We’ll all have seen The Eleventh Hour by now right? Well we’re working on our review but in the meantime we’d like to hear your views on it and the new cast.
Come on start talking!
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The theme tune to Doctor Who is iconic, of that there’s no mistaking. It’s right up there with The Sweeney, The Professionals and The Casualty in terms of instantly recognisable television themes.
We all know that Ron Grainer was the composer of the theme tune for Doctor Who and we also know that it’s gone through many different arrangements in the 47 years it’s been around.
The first was by a fantastically talented young lady called Delia Derbyshire. When we say talented, we mean it. She was so far ahead of her time that it’s scary. She took Ron’s composition and went to town on it.
There’s a school of thought that says young Delia – only 26 at the time – really made the Doctor Who theme memorable by her painstaking splicing of audio tape to realise Ron Grainer’s vision of the theme. In fact she put so much of herself into it that Ron questioned whether or not he’d even written it!
Skipping ahead 42 years and we have the Murray Gold arrangement. Strange that it should be called an arrangement given that it heavily samples the original Delia Derbyshire piece.
Gold’s arrangement seems to almost entirely consist of the addition of a militaristic drumbeat which in itself is rather odd given The Doctor’s dislike of all things militaristic. Still I’m sure Russell T Davies approved of it wholeheartedly… We digress. The whole point of this post is to get a handle on the preferences of our brave readers.
Which is better Murray Gold’s new version of the theme or Delia Derbyshire’s original? Sadly we don’t have Harry Hill’s uncanny knack of arranging fights between two opposing options, so we’ve had to go for a poll instead.
Before you answer said poll though, here’s a reminder of the two themes. First, the original version:
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And next the new and improved version:
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Loading ...We hope you voted wisely.
As if we we’re in any doubt about Matt Smith’s acting ability – see the trailer below – we were reminded by our good friend Restless Cheese of his appearance in the deleted scenes from In Bruges.
After a quick YouTube search we found it. You can watch it if you like.
We are good to you.
PS You should watch In Bruges it really is very, very funny.
Over the past few hours we’ve been pondering about the reasons behind our lack of enthusiasm – to put it mildly – over Russell T Davies re-imagining of The Doctor and his adversaries.
The single biggest issue wasn’t with the design of the villains, which on the whole was decent. Nor was it with the sets, which although unimaginative were at least a lot more solid than the classic show’s.
No, it was neither of these things that ruined Russell T Davies vision of Who, it was the writing.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, Russell T Davies can do drama but he can’t do sci-fi and he certainly can’t write believable dialogue. Do you want some proof? Ok, read this:
Dalek: You propose an alliance?
Cybermen: This is correct.
Dalek: Request denied.
Still with us? You’ve got to agree that’s an appalling interchange that is neither grammatically correct – a proposal is not a request – nor neccesary! If the Daleks are going to tear the Cybermen a new arsehole, you’d imagine they wouldn’t feel the need to announce it.
It gets worse though, feast your eyes on the response to the denied request, the Cybermen go on a deleting spree:
Cybermen: Hostile elements will be deleted.
Dalek: Exterminate!
Yawn. A couple of Cybermen get offed by a Dalek.
Cybermen: Open visual link. Daleks be warned you have declared war upon the Cybermen.
That’s a fair line. The Cybermen are rational, thinking creatures, offering the Daleks a way out of any conflict with a fairly assertive statement. However given their response, the Daleks seem to think they’re The Rock and they’re at WrestleMania XXVII.
Dalek: This is not war this is pest control.
Christ. Please stop. Alas, the smack talk continues.
Cybermen: We have five million Cybermen, how many are you?
Dalek: Four.
Cybermen: You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?
Dalek: We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek.
Why don’t you then?
I’ve saved the best for last though. Without doubt what follows is the single worst piece of dialogue ever conceived. It totally pisses over everything that the Daleks are supposed to be and in the delivery of the sort of line you’d expect Arnie to be using in 1986, destroys any sense of menace that they ever had.
Ready?
Dalek: You are superior in only one respect.
Cybermen: What is that?
Dalek: You are better at dying! Raise communications barrier!
How pathetic is that? That’s not the sort of things the Daleks would do. Surely?
