Doctor Who buzz

It’s happening again, Doctor Who is fashionable once again. It seems that this kind of thing comes in waves, with the most recent example being the very largely publicized departure of David Tennant. The arrival of Matt Smith as the Doctor and new head writer Steven Moffatt is also setting the web on fire. There has been some resistance to the new ‘regime,’ with a very vocal group of fans declaring that they will never watch again now that David is gone.

The ratings have fluctuated in the first three episodes with a noticeable slump last week. I’m hoping that the use of the Daleks early on will keep fans watching and after the revelation that the Daleks too have been redesigned and retooled (see below) there should be a spike in viewing figures. Just three adventures in out of the year’s allotment of 13 and I have to say that I am very excited. From the buzz on the web, I’m not the only one.

I’m not feeling that well this evening (hence the quick blog post), but wanted to pass on a few choice gems.

Doctor Who premiered in NYC this week. I have to say that I have never seen this much energy being directed to publicizing Doctor Who. In the UK, Matt Smith actually traveled around to English towns with a crew showing the premier episode to local viewers. In the US, they showed it to a collection of devoted fans in the Manhattan. That’s cultural differences for you!

After the screening, there was a Q&A session:

Moffat on the Doctor: “Well, Doctor Who should be funny. After all the time he’s been around, he’s absolutely, genuinely, properly mad. He’s not eccentric. He’s off the scale. He’s a bloke Who could be defusing a bomb and forget he could be doing it. He could be your best pal, but you know he might just forget to come rescue you if something good came on the telly. Other than that, he’s a lovely man.”

“A lot of the storyline is about Amy and the Doctor.” Said Moffat. “And it does take unexpected turns. It already has in the first episode. I just don’t want to say anything because it’d spoil the surprises. People always want to spoil the surprise. People always ask what happens next, and I just go ‘Oh, watch the sodding bit. There ya go.'” Pay attention to everything. Once you get to episodes 12 and 13, you’ll discover you should’ve been paying attention to everything that you think you understood. In fact, I’d recommend watching it three or four times. And you should recommend it to all your friends.”

One older fan asked, practically demanded, that the TARDIS’ chameleon circuit finally be fixed so that it could look like more than an old police box. This drew loud boos from the majority of the audience, and Matt Smith, Who also then had to explain to his sister and friends (Who flew in from Britain) what the chameleon circuit was: the technology that makes the TARDIS look like a police box and had been broken for ages.

“Let me be clear,” said Moffat. “The Doctor could have repaired it years ago. Of course he could repair it. He just likes the blue.”

Here’s an article on the history of Doctor Who and the Radiophonic Workshop. The lack of an electronic soundtrack is still something that saddens me. It is quintessential to what Doctor Who. Murray Gold’s absurdly poor orchestrations seem more like an embarrassing attempt to ape Star Wars than anything else. But there was a time when a weekly program featured the weirdest sounds you had ever heard.

It was composed by Ron Grainer, but much of the credit for the tune’s influence goes to Delia Derbyshire, then part of the Radiophonic staff. She was given the task of arranging Grainer’s composition. This was in the days before the BBC had synthesizers, so Derbyshire had to make do with what was around the studio. One thing they had in abundance was magnetic tape. So with the use of oscillators designed to test electronic equipment and some very intricate tape splicing, Derbyshire created one of the best known examples of musique concrete. A recording of a plucked string provided the bass line and the first widely heard example of sampling.

An article on iDaleks, joking about the sudden appearance of multi-colored Daleks in the latest episode. The multi-colored design seems influenced by the lavish big budget feature film from the 1960’s. Whereas Doctor Who on the small screen had been limited to black and white, the silver screen offered viewers brightly candy-colored killing machines.

The hefty bumpers on the new Daleks are consistent with the old movie models as well. It has been a very long time since the Daleks have been redesigned. I’m not sure what the fan reaction will be, but it sends a clear message that these are new menaces and that the pepper pots of the past are long gone.

And in preparation of next week’s episode (Part one of a two-parter), a primer on the Weeping Angels.

The most popular script that Moffat has worked on to date featured the Doctor seen in small doses in hidden DVD message as he struggled to pass on information about the dreaded Weeping Angels that had trapped him in the past. This two-part adventure looks to be the high point of the year.

What are the Weeping Angels? Well, they look like statues, but they’re anything but. These “angels” are actually aliens who have a built-in defense mechanism — if they come into anyone’s vision, they are transfixed into stone. But when those people look away, the angels move incredibly quickly to grab you. Their touch sends you back in time, and the angels feed off the residual energy of the life you would have had. “They’re the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely,” the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) said of them in “Blink,” the only other Who serial in which they have appeared.