Woo-oo-oo! Ooh, ooh, ooh!

[strange_complex]

Well, it was good, wasn't it? Just like everyone's been saying.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, try harder.)

He was good, she was good, even Clive was great. In fact, I think my favourite line in the whole episode was one of his:

"It's true. Everything I've read, all the stories. It's all true."

...which then transpire to be his last words ever, before being brutally gunned down by an Auton at the very moment of his epiphany. Perfect.

And I liked the 45-minute format, too. One of the many things which helped to make it entirely up-to-date. After all, that's how long sci-fi episodes are these days: not 25 minutes. It felt like a brand new series: fresh, catchy and contemporary. Yet with a rich legacy upon which to draw. The theme music fell into the same category: that old, classic tune we all love, but with a new driving, rushing violin line to get the pulse racing.

The Doctor has always travelled in time. He's made it into the 21st century in very fine form, I think.

Comments

[innerbrat]

And I liked the 45-minute format, too. One of the many things which helped to make it entirely up-to-date.
*cough*andreadilyexportabletotheUSaudience*cough*

My favourite line was "Other planets have a North as well", but mostly it was the squees my dad and I were giving. "The London Eye is evil! Eeeeevil!!"

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

Presumably 45 minutes + commercial breaks = 1 hour?

And, of course, we already know from Jon Culshaw (http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/deadringers/) that the London Eye is an interstitial time vortex for the Sontarans.

[innerbrat]

Exactly, which is why all US shows, and therefore all good SF shows at the moment, are 45 minutes long.

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that really REALLY annoyed me - the fact that they've made 45 min episodes solely to sell it to the Americans. Um...Doctor Who has always been pretty popular and a British-made product (for the most part) so why on earth do the makers need to move away from that and pander to the Americans?

I personally feel the show may start to suffer if it continues in the 45min episode format: yes, it's fast paced which suits today's market but there's only so many standalone episodes you can have, wouldn't it be better to have some 25 minute episodes in 4-part stories to slow things down a bit and prevent everything getting rushed? Just a thought anyway.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Well, they haven't prevented themselves from having two-parters, which would effectively be the same as four 25-minutes episodes. Also, there is always the possibility of having one long-running story developing slowly over the 13 episodes, to climax in the last one, while meanwhile many shorter adventures go on in parallel with it, week by week - just as Buffy has always done.

I think they'd be crazy if they didn't package it in an exportable format, and I don't think the tone or content of the show has suffered as a result. There are loads of Who fans in America, who deserve the chance to see the new stories, and anyway, why shouldn't we want Doctor Who to become big in the US as well as over here?

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

I've no probs with it being big in the US but I just feel that the show shouldn't have to change in that way, just to make it big in the US. They loved DW in the old days, with the 25 min format, as far as I'm aware.

One 'bonus' of the 25 minute episode format is that there are more cliffhangers so it's easier for some to keep up with it and there's more chance for 'dramatic moments' (cliffhangers). I think the show did have 45 min episodes during Colin Baker's era and it really suffered then, mainly because 45 minutes can seem like a long time and so attention can drift, so things have to continually be fast-paced or it doesn't work. Perhaps they're just trying it out in this format for now to see how it'll go and maybe they'll revert back to the "old" format, not sure really.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where I got this from, and therefore have no idea how reliable it is, but I believe the US used to pair-up the 25 minute episodes to make ... 45 minute episodes (give or take, for overlap).

[sexy-sophia.livejournal.com]

Not to sure about the Doctor's Northen accent I must admit. But Chris Eccleston does play the character very well. Miss Piper's acting ability wasn't too bad I guess, pleasantly surprised.

Really pleased with the Tardis and the fact they kept the original sound effects for it!!!

[captainlucy.livejournal.com]

"She? She's been reading about the Doctor and she's a She?"

I loved the Clive part - there have been so many times before that I've thought "surely SOMEONE must have talked to someone else about this wierd bloke The Doctor who keeps turning up and saving the day?" Only problem was that the photo of him at the JFK assassination looked too obviously photoshopped, and why was he face-on when JFK was well to his right?

The episode wasn't flawless, far from it, but it was cohesive enough to please most people. It was full of really nice little touches that are nods to fans of the old series (e.g. the Doctor looknig in the mirror and saying "Could have been worse ... pity about the ears") but making the Doctor appear suitably "different" to new viewers.

(One thing that grated, though, was the fact that someone in the BBC fucked up and mixed the sound feed from BBC1 with that from BBC3, with Graham Norton saying "What? Am I on here?" as Rose was lookig for Wilson, and thus detracting somewhat from a tense scene.)

Russel T Davies has, I think, hit the proverbial nail on the head with this one. It's a good foundation on which to build the new Dr Who upon. Let's hope that Mr Grade doesn't just scrap the whole thing again like he did in '89.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I thought it sounded like Graham Norton! I wasn't sure at first if it was meant to be someone watching TV just out of Billie Piper's field of vision, or if it was just a screw-up. And then I forgot about it until you mentioned it here.

A cute little girl in my street just gave me a masrhmallow as an Easter gift! Awww!

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

Personally I thought the "clive" bit was far too OTT...the thing about Doctor Who is that only his companions and UNIT should know who he is, I think it's very odd that anyone else would have picked up on the fact that he exists. He goes round saving the world so many times and as several Doctors have mentioned, nobody ever notices or picks up on it, they just get on with their lives (or go home for their "beans and toast"). I think it was just an attempt at an in-joke that should not have been there, there was no real need for it at all...

And the BBC3 thing...I was fucking raging! This was the biggest show to be on BBC1 for a long time and millions of people would be watching, and they have a cock-up like that? Something needs to be done about that...

I think Michael Grade said in a recent interview that as long as he doesn't have to watch DW he won't try and disrupt it in any way. Fingers crossed anyway! :P

[nwhyte]

Agreed. And I'm pimping wiselamb's poll.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Good poll, thanks! I have filled it in.

[aletharch.livejournal.com]

Damn, I missed it! I'll see if it's going to be repeated.

I'm optimistic about it, and the prospect of future appearances by Simon Pegg and Tamsin Greig will keep me watching. And very good, as I hear, to start with the Autons. Those things were in the first Doctor Who I ever saw, and they genuinely frightened me.

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

If you happen to read this in time: It's repeated tonight at 7pm on BBC3, if you have it.

[aletharch.livejournal.com]

Alas, I don't have BBC3, and I didn't read your message in time. Bah! Thanks for the heads-up, anyway!

[jurious.livejournal.com]

Ditto. :D I'm looking forward to next week's episode.