Can you imagine a war film with Hitler and Churchill where they use that dialogue? No. Neither can we. Pathetic.
As a special treat here’s a clip – from YouTube – of the entire exchange. Watch it if you feel brave enough.
You were warned…
Y’see folks this is what comes of a good idea, a pair of munters in a basement somewhere think to themselves, wow those Australian girls – whilst fairly average looking – managed to look really quite hot when they dressed as Daleks, let’s do that.
Then you get this.
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For goodness sake. What’s that about, really? Come on now.
Thanks to io9 for ruining our weekend.
It’s amazing what you find when you read things properly. For example SciFi Now‘s 50 Greatest Doctor Who Moments.
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It would appear SciFi Now has access to information that us mere mortals don’t. Namely some form of original script from the ninth Doctor episode Dalek. Witness greatest moment number eight!
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Who would’ve known? The Doctor was originally obviously supposed to have performed some kind of kinky sex act on a restrained Dalek?
I know Russell T Davies was driven to shoehorn in as many inappropriate references to homosexuality as possible, surely The Doctor wanking off all over a Dalek is a step too far though?
Still anything is possible, look at poor Bannakaffalatta and his repressed cyborguality.
I guess we just have to be glad that it never made it to air. I’m not sure I could have witnessed Christopher Eccleston knocking one out, while Nicholas Briggs screamed ‘white wee-wee‘ at the top of his voice.
He’s a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. He’s 903 years old. If there’s danger, he’s the man who’s going to save your life and everyone on your planet. Got a problem with that?
I certainly don’t have a problem with that!!
Where do I start when it comes to The Tenth Doctor? Isn’t he just lovely? Sigh. Well, for once I am right and a lot of people, kids and adults alike around the world, would wholeheartedly agree!
Continue reading ‘David Tennant As The Doctor’
Now then, Omega, as seen in The Three Doctors and Arc Of Infinity, is a really interesting villain.
This is him here with Sergeant Benton and the second and third Doctors. He’s the one on the let that looks like The Man With The Stick from Vic Reeves Big Night Out.
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Omega was an outstanding stellar engineer and High Council member on Gallifrey. He developed the Hand of Omega, a remote stellar manipulator which could be used to control the reactions within a star.
Using the Hand of Omega he performed adjustments on a star near Gallifrey’s, in an attempt to provide a power source for the time travel experiments he conducted with Rassilon.
Unfortunately it was thought that Omega was killed in the resulting supernova, which then collapsed into a black hole. However, all of this malarky eventually resulted in the Time Lords being able to zip back and forth through time.
Neat, huh?
Of course for such sacrifice comes, well, more sacrifice. In this case it was a bit of lunacy and a touch of bitterness…
Now is just me or does the sound of a returning Omega seem just the thing to spice up Matt Smith’s presidency?
We’re a bit slow with this one sorry about that. Anyway it would appear that some enterprising Australian cosplayers (if you don’t know what that is, look it up and prepare to be horrified) decided to dress up like Daleks.
Not unusal you say? A little ambitious? Mayhap, however look at how they did it.
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Now we’ve got to admit that they’re some pretty classy Australian birds right there, whisks and plungers in hand. Still you’ve got to hand it to those girls for doing something that Russell T Davies and his cohorts would never ever do; redesign the Dalek.
Arf, arf, etc. ad nauseum…
It’s nice to see that good old Steven Moffat has been nominated for another Hugo Award in the ‘Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form’ category.
Oh, and Russell T Davies has been nominated too.
Moffat’s been nominated for Silence In The Library which I thought was rather good and hinted at the future Doctor in a very subtle and well written way. Although the costume design was – as per – fucking abysmal, here’s a hint; space faring adventurers rarely wear snow boots.
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Davies has been nominated for Turn Left, a lack lustre turd of an effort that bases its entire storyline on the film Sliding Doors – plagiarism is much easier than invention, eh Russell? – and gets its ‘comedy’ from Catherine Tate’s predictable gurning.
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What’s very interesting to note is that Moffat has been nominated and has won this for the past three years. Odd that Davies hasn’t won it yet really given the number of episodes that he’s pumped out.
Or is it?