I had an interesting discussion with an author friend of mine who is currently writing some books for the Star Wars people (due out in the next couple months).
He has contacts inside the BBC as he was trying to see whether or not he would bother writing a Doctor Who novel and one of the people in the drama department stated that the major problem with ANY new movie or series involving Doctor Who is the gaining of new fans. How do we explain what the Doctor is, time lords, Daleks, regeneration. To someone who has never seen the series before to suddenly be confronted with someone called "The 9th Doctor" by everyone, he'd be sitting there going "9th?? Huh??".
Of course then, if they tried to a huge cabbage episode (where the Doctor sits down with soon-to-be-companion and spells out every last detail), the regular fans will jump on the internet and whinge and moan about how the pilot insults our intelligence. He said it was too fine a line.

Thoughts, people?

As a regular intelligent fan I would love to see a new Doctor Who episode, even a "cabbage" one, especially if it were the first in a new series (that kept the continuity of the old one).

Besides, I started watching the series with the 4th Doctor. I didn't know there were others until after I had been watching it for years. When I found out about regeneration (after tuning in to "Castrovalva" a few mintues late and suddenly Peter Davison was playing the Doctor), I picked up on the concept without too much problem.


I think a show like Doctor Who attracts fans who are intelligent enough to get the concept.

I have to agree. Very few of us became fans of Dr Who with the Unearthly Child, especially non UK fans. I became a fan at the beginning of Tom's second season. I didn't have a clue about the past history of the show. The stories were good, that's why I liked it.

If the new fans wan't to know why he flys around in a blue box they could always go to that handy dandy internet.

We should set up a site- "Doctor Who For Dummies"!

Have this huge FAQ section! Oooooh the possibilities!

BTW- have to agree with both of you. I didn't join in until "Dragonfire" as a regular. Fortunately I had a friend who was well versed in Who to provide the answers to my questions.

Not a bad idea. At the end of the new show they could put up FAQ website address before rolling the credits.

Yeah - this sounds more like a pathetic excuse than an insurmountable obstacle. (And since when have the BBC given a toss about fans whinging on-line?) Just have a really good first episode in which McGann roams the universe doing Doctorish stuff, during which time he acquires a new Companion to whom he can explain a few basics ('Hi, I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and this is my TARDIS, which stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, don't believe anyone who says it's "dimension".' There...how tricky could that be?). Or, if the BBC are s t u p i d enough to want a new, non-McGann Doctor, just do the same with him (or her) - just don't repeat the telemovie's mistake of bothering with a regeneration scene. Once the series has taken off they can always do a flashback episode to explain the regeneration. And at some point they can always do a multiple Doctor story to make existing fans happy, whilst explaining stuff to new ones and hopefully inspiring them to buy up the entire Tom Baker era, for a start.

The problem is though, Emily, that there is SO MUCH back story and so many little bits of information. Two hearts, regeneration, Gallifrey, The Master, Daleks, cybermen, sontarans....everytime one of the old villans turns up we have to get a cabbage scene. As soon as that happens either a) Fans will go "duuuh- like we didn't know that" or b) Others will pull out all novels and textbooks and debunk everything the Doctor says and accuse the BBC of distorting the history of Who.
I will, however, agree that McGann should make an appearance, as should the other Doctors. In fact, dagnabit, I want McGann to BE the Doctor in the new series.
I don't think it is a "pathetic excuse" at all, I think it is a genuine concern of a production house that doesn't want to blow ANOTHER chance to ressurect the series.

They could just do an encyclopedia type definition of anything they think we should know before the show starts, accompanied by pictures/clips. A kind of flashback for Dr. Who fans and an intro for newcommers.

Yes, and the first clip they should show is the scene where the Doctor says, "I'm half human," and they should immediately cut to Paul McGann as the Doctor standing by the TARDIS console (I don't care which one) and he should look out to the audience and say, "I was only joking. I'm a full-blooded Timelord!"

