David Tennant named 'best Dr Who'

[Nate the Great]

Uh, I'm not so sure about that longest-running thing anymore. I think in terms of sheer number of seasons, yeah, but continuous...Stargate owns that title, and I get the feeling it's gonna hold it for awhile.

[Scooter]

Or, it's the fact that Dt is the current and latest doctor, and many of the fans now are young and stupid and vote for the latest one. Or because he's 'cute' or because they don't even know anyother doctors...

Well, DT definitely has the "cute" and "energetic" thing going. I wonder about the lack of exposure to other Doctors -- I'd be interested to find out how much of the voting audience had either seen the classic series or watched the DVDs, which are coming out in a torrent in the US and the UK. Still, many (like Zeke) have only seen the new series. The poll is from Doctor Who magazine, and its subscribers are likely to be more hard-core fans -- but the magazine itself breathlessly hypes the current series at every turn, so there's a little bit of programming involved.

One thing's for sure, though: Tom Baker was "the" Doctor for ages because ... he was "the" Doctor for ages. It was self-perpetuating. If that spell is broken, the Fourth Doctor episodes are going to start to look dated. I think that's one reason that Pertwee did so well -- turning away from Tom for new fans meant looking at David Tennant, but for classic fans meant looking at Tom's predecessor. (Before anyone gets up in arms, I'm not ranking on Tom -- I think he turned in some brilliant stuff. It's just all a long time ago now.)

By the way, "Three Doctors" is fun, but -- wow. Not only are the effects bad, but the set design is really nasty, and some of the plot is very dumb. But the Pertwee-Troughton-Brigadier dynamic is a hoot.

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Uh, I'm not so sure about that longest-running thing anymore. I think in terms of sheer number of seasons, yeah, but continuous...Stargate owns that title, and I get the feeling it's gonna hold it for awhile.

I have a problem with this statistic. Stargate deserves credit for 203 continuous episodes without a break, which is what got it the Guiness record. That means Stargate achieved "the longest run of continous science fiction series episodes," which is impressive.

DW, however, delivered 695 episodes in consecutive seasons from 1963 to 1989. I'm not saying that's Better, or More Impressive. I'm saying that means DW is still the "longest running science fiction television series."

Can anyone really tell me what the big deal is with Doctor Who?

The nice thing about DW is that you don't have to watch all the episodes to get it or enjoy it, any more than you have to with TOS. Sure, seeing earlier episodes will give you context, just like watching "The Corbomite Maneuver" gives you background for "The Deadly Years." But each serial of DW is self-contained. Even in theme seasons, you can watch "The Ribos Operation" and enjoy it completely without caring a bit about the Key to Time or what happens to it later.

Yes, there are obsessive fans of DW, and they get just as obsessive and stubborn and exclusively cliquey as B5 fans or anyone else. Ignore them. The joy of DW is that it centers without fail on how one outsider and his friends submerge themselves in someone else's crisis and use ingenuity, not violence, to resolve it -- though not without an emotion toll on themselves. The Doctor compelling because he made himself into this sort of wandering god, and after doing it for so long, with all else fallen away, with his home world destroyed and his whole people gone, there is no other way of being for him.

And in that respect Zeke is right -- no one portrayed that tragic aspect of the Doctor's character as well as Chris Eccleston. CE "got" it -- the Doctor is lonely and damaged and he keeps going on to new worlds and other people's disasters because that's all there is for him. David Tennant (deliberately, I'm sure) lightened that aspect of his character, but it shows through occasionally. In "School Reunion," he says to his adversary, "I'm so old now. I used to be so full of mercy. You get one warning from me -- that was it." Only the Tenth Doctor could have a line like that and convey what it really meant -- but partly because we'd seen its rawer form as revealed by Chris Eccleston. But getting back to what I said before, "School Reunion" is a delight even if you never saw Chris Eccleston's Doctor, and even if you have no idea who this woman is who claims to have once traveled with the Doctor long ago. It stands on its own just as well as it fits into the larger puzzle.

One thing has stayed constant over the whole 43 years of TV, radio, film, plays, and books. Even the most ham-handed hack episode writer has a job messing up this core concept, though many have tried. Ultimately, DW is about the trade-offs of having the power to do good, and how it changes you as a person and affects the people you care about.

[Nate the Great]

You can have a problem with the statistic, but it's still true. Nya-nya.

Yes, I am juvenile. Maturity is overrated.

695 episodes. That's crazy. When you get to that point, I don't think it qualifies as a single series anymore. That's soap opera territory.

Actually, it sounds more like a franchise. There are five different (canonical) Trek series. They all derive from the same source, the same genius, but they are still VERY different.

Oh, and twenty-six years? Bluh-huh? Who comes up with that many stories for the "same" character without going insane?

[Hejira]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Oh, and twenty-six years? Bluh-huh? Who comes up with that many stories for the "same" character without going insane?

This is a series that features living plastic, farting aliens (anyone up for The Curse of Fatal Death?), and a police box bigger on the inside than it is on the outside...that then travels through time and space. Sanity is the very, very least of one's concerns.

Yes, I am juvenile. Maturity is overrated.

And with that personality trait, you're not watching Doctor Who why? Farting aliens, dude.

[Scooter]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

Actually, it sounds more like a franchise. There are five different (canonical) Trek series. They all derive from the same source, the same genius, but they are still VERY different.

Interesting point, and the way fans talk about the ten Doctors (not even mentioning the extra, non-canonical Doctors (speaking of Curse of the Fatal Death -- or how about Scream of the Shalka?)), it often sounds like ten different series.

The main difference is that unlike the ST franchises, all 10 DW "series" follow the same character and have the same (albeit, evolving) premise. So you're also following the long story of one man having endless adventures and being changed by them. "School Reunion" showed the Doctor interacting with Sarah Jane not as the 10th Doctor, not as the 4th Doctor, but as the Doctor.

That said, yeah, it does get silly "occasionally." Fortunately no one works on it for very long. And there is occasionally repetition, though not so much now as in the late 60s. This week: the Cybermen attack an isolated base -- yes, again!

[Nate the Great]

I'm not sure if the "same main character=same series" argument really works or not, so let's move on...

I'm not watching DW because it's not on regular TV. I thought we'd established that.

[Hejira]

Originally Posted by Infinite Improbability

I'm not watching DW because it's not on regular TV. I thought we'd established that.

Got a DVD player? Either that or bittorrent and a defecit in conscience.

...hey, you could watch the Shalka episodes. They're Flash animations on the BBC website, and one's soul doesn't need to be sold to see 'em.

[Scooter]

Hey, it's cool if you don't watch, it's cool if you don't like it. We all have our things. I don't want to be the guy who gets wound up if people don't like his show. My original responses were to the question of why people like it, but I'm not going to beat anybody over the head. It's all good, OK, Nate?