Which is all fine. What it isn't is evidence that RTD didn't rate Ace, or that the seeds of the RTD era aren't to be found in the Ace/McCoy era.

Ace is the proto Rose. Seems little doubt about it. I think you've mentioned RTD had a notion to bring her back in SJA. Survival is all a bit Bad Wolfy for Ace.

I thought the McCoy/Ace stuff was utterly unappealing at the time, though patience had already worn thin through the Mel era. But my at-the-time feelings are nowt to do with it (I think beer, girls and going on futile marches against the govt were also becoming something of a distraction at the time).

If not for cancellation the show may well have evolved on its own to something rather like RTD's version. Cartmel was trying to make the Doctor's backstory and personality more central to the show, there was to be an arc and Ace/Rose like companions. The current show does have a fair few similarities with that last gasp of the original, and plenty with the TV movie.

As for the topic - I would like the show to be more like the current S8, but with fewer moon chickens, resurrected brigadiers and any other goofy things I don't personally care for. Other than that - it's all pretty good fun right now. I even managed to hear most of the dialogue above all the music this year too. Least use of subtitles in ages.

Seventh was the best and Ace was Ace as a character but the beeb actively sabotaged the show

You've stopped even trying to pretend that you've got a counter-argument now, haven't you?

I agree. The changes seem abrupt because of the time between them, but it doesn't seem wholly unlikely that had the series continued, that it would have ended up in 2005 more or less where it did anyway. I think the TV movie is something of an anomaly because it was an American co-production and had to cater for that, because it was kind of written to be like Doctor Who (which neither Cartmel nor Davies did), and because they were trying to launch their own mythology rather than continuing the old (the book on what the proposed series was to be like is actually quite horrifying reading. People lament that it didn't take off, but we actually dodged a bullet - the half-human thing was the tip of the iceberg). But, at the same time, I think there's a lot about it, especially stylistically, that is exactly halfway between the end of "Survival" and the beginning of "Rose".

Of course, that isn't to say that that's where it would have ended up. There's also influences from the books, which wouldn't have happened had the series not been cancelled, but I don't think it's unreasonable to suppose that had the series not been cancelled the 2005 incarnation wouldn't have looked too different from the one that we actually got.

I very much did not want to follow the story of the Doctor hunting for his estranged father while his human mother moped around being human or croaking in a Padme style dying-wishes vomit-a-thon. Or whatever ghastliness Los Angeles had in mind.

Just wading into the discussion regarding the McCoy era and the new series. In some ways I do see the McCoy as a precursor to the new series. The McCoy era started off as a panto but grew into something quite dark by the end. The new series to me has been one big panto since it came back on television and hasn't blossomed into anything nearly as interesting as later McCoy stories such as Ghost Light and Fenric. When it comes to the McCoy era the Mark Ayres scored serials really show how the show was returning to top form (although I'm very fond of Battlefield as well).

Ace although not a favourite companion of mine I think they got the balance right with her back-story which didn't become to soapy unlike the modern companions.