The Best of New Who - is it any good?

I'm sure like myself many of us just want to forget that New Who ever happened. But what if it were possible to wipe your memory of all of New Who, and then have somebody that did remember pick only the best of it for you to rewatch. What would that be, and now that the best of it isn't mixed up with the stink of the worst, would it still suck?

I would want to rewatch Blink, about 1/2 of series 5 (probably leaving out at least The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood, The Lodger and The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang), then watch about 1/4 of the rest of Smith, and just a few select Capaldi stories (like Mummy and Flatline).

I doubt I would think it was as good as anything in the original series, but I probably wouldn't feel the need to kill it with fire either. I'd probably put it in a similar category to how I think of the TV movie now.

I think I’d look at the best of NuWho with more scathing criticisms if it existed in isolation, but as it stands, and in comparison to the rest of it, I can tolerate some of NuWho’s best offerings and even rather enjoy a handful of them (Blink, Time of Angels, Amy’s Choice, The Girl who Waited, etc).

I’m not a fervent NuWho hater per se in that I recognise that its best stories showcase its true potential- I just think most of it is utter shite. That being said, I can still enjoy a fair chunk of the early Smith era despite its flaws, albeit on its own merits as opposed to my seeing it as a continuation of the original series, although even that era has its fair share of shit ones here and there.

I think maybe I'd just keep everything up to The Girl in the Fireplace.

The ones I think are probably worth a re-watch are:

Blink
Time of Angels
Amy's Choice
Night Terrors
Journey To The Centre Of The Tardis
Mummy On The Orient Express
Flatline
Sleep No More

They've all got stupid idiot NuWho thicktard bits in, but generally less annoying than most.

Other stories with SOME merit, but contain aggravating bits/drop the ball in many places are:

Human Nature
The Girl Who Waited
The Snowmen
The Crimson Horror
Empress Of Mars
World Enough and Time

The problem with SO much NuWho is the incredibly moronic bits are SO frustrating, either that or where they quite blatantly drop the ball during the narrative which leaves you thinking, "Now why the fuck did they do THAT?"(i.e. not setting Empress Of Mars on Peladon as originally intended and which would've made far more sense)

It still upsets me that Smithy and Mad Kazza have to exist in the same context as the rest of New Poo, as they're really the only ones that deserve to be part of a real follow-up to classic Who instead of this embarrassing joke.

iank wrote:It still upsets me that Smithy and Mad Kazza have to exist in the same context as the rest of New Poo, as they're really the only ones that deserve to be part of a real follow-up to classic Who instead of this embarrassing joke.

I second that they were the best, though I'll also say Arthur Darvill deserves some credit too. He was likable and down to earth, and he and Karen Gillan's romance stopped there from being a Doctor/companion love story like Rose Tylah. Matt, Karen and Arthur were the best trio since Pat, Jamie and Zoe IMO.

In answer to the original question meanwhile I think that series 3-7 represent a good solid sci fi series overall.

Its still not either a great follow up to classic who, or on its level, but it did have its own style (that was copied by other series like Primeval, Merlin etc.) Its of its time, but not in a bad way. Its got great leading actors, some interesting story arcs like the Daleks struggle to survive, the Time War, it creates an interesting universe, and it actually is rounded off quite well by the of the Doctor trilogy, which ties up all the loose ends incredibly enough from both RTD and Moffat's eras.

Sadly as we know its during the Capaldi era where it really starts to go sour, but even then there is still the germ of a good era in there, through Capaldi, and the odd good episode. Its only really when we reach the end of Capaldi's era that it becomes a total write off.

Sadly however when you add two, what will likely be three seasons of Jodie, and three seasons of Capaldi, opposite the first two ropey seasons of Tennant and Eccelston, (which I was more willing to forgive as teething pains back in 2013) then more of New Who is bad than good.

Still seasons 3-7 I'd be more than happy to take as an alternate universe setting to True Who, and even then I wouldn't be furious at it being a sequel either, I just think some of its a little off when you try to connect it to true who.

So much of nuwho is just so...bland.
meh as the kids say.

I would keep:

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances
Human Nature/The Family Of Blood
Turn Left
Vincent And The Doctor
Amy's Choice
Mummy On The Orient Express


The rest you can bin!

