Crapthroat
My throat feels better than it did yesterday but I reckon it's lulling me into a false sense of security before hitting me with the full Man Flu. The upshot of this is that, since I have a surplus of words that I need to inflict on the world in any given day, it manifests itself through typing instead of talking to myself or making sarcastic comments while watching television. And this brings me to the old "5 Things" meme and the subjects given me by bigcat23 to talk about.
One of my earliest television memories is Tom Baker turning into Peter Davison in what I now know is the last episode of "Logopolis". Baker lies on the ground surrounded by his three (THREE!) companions, as a white-garbed figure ("The Watcher", or "The Stig" as zooniverse would have it) approaches and steps into his prone body. Baker then turns into The Watcher, and then finally into Davison while Paddy Kingsland gives it some synth on the score. I was just over four years old and I thought it was amazing. Over the years I've seen that they frequently "do" the regeneration in different ways (except for the new series where they seem to have standardised it somewhat) but literally none have ever been as good as that. After that, I have pretty much no memory of Doctor Who until Sylvester McCoy.
You see, I'm a bit of a fraud with yer actual Doctor Who. At least, I used to be. Anyone who has spent any time talking to me will notice that I (and I bet you do it too) will drop the two or three bits of information I know about any given subject into conversation to make it look like I have a wider sphere of knowledge than I actually do, and Doctor Who was one of these things. In primary school, after McCoy took the reins and I actually started watching it semi regularly (yes, Sylv is "my Doctor"), my class were tasked with doing a brief play about The Environment. I took over the writing of this thing, turning it into a Doctor Who themed production with myself in the lead role (not being McCoy, but another - clearly younger - Doctor) and which concerned itself more with crowbarring in the few Doctor Who Facts that I had clear in my head than it was with pushing any kind of green agenda. The only thing I can remember now is a shout out that that most crowd pleasing of Doctor Who phenomena: post regenerative amnesia. God, I was excellent.
And then Sylv was off our screens, and Doctor Who with him, so I didn't have to worry about it. There was the TV Movie in 1996 and I was able to convincingly complain about plot details and "Americanization" (but since they paid for it, I guess it's only fair) and the Doctor being half human but was conspicuously quiet on details such as The Eye of Harmony which I knew little about. Between then and the new series, I saw a smattering of Who on video. In fact, I saw the following adventures: The Pirate Planet, City of Death (both because of their Douglas Adams connection) as well as - because a friend had them - Castrovalva and The Five Doctors and so would tend to, if pushed, drop those into any Doctor Who conversation I had. Which were very much few and far between.
Then in 2005, Rusty got his bold version of Doctor Who off the ground. Mostly fun, occasionally brilliant and very frequently bloody awful but pretty much always watchable (if only to complain). And suddenly everyone's a Doctor Who expert - especially when the production team are pulling out mad shit like the Macra from long lost half-deleted stories from 1967 and I get texts from friends who are actually experts on the series that say things like, "Fucking hell! The Macra!" leaving me scurrying for my nearest internet.
As a result of this I've had to start getting into some of the older ones on DVD to keep myself at least slightly ahead with my knowledge (and to be the kind of person who, when people think of lists of things that they associate with me, makes people think of Doctor Who).
Seriously, though, I do like the series - as this update makes it look like I only watch it so I can try to talk about it. I like how future proof it is with the regeneration concept. I like that it's always recognisably the same series despite feeling different across every era and I absolutely love that theme tune. For years I didn't realise how much I liked it - in the same way that I still claim that I don't think I'm a Star Wars fan (which is proved as a ludicrous claim the second you cast your eyes over my DVD collection).
And it's an exciting time again in the Who fandom as - just as it's getting a bit stale, it's about to be all change, my dear (and it seems not a moment too soon) with The Grand Moff and his teenage Doctor gearing up to take over next year. It's a series in which, no matter how much you're enjoying the status quo, you're always looking towards what's coming next.
And that's why Cybermen are rubbish.
One of my earliest television memories is Tom Baker turning into Peter Davison in what I now know is the last episode of "Logopolis". Baker lies on the ground surrounded by his three (THREE!) companions, as a white-garbed figure ("The Watcher", or "The Stig" as zooniverse would have it) approaches and steps into his prone body. Baker then turns into The Watcher, and then finally into Davison while Paddy Kingsland gives it some synth on the score. I was just over four years old and I thought it was amazing. Over the years I've seen that they frequently "do" the regeneration in different ways (except for the new series where they seem to have standardised it somewhat) but literally none have ever been as good as that. After that, I have pretty much no memory of Doctor Who until Sylvester McCoy.
You see, I'm a bit of a fraud with yer actual Doctor Who. At least, I used to be. Anyone who has spent any time talking to me will notice that I (and I bet you do it too) will drop the two or three bits of information I know about any given subject into conversation to make it look like I have a wider sphere of knowledge than I actually do, and Doctor Who was one of these things. In primary school, after McCoy took the reins and I actually started watching it semi regularly (yes, Sylv is "my Doctor"), my class were tasked with doing a brief play about The Environment. I took over the writing of this thing, turning it into a Doctor Who themed production with myself in the lead role (not being McCoy, but another - clearly younger - Doctor) and which concerned itself more with crowbarring in the few Doctor Who Facts that I had clear in my head than it was with pushing any kind of green agenda. The only thing I can remember now is a shout out that that most crowd pleasing of Doctor Who phenomena: post regenerative amnesia. God, I was excellent.
And then Sylv was off our screens, and Doctor Who with him, so I didn't have to worry about it. There was the TV Movie in 1996 and I was able to convincingly complain about plot details and "Americanization" (but since they paid for it, I guess it's only fair) and the Doctor being half human but was conspicuously quiet on details such as The Eye of Harmony which I knew little about. Between then and the new series, I saw a smattering of Who on video. In fact, I saw the following adventures: The Pirate Planet, City of Death (both because of their Douglas Adams connection) as well as - because a friend had them - Castrovalva and The Five Doctors and so would tend to, if pushed, drop those into any Doctor Who conversation I had. Which were very much few and far between.
Then in 2005, Rusty got his bold version of Doctor Who off the ground. Mostly fun, occasionally brilliant and very frequently bloody awful but pretty much always watchable (if only to complain). And suddenly everyone's a Doctor Who expert - especially when the production team are pulling out mad shit like the Macra from long lost half-deleted stories from 1967 and I get texts from friends who are actually experts on the series that say things like, "Fucking hell! The Macra!" leaving me scurrying for my nearest internet.
As a result of this I've had to start getting into some of the older ones on DVD to keep myself at least slightly ahead with my knowledge (and to be the kind of person who, when people think of lists of things that they associate with me, makes people think of Doctor Who).
Seriously, though, I do like the series - as this update makes it look like I only watch it so I can try to talk about it. I like how future proof it is with the regeneration concept. I like that it's always recognisably the same series despite feeling different across every era and I absolutely love that theme tune. For years I didn't realise how much I liked it - in the same way that I still claim that I don't think I'm a Star Wars fan (which is proved as a ludicrous claim the second you cast your eyes over my DVD collection).
And it's an exciting time again in the Who fandom as - just as it's getting a bit stale, it's about to be all change, my dear (and it seems not a moment too soon) with The Grand Moff and his teenage Doctor gearing up to take over next year. It's a series in which, no matter how much you're enjoying the status quo, you're always looking towards what's coming next.
And that's why Cybermen are rubbish.