Slashdot Mirror
BBC To Revive Doctor Who Next Year
Jordan writes: "Orange Today is reporting that the BBC has hired a scriptwriter from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to work on a new Doctor Who series, in celebration of the show's 40th anniversary. And Buffy's Anthony Head, who plays Giles, may be up for the role of the doctor." Update: 07/03 12:27 GMT by T : LoadStar writes: "The Beeb has an official denial that a new Who series is in the works with members of the Buffy production team, as reported yesterday on Slashdot. They report 'Whilst the Cult team quite like the idea of Tony Head as the Doctor in a show guided by members of America's finest fantasy production team, the BBC aren't currently making any such plans.'"
OK, ok, I'm in the minority of fans, to be sure, but, I actually dug the Fox TV movie version...well, except for that whole Eric Roberts as the Master thing. Ew. I for one would like to see Who with an actual budget, as opposed to 'the endless gravel quarries.'
But I could definitely see Anthony Stewart Head as a Doctor, and if they managed to key into the intelligent Buffy writing rather than the stuff they've been pumping out lately.
Million Sterling-Pound Question: Will there be continuity between old series (and/or TV movie) and new series, or is this a tabula raza/reimagining thing? I would imagine the second would be easier, considering all the frigging episodes and books in existence that are considered BBC-official.
"What's so random about flipping a coin? Ever heard of the I Ching?"
Maybe the producers are hoping that if they modernize all of the technology, it will appeal to a whole new generation of geeks which not get quite so much enjoyment out of PDP-11 and VAX vintage stuff.
He was in the Comic Relief The curse of fatal death and did a wonderful job.
I really think they should give him a shake at it.
I've heard he was originally an engineer. Is that true?
I am sure I had read somewhere that Anthony Head was going to be staring in a new Buffy spin-off dealing with his pre-watcher days. Was I totally off or was that cancelled, so that he is available for this?
I'm not sure this will be a highly anticipated series with me. Though I'd love to see Dr Who with modern effects, I'm concerned that too much'll be focused on that. I really think that Dr Who's lack of an effects budget forced the writers to keep the eps interesting. Without that limitation today, what incentive will they have?
:)
Okay, Im done being cynical. On the plus side, there are some new story arcs they could look into. For example, what if the Doctor were to get the chameleon circuit working in the Tardis? They could explore that in an interesting way now that they have the effects to do it.
It'd also be interesting to see more areas of the Tardis. I realize that a lot of people didn't like the Dr Who movie that came out on Fox a few years ago, but I think nearly everybody'll agree the art direction taken on the Tardis was pretty damn cool. Even if you didn't agree with the style, it was obvious they really put effort into it.
Okay, I'm a little hyped about it now. Heh.
ooooooooo What if Patrick Stewart played the Doc? Unlikely, I know. He'd still be cool for the job.
True. No Doctor character should try to be another Tom Baker. Can't be done. Baker's doctor wasn't totally unique, though. A sucessful portrayal of the doctor requires that you allow the character to change somewhat over time, not just be some sort of icon/cartoon character who says the same things and wears the exact same uniform from one episode to the next. The most successful companions (like Sarah Jane Smith, arguably Turlough, Romana, Ian Chesterton, Nyssa, Jamie) also showed that characteristic as well.
One thing that was good about Dr Who was that most of the stories were two or three hours long giving the chance for characters to develop better than the typical 50 minutes long most episodes are now. Of course that didn't happen in all the episodes but the format did allow the program to feel different that most serries
Sig is taking a break!
I didn't think it was that bad. (To be fair, my standards were extremely low...) Some of it was semi-faithful to the TV Series. Some of the dialog in particular was pretty decent. Wish I coudl quote some of it.
I was amazed at the design of the Tardis. Although I don't agree with the style of the ship, I thought the direction they went was rather inspired.
Sadly, though, you're right about them ruining it. It was just so wrong to see the Doc get a girl. I don't know what was so startling to me about that. Maybe it was because I have "Trial of the Time Lord' on tape. The Doctor really seemed to want to be with Peri, but he wouldn't. THat never really was explained. (nor do I want it to be...)
In any case, I did get some good from it, but like Star Trek 5 and Episode I, I'd like to forget it.
The way I see it, the show can only work as long as they don't try to pick it up where it left off. Here are my suggestions for possible plot lines:
1) Skip ahead to the doctor's future. Start on the 9th or 10th doctor. The down side is that he would be one generation closer to becoming the Valiard (12th regeneration). If they do the storyline right, it could make for some good character evolution.
2) Start from the beginning again. Take the old plots and rework them. Start from the beginning and go until it ends. This would personally cheese me off, but it would be nice to see better actors and better dialogue for the same old great plots.
3) The last option I'll offer is to do what Card did with Ender's Game - A parallel series. This way they could leverage the old series and all its great plots, but take them from a different perspective. They could weive a parallel plot to explain this new timelords travels. The best part would be that they could avoid disgruntelling all the loyal Dr. Who fans out there by not doing it right. Just borrowing the Dr. Who universe so to speak.
Anyhow, that's my two cents.
Btw, what ever happened to Fox purchasing the rights to Dr. Who?
O.T., but for all you Dr. Who fans, there's a website, www.drwho.org out there dedicated to Dr. Who fans with discussion forums, announcements, etc.
:-) I'd love to see the look on his face if/when it happens.
Y'all out to try and see if you can slashdot poor Mike Wilson's machine to hell and back
Slashdot the denial page... that should tell them something... :)
(I doubt even they could twist that into "look, lots of people were interested in us NOT making new Doctor Who!")