The short answer is: history.
Here's a slightly longer answer:
Unlike the US, the UK political system is a result of historical changes over centuries, and is not a coherently thought-through system.
Until devolution a few years ago, the UK Parliament was the only legislative body in the entire country. The Devolution process gave away some of parliament's powers to new parliaments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. However the three don't have equal powers to each other - the reasons being a combination of history (Scotland has always had different laws to the rest of the UK as it joined when the two nations shared the same King, whereas Wales and Ireland joined by means of English conquest), popular feeling (the Scots were more in favour of devolution than the Welsh), and the needs of the peace process in Northern Ireland.
There have been plans for various powers to be devolved not to a new English Parliament, but to the nine English regions (which are comparable in both size and population to Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland, whereas England itself is massive compared to the other parts of the UK). However, this devolution hasn't got a large amount of popular support compared to the pressure for devolution from the other nations of the UK, the North East had a referendum on a regional assembly, but that gave a no vote. The only part of England with any devolved power at the moment is London.
There are some arguing for an English Parliament, but there aren't very many of them - most people in England would think of it as a waste of money, because England makes up the vast majority of both the land and the people.
Where do you get this cost analysis from? Nuclear power costs an awful lot - the plant costs phenomenal amounts of money to set up, then there's the cost of mining and shipping the uranium. Plus storage of the nuclear waste. Plus there are security and safety problems that are unique to Nuclear power (imagine if terrorists targeted a nuclear power plant).
With wind, there is a relatively small set-up cost and then maybe a marginal maintenance cost, compared to nuclear which has a very large set-up cost AND a substantial maintenance cost.
Also, there are large amounts of government subsidy for nuclear power. In the UK, if it hadn't been for government subsidies the nuclear industry would have gone bust years ago. Renewables, on the other hand, rarely get any substantial level of government subsidy and yet are the fastest growing segment of the energy industry. I wonder why that might be.
I watched one episode, the one where the girl goes back in time and meets her own dad and nearly destroys the whole world. I guess it was OK. It's not quite Star Trekesque Sci-Fi, and frankly, it seemed more than a little cheesy. I guess that's kind of the point, though. I just don't understand how a show like this can survive for 40 years, or however long it's been on. So, brits, why do you like this show so much?
That story is utterly unique within televised Doctor Who, so you shouldn't build your opinion of the 26 years of the classic series or of the rest of the new series on it.
Part of the reason we love it as a nation is that we watched it as kids, loved the Doctor, and hid behind the sofa. Part of it is because it is (mostly) good escapist drama with deeper levels for those who want a bit of depth in their TV. Partly because of a whole load of reasons. The Daleks, for example, captivated the 60s generation because they were the first alien monsters who didn't look like a man in a costume. Partly because it is just utterly British. Partly because of dozens of other reasons I can't be bothered to recall at the moment.
I'd say start with the new series, then take some example stories from various eras of the show (include at least one from each Doctor), and find out what bits you like and what you don't. Note that each episode from the classic series is part of a larger story of between two and fourteen episodes (with the exception of the feature-length The Five Doctors and the 1996 TV Movie)
Here's a list of some stories generally considered quite good to give you an idea of the scope of the show (NB, where a Doctor has more stories in my list, it's because there was a change in the style of story through their tenure):
Hartnell: The Aztecs The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Troughton: Tomb of the Cybermen
Pertwee: Spearhead from Space The Daemons
Tom Baker: Genesis of the Daleks The Robots of Death City of Death The Leisure Hive
Peter Davison: The Caves of Androzani
Colin Baker: Vengeance on Varos
Sylvester McCoy: Delta and the Bannermen (NB, this one's not held in high esteem, but it's part of a unique season that's looked down on and is one of the better ones of that season) The Curse of Fenric
For that matter, does it even make sense to count the old Doctor Who in terms of series at all? I always thought of them by story. You have the Doctor dealing with Daleks for these few episodes, then you have him in ancient Rome for a while, and now you've got one where a computer in the middle of London has gone berserk, and then you have him in an unconvincing impersonation of Mars by a Welsh quarry. It doesn't matter whether it's series 11 or series 17; just, who's the Doctor, and what are the monsters?
