dr. who

[Paul Mather]

On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 19:45 +0000, Ian Abrahams wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Nick Medford" <nickmedford at HOTMAIL.COM>
> >
> > >on the strength of
> > >just a 50sec preview Eccleston is the best Doctor since Peter Davison.

> And I think Eccleston is going to be fab. Just watched an overview on The
> Culture Show where they were building up the segment to say "it's just not
> the same anymore" only to have the presenter come out of the press screening
> with a big grin on his face announcing that Doctor Who really is back...

I read a review of the first episode of the new series in the Grauniad a
week or so ago.  The gist of it was that the special effects were really
great but the script was dumbed down and that adult viewers would be
disappointed and frustrated by the sometimes slapstick and cartoonish
antics and cheap laffs.  (In other words, the priorities were in all the
wrong places as far as a Who fan is concerned.)  Certainly, the review
did not seem to bode well, and appeared to indicate that some of the
terrible puns issuing forth were enough to make Roger Moore's 007 seem
highbrow and erudite.

But, I well remember the awful debut of Sylvester McCoy (which I thought
was a blatant attempt to make something so bad as to kill off the series
due to the outcry), and that the series did manage to improve.  (It
could hardly have become worse, though.)

Let's hope the new series manages to rise above the no-attention-span
kiddies audience to which it appears to pander according to the review I
read and actually deliver the good cross-generational skiffy we have
come to rely on from it...

Cheers,

Paul.
--
e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
 deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
        --- Frank Vincent Zappa