2017 Doctor Who Xmas special

[Mr Allen]

It's just been on BBC 1.

Was rather good, featuring the first and current Doctors.

And at the end

Spoiler

Peter Capaldi regenerates and turns into Jodie Whitaker

.

If you missed it, it will be on BBC IPlayer tomorrow.

Which may or may not be available in North America or Canada.

 

[Aeolienne]

Why did the Doctor insist that he had to be alone for his regeneration? The last one didn't mind Clara being present.

 

[pjcnet]

I used to love the late John Pertree (3rd doctor) and Tom Baker (4th doctor), then it started to go downhill after that, I didn't mind Peter Davidson (5th doctor), I just about tolerated Colin Baker (6th doctor), but Sylvester McCoy (7th doctor) was absolutely awful, well to be fair to him I think it was more just terrible scripting. After only a short spell as the 7th doctor the BBC then cancelled the series in 1989.

There was then a pilot television movie in 1996 starring Paul McGann (8th doctor) that was an unsuccessful attempt to bring back the series, it was a joint venture by the BBC, Universal Studios and the Fox Broadcasting Network that had a higher budget than the very low budget BBC only series before it, it failed because it didn't capture enough of the American audience when a lot of the funding for the movie was from American companies, despite it's low ratings I did quite enjoy it.

After the BBC brought back Doctor Who in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston (9th doctor) I just couldn't get into it and to me it was now just a children's TV programme, I did watch a couple of episodes and even a couple of episodes with David Tennant (10th doctor), but it just wasn't the same to me even with the better special effects and it was part of Doctor Who to be very low budget with naff effects. I soon lost interest and didn't bother watching it at all after that. I don't think it's because I've grown up and matured either because I still like watching John Pertree and Tom Baker even now, I've even enjoyed watching the late William Hartnell (1st doctor) and the late Patrick Troughton (2nd doctor). I also had the privilege of watching both original pilots titled, "An Unearthly Child" starring William Hartnell from 1963, yes there was two, one was broadcast while the other was totally redone since they didn't think it was good enough (to be honest it was difficult to choose which one was best and they both had exactly the same story).

In short the first 3 doctors were very serious, it wasn't like a children's programme at all and there was a lot of suspense and good sci-fi, Tom Baker introduced humour, but it was adult humour that he did extremely well (only he managed to pull this off well in my opinion), plus there was still a lot of adult tension and a good story. After that Doctor Who in my opinion became more and more childish, especially when it came to Sylvester McCoy and it in my opinion continued to be more of a children's only programme when it was brought back from 2005 onward. I've only seen clips of Peter Capaldi (12th Doctor), but he looked utterly pathetic with stupid false humour that just doesn't work and is kind of an insult to Tom Baker who did pull it off well, I couldn't possibly take this seriously.

Now they're going completely against the entire concept of Doctor Who with Jodie Whittaker (13th Doctor) who is a female incarnation. I'm not against equal rights for women, but this has got absolutely nothing to do with the series and the doctor is a man plain and simple. Why did they have to make an equal rights statement about that? It's like having a female James Bond even though he's clearly a man, oh we must have a female James Bond as otherwise it's sexist after having so many men lol! I've also read that they've made a pathetic story excuse to work around the maximum 12 regeneration cycle rule that was first mentioned during the Tom Baker era in The Deadly Assassin in 1976 so the doctor can now apparently regenerate indefinitely.

And what's with the Christmas specials? Making Doctor Who have a Christmas theme doesn't work in my opinion, again it's mainly aimed at children only.


PS: I have not counted the late Peter Cushing who played Doctor Who in the movie Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) followed by the movie sequel Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966). These were spin off movies that didn't follow on or predate any doctor in the list above, he was instead portrayed as an eccentric human inventor that created a time machine called the TARDIS that was also a police box, but had a different looking interior. As a child I did enjoy both these movies however and I was a fan of Peter Cushing, even more so when he starred in many Hammer horror movie productions. Many people don't realise, but Peter Cushing was in fact offered the role of the 2nd doctor instead of Patrick Troughton, but he turned it down. He was later offered the role again of the 4th doctor instead of Tom Baker, apparently he would have accepted, but had prior commitments that made it impossible. I think Peter Cushing would had made an excellent doctor in the BBC series, although Patrick Troughton and especially Tom Baker were excellent too.