*Wistful sigh* Nice idea, Chris. And an intro programme would be wonderful, though not absolutely necessary, as I don't believe the Doctor would do a 'cabbage scene' every time an old enemy turned up. In Genesis of the Daleks, Tom Baker didn't feel the need to announce 'Wow, back on good old Skaro. KALEDS, eh? I thought you were called Daals...and what the heck do you mean a thousand year war, you told me it was all over in a day!' Likewise Earthshock - in an era when the past of the programme was perhaps overstressed - had the Doctor say (unnecessarily) 'I confined them to their ice tombs on Telos' but also showed some some adorable clips of past Doctors that totally enhanced the story. It did NOT have the Doctor announcing 'Look kids, this is what happens if you have too much plastic surgery - these are the inhabitants of Mondas, Earth's identical twin planet which was sucked from its orbit and wandered the universe until it returned to get blown up, whereupon I became a cosmic hobo.'

As for 'two hearts, regeneration, Gallifrey' - what's the problem? These facts could all be covered in a line or two of dialogue, not that this would be a particularly good idea - we could wait till the Doctor gets knocked out for his Companion to notice his double pulse, and we could wait till he gets severely injured (or for a past Doctor to turn up) before he mentions the possibility of regeneration (might add a bit of tension for the really new-and-ignorant-and-thick fans to leave them thinking that he might get killed at any time, and not get up five minutes later with a new body). As for Gallifrey, it could either be mentioned casually in passing - it would hardly require a big Timelash-style 'All 500 of us?' info-dump - or the Doctor's homeworld could be left nameless for a while. After all, fans originally had to wait till The Time Warrior to hear the word 'Gallifrey', and the planet works a hell of a lot more effectively as the mystery at the centre of universal history (as in Christmas on a Rational Planet, Adventuress of Henrietta Street, The Book of the War) than as a real, named, place full of doddering male chauvinists in big collars (Deadly Assassin, Invasion of Time, Arc of Infinity, etc etc).

How do we explain what the Doctor is,
time lords, Daleks, regeneration. To someone who has never seen the series before to suddenly be
confronted with someone called "The 9th Doctor" by everyone, he'd be sitting there going "9th?? Huh??".

Has anyone read Doctor Who: Regeneration by Philip Segal and Gary Russell? I really enjoyed reading this book; it describes the long road from the cancellation of the series to the final production of the Paul McGann movie. During the process, they had three different scripts (and writers) and I think it's basically because Segal (the producer) was tired of fighting Fox and Universal and the BBC that we ended up with the script that's in the movie. But ... that's another topic entirely.

What I mean to say is that the first story concept idea was by John Leekley, who created this nice leather bound book with what he wanted to do with the movie and what was hoped the eventual series. This thing is called "The Leekley Bible" and basically what it does is recreate the entire series, sort of what Rodney's friend seemed to think was necessary. Reinventing the story meant that the Doctor was suddenly going around in his TARDIS searching for his long lost father Ulysses. It made Borusa the Doctor's GRANDFATHER who had used up his regenerations and now resided in the TARDIS ... it also made the Doctor and the Master half-brothers (silly silly silly).

Well, I don't have the book with me right now, but it's interesting to see what would have happened had this Leekley Bible gone through ... I've just described to you the most rigorous aspects of the reinvention, which are, in my opinion, pretty ridiculous, but there were some that seemed more reasonable and actually kind of interesting. If anyone's interested, I can describe more of what Leekley wanted to do. (BTW,I hope you all haven't heard this before!)

I think, no, I KNOW that anyone who ever started watching a tv series in it's second, third, fourth, or tenth season ran the risk of learning new things as he or she watched it. To expect everyone to have seen everything from 'An Unearthly Child' onwards would either mean the audience was made up of people 50+ or simply fans who have seen the videos, and are ardent viewers.
To say a new show isn't possible because of such a storehouse of background material is absolutely, mind-numbingly poppycock. When I started watching in 1974 or so, I didn't have knowledge of the Cybermen, Jamie, Susan, nor many, many other things. I learned about them, and the past by viewings over the years, and any new audience, if they so chose to learn more about the Master or K-9 need only rent a DVD or read any number of books about Dr.Who. If they don't, then so what? They'll enjoy whatever form the new series would take.
And my choice would be for McGann, too. I'm in no hurry for the Ninth Doctor, whoever that is, to show up.
And lastly, wasn't the whole purpose of McGann's movie to introduce new viewers to the series? It accomplished that, and we still didn't get a new series or movies out of it.
The BBC is just plain cheap, and can't recognize one of the best things to come out of it.

