andy

Joseph Gilgun is probably the most down to earth, unpretentious "celebrity" you'll ever meet. His Cassidy is more action-man than the comic version but I think he'll wind up being the breakout star of the show. Although on a personal level as his celebrity grows he may want to be more careful about whom he buys his drugs from.

It differs widely from the comic. Honestly I was never a huge Preacher fan and it's been at least a decade since I looked at a Preacher comic but I remember the first dozen issues pretty well.

The script opens with a mysterious force flying through space and trying to inhabit a Preacer in Nairobi who then explodes. This force spends the whole episode trying to inhabit various religious figures (there's a joke about Tom Cruise exploding at a Scientology meeting) while being hunted by two characters named DeBlanc and Fiore. Jesse doesn't get inhabited until towards the end of the episode and his first use of "The Word Of God" is to tell one of his congregation to "tell the truth and open his heart" to his mother. Of course there's then a scene where the guy rips out his own heart in front of his mother.

Both Cassidy and Tulip are introduced with people trying to kill them. Cassidy on a plane by Vampire hunters and Tulip by cartel gangsters in Kansas. There are scenes all over the world but most of the action is set in Annville, Texas.

Hey I haven't posted here in a while but I recently came in possession of a script for the Preacher pilot. It's currently being filmed in Albuquerque, NM and through my job I come into contact with some of the actors. I don't want to get myself or anyone in trouble so I'll leave it there.

Anyway I don't want this to become a big deal so I came here because:

a) Only like 10 people actually come to this site.

b) The people who do post here are actual comic book fans.

c) The people here aren't afraid to get on their high horse and berate me if they think I'm doing something dodgy.

I'll answer any questions about the script or I'll fuck off if that's the general consensus but I will say that based on the script alone fans who wanted a straight retelling of the comic will be disappointed.

I'm not going to get into a flame war or PM a bunch of people so let me know what you want.

Is this really surprising news...Hellblazer has been slowly dying for years and this is the perfect time to end it. I've been reading it since 1988, over half of my life but I'm actually relieved it's now over. Funny once I hit my mid/late 30s (the age John Constantine was when Hellblazer began) the character didn't feel as real to me and about midway through the Denise Mina era the title didn't excite me as much as it once did. I've still bought every issue even though I can barely remember a thing about Andy Diggle's insanely boring run and the Peter Milligan stuff is at least interesting although it's not the John Constantine of my youth. So as old timer I'm content to let the character move on with its life and I'll move on with mine. I won't hang around and talk about the good old days of Delano and Ennis. I won't be burning comics in an alley or making angry posts on-line about how DC owes me for over 20 years of me buying their comics. I realize that all fictional characters must evolve or die whether I like it or not. I could be like one of those Ian Fleming fans in 1964 who complained that the movies were ruining the James Bond novels or those old Doctor Who fans who complain that the new series is doesn't look cheap enough.

So I'm perfectly happy to have John Constantine do his thing in the DC Universe. I like the idea of the Justice Leage Dark even if I may not always enjoy actual content but frankly at this point having a John Constantine who is flying the House of Mystery with Frankenstein and a magic troll or whatever is more interesting and a fresher take on the character than another run around with a demon serial killer in a London backstreet.

So goodbye Hellblazer. You were my favorite thing for many years but eventually there's always going to be one last cigarette.

yeah, welcome to the club electricinca. Now onto No Country for Old Men...A great film if not quite the masterpiece it's made out to be. However it's one of those films that slowly burn into your subconsciousness. It's worth a second viewing. Having read some McCarthy, I can say it's true to the source material which may irritate some. Although one thing that did bother me on a personal level is that during the supposed climax in what was supposed to be a cheap motel in El Paso was in actual fact just a cheap motel just a few blocks away from where I'm writing this. It's just one of those things that grate from time to time when watching a movie that was fimed in your hometown that's supposed to be somewhere else.

Believe me, 98% of US Who fans download the episodes right after they're broadcast on the BBC. The other 2% wait for the DVD. Hardly anyone watches the Sci-fi channel on US cable systems. Doctor Who is much more popular in North America than many are willing to admit.

garish '80s visuals which looked rubbish at the time and have dated even worse than one might have expected

Having watch Rememberance of the Daleks on DVD recently I was struck by how cheap it all looked shot on that crappy video they used in the late 80s. It ironically looked even more dated than some of the stuff from twenty years prior.