It depends on what is defined as “good”. If only the episodes got on with the plot rather than always focussing on sentimental guff, where we are expected to admire emotional immaturity and bland characters. Compare to The Silurians, for example. There is no one in the current series who has the maturity of Fulton Mackay’s character Doctor Quinn. If remade, writers would draw us into his character by having him crying, looking after his mum and lowering his intelligence. So every episode of New Who is hard to watch - not only by always desperately trying to pull on your heart strings, but also the immature way it tries to do so. I much prefer a slight nod of the head and a smile from the Third Doctor, that conveys compassion, understanding, wisdom, intelligence and safety far more than a Murray Gold crescendo does when the camera zooms in on Tennant’s immature interpretation of The Doctor.

Based on my recent rewatch of S5, which I thought was generally an improvement, I wouldn't keep any at all. There are just too many shit bits, even in the ones that do have some good content. And I'd forgotten how tedious the Amy and Kenny Rory soap shite was.
Nah, it's all shit. All of it. Whilst it's true that some of it might be a lot more shit than S5, I just can't be bothered with the charmless wank that it is at heart.
There are some good episodes, but only good by its own standards. Standards which for me, fall below the bar. I wouldn't keep a single, solitary second of it. It's diseased at its core.

Ludders wrote:
Nah, it's all shit. All of it. 

That's pretty much the long and short of it.

Yup.

There's pretty much nothing in NuWho I would truly apply the "Classic" status to and rewatch religiously to death.

Even McCoy had "Remembrance of the Daleks".

NuWho has precisely fuck all. 

For all it's high-budget eye-candy not one single NuWho Dalek story has come remotely close to matching the Dalek classics of the 80's.

Ludders wrote:Based on my recent rewatch of S5, which I thought was generally an improvement, I wouldn't keep any at all. There are just too many shit bits, even in the ones that do have some good content. And I'd forgotten how tedious the Amy and Kenny Rory soap shite was.
Nah, it's all shit. All of it. Whilst it's true that some of it might be a lot more shit than S5, I just can't be bothered with the charmless wank that it is at heart.
There are some good episodes, but only good by its own standards. Standards which for me, fall below the bar. I wouldn't keep a single, solitary second of it. It's diseased at its core.

Looking back, I think I’ll have to completely agree here. There is a vehement charmlessness to virtually all of NuWho regardless of era, either laden with abject twee smugness, abject pomposity or both.

It’s also so unrelentingly stale- so much of NuWho is completely uninspired and the same old tired shit. Even the better episodes don’t have anywhere near the degree of imagination or creative inspiration that so much of the original programme has. If NuWho was all that existed of Doctor Who, it would have remained a meagre footnote of early childhood that I would have looked back on and thought “Christ, I did watch and enjoy some absolute rubbish back then” before immediately forgetting about it again. As I said previously, I’d rather get a single episode (hell, even a single minute) of The Space Pirates back if it meant trading in all of NuWho.

I’m not even annoyed at The Timeless Children anymore so much as laughing at it, as it’s really just making a mockery of itself as NuWho has always done.

Bernard Marx wrote:I’m not even annoyed at The Timeless Children anymore so much as laughing at it, as it’s really just making a mockery of itself as NuWho has always done.

I haven't seen it, only read/seen reviews of it.

Boy, those Cyber-Time Lords look incredibly fucking dumb!

Rob Filth wrote:

Bernard Marx wrote:I’m not even annoyed at The Timeless Children anymore so much as laughing at it, as it’s really just making a mockery of itself as NuWho has always done.

I haven't seen it, only read/seen reviews of it.

Boy, those Cyber-Time Lords look incredibly fucking dumb!

It’s probably the single worst episode of Who ever written for reasons we’ve already gone over around here.

Bernard Marx wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:

Bernard Marx wrote:I’m not even annoyed at The Timeless Children anymore so much as laughing at it, as it’s really just making a mockery of itself as NuWho has always done.

I haven't seen it, only read/seen reviews of it.

Boy, those Cyber-Time Lords look incredibly fucking dumb!

It’s probably the single worst episode of Who ever written for reasons we’ve already gone over around here.

From the reviews and plot synopsis I've seen, it looks like it makes even Fatheads ten ton turkey "Last of the Time Turds" look like a Holmes/Hinchcliffe masterpiece by comparison.

Fuck me, it sounds like even Muppets "Death In Heaven" was a bona fide classic by comparison.

What is it with these NuWho writers? It's like they're all competing to make the most crappiest revisionist fanfic nonsensical crap that not even the Virgin New Adventures would have dared touch with a ten foot barge pole, even if offered a big fat bribe and blow job in a back alley. 

