Doctor Who

[Kotowboy]

Rhys Ifans ?

Alan Davies ?

Michael Sheen ?

Or Simon Munnery

[robwebster]

Alan Davies would be good, but having played a magician's assistant who rights wrongs with a female companion and a hardy intellect, I fear he'd be a little predictable. Great in Jonathan Creek, but too similar, too obvious.

Michael Sheen, though - that's inspired. I really like that. Don't know if they could get him full time on a BBC budget, he's off doing films now, isn't he? If there's a way, though, I'd like to see that. Plus, he didn't appear on-screen last time he was in Doctor Who, so his face is still brand new.

Series five, round three!

[Kotowboy]

Michael Sheen is an amazing actor and someone on the twitter suggested a Welsh Doctor and he came to mind after Rhys Ifans.


I've always thought Richard E Grant would make a good Doc. He's impossibly posh despite not even being English.

He's probably a little out of the age range now unless they want to go older this time around.

They'll probably go for an unknown actor.

[hefdaddy42]

Hugh Grant?

lol

[Kotowboy]

Definitely not.

[masterthes]

God no!

[ariich]

I've always thought Richard E Grant would make a good Doc. He's impossibly posh despite not even being English.

He's probably a little out of the age range now unless they want to go older this time around.

He's also currently playing the Great Intelligence, so that would just confuse everyone!

Hugh Grant would be great. If anyone hasn't seen the Curse of Fatal Death, go and see it now!

[robwebster]

I'm sure they could find a way to work it in! But yeah, I'd rather find someone new.

S5R4. One episode lost by a landslide. No prizes for guessing which.

[Kotowboy]

No surprise that people used to think Richard E Grant and Hugh Grant were related despite the facts that :

1.) That's not Richard E Grant's real name

&

2.) Richard E Grant is not even English.

[Jaq]

Richard E. Grant's already been the Doctor....

Kind of. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scream_of_the_Shalka

Also: RTD offered the part of the Ninth Doctor to Hugh Grant, who turned it down, and reportedly has regretted doing so ever since.

[robwebster]

This is probably nonsense, going by the source, but... hurrrr!!

Either way, it's a great story. I'd love them to pre-empt the papers.

ETA: Also, S5R6.

Also also, I am liking the trailer for Not Another Happy Ending. It doesn't look like my kind of film, but I am liking the trailer.

[ariich]

Mm interesting, that seems ridiculously soon though, how will they have had time to think about the sort of character they want the next Doctor to be, send out invitations to agencies etc, hold auditions, and all that?

[robwebster]

Well! Depends. We don't know how long they might've already been working on this. If they've got to get the new Doctor ready for filming the Christmas special, they might have started a couple of months ago. Pre-empting the papers is very plausible, they've done that before... but I do generally agree that it doesn't have a "ring of truth" to it. Not putting much stock by it, I think it's more likely to be the start of silly season. Still! If it's true, ace! If not, that's fine, not like we've been getting hyped up for ages.

[ariich]

In terms of filming for the Christmas special, I don't really buy that they have to do anything in advance like some news sites have been saying. They could very easily film quite late on, and in private/secret, as it'll only be for a regeneration scene at the end (presumably). In which case it would be theoretically possible to not actually reveal it in advance. Of course the danger with that is that it would leak, so I think you're right that they will want to pre-empt the papers. But yeah, I'm not sure it'll be yet.

[robwebster]

Oh, yeah! I didn't mean advance filming, just pre-production. Fairly conceivable that they'd be doing regular casting around now, and the new Doctor's going to be a much heavier duty operation that needs to be done for pretty much the same deadline. Especially if they do something timey wimey, which... I'd imagine Steven Moffat would like to if he can. Particularly in the anniversary year, coming straight off the anniversary special. They won't if they can't, and if MS's departure has snuck up on them then yeah, not a snowflake's chance in hell.

Don't get me wrong, I do think it's incredibly unlikely we'll have a name tomorrow... I'm just quite enjoying the possibility. As rumours go, it's not built from the "Simon Cowell to play Davros" mould.

[ariich]

"Simon Cowell to play Davros"

This must happen.

It would be interesting to see him tone down the evil a bit.

[hefdaddy42]

Rubbish.

[ariich]

Round 7 of the series 5 survivor is up by the way, only 3 votes so far, get to it!

https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=37406.0

[robwebster]

Ha - fantastic! Cheers! I knew there was something I was forgetting.

[robwebster]

In other news, YouGov did a poll about Doctor Who:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/qhu1lbwvjl/YG-Archive-Dr-Who-results-040613.pdf

Some interesting stats, there. 30% of all Brits are Doctor Who fans. Most entertaining, though, is that it's split by party allegiance. You can see what percentage of Liberal Democrat voters think the next actor to play the Doctor has to be heterosexual. (It's 13%.)

[El JoNNo]

In other news, YouGov did a poll about Doctor Who:

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/qhu1lbwvjl/YG-Archive-Dr-Who-results-040613.pdf

Some interesting stats, there. 30% of all Brits are Doctor Who fans. Most entertaining, though, is that it's split by party allegiance. You can see what percentage of Liberal Democrat voters think the next actor to play the Doctor has to be heterosexual. (It's 13%.)

I would like him to be a heterosexual male as well. If the Doctor becomes a woman or a gay man it ruins stories with with other characters, namely River. It would be funny for an episode or two but I wouldn't want it for seasons.