I just started watching Dr. Who last year, and I started with the Tom Baker era, though I've been focusing on Patrick Troughton lately, so I've been seeing a LOT of episodes that mention previous episodes I've never seen. Frankly, its not much of a problem...

Well, I guess the title of the boards wrong. Looks like there MAY be a new series going into production - see www.bbc.co.uk

Guess it'll be getting a saturday evening timeslot if it does come back - even if only the core fans watch it, it'll still get higher ratings than most things on then.
Here's hoping.

Don't give me that 'may' rubbish! He's BACK!!!!

HE'S BACK HE'S BACK MY DOCTOR IS BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!

*Strenuously tries to avoid saying 'And it's about time*

*Fails*

AND IT'S ABOUT ******* TIME!

What I want to know is when we poor Yanks will get to see it.

Wow! I'm speechless! It's going to be a long 2 years (or more for us Yanks).

Hey, I was trying not to sound too hopeful. There's a long way between an announcement and actually sitting down to watch the first episode.

But, you're right Emily. Really is about time.

I'm trying to keep my hopes down, rather than up. Remember how excited we all got about the Fox TV movie?

It would be nice if they kept McGann, but some of the other names I saw being kicked around looked good (Patrick Stewart?!?!)

It also seems there are three possibilities here:

(1) Total reboot. Don't know how I feel about this; the success rate in the comic book world has been hit and miss.

(2) Continued continuity. I think this is almost impossible at this point, though they could manage to salvage just the UK TV continuity. But is it worth it?

(3) Doctor Who--the Next Generation. Hey, it worked in Star Trek; don't ignore the continuity, but don't make it your central concern. And, to be honest, at lot of the original Who stories work just fine when removed from continuity (which is the test for good writing).

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/09_september/26/dr_who.shtml

"Although I'm only in the early stages of development, I'm aiming to write a full-blooded drama which embraces the Doctor Who heritage, at the same time as introducing the character to a modern audience."

Well, I better start that campaign to see if I can get cast as the new Doctor...

According to the U.K papers, the 10th Doctor is likely to be Alan Davies, so Chris, it seems that your campaign is doomed....

While there's life there's hope... it's better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all... if you only had one shot, wouldn't you take it?


Does this mean Richard E. Grant's ninth Doctor is canon?

Who's Alan Davies?

Do the papers actually say that the series features the "tenth" Doctor? or just the "next"?

Alan Davies is a British actor and comedian. You can see him here.

I'm sorry folks- I won't believe there is a new series until my eyes lock onto the opening credits of a new episode. What's so different about THIS new series from the hundred million other "new series" stories? When it appears, then I'll cheer, until then I'll adopt Emily-like cynicism in regards to this.

Emily is currently wandering around with tear-filled eyes and an imbecilic grin, drooling and emitting the occasional giggle. I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for cynicism for the time being.

The BBC have issued a press release promising us six episodes of a new series of Who on Saturdays on BBC1 written by Russell T Davies. THAT'S the difference. If they go back on their word then, naturally, appropriate action will have to be taken (massacring the entire BBC hierarchy, perhaps?) but until then I'm gonna be happy, happy, HAPPY!

Well, don't forget that time that the BBC announced that Doctor Who would be back as a big TVM and issued press releases giving the date and time of transmission... then cancelled it a week later and denied it had ever existed.

(Okay, it was for The Dark Dimension, but even so...)

JUST 6 episodes? Each 23 to 25 minutes long? I'd think that'd make it one story. The BBC just can't get it right, can they? They just can't accept that there's a MASSIVE fan base out there, ready to bring in new fans (I'm picturing Emily kidnapping her neighbours and locking them in a Room With No Doors, but a tv showing new Who).
Still, I like the look of this Alan Davies. He's got potential, and won't need a wig.