I put it really down to the fact that they're all really self-loathing fanboys who all cried when they were teased by girls for watching the programme during the 80's, they subsequently never got over the shame of admitting that they were Doctor Who fans.

Their badly constructed fanfic hack bollocks has been carefully constructed and crafted by decades of wanking and crying into tissues.

Rob Filth wrote:From the reviews and plot synopsis I've seen, it looks like it makes even Fatheads ten ton turkey "Last of the Time Turds" look like a Holmes/Hinchcliffe masterpiece by comparison.

Fuck me, it sounds like even Muppets "Death In Heaven" was a bona fide classic by comparison.

What is it with these NuWho writers? It's like they're all competing to make the most crappiest revisionist fanfic nonsensical crap that not even the Virgin New Adventures would have dared touch with a ten foot barge pole, even if offered a big fat bribe and blow job in a back alley. 

I put it really down to the fact that they're all really self-loathing fanboys who all cried when they were teased by girls for watching the programme during the 80's, they subsequently never got over the shame of admitting that they were Doctor Who fans.

Their badly constructed fanfic hack bollocks has been carefully constructed and crafted by decades of wanking and crying into tissues.

Yes- it is worse than both Time Turds and Death in Heaven, as shocking as that is. They’re basically on par with Inferno and The Deadly Assassin by comparison.

There is definitely a self-loathing about them, although I also think that they’re drenched in tremendous egos that prevent them from obtaining any self-awareness whatsoever.

Most of the official NuWho writers and showrunners spent their literary period back in the 90s writing Doctor Who fan fiction in the form of the VNAs, and it goes without saying that most forms of fan-fiction are crap. Frankly, they should have hired professional writers who had some form of intellectual integrity, as was often the case with TruWho.

Robert Holmes wasn’t a fanboy, just a very intelligent man who understood what made the programme work at its core. Of course, fans can certainly turn out to be good writers themselves, but they ought to actually have some basic understanding and passion for the series at hand. Something the likes of Chibnall, and indeed Moffat and RTD before him, don’t seem to fundamentally have.

Bernard Marx wrote:Most of the official NuWho writers and showrunners spent their literary period back in the 90s writing Doctor Who fan fiction in the form of the VNAs, and it goes without saying that most forms of fan-fiction are crap. Frankly, they should have hired professional writers who had some form of intellectual integrity, as was often the case with TruWho.

I completely agree, the odd thing is although hardly the best writer in the world himself, I think Mark Gatiss would have been okay had he'd got the franchise and been "showrunner" to begin with.

Unfortunately however once the template had been set with Fathead rewriting great chunks of the shows lore, dumbing things down to a moronic level for cheap populism and having a complete inability to understand the lead character things were NEVER going to improve very much afterwards.

You're absolutely right on the hiring of professional writers, for example the leap in quality in Torchwood in Peter J. Hammond's episode to those written by Fathead or Chinballs is immediately evident. The same can be said of Phil Fords stuff. Purely because both writers have a depth of experience from writing outside of Doctor Who.

I'm surprised given the wealth of good comic strip authors that none were ever chosen to work on the series apart from Neil Gaiman's pretentious rubbish. It's evident through his constant recycled rip-offery that Fathead obviously enjoys the works of both Pat Mills and John Wagner. Instead of just ripping them off all the time, why didn't the egotistical fatheaded cunt just commission them instead?

It's almost like there was a level of professional selfish jealousy which Fathead exuded which explains why he always helped himself to a lion's share of the scripts instead of employ a more collaborative effort.

I think broadly speaking there are three different types of fan writers.

1/ultra serious fan: These fans will hate any silly aspects of the thing they love.

If they are a Batman fan for instance they will despise Adam West. If they are a DW fan they will despise Graham Williams and Season 24.

These fans will often do a great version of something, but they might be in danger of making it too poo faced, or dark for the sake of being dark.

Nolan's Batman is an example of this, as are the Hesei era Godzilla films.

2/ The self loathing fanboy: These fans will often be from upper middle class backgrounds, and be ashamed to admit they like something that is perceived as uncool and nerdy. When they get hold of a franchise they will fuck it up by pandering to any fad that comes their way in a desperate bid to be popular.

Examples of this include the 90s American Godzilla as well as obviously New Who.

3/ The unashamed fan: THIS is the best person to make an adaptation of something.

This fan will love whatever it is they make and try to incorporate as many elements of it as they can, even the silly elements. They will also know how to update it in a practical way, without changing it beyond recognition because they know it so well.

Examples of this include the DCAU, Ray Harryhausen, and Amy Winehouse.

