Watched the series (“season” in American) finale of Doctor Who, featuring the farewell of Christopher Eccleston and arrival of David Tennant as the Doctor.
Bittersweet, as a big, suitably epic climactic episode, revealing some, though not all, of the machinations that have gone on this series, complete with sacrifice and heroism and death and destruction and redemption and …
Well, great stuff.
The only problem I had with the series was that, with a limited number of episodes (what was it, 13?), and some of those being two-parters or direct plot links to previous eps, it all felt like it built to a climax too quickly, too straightforwardly. A big plot that lasts too little a time becomes cheapened by so doing. That said, the idea of shorter stories but an overarching arc, worked well.
As to the change, I will seriously miss Eccleston. But my biggest question now is, when does Series 2 start airing here in the States?
On the other hand, I hope folks will forgive me for getting Katherine hooked on the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon.
Running in the evil that was the 1980s cartoon era, D&D was goofy, stupid, and a horrible waste of time, but I was riveted to it because, well, it was a fantasy cartoon, and it involved D&D. So what if I was a college grad? So what if the powers were stupid (and never ever ever used offensively, to hurt someone)? So what if the episodes were hackneyed and the few bits of “arc” were cliched even then? It was a fantasy cartoon about D&D, fergoshsakes. I’d have watched something five times worse (and probably did).
Anyway, I spotted it in the DVR menu while looking for something else, and I started recording it on a whim. And Katherine just loves it. Go figure.
Mark Evanier, one of the series “developers,” has some fine creator insights into the show (including why the team had that PitA Eric along with them). And then there’s the rumored “Final Episode” of the series, written by show scriptwriter Michael Reeves, but never actually produced.
1. No idea how comments got turned off on this post. Mutter mutter mutter …
2. Forgot to add that in the rendition of the D&D cartoons currently running, they’ve replaced the main titles with something that uses most of the old main titles (with a few additions), but replaces the music and narration with something else. Which is just weird.
3. Julia (SFAD) notes (after pointing out that my comments were closed, dagnabbit):
Not so much into the whole torrent thing. I’ll (impatiently) wait. 🙂
From what I have seen, Tennant is going to be a great Doctor (a little more traditional than Eccleston was). But I have only seen one episode. I, too, will hold my breath and wait…and hope SciFi (or someone) has the brains to show the next season.
They can’t quit now! I’ve finally gotten my son hooked on it!!
As for the D&D cartoon, we watched an episode of that a while back with the kids….holy crap was that bad. We used to LOVE that cartoon. It’s kinda like trying to go back and eat the breakfast cereal you loved as a kid and finding it tastes awful.
Eagerly awaiting my Series 1 DVDs early next month.
And, yes, D&D was irksome even then — but, heck, I used to watch the craptastic Buck Rogers show, and that was simply dreadful as well. We sf/fantasy folks have gotten horribly spoiled since then with some splendid cartoons and series.