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Sci-Fi Television

New Doctor Who Companion Announced 255

eternaldoctorwho writes "Jenna-Louise Coleman will be the newest companion to the Doctor (Matt Smith) on the hit series Doctor Who. The announcement came earlier today on the BBC's Twitter page devoted to the program, along with some other details about the upcoming season of the show. Miss Coleman is also known for her previous roles on Emmerdale and Captain America: The First Avenger."
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New Doctor Who Companion Announced

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  • Male companion (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Stargoat ( 658863 ) * <stargoat@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @10:36PM (#39436643) Journal

    Why can't we have a long term positive male companion? Yes, it's nice to look at young women, but that isn't what Doctor Who is all about. Is it going to take a female doctor before we have can have a decent male companion that isn't a coward or dies every other episode?

    (If it does require a female companion, can I vote for Emma Thompson?)

    • Re:Male companion (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jimmerz28 ( 1928616 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @10:40PM (#39436671)
      Yea younger than Captain Jack please. He's getting too old to be the hot boy on the block; it's getting a little unbelievable.
      • by Hatta ( 162192 )

        Especially for someone who is supposed to live forever.

        • by sorak ( 246725 )

          (spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen the David Tennant episodes)
          He mentioned in one episode that he's still aging, and that he eventually becomes the face of Mogh. (Because that's what happens when you keep getting old but never die?)

    • Re:Male companion (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Stargoat ( 658863 ) * <stargoat@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @10:42PM (#39436691) Journal

      errr, (If it does require a female doctor, can I vote for Emma Thompson?)

    • Re:Male companion (Score:4, Insightful)

      by martin-boundary ( 547041 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:19PM (#39436941)
      Unfortunately, somebody or something always needs rescuing or helping, otherwise it's not drama.

      Do you really want to see a helpless male companion running and screaming, and needing to be rescued every episode? It gets old pretty quick if you're a guy watching the show (can't comment on the alternative). What's the demographic split between male and female viewers of Dr Who anyway?

      • Re:Male companion (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22, 2012 @12:18AM (#39437255)

        I'm not claiming this is in any way representative of Who viewers as a whole, but my university has a Who fan club (we call ourselves the Society of Gallifreyan Scholars) and the membership is ~75% female.

      • Re:Male companion (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Beardo the Bearded ( 321478 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @12:30AM (#39437311)

        I'd like to see more "companion rescuing the Doctor" events.

        • by Nutria ( 679911 )

          Except that it makes no sense for a bog-standard human without any cool toys to regularly rescue a sonic-screwdriver-weilding Time Lord, especially if she is a new companion.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The female companions don't run and scream and need helping very often. And how many shows have a bumbling male? Why wouldn't that work?

        I think the biggest argument against it is one of tradition. The Doctor is an old guy who likes young women. Always has been.

        • by Grimbleton ( 1034446 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @03:46AM (#39438143)

          Dr Who already has a rather bumbling male character who only seems to get his head in gear on occasion, and mostly near the end of the episode. Currently he's played... by Matt Smith.

          • Re:Male companion (Score:5, Informative)

            by JosKarith ( 757063 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @06:06AM (#39438573)
            Matt Smith went to UEA, Norwich. A friend of mine shared an accomodation block with him - seems that he had a bad habit of shouting "Who loves the c*ck" when entertaining a young lady in his room... Unfortunately that knowledge has made it hard to take the 11th Doctor seriously despite my being a life-long fan of the show...
      • by harl ( 84412 )
        Girls go for the doctor.

        Guys go for the companion.
        • Ummm... how many girls would honestly find Matt Smith attractive? He's fun- and plays the role well- but he wasn't chosen for the part based on being good looking- it was because he really does act the part well.

          • Girls go for smart geeky guys WITH confidence. Just most smart geeky guys don't have confidence. Matt Smith has tons, at least in this role.

      • Rory was the one who needed rescuing in a few episodes ...and there have been male companions before

        The companion is mainly there for exposition, "This is New Earth in the year 10,000 ...." i.e. the Stuff the Doctor knows and the people where he is know already, but the companion doesn't, and as a connection to the Audience, this is why an everyman (or Everywoman) works best as they are not extraordinary

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:28PM (#39437001)

      Why can't we have a long term positive male companion?

      Because the Doctor likes nice young girls to show them that it's bigger on the inside.

