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[COCKLES]

First episode has hit BT a few weeks ahead of it's broadcast.

The Good:-

Christopher Eccleston make an engaging Doctor.
Billy Piper rocks.
There's a time tunnel in the opening sequence.
Child Autons breaking though windows and gunning people down!
Sonic Screwdriver!

The Bad:-

Too much slapstick (one of the main characters gets swallowed by a possessed rubbish bin) - what is this Rod Hull & Emu!?! .
Dodgy special FX (nothing changes eh?)
The TARDIS - probably the worst interior of the TARDIS there's been. If your expecting the magnificence of Paul McGann's Fox movie TARDIS...think again. It really does look crap - even the 1963 original looks better!

There's a lot of moments that should have been genuinely creepy but are overplayed or flatly directed.

Gonna take a while to get used to it...the style of the show. The whole thing....just feels...a bit too lightweight and 'rompy'. I was hoping for a contiunaiton of the best of the last Dr's efforts like Curse of Fenric & Ghost Light. Still it is the first episode - just it doesn't bode well when the Autons first visit to Earth in 1971 was a lot scarier.

I guess it's the Batman thang. Some love the 60's camp TV series. Some like the darker revisionism Batman.

 

[Stryder]

COCKLES, please check your PM

edit: can anyone else hook me up with the torrent? please PM me if you can.

 

[ManaByte]

SciFi Channel passed on bringing the series over to the US.

 

[demi]

Simon Pegg is in like the 6th episode. :x

 

[Zensetsu]

I hope i like it, but the chances are I will since i've loved pretty much all of them. My mum showed me the videos when I was little, along with monty python and I still watch them occasionally.

Much love for Dr Who.

 

[Flynn]

SciFi Channel passed on bringing the series over to the US.

Yeah, apparently the show wasn't lame enough.

 

[COCKLES]

SciFi Channel passed on bringing the series over to the US.

Well it still looks low budget compared to American stuff like Stargate. I doubt Sci-Fi were ever going to buy it anyway....not for 13 episodes. As far as I know American studios will only buy if you have at least 52 episodes minium...and given the BBC have said they can't guarentee a second or third series, that pretty much killed it for sci-fi I'd imagine.

And it's still very British...Sci-fi have so many hits at the moment, Atlantis, Dune and Battlestar that they simply don't need it. Certainly not the greatest episode of Doctor Who I've seen, but as a exposition heavy story to introduce new viewers to Dr Who it did the job. I'm expecting great things for the Dalek episodes...the BBC had better not screw me over again.

 

[megateto]

I never had the chance of watching the classic series, but I am almost bored of constantly reading things about it. As this seem to be on BT right now, will it do? Or should I dig deeper and look for the classic one?

 

[COCKLES]

From a noobs point of view. Watch the new one, then go back and watch the classic shows.

I'd be intrested to see your take on it as you don't have the classics to cloud your vision. A lot of the Dr Who forums are buzzing about how good the new show is, but to be honest, it left me really disappointed.

My top 10 recommendations of classic Who-

1. Unearthly Child (the very first episode - 1963)
2. Spearhead from Space (1970)
3. Day of the Daleks (1973)
4. Pyramids of Mars (1975)
5. Talons of Wing Chiang (1976)
6. The Keeper of Traken (1981)
7. Resurrection of the Daleks (1984)
8. Caves of Androzani (1984)
9. Rememberance of the Daleks (1988)
10. Curse of Fenric (1989)

 

[FnordChan]

First episode has hit BT a few weeks ahead of it's broadcast.

Thanks for the heads up and the review! Sounds like they're trying for a broad audience for the first episode, so I'm not overly worried about the excess slapstick and whatnot. Spotty special effects are practically par for the course, and I'll reserve judgement on the Tardis interior until I get a look at it myself. Just so long as the actors are good, the direction is decent (even if parts of the script sound a bit goofy), and the classic opening is there to set the tone, I'm happy. With luck more serious episodes are just around the corner.

As for Who recommendations, I'm hardly an expert but I'll go ahead and pimp a couple more Tom Baker outings, The Ark in Space and The Robots of Death, as well as a Jon Pertwee adventure, Inferno. The later hasn't had a DVD release that I'm aware of but is worth keeping an eye out; they'll all be out there eventually.

FnordChan

 

[Flynn]

Pirate Planet has to be one of my favorites.

I prefer the humor-oriented, Douglas Adams episodes.

 

[8bit]

I really enjoyed it, and thought the Tardis interior was pretty good, especially the views from outside showing the interior. Off to a good start, methinks.