Fa'sure, but real Who fans are not going to be happy with one-bound-Jack-was-free solutions to something this fundamental.

We have had to put up with touchy-feely Daleks and thick Cybermen, not to mention Slitheen. Even the Rotund Cambrian one must recognise he owes us this much.

No - real who fans would enjoy a good story that could lead to maybe a good story arc. The people you are referring to are the people who destroyed the series in the first place. Those who were obsessed with Canon and where every single minute detail had to be explained in the most boring fashion possible.

The 'Rotund Cambrian' owes you nothing. You're not that important.

I certainly challenge that fans opposed to RTD's general direction are obsessed with canon and detail. I can only speak from my own POV. I am irritated by the level of dumbing-down. Yes, I value 40 years of back-story and wouldn't like to see the potential it gives just thrown away.

I would say that it was institutional failure to recognise this potential that ruined the series in the first place. The revival has happened, it's working, so fulfill the potential, don't go for mediocrity. I'd be happy if the story wears its history lightly, but not to lose direction completely.

Is producing stories like "Lost" impossible in the UK?

I hope so. I can't stand Lost. Its boring nonsense can't even be compared to the excitement stories like gridlock produce. No plot, poor direction and feels like it is being made up as it is going along.

I Presume you are talking about the crappy US series?

British Sci-Fi / Fantasy is in the first stages of its revival. You can not jump from this stage to the point that the Americans are at straight away.

It is not just that the mass audience that will not accept it. It is that we do not have enough people that could run a series like Lost or BSG.

I am hoping that those younger writers on Doctor Who will develop and be able to do what people like Ronald D Moore has done with BSG.

Just remember that America was in the same position in the mid eighties. Star Trek the Next Generation was the only Sci-Fi / Fantasy series on TV and even then most of the first two seasons were not the best Sci-Fi ever. But when STNG became successful more Sci-Fi / Fantasy series were developed and we got the various series from B5 to Buffy and on to Lost and BSG. This would not have happened without STNG.

I hope that Doctor Who will lead to the development to more such series in the future. This has started with Primeval and possibly Robin Hood. The success of these series will lead to better series in the Future.

Time will tell.

Do you really think Dr Who has "dumbed down" since its relaunch? Or do you mean that television in general has?

For me, some of Dr Who's lowest ebbs occurred when writers became too interested in the show's history (e.g. much of Trial of a Timelord, Attack of the Cybermen, Remembrance of the Daleks). It led to stories that required lots of exposition, excluded new viewers, and which seldom benefited from such navel gazing. Personally, I wouldn't want to go back to that era for all the tea in China!

All in my opinion, of course

Thank you - I hope you're right. It's funny but some of the most imaginative British work in SciFi/Fantasy in recent years has not been Space Opera. I'm talking about Life On Mars and not forgetting Goodnight Sweetheart!

I think that it's possible to have a stratified approach that appeals to everyone. I'd hate to need a reference book when I want to watch TV as much as anybody would.

Soaps manage this very well in general. Ken & Deirdre, The Queen Vic, Underworld, they all have a back story. It's worn very lightly, but it's respected. So why does it enrich Albert Square but ruin Who?

Of course it can't! This show brings in 6-8 million viewers a week. There is no way to satisfy traditional fans, new fans and fans who want cannon 100% followed. Especially when there is a huge history to the show that often used to contradict itself.

What the new show has done is fine. It's stuck to the basic principles, it follows the important parts of the shows history but is not 100% bound by stuff that happened 20-40 years ago. It has to do this, overwise new people just won't be interested (look at what happened in the 80's). And it works too, because kids are loving it (seeing my neighbours kids attitide to it is astonishing) and non sci fi people are loving it.

I think that you make a good point. However, I'd argue that Doctor Who is doing just that right now - some history is being used at present, but not cripplingly so. Stories like Attack of the Cybermen, etc, required that reference book and, in its stead, viewers got painful amounts of exposition!

How often do the shows you mention go into heavy detail about long past storylines? Seldom, as the shows would generally collapse under the weight of the task! Think about just how many times characters in soaps have been arrested, in a coma, in a car crash, married, etc...if greater attentione were paid to these events, keeping any sense of flow in the current story would be difficult in the extreme.

If Gallifrey is no longer in exsistance that explains to me why the Tardis suddenly needs refueling in Cardiff

...well that's all that I ask really. No instant answers without some adherence to what made the show great before it lost its way, and that includes Gallifrey.

With soap, it can be drip,drip,drip because stories & characters are developed over a long time.

It makes sense to limit historical references with the pace of the show these days, fitting in what would previously be 100-minute stories into 50. It would be incongruous to have anything long-winded.

Surely Galifrey must not exist anymore otherwise Timelords from its past could travel into the future (or wherever they wanted) and therefore the Timelords would still exists. My impression is that the timelords transcended time and space and a little matter like their planet being destroyed in the future wouldn't stop them .

If they never existed though how did Jabe / Captain Jack / Face of Boe know of them?

most races will have heard of the Time War so the Time Lords would have become part of established history.

