<Ric Flair> WOOOOO!!!! </Ric Flair>

click on the image below to see the proper trailer for Doctor Who Series 6.



In the Elisabeth Sladen RIP thread I gleamed that some of you are fans of Doctor Who, so I've decided what the hell let's make a proper thread for Series 6, which begins airing tomorrow night (Saturday, April 23rd) at 7pm on BBC America.

Series 5 was pretty good while it aired, but in the end it felt like a bunch of pointless episodes that built to a climax that copped out and pushed all of the mysteries back to Series 6. Yeah, it made for a relatively bland Series 5, but it set up this Series to really kick ass if they pull if off right. Keep in mind this is also the second series for this production team, so after a pretty chaotic transition period from the Russell T Davies era, I'm hoping that this year the show takes off and once again goes off into a new, bold, and different direction; something the show was able to do for countless years, hence how it had a run from 1963-1989 in its first incarnation.

Matt Smith is a brilliant Doctor... I love the alien feel that he brings to the character. Moreso than Christopher Eccleston (who I confess is "my doctor" cuz when I really got into the show it was watching a Channel 11 marathon of all of the Series 1 episodes back in 2008) David Tennant played a geek-chic superhero, running around screaming "MAAAARRRRTHAAA!!!" or "DOOOONNNNAAA!!!!" and doing the whole angry/lonely god thing, mister Last of the Timelords brooding and making the snarl face and all that... Matt Smith plays a more whimsical romp of a character, however, he's shown little snippets of a dark side that I think is going to be explored way further in this series.... I can't wait to see what he does with the character this year.

This is easily my favorite show on television right now and I've been impatiently waiting for this series ever since Series 5 ended on June 26th. Yeah there was a Christmas special, but who cares? The Impossible Astronaut is what I've been waiting for.... not to mention a bearded Doctor (by cracky!) being shackled in what most believe to be Area 51. Doctor Who loves to go back to historical events and play with them, adding esoteric alien reasons as the cause of these events. Could Area 51 have been created to trap/house the Doctor? What role will Nixon play in the opener? Who's building the Lodger Tardis? Who is River Song? Hell, who is Amy Pond? What if all is not that it seems with our heroes and protagonists?

Man, I know the rough outlines of a couple things that are going to happen, but I'm not going to spoil it for anyone.

WHOOOO! In approximately 30 hours I can start downloading this beeeeyotch, cuz I can't even wait til 7pm to get down.... I'll have the british version hopefully locked and loaded and ready to go by then. If your DVR isn't doing anything at 7pm, give it a proper go! I'll confess that this show is likely more of an acquired taste, sure, but there's a reason that through 11 incarnations, the Doctor has traveled through time and space on television, with a couple of gaps, since 1963. That's right, the show is going to turn 50 years old in 2013, all the more reason to root against the end of the world.

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Oh yeah, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that right now the whole of Doctor Who Series 5 is available for FREE on Comcast's Xfinity on Demand service. It's under TV Shows, All Shows (A-L or whatever, and obviously the All Shows) and Doctor Who. They say they're available until this November, so BBC America seems to be pulling out all the stops to plug Series 6 by offering up their #1 show's last season for free while they're still hocking DVDs of it out there at just about every multimedia store you can imagine.

Series 5 was pretty good, IMHO, but i'm a bit of an aficionado so I'm a hard grader. If anything, watch it just for Karen Gillan's portrayal of miss Amy Pond. Sure, the writing is pretty crap but who cares about writing when you've got this to stare at for a good portion of the show:

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Well, there's that. And the fact she dresses up as a cop. Makes for an interesting character.

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

Really enjoyed Matt Smith's Doctor. Tennant was too campy by the end, and that's saying something for Doctor Who. Was a shame Eccleston only lasted a season, was different to see Doctor with some menace. No one's topped Tom Baker yet, for me, too bad Baker's nuts.

With a little bit of work, Sylvester McCoy would have been there for your menacing Doctor. Of course, he was saddled with crappy scripts (is Paradise Towers worse than Happiness Patrol, or is is Survival that tops them all?) an inability to show violence, and some of the worse soundwork ever.

