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Watched the last three Doctor Who specials back to back more or less. Waters of Mars and End of Time, Part I on Friday, and End of Time, Part II. Was rather impressed by these, far better than the last two specials. Although I did enjoy Planet of the Dead. Also watched a bit of the David Tennet/RT Davies special where they more or less explain what they were thinking when they made these episodes.
From wiki :
As a Time Lord, the Doctor has the ability to regenerate his body when near death. Introduced into the storyline as a way of continuing the series when the writers were faced with the departure of lead actor William Hartnell in 1966, it has continued to be a major element of the series, allowing for the recasting of the lead actor when the need arises. The serial The Deadly Assassin established that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times, for a total of thirteen incarnations (although at least one Time Lord, the Master, has managed to circumvent this). To date, the Doctor has gone through this process and its resulting after-effects on ten occasions, with each of his incarnations having his own quirks and abilities but otherwise sharing the memories and experience of the previous incarnations.
The main theme of the last group of Doctor Who episodes is mortality, although this is hardly a spoiler - since that is an ongoing theme of the series. Relating back to a quote by Joss Whedon at the Cultural Humanist Q&A, where Whedon states something to the effect that the thing we are all the most afraid of is death, and how it is also what unites us, what makes us human, makes life worth something...bucking death, becoming "immortal", circumventing it forever - is evil in a way, because it belittles life, the process. We need both.
Reminds me of a quote I heard recently from the writer of the Life of Pi, who states that death is a grinning skull that mocks him, it grips at life, envious of it, envious and jealous of its beauty, its vibrance, and clutches at it, possessive and obessive, half-in love and half-in hate, but life laughs and jumps over...even in death, always moving forward from it.
Doctor Who is the longest running science-fiction television series in the world, partly because of the fact that it can literally regenerate itself - and that is due to the nature of the medium from which it was given birth. If it had originated from a film, book, or comic - I seriously doubt they'd have come up with the idea of regeneration. Doctor Who is a creature of tv. Specifically serial/horror/sci-fi tv. It would not exist without it. And, of all the explanations I've seen for recasting, it by far is the most innovative. But then, that is in part the nature of the genre.
I have a love hate relationship with Doctor Who that goes back to its premiere on PBS in the late 1970s/early 1980s - when I viewed it as a show that had monsters, was scarey, and therefore best to avoid. (Had a similar love/hate relationship with 1999 and Star Trek back then. I was about 12 and easily scared, plus an overactive imagination...which is not always a good thing, when one is trying to sleep.) Now, my love/hate relationship is mostly due to the camp factor, which can be quite high on occassion. It is after all meant to be a children's show, even if some of the episodes are clearly not for kids. Much like BTVS, it seems to straddle the kid and adult spectrum equally, hence its appeal. And no, I have not seen all of it. I've only seen all of the present day episodes or at least 85-95% of them.
**WARNING: I don't have any time to edit this. It was written off the top of my head. I have not re-read it. So it is bound to be filled with typos, misspellings, grammatical errors and other annoyances. I may go back and edit at a later date. Also it's a musing, so will be sort of stream of consciousness in places. Plus major plot spoilers for all three episodes.
( therebe spoilers in these woods... Waters of Mars, End of Time Part I and End of Time Part II )
From wiki :
As a Time Lord, the Doctor has the ability to regenerate his body when near death. Introduced into the storyline as a way of continuing the series when the writers were faced with the departure of lead actor William Hartnell in 1966, it has continued to be a major element of the series, allowing for the recasting of the lead actor when the need arises. The serial The Deadly Assassin established that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times, for a total of thirteen incarnations (although at least one Time Lord, the Master, has managed to circumvent this). To date, the Doctor has gone through this process and its resulting after-effects on ten occasions, with each of his incarnations having his own quirks and abilities but otherwise sharing the memories and experience of the previous incarnations.
The main theme of the last group of Doctor Who episodes is mortality, although this is hardly a spoiler - since that is an ongoing theme of the series. Relating back to a quote by Joss Whedon at the Cultural Humanist Q&A, where Whedon states something to the effect that the thing we are all the most afraid of is death, and how it is also what unites us, what makes us human, makes life worth something...bucking death, becoming "immortal", circumventing it forever - is evil in a way, because it belittles life, the process. We need both.
Reminds me of a quote I heard recently from the writer of the Life of Pi, who states that death is a grinning skull that mocks him, it grips at life, envious of it, envious and jealous of its beauty, its vibrance, and clutches at it, possessive and obessive, half-in love and half-in hate, but life laughs and jumps over...even in death, always moving forward from it.
Doctor Who is the longest running science-fiction television series in the world, partly because of the fact that it can literally regenerate itself - and that is due to the nature of the medium from which it was given birth. If it had originated from a film, book, or comic - I seriously doubt they'd have come up with the idea of regeneration. Doctor Who is a creature of tv. Specifically serial/horror/sci-fi tv. It would not exist without it. And, of all the explanations I've seen for recasting, it by far is the most innovative. But then, that is in part the nature of the genre.
I have a love hate relationship with Doctor Who that goes back to its premiere on PBS in the late 1970s/early 1980s - when I viewed it as a show that had monsters, was scarey, and therefore best to avoid. (Had a similar love/hate relationship with 1999 and Star Trek back then. I was about 12 and easily scared, plus an overactive imagination...which is not always a good thing, when one is trying to sleep.) Now, my love/hate relationship is mostly due to the camp factor, which can be quite high on occassion. It is after all meant to be a children's show, even if some of the episodes are clearly not for kids. Much like BTVS, it seems to straddle the kid and adult spectrum equally, hence its appeal. And no, I have not seen all of it. I've only seen all of the present day episodes or at least 85-95% of them.
**WARNING: I don't have any time to edit this. It was written off the top of my head. I have not re-read it. So it is bound to be filled with typos, misspellings, grammatical errors and other annoyances. I may go back and edit at a later date. Also it's a musing, so will be sort of stream of consciousness in places. Plus major plot spoilers for all three episodes.
( therebe spoilers in these woods... Waters of Mars, End of Time Part I and End of Time Part II )