[robwebster]

Do you think River would mind if the Doctor regenerated into a woman? She's a 51st century girl, I don't think she'd care! On which note, I kind of think the Doctor is likely to be omnisexual, too. Has the potential to find anyone or anything beautiful. Same as River, same as Jack, just... significantly worse at it!

Nonetheless - actor, not character! Do you not reckon a gay actor could play the Doctor?

[El JoNNo]

You know I didn't think of the omnisexual bit(I think the term is pansexual though  ), I'm fine with that then. As for the actor, I don't care who plays the Doctor as long as they do a good job.

[ariich]

Yeah that's about the actor, not the character. Interesting poll though, seems so random for YouGov to do!

[robwebster]

Yeah that's about the actor, not the character. Interesting poll though, seems so random for YouGov to do!

I thought so, too. Then I looked at the website, and it's... pretty much par for the course.

Completely non-Who related thing, noticed the stats contained numbers stating who planned to vote for what party in the next election. 642 for Labour, 429 for Conservative, 257 for UKIP and 132 for Lib Dems. We were basically a two-party country when Matt Smith started, now there's four serious candidates! Matt Smith still feels like the new boy for some reason, but he really shouldn't - he's seen a lot of history as the Doctor.

[Super Dude]

It's because his run opened the decade, which is still rather young. Anyway, I don't care about a female or male homosexual actor playing the Doctor, but I think they should stay true to the character.

[robwebster]

SUPERDRAMATIC MOFFAT FINALE!

Honestly. That's about as tense as any survivor's getting.

[ariich]

That's awesome. Actually an important vote as well, as only one of them gets through to the final...

[robwebster]

Yeah, it's an interesting tiebreak! If anything, it's just raised the stakes. Fun!

I'd usually start the next series' survivor to overlap with the final round (read: I did this once and thought it was a good idea) but I'm letting this one have its own space. Banners ready to go, though. Crikey, they take ages to make. Look cool, but I'm glad there's only one more series. Or effectively two, cos none of the banners are gonna match up in the champions' survivor, so I'll need to make new ones.

There are worse ways to spend an hour.

[ariich]

Fair play, should be awesome.

Timing won't work out all that great for series 7, because with the fact that it had two Christmas specials, plus we're going to have big specials for the 50th and Christmas this year, plus the fact that there are more stories as there are no two parters, it would have been good to include them all together like you did for series 4 and the following specials.

Then again, we're going to have 15 stories as it is for series 7 including both Christmas ones, so I guess that works out nicely to put 3 through to the final.

[robwebster]

Yeah! Between the lack of two parters, and the extra Christmas special, the numbers work out fairly neatly. Nice big finale, too, so that's nice. Even if the results are likely to give me a hernia - as discussed, I am completely out of sync with the general consensus on that series!

Winners so far, if anyone's keeping track. ('Cos I know I've forgotten to...)

The Empty Child - Dalek - The Girl in the Fireplace - The Impossible Planet - Blink
Human Nature - Silence in the Library - Midnight - The End of Time - Vincent and the Doctor - ?????

Anyone want to pick a first boot out of that lot?

Full results...

The Empty Child
Dalek
Bad Wolf
Father's Day
The End of the World
The Long Game
The Unquiet Dead
Rose
Boom Town
Aliens of London

The Girl in the Fireplace
The Impossible Planet
Army of Ghosts
School Reunion
The Christmas Invasion
Tooth and Claw
New Earth
Rise of the Cybermen
Fear Her
The Idiot's Lantern
Love & Monsters

Blink
Human Nature
The Sound of Drums
Utopia
The Shakespeare Code
Smith and Jones
The Runaway Bride
42
The Lazarus Experiment
Daleks in Manhattan
Gridlock

Silence in the Library
Midnight
The End of Time
The Waters of Mars
The Fires of Pompeii
Planet of the Ood
The Unicorn and the Wasp
The Next Doctor
The Sontaran Stratagem
The Doctor's Daughter
Turn Left
Voyage of the Damned
The Stolen Earth
Partners in Crime
Planet of the Dead

Vincent and the Doctor
?????
?????
?????
Amy's Choice
The Beast Below
The Hungry Earth
Victory of the Daleks
The Lodger
The Vampires of Venice

ETA: Also, lots of rumours flying around about Rory Kinnear as the next Doctor. Hokum, but it's a nice idea. Slightly inspired. I'd like that.

[ariich]

Yeah it'll be interesting to see what voting is like for series 7, likely to be more eclectic as it's so recent. Tend to get the same for new albums in band survivors as well!

Excellent list so far. I've got my preferences on what should go earlier rather than later, but really they're all top notch.

[ariich]

ETA: Also, lots of rumours flying around about Rory Kinnear as the next Doctor. Hokum, but it's a nice idea. Slightly inspired. I'd like that.

Yeah there are all sorts of rumours. I could see Kinnear being brilliant, but from what Moffat and the BBC have said, they've only really started looking recently, so I'm fairly sure they haven't picked anyone yet.

Tell you what though, in the wikipedia List of Doctor Who Serials page (which I use for a lot of my DW trivia on writers, directors, etc, including for the classic seasons) it is weird now seeing a section for Twelfth Doctor.

[GuineaPig]

ETA: Also, lots of rumours flying around about Rory Kinnear as the next Doctor. Hokum, but it's a nice idea. Slightly inspired. I'd like that.

This would be the new recurring villain in that case.

[Heretic]

Heheh, what happens to the survivor if the 50th episode ends up being literally the best Doctor Who episode ever?