With the possible exception of the early-mid 60s, they were originally presented as series/seasons, and that is how they were carved up for production purposes. The series/seasons were then subdivided into stories. And, of course, each series/season has its own character. You couldn't mistake a season 13 story for a season 17 story even though they feature the same doctor.
Calling it 'Series 26' or whatever it is will just put off people who'll think they need to have seen thirty years' worth of backstory in order to enjoy it.
It would be season 27 (season seems to have become the norm when talking about the classic series despite being an Americanism). And you've hit the nail on the head about the reason. Though also, the fact that in production terms the new series is completely divorced from the original series was a factor. They didn't call the first season of Star Trek The Next Generation "season 4", did they?
Well, what do you expect... Russell Davies is the creator of the original (British) Queer As Folk. Which, granted, is some excellent teevee, but not exactly the same as Doctor Who during Tom Baker's tenure as the Doctor, especoally during the Key to Time cycle (and the prior season) when Douglas Adams was script supervisor.
Tom Baker's era wasn't the be all and end all of the show. He was only in it for seven years out of the 26. As for Russell, he has written some very Who-ish things before (e.g. the children's show Dark Season in the early 90s, plus one of the Doctor Who novels - back in '96). And The Christmas Invasion is actually a lot like Douglas Adams' stuff.
I'm more disappointed that they're keeping Christopher Eccleston around. I thought he was quite annoying on his debut episode on Fox years ago.
You're confusing your actors. The Doctor in the 1996 TV Movie on Fox was Paul McGann (and although fans seem to hate the story, they tend to love his portrayal of the Doctor). Eccleston was new to the role and has already left to be replaced by David Tennant. In my opinion (and the majority opinion of those who have watched the new series) both of them are excellent as the Doctor.
Whatever happened to the whole "limited number of regenerations" thing, anyway? I mean, we're on our tenth (?) Doctor now, no end in sight? Isn't he a couple of regens beyond the limit?
The Doctor can regenerate 12 times, making 13 Doctors. Though there are hints that you can start a new regeneration cycle within the series.
And what's with the Tardis? Isn't it supposed to change to reflect the new owner? Why don't we have a new set now? And where the heck is the rest of it? People used to get lost in there, I'll have you know! Now it's a room with no door in sight! All these questions. Where are the answers?
The TARDIS has changed design before, but it hasn't got anything to do with the regeneration. Other parts of the TARDIS get a mention in the third episode and we see the wardrobe room in the Christmas Special in the new series. It's still there, and the door to the interior is probably on the wall the camera points from.
We use series to mean both the entire run of a program and the indivdual "seasons" of episodes. Though lots of us also now use the American term season.
I do wonder how they'll handle the Christmas specials... historically they were distributed differently from the main Doctor Who series, but it's been a long time since that was an issue.
Um, this is the first time the series has had a Christmas Special. Unless you count one of the middle episodes of sixties story The Daleks' Masterplan which happened to air over Christmas. And that, being utterly irrelevant to the story, wasn't distributed overseas anywhere.
Eliminating anyone who had ever served in the armed forces, or who already had a significant interest in space travel or science fiction.
Well, if they'd ever seen the Doctor Who story Invasion of the Dinosaurs, they'd have seen people falling for precisely this particular hoax.
So when are the fake-looking Dinosaurs going to attack London?
The BT customer service (UK, so all you foreigners may not understand some of what I'm on about) is brilliant. If there's a free rep, you press the 'get me a human being' option, or you hung up midway through a previous call, then you get connected directly to a human.
I have never come across that option, and I have called BT customer service many many times. I guess that must mean that they almost never have an operator free.
What is also annoying is those call centres based overseas where the human being doesn't understand you properly and you can't understand them because of the accent. I'm not sure which irritates me more.
"The bit this ignores is that it's up to the search engines to decide who gets chosen. So for example, the google sandbox penalises most new sites for up to 18 months. If the best answer to your question is on a new site, sorry, but google probably won't find it. Whatever rules they make up determines what happens."
My Doctor Who site is less than 18 months old, but it still gets good rankings in google for some relevant keywords, and has done for the vast majority of its lifetime. The problem is probably more that new sites have relatively less good material than older ones than that google deliberately penalises them.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. The McLibel case was very bad for McDonalds, and by sueing, the company risks a huge PR disaster which would not have happened if they had let things be.
Oh, and for more on mclibel check out the McSpotlight site.
