Big Who fandom meme

[selenak]

...while in the process of massively catching up with fandoms in the last ten days, I found this, at londonkds', andrastewhite's and other lj-friends.



1. When did you start watching?

In the early 90s, via videos lent by a friend. The first adventure I saw was Talons of Weng-Chian. Oddly enough and defying the rule that you imprint on your first Doctor, this did not turn me into either a DW or a Fourth Doctor/Tom Baker fan. I wasn't bored, far from it, but I didn't fall in love, either.

1a. Why?

Said friend. She had provided me with the entirety of Blake's 7 before and mentioned this particular Who story had been written by a B7 stalwart, Robert Holmes.

2. What was your first episode?

See above.

3. Which episodes have you seen?

By now, four of One's storyarcs (that's four to five episodes each), two of Two's, the entire season 11 and several other Three storyarcs, Robots of Death, Talons of Weng-Chian, City of Death, Genesis of the Daleks and That Other Dalek Story With Davros Which Did Not Impress Me Much of the Tom Baker era, four storyarcs plus The Five Doctors from Five's era, Timelash from the Colin Baker time (alas, alas...), Time and the Rani and most of Seven's last two seasons except for Paradise Towers, That TV Movie and all of New Who.

3a. Favourite?

Oh dear. Even with my spotty Old School knowledge, it's incredibly hard to choose; ditto for New School. Let's say: The Aztecs, The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Frontiers in Space, Time Warrior, Curse of Fenric, Survival, School Reunion, Girl in the Fireplace, The Runaway Bride, Gridlock, Utopia, Sound of Drums.

4. Are your friends/family interested in the show?

Virtual friends yes, friends in physical vicinity no. My family thinks DW is about an excentric English physician, 'nuff said.

5. Which Doctor is your favourite?

Seven, aka Sylvester McCoy. Though Ten comes close.

6. Which Doctor is your least favourite?

It would be a bit unfair to single out poor old Six on the basis of the abominable Timelash, would it? Of those Doctors I actually saw a lot of adventures with, it's probably Nine, defying public opinion. It's not that I dislike him, it's just that I love the other incarnations of the Doctor more, which might be a combination of contrariness and Eccleston Fatigue.

7. Which TV companion is your favourite?

Ace, no question about it. Runner-up is Barbara, tying with Martha and Donna.

8. Which TV companion is your least favourite?

Was Peri That Person In Timelash? Again, probably unfair on my part.

9. Do you listen to the Big Finish audios?

Some (I usually aquire one when I visit England).

9a. If so, which is your favourite?

The Fearmonger. (Seven, Ace, and Jacqueline Pearce as a Margaret Thatcher-like politician.)

9b. Also: which Big Finish companion is your favourite?

Hex, aka Thomas Hector Schofield.

10. Have you listened to any non-Big Finish audios?

Punchline on andrastewhite's reccomendation, and it is indeed brilliant.

11. Have you read any of the novels or short stories?

Paul Cornell's Christmas story of 2007, but that's about it.

12. Have you read any of the comics?

No.

13. Do you watch any of the spinoffs (e.g. Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures)?

Yes.

13a. Which is your favourite?

TW has been improving, which makes it more difficult to choose, but on the basis of overall good writing and acting during their respective first seasons, it would definitely be SJA.

14. Is there any particular episode/book/audio/comic you desperately want to watch/listen to/read?

The ninth and tenth season comes to mind.


1. Do you write fanfic for Doctor Who?

I've written a little, mostly crossovers.

1a. If so, post a snippet of a work-in-progress (or several)!

I have none available.

2. Do you create Doctor Who icons?

No.

2a. Let's see a sample!

See above.

3. Recommend a fanfic/icon/fanvid/fancomic/fancreation!

I've recced this before, but it bears repeating: Run with Us by calapine captures my favourite Doctor/Companion relationship beautifully.

4. Have you been to any Doctor Who conventions?

No.

5. Have you ever dressed up as a Doctor Who character?

No.

6. Do you own any Doctor Who merchandise?

I wanted a mini Dalek but kept forgetting to buy one on my visits to London...

7. Are you a fan of Russell T Davies?

I like most of this episodes, love some of them (Gridlock and Utopia especially), and think that overall, he did and does a good job as producer. Of his non-Who stuff, I've seen The Second Coming with Eccleston and Casanova with Tennant, and found the former interesting but too preachy (probably inevitable, given the subject), and the later entertaining and very illuminating about both RTD's flaws and virtues as a writer. One of these days I'll get around writing Casanova meta and why it illustrates so very well what Rusty screws up and gets right without the burden of an already existing fandom and 40 years of history.


7a. Steven Moffat?

I loved every single one of his New Who eps and The Curse of Fatal Death, but the pilot of Jekyll disappointed me so much that I did not watch the show. It also keeps me from joining the rest of fandom in hoping Moffat will take over once RTD finishes his run as producer; if Jekyll is any illustration of what he does as headwriter, I'd rather have him keep writing individual episodes instead. (Maybe I should watch Press Gang?

7b. Paul Cornell?

Yes. He's the Dickens to Moffat's Thackeray, and we need to keep them both.

8. What say you to Season 6b?

If it makes people happy...

9. The UNIT dating controversy?

I loved wee_warrior's answer to that one but cannot steal it, so I'll say instead that the 70s were a period in which everything was possible anyway.

10. The Blinovitch Limitation effect?

Don't care.

11. Multi-Doctor episodes?

Fan service, mostly fun.

12. What's your favourite Doctor Who technobabble?

"Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...stuff."

