Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Watched the New Dr. Who
Heard the news yesterday that apparently there had been a leak of a downloadable copy of the premier episode of the upcoming Dr. Who series. Then an associate at work pointed out this review at The Guardian about it, which wasn't very encouraging. Still, I figured it was worth downloading assuming I could find it, and decide for myself.

Downloaded it last night, and managed to watch it this evening while devising some new material for my next PHP/MySQL class Saturday morning.

The Guardian reviewer is definitely "a tosser".

I had pretty much given up on the original Dr. Who series with the advent of Doctor Who #5 (though I returned a bit for the relatively short-lived Doctor Who #6), and the few times I watched it, Doctor Who #7 took the series to new lows. I had little regret when I heard that the series had been canceled. But by the same token, I was interested in hearing just over a year ago that the BBC was planning on reviving the venerable Doctor for another outing, this time with stories written by someone known for producing gritty shows.

So I watched the show – whom stories say was leaked by someone at the CBC, who are co-producing the effort – and I can definitely say that it was a hoot! Christopher Eccleston makes a convincing, funny-but-no-nonsense Doctor, and Billie Piper is easy on the eyes as his new companion. The Guardian reviewer complained about the puns and fast, sometimes staccato pace, but I think ultimately he wanted the old series in its old form, rubber-suited monsters and all. I thought the new show – featuring the old mass mannequin-controlling nemesis the Autons – suitably creepy and campy, as was undoubtedly intended. The digital effects were well done, though in a way that I think will likely date the series in years to come – and somehow lending it some lo-fi charm.

It was a fun half-hour's worth of entertainment, which is ultimately all I ask for, and like The Guardian reviewer himself confessed, he (and I) will be watching for the other episodes.

And as an aside, it's too bad that the BBC is all over this thing in terms of "the leak". It's arguably the best piece of viral marketing I've seen in a long time. I'm hooked, which is surely all that counts. Arguably the most progressive series to embrace the downloaders is the new Battlestar Galactica series, which has not only offered commercial-free downloads of entire shows from its own site, but have also provided Podcasts of commentary tracks for the shows. Hopefully this is the way the future of (non-)broadcast TV is going...