How Would You Fix Doctor Who

BillPatJonTom wrote:Completely agree burrunjor - some thoughtful suggestions there for casting too.

burrunjor wrote: season 24 was also when they had to pander to her and its the worst of the Classic era.

Commander Maxil wrote:

burrunjor wrote: season 24 was also when they had to pander to her and its the worst of the Classic era.

Season 24 was great. Crazy comic book style adventures, better locations, colourful characters and a much clearer vision than the previous year. Season 23 is the real nadir of the classic series. The fact we got that instead of a third Tripods series is an absolute disgrace.

Commander Maxil wrote:

burrunjor wrote: season 24 was also when they had to pander to her and its the worst of the Classic era.

Season 24 was great. Crazy comic book style adventures, better locations, colourful characters and a much clearer vision than the previous year. Season 23 is the real nadir of the classic series. The fact we got that instead of a third Tripods series is an absolute disgrace.

ClockworkOcean wrote:An alternate sequel that disregards NuWho would be great, but I simply can’t imagine it happening at any point in the foreseeable future. It still seems like a pipe dream. The BBC aren’t going to sell their most lucrative property anytime soon, and even if they did, what’s to guarantee that the next lot to gain control of the brand won’t be yet another bunch of hateful, conceited postmodernist bigots? In today’s entertainment industry, the sci-fi franchises that haven’t been hijacked by these scumbags are the exception.

The only viable solution in the relative short-term is an Orville, by which I don’t mean a parody (we already have one of those), but something that’s Doctor Who in all but name. Similar enough to be the legitimate spiritual successor to Classic Who, but just different enough to avoid copyright lawsuits. A high-concept sci-fi horror show about an eccentric, mysterious, time travelling explorer and his companions, mostly serialised with the opportunity for occasional self-contained stories. No soap opera crap, no sexual elements, no political posturing. Just a well-written, unapologetic sci-fi/fantasy/horror adventure series that doesn’t water anything down or patronise its audience. An updated take on Classic Who with greater creative freedom and a respectable budget.

It could be a challenge copyright-wise, but someone who cared enough could surely find ways around it. For instance, instead of a police box, how about an old, battered-looking door that magically appears and vanishes? It could work, and there’d definitely be an audience for it – just not the sort of audience that thinks fetid trash like Series 11 is quality television.

burrunjor wrote:The thread I made of this topic on Gallifrey Base just got locked, after I was banned, and the moderators edited one of my posts to make it look like I was insulting Bowlestrek and Nerdrotic as horrible, pathetic people.

burrunjor wrote:
Welcome to the Hive I have enjoyed reading your posts so far.

I don't think a companion has to be celibate. I think a good compromise at first would be a romance between the companions.

We have to remember that a whole generation has grown up with New Who, and so we can't just ignore them (which is why I prefer the alternate universe approach, as that way New Who can be connected, but you still have a clean slate.)

Not all New Who fans are nasty, SJW morons. Indeed the fact that the majority of even New Who fans HATE Jodie, and that viewers went off a cliff after the introduction of Missy shows that the majority of actual New Who fans hate identity politics too.

I think a lot of them are people who just like the Doctor as more of a romantic, relatable superhero like Barry Allen or Peter Parker.

Making the Doctor romantic wasn't just appealing for fangirls, but fanboys too. He became a hero they could look up to, a kind of role model (which IMO he should never be. He should be distant, mysterious and more of a grandfather figure like in Tomb of the Cybermen when he's helping Victoria overcome her grief about her dad. That is the quintessential Doctor moment for me.)

Suddenly turning him into an old, distant alien again however would be quite jarring, but you can work round that. Have two companions, a male and a female and have a romance develop between them. Don't let it take over the show. Have the companions come from different times, so that there is no soap opera, revisiting their homes etc.

Make the male companion a strong character, not a cuck following her around. Do that and you can ease new viewers into the Doctor being the more alien, distant character again, by still having a romance, but not let it take over. You can then phase it out slowly to the point where its like Old Who again.

I do agree that Old Who was better at showing us more genuinely eccenrtic characters.

You only have to look at the actors who played the Doctor.

In old Who the actors who played the Doctor were already known for playing quite daring, bold, frightening, even controversial roles.

Look at William Hartnell. He not only often played villains, thugs and violent characters. (He was even referred to as Britain's leading screen menace at one point.) One of his favourite roles pre Doctor Who was in This Sporting Life where he played a closeted homosexual man.

Remember back then homosexuality was illegal! To even hint at a gay character in something was really risky. Similarly Partick Troughton often appeared in horror movies or in weird character parts both before and after like Jason and the Argonauts and Scars of Dracula, Jon Pertwee was an eccentric performer, who after Doctor Who went on to play a Scarecrow in a show so weird that it took him years to get it made.

Tom Baker meanwhile played villains and intense roles pre Who like Rasputin, whilst Colin similarly was known for playing villains, and McCoy is the definition of a quirky character actor, with his biggest non Who role being a crazy wizard who gets stoned off of mushrooms and talks to animals!

A lot of the New Who Doctors have been in comparison, ordinary leads, known for playing conventional roles like Jodie or Tennant. Jodie is best known for appearing in things like Broadchurch, a dime a dozen, dreary crime series of which there are bloody thousands. Hardly the same as Worzel Gummidge, or This Sporting Life or Rasputin!

