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

"Have to say, I quite like the series, in itself, but to me, it's not the Doctor. The leather jacket, the practically skinhead haircut, the catchphrase "Fantastic!", the action man effect, the playing for laughs - not the Doctor I remember."

I don't agree with you at all. First, the Doctor is a different person with each regeneration (Tom Baker was nothing like Jon Pertwee or Peter Davidson, for example) so it's important that Eccleston's incarnation is unique. The aspects that the Doctor always has (alien, wants to help) are present and correct.

As for the dress. Well, the Doctor as dandyish dresser started with Pertwee - Hartnell and Troughton, from what I've seen, were dressed fairly conservatively (Hartnell's get-up would look odd now, but he was an old man in the 1960s and his slightly-victorian garb was entirely suited). The tendency for the Doctor's outfit to get more and more silly is generally seen as a bad, rather than good thing. As an example of this, Colin Baker has stated that he wanted his Doctor to dress like Eccleston's does. Certainly, I'd rather have the Doctor in a black leather jacket than what TV Cream rightly called a 'clown costume'.

The haircut and catchphrase are part of making Eccleston's Doctor distinctive - like Baker's scarf and McCoy's rolling 'r's.

As for playing for laughs - a lot of old Who was often done comically and not in any way with the same success - remember the Bertie Bassett robot thing from 'The Happiness Patrol'?

Back to the Big Bad Wolf, and I do not think this has been mentioned before). Didn't the Dr chase a pig down a corridor in one episode? A hint? or a coincidence?

I know I mentioned the bit in The End of the World where he offered Jabe and the Moxx "Breath from my lungs" in other words he "Huffed and he Puffed" but no I don't think the pig has been mentioned in that context

<< It's quite possible you're the first person who noticed.>>

We noticed as well, just didn't comment. Other people may well have as well... Good, GB!

AAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!i can't get away from this BBW thing

what are the odds...

i didn't have much time for shopping yesterday so i picked just one shop and from all the hundreds of shops i could have picked i went to a bookshop

out of the 4 or 5 floors of books i pretty much stayed on the second floor

out of all the rows and rows and stacks and stacks of books i pretty much stayed at one table (mainly because all the books on it were cheap)

there was 70 books on the table

i looked at alot of them (there was ones by nick hornby, freud, hunter s thomson, george orwell, virginia woolf, will self... you get the idea alot of good books)

i finally bought 2 "the view from mount improbable" by richard dawkins and "the state of poetry" by roger mcgough

i could have read either or neither of these books last night - i read the state of poetry

there are 79 poems in it - they're all very short but i only read some of them

the last one i read was called "the proverbials" - it's actually a collection of 45 one -liners ('questions have alot to answer for' 'it may fizz with bubbles but it's still water'... that kind of thing)

i didn't read all of them but the one that, when i read it, gave me a "what does it all mean" type of feeling and prompted me to tell you all this (which, if you have read it all, i'm sure you now regret reading) was as follows:


"Even Big Bad Wolves have nightmares"


i apologise if you read all this in the hope of learning something meaningful but hey if i can't tell you guys something so odd and random who can i tell

I enjoyed it- you're not the only one that was abit slow to spot the BW ref. H, I only got it second time around. But I did get your name when you first changed it, but obviously neglected to mention it. Anybody else notice the way the number 5 keeps popping up, too? Satelite 5, Platform 5.

As to the Face of Boe's age, well, even Cassandra was either 2 or 5 thousand years old (can't remember which), so if human lifespans have been extended to that extent, presumably alien faces' ones are even longer. Or is the Face of Boe from End of the World what the Face of Bo we saw in The Long Game is expecting?

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who me? true i have been called 'a bit slow' on occasion but even i caught the BW references early on

I think Ecclestone has many of the points that people hated in Colin Baker. It's all well and good to say that people disliked CB for his whacky clothes, but I remember the main problem being his unsympathetic characterisation. He was childish, petulent, stroppy and had strange bipolar mood swings. Exactly as Mr Ecclestone's doctor does. The best doctor characterisations were avuncular.

Have a read of the review by Paul Clarke at http://www.gallifreyone.com/review.php?id=2005-07

I pretty much agree with him.

Have to ask, cos I can't find it: where is the BW reference in "Rose"?

Personally, I love Eccleston's Doctor. He has emotions - he gets guilty, he gets jealous - he's convincing. Basically I like him because we know he's alien, but he is unquestionably a person.

Spooky, Mazie!

>> I think Ecclestone has many of the points that people hated in Colin Baker. It's all well and good to say that people disliked CB for his whacky clothes, but I remember the main problem being his unsympathetic characterisation. He was childish, petulent, stroppy and had strange bipolar mood swings. Exactly as Mr Ecclestone's doctor does. The best doctor characterisations were avuncular. <<

Matter of opinion, Moose. I quite like the slightly barmy aspect and bipolar mood swings, though they are definitely better without the clown outfit.

I put most of the alarming characteristics down to the Dr suffering Post-traumatic Stress; this was particularly evident in the Dalek episode, IMO. The Dr. completely lost it when he saw the Dalek and struggled for the rest of the ep. to regain any sense of equilibrium, which suggests to me that he's only just about managing to keep himself together, and a gibbering, "howling" wreck is simmering just beneath the surface.

Having Rose as a focus is somehow helping him to keep himself reasonably balanced; a passenger on board the TARDIS means he can't just let loose, but I don't think he'll be able to keep it all contained much longer - especially if he comes across any other old arch-enemies.

I can understand the annoyance with the Rose / Dr relationship though, and I agree some aspects of it get overplayed on occasion.

My problem with Colin Baker's "unsympathetic characterisation" is that it was, in many ways, just Colin Baker.... He comes across that way in every interview I've ever seen - arrogant, stroppy and 'no one will ever be as good a Dr as me, because I *am* the Dr.' I may be wrong, of course - I don't claim to be an expert.

Wow, who would have believed it Dr Who beats Celebrity Wrestling after two rounds and a submission....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4532839.stm

But soon we get Celebrity Love Island - Noooooo.

Hang on...I have just read the article...Annabel Croft was on the wrestling program?!...bugger......anyone tape the programme?

I like this Dr Who because he cries...Such a change from the stiff upper lip business.

Some Dr Who's looked as if they were sleep walking through the episodes.Whilst others loved to 'declaim' to the world.Colin Baker was too luvvie for me.Perhaps it's the Northern acent that makes this Dr more rtealistic.

"Wow, who would have believed it Dr Who beats Celebrity Wrestling after two rounds and a submission..."

Now ITV are fighting dirty, they're showing the Star Wars films opposite Dr Who

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Bah... Dr Who is still new whereas everybody's seen the Star Wars films.

Hands up who HAS NOT got a copy of Star Wars on DVD/Video?

Not a movement!

*Decide's not to admit she saw Star Wars at the cinema the first time round*

I am about to be shot down in flames here but...I *hate* Star Wars!

Philistine!

Even I, as a non-sci-fi-geek, love Star Wars. The original trilogy much more so than the last two, admittedly, but even so...

B

I don't own any of the Star Wars films on video/dvd/super 8. Why in the name of sanity would I need to when the world and his uncle's parakeet *do* and thus I have unlimited copies to borrow in the event (unlikely) that I should want to watch any of them again?

Bit cynical, no?

B