If of course you do?

For me the doctor was always "dark" I know this season is a lot more darker than the last few years have been. But the last few episodes have been less dark.

Also rather than people dying or sometimes injured all we are getting are happy endings and love interests.

In the last few weeks I have seen remembrance of the daleks. Tomb of the cybermen. Terror of the autons. Cybermen with Colin baker and one where his assistant died think it was called earthshock.

Don't get me wrong love doctor who always will but wished it went a bit more back to the classic style.

New & Old Who differ in that the newer one seems a lot more fast-paced overall than the older version-but then, that seems to reflect a general trend in drama.

Eh? You've just said it isn't like Classic Who and then said how it reminds you of Classic Who and then you say it is dark and then said it hasn't been dark and its all rather confusing.

'Atmosphere' and 'extended plot development'. Atmosphere takes time to build up. You can't do it with quick-fire dialogue and rushed exposition, which is something the new series thrives on. I find many of the classic episodes significantly more atmospheric than the post-2005 series. Despite it's much smaller budget, I think something like 'Weng-Chiang' is much more redolent of Victorian London than episodes like 'Deep Breath'.

Also 'suspense'. The old series is more suspenseful than the new one purely because creating 'suspense' can't be rushed. You need time to develop passages of suspense and, again, the sub-45 minute running time of the new series just doesn't generally allow for it.

For most of Classic Who, 'extended plot development' translated to 'filler'. Characters doing things for no readily apparent reason and making no progress to the overall story.

Also, I fundamentally disagree that suspense requires time. One of the biggest problems classic Who had was that the twists were often signposted a mile away - and so any attempts at 'suspense' ended up as just delaying tactics until the inevitable happened.

I agree I love the classic series and always have and will but you could see sometimes certain scenes and dialogue were added just to pad it out a few mins.

Disagree.

I said classic was dark. I also said series 8 they have tried to make dark but last episode with trees with happy ending wasn't dark.

Sorry if I confused you.

What we call "Classic Who" doesn't just consist of gems like "Genesis of Daleks", "Fang Rock", "Talons", "City of Death", etc. . Those episodes are jewels amid mostly rough chalk. This is especially true of the John Nathan-Turner period (Davidson, Colin, McCoy) where unwatchable tripe outnumbered decent episodes by at least 10 to 1!

Having said that, I totally agree about the darker tone of old Who.
I think one factor is the absence of flashy CGI: claustrophobic corridors instead of big, computer-generated vistas.
And when done skilfully, practical effects are a lot more creepy. Take for example, films like "Alien" [1979], "The Thing" [1982] or "Hellraiser"[1987] - the practical effects in those films are infinitely more visceral than anything that could come out of a computer.

But there's something else going on here; its not just the effects that were more disturbing; the whole atmosphere in those films - and in much of old Who - was unnerving. The aforementioned "Hellraiser" is a prime example: That film just had something NASTY going on underneath that reeked of fear and still elicits a response from me that even the most violent horror of today fails to.
Perhaps its because, like much of old Who, it was shot in UK during the 1980's (basically my childhood).  But its also a reflection of the darker times in which they were made: The 70's and 80's were a socially and culturally volatile and depressed era. The raw, low-budget and darker tone of old Who simply can't be replicated in the more affluent and confident place we live in today.

it was filmed in darker times, when 1st read that I thought ridiculous but thinking about it, it makes sense, hence why the new star wars films are bring filmed in the exact same studios again because it has that "feel"

I don't know about anybody else, but the episode Mummy on the Orient Express felt an awful lot like classic Doctor Who to me. Very Hinchcliffesque - perhaps also, its the Agatha Christie influence which we saw back in the Robots of Death?

Some great points in there the only one you missed is that 'Ash' in alien, should have been played by Peter Capaldi as Peter could have been such an improvement and actually wow why did not see that before, Peter Capaldi should have had John hurts role, can't you just imagine all those John Hurt scenes played by the new Dr Who, wow move over John Hurt . . .

The thing to remember is that Classic Who doesn't feel like Classic Who either.

Sure, the RTD era feels vastly different to the Hinchcliffe era, but the Hinchcliffe era feels vastly different to the Hartnell years (and Innes Lloyd Hartnell feels vastly different to Verity Lambert Hartnell). The Graham Williams era feels different to the JNT Tom Baker season, which feels different to the JNT Davison seasons etc. etc.

