Episode 02
Doctor Who Season 05
Your Hosts
Coarey
Dan
Music-Title: Conflicted Artist: Kevin MacLeod
Website: http://incompetech.com
In this weeks edition Dan and I discuss our thoughts on Season 05 of Doctor Who!
If you are a fan of the science fiction/fantasy genre, it almost stands to reason that on some level you must be a fan of Doctor Who. The show is the longest running Sci-Fi television series in history. It's been airing since the 60's and has a loyal fan base world-wide. My Dad told me about the show back in the eighties. It was on latenight public television on Sunday nights, and I did my darndest to stay up and watch all I could before passing out.
The format of the older show was episodic and cut in to about 25 minute segments just about everywhere else in the world except where I lived. Here in the Show Me state we had to see it in its all; the station would edit the cliffhanger endings right in to the next episode, so each show was like a movie. Sounds great right? Well some of the shows were 5,6,7 episodes long which translated in to a 3 plus hour movie that didn't start until 10:30 on Sunday night, and this nerd had school the next day. What made matters worse was when the local PBS station had their pledge drives and several times durring the already long show they'd interupt and beg for donations for about 20 minutes. That was rough.
Now I'm sure some of you out there might be like "What the hell is Doctor Who?" or "I've heard of it, but never watched an episode." Well, the long and the short of it is, Doctor Who is about an human looking alien who is a Timelord that calls himself The Doctor. That's all you ever get out of him. The Doctor. And he traverses time and space in wonderful time machine call the TARDIS. The TARDIS, on the outside, looks like an old Police Call Box found in Britain way back in the day. If you don't know what that is, picture something tall and blue with about the physical dimentions of a small toll booth. One the inside, however, the TARDIS is large and spacious comprising many rooms.
The Doctor himself is an ever evolving and changing character. His very intelligent, like Sherlock Holmes, but he's also is very eccentric and quirky. He usually dresses slightly out of fashion with the times, or bizzare all together; and his look changes with each of his incarnations. You see when The Doctor gets too injured or sick and is near death, his body goes through a regeneration process and it changes him literally in to a new man. He still has his memories, but the new Doctor developes his own personality and quirks.
The Doctor is a man who is facinated with the potential of the human race, so many of his stories involve earth and its inhabitants facing all kinds of disasters and threats, usually caused by aliens. Sometimes his travels take him to distant worlds where the adventures can really take a turn for the bizarre.
The Doctor does not travel alone, however, as certain people (usually Earth people) tend to get caught up with him on his adventures and wind up tagging along with him for a while. They aid him durring his never ending string od crisis and play wonderful plot devices.
Being who The Doctor is, he hasn't gone through nine-hundred years of life without making more than a few enemies. He has an entire rogues gallery of re-occuring villains. He faces Cybermen, Daleks, Suntaurans, and his arch nemesis, an evil timelord that calls himself The Master.
Back in 2005 the show came off a long hiatus and got things rolling again with a new hour long format (which works much better) and a nice budget for special effects. The show almost seems to be something of a reboot or relaunch, but not, it's strange. You get a fresh introduction to a new Doctor, but he's a man with a long history and eventually in the new series old companions of the Doctor show up and nostalgia ensues.
The show is made by the BBC so if you have BBC America, or can wait for it to show up on Sci-Fi, check it out. A lot of it is also available on Netflix streaming too. It British Sci-Fi at its finest.
