Days of Telly Meme - Day 04

[thisbluespirit]

Day 04 - Your favorite show ever

(Because I'm slightly bored with the show that will be my answer to Q3 right now. I won't be tomorrow).

Hmm, my favourite TV show ever? What could that possibly be?

I think it might be this old thing. It's quite well-known and it's one of the longest running shows in the world. Its lead character has been played by 11 different actors (and I love all of them, really and truly). It can be anything it wants, and pretty much has been at some time or another. I know everyone will have their own favourite show, but this is absolutely the most unique TV series there is: love it, hate it, never even seen it, but you've surely got to admit there's nothing else that's anything remotely like it. (Not all of it at once, I mean.)

And I think people might possibly have guessed what my answer would be there. I have other TV obsessions, but they come and go. This one is forever, I think.

And, yes, I like it all. I don't believe in Classic Who and New Who, though I use the terms sometime. I like the 1980s, even Timelash. I love the b&w stuff and can even amuse myself while watching The Sensorites. I have no problems with dodgy 70s CSO. I am a totally hopeless case. I don't even hate any producers. I can grumble about Chris Chibnall, but that's about as far as my disgruntlement goes.


Days of Telly Meme:
Day 01 - A show that should never have been cancelled: Blake's 7
Day 02 - A show that you wish more people were watching: Spooks
Day 03 - Your favorite new show (aired this TV season):
Day 04 - Your favorite show ever: Doctor Who
Day 05 - A show you hate
Day 06 - Favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 07 - Least favorite episode of your favorite TV show
Day 08 - A show everyone should watch
Day 09 - Best scene ever
Day 10 - A show you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving
Day 11 - A show that disappointed you
Day 12 - An episode you've watched more than 5 times
Day 13 - Favorite childhood show
Day 14 - Favorite male character
Day 15 - Favorite female character
Day 16 - Your guilty pleasure show
Day 17 - Favorite mini series: BBC North & South
Day 18 - Favorite title sequence
Day 19 - Best TV show cast
Day 20 - Favorite kiss
Day 21 - Favorite ship
Day 22 - Favorite series finale
Day 23 - Most annoying character
Day 24 - Best quote
Day 25 - A show you plan on watching (old or new)
Day 26 - OMG WTF? Season finale
Day 27 - Best pilot episode
Day 28 - First TV show obsession
Day 29 - Current TV show obsession
Day 30 - Saddest character death

Comments

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. And I wish I had your enlightened attitude to all eras/producers/etc, but I'm just a big moaner really... ;D

[thisbluespirit]

Well, you know I have my quibbles if we go into details of each story, and Doctors I may prefer over others, just slightly *Seven* among other things, but some people might call this blind love for the whole thing lack of discrimination. ;-)

Plus, I know you only pretend to be curmudgeonly. You've done fannish squee posts, and you go back through mine all you want and I don't think you'll find a squee anywhere. :-p

:loL:

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's either one or the other; squee, or "how dare they!". At least when it comes to the new series, anyway. :D I'm amazed by S5 so far in that there's been so little to complain about. It's a bit of a novelty to find myself in the "accentuate the positive" camp when it comes to NuWho...

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, but you can usually find good things to say about the episodes you don't like, in a spirit of fairness and online peace and goodwill, if nothing else. I really think you ought to abandon the curmudgeon thing, or at least wait 20 years. ;-D

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

I know; I'm not really fooling anybody, am I? :D

[thisbluespirit]

Well, the danger is that a lot of people tend to believe what other people say, even if they know they don't exactly mean it.

(That was a very wise thing I have learned btw, even if it didn't sound like it. :lol:)

[primsong.livejournal.com]

What, that old show? Pffft. I mean, you watch stuff that used to be in black and white? ^_^

[thisbluespirit]

I do. And stuff with tinsel and bubblewrap in it as well.

Shocking, isn't it? :lol:

[belantana.livejournal.com]

lols you

(This is the closest I have to a Doctor Who icon, by the way.)

