woo, er, Who

[chelseagirl]

My Doctor Who box set just arrived from the UK, and a lovely thing it is. I'd seen about half the episodes only on my laptop screen, and it was such a treat to watch them on an actual television! (We started out burning our downloads to disk, but ran into synching problems around episodes 6-7 and decided to forget about it until the DVDs arrived.)

Rewatched Father's Day (which is my new gold standard for "having a good cry" viewing, finally replacing the episode of Buffy where Jenny Calendar died, because honestly, once Joss started killing 'em off wholesale, it really lost its impact), and the two in WWII London. Was disappointed that the Dr. Who Confidentials on disk 5 are "Cut Down" to about 10 minutes each, but oh well. Say, the Christmas Invasion is coming up soon, yes?

The Tardis box packaging is actually quite cool (in an "I am a great big dork with a Tardis on my coffeetable kinda way"), though clearly intended for people who have a lot more free bookshelf space than we do. M. & I both reacted the same way at separate times -- "hey, that's really neat! . . . uh, and it's going to go *where*?" Hence, the coffee table 'til we figure out something better. Hopefully they'll calm down the packaging next time, or else I will wait for the Region 1 disks.

Comments

[jennetj.livejournal.com]

Trying to decide whether to order them from the UK or wait for the Region 1s. I rather suspect I'll do the former--ol' "instant gratification takes too long" me. I should have ordered them last week to insure they'd be here before I have to take off for Christmas.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

Well, if you get the UK one, you get the cool TARDIS box, and you have an actual house to keep it in. ;-) From what I've heard, the Region 1 DVDs are pretty much just the eps. (But I could be wrong; I heard this in passing when I'd already preordered from amazon.co.uk .) These have commentaries on every single ep if that's your thing -- none from Eccleston, but from Piper, Barrowman, and Russell Davies among others. And the fifth disk of edited down Dr. Who confidentials. They're very lovely. :-)

[jennetj.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the R1 set will have the exact same content as the R2 set. That notwithstanding, I just placed my order for the UK edition, as I want to take them on the plane with me after Christmas (gotta do something to make that awful flight less awful).

I'm especially looking forward to the RTD and Barrowman commentaries--I'm a total Barrowman fangirl!

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

That's good to know. I'm still not sorry I got them early; what's the use of having a multiregional if I don't occasionally do things like that? (Oh, okay, it's so M. didn't have to throw out all his British DVDs, *really*, but . . . ) Enjoy! What are you watching them on? I just got the DVDIdle multiregional program for my laptop as an early Christmas present.

I have to admit my heart belongs to Eccleston, though I'm optimistic about the new guy. Have you heard anything about Captain Jack's spinoff show? (I just ran across the title and fact of its existence one day.)

[jennetj.livejournal.com]

I've got a multi-region DVD player, as well as a program on my laptop that makes it multi-region as well. I absolutely adore Eccleston's Doctor, but everything I've seen Tennant in so far I've liked him.

All I know about Torchwood is the bits that have been in the news in the UK--it's set present-day Cardiff, and Jack and his "team" are investigating alien "artifacts" and situations--stuff Nato or the government can't handle. It's sort of X-Files-ish. It'll be spinoff of Doctor Who but not a crossover--because it'll air "post-watershed", they get to have sex (which, given Captain Jack, would be a pity if they couldn't). I'm withholding judgement 'til I see it. I adore Captain Jack, but often a character like this is best as a supporting character and can't sustain a show on his own.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

That was kind of what M. thought; he might not be strong enough to carry his own show. I'd still like to download it and see (as why do I suspect we're even less likely to get this than Dr. Who?).

[jennetj.livejournal.com]

I think Barrowman himself could probably carry a show--the guy's very talented and has a real "presence" in the few things I've seen him in (which, granted, hasn't been much). My question is more whether the character of Captain Jack, who's a bit of a one-note on DW, can carry a series on his own. But, of course, I'll download it anyway, because...Captain Jack!

As to your 2nd post (I'm assuming that anonymous was you), I saw Tennant in Blackpool, which just finished running on BBCA. He played a sort of Columbo-esque DI who wound up having an affair with the main suspect's wife. He was nerdy and appealing. In HP I thought he was seriously creepy. I've seen the Children In Need 3-minute DW "episode", too, which makes me want to really see his Doctor. A local friend has his Casanova on DVD and has promised to lend.

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

The character would definitely have to be fleshed out a lot more -- cute bisexual flirtations will only get you so far, after all. (Although that could be pretty far.)

Is the Children in Need thing available for downloading? We'll have to do that this weekend. I'm in semester's end mode now so have had very little presence of mind. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, and . . .

so what else have you seen Tennant in? I've only seen him in the regeneration scene and Harry Potter, really. I'm half-tempted to obsessively rent things but after all The Christmas Invasion is coming soon.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Yes. 'Christmas Invasion' is up soon. And after the teaser on Children in Need, I'm really looking forward to it. 7 PM on the 25th. We'll be here. One of these days, we'll have a DVD recorder, I promise!

Did I mention (I might have said this on LJ) that I showed part of 'The Unquiet Dead' to my Year 8s the day after we bought the box set? It was an episode I'd missed and, upon viewing it, realised the beginning was perfect for demonstrating gothic horror. The kids loved it. I have fans in the classroom. One boy, who said he hated Dr Who, told me he'd changed his mind. (He'd not watched any of them, of course. :)

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

There was a behind-the-scenes in the box set, but as Dr. Ten was mostly in bed recovering from his regeneration, I didn't get to see more than that. We'll download the episode when we get back from Christmas at my folks'. (Yes, the one upside to this year is he won't be working Christmas Eve/Day -- as far as we know, that is -- so we're taking a chance and going ahead and getting plane tickets.)

Duh, but The Unquiet Dead is the Dickens ep, yes? I loved that one. He probably hated Dr. Who like kids in my school "hated" Star Trek, without ever having seen it. I'm glad the kid was cool enough to admit he'd changed his mind. :-)

[silme.livejournal.com]

The Children in Need teaser has him introducing himself to Rose, convincing her he really is the doctor and being very hyper. :)

The Unquiet Dead, yes, is the Dickens episode. Cardiff 1849. (They do like Cardiff, don't they? Three episodes set there, I think? I mean, I don't mind. I like Cardiff and Ian lived there for three years, but it does make you wonder!) I think many kids automatically hate a lot of science fiction without actually giving it a try. But he was fascinated by Dr Who despite himself!

[chelseagirl.livejournal.com]

What accent does he use? I'd seen him in a thing or two sounding pretty standard English, but I heard his real Scottish accent for the first time on these interview snippets.

Don't they film in/near Cardiff (at least when they're not shooting London exteriors)? I know it's BBC Wales that's producing it.

Simon Callow is so fabulous in that episode, btw. He really felt like Dickens to me. Of course, I wondered about that whole thing about getting back to his family. In real life he had ditched his wife and was carrying on with whatsername, Ellen Ternan.

[silme.livejournal.com]

Ah, didn't know they film around Cardiff. Well, that makes sense then. :)

About the accent, it's not all that Scottish. At least I don't remember it. (Will have to watch the tape again.) But there have been hints it might become more Scottish from time to time.