dr. who

[M Holmes]

Ian Abrahams writes:

> How would Bill Nighy go down with the target audience though?

He's the right age. He's eccentric. He's quintessentially British.

> David Tenant is a good choice,

I dunno. He just plain looks to young and clean. The role needs some
gravitas and a sinister edge.

> if true, and is a longtime Who fan that would
> stick with it for the long haul.

That would certainly be a plus.

Thinking about it a bit more, I reckon the burping wheelie bin was a
mistake. There's room for humour, but it shouldn't undermine the idea
that there's real threat present. I think the burp was played too much for
laughs from the kids and they should be scared, not giggling. Too much
comedy is where they screwed up from Colin Baker onwards, especially
with that stupid robot dog.

I always liked the Cybermen in the monster role. However they're beat
like red-headed step children by the fashion sense of The Borg, so I
dunno how easy it would be to reprise them.

The Daleks might suffer the same problem, though they could more easily
update them while keeping continuity. A kind of postmodern Dalek as a
floating Silver Smartie with the same voice and a beam weapon would work
fine. The very featurlessness of such a monster would seem threatening,
though I appreciate that the temptation to go with the old sink-plungers
will almost certainly prove overwhelming.

Good decision to keep the Tardis and the update to the internals is
fine. Reprising the Companion as a Buffy character is inevitable, and
will probably prove a hit with preteen girlies.

What they absolutely have to do is reprise UNIT as a modern
take-no-prisoners SAS squad with a bit of Spooks thrown in, though the
Leftbridge-Stewart replacement should probably have a bit of the
eccentric old Colonel in him.

All in all though, I'd rather have seen them do Jerry Cornelius instead.
He's a hip British time-traveller after all and the whole Sixties thing
could lend the appropriate level of humour.  Trips out from Time Central
could easily lend itself to an episodic format.  Mind you, they probably
couldn't have Bishop Beesely bugger anyone with a Mars Bar and hope to
air it before the kids went to bed.

FoFP