[thisbluespirit]

:-D

Well, I don't think anyone can claim to be surprised by choice here.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

*Applause* I agree with every word!

I don't believe in Classic Who and New Who, though I use the terms sometime.

Yes indeed. I saw a great clip with Steven Moffat where he said there's no such thing as the Eleventh Doctor; there's just the Doctor. It's been the same show about the same character since 1963, and that's what's so fundamentally amazing about it.

That's a great video in the link, by the way -- hadn't seen it before. Oh, and I forgot to be shocked that this your favorite show. Shocked! Shocked I say!

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Someone commented the other day about New Who being a reboot and I damn near went through the roof!!

Managed not to, but did point out all the instances when the new show has shown us it's a continuation of the old one...

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

A reboot?? Well, that's just completely incorrect! There are SO many continuity references . . . your icon, for one. :D

Besides, a reboot implies that something important has changed. For example, the Battlestar Galactica reboot had all sorts of changes, such as making Cylons look like humans. What's changed in Doctor Who? Better special effects does not a reboot make . . .

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

The moment in my icon was one of the things I mentioned as being proof that it's a continuation.

And I'm still waiting on a reply to my comment that "proves" their argument that it's a reboot (which makes me suspect they have no evidence!)

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, thanks. I just knew that would be a crowd-pleasing post. Heh.

Aw, glad you liked the vid. I've never recced it before because everyone seems to know about calapine's amazing fanvids (you should check out the rest - they're almost all Who, but that's still my favourite. It says it all.)

It's just a different era of Doctor Who, and sometimes I may enjoy some episodes more than others, but I love it. What else is this silly and serious and fun?

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

Timelash rocked! (But I totally know what you mean.)

[thisbluespirit]

I know! Tinsel and invasion by glove puppet, with Peri in a nice costume and a decent monster while Paul Darrow does his best impression of Richard III and there's a hapless H G Wells aboard? What's not to enjoy? I could have said The Twin Dilemma, or Time and the Rani, but I haven't watched them, so it wouldn't be strictly true. Although I'm sure I will when I do. :lol:

:-D

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Oh you're not STILL going on about that old rubbish, are you? *sigh* When WILL you give it up!!


*grins*

[thisbluespirit]

I was going to say probably on the same day you do, but then I got worried in case that might be sometime soon... and I'm not prepared to jump ship for many years yet!

;-D

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Me?? I'm not giving up on Who!! O_O

[thisbluespirit]

:loL:

Good! That was what I thought, but I panicked after I typed it. It suddenly seemed a bit reckless. :-D

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

You're crazy if you think I'm gonna give up on Who - heck, I stuck to it through RTD's excesses!

[thisbluespirit]

But you *know* I'm crazy! :lol:

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Well, there is that...

[stellastars]

I have other TV obsessions, but they come and go. This one is forever, I think.
This. YES.

And, yes, I like it all.
And, again... This. YES!! Give me any era, every doctor, even the spin-offs... I love the whole of it.

♥

[thisbluespirit]

Absolutely. Sometimes I dislike some bits a little. Sometimes I am shamefully gleeful that I don't have to pretend to want the NAs to be canon anymore (with the exception that Benny is utterly canon, of course). But that's about the worst it gets. :lol:

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

But I WANT THE NAs TO BE CANON!

No, not really; not that badly, but I'm a big believer in the idea that "there is no canon" and that you can mix and match pretty much how you feel with anything that didn't definitely, definitely happen on-screen. Because let's face it, for much of the old series' run they were making it up as they went along anyway. ;D

[thisbluespirit]

Aw. It's just that I *had* to pretend to want the things to be canon or I'd have been eaten alive in my first fandom incarnation, on adwc and radw back in 95-98. I am so, so relieved that this is no longer the case, and I can raise the issue of "Aren't they a bit, you know, bleak in places?" "Aren't some bits, erm, sort of incredibly continuity driven?" and "Do you have to go round killing off, divorcing and generally giving all the old companions hopelessly miserable lives?" without that meaning that I was one of those boring people who think the TV show was better than these so-much-better, deeper, more meaningful books?

