Love and Monsters

Slate has an article about the new series.

They reference Mannequin from 1987 in connection with Rose, the first episode of the new series. Of course, the geek in me must point out that the whole plastic mannequins aren't a reference to anything but the original Doctor Who itself, back in 1970.

Admittedly, the reviewer comments that he'd rather not dwell to deeply into the the past of the series. But it's one of those strange challenges of this new series that people may see things as referring to other series when actually it's a reference to itself. The second episode, The End of the World, obviously shares roots with Douglas Adams, but that's as much because Douglas Adams came out of Doctor Who as anything else.

It's interesting how they identify this new series as a romance; it's something that original series most certainly wasn't -- but it's been an adventure series from the start. But this is definitely what brings along the time and chips crowd, and it's nice to see that as well as those that want more pictures of Billie Piper.


The latest Doctor Who news story on the sci fi wire is interesting because it's both looking ahead to the second season as well as on the start of the first season. My thoughts onthe first two episodes is not that they're flawless pieces of Doctor Who, but they're unapologetically and obviously new Doctor Who. It's recognizably the same series that I watched as a twelve year old -- even with the modern effects, change in costumes or accents, pacing, and episode structure. That's not an easy job, really.