Relax, everyone, it's still over a year away. A lot can change, both positively and negatively.

As previously stated "Emily is currently wandering around with tear-filled eyes and an imbecilic grin, drooling and emitting the occasional giggle". This has nothing to do with the announcement; it's her normal state ;)

Any return should do what the best stories do - get right in there and tell an interesting tale. The show's history can be used as a mild seasoning to the main course of the new story but it should never swamp the taste. If people are interested they will always look into the history of the programme and, given that its target market is Britain this time, almost everyone there is aware of the central tenets of the show anyway.

Graham - my feelings are deeply, DEEPLY hurt, but I console myself that, well, better that than wearing a cork-covered hat, saying G'day Mate a lot and calling everyone Bruce...

Reluctantly, I'd agree that the series shouldn't have much continuity, though obviously I hope that it refrains from contradicting anything we've heard before from the TV programme, audios and books (admittedly this would be difficult, not to say impossible).

Will - I'm assuming each episode will be at least 40 minutes long (they'd bloody BETTER be, anyway). That's the usual for telefantasy these days, isn't it?

Soaps and children's programmes are the only multi-part dramas on the BBC these days that still run to 25/30 minutes. Everything else is 50 minutes. There was a flurry of 30-minute dramas in the mid-1990s (Cardiac Arrest, Neverwhere, etc.) but not recently.

I would hope that if Doctor Who does end up as a series of 50 minute episodes then the serial format is retained. I'm not sure that 50 minutes is enough time to tell a Doctor Who story properly and the 2-part serial seems to be quite a popular BBC format at the moment.

I really have no attachment to the serial format; in fact, I've found that it's probably one of the worst things about classic Who. I've noticed that it really stands out when the novels try to maintain the multiple climax format.

Now, two parts of 50 minutes would be just fine. That's almost movie length.

I'm positively giddy myself. This has been the best ray of hope in a very long time.

I am a little disconcerted that it will be produced by BBC Wales, though. WIll they have the budget to do a good series?

Yeah - what IS it with this BBC Wales thing? I didn't even know there WAS a BBC Wales...

The Wet Blanket, for anyone's who's interested, is Daniel, who managed to completely ruin the happiest day of my life by whinging 'may never happen' down the phone at me for several hours.

There's rumours of EIGHT fifty-minute episodes!! EIGHT!!!! Trouble with Who, though, is that even the old four (23-minute) episodes were generally padded. Three to three-and-a-half (old) episodes would have been the ideal length, meaning that one story being over in a fifty-minute episode will be too short (and probably have that pointless feeling that all the old two-parters had) and two fifty-minute episodes stuck together to make a story will require a LOT of corridor-running in the middle. (Not that I'm complaining! I'm looking forward to the corridor-running too!)

And the gravel pits! 99% of the planets out there have gravel pits!

50 minute episodes... I'm feeling very nostalgic for season 22.

And Emily wins the cuddly toy.

She wins Colin Baker?

Personally, here's my top 5 reasons why the new series will bomb-

5) First episodes billed as "the Doctor faces off against his two deadliest foes- The Rani and The Bannermen!"

4) Script Editors- Pip and Jane Baker

3) TV Guide reads "The Doctor reaquaints himself with old companion Mel"

2) Series Producer has a penchant for Hawaiian shirts

and the number 1 reason the series will bomb.....


1) Episode 1 written by MICK LEWIS!!!

Rodney, I give you my word that Mick Lewis won't be writting the first episode. However long I have to spend in jail, I will take the necessary action to prevent this happening.

Do I understand out of all this that they're considering restarting DW next year in the UK? That would make sense, it is where 90% of the fan base is and Graham's right, everyone there knows what a TARDIS is or a Dalek. But how to get it to the US? Mike's ST: Next Gen concept is valid. You don't have to be a slave to continuity to make a new follow-on series. You can watch Enterprise (the newest ST incarnation) without knowing much of anything, and a few words here and there would fill in badly-needed explanations about regeneration, Cybermen, the High Council, etc.

