This isn't a thread about what's wrong with the new Doctor Who, there are other thread for that, but I was wondering what others would do if they had been handed the somewhat poison chalice of bringing back the show. Y'know, just for a laugh. It's actually more about what was wrong with the old show. Here's my ideas:
1. Start again with An Unearthly Child: Let's face it, old Doctor Who was never the most consistent of sci-fi stories, yet the first episodes made perfect sense as a simple variant on HG Welles' The Time Machine. Start all over again and you don't have to somehow serve 40 years of often contradictory and unlikely backstory. Purists can always suppose that he's simply lost his memory if they like, while everyone else can enjoy watching The Doctor encounter enemies old and new for the first rather than the 100th time.
2. Give The Doctor a motivation or purpose: This is essential to most drama, yet The Doctor usually seems to often flit with no explanation. The purpose may be missions given to him by the Time Lords, or attempts to fix problems created by others' time travel.
3. Use Galifreyan mythology and politics: We know hardly anything about them, yet they can help make sense of the main character much like Krypton defines Superman.
4. Give The Doctor an Earth connection: He's from another planet yet is just like a human being - logically, he must have spent very long time here or really like the place as he keeps coming back. He could be appointed the role of defender, be stuck or exiled here or just have some other big secret. A disproportionate number of stories are bound to be set on Earth, you may as well come up with a reason.
5. Give the assistants a reason for being there: Often, assistants (nearly always female) seem to be there just because it's the formula.
6. Keep the (inside of the) Tardis a bit weird and alien: Okay, this is a criticism of the new show and that's that the new Tardis looks good, but like a spaceship from Earth, post 'Alien'. If it's made from Earth bits and pieces, make it look like that, if it's alien make it look alien. Itâ??s not a spacecraft. If the Tardis can change it's outer form, have fun with that even if it regularly returns to the iconic Police Box form.
7. Play down paradoxical timeline stuff or work out some rules: The Doctor seems to alter history every episode yet often refers to protecting the timeline. What is and isn't true history seems completely random. The Time Lords could be guardians of the true 'timeline' (though understandably knowledge of the future is kept entirely secret) with The Doctor sent by them to fix problems. Keep The Doctor in the dark about the big picture as it doesn't help the drama or make sense that he should know how everything is always going to turn out. Otherwise, keep it very light and never mention time paradoxes. Keep Earthbound stories in the past (in line with the original remit of it being an educational programme) and invasions limited so The Doctor can â??nip it in the budâ??. Primeval works a lot better in this respect.
8. Keep the show fantasy rather than sci-fi: Avoid the temptation of going the route of sci-fi movies and using sets that look like Alien movies, space suits etc. This limits the possibilities of stories set on other planets. The Doctor should never be seen in a space suit - to try to compete with movies and make it realistic makes the whole thing come apart and isn't playing to the show's strengths.
Any other thoughts?
The Doctor is a member of an alien agency (the Time Lords) who created time travel and opened a Pandora's Box that let rogue elements pollute the timestream and threaten to unravel the very fabric of blah-de-blah, and now they have to police time itself to undo their fubar. The Tardis is attuned to glitches in the timestream that make it materialise at key events in time and space, like aliens invading medieval England kind of thing, as we all know that didn't happen, so the Doctor has to show up and muck about, either changing things directly, or facilitating change by allowing others to act. Whenever the Doctor shows up somewhere, he explains to someone (who may or may not be his assistant) what's supposed to happen in the timeline, therefore justifying the 'educational' tag.
The Earth Connection: The Doctor is assigned to police Earth and it's future colonies in space, meaning alien worlds are a possibility for episodes, but always with humans in them so the audience can relate. Apart from the amount of moons in the sky, all human space-colonies look like Cardiff.
