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

[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