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

[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).