For Fuck's Sake Gabriel Chase - Reloaded!

The "More Discerning Fan" has renovated once more into a paragraph of hate, so let's see how the wonderful and loving and gentle Gabriel Chase has started the new year:


By the middle of the first decade of the 21st Century, British television had become a multi-channel facet of a multi-faceted entertainment industry
Not QUITE as good as HG Wells War of the Worlds, I think you'll agree.

seemingly existing largely to provide copy for the multitude of celebrity gossip magazines and to win awards for its writers and performers.
Ooh, bitter! I know back in ze good eld days, Doctor Who never won awards. Apart from 'best scripts for young adults and teenagers' hash made back in 1977. But that was The Tom Baker show and thus not part of Doctor Who...

The people who ran this radically different industry were products of the Thatcherite "greed is good" era where image and profit margins were considered more important than quality and originality.
Dude, even Ben Elton has moved on. GET OVER IT!

What's really funny is how low quality and originality are held on the site. Seriously, he makes up stuff about the production teams he could be sued for... if he was brave enough to allow people to contact him.

So it was no surprise that a tried and tested concept should be revived and thoroughly revamped for the new generation of celebrity addicts and short-attention-span TV viewers.
The rest of humanity are just scum, aren't they, GC? Scum scum scum scum scum! Only the Discerning Fan may live!

Russell T.Davies, whose previous British sci-fi offering had been the six-part children's serial Dark Season in 1991,
AND Century Falls...

chose to capitalise on his growing reputation within the trendier sections of Britain's TV industry by reviving Doctor Who,
No, you fuckwit, I think you'll find it was Lorraine Heggesy, the Controller of the BBC who brought it back. RTD was chosen to do it because he'd been asking to do it for the last ten years. Yet you seem to imply RTD was some Rupert Murdoch media mogul who revived Doctor Who for cash and cash only. God, you'll be claiming he's not a fan next.

a show he claimed as being one of his favourites as a child.
Yes. Because everyone who lies about liking Doctor Who can instantly refer to the Garm. And the fact he regularly wrote to DWM before during and after the wilderness years, well, that's no evidence at all. ANYONE could add references to The Web Planet to their stories. But it doesn't mean they LIKE Doctor Who. And writing a full-length Doctor Who novel in 1995, well, that's just a retcon!

Suddenly, a show that had been ridiculed and besmirched throughout most of its existence by the TV hierarchy
APART from the very beginning, when it was made clear that Doctor Who would be 'television history' because no other show would be guaranteed a 52-episode run, an unprecedented level of support. And the fact the way it was allowed a Christmas special and New Year's Eve special, because the Controller at the time loved it. And the way it was given Season 7 despite the fact it would have been easier to finish it at Season 6. And... well, you get the picture. You don't? Well, that's because you're a moron, GC.

found itself the subject of a massive publicity exercise launched by the very sector of society that had derided it for so long.
How DARE they change their minds! How DARE they! Who gave them permission to like Doctor Who?!

Sadly for fans of the original show, the so-called revival proved to be little more than a rehash of the "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings" film adaptations that the new breed of TV executives and their ilk saw as "quality" drama.
That'll be the same fans who worship Ben Chatham and beg for his deification? I feel right in saying the vocal majority of 'original' fans like it. Which of course why only the MORE discerning fans visit your site. The 'just discerning' fans gave up on it ages ago... How long before it's "the website for the incredible discerning borderline austistic fan"?

I take it also you don't like films. Or fantasy. Or children's books. Why DO you like Doctor Who?

The new Doctor Who series was more an adaptation of the original novels published by Virgin and then BBC Books than a continuation of the original TV series.
Except for the fact they have rendered the books non canon and delayed The Gallifrey Chronicles JUST to make it clear to everyone it wasn't based on the same story.

The visual side owed much to the American pilot - in particular the design of the Tardis interior (also reminiscent of the Tardis seen in the Sixties' films - the doors being visible on the inside for instance), the opening titles and the overall dark, brooding atmosphere, and was a glossy, hi-tech adventure serial with impressive special effects, a lot of talking and more than the occasional lapse into schoolboy humour.
So... it had impressive special effects, but relied on characterization and humor. Like the way the old show DIDN'T have impressive special effects, but relied on characterization and humor. So, basically, it's the same show with better special effects.