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

I was sad too for Eccleson to only last a season, he had potential. Colin Baker was a little bit menacing and offputting in his run. Does the BBC put out box sets for each incarnation ,I have a smattering of episodes and that a lot of the earlier ones are gone forever.I miss staying up late on Sundays for Brit TV alll night long, those old Dr Who where the best.

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

Was slightly disappointed with Moffat taking over though, not that the season was bad, but he'd set the bar pretty high with his episodes during Russel Davies' run. Blink is still my favorite episode of the new series and Love and Monsters is in a class of it's own as worst.

There's a ton of the original Whos on instant Netflix.

Colin plays great villains. He played a sinister guard in a Peter Davison episode. Also was a great deranged wacko in Blake's 7. Then, there was this boardroom drama/soap about a trucking company called 'The Brothers', which I don't think has ever been shown here, where he was THE villain. Think JR Ewing...

The thing about Colin's character was, his doctor was erratic and likely not be responsible for what he did. McCoy's would know. If they were to show flashbacks to this Time War, its McCoy who I see obliterating the Daleks, and sealing everyone in a time loop. Eccleson, no. He'd be what would regenerate after McCoy.

While he lasted only a year, Eccleson's work in bootstrapping the new show can't be shrugged off. Only approached by what Troughton did, taking the title role over & trying to be convincing yet different as the doctor.

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

I see we have a countdown show. Christmas Carol with a shark...

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

Yeah, from what I've seen of Colin Baker (and I've seen that Davison story where he plays Commander Maxil, which is basically the same way he played the Doctor IMO, he just happened to be some stuck up Timelord soldier as opposed to the Doctor) he seems to have the smug sanctomonious prick thing down pat.... Sure he was annoying, but again, I spent most of my time trying to gleam what I could of Peri's rack, so c'est la vie! I could definitely see how he's an acquired taste tho.

I loved the way Eccleston played the Doctor, he had that aura of superority down without having that Colin-Baker-esque dickishness about it. Eccleston played a more traditional Doctor (pun not intended) who, example, was above and beyond the concept of falling in love with a goofy little earth-girl like Rose.... to juxtapose, Tennant was hitting that shit and trying to be the most OMFG boyfriend ever [insert convoluted love story here]. Then there was that perpetual undertone of BAWWWW I'M SO MISERABLE I'VE GOT THIS DAMNED MARTHA ON MY JOCK BUT SHE'S NOT ROSE!!! WAAAAHHH!!! I'm going to fly around a black hole just to say goodbye to her cuz ROSE TYLER, I LOVE YOU!!!.

If I'm not mistaken, back in the day Tom Baker str8up dumped Sarah Jane off at some random spot and never came back! His pimphand was strong, that's why he eventually upgraded to nailing a Time Lady both on and off camera =D

As I prolly said before, I got pretty sick of Tennant by the end of his run. You called it campy which totally nails it.... I mean, it was still Doctor Who which at its core is a quality show, but like, the combination of Tennant's burgeoning campiness and RTD's fanwanky "let's raise the stakes even higher this season, then we'll bring everyone together and have a deus ex machina moment!" series arcs did wear me down a little bit.

So yeah, even tho Moffat seems to love his wibbly wobbly timey wimey mishmashed timestreams gleamed from core concepts he came up with back when he was writing fanfiction/New Adventures stories, at least he's throwing out stuff like killing off the protagonist in the first 10 minutes of the new season only to have him pop back up and be like HELLO! It's nice to have a show about time travel actually feature a whole bunch of time traveling going on for a change!

So while Series 5 is kind of blah to me in retrospect, I confess that I was chomping at the bit to get to Series 6 and find out just what the fuck is going on.... if this were professional wrestling I'd be a total mark.

Episode 1 didn't let me down.... I just hope the rumor/supposed-spoiler I heard about River's identity isn't true cuz if it is it's like.... comeon. We shall see!

What did you think of the new episode?

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Missed all of last season so it was great to be able to catch up.
Matt Smith is very good as the quirky Doctor, and Amelia is a joy.

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It's taken awhile to settle in. Lots of odd things towards the end of the episode.