    • Re:Male companion (Score:5, Interesting)

      by owlnation ( 858981 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:31PM (#39437019)

      Why can't we have a long term positive male companion?

      Probably because the BBC is trying to hit the right advertising demographic in the US. It's one of the very few scripted shows that the BBC can sell abroad, and they want to milk every penny out of it they can (even though its production is wholly subsidized). The BBC loves to get paid twice for things -- and more so with Dr Who as it has lots of merchandising too.

      They did used to have male companions, back in the days when the BBC actually gave a fuck about its Charter. It was originally supposed to be an educational show for children, but now it's wholly-commercial, ratings-driven TV (of variable quality) -- something the BBC is not supposed to produce.

      Hopefully this girl can act better than the ginger girl, who could not act to save her life. But since this new girl is an ex-soap opera actress, I'd think it's likely she's been hired for her other assets.

      You'll probably only see a male companion if the Doctor gets a sex change.

      • Re:Male companion (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LordLucless ( 582312 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:45PM (#39437107)

        Back in the day, male companions were vastly outnumbered by female. And there's male companions in the new series too - Captain Jack, Rory, and Donna's Dad for that Christmas special (if you count that). But it's not like Doctor Who is alone there. Pretty much every show with a lead character has a supporting character of the opposite gender.

      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Probably because the BBC is trying to hit the right advertising demographic in the US. It's one of the very few scripted shows that the BBC can sell in the US,

        Please remember that USA != world. In Commonwealth countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) the BBC sells a lot of programs both in DVD and Syndicated TV. Lets not forget the rest of Europe.

        Even in India, you can get a lot of BBC programming. BBC have pay TV channels all over Asia and the BBC's and ABC's (Australian) children's programming is

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I was surprised to see Doctor Who on Japanese satellite channels, dubbed into Japanese.

      • Re:Male companion (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Malc ( 1751 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @02:22AM (#39437865)

        Forget about America. The BBC is just trying to reach out to a broader audience at home. The ambiguous romance angle allows them to appeal to the less nerdy.

    • Re:Male companion (Score:4, Informative)

      by fermion ( 181285 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @12:05AM (#39437193) Homepage Journal
      We have had several male companions. Turlough, Adric, the Brigadere, The first companions were the doctors granddaughter, her teacher, and Ian. Not to mention Jamie.

      In this current incarnation, the males have been less present, perhaps because the companions have been more explicitly romantic objects. Certainly most of the girls were sexualized, many more than the current companions, but then so was Turlough, wearing the fewest clothes that we have ever seen on Doctor Who, until Nicole Bryant(did Slader have a bikini scene at the beggining of the B&W episodes?)

      • by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @06:46AM (#39438713) Journal
        I think most of us try to forget Adric. When he dies, you can tell when he dies that all of the characters are thinking 'we have a time machine. We only saw the spaceship crash from the outside - we could go back and rescue him before it does. I really hope no one else thinks of that...'
      • In Nicola Bryant's first episode, she wore just a bikini, and Turlough a rather revealing pair of trunks, and a very wet shirt....

    • Re:Male companion (Score:4, Interesting)

      by morari ( 1080535 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @02:06AM (#39437793) Journal

      I was always disappointed that Jack Harkness didn't stick around for more than a few episodes. Of course, I guess the character did get his own show to make up for it.

      What I really want is for the Doctor to take on a non-human companion. That would open things open a lot more, I think. Also, while we're at it, why doesn't the Doctor ever regenerate into a female form?

      • The lizard chick with the katana!
        It would be quite interesting because it adds the extra problem of non-humans milling about in human history/future.

      • Re:Male companion (Score:4, Insightful)

        by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @06:49AM (#39438725) Journal

        What I really want is for the Doctor to take on a non-human companion

        That sort of defeats the point of the companion. They exist in the show as a surrogate for the audience, someone who will ask the same questions as the audience and allow The Doctor to explain things for the benefit of the audience without breaking the fourth wall. An alien companion can work, but only if there is also a human companion.

        • by jamesh ( 87723 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @07:12AM (#39438783)

          What I really want is for the Doctor to take on a non-human companion

          That sort of defeats the point of the companion. They exist in the show as a surrogate for the audience, someone who will ask the same questions as the audience and allow The Doctor to explain things for the benefit of the audience without breaking the fourth wall. An alien companion can work, but only if there is also a human companion.