Hang on a minute, doesn't "schoolboy humor" cancel out "dark, brooding atmosphere"?

Christopher Eccleston starred as a newly regenerated Doctor, with former pop starlet Billie Piper as his new companion, Rose Tyler. Eccleston's "Ninth" Doctor (though it was never made certain)
Apart from all the guide books, reviews, interviews, and the fact on screen he is shown to have nine strands of DNA, one for each Doctor. And was shown to be one after Paul McGann.

was more than reminiscent of Colin Baker's portrayal during the "Mindwarp" section of The Trial of a Time Lord, being frequently arrogant, sometimes condescending, often cowardly, and strangely reluctant to commit himself to resolving crises.
Strangely? You haven't heard about the time war, have you?

Nevertheless, the new series was an immediate hit with the "Harry Potter" generation of under-twelves and twenty-somethings (most of whom didn't know any better!)
Seriously, is there ANYONE you actually like? You hate celebrities, you hate audiences, you hate children, and you think the older generation has sold out. There must be SOMEONE!

despite provoking only lukewarm responses from the likes of former Doctor Peter Davison
Who volunteered to appear in the show, whose kids are huge fans, and dropped by on Tennant's first day to encourage him.

and former script editor Chris Bidmead.
Who of course does no wrong except for the 500 mistakes he is blamed for on this site.

Five days after the first episode, Rose, was broadcast to an expectant nation, Eccleston announced his retirement from the show "to avoid being typecast", forcing a hasty rewrite of the final episode to introduce David Tennant as his replacement.
Absolute rubbish and not an iota of truth.

Tennant made his official debut in an hour long Christmas special
After his UNOFFICIAL debut in a Children in Need sketch.

which more than anything underlined the difference between 1960s TV and its 21st Century equivalent. Back in 1965, a Doctor Who "Christmas Special" (the Feast of Steven episode of The Dalek Masterplan) was more an accident of scheduling than a positive decision to celebrate the Festive Season.
More lies. Terry Nation structured the whole story so the plot would be on either side of Christmas Day.

Forty years later Christmas specials were a necessary obligation of every serial screened by the BBC.
Except for most of them. Dear God, do you WATCH TV?

A second series followed in Easter 2006 with Piper bowing out in an explosive finale involving both Daleks and Cybermen, the design of the latter heavily influenced by Andrew Skilleter's illustrations in David Banks' 1988 Cybermen book.
You haven't read that book, have you? Because if you did, you'd know the Cybus version are as far from Banksy's magnum opus as it is possible to get.

In a further attempt to forge links with the original series, Elisabeth Sladen revived her Sarah-Jane Smith persona alongside the ubiquitous K9 (voiced, as ever, by John Leeson),
So what does the show have to do to PROPERLY forge links? Use an old Doctor? Done that? Daleks? Done that. Cybermen? Done that. Sontarans? Time Lords? UNIT?!

which inspired Davies to write a pilot for a spin-off series featuring Sarah and K9 (no less than 25 years after the original pilot).
Well, that INSTANTLY invalidates the whole thing, doesn't it?

Also spinning-off from the Who mothership was Torchwood, a sci-fi adventure series based in Cardiff and featuring Captain Jack Harkness from the second half of the first "new" series.
...and? What? No 'psychic investigators' and Captain John Bannerman? Not even a hideous betrayal of Doctor Who with all that sex and violence?

You have NO idea what you're talking about?

Tennant's version of the Doctor was more likeable than Eccleston's but was overshadowed somewhat by the established Piper. In fact the second series was more "Rose Tyler" than "Doctor Who", the rather annoying habit 21st century scriptwriters have of including friends and relatives of major characters leading to Rose's mother and boyfriend appearing in practically every episode,
Wow, so out of the twenty seven episodes, they appeared in ten. And the boyfriend was a companion, you dipstick.

whilst even her supposedly deceased father appeared twice.
In science fiction, you say? In a series about time travel?! WE SAW SOMEONE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD?!? Thank God it was a fictional character and not someone real like Charles Dickens or Queen Victoria or Shakespeare...

