The Doctor Who thread

[Demonac]

If anyone Melbourne based is interested, the Astor is showing the 2 Peter Cushing Dr. Who movies on Saturday the 3rd.

Details here.

[GoktimusPrime]

So... is anyone gonna get up to watch the introduction of the Twelfth Doctor at 04:00 Monday morning?!?

[SMHFConvoy]

So... is anyone gonna get up to watch the introduction of the Twelfth Doctor at 04:00 Monday morning?!?

Nah, it'll be all over the net by the time I'm catching the bus to work, I'll look it up then.

[GoktimusPrime]

For those who didn't stay/wake up to watch it, "The Next Doctor" is available on ABC iView and it will also be rerun at 20:30 tonight. I didn't see it, so I'll most likely catch the rerun tonight.

[Paulbot]

It's not really worth watching, except for the last five minutes. My fast forward button got a good work out.

[CBratron]

About time they ditched the teen heartthrobs for an actor who has depth.
I know it's weird that I'm celebrating actors who can act in a series characterised by it's charmingly cheesy acting.

[GoktimusPrime]

My thoughts...

+ As some of you may recall, Capaldi has previously appeared in Doctor Who before as Lucius Caecilius Iucundus (who was actually a real person who lived in 1st Century Pompeii) in "The Fires of Pompeii."
(medicus est in Tardis??)

+ Capaldi is the third Scotsman to play the Doctor. Previous Scots being Sylvester McCoy and David Tennant as the Seventh and Tenth Doctors respectively.

+ Capaldi may be the first actor to finally almost break the straight run of the Doctor being played by Anglo-Celts, as Capaldi is half Italian. It's been noted by fans that there's no reason why the Doctor needs to keep looking like an Anglo-Celtic male in all of his incarnations -- his regeneration process could make him look like any ethnicity (or even one that doesn't exist on Earth; he could be blue!), and of course he doesn't have to always be male (the Twelfth Doctor was a woman in the non-canonical "Curse of the Fatal Death").

+ Will Capaldi be the final Doctor? Or does the law of twelve regenerations no longer exist without the Council to enforce it? Part of me would rather they stick to the 12 regeneration rule, and after Capaldi leaves the show introduce a whole new character (not just actor) as the Doctor. I'd bring Georgia Moffat back as Jenny ("The Doctor's Daughter"); or if she's not available, a new actress who would be the second incarnation of Jenny. Jenny who would inherit the name of the Doctor upon the death of the Twelfth Doctor. She would also inherit his Tardis and go travelling on new adventures. Subsequent regenerations could try to introduce greater diversity -- don't always keep her as a white woman, writers should feel free to make the new Doctor into whatever ethnic appearance or gender they wish. Let the auditions decide... usually when they do a casting call they ask agencies to give them a person that fits certain criteria; this is something that actor Neil Kaplan always says is the great thing about voice acting; that's it's far less discriminatory than screen acting because it doesn't matter what you look like, only what you sound like. If the best actor/actress auditioning happens to be an Anglo-Celtic male, then so be it -- but by 'liberating' themselves from that "rule," then anyone could be the next Doctor. And by doing it with a "new" Doctor rather than the current Doctor, it would be less likely to upset fans since it's not the same character, and Dr Who canon has established that Time Lords (or humans w/ Time Lord properties like River Song) are able to change ethnic appearances (e.g. River Song) and gender (e.g. the Corsair) during their regenerations. There's no reason why Jenny couldn't do it (and she'd only be calling herself "the Doctor" so it's not as if there's gonna be a bloke running around with the name "Jenny"... although they could have a lot of fun w/ that ). But maybe that'd be too radical for most audience members... so I suspect that they'd end up tweaking the Rule of 12 to allow the Doctor more regenerations.

[Paulbot]

The Doctor himself explained, very recently, he could change 507 times. But no let's forget this, canon, piece of information shall we? Right. Is there a GeeWun equivalent for Whovians?

Demonac's mention of the Peter Cushing movies made me think it would be funny if we found out that John Hurt's character, someone intentionally forgotten about by the Doctor, was the one who pretended to be a human scientist and fought the Daleks etc. It'd be a nice way of bringing those movies back into play.

[GoktimusPrime]

1. I've never claimed to be a Whovian.
2. The line was said so quickly amid a hurried conversation with background music playing. it's easy to miss. I usually watch each episode just once when it airs. I don't usually rewatch them.
3. I also find the jovial music distracting; even after following that link I only barely noticed the Doctor saying that -- and that was because I knew what to listen out for.

[Paulbot]

It is a bit hard to hear on the youtube clip, but when I watched it on TV I didn't have any trouble noticing what he said. The 11th Doctor often speaks fast. But anyway it's not just you. All over the net there's people saying there can only be a certain number of regenerations based on some old episode(s?) or the other and neglecting the Sarah Jane ep. Which I also find odd because that particular Sarah Jane story was actually of special appeal to long term Doctor Who fans for being a reunion of the Doctor and a favourite companion from the "good old days".

And there must be a GeeWun type term in that fandom though surely? People who insist the show was better before it came back.