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

"It also occurs to me that RTD has done a lot of hospital stuff. New Earth, the autopsy in Aliens of London, and the character of Martha Jones (not to mention her first episode) spring to mind."

And has anyone noticed he has a character called "The Doctor" in every episode...?

Egad, he's right you know.

There are cliches and there are motifs. As Moffat has done a few episodes he has got some similar motifs in the episodes...but then again RTD has similar things in most episodes. When Tennant took over from Ecclestone the weekly catch phrase went from "Fantastic" to "Brilliant", the weekly gay reference, the assistant falling in love with the Dr...unless they are a crap old actress.

Since Moffat will not be writing every episode then the cliches won't be there every week.

"3Dots", are you a "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" fan?

Peet <"3Dots", are you a "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" fan?>

Hi Peet,

Yes, I am. I remember seeing the trailers and the premise i.e. continuing from T2 and thought that a 'Monster a week' show wouldn't work...but it isn't/wasn't that type of show.

I have only seen the 1st season and have heard the 2nd gets into the mind of Sarah more(no idea what that means but sounds good) and now it's been cancelled...not enough action presumably!!!

Don't tell me about the 2nd season if you have seen it!

All I'll say is make the effort to see it. It is/was ( ) one of the best-scripted shows on TV.

There's some hope out on t'Interweb that the Sci-Fi channel will offer to buy it from Fox. Unlikely, but possible.

Yes, one can hope it gets taken up by someone else like 'My Name Is Earl' another one thats been canned but the makers are looking for another channel to take it up.

It happened to B5 and Buffy.

Wish it had happened to Firefly...

FB

Too bloody right. Though from what I have read the Firefly escapade of it being cancelled and then the film ripped @ss at the cinema may be giving 'Dollshouse' a bit of a reprieve as the studio are looking back at what happened with Firefly and realising that Dollshouse might not being dying on its @ss and they should stay with it.

Though what happened to Firefly was a travesty: they make a stunning pilot which is only shown after the series has been cancelled.

Actually, they showed the pilot as something like episode 3 of the original run. Fox have a lot of overpaid (and under-talented) executives who like to screw around with these things just because they can.

The story behind "Dollhouse", as I hear it, was that Fox got into a bidding war to haver Joss Whedon make his next series for them, not because they wanted it but to prevent any other network having it. They'll now no doubt string out the "deliberations" for as long as possible to prevent him from getting on with something else before canceling it.

I signed the petition to "Bring back Dollhouse" some weeks before the first episode aired.

Again showing some positivity...

What they've also done with those episodes is take something safe and turn it on its head.

Childhood fears were mentioned as a motif in the first post, but children in general pop up in Moffat episodes a lot.

EC - it's about a child, an empty child
GitF - it starts with, um, a girl. In a fireplace.
Blink - the exception to the rule, and therefore probably the most grown-up episode of new Who.
SitL - The Library has a girl at the heart of it.

And now, moving on to the Eleventh Doctor...

The Eleventh Hour - it starts with a girl, who meets the Doctor and then becomes his assistant. Admittedly, she becomes the assistant 14 years later, but hey.

The Beast Below - It starts in a school classroom, at the end of the school day. And the children we see there are ultimately pivital to the solution.


Geggs