This is another reason I prefer Julian Richings and Dana Delorenzo as my ideal cast. They too are unusual performers who are known for playing intense roles. One is an actress whose most famous role involves smashing people's heads in with hammers, and gouging their eyes out, whilst another is a guy whose best known role is playing the Grim Reaper!

You need to go for actors like that in order to really get the Doctor right IMO. Though I remember one New Who fan telling me that Julian Richings was a terrible choice because he looked like William Hartnell!

That IMO shows what a real uphill battle it is to take the character back to his roots, and why some compromise, like a more romantic companion would be needed at first to ease the transition.  

burrunjor wrote:

Commander Maxil wrote:

burrunjor wrote: season 24 was also when they had to pander to her and its the worst of the Classic era.

Season 24 was great. Crazy comic book style adventures, better locations, colourful characters and a much clearer vision than the previous year. Season 23 is the real nadir of the classic series. The fact we got that instead of a third Tripods series is an absolute disgrace.

Sorry IMO the most embarrassing stuff is in season 24. Michael Grade forced them to make it more silly in an effort to kill the show. Having said that its still leaps and bounds above a good chunk of New Who.

Kaled Hygiene wrote:

burrunjor wrote:
Welcome to the Hive I have enjoyed reading your posts so far.

I don't think a companion has to be celibate. I think a good compromise at first would be a romance between the companions.

We have to remember that a whole generation has grown up with New Who, and so we can't just ignore them (which is why I prefer the alternate universe approach, as that way New Who can be connected, but you still have a clean slate.)

Not all New Who fans are nasty, SJW morons. Indeed the fact that the majority of even New Who fans HATE Jodie, and that viewers went off a cliff after the introduction of Missy shows that the majority of actual New Who fans hate identity politics too.

I think a lot of them are people who just like the Doctor as more of a romantic, relatable superhero like Barry Allen or Peter Parker.

Making the Doctor romantic wasn't just appealing for fangirls, but fanboys too. He became a hero they could look up to, a kind of role model (which IMO he should never be. He should be distant, mysterious and more of a grandfather figure like in Tomb of the Cybermen when he's helping Victoria overcome her grief about her dad. That is the quintessential Doctor moment for me.)

Suddenly turning him into an old, distant alien again however would be quite jarring, but you can work round that. Have two companions, a male and a female and have a romance develop between them. Don't let it take over the show. Have the companions come from different times, so that there is no soap opera, revisiting their homes etc.

Make the male companion a strong character, not a cuck following her around. Do that and you can ease new viewers into the Doctor being the more alien, distant character again, by still having a romance, but not let it take over. You can then phase it out slowly to the point where its like Old Who again.

I do agree that Old Who was better at showing us more genuinely eccenrtic characters.

You only have to look at the actors who played the Doctor.

In old Who the actors who played the Doctor were already known for playing quite daring, bold, frightening, even controversial roles.

Look at William Hartnell. He not only often played villains, thugs and violent characters. (He was even referred to as Britain's leading screen menace at one point.) One of his favourite roles pre Doctor Who was in This Sporting Life where he played a closeted homosexual man.

Remember back then homosexuality was illegal! To even hint at a gay character in something was really risky. Similarly Partick Troughton often appeared in horror movies or in weird character parts both before and after like Jason and the Argonauts and Scars of Dracula, Jon Pertwee was an eccentric performer, who after Doctor Who went on to play a Scarecrow in a show so weird that it took him years to get it made.

Tom Baker meanwhile played villains and intense roles pre Who like Rasputin, whilst Colin similarly was known for playing villains, and McCoy is the definition of a quirky character actor, with his biggest non Who role being a crazy wizard who gets stoned off of mushrooms and talks to animals!

A lot of the New Who Doctors have been in comparison, ordinary leads, known for playing conventional roles like Jodie or Tennant. Jodie is best known for appearing in things like Broadchurch, a dime a dozen, dreary crime series of which there are bloody thousands. Hardly the same as Worzel Gummidge, or This Sporting Life or Rasputin!

This is another reason I prefer Julian Richings and Dana Delorenzo as my ideal cast. They too are unusual performers who are known for playing intense roles. One is an actress whose most famous role involves smashing people's heads in with hammers, and gouging their eyes out, whilst another is a guy whose best known role is playing the Grim Reaper!

You need to go for actors like that in order to really get the Doctor right IMO. Though I remember one New Who fan telling me that Julian Richings was a terrible choice because he looked like William Hartnell!

That IMO shows what a real uphill battle it is to take the character back to his roots, and why some compromise, like a more romantic companion would be needed at first to ease the transition.  

Thank you for the kind reply.

It's such a shame that a television programme especially one that comes under the umbrella of Sci-Fi can't be made without including romantic subplots. In a way the 'stiff upper lip' which pervaded the BBC when the classic series was being made ironically made Doctor Who far more progressive in terms of appealing to a gay and asexual audience. The modern series is much more family orientated, calculating and plain cynical about what it thinks the modern audience expects and panders to the lowest expectations of the restless prime-time audience. It would have been unthinkable to have allowed Capaldi free reign to be the cold, distant and alien Doctor his regeneration was crying out for and his portrayal was softened into an eccentric uncle with a typical NuWho infatuation with his companion.