..bring back old villains, from the old series? Whilst it is great that we're getting to see some familiar faces and that. It can sometimes ruin an episode. As in an attempt to make them look similar to the originals, they make them look naff. And it becomes hard to enjoy and believe in the drama of the situation, when your staring at something that looks like nothing more than someone in a really bad fancy dress costume.

In series 4, apparently there are 2 returns of old villains/monsters, one of them is the Sontaran and it makes me think, why? lol.

There again, some of the modern villains aren't that much better, look at the Judoon lol.

I wish they'd start creating bigger, better less laughable aliens. Doctor Who has a similar size budget to Stargate SG-1 and that manages to create relatively good aliens.

Because it is Dr Who, it is something Dr Who has always done, old and new, if it didn't do this I'm sure it would be a case of 'Why don't they bring back old monsters'

The vast vast majority of Stargate aliens are in human form, put a human in a robe, alter the voice and you have an alien, what was that about budget again? I'm sure if Dr Who did this all of the time it would be criticised.

Sorry but Dr Who isnt Stargate.
Last edited by CAMERA OBSCURA : 16-12-2007 at 09:41

One of the main problems with Stargate, IMHO, was the sheer lack of invention in their aliens/monsters...Doctor Who at least tries things, and with 30 odd years of televisual history to draw on, why shoudln't they bring back the old villains who worked well???

there are certain iconic figures in the rich tapestry of the series that even the newer fans are aware of which could explain why they want to tap into it. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. for me when I first saw the redesigned Cybermen I was very impressed but less so when RotC/AoS/AoG/Doomsday went out as they were reduced to being rather ineffective adversaries and reminded me of one or two of their classic series appearances. same with The Master. great idea on paper but ill served by the interpretation by Simm, direction and script.

did you not think the design of Jabe the tree person stunning or the cat nuns?

As more of a fan of the new series - i can say for me the old villains look better to me than when they were in the old series. A lot of them looked really naff in the first place. The stories that some of them have been in weren't great and they haven't shown themselves to be great adverseries but really how good were the stories back then with alot of wooden acting and bad scripts.

I personally like that they bring old enemies back. It gives them a chance to make it look like a human into a suit to something more realistic. When I saw the original Cybermen (after seeing the new ones), they really were laughable.

I really like it when they bring old villains back. But personally, i'm quite happy when they have villains that aren't just computer generated. They're far scarier. when they're actual creatures rather than something that is obviously just made by a computer.

Look at the Weeping Angels for example, or the villains (not sure of the name) in the upcoming Christmas special.

The hosts.

Is it just me, or are those cat nuns totally hot?!!

There's something wrong here - Dogg likes Cats?

There is an obvious joke there.....

Doggy likes Pussy's?

Argh! I didn't think anyone would dare!!!

Naughty Em!

(See me later.....)

couldn't resist

It's partly because none of the original characters/monsters from the new series are as memorable as the top tier villains from the original series. By top tier I'm referring to The Daleks, The Cybermen, Davros and the Master. A headline (and we know that RTD loves his headlines) about the return of the Master is much bigger news than the return of the scribble monster and as such the series, rightly in my opinion, falls back on the older villains. Part of that is nostalgia, of course it is, people remember these characters from their own childhood and want to see them return but the other part is that they are just brilliant ideas that have been brought to screen in an interesting fashion.

Even the Sontarans, who are definitely second tier villains, have memorable characteristics. Back when I was in school, most kids, even those that didn't really watch the show that often could recognise "The potato-headed monsters" known as Sontarans. Once the new series has developed some decent bad-guys of their own then you'll probably see much less of the older villains, but for now I doubt they are going anywhere.

Agreed and most of the aliens in later Star Trek series were unispired, just a human witha bit or a rubber ridge stuck above their nose or on their forehead.

I don't want to see the new series go overboard on resurrecting old villans - Daleks, Cybermen, Master makes sense as they have been evil kingpins throughout the show's history.

Any more than that strikes me as overkill, tho' I wouldn't mind see the Mara or the Yeti come back at some point.

Not too pumped about the return of the Sontarans either.

Agree with the point from Rooks - for me, also, one thing that the new series has failed to do so far is to introduce a new villain, or race of villains, that prove a true match for the Doctor. Only the Master has really come close so far.

Regards,

Cypher

Yeah, I would like to see a new enemy that really pushes the Doctor to his limits. I do like the older enemies, but I like a bit of both of new and old.

but to give ST its due, the galaxywide humanoid form was explained in (i think)the episode "The Chase". The first space travelling race in the galaxy found it was the only one and so seeded its DNA on thousands of planets and then each planet evolved a species with similar DNA, which neatly explained why they all looked similar and why interspecies mating was viable. I thought it was quite neatly done and gave a logical explanation to something that up to that point really did not make sense.

Explained, or apologised for...those aliens must have travelled a heck of a long way!

Personally, I thought that was the most miserable excuse for a complete lack of imagination on the part of the show's creative directors.

But, meh, I still liked that ep, tho'...

Regards,

Cypher

I'm really disliking the bringing back of the Sontarans lol.

Plus I agree the new series has failed to create a good set of villains, I think they could do it though.

Torchwood has managed it with the Weevils.

Yeah, I know the story. But they could still have been a little bit more inventive