Oh and while I liked Time Crash for what it was (a fun nostalgic bit of a piss-take romp) I'm not sure I would have wanted a whole episode of that. However I still think a two-Doctor episode where they don't meet would be great. Perhaps a split-screen episode with two different Doctor's in the same place at different times and have say the Tenth Doctor going around and fixing what, say the Eighth Doctor is currently shown to be doing. A clever writer could make that work.

I thought she was alright in The Runaway Bride. She had a several good lines in there and it might be interesting to have the Doctor play the straight man for once. I'm thinking the first part of series four will be more of 'Donna makes a fool of herself throughout space and time much to the Doctor's chagrin' type of stories with the things becoming more subdued as the series ends with the return of whichever old villian is due for a re-appearence.

It's a group to join if you want to protest against Catherine Tate appearing in Doctor Who.

 

147 members, at last count.

I glad to see there are only 147 Doctor Who fans nerdy enough to sign an online petition bitching about their favorite show.

I think I'll wait 'til the new season starts before making any judgements about this Tate person. Perhaps I'm lucky that I'm not very familiar with her comedic personality. I have seen a few sketches from her show and didn't find them particualrly amusing but then her humo(u)r is probably too dry for anyone outside Southern England.

I saw the Shada DVD that was partly narrated by Tom Baker and it struck me as far funnier and more entertaining than City of Death, which features far too many shots of Tom and Lalla running along riverbanks.

Yes I have that VHS tape that has all the completed scenes from Shada with Tom Baker narrating the missing bits and while it probably woud have been one of the better stories from the latter Tom Baker era, I can't imagine it being better than City of Death which is still one of the best Who stories. ever.

Unless you're a really a die-hard Tom Baker fan or one of those who only accept Doctor Who in its televised form, than the Paul McGann audio only version of Shada would be the best way to experience this story. It also sort of proves my point that Paul McGann is basically Tom Baker without the overacting.

Speaking of Paul McGann I did just buy Minuet in Hell because I was curious to see how bad it really was. While it's no classic, it's hardly "the worst Doctor Who story in any medium". Sure it's corny and ridiculous with one-dimensional characters who have accents that don't exist in any form of reality but it is somewhat redeemed by having a dignified performance from Nic Courtney as the Brigadier.

"Kylie, when you were sleeping I pulled out a Doctor Who book and placed it near your bum so it would look like you were reading it and took a picture and showed it to all my friends, heh heh."

I kind of doubt that the book belongs to her. More likely it belongs to one of her entourage. She probably flipped through it right before having a nap. Having read the book in the photo it's fairly Who-nerd intensive with lots of references to the other novels before it...Probably not something a casual watcher of the Doctor Who television show would bother with. But I could be wrong.

Still it does raise my appreciation of Kylie even more. She's sung with Nick Cave and appeared in Doctor Who. Plus she seems pretty down to earth for an international pop star. Unlike, say, Madonna I don't get the feeling Kylie takes herself too seriously.

I went down to my local bookshop with intentions on purchasing Crooked Little Vein but after seeing the slight size of the book and how large the print was I decided that 20+ dollars was too much for what looks to be a jumped up novella. I'll wait for the paperback or the library if I even care in a few months.

Alledgedly this photo is authentic. Of course there's no proof that she actually read the book which features the Eighth Doctor but if she did that would make her a fairly big fan.

That was....weird.

I'm not sure what I felt about this season ender...it was all over the place with tons of plot holes and unexplained concepts.

I did like the last few scenes with Tennant and Simm and wished there were more of that dynamic. I also really liked that red shirt, blue suit, red shoe combo Tennant was wearing at the end of the episode.

But overall it reminded me of the TV movie especially with the TARDIS magically turning back time and saving the world.

But what it really reminded me of was that Mike Carey Hellblazer story "Staring at the Wall" from a few years ago. Both had the world threatened by an outside force with the main character incapacated while his female friend(s) wound up saving everything by getting the entire population of the world to think about one single idea at the same time.

I wonder if RTD reads Hellblazer?

