Looking Forward: Doctor Who

The first episode of the new Doctor Who airs on BBC One, on Saturday 26th March, at seven in the evening. I'm not in the habit of scheduling television watching - in most cases I wait for the goods to appear on DVD before I pay attention. In this case, however, I'm breaking habits. Why?

It's produced by the BBC, and is therefore likely to be, well, good. The BBC are not in the habit of producing bad shows. Further, they can produce good material without attempting to cater to a lowest common denominator, or having to explain to clueless executives why this science fiction show has Victorian costuming in a given episode. I'm still irritable over the cancellation of Firefly, which, at least according to rumour, was because the execs couldn't get their heads around the idea of horses in a space show. So I'm trusting to the Beeb to get the production right.

Then there's the mythos. There's an air of expectation surrounding this, the expectation being that continuity will pick up from at least the older TV series, and possibly the various novels. That's a major attraction for me - I like a rich, complex background, and the amount of it that's there in the Who universe is nothing short of huge.

And there's the hype. Science fiction magazines, websites, fan groups, mailing lists... there's a solid buzz building up. Trailers get circulated, leaked scripts move across the net at ridiculous speeds, at least one whole leaked episode can be got as a torrent and on other peer-to-peer services.

I'll be publishing initial thoughts here within a few moments of the episode ending. I hope it'll all be positive. Here's the official BBC Doctor Who Site, for further reading.

Posted by Drew Shiel at March 22, 2005 12:30 PM | TrackBack

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Thanks for the information and the website. I look forward to your thoughts on the new program. I've been a Doctor Who fan for about twenty years now, since I was a kid and my Dad first had me watch them on Public Broadcasting here in the States.

Posted by: Lady Byron at March 26, 2005 10:40 PM