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Doctor Who on the wane

^ I was thinking of that very episode when I mentioned Karen, she has come a long way acting wise since "The Eleventh Hour" and I'm one who has liked her acting from the start. Matt as well.
 
I believe their acting in each's respective roles improved greatly from s5 to s6 and am eagerly waiting to see what the Moff will unleash for s7!
 
I have to agree with most opinions on here that Doctor Who should have finished (for now) when RTD left. I feel Moffat has ruined the series and doesn't know what he is doing. Its just a mess of emotions and plot holes as suggested. I have stated this before and have been challenged to write a series myself!
Well what can I say-gulp... but I have started to do it abit slowly-I do need help and would appreciate ANY help on this forum and also to join other forums on the DW universe to help relaunch DW as it should be-
Can anyone help me? I have good ideas bit I haven't ever written a TV script- Its has to be VERY good-I am in the UK.
 
DW much like it's titular character does tend to regenreate when a new show runner steps in. I to think the SM seasons haven't been quite as good as the RTD era, but that might change when the new season starts.
 
See, I saw all of the Tennant run but looking back he pushed the melodrama too far and for that reason i prefer Smith to him.
 
Overall, I prefer Moffat's era to the RTD era. Part of what I like about Moffat's stories is that, despite some intricate time travel plotting, it works on other levels besides merely being a sci-fi/adventure story. I find Amy & Rory a lot more involving than Rose, Martha, or Donna. I think the scripts are also, on the whole, funnier now than they were before. So the show works as a character drama & a comedy as well as a sci-fi adventure.

And certainly nothing in Moffat's era has been as excruciatingly unwatchable as "Love & Monsters" or "Fear Her" or as wildly uneven as "The Christmas Invasion" or "The Next Doctor."

Simm just isn't Master material. He is a fine actor but the Master requires...sophistication and charm. Not looking like a schoolboy who is high on his first real date.
Reminds me in a way of Turlough but Turlough at least could evoke sinister qualities as well as charm.

I dunno. I think Simm could evoke the kind of sophisticated charm you're looking for if he wanted to. That's just not the direction they wanted to go with the character. I would blame the writing & direction, not the actor.

What made it doubley brilliant for me, is the guy who played the Dream Lord also played Karl Rove in "W."

But that might just be my sense of humour!

Hail Hydra! ;)

As for Eccleston doing a multi-Doctor story, can't we blackmail him into it or something? Can't we get Karen Gillan to catch him in a honey trap? Everybody wins! :p

But maybe it would be simpler just to do Tennant & Smith together while incorporating various companions, monsters, props, & other details to represent the 9 previous Doctors.

Granted, you could do a story more like "The Five Doctors" or "The Sirens of Time" which separates the Doctors until the end of the story. But what's the fun in that? I think the point should be getting interesting interactions between the different versions of the Doctor. (But then, I think the most interesting Matt Smith match-up would be with Eccleston. Their wildly diverging fashion senses alone would provide bickering for hours.)
 
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Overall, I prefer Moffat's era to the RTD era. Part of what I like about Moffat's stories is that, despite some intricate time travel plotting, it works on other levels besides merely being a sci-fi/adventure story. I find Amy & Rory a lot more involving than Rose, Martha, or Donna. I think the scripts are also, on the whole, funnier now than they were before. So the show works as a character drama & a comedy as well as a sci-fi adventure.

And certainly nothing in Moffat's era has been as excruciatingly unwatchable as "Love & Monsters" or "Fear Her" or as wildly uneven as "The Christmas Invasion" or "The Next Doctor."

Simm just isn't Master material. He is a fine actor but the Master requires...sophistication and charm. Not looking like a schoolboy who is high on his first real date.
Reminds me in a way of Turlough but Turlough at least could evoke sinister qualities as well as charm.

I dunno. I think Simm could evoke the kind of sophisticated charm you're looking for if he wanted to. That's just not the direction they wanted to go with the character. I would blame the writing & direction, not the actor.

What made it doubley brilliant for me, is the guy who played the Dream Lord also played Karl Rove in "W."

But that might just be my sense of humour!

Hail Hydra! ;)

As for Eccleston doing a multi-Doctor story, can't we blackmail him into it or something? Can't we get Karen Gillan to catch him in a honey trap? Everybody wins! :p

But maybe it would be simpler just to do Tennant & Smith together while incorporating various companions, monsters, props, & other details to represent the 9 previous Doctors.

Granted, you could do a story more like "The Five Doctors" or "The Sirens of Time" which separates the Doctors until the end of the story. But what's the fun in that? I think the point should be getting interesting interactions between the different versions of the Doctor. (But then, I think the most interesting Matt Smith match-up would be with Eccleston. Their wildly diverging fashion senses alone would provide bickering for hours.)
I'd love to see McGann join in. His one TV appearance in the American Movie was just the tip of the iceberg for his characterization, after the audios, to see him portray the Doctor on TV again would be astounding, IMHO. Of course I'd welcome the remaining 4 Classic Series Doctors as well, but, McGann only got the one chance, so we were never able to see his Doctor really develop, only to hear it, and some of his audios have been incredible.
 