The DCAU for those who don't know was the DC animated Universe, a series of animated shows and movies based on DC, (including the famous Batman the animated series.)

Batman the animated series incorporated the campy, silly elements of Batman, the sci fi aspects of his character, the gothic horror elements, and even the gritty crime fighter too.

At the same time however it updated the characters, like adding in Harley Quinn who brought a whole new side to the Joker, and Mr Freeze's origin story.

Ray Harryhausen meanwhile never made out he was a pathetic nerd for liking Dinosaurs, sci fi movies etc. He always treated his work as a legitimate art form, championed stop motion, even against modern CGI effects, and updated the stop motion techniques from Willis O'Brien in practical ways.

Finally when Amy first burst onto the scene, Jazz was looked down on as much as Sci fi. It was seen as old fashioned, only something nerds and losers like Howard Moon liked.

However she was always unapologetic about loving it. Whenever some shallow git would try and make fun of it in interviews, she'd make him look stupid, rather than pander to him like Moffat would do if it was Who.

As a result she was able to make a proper old school Jazz album, and later a proper old school soul and blues album. However in both cases she again updated them in practical ways. She obviously used modern techniques that weren't avaliable to old Jazz singers, and she sung about modern subjects that they wouldn't have, like in Fuck Me Pumps.

DW needs this type of fan to work on it. Sadly the self loathing culture around DW is so big I worry that's never going to happen.

burrunjor wrote:I think broadly speaking there are three different types of fan writers.

1/ultra serious fan: These fans will hate any silly aspects of the thing they love.

If they are a Batman fan for instance they will despise Adam West. If they are a DW fan they will despise Graham Williams and Season 24.

These fans will often do a great version of something, but they might be in danger of making it too poo faced, or dark for the sake of being dark.

Nolan's Batman is an example of this, as are the Hesei era Godzilla films.

2/ The self loathing fanboy: These fans will often be from upper middle class backgrounds, and be ashamed to admit they like something that is perceived as uncool and nerdy. When they get hold of a franchise they will fuck it up by pandering to any fad that comes their way in a desperate bid to be popular.

Examples of this include the 90s American Godzilla as well as obviously New Who.

3/ The unashamed fan: THIS is the best person to make an adaptation of something.

This fan will love whatever it is they make and try to incorporate as many elements of it as they can, even the silly elements. They will also know how to update it in a practical way, without changing it beyond recognition because they know it so well.

Examples of this include the DCAU, Ray Harryhausen, and Amy Winehouse.

The DCAU for those who don't know was the DC animated Universe, a series of animated shows and movies based on DC, (including the famous Batman the animated series.)

Batman the animated series incorporated the campy, silly elements of Batman, the sci fi aspects of his character, the gothic horror elements, and even the gritty crime fighter too.

At the same time however it updated the characters, like adding in Harley Quinn who brought a whole new side to the Joker, and Mr Freeze's origin story.

Ray Harryhausen meanwhile never made out he was a pathetic nerd for liking Dinosaurs, sci fi movies etc. He always treated his work as a legitimate art form, championed stop motion, even against modern CGI effects, and updated the stop motion techniques from Willis O'Brien in practical ways.

Finally when Amy first burst onto the scene, Jazz was looked down on as much as Sci fi. It was seen as old fashioned, only something nerds and losers like Howard Moon liked.

However she was always unapologetic about loving it. Whenever some shallow git would try and make fun of it in interviews, she'd make him look stupid, rather than pander to him like Moffat would do if it was Who.

As a result she was able to make a proper old school Jazz album, and later a proper old school soul and blues album. However in both cases she again updated them in practical ways. She obviously used modern techniques that weren't avaliable to old Jazz singers, and she sung about modern subjects that they wouldn't have, like in Fuck Me Pumps.

DW needs this type of fan to work on it. Sadly the self loathing culture around DW is so big I worry that's never going to happen.

I broadly agree with all of this. As for myself, I’d say I fit somewhere in limbo between the ultra-serious fan and the unashamed fan. I prefer my content, Who or otherwise, to be dark and have dramatic heft, although I don’t object overtly to more lighthearted takes if they are done well. I’m probably one of the few here who likes season 17, bizarrely, despite my preference for a darker tone. Season 7 is probably my all time favourite season, and it’s abundantly gritty tone undoubtedly plays a part in that (though the stories themselves are exceptional on their own).

