Slashdot Mirror
BBC Apologizes To Who Star
An anonymous reader writes "SciFi Wire is reporting that 'The BBC, which earlier reported that Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston was leaving the show after the first season, issued an unusual apology to the actor for mischaracterizing his reasons for departing...the network broke an agreement with Eccleston not to reveal that he had planned to film just one season of the hit show all along.'" We covered the announcement of his resignation late last month.
does anyone else find it odd that he only planned on being in one season...
An insightful post. One has to wonder what Eccleson thought, signing on to a series that one must have thought he must have hoped would have been successful? Either he was banking on Dr. Who tanking (doubtful) or simply wasn't thinking ahead.
Now this is just a wild-assed guess, but perhaps he's trying to make the leap off the small screen and Dr. Who was seen as a mechanism for him to make the transition. He certainly has recieved more media attention in light of this move - the initial reports of his departure from the show as well as the reports of the BBC apology?
Suppose that's just free publicity. He did get two appearances on Slashdot however.... and that can't mean nothing can it?!
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
Networks can be incredibly forgiving of actors if they really want them - the one-season limit of Christopher Eccleston seems to fall under that rule. Hell, The producers of Witchblade kept Yancy Butler when filming Witchblade, even though she had a substance abuse problem. They went so far as bringing her mom on set to keep her sober and filming shots where she wobbled after throwing a punch again.
Whereas if a crew member showed up once just a bit inebriated, they'd probably have been sacked. Cogs in the wheel, I suppose.
What are they going to do for next season, though? Ignore the elephant on the sofa, and change characters? Do an episode where Dr. Who wakes up in a different body due to some bizarre transformation gun he gets hit with? Deal with it Ed Wood style and have him killed off-screen?
Actually, I have a theory that they are hinting to a huge temporal war that ended up in the death of the timelords except for the Doctor (and perhaps what the celestine conciousness was blaming the doctor for when he gets made at him in the premier). It's a pity that Enterprise has kind of poisoned that concept, but it seems pretty different, considered the tragic outcome has already occurred. I hope I'm right. A subtle interlocking arch tying together the seasons of Who is exactly what is needed to keep this on the air for another 26 years.
They would make taking a turn as the Doctor into something all well-known actors would aspire to, just like the guest spot on the Muppet Show used to be.
This would set off raging discussions online about who the next Doctor will be, who the next Doctor should be, who the best Doctor was, etc.
Built-in buzz. C'mon BBC get with it.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Hm. Translation.
Imagine Rose is speaking white trailer-trash, the Doctor some variety of black English.
Her accent nails her to a social and educational background (she wasn't going anywhere without losing that dialect), his is one which would have traditionally have had been associated with strong, mostly negative, steriotypes, but more recently has become sonewhat cool, especially with younger people.
Here's a theory. Given the translation effects of the tardis, perhaps we hear the doctor as his companions see him/need to see him. Hartnel is the slightly old fashoned schoolmaster two 60s teachers expected, Pertwee had to be the kind of expert who the brigadeer would listen to etc.
Rose, of course, meets a figure she has to instantly respect and listen to -- ``I'm the Doctor, run for your life!'' -- that can't be the kind of authority figure she has clearly rejected from school etc, nor the kind of people she lives amongst (consider that awful boyfriend), so she hears a slightly exotic, slightly cool dialect which is not `them', but distant enough from `us' to carry some weight.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named