^^^ What you said. She's lush.

Good looks aside, I never thought for a second while watching DOTD that anyone would have a problem with her casting or performance. It's baffling to me.

It seems like many of people's picks are due to the way the character was written, rather than cast. Does that sound like a fair assessment?

For the Pirate Captain, for example - I always hate those Doctor Who stories where leaders maintain their authority by abusing and casually murdering their underlings. They don't do it because it's an effective strategy, it's because the writers are lazy in showing us just how evil these guys are.

Yes - I can't imagine anyone turning up for work each day knowing they might get killed by their boss just so he/she can prove a point. The HR issues alone . . . !

I didn't watch Doctor Who when it was revived as I couldn't see Chris Eccleston as the Doctor. Of course I was wrong.

Similarly, I thought Matt Smith was far too young and hip to be the Doctor. Then I saw Eleventh Hour and realised how good he was!

HOWEVER, I'm young enough to remember Bonnie Langford joining Doctor Who and shuddering beforehand. Correctly
The thing is, she was famous as a child star, and it has to be said tended to play annoying, precocious characters, so my views were already coloured. No offence to Bonnie, but at that stage of her career I'm not sure she had the experience to play anything different, and then of course they wrote Mel like that...

She was a stage actor and stage acted on doctor who. It was verbose and ott. I'm reminded of how she wiped her nose when saying goodbye to 7. Stage acting!

It depends on who you mean. I don't Bonnie Langford was miscast as such but her character and scripts were awful, but she did tend to play the role theatrically in certain stories.

Richard Briers was for me miscast, I just don't think that role suited him at all. I think he could have played a more serious role and been better, like Beryl Reid and other comic actors such as Richard Wilson.

Bruce Purchase, don't have a problem with him as the Pirate Captain. As I said about Ken Dodd, the performance suited that story to perfection. Any story in the Wiliams era actually. However, had he played him like that during the Hinchcliffe years, for example, he would have been well out of place.

Beryl Reid...in that stupid wig, another crap casting decision. Forgot about her, thanks

Nicholas Parsons in the Curse of Fenric still grates on me.

There was far too much shoehorning in of light entertainment types in the 80s

In response to both posts I think both Reid and Parsons gave an acceptable performance in the show.

I've seen Beryl Reid in other things and she always seemed to play the stereotypical Mother who smothers her son too much so this was something different for her. Okay she wasn't brilliant but she could have been a whole lot worse.

Nicholas Parsons I always disagree when people say he was crap. I thought he was excellent as the Vicar in that story and you compare his performance to Richard Briers in Paradise Towers. Whereas Briers was overblown and over the top, Parsons for me brought a real dignity and solemnity to the role. If I didn't know he used to be a game show host I could actually believe he was a vicar.

Perhaps also, people forget Parsons started his career as an actor before he was a game show host.

Sorry if its been mentioned already, but Joan Sims as a warrior queen. She was actually rather good as only a great character actor of the old school can be, but casting wise, surely someone must have said, are you sure that's a good idea, JNT? I got the impression back then that JNT would have found parts for all the members of
Kajagoogoo in Colin Bakers last series if they'd been up for it!

Use a little subtlety? I'm pretty sure Douglas Adams didn't intend him to act like a pantomime character.

No, in this instance it was as Human Nature Said: the idea was that he was hiding his true genius beneath a guise of bluster and hubris. Not just a trite characterization at all.

But surely the character should have appeared ruthless and authoritative, not like a bellowing idiot. I don't see how that would command any respect. The guy seemed like a total clown. It was a very good idea but the character has already lost any credibility before his true nature is revealed. It could have worked with a talented actor who understood that the part required a little more finesse.

To be honest I didn't rate Maisie Williams as Ashildr. It just felt like they had gone for a big name and tried to fit the part to her rather than auditioning several people and deciding she was the one. I know people may disagree, but I found her both irritating and distracting and felt the flow of the episodes was disturbed by her scenes! She was better in face the raven but still annoying

David Tennant.

From the Mel Gibson school of drama.Look at me, I'm acting.

Agreed. Like her in GoT but find her very unconvincing in the role, but I don't know if it's just down to the writing. I think someone else could have done a better job though.

I kind of agree. Whilst I can't say she irritated or distracted me, I do think she was very weak in her scenes and it didn't help when she had to play against the fabulous Peter or Jenna. I didn't like her episodes 5 and 6, especially the latter. It certainly made me miss Clara/Jenna that's for sure. I agree that she was better in face the raven.

She's been dreadful (so far).
To call her this year's Courtney Woods would be a horrendous slight against Ellis George.

Some people did!
During a break in filming at the church in Kent some tourists came up to Nicholas Parsons, still in costume as the vicar, and asked him a little about the history of the church. Fortunately, being interested in that sort of thing, he was able to answer their questions.
They thanked him and said "Have you been the vicar here for very long?"
"Only a short while" replied Parsons!

I do remember reading that somewhere once!

I think his whole demeanor as the Vicar helped him sell the role and I can well understand why some people thought he was for real!

Clearly they'd never seen Sale Of The Century.....

And now, live from Norwich , it's the quiz of the week... Saaaaale of the Century!!!!

Perhaps the tourists were foreign, or maybe they just had good taste...

45 posts and no mention of Michelle Ryan?

No problem with Joanna Paige as I felt she portrayed what was scripted very ably.

I saw the Beryl Reid episodes fairly recently and thought she was actually acting rather than just being Beryl Reid in them (there is a difference honest!).

I don't mean to be mean as I understand that there is a lot of dislike for the character but I could not engage fully with the Danny Pink storyline because of the actor playing him as I found him too wooden*. It was only in the final episode of season eight that Danny's storyline moved me in any way and that was more the character's actions than the acting to be honest.

* by this I mean too wooden to be Pinocchio!

I don't think casting would have changed how abysmally, appallingly awful the character was.

I genuinely despised Danny Pink and I think even if my all time favourite actor had been cast in the role I would still have loathed every single second he was on my screen.

I honestly can't express clearly enough how much I despised every single thing about the idiot.

I didn't rate her either.

I've not seen GoT so I have nothing to compare. I don't know if it was her or if she was written badly. But the character was simply a spoiled self entitled brat with a superiority complex (From the woman who lived onwards. In the girl who died I just found her rather meh).

I feel exactly the same way.

Every time I watch series 8 and he comes on screen, I sigh and then curse as if to say 'Why is he on my screen?' It's like I'm expecting my extreme hatred of him, to have erased him from the series