As for Batman, I love both the animated series and the Nolan films, and enjoy the Burton stuff too, although can’t be arsed with the Schumacher films at all. Although I’m also not a fan of Batman V Superman either (yet despite receiving a similarly polarised reception and not really being Batman related on its own, I’ve come to warm to Man of Steel over time despite disliking it initially- I quite like it these days despite its obvious flaws).

I suppose I can separate the tone of something from its overall quality and set aside my personal preference if what I’m watching works on its own terms, yet I do certainly hold a preference for darker Who on the whole. That being said, I’m usually fine with whatever stance a writer takes provided they aren’t self-loathing fanboys.

Rob Filth wrote:I completely agree, the odd thing is although hardly the best writer in the world himself, I think Mark Gatiss would have been okay had he'd got the franchise and been "showrunner" to begin with.

Unfortunately however once the template had been set with Fathead rewriting great chunks of the shows lore, dumbing things down to a moronic level for cheap populism and having a complete inability to understand the lead character things were NEVER going to improve very much afterwards.

You're absolutely right on the hiring of professional writers, for example the leap in quality in Torchwood in Peter J. Hammond's episode to those written by Fathead or Chinballs is immediately evident. The same can be said of Phil Fords stuff. Purely because both writers have a depth of experience from writing outside of Doctor Who.

I'm surprised given the wealth of good comic strip authors that none were ever chosen to work on the series apart from Neil Gaiman's pretentious rubbish. It's evident through his constant recycled rip-offery that Fathead obviously enjoys the works of both Pat Mills and John Wagner. Instead of just ripping them off all the time, why didn't the egotistical fatheaded cunt just commission them instead?

It's almost like there was a level of professional selfish jealousy which Fathead exuded which explains why he always helped himself to a lion's share of the scripts instead of employ a more collaborative effort.

I agree- I think Gatiss’ style would have been very apt initially. It would have at least been a little more gothic and less frenetic even if the fannish aspects would have found a way to emerge. RTD’s style doesn’t really resemble any era of the original series at all, especially in terms of mainstream pandering and abject populism.

Likewise agreed about the jealously and arrogance exhibited by the NuWho production team, RTD, Moffat, Chibnall etc. They seem completely incapable of admitting when they’ve fucked up and constantly insist that their vision should prevail- with TruWho, a script editor was at least intrinsic to the programme, and rarely did any decision on the part of the producer go unquestioned.

Bernard Marx wrote:I broadly agree with all of this. As for myself, I’d say I fit somewhere in limbo between the ultra-serious fan and the unashamed fan. I prefer my content, Who or otherwise, to be dark and have dramatic heft, although I don’t object overtly to more lighthearted takes if they are done well. I’m probably one of the few here who likes season 17, bizarrely, despite my preference for a darker tone. Season 7 is probably my all time favourite season, and it’s abundantly gritty tone undoubtedly plays a part in that (though the stories themselves are exceptional on their own).

As for Batman, I love both the animated series and the Nolan films, and enjoy the Burton stuff too, although can’t be arsed with the Schumacher films at all. Although I’m also not a fan of Batman V Superman either (yet despite receiving a similarly polarised reception and not really being Batman related on its own, I’ve come to warm to Man of Steel over time despite disliking it initially- I quite like it these days despite its obvious flaws).

I suppose I can separate the tone of something from its overall quality and set aside my personal preference if what I’m watching works on its own terms, yet I do certainly hold a preference for darker Who on the whole. That being said, I’m usually fine with whatever stance a writer takes provided they aren’t self-loathing fanboys.

Thanks, just to be clear I am not saying that you have to love all of it to be an unashamed fan.

I don't doubt that Bruce Timm and Paul Dini had Batman comics they hated.

However they had a good understanding and enclyopedic knowledge of the character which is what allowed Batman TAS to be the best.

The ultra serious fan can and often does do brilliant adaptations too. I love the Nolan movies, and Godzilla vs Mothra (90s version) is one of my all time favourite monster films.

However for really bringing it into modern day, the unashamed fan is the best.

Another example to use of an unashamed fan, is Gareth Edwards. Love or hate the 2014 Godzilla (I personally loved it) it was a proper Godzilla movie.

Again much like the DCAU it incorporated everything about Godzilla.

There was the serious, monsters being used as a metaphor for nuclear power and natural disasters as seen at the start. There was the classic Kaiju fight, Godzilla was indestructable, and had firey breath, there was even some comedy too etc.

They even included people cheering Godzilla on. This was something from the old Showa era movies, that I genuinely didn't think you could update because it was so silly, but they did it at the end when the news broadcast calls Godzilla saviour of the city.