I agree with Mark's assement about the TV movie but I think I'm a bit more charatible having read about some of the horrible ideas for a new Who series that had been floating around in the early 90s. It could have been much better but then it also could have been much, much worse. Even the half-human thing doesn't bother me as much now although I think that it's something that probably shouldn't be mentioned again on the show. The irony of the TV movie is that it was catered almost exclusivly to fandom and it was fandom who hated it the most. Which is one reason why I was surprised that Utopia was filled with so many references to the past. I could see how the casual viewer of Utopia might be put off with all the references to events from the past three seasons of Who as well as Torchwood plus bringing back the Master without any explanation as to who the character is. But again as a fan I loved it.

the tv movie...really is very good

 

I will not allow this patently untrue statement to pass unchallenged. Explain yourself, young man!

The TV movie was to me a big disappointment back in 1996 but luckily I taped it at the time and upon more recent viewings it's not nearly as bad as its reputation suggests. Sure the ending is an incoherent mess but it was a lot better than the last few years of the old series. In fact it feels like it belongs with the current series more than the classic one with it's high production values and girl-kissing.

I was also one of those people who didn't really want the Master to return in the new series but I did like the way his re-appearence was handled and am looking forward to how Simm and Tennant play off each other.

I also noticed that the new series is becoming more like an on-going serial with increasing refrences to past episodes instead of a series of stand-alone episodes which I suppose is understandable and while I enjoy as a fan it may wind up turning off the casual viewer. But if the ratings are good than I might as well just shut up and enjoy the show.

Some of the Eighth Doctor BBC books are among the best Who-stories I've read/heard/seen. Lance Parkin's The Gallifrey Chroniclesis probably the best of the lot although as it ties up the whole range it's probably not the best one to read at first. The Scarlet Empress by Paul Magrs would be another good highly imaginitive story that works as a stand alone tale.

I know that the Eighth Doctor is the "forgetful one" but in the novels it works as it sweeps away all the weight of past continuity and frees the book series to be able to be forward looking that the series wasn't able to do in its latter years.

Miama Vice : Colin Farrell's dodgy porno-mustache not withstanding, I quite enjoyed this. Felt like a slightly grimmier version of the television programme, right down to the incidental music.

Yes I felt the same way. It was basically a script from the old series updated with high production values. Even with Colin Farrell's accent going all over the place, he and everyone else did a good enough job.

Those are a lot of questions, Dave.

Human Nature is based on the 7th Doctor novel Human Nature. I've not read it but I did read several of the New Adventures when they first appeared in the early 90s and found them to be rather crap. I remember feeling that they tried too hard to be 'adult' and that's 'adult' in a Vertigo 'lesbians and nihilisticly violent' sense, not adult in a complex story-telling way. I've recently found the BBC Eighth Doctor Novels to be better in the sense of containing more intelligent sci-fi concepts. In those the Doctor's parents are the Time-Lord Ulysses and the Earth-woman Penelope Gate, not Sydney and Verity who are credited with creating the show back in 1963. Of course as with anything in Doctor Who it's a mass of contradictions and ret-cons, so you're free to make up your own mind.

As for the Doctor having a family in "The Family of Blood" I suspect it'll be a "Last Temptation of Doctor Who" sort of thing. And I suspect most of the kids in the school will eventually perish in the Great War.

It was the Doctor in his Fifth incarnation who enjoyed playing cricket and you can YouTube "Black Orchid" for the whole story.

As an old-school fan, I thought Human Nature has been the best of the season so far. I've liked Season/series three but haven't really been impressed until now. Hopefully the best episodes will all be towards the end. The same can be said with Martha, I've liked her so far but won't be sad if she leaves next year. I wouldn't mind having one or two solo-Doctor episodes and perhaps a companion who isn't an attractive young man/woman/human with perhaps some more emphasis on the how expansive the Doctor Who universe is while still somehow maintaining a connection to the supposed 'young, modern audience'.

Oh, one more tiny thing - wasn't everyone a little bit too open-minded about Martha, considering it was set in 1930s New York? I'm not saying they should throw around the N-word, but you'd think there would have been something of that sort in there.

What, Newcastle United Supporter? I know it's hard to believe but British people did have a presence in 1930s New York despite the fact that most of them were disliked.

