The New “Doctor Who” Series

By some sheer coincidence I happened to actually be watching TV this evening and found CBC was showing the first episode of a new “Doctor Who” series. I nearly spit when I saw this, as I don't normally follow entertainment news and didn't even know there was such a thing. Since I have to admit to having had nightmares that include Daleks as a younger lad when YTV showed episodes from the 80s every day at 5:30, I was pretty excited to watch this new series.

Of course, my in-built cynicism about anything new and any and all remakes kept my expectations low, and I think I would have simply been happy if they didn't ruin it, which I am happy to report they didn't.

It' shard to judge the writing after only having seen one episode, but the dialog was clever and the Doctor had some good lines. They even made fun of the fact that a phone booth from the 1950s wasn't much of a disguise for the TARDIS, but the producers wouldn't dare update something like that. Quite funny. The Doctor is a bit out of his usual character in this incarnation, instead of an eccentric intellectually-sharp but perhaps a little in need of the street smarts of an assistant like Ace, this new doctor is a very brash, Manchester-accented young fellow whom you might sooner expect to meet at the pub rather than in the library. And I'm not too sure what the current plus-one brings to the team except more middle-class trendiness.

Still, the story was pretty good, and the preview for the next episode seems to show they're not going to shy away from the larger universe of the original series (hopefully outgrowing the rather lame 'pictures of the Doctor with JFK stuff we were shown tonight), so I think I'll stick with it.
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