A second Christmas special followed with Piper replaced temporarily
No, Piper was gone.

by the Trendies' favourite BBC comedienne, Catherine Tate, who thankfully desisted from using any of the monotonous catchphrases from her trendy (and relatively unfunny) BBC3 sketch show.
Ah, so you liked it then? This backhanded compliment is the closest to admiration we've seen.

Piper's full-time replacement had already made the news by the time she debuted in Smith and Jones, the opening installment of the third series.
Wow! No other companion has EVER been in the news before their first episode!

You halfwit.

Freema Agyeman (who had appeared in the second series episode Army of Ghosts) played the part of medical student Martha Jones, who the press had a field day with over the fact that Agyeman was the Doctor's first ever black companion - which wasn't strictly accurate
Since Mickey was a companion.

as Agyeman's mother is Iranian (thus making her only half-black)
...You racist fuck.

whilst TV Comic's Dr.Who strip had blazed this particular trail back in the 1970s.
No, that was DWM in the 1980s. Wrong publication, wrong DECADE.

Almost as unimaginative as the numerous references to "Smith and Jones"
Of which there was but one.

was the immediate inclusion of Martha's family in virtually every episode
Virtually every = three stories out of ten.

and the fact that even after thirty-odd episodes, the series had rarely ventured beyond the confines of Earth or its parallel universe analogue New Earth.
It's not a parallel universe, you shitbrain. And you missed the nine stories NOT set on Earth.

The Daleks returned yet again in a story guaranteed to annoy traditionalists, featuring a Dalek with a personality striving to become a human, which is a bit like a modern Homo sapiens attempting to become Ramapithecus!
You mean it was just like The Evil of the Daleks. Which traditionalists love.

Also returning after an eleven year absence was the Master, now played by John Simm fresh from the triumph of Life on Mars and, like Eric Roberts' version in the American pilot, clean-shaven.
And also Peter Pratt and Geoffrey Beevers' versions.

There was also the usual clutch of familiar faces from soaps and sitcoms all eager to be seen in one of trendy TV's showcases,
DAMN THEM FOR WANTING WORK! DAMN THEM!

as well as sometime writer Mark Gatiss and respected "Ac-Tor" Derek Jacobi.
You even have Jacobi? What's wrong with you man?!

Probably most telling was Paul Cornell's two-part story Human Nature/Family of Blood, a direct adaptation of his 1995 Virgin New Adventure novel Human Nature
Which rendered the entire book series uncanonical.

proving if ever proof was needed that the new series was less a follow-on from the original TV series than an off-shoot of the Virgin/BBC novels.
Which were a follow on from the original series, you stupid bastard.

More an illegitimate second-cousin than a legitimate child.
Now you hate unmarried parents! I hope you don't find out RTD is gay...

A third Christmas special, broadcast as the filling in an EastEnders sandwich, was boosted by the presence of ex-soapstar-turned-internationally celebrated songstress Kylie Minogue and claimed ratings of over 12 million.
Come on, GC, there's gotta be SOME way to turn that negative.

However, even though the show was still an important weapon in the BBC's armoury, cracks were beginning to show in its thin veneer of superficiality.
Wow. A veneer of superficiality is pretty thin to start with, but a THIN superficial veneer...

Agyeman was farmed out to Torchwood at the end of the third series to make way for a returning Catherine Tate, presumably because Tate was worth more gossip column inches than Agyeman
And then Agyeman was 'farmed back'...

whilst Billie Piper was rumoured to be returning to the show for the finale of series four.
Rumored. Right. Not read the papers recently, have you, GC?

More disturbing was the announcement that Doctor Who wouldn't be run at all in 2009
No, you fucking retard, it will, in the form of special movies.

owing to Tennant appearing in a theatrical run of Macbeth, something that would never have happened during the original series.
Except for Peter Davison and Jon Pertwee stepping off to appear in movies, dramas and soaps.

Dear God, GC, I despise you with a passion that would frighten certain fundamentalist groups.