h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The 1996 revival was fairly popular in the UK, and the problem was the script and bad plotting, certainly not Paul McGann. Besides, he is the 8th Doctor, like it or not, and he needs more shows! McGann has said he's happy to play the Doctor again.

The less expensive DW is the fewer expectations it'll have to meet, and the greater emphasis that'll be placed on important things like originality and quirkiness and humour.

The 96 TVM was designed to kick off a new American-based series. It *failed* to do this. As soon as appears on screen in a new episode the only memories he'll evoke in the mass audience will be ones of 'oh, he's out of that American version that wasn't very good', not the kind of associations a fresh start for the series needs. And I seriously doubt any new version will bother sticking to the established lifestory of the Doctor. McGann may be the 8th Doctor, but I strongly suspect a new series will feature the 1st Doctor, Mk 2.

Feeling guilty because I didn't vote in the original, but I have been and voted in this one

Sounds to me like someone else voted for you, so I shouldn't worry... someone apparently voted 8 times for Red Dwarf... the mind boggles... (Not that I dislike RD, but a) it's only secondarily an SF series and b) eight times...?)

To be honest, I've never understood that type of ballot stuffing anyway. It just makes me think, "well, how many people double voted for B5 (for example)as opposed to the number of people who stuffed for Who."
Very strange.

Like I said before, people didn't care much for the TV Movie, but they liked McGann (rightly). I can't see the logic of your argument. It's like saying Tom Baker shouldn't have kept playing the doctor if one of the stories he was in was rubbish.

As for "The 1st Doctor mk 1" *bad* idea. This is what many of us were worried the Americans were going to do to it, ruin the continuity. Any new series *must* continue where the last left off.

Which, I'm afraid, is a pretty good way to persuade the BBC that the project isn't worth pursuing in any format. Minds doubtless greater than mine can no doubt tell me how long it is since a new Who, other than McGann, was shown. Certainly the target audince for the show, essentially kids, I think, mostly have no knowledge of the show, it's continuity or have any pre-conceived ideas about what it should be like.
The BBC are interested in making a widely appealing series that will attract new viewers, not just the old hard core fans.
My guess is that Who has really had his chips. The Mcgann experiment was widely perceived as a failure, and the Beeb were more than a little miffed that the fans did little more than rubbish it before it was shown for details in the script they didn't like. It wasn't good promotion and was, in my opinion, likely to alienate potential new viewers.

Would anyone object to a DW animation?

I've had this discussion before, but mainly regarding the Lost episodes, and the possibility of them being redone using animation and the original tape recordings. Doctor Who comic strips are also regularly printed in Doctor Who magazine, and I collected the series in Radio Times in 1996, so it isn't without precedent - but I am undecided.
It would depend on how well it was done, maybe, and who it was aimed for.

<BB<

I was thinking along the lines of the computer generated 3D type of animation.

Alji

Why must we retain all the old baggage, I mean continuity? How would the programme benefit from it?

I think - and feel free to correct me - that most fans want the old continuity retained for fairly self-centred reasons. If we have old continuity then we're inevitably going to have old continuity references, solely for the benefit of long-time and hard-core fans.

The LT & HC fans - 1% of the audience - on seeing an OCR are going to get a warm glow based solely on the fact that they know more about the show than the average viewer.

The average viewers - 99% of the audience - on seeing an OCR are going to - rightly - get the impression that the programme's not being made for their benefit, but that of a tiny minority, and that you need to be some kind of obsessive with an encyclopedic knowledge of every former story to fully 'get' it. And they're going to start switching over to something more accessible.

All the old continuity will do is tie the hands of the new creative team. It's not worth it. We will still be able to watch and enjoy all the old classics. So what if they're suddenly reclassified as 'imaginary stories' - aren't they all?

How about another movie, in which the Doctor, who is in his last regeneration, returns to Galifrey, and finds chaos, with the whole of the timelord race being overpowered by the enemies of the universe - Daleks, Cybermen etc. The Doctor then, manages to save his own race, but dies in the process. However, in the story he finds another assistant from Galifrey who is in their 1st body. This person then takes over from the Doctor in the quest to help the rest of the Galaxy. This would then give the chance to have a new main character, with a different background, who the Doctor Who writers would be able to experiment with. You wouldn't need to know anything about Doctor Who, as this would be totally different. This person may know nothing about the enemies of the universe, and everywhere he went would be a new adventure for them. They may never have left Galifrey before.

The movie could be called 'The End of Doctor Who, and the resulting series could be called 'Doctor Who 2'. If this became popular, then people would start looking back at the old Doctor Who stuff, and everyone would be happy. The series would also be more exciting as this Doctor Who could have a working TARDIS, but he could also meet brand new enemies. He could even be the cause of defeated evils (like the race from The War Games who were trapped forever) being ressurected or released. Then, it could be an ongoing thing that this Doctor has to correct mistakes that he has made.

Doctor Who could be reborn, and the past would not matter, as this Doctor will be able to discover more deadly evils, and Doctor Who would become brilliant again.

I dunno Spook, it's an interesting idea, but as long as the old stuff's still in the frame people are going to want to start fiddling with it - you yourself talk about doing stories based on the War Games (32 years old and counting!).

