Up until its 2005 return, i had never watched an epsiode of Dr Who, i,m loving it btw and will eventually watch some of the past series.
What i would like to know is, when you guys heard Who was returning(in 2005), what were your first thoughts?, and when it did return did you enjoy it, dislike etc???

In 2003, I was interested to hear "Doctor Who" was coming back, but not over-excited. It was the casting of Eccleston and seeing the 2005 trailer on Jonathan Ross that
got me all excited about the return.

I thought, it 1996 all over again...it'll never be as big as the 70s...then it started and I thought

Whhooooaaaaaa! this is gonna be huge!

I thought it was going to be crap & Rose was an inauspicious start but RTD certainly pulled out the stops after that.

I was very pleased, and excited and optimistic, Id long mourned the programme.

That optimism was tempered by painful memories of the rubbishness of the Peter Davidson/Colin Baker/ Sylvester McCoy incarnations.

More or less 1 minute into the first Christopher Eccleston episode my worries were swept aside and my childhood glee returned.

A few stories apart (Blink, Human Nature, The Empty Child, Girl in the Fireplace, Tooth and Claw etc) I prefer not to think of Series 1 to 4 as Dr Who as much of it is awful or just mediocre (New Earth, Up the Long Ladder, Fear Her etc)

I was near suicidal after about 5 miuntes of "Rose" and as the series progressed I realised RTD had no idea what Dr Who was about and he took the show in a direction that was appalling and repugnant.

I shall never forget, nor forgive what he did to Dr Who .

Thankfully we now seem back on track with a programme that is far more faithful to the original.

I think in about 10-20 years time most people will either have forgotten about the RTD era or will be dismissing it as non-canon etc.

It is heartbraking to think that most of the Troughton era is missing (I have spent lots of money myself on trying to track down missing episodes). If there was any justice in the world all of nu-Series 4 would be wiped andf the Troughton kissing stories owuld turn up. I would even like to burn the Tate series myself so it cannot blight the Who-niverse any more.

Bwahahaha. You massive troll, you amuse me.

I find it terribly sad the way that certain myopic and somewhat bigoted people who would have us believe they are fans of a programme only when it is entirely tailored to their own special needs (and I use the term advisedly) continually drop into threads such as this in order to repeat the same hackneyed points they have been making for so long that they were around before the "Time War" began...

...any "true" fan of the classic series will admit to plusses and minuses in all it's incarnations and would never "never forgive" anything that it attempted to do because that would directly contradict the ethos of the show which is to evolve, change, develop new ideas and break new ground in a way few other shows can...

...when I heard DW was being brought back I was elated and when my 5 year old niece and 8 year old nephew fell in love with it completely independently of my influence I realised that this is a programme format that transcends petty minds but appeals to the broad spectrum and long may it continue to do so.

I confess I loss interest after Tom Baker. Vague memories of Peter Davidson, beyond that I dipped in and out but it didn't grab me.

I remember chatting about Nu Who with Tasca, being excited but not quite convinced. My youngest was just a baby and I clearly remember feeding him while watching the first episode and thinking...this could work!

I'm delighted that my kids (7 and 5) are getting to experience DW, snuggling in to me for a cuddle and hiding behind the cushion at the scary bits. I have 2 wee Sci Fi fans and Whovians here and it's bloody great!

I thought "oh god, they're going to ruin it with some over-hammy Doctor who'll just be annoying".

But fair play, it took them a series to get to that.

Post of the Day!

I thought great something to expunge the terrible memory of McGann

So many false dawns. Paul McGann film sparked some speculation about him returning for a series, but the film wasnt that brillant and I guess money and other reasons the project shelved.

I was of the mind, I will wait until I see it, as shows have been filmed and cancelled before they have been aired. i also thought, oh cheap budget, dodgey sets and rubbish acting and feared the stupid story lines from McCoy era.

However plesantly suprised and sitting down before the first line spoken thought YES!!! its back, lets hope it runs for decades again.

Upon it hearing it was coming back, I thought it'd be for one series on BBC3, God knows what day or what time, which would be all kitch and ham, and that'd be it: we'd never see it again.

When I heard that Russell T Davies (I realised he clearly loved Doctor Who when I was watching Queer As Folk) was making it and that Eccleston was to be the next Doctor, I was geting a bit more excited.

I couldn't quite see Eccleston as the Doctor in my head, but it meant the BBC were taking it seriously.

When it did come back the time slot, the music, the credits, the sound of the TARDS. Then it was back, seriously, properly. Scared no one would like it and it would go away again.

Because I knew Russell, and he had spoken to me as early as 2001 about his desire to revive Dr Who, I was certainly willing to believe he had the right enthusiasm.

I was worried about how the new Beeb would handle it, and if the team of newbie fresh-faced non-Whovians would even give the past a nod.

Like many people, I downloaded the naughty-naughty preview version prior to transmission (and was amazed that they were using the old theme!)... of course the new theme was on the transmission version!

However, I was very pleasantly surprised. My surprise grew to love and past that into the very same feeling of joy I used to experience when I was a child/teenager.

Who was back. It was great.

More importantly it was significantly better than some of the the horrendous stories i had forced myself to sit through from 1985-1989

McGann wasn't the problem. The terrible script, USA setting, American "snake" Master, and way they peed all over canon was what was horrific.

Fixed that.

I got introduced to Dr Who with Sylvester McCoy, so I didn't have the chance to watch many of the classic episodes (at the time, since then I have rectified that). I watched the film with McCann, but although I liked it, I wasn't blown away by it. I was very, very excited when I heard that Dr Who was returning. I was very sceptical about the casting of Billie Piper, but I was proven wrong, and I loved Christopher Eccleston. I also came to love David Tennent, and I thought the series with Catherine Tate was great (how someone can dismiss the whole of New Who with Dalek, The Empty Child/Doctor dances, School Reunion, Family of Blood, Blink, Midnight, Turn left etc. beats me, but everyone is of course entitled to their own opinion).

Without New Who, my Saturday's would be a lot more boring, and I'm certainly looking forward to the new Doctor team whilst watching as many of the old classic series as I possible.

LMFAO

I too miss the old days of Who, but things evolve or die!

If there was one thing I could change about nu-Who it would be the apparent need for romance. The Doctor is not that sort of hero...even if it is just genetic transfer.

Re-editing posts for 'comedy' is the lowest form of interent wit.

The biggest pleasure was sitting with my 11 year old who'd seen and enjoyed Dr Who on reruns.
We sat and watched 'Rose' and it was magical, seeing her face as she met 'her Doctor' for the first time, and knowing that it still had the power to enthrall kids, just as it had done when I was a kid!

I was delighted when the news was first announced, less so when I realised they'd passed over McGann for a new actor I'd never heard of. I had no idea who Russell T Davies was either, so I wasn't particularly excited about the incoming team. When it actually arrived, the first episode had me elated simply because it was back, but the next few really didn't gell for me. I was rather more excited about the prospect of Moffat taking over.

To be fair I was actually starting to get bored with the series towads the end of David Tennant's run and did not bother to tune into "The Next Doctor" or the last 3 episodes as I was starting to become throughly bored with it. Too much over reliance on CGI and special effects and little on plot or real story which seemed to be RTD's mistake. I did however watch the first episode of the matt Smith era and was impressed, as he has a very Patrick Troughton quality about him.

Excited and well thats it really.

I stopped watching in the mid 80s, because I started to find it embarrassing really. Liked Colin Baker though-felt sorry him that he got a bad deal and saddled with (IMO) below par stories.

Not overly impressed by Rose, but it was the scene setter and the remainder of the series was pretty cool.

The rest as they say is History.

Happy days.