Doctor Who Series Four Is A Go 259
netglen writes to mention that the fourth series of Doctor Who is a go. The BBC confirms that another season of the popular sci-fi series will be made, although the article is sketchy about the current doctor and his attachment to the next season. The third series starts at the end of this month in Britain with new companion Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, replacing Billie Piper's Rose. "Tennant, who plays the time-travelling hero, would not talk to reporters about his role in future series. 'Do you know how many times I have been asked that question? Do you know how many times I have answered it?' said the actor. "
Re:Billie Piper (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Brilliant! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Billie Piper (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:POLL (Score:2, Insightful)
The accent is a surprisingly good one, but the cadence is off a little bit.
It's a refreshing change, most Brit actors have horrible American accents, but none of them (or the people casting movies) seem to realize this.
Re:Turned Off by (the new) Season 1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Bizarrely that produced some wonderful SF and social commentary that is still of interest to SF buffs old and new.
I don't like to say that I disapprove of special effects, I don't, and sometimes I even like the very latest thing. Let me say right off that my primary interest in SF is on the cheaper end of the scale. I'm a H2G2/pulp SF fan, I don't much go in for the extravagant approach currently being taken in SF drama (I don't want to talk about the H2G2 film, no really, I don't..).
'Star wars that was' rocked, but the new stuff is crap I feel. Not because of the special effects, but because they weren't the kind of thing you'd stick on after a night out to watch for the n'th time and quote your way through, they had no depth, you couldn't relate to the characters. That was what Star wars was about to me, pure, unadulterated escapism, masterfully done, You wanted to *be* Han Solo or Obiwan (or Luke, if you're some kinda pooftaah
Blade Runner was full of special effects, and that is an awesome film, so it can't be that all SFX are bad.
I think the problem isn't something you can lay at the feet of Electric Light and Magic and their ilk. Nope, the problem is that Film and television SF makers seem to have forgotten that SF is as much about social commentary as it is about lasers. My problem with adaption of old Pulp SF stories to multi million doller SFX orgies is not that they've changed the story as a rule, that can't be helped. It's that they have often removed the entire point of the story and extracted just the SF bits.
And yet I like Blade runner. Why is that? Because while they almost entirely changed the story, they left the underlying point, the way in which man might treat a self aware creation that does not do as it is told, intact, and expressed it using the same general idea but with some innovative alteration to the core story.
I'm not against all new SF. I liked Stargate, and I do enjoy a bit of star trek on the side from time to time. That said, my favorite Stargate Episode is 'Window of Opportunity', not some of the later SFX crazy episodes.
I wait hopefully for a new SF film that can be truly considered a classic, and has all the very latest SFX bells and whistles. I'm sure it will happen eventually.
Re:A fourth season (Score:3, Insightful)
The biggest thing that grates for me about the new series is the self-conscious comic-bookishness feel of the whole thing at times; even worse (and something I loathe) is when it descends into outright comedy. Sure, Doctor Who was frequently witty, but there's a difference between funny and witty lines and comedy. Ditto the feeling that it's not taking itself seriously. For all that Dr.Who could be cheesy and camp at times, for all that there may have been some dodgy acting (probably down to time constraints) and the actors/producers/directors not taking it too seriously behind the scenes, you at least got the impression that they tried to play it straight. Well, until near the end of the original run, anyway.
Jon Pertwee himself said that the original series suffered towards the end of its life (in the late 80s) when it seemed to stop taking itself seriously; some of the earlier Sylvester McCoy stuff was downright camp and stupid, and it annoyed me at the time (not that it was really McCoy's fault). Looking back now, it seems that they'd started pulling out of the kitsch morass by the final season, but then the bastards axed it. Ironic that I thought that Survival was the best Dr.Who story I'd seen for ages at the time, but didn't realise it would be the last one...
Anyway, there are plenty of good aspects about the new series too. Apart from the obvious technical improvements, whether you like them or not, the new series has also managed to be emotionally affecting in ways that the old one never was (e.g. Rose's dad), and... sometimes it's gratingly awful, sometimes it's very good.
Re:Billie Piper (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fantastic! (Score:3, Insightful)
True, as long as they don't decide that, because its Fantasy it has to be for kids. The BBC cut "Buffy" so they could show it at 6pm, and what Channel 4 did to "Angel" can't be mentioned on a forum like Slashdot where Wheedon-loving nerds of a sensitive disposition may be reading. Then the BBC suddenly find the cojones to ignore the silly complaints about Doctor Who scaring kids* (could the good ratings have anything to do with it?). Basically, the British pointless, arbitrary censorship rules are just inconsistent with the US pointless and arbitrary censorship rules (you know the film censors cut that bit from the Abyss where they drown the rat...? WTF?)
* Hah. Kids these days never watched Pertwee-era Doctor Who in black and white during the 70s miners strike, knowing that the daily power cut was due and at some point during the episode the lights would go out... Mummy!
Re:Fantastic! (Score:4, Insightful)