The Nearly-Disastrous Start to the David Tennant Era

[Sindatur]

"New Earth" is a comedy episode, and I thought it was funny and enjoyable. Some people simply didn't like it, others take their science-fiction very seriously and feel that comedy destroys the verisimilitude of their favorite fictional world.

Yea, I used to be like that. "Red Dwarf just makes a mockery out of SciFi, how could any SciFi fan support such rubbish" or I stayed away from Eureka and Warehouse 13 because they had so much comedy, and mostly avoided SG-1 because of all the one liners.

Comedy SciFi is not a crime against SciFi, and often adds quite a lot. It's especially important in a very grim Series like NuBSG, if you don't toss in comedy here and there, a show like NuBSG makes you want to slit your wrists out of Depression. Now, I'm still not the biggest fan of Red Dwarf like many are, but, I have certainly enjoyed watching it all the way through, I thoroughly enjoyed SG-1 and WH13, and Eureka was astonishing to me just how fun a Series it actually is (Thank Goodness for DVDs, as I got to watch it all in one go and loved it)

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Love & Monsters is a good one.

 

[DalekJim]

Something being a comedy episode doesn't mean people should just hold it to no standards. City of Death, The Romans, The Crimson Horror and The Lodger are comedy stories, they're great. New Earth is just dumb and lazy.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Something being a comedy episode doesn't mean people should just hold it to no standards. City of Death, The Romans, The Crimson Horror and The Lodger are comedy stories, they're great. New Earth is just dumb and lazy.

As I said, some people simply didn't like it.

 

[DalekJim]

Love & Monsters is a good one.

One of the few RTD episodes that still holds up. Will never get the hate. I also admit to enjoying Last of the Time Lords as a guilty pleasure for all its Gollum Doctor insanity, although the ending is admittedly offensively retarded.

Though my appreciation for Love & Monsters may be bias due to me being a huge ELO fan . Eldorado is one of the best albums ever.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

I don't love Love & Monsters, but don't hate it, either. What I did hate, though, was the climax - and even more so, the finale. Thats still very, very dumb.

 

[Konata Izumi]

I'm not sure why New Earth is supposedly worse than the rest of the series. Cassandra is a very original villain and the body swap farce isn't a bad way to express her story. Embarrassing things make me happy. The episode uses the imagery of cat people and flying cars to portray nice progress in the future and the hospital and the zombies portray bad things like it's the Star Wars.

RTD's supposed skill with characters is questionable. He has unusual skill in writing a very specific type of character driven purely by emotion, but when that is not enough for the plot to function, reason is still not applied and he has to rely on some bizarre contrivance instead. Characters affect plot.

Such a massive shortcoming does not however automatically mean the episodes are bad.

 

[Mr Awe]

"New Earth" is a comedy episode, and I thought it was funny and enjoyable. Some people simply didn't like it, others take their science-fiction very seriously and feel that comedy destroys the verisimilitude of their favorite fictional world.

Comedy is alright, it's just that New Earth wasn't funny for me.

Mr Awe

 

[Newspaper Taxi]

The problem with New Earth was that the Doctor took a few bags of chemicals and then proceeded to cure every disease in the universe while going about like he was Jesus curing lepers. I was fine with every other aspect of the episode except that.

Season 2 is my least favorite season of Nu-Who. It was the 'awkward sophmore' album of the NuWho band.

David Tennant himself didn't really come together as the Doctor for me until the two parter of the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit. I think having the Doctor face the impossible, and something he feared forced Tennant to get more in touch with his character or something.

 

[DWF]

I rather liked both The Christmas Invasion and New Earth, I thought Tennant's first season started off rather well. The worst of the season for me was Fear Her and The Idiot's Lantern.

 

[Green Lantern]

Xmas Invasion is not a good star for any doctor. David Tenants first episode, and he's not even fucking in it!

New Earth was just pathetic, Tennant's first actual episode where he gets any bloody screen time, and it's shit. That gay zombie nurse guy, an bringing back one of the worst villains from series 1 (although she was okay in S1, but she was appalling in series 2)

 

[Mr Awe]

David Tenants first episode, and he's not even fucking in it!