Slashdot Mirror
The short answer is: history. Here's a slightly longer answer: Unlike the US, the UK political system is a result of historical changes over centuries, and is not a coherently thought-through system. Until devolution a few years ago, the UK Parliament was the only legislative body in the entire country. The Devolution process gave away some of parliament's powers to new parliaments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. However the three don't have equal powers to each other - the reasons being a combination of history (Scotland has always had different laws to the rest of the UK as it joined when the two nations shared the same King, whereas Wales and Ireland joined by means of English conquest), popular feeling (the Scots were more in favour of devolution than the Welsh), and the needs of the peace process in Northern Ireland. There have been plans for various powers to be devolved not to a new English Parliament, but to the nine English regions (which are comparable in both size and population to Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland, whereas England itself is massive compared to the other parts of the UK). However, this devolution hasn't got a large amount of popular support compared to the pressure for devolution from the other nations of the UK, the North East had a referendum on a regional assembly, but that gave a no vote. The only part of England with any devolved power at the moment is London. There are some arguing for an English Parliament, but there aren't very many of them - most people in England would think of it as a waste of money, because England makes up the vast majority of both the land and the people.
Where do you get this cost analysis from? Nuclear power costs an awful lot - the plant costs phenomenal amounts of money to set up, then there's the cost of mining and shipping the uranium. Plus storage of the nuclear waste. Plus there are security and safety problems that are unique to Nuclear power (imagine if terrorists targeted a nuclear power plant).
With wind, there is a relatively small set-up cost and then maybe a marginal maintenance cost, compared to nuclear which has a very large set-up cost AND a substantial maintenance cost.
Also, there are large amounts of government subsidy for nuclear power. In the UK, if it hadn't been for government subsidies the nuclear industry would have gone bust years ago. Renewables, on the other hand, rarely get any substantial level of government subsidy and yet are the fastest growing segment of the energy industry. I wonder why that might be.
That story is utterly unique within televised Doctor Who, so you shouldn't build your opinion of the 26 years of the classic series or of the rest of the new series on it.
Part of the reason we love it as a nation is that we watched it as kids, loved the Doctor, and hid behind the sofa. Part of it is because it is (mostly) good escapist drama with deeper levels for those who want a bit of depth in their TV. Partly because of a whole load of reasons. The Daleks, for example, captivated the 60s generation because they were the first alien monsters who didn't look like a man in a costume. Partly because it is just utterly British. Partly because of dozens of other reasons I can't be bothered to recall at the moment.
I'd say start with the new series, then take some example stories from various eras of the show (include at least one from each Doctor), and find out what bits you like and what you don't. Note that each episode from the classic series is part of a larger story of between two and fourteen episodes (with the exception of the feature-length The Five Doctors and the 1996 TV Movie)
Here's a list of some stories generally considered quite good to give you an idea of the scope of the show (NB, where a Doctor has more stories in my list, it's because there was a change in the style of story through their tenure):
Hartnell:
The Aztecs
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
Troughton:
Tomb of the Cybermen
Pertwee:
Spearhead from Space
The Daemons
Tom Baker:
Genesis of the Daleks
The Robots of Death
City of Death
The Leisure Hive
Peter Davison:
The Caves of Androzani
Colin Baker:
Vengeance on Varos
Sylvester McCoy:
Delta and the Bannermen (NB, this one's not held in high esteem, but it's part of a unique season that's looked down on and is one of the better ones of that season)
The Curse of Fenric
Paul McGann:
The TV Movie
We use series to mean both the entire run of a program and the indivdual "seasons" of episodes. Though lots of us also now use the American term season.
The first series (or season for Americans) of the new series is either series one or season 27. There were 26 seasons in the classic series.
"The bit this ignores is that it's up to the search engines to decide who gets chosen. So for example, the google sandbox penalises most new sites for up to 18 months. If the best answer to your question is on a new site, sorry, but google probably won't find it. Whatever rules they make up determines what happens." My Doctor Who site is less than 18 months old, but it still gets good rankings in google for some relevant keywords, and has done for the vast majority of its lifetime. The problem is probably more that new sites have relatively less good material than older ones than that google deliberately penalises them.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. The McLibel case was very bad for McDonalds, and by sueing, the company risks a huge PR disaster which would not have happened if they had let things be. Oh, and for more on mclibel check out the McSpotlight site.