 

[Mr Allen]

I used to love the late John Pertree (3rd doctor) and Tom Baker (4th doctor), then it started to go downhill after that, I didn't mind Peter Davidson (5th doctor), I just about tolerated Colin Baker (6th doctor), but Sylvester McCoy (7th doctor) was absolutely awful, well to be fair to him I think it was more just terrible scripting. After only a short spell as the 7th doctor the BBC then cancelled the series in 1989.

There was then a pilot television movie in 1996 starring Paul McGann (8th doctor) that was an unsuccessful attempt to bring back the series, it was a joint venture by the BBC, Universal Studios and the Fox Broadcasting Network that had a higher budget than the very low budget BBC only series before it, it failed because it didn't capture enough of the American audience when a lot of the funding for the movie was from American companies, despite it's low ratings I did quite enjoy it.

After the BBC brought back Doctor Who in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston (9th doctor) I just couldn't get into it and to me it was now just a children's TV programme, I did watch a couple of episodes and even a couple of episodes with David Tennant (10th doctor), but it just wasn't the same to me even with the better special effects and it was part of Doctor Who to be very low budget with naff effects. I soon lost interest and didn't bother watching it at all after that. I don't think it's because I've grown up and matured either because I still like watching John Pertree and Tom Baker even now, I've even enjoyed watching the late William Hartnell (1st doctor) and the late Patrick Troughton (2nd doctor). I also had the privilege of watching both original pilots titled, "An Unearthly Child" starring William Hartnell from 1963, yes there was two, one was broadcast while the other was totally redone since they didn't think it was good enough (to be honest it was difficult to choose which one was best and they both had exactly the same story).

In short the first 3 doctors were very serious, it wasn't like a children's programme at all and there was a lot of suspense and good sci-fi, Tom Baker introduced humour, but it was adult humour that he did extremely well (only he managed to pull this off well in my opinion), plus there was still a lot of adult tension and a good story. After that Doctor Who in my opinion became more and more childish, especially when it came to Sylvester McCoy and it in my opinion continued to be more of a children's only programme when it was brought back from 2005 onward. I've only seen clips of Peter Capaldi (12th Doctor), but he looked utterly pathetic with stupid false humour that just doesn't work and is kind of an insult to Tom Baker who did pull it off well, I couldn't possibly take this seriously.

Now they're going completely against the entire concept of Doctor Who with Jodie Whittaker (13th Doctor) who is a female incarnation. I'm not against equal rights for women, but this has got absolutely nothing to do with the series and the doctor is a man plain and simple. Why did they have to make an equal rights statement about that? It's like having a female James Bond even though he's clearly a man, oh we must have a female James Bond as otherwise it's sexist after having so many men lol! I've also read that they've made a pathetic story excuse to work around the maximum 12 regeneration cycle rule that was first mentioned during the Tom Baker era in The Deadly Assassin in 1976 so the doctor can now apparently regenerate indefinitely.

And what's with the Christmas specials? Making Doctor Who have a Christmas theme doesn't work in my opinion, again it's mainly aimed at children only.


PS: I have not counted the late Peter Cushing who played Doctor Who in the movie Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965) followed by the movie sequel Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966). These were spin off movies that didn't follow on or predate any doctor in the list above, he was instead portrayed as an eccentric human inventor that created a time machine called the TARDIS that was also a police box, but had a different looking interior. As a child I did enjoy both these movies however and I was a fan of Peter Cushing, even more so when he starred in many Hammer horror movie productions. Many people don't realise, but Peter Cushing was in fact offered the role of the 2nd doctor instead of Patrick Troughton, but he turned it down. He was later offered the role again of the 4th doctor instead of Tom Baker, apparently he would have accepted, but had prior commitments that made it impossible. I think Peter Cushing would had made an excellent doctor in the BBC series, although Patrick Troughton and especially Tom Baker were excellent too.

I enjoyed the Sylvester McCoy era, mainly cos I was in love with Sophie "Ace" Aldred, and I still "would".

