The problem with farts generally is that ones own are acceptable, but those of others can be difficult to "stomach".

I would like to see an episode with Sylvester McCoy locked in a cage with 10 angry Daleks and he gets the s**t kicked out of him !

I would be stood by the cage with a cattle prod just in case he tries to get out.

Thats for almost ruining Dr. Who.

If farts aren't acceptable, then I hardly think a cell full of s**t would go down very well.....

A few recurring themes that may, or may not have relevance:

Bad Wolf - lots of references, thousands of theories.

Explosions: I know it's important for an action series to have lots of explosions, but everything has blown, or been blown up. Destruction of evidence?

Money: As mentioned by other posters, Money and greed seem to be another theme. Is BOE a reference to the Bank of England (shortened to BoE for it's investment arm. Don't forget it was the National Trust that were preserving the Earth in EOW, so "British" institutions seem to exist in these futures. Don't bankers invest/speculate in futures?

Plumbing:

Some kind of pipe got broken in Rose (in the basement when they were running from the Autons)
Rose had a long talk with the (doomed) plumber. The "spiders" used the plumbing
The Gelth were defeated with gas.
The Slitheen's plumbing was a bit off (Ok stretching a point there).
The Dalek used water to kill a shedload of people.
The plumbing was a major clue in The Long Game.

Hang on, I think that scraping noise is the bottom of the barrel...

No more angry Daleks in the universe.
Possibly a race of effeminate cockney ones somewhere.

Also, don't forget that, when 'old DW' was on, there wasn't as much choice for someone looking for entertaining SF. The market is now flooded. For RTD to have come up with a formula that, at least for now, has something like an 85-90% approval rating (according to the DS polls, anyway) is fairly amazing.

The general consensus would seem to be that, so far, 2 of the 7 episodes have been 'crafted' with the others merely 'written'. I think we are going to have to accept a certain level of comparative 'misses' along with the 'hits', let's just hope the hit rate increases by the end of the series. If we've had 5 programmes with the depth and direction of eps3 and 6 by the end, I would count that as a real success. I have high hopes for ep8 - looks like a real 'sofa-jobbie'!


K

Doubtful considering that dalek comitted suicide.

Based on my encounters with effeminate Cockneys that would make them more dangerous than ever!

I'd noticed the PLUMBING theme. Also, lots of monsters seem to explode! Slitheen (on contact with vinegar), Cassandra (lack of moisture) and the thing oin the roof in the last episode.

chuff.x.

Err...in the UK we have:

Battlestar Galactica (Sky One)
Stargate SG1 (Sky One/Channel 4)
Stargate Atlantis (Sky One)
Enterprise (Sky One/Channel 4)

What other Sci-Fi shows are there that are running first-run episodes in the UK?

Yeah, and perhaps the clues about Rose having seen "the darkness", simply mean she has seen a third-rate Gillan-type rock band?

Anything is possible in a multiverse of infinite probability.

We can pick at the relative qualities of certain episodes of this new run of Dr Who, but does anyone remember how crap the 1st seasons of Buffy and TNG were?


At this rate, in a couple of years, Dr Who may turn out to be as good as DS9!

I guess it depends on whether you only limit yourself to 'first run' and 'space opera'. I would add:

Farscape
ST TNG
ST DS9
XFiles
4400
Angel
Buffy
Charmed (sort of!)
The SciFi channel!
Loads of "cartoon/3D" ones

Anyway, maybe not 'flooded' (perhaps it was the plumbing again!) but certainly more than when it was basically DW, B7 or ST.

K

I have mentioned this before, so it's nice to see someone agree: ST:TNG took about three seasons to truly get into its stride - the other ST franchises took at least as long. BTVS was a 12 episode season-filler that eventually became a cult classic.

Whilst some of the current DW episodes have been flawed/weak, the series IS being watched and commented on, and there's only one thing worse than being talked about...

Buffy - Finished
Angel - Finished
X-files - Finished
ST:TNG - Finished
ST: DS9 - Finished
Farscape - Finished

Out of all of those you listed only 'The 4400' (SKY One) and 'Charmed' (Living/five) are still screening new episodes (what I meant by 'first run').

I wouldn't count cartoons because they don't generally appeal to adults (except those anime fans who should probably be on an official register).

When was the last time The Sci-Fi channel has a decent programme on?

I've had Cable for about 16 years, and the only programme I've consistently watched on Sci-Fi is 'The Dead Zone'.

Hey your'e right about the plumbing theme !

The Dalek (see where I'm going with this) has a plunger for an arm !
Blocked toilet, Mr. Dalek. Blocked sink, Mr. Dalek (24 hour emergency service, Phone Kaled on 123 456).

It's all making sense.

I guess I was thinking more of the sort of audience DW was originally aimed at (ie kids? - I know my parents weren't watching DW with me when the Daleks first appeared, I was alone behind the sofa!). As far as I'm concerned, if a program is on, it's part of the "SF market" and available to be watched. So, I think, most of the programmes mentioned are still being "shown" (on S1 if nowhere else!). Don't forget, kids appear to be able to watch the same shows repeatedly without appearing to get bored!

I've only got the base NTL cable channels so only get SciFi about 1 month out of 12 so can't really comment on its quality (or otherwise).

Just so we don't bore the rest of the thread rigid, what can we agree on - there's more on now than there used to be years ago and there's less good stuff than we'd like there to be?

K

Extension 2150?

Probably in the phonebook of one of the weakest props in the history of Who - the tweaked mobile phone - that's some seriously lazy writing!

The 10 Doctors?
Absolute twaddle!

Absolutely - there will be no previous Doctors appearing in this new series, at least not the first one.

Far too confusing for new viewers.

If they did something like that for later series, maybe Peter Davidson would come back, but to be honest I'm not sure if I'd want him to.

In Revenge of the Cybermen the Brigadier send a message through time to the Doctor - a sort of time telex, so the idea of temporal communication is not new to the series.

If the Doctor linked Rose's phone to the telepathic core of the TARDIS, it would be able to send through time using Rose's temporal fingerprint as a time reference.

This would also explain how Adam could 'phone 2012 - the TARDIS "knew" when he was from.

This is the beauty of Sci-Fi - the science may be wonky but the possibilities are endless! Without a little suspension of disbelief we could never take (say) a flat world supported by elephants and ruled by magic seriously.

The timelords are quite dead at the moment - whether or not they remain that way is yet to be seen.

That reminds me, my camera needs more pink!

He was one of the better Doctors, in my opinion. Nicely dark and devious!