And certainly nothing in Moffat's era has been as excruciatingly unwatchable as "Love & Monsters" or "Fear Her" or as wildly uneven as "The Christmas Invasion" or "The Next Doctor."

People talk about the episodic basis of RTD being much better. But overall it really wasn't. The last 2 series have been really strong with a lot of episodes that tie each other together sometimes. Even the stand alones go back to previous eps. The first 2 series didn't really work that well there and had a lot of really weak stand alones. Even some of the 2 part eps were weak. Aliens of London and World War Three should just be skipped. I would rather them have brought back the much more menacing Krilltanes from "School Reunion" than the Slithiens ever again.
 
There are, of course, weak points in every "era" but, and two years prior I never thought I'd say this, I really find myself preferring RTD's reign to Moffat's.

For me, RTD was a good at character writing and good at set-ups but lousy at the resolution. SM... well, he's not as clever as he thinks he is. I groan far more while watching an SM story than I ever did with RTD. My familiarity with his work is confined to Coupling, Jekyll and his work on DW and... I thought Coupling and Jekyll were crap. As for DW, I really preferred it when he was penning a story a year under someone else's watch.

I haven't watched the latest Christmas episode. I just haven't cared. As for S7... I can only hope there's no Amy and no River. Amy never worked for me and River did in the beginning but her appeal has long since waned for me.
 
I disagree completely on River. When they first introduced River I didn't see how she would work and for much of season 5 it didn't make sense either. But as more has been revealed it not only makes here more watchable now but those eps better IMO.

I've never been a big fan of Amy/Rory. But they aren't particularly bad either. I don't know if there was much better character writing in RTDs era. Maybe more for the 9th Doc there was. But the 10th doctor was a maniac the first 2 series. Which was part of what made the 10th doctor fun. But it also lead to inconsistent writing from episode to episode and even the villain suffered. There really hasn't been a good Cyberman story at all and the only really good Dalek story featured only one Dalek.
 
I wasn't referring to the Doctor's character during RTD's tenure. The 10th with the mood swings from manic joy to melodramatic wore thin quickly. I was referring to other characters. I think, for all his other faults, that RTD can write decent characters with emotional depth.

I do quite agree that the only good Dalek story was "Dalek". The Doctor damn near crapped himself seeing one then spends three of four series finale's under RTD wiping them out by the thousands. And I too am still waiting for a good Cybermen story instead of just little scratches at it here and there.
 
And I too am still waiting for a good Cybermen story instead of just little scratches at it here and there.

At least there are Cybermen stories, I'm still waiting for a second Zygon story. I thought "Terror of the Zygons" was a great story and they were great characters.

I think if there is a problem with "new" Who it's the over use of characters like the Daleks and the Master. Doctor Who has a lot of great characters in it's past that could be used like the Zygons, The Rani, The Guardians of Time, etc.
 
The main problem with the Cybermen in NuWho is that they've played secondary roles in pretty much all of their appearances, with something else taking up attention (be it a baby River Song or somebody who thinks he's the Doctor, etc).

I concur "Dalek" has been the strongest story featuring Daleks, but I found "Bad Wolf"-"The Parting of the Ways" and "Army of Ghosts"-"Doomsday" almost as good. "The Stolen Earth"-"Journey's End" and "Victory of the Daleks" were mediocre stories with plotholes or things that misfire, but not devoid of entertainment value and fun. "Daleks in Manhattan"-"Evolution of the Daleks" was just a mess, a toxic mixture of dullness and silliness.
 
I rather enjoyed The Stolen Earth and Journey's End. Mr Harper did a fantastic job on that one. I like it over Dalek or anything inbetween.
AS for Cybermen. the way I see it, we have yet to have a proper Cybermen story like in the days of the classic series. Even Attack of the Cybermen or Silver Nemesis were easier to watch than the Rise of the Cybermen or Army of Ghosts two-parters. And don't get me started about The Next Doctor!
 
The Next Doctor would have been a decent story if there wasn't a real heavy involved. Just a story trying to fix the memory of a guy that thinks he's the doctor. But the Cyberman story in that one was a complete joke. The first cyberman story being created in an alternate universe wasn't really that bad. It wasn't a great story but it wasn't that bad. But everyone since uses those version of cybermen even if it's not really possible.
 
I too am favouring RTD era episodes when I reach for a WHO fix. RTD was a great name dropper, and built the tension very well. The resolutions though often fell flat, but then the River story fell on its face too, probably moreso because that story spanned several years.
 
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