Anyway, let's nerd this thread up a bit, shall we? I don't recall us actually doing a "favourite Doctor" poll at any point since this thread began (note: this isn't the same thing as saying "we definitely didn't do one"), so let's go for it now, eh?

 

Unadorned 1-10, favourite-to-least-favourite lists will be frowned upon, because they're tedious - I want reasons. Discussion, even. At least add a sentence or two explaining what you like/don't like about your favourites/least favourites, at the very least.

Alright my current fav Doctors are:

1. Paul McGann After watching the TV movie 11 years ago I never would have thought that I would like McGann so much. However in the last year I've been listening to and reading a ton of his Big Finish audio and BBC book adventures. I suppose that writers for the Eighth Doctor are not constraned so much by having to work around a televised portrayal that they have more freedom to do interesting things with the character that can't be done with,say, the Fifth Doctor. Plus McGann has a natural elegance and a likeability to him even with a daft wig.

2. Tom Baker Like most North Americans he was my first and set the template for me of what I expect the Doctor to be like. Like some fans I reacted a bit to his dominance in the role and became a bit tired of him but as time goes on I think he probably typified what was best about the show especially during his first few seasons.

3. David Tennant While he's wouldn't have been my first choice to play the Doctor, I think so far he's done a great job for the most part and I expect that he'll get better as he grows into the role. I think at this point the show needs someone to stay in the title role for several years and I think that when he eventually leaves (perhaps at the end of Series Five), he'll have made his mark on the character as much as Tom Baker did.

4. Patrick Troughton As I've been re-watching more old Who I've grown to enjoy the Second Doctor more and more. He probably helped the series survive by doing his own thing and not trying to ape Hartnell. Some of those old stories from the 60s are a bit hard to watch for me today with their dated look but when Patrick's on screen my interest is held.

5.Christopher Eccleston I wished he'd stayed longer. I liked his intensity and his alieness. Perhaps he'll return to the role in some capacity as he mellows with age.

6. Jon Pertwee Jon always seemed to be enjoying himself and played it straight without taking everything too seriously.

7. Peter Davison Always solid but rarely extraordinary. Looking back he seems a bit bland. Still I wished he stayed an extra year and perhaps we'd never have...

8. Colin Baker At the time he was my favorite but now I find him almost unwatchable with his OTT performance and horrible costume. I suppose he could have matured in the role if allowed and there would have been no need for...

9. Slyvester McCoy I never recovered from watching "Time and the Rani". From then on I never warmed to Sly, never thought he was a particularly good actor and even when they tried to do something interesting with the character with all that "more than a mere Time Lord" stuff, I never really bought into it.

10. William Hartnell It's a bit unfair to have him on the bottom but frankily while watching his old adventures I never really liked his portrayal. Ironically I find his the least "Doctorish' in the role. I think he's too cowardly and weak and isn't as proactivly heroic as the character would later become. It's not his fault that the show would evolve and leave him behind but I still have a hard time getting excited about the First Doctor.

Great ending too, instead of all noise and bangs, a quiet chat. Although apparently loads of people already knew the Face's message, ask Wikipedia if you don't believe me.

I'm not sure it was supposed to be much of a surprise as the message was mentioned in the 2005 Doctor Who Annual.

I now have a fear that the Face of Boe will be revealed to be the final future incarnation of the Doctor which I think is just way too obvious and silly.

The final scene of this episode was lovely, especially the fact that the Doctor's description of Gallifrey was clearly, and deliberately, paraphrased from dialogue originally uttered by Susan back in a William Hartnell-era story (much of it was directly quoted, in fact).

Do you know which story?

Supposedly it was 'The Sensorites' that had Susan describing her home planet as such.

Do the majority of Who fans still get upset over seeing their hero kissing girls (or Cpt. Jack)? It's not like The Doctor has become an intergalatic horn-dog a la Captain Kirk. I've been a fan since 1983 and I like the more sensual Doctor we've seen since the McGann TV movie. I also like the ambiguity of the nature of The Doctor's relationship with Rose and Reinette..it's neither confirm nor deny. Plus with the series adaptating Paul Cornell's Human Nature book, those few who hated Girl in the Fireplace for showing hints of romance will probably hate these episodes for the same reason.