I loved many of the NAs, but I will never get over the fandom scarring. Oh, the shame of not getting the references! I had to take about DWM's offer when selling them off in 1996 just to hold my head up online.

However, I love the mix and match attitutde to canon that now applies, so I can still say, "And isn't Benny marvellous, and canon?"

So, yes, the relief that I don't have to pretend that I think the NAs were the best DW ever got, and they are the only canon and new Who we still have makes me very happy and relieved. I love them, but I love the freedom I now have to throw some of them through a window with joyous abandon and not get lectured by every other fan I know for being dumb. :-D

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah; absolutely right. I tend to think that the "real" version of the Survival-TVM and TVM-Rose gaps was something _very like_ the NAs and EDAs, but not exactly (I mean, how careless would you have to be to destroy your home planet and its inhabitants TWICE?!). In other words, whatever the individual fan can live with, that's "canon" for them.

Except for John Peel's Dalek novels, of course; they're just silly! ;D

[thisbluespirit]

Well, yes, I think that: bits I like from the EDAs and NAs, and then most of Eight audio is absolutely canon (except for all the ones I haven't listened to and might not be yet). Big Finish convinces me on pretty much every count, except for there being lots of stories between Planet of Fire and Caves, because this is clearly untrue. ;-)

And given that Gallifrey has at least some very big near misses in the audio, that might be three times. One might think the Doctor didn't like his people much. :lol: ("If I keep trying, one of these days it's going to work!")

I've not read any of those. I've heard bad things about them & didn't dare read them, because there was always the danger that I would end up liking them. :-)

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if at first you don't succeed... ;D

I do tend to think that RTD etc probably owe Lawrence Miles and co a few quid (although legally they probably don't because the Beeb owns it all anyway, I suppose). Because, you know...universe-spanning war...Gallifrey ends up getting destroyed... Coincidence, I'm sure! :D

Oh yeah, and the TVM itself is clearly just a fictionalised account of the _real_ events surrounding Seven's regeneration into Eight. Yes, probably.

You know, as much as I like to diss War of the Daleks etc, they do have good points. I mean, Peel clearly finds the Daleks far more interesting than a lot of fans seem to (I'm with him on that) and writes about them in interesting ways. And he's clearly steeped in all of that 60s-era Dalekmania stuff (I think he was some sort of associate/friend of Terry Nation, so I guess that's why); you know, Marsh Daleks and Hoverbouts and the Golden Emperor and all of that stuff, and it's great to see all that revived.

However...the plots... Basically, despite the lovely windowdressing, War of the Daleks is just a rather crude and mean-spirited attempt to retcon the continuity we saw onscreen and basically nullify Remembrance of the Daleks, mainly because Nation was unhappy with what Andrew Cartmel and Ben Aaronovitch did with the Daleks and Davros in that story, and moreso by the way they basically blithely ignored his contractual right of veto over the content of any Daleks/Davros story... You know, legally and possibly morally, Nation was in the right (you know, he created them), but Remembrance is a really good story, one of my favourites actually, and surely onscreen continuity comes before spinoff novels in the "canon hierarchy" anyway?

And Peel doesn't even try to rewrite continuity in a clever, timey-wimey sort of way; he basically just has the Daleks come up with a real Dick Dastardly style plan that all concerned would have to be morons to fall for, yet fall for it they do.

And his version of how Delgado Master became Assassin Master is rubbish too (not that I'm saying my fanfic version is better).

So, yeah... Read them if you get the chance though, because as I say there are things to recommend them in spite of my dislike of them, and you might quite enjoy them.

[thisbluespirit]

Read them if you get the chance though, because as I say there are things to recommend them in spite of my dislike of them, and you might quite enjoy them.

But that's my problem all round. How will I hold my head up round here if that happens??

:lol:

I don't think I'm going to put it high up my long to-read list!!

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

No, saying "but he does some really good things with all of that slightly weird non-canonical Dalek merchandising from the 60s!" probably isn't the best ever sales pitch, is it? :D