Hell, Nu Who doesn't feel like Nu Who either - the RTD years, the Moffat/Smith era and S8 all have distinct flavours.

It's a fallacy to just separate the feel of "New" and "Classic" Doctor Who, when across both the series has felt like an entirely different show every couple of seasons.

This is a very nice summation of the qualities of the classic series that the format of the current series cannot recreate but your post is rather missing a part 2 detailing the contrasting virtues of the current format.

Talons of Weng Chiang could never be done in the current format, or a wonderful odyssey story like Marco Polo, but there have been wonderful episodes of the current series that the classic show just could not have done: Midnight, Blink etc.

Both formats have their pros and cons. I can understand a desire to see more stories like those mentioned above because they are phenomenal but television has simply moved on. The idea of producing Doctor Who as 25 minute episodes with cliffhangers is just a bit silly now. A week is almost too long to wait for a resolution in our sped-up modern world, let alone 4 or 6 weeks. The Internet has ramped our sense of instant gratification up to the Nth degree.

I've said it numerous times: I would love 60 minute episodes. It couldn't recreate that episodic effect where the viewer 'lives' with the story for a number of weeks (that kind of effect is what subplots and 'story arcs' are designed to replicate, when handled well) but it would allow for a little more plot and character development and a slightly less manically paced build-up.


Great points made by other posters about the vagaries of the classic series by the way: they had just as many 'misses' as the current show does for sure, and far greater variations in style than there are between say, RTD and Moffat periods. A great writer like Steven Moffat or Robert Holmes will write a great story that fits the format. Lesser writers won't. And frankly lesser writers will always be the majority. Let's be honest: I would like to see more of those wonderful classic format stories written by Robert Holmes or Malcolm Hulke or John Lucarotti (all of whom are dead). But that is a rose-tinted viewpoint. We would also get more of those tediously padded and ponderous lesser stories that actually made up the greater bulk of the series, and in far greater profusion. It really is about the quality of the writing.

I loved the Seventh Doctor
Classic had no filler as it was always excellent
It had at least 4 episodes so a story could be told with characters introduced and the threats as well, there was nowhere the same emphasis as there is now on the companion's romance or the focus on the companion
The first doctor contemplated murder! I never saw any twists coming either

BIB-with the exception of The "Sontaran Experiment", "The Rescue" and "Black Orchid".

And 'The Edge of Destruction / 'Inside the Spaceship'.

Which is why I did say at least
Building the story/world took time plus having a threat which was actually threatening and dangerous took time

You said 'at least' because it wasn't accurate?


Call me paranoid but does anyone else find Chester666666 and OP George456's interesting approach to literary style very similar? Kind of similar user names too...

I love C20 Who in all it's varieties. Plenty of dodgy stuff but...it is what it is and genuinely wouldn't change a thing. I like flawed! But no filler and always excellent? That is a rather generous summation, I feel.

Edit: Nice post Batmannequin.

cos nu who is basically a friggin' video game. with a story attached only if youre lucky ......

old who was made "as drama" with plots n scripts n stuff ......

I would have issues with both the filler and the excellent assertions here.

How about padding out stories with extended chase sequences (Planet of the Spiders), running back and forth across locations (City of Death) capture/escape/recapture (Genesis of the Daleks).

And as for "always excellent", I shall leave that well alone as its without doubt a subjective judgement.

^Yes, we tend to think of 70's / 80's as 'simpler times'. But they were decades of boom and bust... derelict buildings... miners strikes... violent social unrest.
The London of today - the world's financial capital with its steel and glass skyscrapers - is unrecognisable from the grimy, black soot-covered city of the 80's where you couldn't walk without tripping over the homeless.

Being pedantic, the original Star Wars were filmed at Elstree Studios.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ations#uk_locs

The new one is being filmed at Pinewood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wa...de_VII#Filming

Whilst Elstree studios still exists - it's a lot smaller these days & is home to tv shows like Big Brother, Pointless & Strictly Come Dancing. Some of where Star Wars was filmed is now on the site of a big Tescos next door. Although, I hope they do some post production on the new one at Elstree...

You've forgotten The King's Demons!



Lucky you!