Dr Who scores new companion from Emmerdale Former Emmerdale actress Jenna-Louise Coleman has been selected to play the latest assistant to Gallifreyan Time Lord Dr Who, beginning with the 50th anniversary Christmas special at the end of the year. Coleman is best known for her four-year stint as Jasmine Thomas, the recalcitrant school-girl turned journalist who battered …
> Have you ever seen her apart from such roles.
Oh yes, unfortuantely. She's unmistakable, since she only knows how to be Billy Piper, and has that toe-curling estuary bleat in every role. As Dorothy Parker once said (of Katherine Hepburn?) she can run a whole gamut of emotions, from A to B.
Right - as I thought. Despite you saying you've seen her in varied roles, you plainly haven't. Here's an interview with her where you can hear her actual, natural voice. She's not quite the Queen, but she's pretty far from the character and voice she plays as Rose. The way she talks in Doctor Who is NOT her natural voice, this is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk34lKIa5aE&feature=related
And me. When the Doctor's flippancy was a protective mask for deep feeling it worked well. Now that it simply masks infantile stupidity it does not. And as for the Debilitating Duo; well, they all suit each other, don't they?
I tried to like it, and persevered until I was expected to believe that the gormless Amy had a greater understanding of a deep, most complex cosmic issue than a 900 year-old Time Lord. Then I reached for the OFF button.
The prospect of a new companion who not only looks like the Awful Amy but sounds even more obnoxious is not likely to encourage me back.
Tennant was great. But so is Matt Smith. When he's given good episodes, he's actually great. But after enjoying most of Season 5 a lot (finalé was a bit magicy-wagicy), Season 6 was mostly awful. I'm really tired of Stephen Moffat projecting his sexual fetishes onto the story. He clearly has a thing for males being bossed around / made fools of / upstaged by females. I don't care about that in general, but the Doctor is supposed to be the brilliant character in this and maybe for those who want to fantasize about River Song, they like that. But seeing the violent psychopath (she even does that stupid shooting people behind her without looking thing) drag around the lead character like she's his spoiled younger mistress just really undermines the character and makes it harder for people to respect him / relate to him. I have this horrible feeling that Moffat thinks he's doing women a favour in showing an over-powering female character repeatedly treat the Doctor like dirt. Hint: that's about as enticing as it would be for a male audience to see, I don't know, a male lover continually upstage and belittle Lara Croft. Guys wouldn't go "Ooh, I feel empowered because someone of my gender is upstaging the sexy lead I like". Same thing with women and the Doctor. (Note: general comment - countless exceptions exist and no-doubt will say so).
Ugh. After watching a YouTube interview with her, I have drawn the conclusion that Rebecca Black has been cast in this role. She did "excitement, excitement" ("we so excited") and also "fun" ("fun fun fun"). I question her judgment in saying that the current cast is her favorite as well -- obviously the best Doctor/companion duo was Pertwee with Jo Grant -- but more importantly, she *likes* the snivel fest that Moffat has dumped on us? At least Karen Gillan is my type, but really a good companion should hold an advanced degree in science and/or (believable) ass-kicking.
She's young, I think we can forgive her a little display of excitement about being offered the Companion role on one of our most iconic TV shows. Us old farts and fartessas who've been offered that role *hundreds* of times are bound to get a bit blasé about it, and forget how exciting it all was the first time.
:-P
Are you kidding? Even if you restrict yourself to the Pertwees then I'd still pick either of the others above Jo Grant. And I wouldn't even go Pertwee if given free choice — his stuff always appears to be self consciously trite.
Sadly for us, it doesn't appear that having strong opinions in this area is helpful in securing the job.
Fine-- pick Liz or Sarah Jane or even another Doctor. That's not really what's at stake, even if my tastes are a bit trite. My point was just that she's picked easily one of the worst eras in Doctor Who. The most hopeful reading sees this as just sucking up to the boss, but I know there are plenty of people out there who genuinely like the current state of fandom-as-canon. I'm disappointed that someone can accept and even praise a decline from Holmes's intended audience of mature adolescents to the current emotionally-stunted [age of Moffat's kid] year-olds.
You're right that it isn't helpful in getting the job. It shouldn't be either. Some of the better actors on uber-fan series have come to the role without knowing much if anything about their larger fictional universes, and most of the Who geeks I know would make for horrible actors. My complaint isn't that she's wrong about who the best Doctor and companion are, it's that if she thinks the current series is just fine, she'll uncritically accept scripts as bad as the ones that are on now. To be clear, I've been OK with Matt Smith from the start. He fits the role quite well, but the stories and dialogue he has to work with generally are no good, and he likes the current state of things, so no one's saying, "are you serious?" to the showrunners.
I think I was overly negative before; to pick a favourite set I'd go Baker + Sarah Jane + Harry. I seriously considered Troughton + Jamie but couldn't pick a favourite third (or third and fourth).
That being said, another thing I can't be that negative about is the current cast, as I think they're all excellent. I'm not willing to say the same about the stories. I'm finding one or two episodes a year to be really good television and most of the rest to be, well, like they want to be Lost but without any discipline. If you're going to invest in story arcs then there's only so many times you can cheat the audience by answering a question with a question or by inserting some get out of jail free nuance into established events before it just becomes impossible to suspend disbelief.
Nope, while it is true that Baker actually married V2, her portrayal was greatly inferior to V1. V1 actually exceeded the doctor in knowledge and skill, at least in the first episodes before the writers started dumbing her down. By V2 the transformation was complete except for an occasional throw-away. And I think V1 was the prettier of the two too.
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After Russell T Davies finished writing/directing... it went down-hill.
When Dr Who was brought back with Christopher Eccleston there was some quite brilliant sub-plots woven through the series. Bad Wolf, The Face of Bow, The Dr Donna, The ever beating drums, must rank as exceptional story telling.. but the gradual development of the messiah complex meant it was always going to be hard to continue (without wandering into heresy of Dr Who was Jesus).
Without the Epiphany, the story has hit a wall just died and should be given a decent burial..
.. but when’s the next series of Torchwood coming round?
> Torchwood = too many gay references
If you were to believe a certain serial pirate bay commenter, Dr. Who (or should that be Doctor? Let's forget branding for now) is a BBC conspiracy to turn everyone into "teh gay".
I'd protest, but after watching a few episodes of the new Dr. Who, I've turned into "the only gay in the village". BTW, that /is/ Tom Baker doing VO there isn't it? I smell a rat --- you might even say I smell a cyber-rat!
Unfortunately the last Torchwood (Miracle Day) was a disaster IMNSHO. Could have told the story in 4 episodes and maybe been OK. 10 episodes was too long and boring. Even Children of Earth was better. I had to force myself to finish watching Miracle Day - I got really bored after episode 3.
Bring back the original Torchwood concept and it'll be better.
RTD wrote nicely paced episodes, and was quite good with building tension and climax etc. The main problem was he was hopeless at science fiction, drifting more into fantasy fiction much of the time.
Just compare some of the plot lines like in the early Tennent episode an alien race enslaved half a populous by "blood group control", to one of the better Moffat episodes like The Empty Child or Blink...
They brought out new Daleks so that Karen and Matt would be eye-to-eye-stalk with the new Daleks. I don't know for sure but I think Ms Coleman is much shorter so I have to wonder if this will mean ANOTHER reinvention of the Daleks to match the new TARDIS crew heights.
Either that or Ms Coleman is going to be on stilts when she meets Daleks.
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