 

[pjcnet]

I enjoyed the Sylvester McCoy era, mainly cos I was in love with Sophie "Ace" Aldred, and I still "would".

She couldn't act however, there wasn't the slightest bit of tension or concern shown in her acting even at times when they thought they were about to die, the whole thing was like a joke. At least you didn't say you were in love with Billie Piper lol!


Edit:

Here's a few clips from the Jon Pertwee years:

Real acting, good scripts and serious sci-fi when Doctor Who was still good, in fact in those days the series used to frighten a lot of children. Oh and I almost forgot the cheap tacky effects, but that's part of what made Doctor Who, something that's been lost in the modern versions. Also I've loved his car Bessie, see below:

Anyone telling me the new Doctor Who's are better than this?

Even the intros including the music where excellent back then, in fact they were good right from 1963 in black and white, but started going downhill in my opinion towards the end of the Jon Pertwee era when they started using a light 3D tunnel with a diamond shaped Doctor Who symbol appearing and vanishing down the tunnel towards the end in December 1973 (I think the early colour Jon Petwee intro's were the best of all, please see from 0:51 in the video below), even though Tom Baker himself as Doctor Who was still excellent and as I said before he was in my opinion the only doctor who could truly pull off a lot of humour in the role very well, Sylvester McCoy was the opposite and failed miserably.

Here's all the Doctor Who intros to compare:

The intro that made me really cringe included Sylvester McCoy's wink (watch the intro from 6:10), it was awful and he was in my opinion by far the worst Dr. Who from the original eras that caused the BBC to scrap the series at the time. To be fair the more modern 2005 series onward intros weren't bad, although I still much prefer the classic intros.

 

[Sid Delicious]

I'd forgotten how creepy and dark Dr Who used to be 'back in the day'! I grew up on Jon Pertwee and then went back and started from the beginning and watched it through to the 1996 film. They used to have classic Dr Who re-runs very early on a Saturday and Sunday morning on a now dead satellite channel and I was obssessed with it as a kid. I was really excited when they modern series came out, but it's lost all of it's original feeling as they've taken it into an entirely new direction. I guess it's fun for any of the younger generation who have nothing to compare it to, but I can't watch it any more. Post-McGann Dr Who is a whole new entity.

 

[pjcnet]

I'd forgotten how creepy and dark Dr Who used to be 'back in the day'! I grew up on Jon Pertwee and then went back and started from the beginning and watched it through to the 1996 film. They used to have classic Dr Who re-runs very early on a Saturday and Sunday morning on a now dead satellite channel and I was obssessed with it as a kid. I was really excited when they modern series came out, but it's lost all of it's original feeling as they've taken it into an entirely new direction. I guess it's fun for any of the younger generation who have nothing to compare it to, but I can't watch it any more. Post-McGann Dr Who is a whole new entity.

The satellite channel I believe you're talking about was UK Gold that launched in November 1992, I watched the channel launch and remember the original logo with the golden dog. The original Doctor Who episodes were only around 25 minutes long, but there was quite a few of them in each story, especially the earlier stories and at the weekend UK Gold used to play an entire story of episodes back to back. Having lots of shorter episodes also meant lots of "on the edge of your seat" climaxes where you had to wait until the next episode to discover how the doctor and/or his companion manage to escape their latest dire situation (originally you had to wait a whole week, but on UK Gold at the weekend you only had to wait until after a commercial break). I lost count how many times it looked like certain death for the doctor at the end of an episode, but he always made it through against all odds, saying that in the story Inferno the doctor didn't win because he failed to save a parallel Earth from destruction, but managed to make it back to the original Earth to save it in the nick of time (it's an excellent story). For instance how many times did the doctor get sentenced to death and the episode ended just as they were about to or even started carrying out the sentence? lol! I did enjoy it however.

 

[Sid Delicious]

Yes!!! That's the one! I would have to make sure I was awake before every person in the house and steal the TV before anyone came downstairs for breakfast! The special effects were absolutely dire back then, so they had to make some effort with the writing and acting to make up for it. But the whole episode was darker, so you were already slightly on edge before the antagonist was introduced. Then once Dr Who had finished and I'd successfully locked my brother out of the room, I would watch the Red Dwarf episode I'd taped from that week!