          Sci-Fi usually operates on the basis that any alien we meet will be significantly more advanced and worldy (universly?) than us mere humans, but that is because we are working on the assumption that they have arrived on our planet and therefore have accomplished space travel, which we haven't.

          That assumption doesn't necessarily hold for a Doctor companion though. He could arrive on an alien planet where the aliens are around our level of technology (and coincidentally speak english!) and it could still work. It could be a little more interesting as the alien could be asking questions about earthlings...

          Thinking about an alien companion, a Doctor Who / Star Wars crossover with Jar Jar Binks as the companion would be really cool. Especially the bit where Jar Jar gets brutally murdered 5 minutes into the episode.

          • That assumption doesn't necessarily hold for a Doctor companion though. He could arrive on an alien planet where the aliens are around our level of technology (and coincidentally speak english!) and it could still work. It could be a little more interesting as the alien could be asking questions about earthlings...

            Could be even more interesting than the human companions, who we're meant to believe are both simultaneously brilliant, able to save the universe and solve complex logic problems, but also ask a stream of mundane questions (largely so that unfamiliar concepts can be explained to a varied audience). At least with an alien visitor there would be a reason for asking questions about everyday things. They'd have to be mostly human in appearance though, as the majority of the storylines are centred around human c

          • by 1u3hr ( 530656 )

            That assumption doesn't necessarily hold for a Doctor companion though. He could arrive on an alien planet where the aliens are around our level of technology (and coincidentally speak english!) and it could still work. It could be a little more interesting as the alien could be asking questions about earthlings...

            There were several non-human companions; though all humanoid and played by humans. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companion_(Doctor_Who) [wikipedia.org]

            Leela was a "primitive" warrior woman who wore a minimal cave-girl-style outfit and was very popular back in the 70s. She had a direct and often violent way of dealing with problems. Romana was a Gallifreyan.

          • Many Sci-Fi shows operate on that premise- but there are many more that don't. Star Trek, especially later series- most aliens were more primitive than humanity.

            Don't forget the Doctor has a time machine (hard to forget that plot twist) he could go to the past of a planet that is pre-human technology.

            Aliens don't have to speak "English" the tardis automatically translates everything. They go to countries other than England- recently they were in Germany. It's DW's way of explaining why everyone can talk

    • Why can't we have a long term positive male companion?

      Because the old Dr Who had an audience the skewed heavily male, and the makers of the new series are dead-set on getting and keeping a significant number of female viewers, or die trying... That's why there's been such a heavy dose of romance in the new series.

    • Why can't we have a long term positive male companion? Yes, it's nice to look at young women, but that isn't what Doctor Who is all about. Is it going to take a female doctor before we have can have a decent male companion that isn't a coward or dies every other episode?

      (If it does require a female companion, can I vote for Emma Thompson?)

      Well they have Rory, who's been a partner of Doctor + Amy for quite a number of episodes. IMDB says 22, so discounting the pilot and the odd "remember me" episodes that's about as much as Martha Jones.

      Though perhaps that's who you meant about "dies every other episode" as he has died a number of times.

    • Why can't we have a long term positive male companion? Yes, it's nice to look at young women, but that isn't what Doctor Who is all about. Is it going to take a female doctor before we have can have a decent male companion that isn't a coward or dies every other episode?

      I think Rory really developed nicely, actually. If you look at his first adventure away from home, he's kind of like, "Why the hell am I here in this crazy place?" But later on we have some nice "crowning moments of awesome" like Rory the Roman, his time with Flesh Jennifer and his involvement in the raid on Demon's Run. He probably was never entirely comfortable going on dangerous adventures, but he learned to deal.

  • Pity about the current doctor though..... where's a decent evil dustbin when you need one.
  • Too Bad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @10:38PM (#39436655)

    Too Bad David Tennant doesn't want to act the Doctor anymore, Matt isn't bad, & does eventually grow on you but David is and in my opinion the best Doctor of the newer series.

    • Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Interesting)

      by apharmdq ( 219181 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @10:50PM (#39436749)

      Tennant ran around and yelled a bit too much for my taste. Eccleston felt far more like the classic Doctors, in that he was more of thinker than a man of action. I definitely preferred Eccleston to Tennant. (Though Tennant does look dashing, and has some great moments.) I haven't gotten to Matt Smith yet, but from what a few friends of mine have told me, his Doctor is a lot closer to the classic Doctors, which is something I really liked. (FYI, my favorite Doctor is still the 7th, though I thought each one brought something unique to the table.) In any case, I have a feeling Tennant would have gone over a little better if it weren't for Russel T. Davies' writing style. But I guess I shouldn't complain, as RTD did bring the show back from the dead after all.

      • Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Interesting)

        by geminidomino ( 614729 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @01:25AM (#39437615) Journal

        . Eccleston felt far more like the classic Doctors, in that he was more of thinker than a man of action. I definitely preferred Eccleston to Tennant.

        And here I thought I was alone in the world. (My brothers still mock me for it)

        • Re:Too Bad (Score:5, Insightful)

          by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @06:52AM (#39438731) Journal
          No, you're not alone. Tennant and Smith both seem more like self-parody (although there's some precedent for that in Doctor Who). I still enjoy their performances, but Eccleston was the only one who made me believe he was almost a thousand years old. Tennant and Smith seem like the Midlife Crisis Doctor - next thing you know he'll paint the TARDIS red...
          • I think Smith could have made a much better doctor if he'd been given the role ten years later. I don't understand the need for ever younger doctors, I'd like to see a return to an older actor with more gravitas. I really liked Tenant, but mainly because he brought something different to the role, I don't want that approach to become the norm.
            • The younger actors sort-of make sense. When The Doctor was young, he was played by old actors because very young people usually try to seem more grownup than they are. Now that he's over a thousand, he wants to seem younger, so he regenerates into a younger-looking body. On the other hand, it needs to be a young actor who can pull off the whole looking 20 while being over 1000 thing, which I don't really think Matt Smith can do very well.
          • No, you're not alone. Tennant and Smith both seem more like self-parody (although there's some precedent for that in Doctor Who).

            Personally I feel like the 2005 series started out with a heavy dose of self-parody (the initial Auton story, then the Earth's destruction story right after were both loaded with this - "New Earth" and the space station from "The Long Game" were pretty heavily loaded with this as well), and it's mostly just in the Matt Smith years that it's emerged from that. Some of that in the Tennant years was just holdovers from Eccleston (like "New Earth", Cassandra as the ultimate expression of plastic surgery gone t

      • by ProppaT ( 557551 )

        Ehh, Matt Smith is more like Tennant's quirky, ugly brother. They're not too far apart in acting styles, although Smith does get a little more introspective than Tennant did. The only way Smith is more like the old Doctors is the fact that he dresses more like an old Doctor.

    • by skine ( 1524819 )

      Tennant was a theatrical doctor.

      Which really should be considered a contradiction in character.

    • My wife is still pissed Tennant left.

  • by dimeglio ( 456244 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @10:47PM (#39436723)

    I think the doctor would be quite happy with his new partner. Just saw a picture and she's quite pretty. I'll miss Karen of course...

    • by pseudofrog ( 570061 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @10:49PM (#39436739)
      I still miss Donna.

      Are those torches I see over the horizon?
      • Re:Lucky Doctor (Score:5, Insightful)

        by stonedcat ( 80201 ) <hikaricore [at] gmail.com> on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:04PM (#39436845) Homepage

        Donna always made my skin crawl.. I kinda wanted to strangle her.

        • Dropping hints early on in the series that she was going to die seemed like it was going to be great for ratings. We all wanted to watch it to make certain that we didn't miss that. And then in the finale she didn't die. Such a shame...
        • Absolutely. Couldn't stand her. I remember the first episode she was in thinking- oh god don't make her a companion.

          Then they didn't... and then... they did!

          She is one of the most annoying human beings ever.

      • Re:Lucky Doctor (Score:5, Insightful)

        by FPhlyer ( 14433 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:10PM (#39436881) Homepage

        Absolutely. Catherine Tate was brilliant as Donna Noble and really helped to balance Tennant's interpretation of the Doctor.

        I'm hoping that a new full-time companion for Matt Smith's Doctor will enable us to see a different side to the Doctor than the current "Mad Man in a Box." It would be nice to see a more serious side to the Doctor a little more often.