Mandy-- visit http://www.gallifreyone.com for details.

As to when it might reach the US, no telling. I would hope that the BBC realizes how popular it is over here, and makes some sort of arrangement (are you listening, SciFi Channel??).

I'd like to point out that most the continuity we "know" about the Doctor is from the latter half of the series; the early years (and arguably the most popular) were very secretive about the Doctor and his past.

Apparently Tom Baker said yesterday that Eddie Izzard should get the job.

I think Ed would do a good job - he's got the right amount of flambouyancy but can act straight too.

Probably time to delete or archive this out-of-date topic, wouldn't you say?

I vote for archiving not deleting. Might be good for laughs in a few years, or for I-told-you-sos when we start a "Why there shouldn't have been a new series" topic.

(Joking. I'm not really that pesimistic.)

I like to think of this thread as a monument to the spirit of "never say never."

Well this has been an interesting re-read...
All in all, the BBC did an excellent job of introducing the series (or really two, with DWConfidential, which is how they overcame many of the problems mentioned) without overloading it.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Yes, most instructive. One doesn't just get immense pleasure out of pointing and jeering at Rodney's friend, one also has to shake one's head at one's own inanities ('if the BBC are s t u p i d enough to want a new, non-McGann Doctor...' - well how was I to know their new Doctor would be better than Tom Baker??? Such a thing is PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!) and smirk in a superior way at one's own naivity (imagine getting excited at the thought of SIX Who episodes when it's now GUARANTEED that our lives are to be blessed with no less than FORTY ONE glorious miracles!!!!!)

God, I still can't believe there's been a new series of Who. And that it was better than I could possibly have imagined. Life just doesn't work like this.

I can assure you Emily that much pointing and jeering at my friend has taken place.

This is a really funny thread to come back and read. ;-)

People, I thought I would just bring this topic back into the light reading everyone's (including my own) rather funny pre-new series comments....

Isn't it time to retire this thread?

We could retitle it "Why there won't be a new series after 2013" I suppose...

We're not retiring it! We're not renaming it! This thread stays EXACTLY AS IT IS as a monument to our Glorious Triumph and the stupidity of Rodney's Friend...

To be absolutely honest, the disbelieving thrill of sheer wonder I got on a daily basis for the first few years after Who came back has kinda worn off by now, but just glancing at this thread title always brings it back...

In fact, Nitcentral should probably have an official Day Of Joy on 26th March each year, when we come here to gloat, and to point and jeer at Rodney's Friend.

I totally agree with Emily.
It's a piece of Our Nitcentral History, and should remain as is.
To delete it would be like throwing youtr old Doctor Who Magazines from 1990 onwards into the fire, just because we've moved on from them and they're full of New Who Series to be produced / No New Who series in the future articles.
Stick to your guns, Emily! This thread is good for a laugh and a pityying shake of the head to any non-believers from that time, myself included.

I wasn't suggesting deleting it, merely moving it into an "Old Threads" section.

I rearranged things a while back and we don't have an Old Threads section here any more.

Did they come apart at the seams?

*Groan*

Nine years.

Five Doctors.

One hundred and four episodes.

Happy anniversary, Rodney's Friend!

A few days ago was the 10th anniversary of the announcement.

Sad to report that he is no longer my friend. Apparently he didn't like my political views.....

As someone privy to my Facebook posts, you can imagine I've been unfriended several times myself.

But your guy had no faith in the Doctor...

Emily better not know where this fellow lives. She might want him burned for blasphemy.

Of course I WANT him burned for blasphemy, but I'd never actually DO it. This is one of the many things that makes Who Fans so utterly superior to other varieties of god-botherers.

I mean, we haven't even burned Pamela Nash alive. THAT'S what amazingly mericful human beings we are.

I don't even know who Pamela Nash is- let alone want to burn her....

PS- He never lost faith in the Doctor, but in the organisational skills of the BBC, and let's be honest- at the time, who could blame him? Hindsight is always 20/20 but when he told me this it was after a string of yes then no statements from them.