Yes, the Rose bit is hard to take in those terms. But I did like the "companions with big guns." As good as a '5 Doctors' episode? Different animals. (Although I liked the Colin/Troughton team, versus Servalan)

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

I hope these new monsters (their name hasn't been said on the show yet, but someone on the production side left a call sheet out during the filming of these episodes) can hang around for awhile and stay unbeatable. I'd love the next episode to have some sort of a "oh shit we're fucked, we'd better run" anti-resolution. Maybe you can fuck up their subjugation of Earth in/by 1969, but I'd hate for there to be some sort of giant cop out that completely wipes them all out forever and ever and ever and this time it's for real until they're back within a season or two, akin to the treatment of the Daleks in the first 4 series.

Moffat said something akin to "[he's] going to end the Doctor's fame" this series, what with the Doctor having turned every enemy cuz he's the oncoming storm and etc etc etc. You knew that Tennant was never going to take a loss (save Rose.. * cries *), but thus far it seems like they're willing to hang some up on Matt Smith, which is always refreshing.

I just pray that this River Song spoiler I heard was a purposely-planted fake, cuz really, I want her to tie into the big picture differently than what I've heard.

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Enjoyed the season opener, although I just kept thinking, "Hey look, it's Romo Lampkin!" Agreed with Doctor Who's win-loss record. It goes back with the idea you can believe Eccleson was a stone cold killer without them having to explain it much where as no matter how many times they tried to show Tennant was a bad dude it wasn't always believable. My wife was watching the Season 2 premier last night where Tennant got his hand cut off and killed the Sycorax leader in a duel and even before you knew what Tennant's personality really was (he spent most of the episode incapacitated/regenerating), it didn't seem to fit. Same way at the end of the episode when he was trying to lecture PM Harriet Jones about blowing up the ship as it was retreating, instead of sounding like a menacing threat it was more of a petulant whine.

The episode was also the highest rated anything on BBC America ever.

Agreed on the episode.

Haven't read any spoilers so I'm interested to see more about River.

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Welp, the end of the next episode is going to be some "WTF?!?!@" tho i have no idea where it goes. Stay tuned, true believers.

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http://www.chicagotardis.com/

Will you be in attendance sini?

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uhm, I haven't done a convention for anything like this in my life... i don't dress up or do any sorts of cosplay, and IIRC, isn't that chicago tardis where you end up paying something like $35-50+ a day so you can hang out with the truly devoted who do play dress up and see some D-list people from the whoniverse show up and talk about their time on the show?

maybe if my little brother has a burning desire to go i'd go with him for the experience, but i'm not much of a superfanboy type. the only time i've ever gotten fanfaced in my life was when i met aceyalone, and if i were to have some campy supergeek total mark side to any sort of fandom it'd be my aphex twin fandom.

i like the show even tho i'm quite familiar with it's inherent limitations... it is, for better or worse, british pop culture these days. it was too long-running and successful to be a badass little moment in time and space like my co-greatest-show-of-all-time max headroom. yeah, max headroom on the surface was corny and cheesy, but the message/s there were amazing and provided a scathing analysis of society and the direction it was headed in.

but allow me to reiterate: in the screening of episodes 1&2 a few weeks back, people spoke of an OMFG WHAT THE FUCK WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?!@@? moment at the end of the 2nd episode that opens up a whole new can of worms... at the screening right after the shit went down it cut to the credits, but i know in the past they've cut out some end-of-the-episode shit in screenings, specifically when rose showed up at the end of series 4 episode 1. i don't know if we'll get some sort of a massive revelation after the shit goes down, however, it's going to set up a whole lot of debate and speculation if they don't do a full-reveal at the end of episode 2.

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I appreciate the excitement, but even though you haven't actually revealed anything could you hold off on the spoiler discussion until after the episode, even saying something big is coming up is kinda a spoiler

alrighty, i'll keep any notice of impending !!! from future communications... for what it's worth this is the last thing i know about this season, and it was actually thank to some 4chan twits when i was tryin'ta find a stream during ep1 last saturday.

so short of knowing that something is going to come out of left-field at the end, believe you me i haven't told you anything and i'll keep it that way in the future.

oh and fret not, rose isn't coming back =D

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I have no idea what the convention is. I saw it when I was googling Dr. Who.

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it's like a star trek convention, just for doctor who.

speaking of doctor who...

