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Doctor Who – The New Titles, Theme And Thoughts

Published Sat, 03 Apr 2010 13:23:33 -0500

Last updated Sun, 04 Apr 2010 07:49:09 -0500

The new titles to Doctor Who. There you go. Now. Tonight's show.

There's a certain image of Doctor Who that fans have. It manages to ignore the bits that don't work. The padding, the plodding, the dodgy sets and costumes, the overacting, the RTD melodrama, all that. Doctor Who blinkers. I know I've got them. And that's fine, that's the way it is, we all have blinkers to keep us loving the thing we love with the greatest of ease. And so the Doctor Who we know in our hearts is English, is wild and outrageous, is very clever indeed and packed full of mad ideas, each perfectly executed. And every episode has some of that it and a lot of nonsense, to varying ratios. Even the better episodes, the Unearthly Child, the Talons Of Weng Chiang, Caves Of Androzani and Blink, have a few things we can cough over.

But not tonight. Tonight's Doctor Who is the way we remember the show but put straight onto the screen, the best of everything, condensed into an hour. It looked beautiful, there was some brave and different directoral choices, subtle and flashy, that took us, possibly for the first time, into the Doctor's head.

We had time travel, we had a Doctor legend built without his knowledge, we had saving the world with a kettle and a piece of string, we has a TARDIS on its side, fish fingers and custard silliness, we had out-of-the-corner-of-the-eye scariness, we had Patrick Moore, we had a topless Doctor for the girls and gays, we had a strippergram companion for the guys and, um, the other gays, the comatose coming to life, all the Doctors at once, cracks in walls that reminded me of Gilliam, English villages assaulted by huge space ships destroying the world that reminded me of Hitch Hikers… and I loved it. Possibly more than I've ever loved the Doctor before. Ten minutes in, Matt Smith is the Doctor, is truly the Doctor. And no blinkers required.

Actually, do you know what? The alien effects were a little bit pony. So there you go, something for the Doctor Who blinkers there. But I don't care, I thought it was glorious.

Let's hear from some prominent tweeters.

NoelClarke Enjoyed that. kiss-a-gram was just a nice way of saying stripper. Phwoar!!!

idsharman I was going to tweet about how brilliant the new Dr Who is, but it would seem the internet beat me to it…

caitlinmoran Doctor Who was SCREAMINGLY exciting. God i'm in love with it ALL OVER AGAIN

davidschneider Loved #DrWho. And it explains why David Cameron keeps being seen without a tie. Expect him to bowtie it from now on.

mseckington Doctor Who was great! Wasn't expecting to like the new Doctor and companion this much, but I already love their backstory

warrenellis Doctor Who: strong start, Moffat on his game, sad at what they did to the theme music.

richjohnston @warrenellis Enjoy the use of mobile phones?

warrenellis @richjohnston I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU PEOPLE ALL ALONG AND OH NO YOU HAD TO MOCK

This is how the world is trending:

While in Britain, Patrick Moore is getting a Twitter spike all of a sudden. And, I understand the first Doctor Who bittorrent file is currently seeding… might take quite a while to come though. Sorry. Get a UK proxy IP address and go to the iPlayer.

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