RE; NEW DR WHO TONIGHT, 9/4/04, THE UNQUIET DEAD...

[Carlsborg Expert]

"What the Shakespeares?"
More like.

[McNulty]

I very much enjoyed this episode.

[paulvonscott]

"Couldn't Gatiss make up his own names?"

Well, to be honest if you tap the keyboards randomly enough time to come up with your alien names you'll eventually use one that's been used before.

[Carlsborg Expert]

There was a funny point for me when it crossed my mind,that if Rose left the TARDIS and ran striaght into Jack the Ripper.

I thought the *period* research was bang on.

[OldOne]

The Big Bad Wolf reference(s) certainly seem to point to big things ahead- but are they references to next week's story, or the wider, unfolding 'time-war' storyline?

Either way, it's going to be a lot of fun finding out! :)

[Quirkafleeg]

Fantastic! That's the best one so far... loved the Dicken's refs esp how the ending reflected Christmas Carol.

And I'm well looking forward to next week!

[Adrian Bamforth]

I thought it was cracking stuff tonight, and surprisingly for a sci-fi drama it actually seemed to make sense. Just think how good it wopuld have been with an interesting lead.

ADE

[Bolt-01]

Top marks in the Bolt house! Really good fun.

Bolt-01

[paulvonscott]

I've just wasted a hugely enjoyable half an hour with this medley of clips and music from the sevtnies show.  There's also a sixties one which I enjoyed almost as much.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/doctorwho/ram/70s?size=4x2&bgc=CC0000&nbram=1&bbram=1" target="_blank">The Seventies

[LARF]

Fan - tastic, very interested to know what the heck a time war is!

[Quirkafleeg]

Bah... have you never read Time Quake... be Nazi's and Aztecs and dinosaur mayhem next, you mark my words.

[colcool007]

Tonight's episode was the best so far. Simon Callow was fantastic as Dickens and Billie Piper's everyman approach to her character just get better every week.

Even got the step-daughter to shut up and watch the TV, so it must be good!

[Bico]

I fear I was watching something else, because while it was a pleasant enough waste of 45 minutes, it wasn't as good as it could have been.
A bit less mugging to camera, a lead who doesn't treat the whole thing like a panto *all* the time, and maybe a bit less of emulating ten year-old trends from US sci-fi television (arcing storylines and 'last of his kind' lead characters) would improve things greatly.
It's alright, though - just not earth-shattering.

[Bico]

And perhaps the 'emulating US sci-fi trends from ten years ago' comment is a bit ignorant of the BBC's genre drama output for the last fifteen years, as all it's good for is jumping on bandwagons, rather than blazing trails like it used to...

[paulvonscott]

I obviously haven't watched as much crap yank TV as you, I've missed all of these 'the last of their kind' lead characters.  

Personally I think the Time War story arc is a tremendous addition to the show that otherwise might feel a little unfulfilling with one-parter storylines.  i.e. it takes the place of the cliff-hnagers in maintaining interest from week to week.  

All seems pretty canny thinking to me, I don't think the Americans invented series story arcs or that there's anything particularly negative about them.  I can think of several potential series arc in Dr Who's past such as The Keys to Time and all the Black/White Guardian stuff.  

Surely the time-war story arc is just the sort of thing Dr Who fans wanted!

It most likely could have been better, so could most things, but at least the show has been getting better every week for me.  And it's not as if there's a single other show on any other channel that I really feel the need to watch...