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT THAT WAS A PROPER FUCKING EPISODE!!! YES! THIS EPISODE WAS THE FUCKING EPITOME OF DELIVERING!!!

god-damn i can't wait to discuss it, gallifreybase.com it is for now... but like, YEAH! i mean aside from the bigger picture like, damn, that was just a smashing fucking episode. episodes like tonight's are why i'm a fan of this show, like, yeah. just yeah yeah yeah yeah WOOOOOO that was worth the wait.

did i mention that was an excellent episode? holy shit yes.

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Just watched it. That was about nine different kinds of awesome. Fuck you The Silence!

Holy shite!!!!!! The girl......Wow.

What was with Dr. Song?

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Also what's great is like, the Silence is still coming... miss Pond will bring about the silence... altho the solution to get them off of earth in 1969 is only temporary if you really think about it, especially if those blokes have time machines.

so just like i wanted, the 1969 thing was thwarted but in no way were these guys removed from the big picture.

i wonder what happens when these dudes stop being lazy with the suggestion and start getting motivated to use their force lighting?

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A very interesting episode, either way. Another Doctor's daughter. And you still don't know who killed the doctor.

One thing's for certain: Moffat's idea of a blockbuster episode is nowhere near what Davies did. No Daleks vs Cyberman in all-out battles. Or towing planets. Much more subtle material...

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

Well last season's "Everybody he ever defeated and the Pandorica vs. The Doctor" wasn't very subtle. To his credit though, that part of it was over by the first episode of the 2-parter.

Was a pretty good second episode. Must be a pretty jaded TV viewer but I didn't think the ending was that awesome. There's a fine balance between wrapping everything up and leaving too many loose ends. They've been fine so far in that respect, but they're pushing it. Matt Smith has been great though, somehow I'm even beginning to really like Rory as a character.

The TV show Doctor Who is so old they'd already gone through 2 Doctors before we even landed on the moon.

The end of last season's episode was "OK, we shot our budget on redesigning the Daleks into iDaleks, so what costumes have we got mucking about in that warehouse in wales? We need to make this pandorica seem important!"

That eye-patched bitch in the door was yet another thing that makes you go "huh?"... It certainly seems Moffat's showrunning style is all about tossing out a whole bunch of timey-wimey shit that they'll resolve at some point... In the confidental for episode 2 he talked about how he loves to do that, set the doctor up with something resolve everything but leave a little something nagging at the doctor going into the next-series/future/etc. Suffice to say, he's pretty good at understatement.

This episode also got me to thinking how much I'd love to see a cameo-type-spoof of Doctor Who in some program where a TARDIS materializes in some evil lair and the Doctor pops out all "HELLO!" and starts to babble, only to get shot dead on the spot by some dedicated evildoers who have better things to do than deal with an annoying brit.

I also loved the Doctor's line at the end "Well we should go figure out that girl is, but wouldn't you rather go have some adventures? Let's have some adventures!" it was definitely waving at the 4th wall there.

Incidentally, last night I got around to watching some of the 5th Doctor adventure Mawdryn Undead, and in the first episode when they're on that abandoned spaceship I swear it sounded like the damn Silence noise was going on...

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Welp, it was time for an "adventure" episode cuz as I said after last week's episode, that line of dialogue the Doctor had where he was like "Ok we should figure out who that girl is, but how about we have some adventures first?!?!" totally broke down the 4th wall and let us know what is in store, so indeed, we got a proper standalone "adventure" episode.

This week's episode was another one of those newschool Doctor Who episodes where they set up a classic story and give it the modern sci-fi twist.. Lily Cole was a nice eccentric siren, and by and large I liked the visual effects as this episode felt very dark and contained. I'm getting sick of Rory "dying" seemingly every other week, but at least we got our tease of the weird eye-patched lady sliding open the viewing hatch and making another comment before she immediately goes away. There's something with the oscillating TARDIS pregnancy scan, Rory sometimes remembering his 2000 years as an Auton, and this chick sliding open a window into reality which leads me to believe that there could be a giant cop out of a reset button lurking on the horizon.... as if blowing up the entire universe wasn't enough =D

Anyways, next week's episode was penned by Neil Gaiman of the Sandman "graphic novel" fame, and from what I've gleamed it seems to be a proper belter, so I'll be looking forward to this one!

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Weird eye patch lady who resembles Dr Song...

Isn't Rory still an Auton, and if so, its time to use his 'hand-gun'

I wonder who the monster is nxt week? They said, a Russell T Davis monster... I like the Rhino cops

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry