Series 11

TiberiusDidNothingWrong wrote:It is not purely the accent, but the Doctor's being British is a fairly significant part of people's idea of the character. Evident by the fact that he has remained so for his entirety.

You totally just contradicted yourself there.

First you're saying you're against an American Doctor because changing his accent to that of an American would be inconsistent after having all thirteen of his incarnations speak with a British accent.

Now you're saying that it's not purely the accent. Well, if it's not purely the accent then what is it then? What makes the Doctor so British other than the accent?

DeadManRising wrote:

TiberiusDidNothingWrong wrote:It is not purely the accent, but the Doctor's being British is a fairly significant part of people's idea of the character. Evident by the fact that he has remained so for his entirety.

You totally just contradicted yourself there.

First you're saying you're against an American Doctor because changing his accent to that of an American would be inconsistent after having all thirteen of his incarnations speak with a British accent.

Now you're saying that it's not purely the accent. Well, if it's not purely the accent then what is it then? What makes the Doctor so British other than the accent?

No contradiction.

The accent is the most overt part of the quasi-British identity he has sustained over his incarnations. Other examples are his use of language, his manner of dress, his general appearance (being that he has been played exclusively by British actors), his tastes and his bias towards the United Kingdom and its history.

There's no given in-universe explanation for this - I have my own - but it's evident that Anglocentrism has some hold over the character.

I think most of us can agree that an English actor is probably the preferred choice.

Whilst he isn't British within the show, the Doctor is created in the mould of the eccentric British gentlemanly hero, ala Sherlock Holmes, Bernard Quatermass, even Jason King, who were all key influences on the Doctor and his character.

However whilst English is preferred, I wouldn't object to an actor from another country as long as he played in a Doctorish way.

I don't think the Doctors accent should be overstated though. Obviously he shouldn't have an accent of any kind as he is an alien, but you accept that unless they are going to have each actor adopt a silly alien accent, then the actor will just have to use his own voice.

However don't overdo it as then it becomes obvious and breaks the illusion. Hence why Eccelston's "LOTS OF PLANETS HAVE A NORF" and Capaldi's "OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH I'M SCOTTISH, I'M SCOTTISH" seemed silly.

I think the Doctor should always have a posh accent, or at least be well spoken to some extent. If it were an American actor with a rich voice who could be eccentric, over the top, and who didn't draw attention to it going "I'M AN AMERICAN" then I don't see what the problem would be?

It's all moot. Changing the character's accent is small fry compared to lopping his cock off, so the character as he was is broken irrevocably already anyway.

burrunjor wrote:I hate this precious little "don't let the Americans get hold of DW" that stupid New Who fans always come out with.

Leaving aside the fact that ironically it comes over from racist. I can understand not wanting a British icon to fall into anyone else's hands, but these fans ironically often make out its because Americans are too stupid to understand what makes DW work. Oh the irony!

Late to the party, but I'm an American and personally have always been against letting Americans get our hands on it. (At least not without a careful hiring process.) Not just for the stupidity that was a great deal of the TV Movie, but look at the other things we took that turned to utter crap: Life on Mars, The Office, Getting On, Dancing With the Stars, Antiques Roadshow, even Torchwood changed radically once it was in American hands via Starz.

I could go on and on. The TV movie was bad enough, given everything else we ruin, please do not let us get our hands on Doctor Who without a major vetting process.

And as I said, that attitude is massively outdated. Anything and everything that "the Americans" could have done to ruin the character and show has already been done, and then some, by the Brits.

To each their own. As an American seeing what Americans do to Brit productions, I don’t think it’s outdated to point out we’ve ruined enough. It’s your opinion that Brits have ruined it as much as they can. Trust me, Americans can do far worse.

The only thing worse than an American remake of a British show is a British remake of an American show.

I’m genuinely curious about examples for that one.

Try the British version of That 70s Show (I forget the name). There are others, like the British version of Who's the Boss? (The Upper Hand). Spectacularly awful.

tardis wrote:

burrunjor wrote:I hate this precious little "don't let the Americans get hold of DW" that stupid New Who fans always come out with.

Leaving aside the fact that ironically it comes over from racist. I can understand not wanting a British icon to fall into anyone else's hands, but these fans ironically often make out its because Americans are too stupid to understand what makes DW work. Oh the irony!

Late to the party, but I'm an American and personally have always been against letting Americans get our hands on it. (At least not without a careful hiring process.)  Not just for the stupidity that was a great deal of the TV Movie, but look at the other things we took that turned to utter crap: Life on Mars, The Office, Getting On, Dancing With the Stars, Antiques Roadshow, even Torchwood changed radically once it was in American hands via Starz.

I could go on and on.  The TV movie was bad enough, given everything else we ruin, please do not let us get our hands on Doctor Who without a major vetting process.

The people actually making the TV Movie, I think did try their best to keep the TV Movie in the spirit of the show but they still had to deal with the production company. I'm impressed they were able to get in as much as they could (and keep it there).

Considering some of the concepts floating around that maybe it might have been or turned into, I think we got lucky there, all things considered.

I mean, if this is accurate ... lots of scope for things to go even more wrong here.

http://www.shannonsullivan.com/doctorwho/lost/lost8.html

shan164 wrote:http://www.shannonsullivan.com/doctorwho/lost/lost8.html

'In the midst of a Dalek attack on Gallifrey, Cardinal Borusa dies -- allowing his grandson, the Master, to become President of the Time Lords. The Master's half-human half-brother, the Doctor, flees in his TARDIS, which now houses Borusa's spirit.'

Good lord...

I thought Borusa was trapped due to his immortality wish in The Five Doctors - how would he have died?

Tho fellow Buffy fans would be curious to see one of the actors playing Borusa was the father of Robin Sachs, who played Ethan Rayne!