13. Have you watched other TV shows exclusively because of the presence of Doctor Who actors?

I had seen Eccleston in several things pre-Who, Colin Baker in one of my favourite B7's episodes (as Bayban "My mother called me Babe" The Butcher), and Patrick Throughton in Anne of the Thousand Days (I think? Or was it Henry VIII? One of them, anyway), oh, and Tennant in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but that all predated my seeing them playing the Doctor. Recovery and Blackpool, otoh, were post-Who for me, and yes, I watched because Tennant was in them.

14. Have you met any of the actors?

No.

14a. Travelled to any filming locations?

No, unless you count Paris, but I swear the many times I visited had nothing to do with Four and Romana.

15. What do you think of The Curse of Fatal Death?

Loved it. Why none of the Doctor/Master vids that sprang into existence recently used footage from it I can't understand. Joanne Lumley/Jonathan Pryce OTP!

16. Do you have any fannish opinions that you think are fairly unpopular?

The first season of New Who actually had all the flaws people complain about in the second season (or third season, for that matter), only then the shiny was new enough to overlook them. ("I can't lose her!", "The woman you love", "I only take the best - I take Rose" beats "That name keeps me fighting" in clunkiness and pushiness any time, the Doctor and Rose are every bit as cliquey and twice as irresponsible in The Long Game than they are in Tooth and Claw, and the grand climax of Parting of the Ways is as dea-ex-machina and plot holey as later events, privileging powerful emotion over narrative logic, etc., etc.)

Not too sure whether this is fairly unpopular, but as he ends on many a list as least favourite Doctor, I guess it might be: I like Three.

Also not sure whether it's still unpopular, but it might be outside of ljdom, given snide remarks in magazines: Seven rules!

17. What's your favourite pairing?

Doctor/TARDIS. I once stopped reading a story recced to me because it said the Doctor has been mistreating her, I kid you not.
Doctor/Companion'ships (any Companions) don't work for me though for some reason stories featuring the Doctor having a friendship-with-benefits relationship with former Companions do (I've read and liked some with Sarah Jane, and with Jack), probably because former Companions come across as sovereign in their own environment which removes the inequality factor squicking me while they're still travelling with the Doctor, plus the stories in question don't present the relationship as a passionate romance. I also admittedly love Doctor/Master, which is a twisted romance, but not in the sense that I can ever see that having a happy ending (and indeed the impossibility is part of the allure); a temporary truce at most.

Companion/Companion relationships like the classic one, Ian/Barbara, are lovely but I wouldn't say they're my favourites.

18. What pairing(s) won't you touch with a really long pole?

Doctor/Rose. Any Doctor and Rose, I really don't care whether it's Nine or Ten or one of the previous Doctors meeting her. Rose on her own and in relation to other people - Jackie, Mickey, Jack, Sarah Jane, Martha, really, anyone - I like reading about, but due to a combination of fandom factors and internal factors, I definitely avoid reading stories with the Doctor and Rose in the lead, unless the disclaimer and summary leads me to believe the story in question is explicity not a romance.

Comments

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

RTD:
I'd be interested to read your thoughts on Casanova. I like it a lot, but I would agree that it has a couple of huge flaws. It is however interesting for the Who alumni alone.

Moffat:

Jekyll as a whole is a little incoherent. It moves in a different direction than the first episode suggests and is quite good for a while, but takes a really stupid turn somewhere in the middle, basically switching genres from horror to American action thriller (and then somewhat pointlessly back). And there is a flashback episode slam in the middle which pretty much only exists to draw out a cliffhanger. Also? James Nesbitt needs a valium or two.

Unit:
Glad you liked it! I honestly have no idea what the question is referring to...:D

And we have quite a few answers in common, especially where Nine is concerned (not surprisingly.).

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I'll try to get the Casanova post done then.*g*

Jekyll (and Moffat): so should I give it another shot, or does the bad outweigh the good?

UNIT dating controversy: as far as I know, that means that society as depicted in the UNIT episodes from Three's turn is slightly futuristic (for the 70s), so the question is whether we're meant to believe the Doctor was staying in the actual 70s or not. You know, Sam Tyler lived far more depressingly when he visited (in the first season at last).*veg*

Nine: bet we're the only ones, though...

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

Jekyll (and Moffat): so should I give it another shot, or does the bad outweigh the good?

I found it mostly entertaining, but the solution(s) were a letdown to me, and I'd say the topic itself deserved a little more complexity. What's interesting is that the show has lots of the by now common US-bashing, but very Americanized storytelling elements at the same time (They Took My Wife and Kids! moments, a conspiracy, stuff like that). I suppose it depends what you expect - I probably expected more of a traditional horror story. It does have some interesting ideas and I really liked the snarky lesbian detective couple .

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

UNIT dating controversy - there's a huge article on Wikipedia with just that title, which I'd link but it would probably frighten you off Who fandom that people get that geeky.

Basically in the main run of UNIT stories (1968 - 1975 roughly) it was strongly implied that the setting was a near-future version of Earth about ten to twenty years ahead (despite the fact that it still had pre-decimal British coinage and all the vehicles had contemporary number plate ranges). However, the 1983 story Mawdryn Undead flatly and unambiguously announced that the Brigadier (the leader of UNIT UK) retired in 1976, meaning that the stories were actually set in a fictional version of Earth at roughly the same date as their original broadcast. Ever since, fans have been arguing over whether to accept this or come up with a convoluted in-canon explanation for the discrepancy.

[wee-warrior.livejournal.com]

there's a huge article on Wikipedia with just that title, which I'd link but it would probably frighten you off Who fandom that people get that geeky.

*g* Don't worry, I have a lot of IT people who are also sci-fi geeks in my social circle, so I'm used to that kind of enthusiasm. I'm a lot more scared of the darker side of New Who shipping.

Thanks for explaining!