Oh, and

[mmcirvin]

If you're in the US, have cable, and haven't yet seen the highly enjoyable revival of Doctor Who, it starts playing on the Sci-Fi Channel tomorrow night at 9, with the first two episodes back to back.

There's a lot to like in the first two episodes, which do a good job of introducing the characters and premise as well as providing the necessary "not your father's Doctor Who" kick, but they do have some loose plotting and cheesy elements; on the whole they're fairly characteristic of the writing of series producer Russell T. Davies. If you're still uncertain after seeing those, I'd recommend hanging on through the excellent third episode that airs next week, Mark Gatiss's "The Unquiet Dead".

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think the one Quatermass adaptation many Americans have seen is the movie Five Million Years to Earth, a film adaptation of the third and generally best-loved serial, Quatermass and the Pit. I haven't seen the movie but I have seen the serial itself, and it's great. I've also seen the movie adaptations of the first two serials, which are marred by Brian Donlevy's irritating performance as a gruff and mysteriously American version of the professor; and the grim, dystopian fourth serial starring the recently deceased Sir John Mills, which was made for ITV in the early Seventies. I can say that the third and fourth serials are well worth seeing. I haven't seen the recent remake of the first serial.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...that should be "late Seventies" above; it came out in 1979 (and prominently features the Space Shuttle in more or less its final form, so it couldn't have been earlier).

[aderack.livejournal.com]

As for the recent remake: I've heard tell that it's decent overall, though they cast Bernard Quatermass way too young and they somehow neutered the ending. Since I don't know the ending, I don't know what that means. The thing I keep hearing is that the best part is probably Tennant's performance. Apparently he keeps banging into things and almost tripping, and unlike other errors they chose to leave all that in the production.

Yeah, the Hammer films. I guess I could go with those. Whoa, Netflix has changed his layout. This will take a bit to get used to. Not a very good use of space. Also, the arrangement of elements on-screen is giving me a bit of a headache somehow.

Anyway, all three movies seem to be available. Guess it can't hurt! How do the movies compare to the serials? Are these along the Peter Cushing "Dr. Who" level, or something a bit... higher?

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Well, there's no case in which I've seen both the movie and the serial, unfortunately, so I can't say. I get the impression from others' reviews that the first two movie adaptations are generally held to be worse than the serials, but the third (Quatermass and the Pit/Five Million Years to Earth) may actually be better than the serial. Everyone seems to like it, at least.

The stories are scarier and much more adult than the Cushing Dalek movies. The first story is sort of like a Fifties atomic-monster flick with the horror dialed up just a tad higher; the second is a larger-scale alien-conspiracy story, comparable to the better Pertwee-era Doctor Who serials. Then the third hits a deeper archetypical vein somehow, with a weird combination of supernatural and science-fiction elements, and an implication of dark undercurrents in human nature; I find it genuinely unnerving, even in the original B&W TV serial form. The final one from 1979 has more of a cynical social-criticism angle.

[skapusniak.livejournal.com]

It was acted an transmitted live on BBC 4 so I assume someone must have edited it up if only some of the errors are in it.

It was also quite a bit shorter on the night than the timeslot it was allocated, so one assumes *something* a bit odd happened to it -- quite possibly in the ending departement -- tho' I admit I was only very very vaguely watching. Like 'Oh, it's over the in the corner with the sound muted' levels of vague.

[skapusniak.livejournal.com]

Eeek! My spelling is even worse than usual, and I had the spelling checker on! Honest!