Actually the destruction of the time lords is the only thing I don't really like about the new DR WHO.

I know some people say look this is a new series and its not a continuation of the past ones but I don't agree. I think RTD has to be true to the original.

I think the writers are pushing the credibility a bit. If The timelords never existed neither would the doctor and no one would ever remember they existed.

If the doctor can escape time so can they. The Tardis itself is in another dimension that was the Timelords greatest achievement. They don't just travel in time and space but actually exist in a different dimension while inside a Tardis.

The Daleks only had a puny time corridor during Peter Davidsons tenure and the earth people in that episode were from the future. For the Daleks to gain the technology the time war must have been well in the future. This means the time lords cant travel in to their own future either or they would have done another genesis of the Daleks George bush style and prevented the Daleks getting time weapons of mass destruction lol.

OK yes I do like the detail and no I don't think that spoils the program, I hate unexplained story lines or writers messing about with the programs history just for a cheap one episode story.

i'm going to make a prediction and say that within a few years, every thing will be back to normal. either due to lack of ideas or Major fan protest, but i can see them some how restoring Galifrey.
by the time it returns, they will have the Doctor going on missions from Galifrey, like "Genesis of the Daleks".
it will probably be the latest revival, for the mission type stories.
Last edited by Team53 : 23-04-2007 at 21:52

If so then the series dies. The moment the 'fans' start decided what appears and what doesn't is the end of the show. Lets hope it never comes to that. After all, its what killed the show in the first place.


The show has re-written and messed around with its own history countless times and it often contradicted itself. It has to happen as new writers come and go. What is bad for the show is when an arc or story can't be used because in an episode in 1974 something or other happened which means this story can't take place. Entertaining stories are what will keep the general public interested, not sticking religiously to the history of the show.

And what is the problem with unexplained story lines. Mystery is fantastic. The time war is a powerful story because we know so little about it and every now and again we here a little bit more. We don't need to know what happens between each adventure or between the tv movie and the start of the new series.

Sometimes less is more. Hopefully the new series will go on a long, long time and if it does it will hopefully reveal more of the time war details bit by bit.

No-one has ever said they "never existed".

Remember what Jack said about the Daleks? "One minute they're the greatest threat in the universe, the next they've vanished out of time and space"

So you see. They all disappeared after the time war, but the weapons in the war were so powerful that they removed the Time Lords and Daleks from not just that point, but the whole of time.

Which makes sense if you think about it. If you're fighting time travellers there's no point in just killing them, because if one survived (ie the doctor) he could travel back and warn them to leave that time period. You need to find a way to wipe them from time and space without necessarily taking their actions out of the timeline. Which means any survivors would also still exist regardless of the fact their entire race died.

Who knows how they'll bring the Time Lords back (and I believe they will at some point) but I'm sure they'll think of something.

Precisely why I'm not for the 'Time War' Movie idea. Its one of the best intriguing myth of Doctor Who since the beginning, the best myth of all being where the Doctor actually does come from (not as in planet, but background history).

The first Dr's companion referred to him as Grandfather - the current Dr tells Rose that he was a father once....

The Face of Bo has told him that he is not alone...

So one of two things, there is at least one more time lord out there doing the void thing and hiding from the Time war???

Or taking the fact that the beeb has made Martha's attraction to the Dr much more overtly sexual than Rose's ever was, is it possible that we'll see baby timelords born???

Unlikely given the timeslot but given that he is an alien they'd probably get round it with out sex - afterall we just don't know how the timelords reproduced.

In response to the discussion about whether the series is better/ worse after the beeb's recent re-incarnation, i remember being sooo afraid of the Daleks as a child that i'd hide til they were gone. My four year old son hides behind the sofa when he sees them in the new series, but he wont miss a show for anything. I think that says it all.

I'd kind of agree and disagree with your sentiments here. My feelings are that the original show lost steam and general interest but that the spirit of Doctor Who was kept alive by a group of hardcore fans. So, in some ways, those who advocate sticking closely to the cannon should be thanked for keeping the spirit of Who alive and so facilitating it's retrun. But... I also agree that the new series shouldn't burden a fresh set of new, younger viewers with over-complicated story lines and generations of history... It's a family show and there's some young viewers out there thoroughly enjoying the new series for what it is. And that is good enough for me (of course I secretly and selfishly hope some of my childhood memories of Who stories are brought into the modern series!).

Ahh but isnt that what failsafes are there for - to be bypassed?!

I mean - look what Rose did to get back to the Doctor on Satellite 5 - I'm sure there was a failsafe on the power-core of the TARDIS but she managed to bypass it (with the help of an articulated lorry)!

first of does the doctors reproductive organs work he could have gone through time creating a few new timelords in the name of his species of course.

yeh letting the master escape unseen tut tut

With apols for editing...



The Time Lords don't do sex and birth, they were loomed.
The they haven't reproduced (at least, not as we know it... err, Jim!) since before The Doctor's time according to this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_%28Doctor_Who%29

Not necessarily canon mind, but it's an explanation of sorts, especially to his blasé attitude to genders of late.
Last edited by Lab : 24-04-2007 at 02:09