      • Donna? Well, I guess interesting != hot. YMMV. But, all said, not a wrong sentiment.
      • by type40 ( 310531 )

        Here's to the best temp in Chiswick.
        (Raises a bottle of WhiteOut)

    • Re:Lucky Doctor (Score:5, Informative)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:21PM (#39436957)

      I think the doctor would be quite happy with his new partner. Just saw a picture and she's quite pretty. I'll miss Karen of course...

      You didn't see that picture on the first link of this submission. Why on earth would the submitter think the best link for this actress, Jenna-Louise Coleman, would be a photo-less Wikipedia page?

      Actually I believe I know the answer. Said Wikipedia page was created yesterday (seriously - check the history). He actually created the Wikipedia page when he submitted the Slashdot story!

      Now, for you slightly more normal readers... here is her IMDB page [imdb.com].

    • Re:Lucky Doctor (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cyclomedia ( 882859 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @05:28AM (#39438461) Homepage Journal

      Clearly I'm the only Martha Jones fan around here.

      • No, Martha was good. I was a bit surprised at how much I enjoyed Rose. When I heard they'd cast Billie Piper, I fully expected the show to suck. Martha Jones was slightly jarring at first because they introduced her straight after the episode where she'd played another character, but once you got past that, she was great: one of the few characters (Nissa probably being the best other examples) who could keep up with the doctor and match his intellect. Then there was Donna, a stupid annoying chavette.
  • I hate to say it... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @10:59PM (#39436811) Homepage

    ...but the last season of Doctor Who stunk so bad that I almost completely lost interest.

    When Steven Moffat was first announced as the new show-runner, he gave a bunch of interviews about how the best Doctor Whos were the old ones where things were scary, and all these plans he had that sounded really great and like he could save the show from the worst aspects of Russell T. Davies' cloying writing.

    Well, scrap all that, because he gave us an even younger Doctor, companions straight out of Australian soaps, even more of Davies' deus ex machina solutions, even more of the Doctor waving his sonic screwdriver around like it's Harry Potter's want (they destroyed it in the old show for a reason), incomprehensible stories full of characters you can't identify and don't care about, and he actually made the Doctor the sidekick in his own show. I never really got to the point where I thought New Who was better than the original, but now I think it's really much, much worse than the old shows, warts, cheap budgets and all.

    • by FPhlyer ( 14433 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:23PM (#39436965) Homepage

      Series 5 and 6 of the new Who actually did something that Doctor Who has needed for a long time: it made time travel an important plot point in several of the stories. Time travel has obviously been an important part of Doctor Who, a story about a time traveler, since it began in '63, but usually time travel has been used as a plot device to get the Doctor into a dramatic situation. Steven Moffat has taken time travel and made the paradoxes an important part of the story itself.

      Unfortunately, Moffat has failed to resolve any of these dramatic time travel story lines in a way that makes any sense. He uses time travel as a device to get out of a sticky plot complication without worrying about if it makes any logical sense. The finale of Season 5 illustrates this: The future doctor goes back in time and gives Rory the sonic so that Rory can free the Doctor so the Doctor can go forward in time so that he can go back in time to give Rory the sonic... The only way that I can digest that poorly thought out resolution to the problem of getting the Doctor out of "the perfect prison" is to shake my head and let it slide because I like Doctor Who. But seriously... couldn't the writing staff of the series come up with a better resolution than that?

      • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22, 2012 @12:03AM (#39437183)

        It's wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. I'd much rather have that than any of RTD's resolutions. Moffat may in fact be a time traveler himself, though. That, or he has seriously been thinking about this show his entire life. In the mid-90s, he was posting messages on Usenet [google.com] about plot points he'd later actually bring to the show.

    • ...but the last season of Doctor Who stunk so bad that I almost completely lost interest.

      Funny you should mention it. Last year they officially renamed the show "Doctor Who Stunk So Bad That I Almost Completely Lost Interest" and collected huge product placement fees from a deodorant company until they realized no one noticed the change.

  • Wot? I'd just gotten used to the ginger one already!

    • When I saw the headline "New Doctor Who Companion" my first thought was "Wow! Who is replacing Matt Smith as Karen's companion?"

  • by NotQuiteReal ( 608241 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:08PM (#39436873) Journal
    [fingers-in-ears] + "nananananaaaanaaanaaanaaa" (I can't hear you).

    No "spoilers", please! What with this modern age, and all, we don't all live in "real time". If some entertainment is worth experiencing, it will be for a while, and not everyone can experience it at the same time.