The Earth Connection If We're Being Utterly Desperate: perhaps the Doctor can be looking for his daughter, hence his subconscious tendency towards female companions - I know it's a bloody terrible idea from the off, but at least hear me out on this one: the 'old' Doctor Who series was when the Gallifreyans had a more blase attitude towards flouncing around the cosmos, but now they're taking responsibility for things, including making the slightly-aloof Doctor take responsibility for laying pipe in an assistant. Anyway, it's a metaphor for growing up or something. Maybe the daughter hasn't actually been born yet, and she's the child of the thirteenth Doctor and he's been exiled to patrol Earth because of something she does in the future, and that way we literally have a 'will they, won't they' thing going on with The Doctor and his assistants, because at some point you know he's going to get some, you just don't know who with. Hence the tension.
Of course, the main problem with the Doctor having a child is that it suggests he might be heterosexual, which might be controversial in some circles of fandom.
Of course, the main problem with the Doctor having a child is that it suggests he might be heterosexual, which might be controversial in some circles of fandom.
Of course, his first companion being his grand daughter kind of makes any rubbish about him being 'asexual' redundant.
The asexuality seems to be a major thing with some parts of the fandom, though. I think what gets them hot under the collar isn't the suggestion he might be gay, it's the suggestion that he might have any kind of preference at all.
I never watched the old show, so you'll have to fill me in - was his granddaughter biological? By which I mean, did he have a daughter/son in the usual manner and the granddaughter was the end result, or did he just adopt someone and then hang around Earth to see how it all turned out?
You seek answers where there are only questions. What? How? When? Who.
She was definitely from Gallifrey. Not sure if she was ever confirmed as his granddaughter in the conventional sense.
It was never explicitly stated that the Doctor and his granddaughter were blood-related. I think we were supposed to suppose that they were adoptive family. Perhaps she had been left in his care. Whether she was human or Timelord I don't know, but I think the title 'An Unearthly Child' suggests she's an alien like the Doctor.
I quite agree with you about giving the Dr a reason - most of the time he just bobs around the place
If I were given the job of restarting Who, I'd do what they've done so far. I think it's fantastic. Not perfect, but very very good.
If I were given the job and didn't know what they'd done with Ecclestone and afterwards, I'd aim to have it not be as bloody awful as the last season with McCoy was. So there would have to be stories that made sense and special effects that didn't look like they'd been knocked up by a high school media class over lunchtime.
If Alan Moore were available, I'd get him to do a genius retcon on the series
Oh and I'd bring back the proper historical stories - I liked those
I'd aim to have it not be as bloody awful as the last season with McCoy was.
Burn the nonbeliever!
Have Hulk Hogan in it.
>> She was definitely from Gallifrey. Not sure if she was ever confirmed as his granddaughter in the conventional sense.
IIRC, it was only decided that Susan should be Doctor Who's granddaughter to avoid any implication that he might be banging her over the TARDIS console.
And if I'm not mistaken, Susan claimed originally to be from the Forty-First Century or something, although I don't think she specified that it was necessarily Earth's.
Susan says she was born in the 49th century in the untransmitted pilot version of the first episode, but they changed it later on. She says something like 'I was born in another time, on another world' I think.
"I quite agree with you about giving the Dr a reason - most of the time he just bobs around the place. If I were given the job of restarting Who, I'd do what they've done so far".
Though one of the disappointments for me is that the new version not only hasn't given him a purpose, wiping out his home planet and race, the things with the most potential to drive him. I don't think in any other drama the idea of having a motivation for the main character would ever been seen as so unimportant.
yeah, an overall story arc that gave him a goal would be fine and that was stated at the start rather than the end would be great too.
Dr Huff
>> Susan says she was born in the 49th century . . .
The untransmitted pilot, that would be it.
How would I bring back Who? In all likelihood, without success but:
1. Create a sense of mystery surrounding the Doctor. Keep any reference of the Time Lords to a minimum and NEVER have the Doctor mention that he is one. Ditto Gallifrey and his being Gallifreyan.
2. Time Lords. Boring as fuck. Reintroduce them as something that truly embodies the nature of time rather than the myrmidons of the snore they are. Stories featuring Time Lords should also be used sparingly and, again, NEVER have the Doctor refer to himself as being such. His simply not denying it should suffice.
3. No changing history. The occasional apparent temporal paradox is fine but, when it comes to sci-fi/fantasy, resetting the timeline is far too often lazy and/or anti-dramatic.
4. The Doctor's sexuality? Shurely you jest. He's too busy exploring the universe to care for anything so mundane.
5. The Doctor's TARDIS. Make it spooky, not weird. Candelabra. Shadows of otherwise invisible cats and moths. Dust and cobwebs. This is somewhere people should be only be if they truly have to. And again, the Doctor has neither the time nor the inclination for housework or full repairs.
6. The stories. Bonkers ideas, yet with internal logic. Develop character arcs as a complement to self-contained and ongoing plotlines. Make it family-orientated, fun for kids, shit-scaring for adults. Sci-fi. Fantasy. Horror. Maybe throw in an occasional episode of kitchen-sink drama. Make the Historicals a regular indulgence. Use not only established genre writers but try out those who aren't necessarilly associated with cult television.
7. Take it seriously. Especially the comedy.
++The Doctor's TARDIS. Make it spooky, not weird. Candelabra. Shadows of otherwise invisible cats and moths. Dust and cobwebs. ++
that sound great, but as the cammo thing is fecked why no have it different each time he walked in, just the central column the same each time.
The other rooms should be explored further too
Grandfather-Huff
that sound great, but as the cammo thing is fecked why no have it different each time he walked in, just the central column the same each time.
Best idea EVER. I thought they were sort of heading this way with Paul McGann's TARDIS, but alas that went the way of all flesh.
Break the TARDIS again. It's always better with 'at random' wandering.
i would love to see a "five doctors type story where rose and martha get to see the doc in his wrinkly old selves i bet they'd not be as keen with a colin baker!
why is the inside of the door a police box?
it was a big white one in the original...surely the chameleon circuit isnt leaking in as well?
as much as i like the new a part of me still hankers after the old style,videotape instead of film and multi parts slowly building a story and characters...i too like the historical ones and the tom baker @horror ones
and we really have to stop "totally wiping out the daleks "in every season establish them again as a underlying threat not AS powerful but rebuilt and lurking...
I'd just go as far to say: write some good stories. On the occasions when that's happened since the re-boot all's been good and shown that the format CAN work. All other problems have been down to a poor story.
So:
Re-boot: Would be a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Plus so much "classic" stuff would creep back in over time it'd be pointless.
Time-Lords: No thanks. Smartest thing RTD did was ditch 'em. There were a couple of decent Time-Lord stories back in the day, but not many.
Motivation: He travels around time and space. if he sees a problem he fixes it. simple. Making him a time-cop or adjudicator makes the show a bit more generic. Of course, disbelief has to be suspended to consider how often he bumps into trouble, but the only time this didn't work was in the '80s where there were no gaps in between adventures for them to rest, go somewhere which wasn't being invaded etc.
Reason for companion: I quite like the idea that the companion wants to be there to see the universe. When it wasn't over-egged and lovey-dovey the Doctor/ Rose Doctor/Martha thing seemed to work IMO.
There have been attempts at "interesting" companions before and these have worked with mixed results.
What I would change: when they're gone, that's it. Unless you're the Brigadier or you've been away for ten years. None of this popping back that Rose, Donna and Martha have done.
Reason for coming back: His companion's from Earth. They want to visit. Although, if the stories were all decent we wouldn't noice/care that he keeps popping back to Earth.
Sorry to be so disagreeable.
- Ian
The Doctor would be quite cool if he was on the run. He's been on the run from both the Timelords and the Daleks in the black and white days. If they made that a part of the plot again it would explain his wandering about, plus whoever he's running away from showing up would provide the motivation for him to make a quick exit.
The Timelords were too useful as a standby plot device to scrap altogether on a whim. I hope one day we get to see a glimpse of this 'Time War' that wiped them out. Presumably all trace of the Time War has been wiped from the timeline, or else it would be going on around the Doctor and his companions wherever they go, and it would be possible to go back and stop it ever happening.
As to the Tardis interior, I found it fascinating as a child. The white interior with the roundels in the walls was astounding, and then the Victorian gothic Jules Verne brass and stained glass 'back-up' control room totally blew my tiny mind. And I was very impressed with The Invasion of Time, in which the Tardis interior was revealed as enormous, with swimming pools, indoor gardens and concrete back stairs. Apparently wrists were slapped for that one, but it did the programme no harm in my eyes whatsoever. What do today's kids make of the new 'organic' Tardis interior compared with the old sterile and brilliant white one?
WOULDN'T MIND SOME LONGER MULTI PART STORIES LIKE THE OLD DAYS BUT ASIDE FROM THAT i LIKE THE NEW ONE JUST FINE.
CU RADBACKER
"a part of me still hankers after the old style,videotape instead of film"
After colour arrived the video format was one of the things that made it look unconvincing...but it is refreshing to go back and see whole scenes performed theatrically rather than stitched together in the editing suite.
Just a thought, but how about an episode set entirely on board the TARDIS? It's not been done (with the possible exception of a couple of very short charity specials) in New Who and could be an interesting way of producing the obligatory "cheap episode" to save funds for the end-of-season FX-fest.
"And I was very impressed with The Invasion of Time, in which the Tardis interior was revealed as enormous, with swimming pools, indoor gardens and concrete back stairs. Apparently wrists were slapped for that one, but it did the programme no harm in my eyes whatsoever."
Curiously, I have no recollection of that story whatsoever, but am now wondering whether it unconsciously influenced the entirely-Tardis-set story I wrote for the Who charity anthology Perfect Timing 2 a couple of years back ...
Cheers!
Jim
I vaguely remember there being some other rooms, I like the idea a lot, it makes sense as one clearly couldn't live in the control room, there isn't even a chair. Thought the McGann version was great, more like a batcave. In the new version they have even mentioned other rooms (where the costume wardrobe is) but didn't bother to follow it through and just made a bit of a joke of it. Despite the budget spent on the new one it really isn't homely.
As a kid the TARDIS fascinated me. It seemed to have lots of potential, but was also quite scary as it was so big (infinite?) and you never really new what was in there altogether. I liked the idea of the TARDIS being quite sterile and safe near the 'front', but getting altogether more risky and mysterious as you ventured further in. Who knows what the Doctor had collected (or accidently picked up) over the years?
I can understand the 'bouncing around' that the Doctor has been doing so far since it has returned to our screens; he has only 'recently' lost everything that was a rock of stability for him - Gallifrey, etc. - so he's probably still reeling from it a bit. I would like to see him start to take a bit more control and consider his future and what he wants, or needs, to achieve before he eventually dies.
So, apart from a bit of a redesign on the Tardis and some establishing of an arc I can't think of too much more I'd add in right now.
Some of the Virgin and BBC novels in the past have played with the TARDIS idea nicely.
You had things like the TARDIS moving rooms around and Ace or whoever not being able to find her way back.
One of the eighth Doctor novels even has a room that is in fact a huge hill looking down on a countryside scene.
I forget that my geek-levels are so much lower than most people here, yet I'm King of the Geeks back home!!
Exploring other rooms would definitely be lots of fun - I have a vague memory of one of the Doctors selecting his new incarnation's outfit from a walk-in closet. I have a horrible feeling Bonnie Langford was involved.
>> Time-Lords: No thanks. Smartest thing RTD did was ditch 'em.
If only he had. Unfortunately, Ecclestone's second episode needlessly explained everything.
>> Just a thought, but how about an episode set entirely on board the TARDIS? It's not been done . . .
Yes it has, but not since 1964.
I'd like the reintroduction of some things from the novels, like:
the Butterfly Room - the 'hillside' room in the TARDIS
Iris Wildthyme - the Doctor's female equivalent, whose TARDIS is the No. 22 bus to Putney Common and slightly smaller on the inside.
the Faction Paradox - time travelling rogues causing temporal impossibilities for their own ends.
I really liked the first season of new who. They did just what I hoped they would, take all the best bits of old who and stick them all together in one series.
The problem comes when you try to make a second series; you are left with the second best bits, and as such the series will be second rate.
The second series suffered incredibly badly because of this, as it showed how little old who was actually good. Fans always trundle out the old favorites, but they are the few gleaming moments in a big stinking turd.
The fact that the second series used the cybermen as their flagship villains is a good example of this. Fan memory regards the cybermen as the second best baddies behind the daleks. Yet there have never been any good cyberman stories. There are stories that the fans love, but only because of their misconception that the cybermen are good. If you replaced them with "Unbranded Cyborgs", then they would be recognised for the rubbish they are.
The writers of series two seem to have realised this. Where for the Dalek episodes they just copied and pasted together previous dalek moments, when they tried this with the cybermen they could not find anywhere near enough cool moments. As such they thinly disguised some more Dalek moments, then gave up altogether and just brought back the daleks.
The first series, to me, was a briliant introduction to Who, a showcase of the "light hearted fun that you shouldn't think too much about" that who always has been, on the rare occasions that it has been good.
The second series was a display of what most of the rest of who was like.
The third series is where we really see them needing to try and update the concept, as they are running out of stuff to pinch, with varying success.
Now, people have been known to point out that "They got away with it in the old days" isn't an excuse for new who being shit. It might not be an excuse, but it is a reason. If you want Who to be the same show it was before, then it will be shit. If you want it to be different, then you don't want Doctor Who.
The two episodes that most people claim are really good are "the girl in the fire place" and "Blink". Now, first off, if these two episodes were in any other "Good Cult Show" they would not have been lauded as much as they have been. These shows aren't "awesome", they are of the standard most other shows reach without breaking sweat, they only look amazing when compared with the rest of the series.
I think one of the reasons they are so highly regarded is that they are not instantly recognisable as a rip off of what has come before.
So... in answer to the question how would I bring it back?
Well, if I want a light hearted family entertainment, then I would do what they did with the first season, but try to continue that feeling through the other series as well.
If I want something better, I wouldn't bring it back, I would make something new (not torchwood)
Responses to the above post belong in an altogether different thread.
I'm not sure about giving the Doctor a mission or a specific purpose; I've always really liked the idea that he's just wandering around the universe more or less at random. He's seeing the sights, taking in what the cosmos has to offer, and generally trying to stave off the bordeom and ennui that'd come from being a centuries-old immortal. I think it'd lose something if he was carrying out specific missions and acting on someone's orders - that just seems less like Doctor Who and more, say, TimeCop.
(Disclaimer: my Who-based experience basically consists of New Who, a handful of episodes with Ace in, and a couple of the books. This may well be colouring my perceptions of who the Doctor is and how he should act)
Of course, you might have to explain why all his apparently-random destinations are inevitably beset by peril as soon as he arrives. You could simply say the universe is a dangerous place, or that we're only seeing the interesting bits. If you wanted something more then the mere suggestion of some larger purpose could be a big plot point if done properly - tie this in with DumbLad's idea of sparing references to the Timelords and the Doctor's habit of never quite admitting or denying his nature, and you could have some quality mystery on your hands.
And Proudhuff's random-interior-Tardis would be the dog's proverbials. Possibly quite literally, given the malfunctioning chameleon doodah.
"Yes it has, but not since 1964."
I know that. That's why I went on to say "in New Who".
Iris Wildthyme - the Doctor's female equivalent, whose TARDIS is the No. 22 bus to Putney Common and slightly smaller on the inside.
This I like the sound of!
I am however implacable opposed to giving the Doctor a 'purpose' of any kind. Different incarnations have slightly different interests and that's the way it should stay.
Damn, it was a late night last night when I typed that last post. Most of the time when I feel like my opinion is worth listening to here i'm either a little tipsey or completely knackered, so my views always come across very badly.
So, I just thought I might clarify a few things that seem a bit caustic towards old who.
I really like old who, which didn't come across in the previous post. This doesn't mean I can't see it's flaws. I like fish and chips too, but I would not class them as "Good Food". They do however hit the spot when you want them. In the same way, when I say old who is shit, I mean it isn't the greatest, deepest work of literature ever. Nor should it be, that isn't the aim, it's aim is to entertain.
The problem is that so many people seem to want it to be something really amazing, in a very different way to what it was before. To which I say, why bother calling it Who? Why not make something new?
The great thing about Who is that at it's roots, there is a guy with a time machine, oh, and he has a few mates on board for the ride. This is the format that they have gone for, and as such, I think it works.
Except, it doesn't always. They increasingly rely on past glories. This is not a problem, as long as those glories are real glories, and not hazy fan nostalgia. I will stand by my comments concerning the cybermen.
Old who had this problem too. Pyramids of Mars is a great story because it is something nice and new. Sure there are a whole stack of inspiration sources, but if I say "The one with the mummies", you know what I mean. If I say "The one where Cybermen attack a spaceship", that fits a lot more stories.
Now, old Who is so old they can get away with repeating the old stuff in the new. The problem comes from the fact they have already started repeating the new. The first time they ran the "Human factor" Dalek story, I liked it. After the second time I'm kinda hoping they don't do it again, but have a horrible feeling they will.
Also, there are problems with how they are doing it, but not in the format, just in the quality. I don't expect too much, I just expect more than the doctor just winning for no apparent reason other than we've reached the end of the episode and the doctor needs to win now.
So how would I bring back the show?
1. Keep the format the same: dude in a box, pootling around space, it is a great concept! If you want a different concept, watch something different.
2. Only relive glories if they are really really good. And only relive them once, let us see repeats through DVD's, not new episodes.
3. Make sure there is lots of new stuff. Really new stuff. Different stuff each story.
4. Make sure the writing is good.
Hopefully that run through of my thoughts makes me seem a little less like a jerk.
You didn't seem like a jerk in the first place, so I wouldn't worry :-)
I tend to agree with a lot of what you said, although I'm a little more positive about the great/dodgy ratio in Old Who, and that's coming from someone who grew up on McCoy and came to the previous Doctors from an adult perspective, unclouded by nostalgia for episodes from my youth.
I also think there's plenty of room in the show for more intelligent exploration of themes than "LOL - you buy clothes made in sweatshops â?? youâ??re just as bad as these spacehumans with their tentacle-faced, lobotomised slaves!". Serials like "The Green Death" and "The Silurians" managed something a bit more challenging than that for a teatime audience 30 years ago; I don't see why I shouldn't expect the same or better from the series today.
I also think the current format - largely made up of 45 minute shows with A couple of 90 minute episodes thrown in to the mix - is at least partly responsible for many of the problems I have with the show. When you have just 40-something minutes to introduce this weekâ??s setting, establish whatever it is that the Doctor will have to tackle, resolve that and wrap up the story, it doesnâ??t leave an awful lot of time for development of other characters, or themes or often simply to resolve things in a believable way.
When you have just 40-something minutes to introduce this weekâ??s setting, establish whatever it is that the Doctor will have to tackle, resolve that and wrap up the story, it doesnâ??t leave an awful lot of time for development of other characters, or themes or often simply to resolve things in a believable way.
S'right - a few more 'serials' thrown in would help give proceedings some welcome depth. But I also remember the abject horror of week after week of Bertie Bassett or the Bannermen - how much nicer if they could have been dismissed with a simple: "well, this week's was shee-ite, hope next week's is better".
S'right - a few more 'serials' thrown in would help give proceedings some welcome depth. But I also remember the abject horror of week after week of Bertie Bassett or the Bannermen - how much nicer if they could have been dismissed with a simple: "well, this week's was shee-ite, hope next week's is better".
Mm, that is a problem. TBH, if it was up to me, I would make two-parters the standard, with one- or three-parters being the exception for stories that warranted it.
The last thing I'd want to see is a War Games-length version of Love & Monsters...
>> I know that. That's why I went on to say "in New Who".
That'll teach me to read using beer-frothed glasses.