Pamela Nash had the great misfortune of being the officer responsible for the junking of old BBC Enterprises telerecordings that were deemed to have passed their sell-by date, and therefore gets blamed by overexcitable fans for the non-existence of much black-and-white Who, even though the real fault lies with the people who signed off on wiping the master tapes several years earlier.

Also this was a matter of policy at a time when archive TV was literally worse than worthless. The people who wiped classic kids TV series like 'Bod' in the effing mid-1990s!!!! have no such excuse, but since these didn't feature either William Hartnell or Patrick Troughton as an eccentric time traveller, Who fans are much more sanguine about it.

Pamela Nash is probably dead by now. Remember how poor Caroline John's death wasn't announced until after her funeral because of the fear of it being gatecrashed by wackjob fans?

---
The people who wiped classic kids TV series like 'Bod' in the effing mid-1990s!!!! have no such excuse
---
They wiped Bod?
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

Please tell me Fingerbobs survived!

Although I bet every flipping episode of East-bloomin-Enders is in the archives somewhere...

Allegedly they only wiped the Alberto Frog segments.

I heard the 1990s wipings were due to a loss of funding for digital transfers.

It was mostly childrens & schools programmes lost.

Day of the Doctor was the most-watched drama on BBC Television last year.

Gods, I LIKE lobbing rotten tomatoes in the direction of Rodney's Friend...

"Russell said 'we could get 10 years out of this'.

Bless!

Tenth Anniversary, Lack Thereof

All I get is an 'Internal Server Error' when I click on that link.

OK, try it again now...

Tch. They should know that the obvious time for a 10th anniversary special is about a month after the 9th anniversary!

Now now. Since then the human race has got MUCH better at counting and we got our fiftieth anniversary story beamed simultaneously in 3D to about fifty billion different countries (look, I didn't say I'd got much better at counting) ON THE ACTUAL FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY.

Alright, so it wasn't much GOOD but hey, you can't have everything.

Happy tenth anniversary of New Who, Rodney's Friend!

*Attempts to do celebratory dance*

*Fails*

Let it go Em.....

Maybe by our twentieth anniversary.

yeah right....

I DO hope you're referring to my chances of ever letting a grudge go rather than New Who's chances of making it to twenty years.

Tell you what - I'll stop on our sixteenth anniversary. The Sixteen Short And Glorious Years Of Happiness after The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair...

At the rate that everyone keeps bitching about it, it may not make it to the twentieth anniversary. Fans killed the original series, they'll do the same to the new one.

Fans killed the original series, they'll do the same to the new one.

That's odd, I thought it was Michael Grade and his successors at the Bonehead Broadcasting Corporation that did that.

Hear, hear.

Fans saved it when they tried to destroy Who in '85. And you can't blame Fans for accusing Who of being total rubbish at a time Who WAS total rubbish.

And Who is approximately the BBC's most valuable franchise (especially now Top Gear's a goner, tee hee). They're not gonna set fire to millions of quid just because of a bit of Fan whinging.

As long as Who pulls in excellent ratings, it's safe. I predict the Doctor is gonna be with us for a long time. That is why the Moff gave him a new regeneration cycle.

The more like;y scenario is that while 2005 Who won't last as long as 1963 Who did, there will be many future incarnations of DW itself.

It was a bit ironic that in the 1980s that the production team seemed to try almost too hard to include things that would appeal to long term fans, but had the effect of putting some casual viewers off watching it, as they were getting confused with too many back references to episodes made years before.

I'd just like to inform Rodney's Friend that tonight is our one-hundredth New Who story.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Ah yes but according to Kate and Judi, it's on its last legs, has shoddy scripts, predictable characters and even worse acting so it should be axed forthwith....

I will concede on the last legs part...

Multiple choice time!

Q: When they point out "shoddy scripts, predictable characters and even worse acting" what are Doctor Who fans trying to achieve?

a) The cancellation of the series;
b) An improvement in the quality of scripts, characterisation and acting; or,
c) Nothing particular. Criticism is an autonomous act that is essentially non-contingent on any expected or anticipated outcome.