"Arrrh, me shivering mateys! We be the Cybs from the good ship Telos! We've come for your booty and your treasure! (As long as it isn't gold)."

Mott1 wrote:I thought Borusa was trapped due to his immortality wish in The Five Doctors - how would he have died?

Because that story I posted wasn't a continuation of the Classic Series. It was part of a proposed reboot series that would have been made in America and been written by some guy named John Leekley, but fortunately it was cancelled.

Still... what an absolutely retarded premise for a Doctor Who story.

DeadManRising wrote:

Mott1 wrote:I thought Borusa was trapped due to his immortality wish in The Five Doctors - how would he have died?

Because that story I posted wasn't a continuation of the Classic Series. It was part of a proposed reboot series that would have been made in America and been written by some guy named John Leekley, but fortunately it was cancelled.

Still... what an absolutely retarded premise for a Doctor Who story.

Still not as bad as Dark Water/Death in Heaven. I'd rather have a reboot that was shit, and didn't infringe on the original at all, than a sequel that was even worse than that proposed reboot.

The Cushing movies for instance are reboots even more unfaithful than that American reboot. Maybe it would have been on the level of the Cushing movies?

Ooh, I don't know about this. I agree that its hard to imagine anything being worse than NuWho, American or otherwise. How could an American production team possibly ruin it more than Davies and Moffat?  You'd have to really go out of your way to fuck it up so spectacularly. However, I know a lot of people here despise the TVM, but I actually like it for all its faults and flaws, and certainly prefer it to any Who from the last 13 years, so who knows? I must also say though, I'm not really a fan of modern America television.

tardis wrote:Not just for the stupidity that was a great deal of the TV Movie, but look at the other things we took that turned to utter crap: Life on Mars, The Office, Getting On, Dancing With the Stars, Antiques Roadshow, even Torchwood changed radically once it was in American hands via Starz.

I could go on and on.  The TV movie was bad enough, given everything else we ruin, please do not let us get our hands on Doctor Who without a major vetting process.

How did the Antiques Roadshow get fucked up, out of curiosity? Did the priceless heirlooms and trinkets all turn out to be some junk from a car boot sale?

The irony is that the Antiques Roadshow is one of the many shows over here that kicks Nu Who's arse, ratings-wise!

Mott1 wrote:
How did the Antiques Roadshow get fucked up, out of curiosity? Did the priceless heirlooms and trinkets all turn out to be some junk from a car boot sale?

The irony is that the Antiques Roadshow is one of the many shows over here that kicks Nu Who's arse, ratings-wise!

Simply put, the US is frankly too young to have anything all that exciting that comes up in antiques shows. I worked for an organization that did an annual antiques show. Stuff was interesting to look at, but most of them were 'ruined' for one reason or another (overly used, 'authentic' but too popular from the time to be unique, not owned by anyone well-known). I thought it was just the Roadshow picking poorly for their episodes. Nope, we just don't have anything overly exciting. When I've watched the UK Roadshow, they pick a few duds, but they seem to always try to pick a few 'winners' too.

I also like the way UK does their food challenge shows. (IDK if the US got it from them or they got it from us, but I like the UK versions better.)

Queen Angvia wrote:Ooh, I don't know about this. I agree that its hard to imagine anything being worse than NuWho, American or otherwise. How could an American production team possibly ruin it more than Davies and Moffat?  You'd have to really go out of your way to fuck it up so spectacularly. However, I know a lot of people here despise the TVM, but I actually like it for all its faults and flaws, and certainly prefer it to any Who from the last 13 years, so who knows? I must also say though, I'm not really a fan of modern America television.

I just go back to <i>Life On Mars</i> it wasn't even the same planet of 'fun to watch' and the ending in the US version was horrible and utterly boring by comparison.

American TV has been on a downward spiral ever since 2000-ish. I admit, after <i>Buffy</i>, <i>X-files</i>, etc ended, I pretty much stopped watching tv. We have gotten <i>Elementary</i> right, though. But that's more a Moffat/Gatiss issue than an UK/US issue.

Also, I must note that I don't have a lot of internet data, so I don't watch Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. So I can't speak to those productions. But when I see previews and such, I'm unimpressed. I will say that what I've seen so far of S11 seems to parallel much closer to American tv than not, even setting aside the political agenda issues, it looks horrid.

Things did seem to get a bit weak in the early 2000s after the exit of all the big 90s shows (X Files etc) but there's still been some very fine US shows in the 2010s - Elementary, Fringe, Person of Interest, The Mentalist, Stranger Things (all of which piss over New Who from a very great height). It does take more of an effort to find them, though, as unlike the 90s heyday they rarely seem to get shown on primetime TV down here these days. Either they're buried late at night or they're stolen by Pay TV. The fragmented nature of TV these days also means that unless you know about them already, shows that would have been huge once upon a time are completely obscure to many people.

Ian is right, tardis: Fringe is the kind of show Nu Who could only dream of being. It brought the early part of the Pertwee era into the contemporary age. I went into my local Cex shop (!) and bought season 1 second-hand for a fiver on a recommendation. So old box sets is perhaps the way to go...

Stranger Things Season 1 was quite fun - Season 2 was less enjoyable.  I rather like American Gods, but mostly I watch old stuff.

DeadManRising wrote:

Mott1 wrote:I thought Borusa was trapped due to his immortality wish in The Five Doctors - how would he have died?

Because that story I posted wasn't a continuation of the Classic Series. It was part of a proposed reboot series that would have been made in America and been written by some guy named John Leekley, but fortunately it was cancelled.

Still... what an absolutely retarded premise for a Doctor Who story.

Not a fan of the idea of rebooting the show. Definitely glad that this didn't happen.