Start over from scratch. Simpler, easier, more exciting.

I don't understand what is to be *gained* from losing continuity. Star Trek TNG re-vitalised a long-cancelled TV show and was both new and a continuation from the old series, with references thrown in for the fans. It didn't do any damage for it's target-audience, who were a different generation to that that watched the original series. In the UK, most people aged 21 to about 55 remember the original series. That's a big audience. Star Trek didn't really have that and it succeeded. I appreciate that a new series will have to differ from the old one, but all this "start a fresh" stuff seems to be a disregard or ignorance of the original and an attempt to wind-up the "fanboys".

I don't understand what is to be *gained* from losing continuity. Star Trek TNG re-vitalised a long-cancelled TV show and was both new and a continuation from the old series, with references thrown in for the fans. It didn't do any damage for it's target-audience, who were a different generation to that that watched the original series. In the UK, most people aged 21 to about 55 remember the original series of Doctor Who. That's a big audience. Star Trek didn't really have that and it succeeded. I appreciate that a new series will have to differ from the old one, but all this "start a fresh" stuff seems to be a disregard or ignorance of the original and an attempt to wind-up the "fanboys".

Ch-ch-ch-changes:
Casting: Yes. Inevitably. A new series means a new Doctor and new companions. But who to play Who? That's the question.

Tardis Interior: There's something comforting about the roundels and they were odd enough to give the place a peculiar feel without makingit eye defying. What Who needs to get away from is the interior technology being made of BBC micro circuit boards. Yep, Farscape is a good example - but is this really Doctor Who? Or was the "Jules Verne" look in The Movie With The Pertwee Logo more in keeping with how the Tardis might look?

Design of Classic Monsters: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Daleks ain't broke. Creating them using CGI removes the need for "All terrain daleks".

Theme Tune: No need! I think another re-vamp might be in order. Something harking back to the classic Grainer tune but with a return to the Electronic sound it had originally. Spooky as anything.

I utterly agree with the list of No Changes. However...

a show that's a combination of The X-Files, Stargate, Twilight Zone and classic Who? Where do you think those shows (well...other than Twilight Zone) got some of their inspiration? "Who" works best when you are telling "mini-arc" stories within a greater context. However, since the Doctor hops through time as well as space you don't need an "over-arc" to unify all or some of the stories in each season. The episodic format, with a cliff-hanger at the end of each story, is perhaps a little hackneyed but let's not go the route of (as someone suggested) a cliff hanger at season end only.

And really, let's not regenerate the Doctor at the end of each season. What if we got another Tom Baker? He'd last a year and everyone would complain about the casting change.

Let's also not forget that "Who" is not an ensemble show. Unlike Buffy, where we can happily spend time in the company of Giles or Spike and the rest of the cast, our hero is the focus. And unlike the various Star Trek franchises, we aren't going to show the rest of the cast as the Doctor's equals. They aren't.

Continuity is...

...what you can remember.

Do you want to know how easily Doctor Who could kill off all it's continuity problems?

Two Words: Time Paradox.

And there you have a meta-plot for the whole first season: The Doctor trying to track down who has made such a fundamental change to the space/time continuum. With one stroke, we ditch Doctor Who history whilst at the same time keeping it's memory intact.

Neat, yes?

Mmm, yes, but it would still depend upon you actually being aware that continuity had been changed and thus it would still be a more satisfying watch for fans than normal people. We the fans are going to watch it no matter what the producers do - they need to worry about making it as accessible and enjoyable as possible for a wider audience.

Losing the continuity would simply mean that the writers and directors could get on with telling new and exciting stories without sweating over what make the TARDIS is or when the galactic cyberwar actually happened. Besides which, it'd be easier to lose the continuity than keep it, so the question should be: what value would the old, tangled, inconsistent continuity have for a new, updated series struggling to find a mass audience?

Remember when the Doctor ended up going to E-space. How about having the Doctor going into something like Y-Space. This space would be totally different, and everything could be new. New enemies, new friends. And it wouldn't matter as this is a totally different form of Space.

Or, the Doctor could end up entering a mirror universe where everything is different, and the whole galaxy is evil, and the Doctor makes it his mission to defeat the evils of this universe. And he could find ways to jump between universes, always trying to get back to his own. And he could find enemies that would follow him, causing trouble in every universe.

Doctor Who writers could think of anything that can keep continuity but give them the freedom to make things different. in a mirror universe, or a different Space, no-one knows anything about it, and the writers can make it what they want it to be.

I grew up watching reruns of Tom Bakers years of Doctor Who, and for me he IS the Doctor. But I'm also quite fond of Peter Davison's Doctor because he is so noble and because in some of his stories things can't always be fixed with a zap of the sonic screwdriver.

My favorite (and least favorite as it happens) stories are the ones where the Doctor regenerates. They are always exiting, even though they are sad. I must admit I cried a little at at the end of Logopolis.

The only regeneration I didn't like (mind you I haven't seen Colin Baker's "regeneration") was the 7th Doctors. I though that having him shot by a gang for no reason at all was quite anthema (sp?) to Doctor Who.