May 4

[Zeke]

And again with the lengthy unscheduled absences. However, I had some things to get in order, and now they mostly are. Except these alphabet blocks. I mean, "G", "X", "Q"... how am I supposed to know which of these weird shapes come before others? I'm not Stephen Hawking, people.


Anyway, let's start things off with a link -- a very valuable link. Now that Doctor Who is a big part of this site, some of our readers (such as me) have been feeling a little lost. Some have never seen DW at all; others have only seen the current show. Enter Alan Kistler. Alan is a frequent contributor to the comics blog Monitor Duty, and for a while now he's been writing profiles on major DC characters like the Flash, Green Lantern, and Firestorm. His profiles are extensive and very knowledgeable; for someone who wants to learn a character's history, they're the perfect compromise between brief Wikipedia-type overviews and just reading every issue. (Sort of an inverse FiveMinute.net, if you think about it.)


What does this have to do with Doctor Who? It seems Alan is a big fan -- and he recently wrote profiles on each of the Doctor's first eight incarnations! I'm up to number three, and so far they're as interesting and informative as his comics profiles. Each one links to the next, so the place to start is his First Doctor profile. You can find a complete list of the profiles he's written here -- I recommend them all.


Also, apparently Morena Baccarin (Firefly's Inara) is in the running for Wonder Woman. How cool would that be?

[Sa'ar Chasm]

Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to say to everyone...

May the Fourth be with you.

*hides behind lightsabre*

[Chancellor Valium]

Nice guide

And May the Fifth rule the universe! :P

[richardson]

BAH! Humbug.

[Scooter]

Thanks for this, Zeke. I didn't even know about this site, and it's an excellent intro. Other excellent aids to getting up to speed on the individual Doctors and their episodes can be found at sites below (in ascending order of hardcoreness):

• A short introductory essay to the Classic Doctors, not nearly as good as the Monitor Duty page but it'll get your feet wet if you have just (er) five minutes, can be found here, and there's a lot of other info elsewhere on that site as well.
• The BBC site (Classic series) Episode Guide, which is great because it incorporates the Discontinuity Guide -- lots of fun explanations, goofs, and examples of the best and worst dialog
• Outpost Gallifrey Episode Guide, which has a lot of detailed production background
• The Doctor Who Reference Guide has way comprehensive and detailed plot summaries not only of all the episodes but the novels, Big Finish audios, and every other conceivable spin-off

Anything you don't see on these sites that's you're scratching your head over, just ask -- send me an email or post a topic in the SF forum. I'm also working on a "Five Minute Doctor Who" fiver, sort of like Zeke's "Five Minute Cheese" entire-series fivers, to encapsule the entire 43 years of Doctor Who...

[Sa'ar Chasm]

I'm also working on a "Five Minute Doctor Who" fiver, sort of like Zeke's "Five Minute Cheese" entire-series fivers, to encapsule the entire 43 years of Doctor Who...

Doctor: Hello there, random strangers. Care to go for a spin in my phone booth?
Companions: Sure.
*weirdness happens*
Companions: GAK!
Doctor: Hmmm...looks like I'm gonna need some more random strangers.

Lather, rinse repeat.

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Sa'ar Chasm

Doctor: Hello there, random strangers. Care to go for a spin in my phone booth?
Companions: Sure.
*weirdness happens*
Companions: GAK!
Doctor: Hmmm...looks like I'm gonna need some more random strangers.

Lather, rinse repeat.

Actually, only two companions have died, 20 years apart and in quite different circumstances. Most just leave the TARDIS after a few seasons

[Scooter]

Hmm, looks like Sa'ar beat me to it. Nevermind.

CV: Well, they all die eventually.

And personally, I think the Inquisitor was lying about Peri.

[Zeke]

Maybe he was only Peri-phrasing.

[Scooter]

Originally Posted by Zeke

Maybe he was only Peri-phrasing.

Almost as bad as the Doctor's own jokes about Peri's name.

Once when Peri asked how the Doctor had seen some thugs rushing to attack him even though he'd been looking the other way, he answered, "Peri-pheral vision!"

The worst, though, was when he'd just humiliated a sluglike villain named Sil who needed regular skin immersion. As Sil yelled at his minions that he needed to be moistened, the Doctor said, "I think he needs more than water, Peri, eh?" ... Sil's response, like that of the audience, was a gurgling scream.

[P.S. to C.V.: Dead companions are Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Adric, Kamelion, and K-9 III. And I really do count Peri . You could even mention Jack, Grace and Chang Lee, even though they're brought back from the dead right away, because they still count toward Sa'ar's point... Though your point that they're rare and atypical still carries, even though there's more than two.]

[Chancellor Valium]

Originally Posted by Scooter

[P.S. to C.V.: Dead companions are Katarina, Sara Kingdom, Adric, Kamelion, and K-9 III. And I really do count Peri . You could even mention Jack, Grace and Chang Lee, even though they're brought back from the dead right away, because they still count toward Sa'ar's point... Though your point that they're rare and atypical still carries, even though there's more than two.]

Damn, forgot about Kamelion and Katarina. And K9 III was too recent to impinge on my memory