If he was doing that, it wouldn't be a family show any more!

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Light]

I didn't care very much for Tennant at first (I didn't really love him until S3), and Christmas Invasion certainly didn't help. He was barely in the damn thing. And the dickish way he treats poor Harriet Jones was very unsympathetic.

 

[Mitty]

The Tennant-lite aspect of The Christmas Invasion was the most annoying aspect. We're all excited about a new Doctor and he's in bed the entire time. The Eleventh Hour is by far the better of the post Regen Stories, at least he's awake and animated and doing stuff. We can only hope that Capaldi isn't in bed or a bloody zero room or something for his first story. I think that's just a waste.

 

[Green Lantern]

David Tenants first episode, and he's not even fucking in it!

If he was doing that, it wouldn't be a family show any more!

Mr Awe

lol.

Twist my words.

The Tennant-lite aspect of The Christmas Invasion was the most annoying aspect. We're all excited about a new Doctor and he's in bed the entire time. The Eleventh Hour is by far the better of the post Regen Stories, at least he's awake and animated and doing stuff. We can only hope that Capaldi isn't in bed or a bloody zero room or something for his first story. I think that's just a waste.

Yeah, I think Eleventh Hour is by far the best post regeneration story. And still holds up as one of the best Smith stories.

The Spearhead from Space was alright, Robot was alright but weird, Castrovalva was absolute crap (real let down after the fantastic Keeper of Traken and Logopolis), Twin Dilemma was just weird, the 96 movie was brilliant (although only because it's a McGann story, McCoy's role is not really fair for him to go out on), then we have to jump to Xmas invasion which is terrible (a shame as I liked the Sykorax, in a better story they could have been great), then we jump to the first decent post regeneration story in decades with the Eleventh Hour.

Note I have not seen Troughtons first one as it is lost to time, and I've not seen Time and the Rani either which would probably also be shit.

 

[Mr Awe]

David Tenants first episode, and he's not even fucking in it!

If he was doing that, it wouldn't be a family show any more!

Mr Awe

lol.

Twist my words.

Just a joke! I agree with the sentiment though. Not sure why Doctor Who history has several examples of post-generation stories where the Doctor is unavailable (Spearhead, Castrovalva, Xmas Invasion).

For that first story, you really just want to meet the Doctor.

Mr Awe

 

[Starkers]

Was Troughton a bit doddery in his first story as well? I guess if every molecule of my body/personality had just been rewritten I'd be a little out of sorts too...

Did the 4th Doctor arrive pretty much fully formed personality wise? I can't recall...

 

[Sindatur]

Was Troughton a bit doddery in his first story as well? I guess if every molecule of my body/personality had just been rewritten I'd be a little out of sorts too...

Did the 4th Doctor arrive pretty much fully formed personality wise? I can't recall...

Troughton was a little jumbled for a little bit, but, not as bad as future Regenerations (And this actually makes sense, because Doctor 1 simply died of old age, he laid down and regenerated, whereas, the rest mostly all died in some kind of Trauma (Two's Regeneration was forced upon him, which seemed to have that same traumatic affect)

Doctor Four, was jumbled, but, not absent from the episode, and not as bad as some others (Three was literally dying and he was helped to Regenerate by another Time Lord who was in the Final Pertwee story)

 

[Mr Awe]

Was Troughton a bit doddery in his first story as well? I guess if every molecule of my body/personality had just been rewritten I'd be a little out of sorts too...

Did the 4th Doctor arrive pretty much fully formed personality wise? I can't recall...

The logic within the story might suggest that the character would be out of sorts . . . but as a viewer, I just want to see him in action!

Robot wasn't the best story but my recollection is that Tom Baker was pretty much in character from the get-go!

Mr Awe

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I didn't watch the first two seasons live, so the first Tennant episode I saw was The Girl in the Fireplace. Given this, the Christmas episode to me wasn't "when will I finally see the Doctor?" it was "The Doctor needs to recover to save the day." Given that, his absence added to the drama (which otherwise would have been completely missing in an episode that wasn't overly exciting). I realize that, for those who were watching it as their introduction to Tennant, it falls a bit flat. However, his absence, to me, fit the story rather than detracted from the story.