    Currently, I am watching "The Doctor", and "Emilia Pond" (with "Rory")... Don't confuse me with actors names, I don't want to NOT "suspend belief" to geek out about the (real life) details that don't affect me. I am not in the TV biz, this is just entertainment for me.

    Sometimes watching "dead" series like "Firefly" (or whatever) is nicer, since you know there IS an end.

    Another show I enjoy, "Breaking Bad" will have a final season, that THE SHOW CREATORS know is the end, so they get to create a satisfactory story too, I hope.

    Are "fans" of any serial really good for an on-going work of "art"? Maybe a complete story is, by definition, better than an unfinished story?
    • by pseudofrog ( 570061 ) on Wednesday March 21, 2012 @11:15PM (#39436919)
      I "agree".
    • No "spoilers", please! What with this modern age, and all, we don't all live in "real time". If some entertainment is worth experiencing, it will be for a while, and not everyone can experience it at the same time.

      The last episode of Dr Who was about 6 months ago.
      I don't know if there is an ISO standard for spoilers, but i can't imagine that it would mandate general internet silence for 6 months.

      /The last Christmas special didn't really advance the overall story line

    • by Zaatxe ( 939368 )

      Currently, I am watching "The Doctor", and "Emilia Pond"

      I'm still on "Rose Tyler" stage, you insensitive clod!

  • by Karmashock ( 2415832 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @12:20AM (#39437263)

    I don't mean to troll so if this offends anyone that is unintentional. But I really don't "get" the show.

    I like science fiction but Dr Who just seems to be endless deus ex machina. His "sonic screwdriver" can apparently do just about anything except when it's not convenient and then it's inexplicably useless. There's no logic or reason to anything. Everything seems to happen almost at random. And while some might argue that's part of the fun of it the show pales in comparison to shows like Red Dwarf that were also very random but at least had an internal logic that remained consistent to itself at least for an episode or two.

    I just don't get Dr Who... I've tried to understand it... I've probably watched a couple seasons of it and I always walk away rolling my eyes.

    I suppose I genuinely like the "Angels" while they don't make any more sense then anything else they at least create great suspense on the screen so the episodes are always fun. But the rest... It's just sad.

    I get that the show was started in the dark ages of television but so were a lot of shows can concepts that have since been updated so they're not quiet so embarrassing.

    As I said, I don't mean to troll... if I offend I'm sorry... I just don't get the show. It make me a lot happier if they make some effort to make sense... even in the abstract. If they made sense but it was highly complex or philosophical that would be okay as well. But as it stands, I'm pretty sure any brain power spent trying to make the plots make sense is wasted.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22, 2012 @12:58AM (#39437463)

      It's better to treat Dr. Who as "science fantasy" rather than as "science fiction". That is, it might present some scientific concepts every once in a while, but if you're depending on the science to be realistic, forget it. You're a bit more likely to find philosophical commentary (as in "Genesis of the Daleks", where the Time Lords send the Doctor to genocide the Daleks, and he asks whether he has the right to do it, even KNOWING for a FACT how evil they are, and what horrible deeds they are known to have committed in the future).

      Star Trek makes more pretense to be science fiction, but it's always handwaving and doing bogus things, too. If you want hard science fiction, look for books by authors such as Larry Niven or David Brin.

    • by Xest ( 935314 )

      You're not alone, I always found the new Doctor Who series to be a pile of shit, despite having watched it since I was a kid, and having spent many hours when I was young watching even the black and white episodes from before I was born.

      I've just found the new series' painful since they revived it, the acting is horrendous, the storylines seem shit, the costumes and effects just look pathetic.

      Of course it's all down to personal tastes, so if many people love it then so what? But IMO it's a far cry from the

    • by dkf ( 304284 )

      And while some might argue that's part of the fun of it the show pales in comparison to shows like Red Dwarf that were also very random but at least had an internal logic that remained consistent to itself at least for an episode or two.

      Red Dwarf's internal logic was very consistent, but did involve Lister's breakfast and "brown alert". Don't think about it.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I'd like to have seen Jaime Murray appear in the series, maybe as a companion from future. I also hope they do more historical fiction.

  • by MMC Monster ( 602931 ) on Thursday March 22, 2012 @06:04AM (#39438571)

    Answer the question we all want to know:

    When is The Amy Pond Show coming back?

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