of the three nuWho doctors to coming off as fannish - like someone in a Trek fan film who so clearly knows that he's playing The Captain and apes a certain kind of carriage and delivery.

Eccleston was probably the least so.

 

[Sci]

I find Tennant and Smith to be equally the Doctor... and I find Eccleston to be absolutely transcendent in his embodiment of the Doctor. There was never anyone before or since Eccleston's Doctor who felt so real.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Yeah, I became a big fan of Tennant but wish there'd been more time to be an Eccleston fan.

He was the first Doctor who really engaged my interest as a character.

 

[TedShatner10]

Here's my take on RTD's episodes:

"Rose" - Yes
"The End of the World" - Yes
"Aliens of London/World War Three" - Ok...
"The Long Game" - Passable...
"Boom Town" - Yes
"Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways" - Yes
"The Christmas Invasion" - Yes
"New Earth" - OK...
"Tooth and Claw" - OK...
"Love and Monsters" - Yes
"Army of Ghosts/Doomsday" - Yes
"The Runaway Bride" - Yes
"Smith and Jones" - Yes
"Gridlock" - Yes
"Utopia" - Yes
"The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords" - Passable...
"Voyage of the Damned" - No-ish
"Partners in Crime" - Yes
"Midnight" - Yes
"Turn Left" - Yes
"The Stolen Earth/Journey's End" - No
"The Next Doctor" - OK...
"Planet of the Dead" - Yes
"The Waters of Mars" - Yes
"The End of Time" - Yes

Russell T. Davies definitely had problems and he was not going to please everyone, but his long tenure was very popular and successful from start to finish, and he was essentially a winner. There is a very vocal minority of malcontents who proclaimed his later scripts as supposedly the worst episodes of Doctor Who ever, but while I can sense strong repetition and signs of encroaching creative burnout, they haven't really won anything tangible and their nerd rage is worrying.

It's healthy to recoginise bullshit and tell the difference between good/bad entertainment, but becoming bitter n' twisted like Lawrence Miles or Mike Wong, vanishing up your own backside over a bit of comparatively light sci-fi entertainment like Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Star Trek (that can occasionally reach great heights) is an ultimately unhealthy mindset...

 

[The]

It's healthy to recoginise bullshit and tell the difference between good/bad entertainment, but becoming bitter n' twisted like Lawrence Miles or Mike Wong, vanishing up your own backside over a bit of comparatively light sci-fi entertainment like Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Star Trek (that can occasionally reach great heights) is an ultimately unhealthy mindset...

Agreed 100%!

 

[Butters]

Russell T. Davies definitely had problems and he was not going to please everyone, but his long tenure was very popular and successful from start to finish, and he was essentially a winner. There is a very vocal minority of malcontents who proclaimed his later scripts as supposedly the worst episodes of Doctor Who ever, but while I can sense strong repetition and signs of encroaching creative burnout, they haven't really won anything tangible and their nerd rage is worrying.

I agree.

For my perspective, I found all of RTDs episodes entertaining, it was in the build up that he excelled, his resolutions were acceptable, but ultimately unsatisfying.

I also have trouble believing that Turn Left and Midnight were written by the same hand as Voyage of the Damned, what a waste that was, or The Next Doctor. Cybermen skulking about around a Victorian grave yard in the snow and not an ounce of atmosphere. How?

I did often feel that RTDs best adventures were offscreen. Woman Wept? The Nightmare Child and the Neverweres? Evocative stuff but never quite delivering.

As for that Gay agenda thing. How dare he use an entertainment medium to progress tolerance and diversity to a wide audience like that. Shocking.

 

[TedShatner10]

I found the Cybermen in the graveyard to be the high point of that episode.

"Midnight" is an odd episode, it works much, much better than "Journey's End" due to it being much more simpler and streamlined, so there's less gaping plotholes and contrivances cropping up every 80 seconds (the Ostahagan Project?! Really?).

Really, Moffat's "The Big Bang" was a relief because it was streamlined.

 

[Stevil2001]

Streamlined? "The Big Bang" is fun, but it is far from streamlined.

"Oh! The Doctor's been saved by his future self! Oh! Amy's memories can reboot the universe because she lived near a crack! Oh! The Doctor is travelling backwards through his life for some reason! Oh! River Song is there handing out diaries that don't exist!"

 

[TedShatner10]

"Oh! The Doctor's been saved by his future self! Oh! Amy's memories can reboot the universe because she lived near a crack! Oh! The Doctor is travelling backwards through his life for some reason! Oh! River Song is there handing out diaries that don't exist!"

'Oh! Martha Jones is instructed to tell stories about the Doctor to the oppressed citizens of Master controlled Earth and also persuade them to chant "Doctor!" at a very specific time and day! Oh! The entire Neo-Dalek Empire grinds to a halt and then explodes after a few buttons are pressed in Davros' holding cell!'

RTD was not exactly cast iron either.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Moffat's more disciplined about plot logic than Davies, no doubt about it. His writing is probably the most successful element of the post-Davies era.

 

[RoJoHen]

"Oh! The Doctor's been saved by his future self! Oh! Amy's memories can reboot the universe because she lived near a crack! Oh! The Doctor is travelling backwards through his life for some reason! Oh! River Song is there handing out diaries that don't exist!"

'Oh! Martha Jones is instructed to tell stories about the Doctor to the oppressed citizens of Master controlled Earth and also persuade them to chant "Doctor!" at a very specific time and day! Oh! The entire Neo-Dalek Empire grinds to a halt and then explodes after a few buttons are pressed in Davros' holding cell!'

RTD was not exactly cast iron either.

I'd take those over the ridiculous mess of "The Big Bang" any day.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Ah, the Moffat one has that lovely moment about "there's no such things as stars." That's worth an entire season's worth of SyFy channel fare, with change due.

 

[Cutter John]

And the worst episode of Who is still better than damn near anything else!

 

[Joel_Kirk]

And the worst episode of Who is still better than damn near anything else!

That can be debatable....since I can pick other things to watch rather than many of episodes from the Sylvester McCoy era...

(Mind you, there are some that I like from his era, but for the most part...the episodes (writing/effects/acting) weren't that great).

 

[Starkers]

Moffat's more disciplined about plot logic than Davies, no doubt about it. His writing is probably the most successful element of the post-Davies era.

I think both of them see the needs of the story above logic of the plot, Moffat's just subtler about it.

Like I always say, RTD is PT Barnum, hoping all the bright lights and loud noises mask the fact that the mermaid you've gone to see a poorly sewn together fake.

Moffat on the other hand is more of an illusionist, he relies on smoke and mirrors to stop you looking too closely...

There's something to be said for each approach.

 

[Sci]

Moffat's more disciplined about plot logic than Davies, no doubt about it. His writing is probably the most successful element of the post-Davies era.

Hm, I don't know about that. I mean, look at "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances." The nanogenes have been turning everyone into copies of the Child because they thought he was what Humans are supposed to look like, but then, suddenly, encountering another Human who's related to him makes them realize they're not supposed to just copy the Child endlessly? That makes no sense at all. If anything, encountering someone with a closer genetic code than most others should make them think the opposite.

And then there's "The Girl in the Fireplace," where Reinette knows that the Doctor is coming to fight off the Clockwork Men because the clock on her mantle is broken in the teaser... even though the broken side of the mantle was only ever in the 18th Century when the Doctor or one of the Clockwork Men used it to travel to that era and always reverted to the working-clock side when they went back, and she had had her mantle moved ages before. Complete and utter plot hole.

What Moffat is better at is covering up his plot holes by making the rest of the plot complex enough that it distracts you. RTD, on the other hand, basically designed his shows so that the characters and emotions would be strong enough to distract you from his plot holes. But they're both papering over their plot holes, just in different ways.

 

[Phily B]

I've never understood why Moffat got a pass for The Doctor saving himself from the Pandorica. I thought that was worse than the Archangel network, mainly cause they resolved such a huge cliffhanger so poorly.