Please indicate your answer in pen, or - if you've chosen option (a) - with whatever nice soft crayons you've been permitted to use.

Remember Hinchliffe Horror? A far cry from the current use of outtakes from Thunderbirds and things that have been shot in someone's bath.

Multiple choice time!

Q: When they point out "shoddy scripts, predictable characters and even worse acting" what are Doctor Who fans trying to achieve?

a) The cancellation of the series;
b) An improvement in the quality of scripts, characterisation and acting; or,
c) Nothing particular. Criticism is an autonomous act that is essentially non-contingent on any expected or anticipated outcome.

Please indicate your answer in pen, or - if you've chosen option (a) - with whatever nice soft crayons you've been permitted to use.

Well maybe when you have some good things to say about the program I might dignify your snotty answer with a response other than this. Honestly, why keep watching?

Well, you DID accuse Kate and Judi of wanting it axed. Which simply isn't true, as you can tell from the fact THEY'RE both still breathing and posting and stuff instead of being, well, axed.

Rodney is right.

Why watch a show you clearly hate? Change the channel and walk away.

I don't hate it, O' Vince Hawkins fan, I just think it could be a lot better.

And, to be fair to you, you've at least attempted to suggest ways it can be fixed. Kate never has...

Who guaranteed up to Season Fifteen.

We SO did not see THIS coming when it was gloriously announced that some Russell T Davies person was gonna make a whole SIX OR SEVEN episodes of Doctor Who for our delectation.

My fingers are waggling in desperation to create threads for Seasons Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen. I'm only managing to restrain them by coming here to give Rodney's Friend a little wave instead.

Sadly no longer my friend.
(But because of this either)

BBC Worldwide today announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with leading Chinese media company, Shanghai Media Group Pictures (SMG Pictures) that will see expansion of the Doctor Who brand in China.

Wait a minute! Is this the same China that bans stories about time travel?

How the heck can they air a series about a time traveller in a country when there is a ban on stories involving time travel???

What do they think Dr. Who is?

What an absolutely delicious conundrum

I'm envisaging a Chinese Nit-C with a Chinese version of Kate going "Only 283 million tuned to tonight's episode! This show is on its last legs!"

Hello Rodney's Friend! Happy fifteenth anniversary of our live-and-kicking* programme!

*Well, there's a bit of a plague on but I'm sure it won't stop our Thirteenth (THIRTEENTH!) Doctor filming her (HER!!) third season for long...

KATE: " the obvious time for a 10th anniversary special is about a month after the 9th anniversary!"}

Had they waited for the actual 10th anniversary, they wouldn't have been able to have any Hartnell at all!

Except Rodney and this person aren't friends anymore.

A recent re-make of Dad’s Army made me decide that these wonderful old TV shows should be left in peace.
I have great memories of many of them - although I never liked Only Fools And Horses.
Fawlty Towers could never be resurrected either. It could never be equalled, let alone bettered.

Tell you what - I'll stop on our sixteenth anniversary. The Sixteen Short And Glorious Years Of Happiness after The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair...

I can't believe I made a stupid promise like that.

So for the last time (DAMMIT)...

*Points and laughs at Rodney's Friend*

"Fawlty Towers could never be resurrected either."

The Wedding Party would very contentious today.

Can't believe it's Our Glorious Anniversary again so soon! And that I promised not to point and laugh at Rodney's Friend any more which takes A LOT of the pleasure out of gloating SEVENTEEN YEARS AND COUNTING, PEOPLE!

Can you stop now? It’s actually really childish to keep reminding me of a friendship long gone. And to be fair to him when he said it, if you had been there you would have agreed. Stop acting liking like a bratty teen please.

I will continue celebrating the glorious existence of New Who, it now has nothing to do with your Ex-Friend.

And I wouldn't have agreed with him at the time. Not that I was sure it would ever come back, I seesawed around the 50/50 mark, and I never dreamt that it would come back for SEVENTEEN YEARS AND COUNTING!! which is why I really need to rejoice, especially given how utterly •••• everything ELSE about the human race is these days.