Compare that to the self loathing fanboy 90s version, where Dean Delvin ( a supposed Godzilla fan) cut out Godzilla's fire breath because he thought it was stupid, made him vulnerable to missiles, and basically made Godzilla an expy of Jurassic Park.

Sound familiar? Difference was Godzilla fandom wasn't so self loathing that they all gathered round to kiss Dean Delvin's ass like Gormless Bastards did.

Funnily enough that self loathing fanboy website Doctor Who General Wiki hates Godzilla fans, and always ridicules them as sad manbabies. That's probably because they show DW fans up.

Both franchises were taken over by self loathing fanboys who tried to turn them into something they're not, a poor expy of another character or series, (JP in Godzilla's case, Buffy/Angel/Xena in DW's) but big G fans made it clear that was shit, and as a result the REAL Godzilla returned, whilst DW fans have in contrast allowed everything about the original to be systematically destroyed, culminating in the Timeless Children.

Bernard Marx wrote:

Rob Filth wrote:I completely agree, the odd thing is although hardly the best writer in the world himself, I think Mark Gatiss would have been okay had he'd got the franchise and been "showrunner" to begin with.

Unfortunately however once the template had been set with Fathead rewriting great chunks of the shows lore, dumbing things down to a moronic level for cheap populism and having a complete inability to understand the lead character things were NEVER going to improve very much afterwards.

You're absolutely right on the hiring of professional writers, for example the leap in quality in Torchwood in Peter J. Hammond's episode to those written by Fathead or Chinballs is immediately evident. The same can be said of Phil Fords stuff. Purely because both writers have a depth of experience from writing outside of Doctor Who.

I'm surprised given the wealth of good comic strip authors that none were ever chosen to work on the series apart from Neil Gaiman's pretentious rubbish. It's evident through his constant recycled rip-offery that Fathead obviously enjoys the works of both Pat Mills and John Wagner. Instead of just ripping them off all the time, why didn't the egotistical fatheaded cunt just commission them instead?

It's almost like there was a level of professional selfish jealousy which Fathead exuded which explains why he always helped himself to a lion's share of the scripts instead of employ a more collaborative effort.

I agree- I think Gatiss’ style would have been very apt initially. It would have at least been a little more gothic and less frenetic even if the fannish aspects would have found a way to emerge. RTD’s style doesn’t really resemble any era of the original series at all, especially in terms of mainstream pandering and abject populism.

Likewise agreed about the jealously and arrogance exhibited by the NuWho production team, RTD, Moffat, Chibnall etc. They seem completely incapable of admitting when they’ve fucked up and constantly insist that their vision should prevail- with TruWho, a script editor was at least intrinsic to the programme, and rarely did any decision on the part of the producer go unquestioned.

Sorry just to further hammer my points home, I feel these interviews from some unashamed fans vs the ultimate self loathing fanboy demonstrate the difference.

This docu on Ray Harryhausen is long, but interesting. Not only was the man's career remarkable, but I think a lot of modern genre fans could learn a lot from him. He doesn't once think of himself as a nerd. He sees himself as a legitimate artist, he doesn't act like his work is lesser because its about monsters and creatures.

I think the nerd culture is harmful. Even if people try and reclaim it, and fetishize it, its still basically putting yourself into a corner and saying "Yes I admit what I like is stigmatized and lesser than other genres in some way, I just don't mind."

To me we need to go back to the Ray Harryhausen types. The comments from Ray Bradbury are interesting too. (He's another unashamed fan.)



Now compare that to this.



One gets you Jason and the Argonauts, the other gets you Missy.

I hate Steven Moffat. He's like Ian Huntley to me.

In a word, yes.

But, it's obviously a mixed bag when it comes to quality.

Allow me to analogise the quality of Doctor Who with Star Trek's rise and fall.

Series 1: TNG Season 1-3 quality.

Series 2: TNG Season 1-2 quality

Series 3: TNG Season 4-6 with mid-era DS9 tension. Pretty much the peak.

Series 4 & Specials: Mostly like Series 3 but (sadly) some Season 6-7 Voyager

Series 5: latter era TNG with top shelf DS9

Series 6: mid-era Voyager

Series 7: Star Trek Insurrection

Series 8: Season 3-4 Enterprise

Series 9: similar to Series 8 but some low-tier Voyager thrown in

Series 10: Season 4 Enterprise with final season Voyager

And, they haven't done anything after that.

Any announcements on whether they're doing a series 11?