Doctor Who

I actually have quite a few things to talk about, and I will hopefully get to them in the next couple of days, but I picked Doctor Who for now because otherwise I'm going to forget what I was gonna say about the show's Easter special. Or about the show in general.

Well, I first started watching the show because of my roommate. To be honest, I never was quite passionate about the show and only watched it because occasionally I pretend to be a polite person and also because I don't want to be that person who refuses to watch the thing everyone else in the room has decided to watch on a Friday night. Especially when they want to watch it on my giant monitor. The party pooper, in other words.

In short, Doctor Who is a British sci-fi TV show, and apparently quite long-running. It was started in the 70's (I think...) and has been on and off until now. It's quite popular and often has cameos by semi-famous people (I say semi-famous because I'm not British and therefore do not know most of these people, but that doesn't mean they are not famous in Britain). Come to think about it, it has some quite special and clever features that allow it to be so long-running.

For example, the titular Doctor can regenerate his body after a fatal injury, which alters his appearance, allowing different actors to portray him plausibly through the years. He only has 12 regenerations though, so after the 13th death he's supposed to be done for good, though due to the popularity of the series I'm sure the writers will think of some way to bring him back or continue the series through some other way.

Currently we are on the 10th Doctor, who is played by David Tennant, who I have to concede is quite charming and quirky as the Doctor. When he's not playing the Doctor though, as I have seen him in some other movies (case in point, the 5th Harry Potter movie. He was Barty Crouch Jr.), he can be quite boring or just plain creepy. Here is a pretty typical shot of him as the Doctor, standing in front of the TARDIS (his time-traveling box) and holding the sonic screwdriver (which has gotten him out of many a tight spot):


The premise of the show is... the Doctor is a Time Lord, from a planet of Time Lords and Ladies who are time travelers who can basically go to any point in time and space. Yes, they are aliens, and there are many many MANY other types of aliens as well as many other planets and galaxies and alternative universes.

The Doctor is the last one of the Time Lord because his people and planet were all destroyed in the Time War with the Daleks, an evil belligerent xenophobic intolerant race that basically want to kill anything that is not a Dalek. They look like this:

So now the Doctor time travels with a human companion, taking the human to see wonders and to fix evil that springs up. It's obviously a bit more dramatic than that, and some of the evil creatures they have to face (either on Earth or elsewhere) are pretty fascinating. The human companion changes regularly because... well, they rarely die, but something bad usually happens, like their memory has to be sacrificed and erased or they are in love with the Doctor but can't be really with him (many reasons: he ages much more slowly, he's a different species, he has 2 hearts, etc.) so they choose to leave or some other dramatic reason. The Doctor is presented as this highly moral character, so he's obviously not going around picking hot chicks up (though most of his recent companions are good-looking young women) one after the other. He does suffer emotional pain when one companion leaves, but sometimes chance brings him another human that he really clicks with and ... off they go.

The series is currently on a hiatus year and only airs "special" episodes on special occasions (like Easter). David Tennant is leaving the project before next season starts, so expect the Doctor to die and regenerate into another person (actor Matt Smith, in this case, who is more creepy-looking than David Tennant) . Tennant is off doing some play called "Hamlet" and then will probably just enjoy the incredible career boost Doctor Who gave him.

One of the main reasons I'm not soooooo in love with the show is that though pretty well-written, the plot has minor holes sometimes. Some details just don't hold up when you go through the logic more carefully. It's not air-tight, and I find that not completely acceptable by science-fiction standards. There's also some cheesy British national sentiments in some episodes. The special effects and the music work pretty well if you consider the fact it's only a TV show, but you can get critical if you judge it by higher standards. I mean, it's still a very good show. If you don't want to watch the whole thing and get the whole story, I highly recommend the episodes written by Stephen Moffet because they are so creatively creepy and have smoother storylines that can withstand closer scrutiny, especially episodes The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances (the two form one story), The Girl in the Fireplace, and Blink.