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Entry tags:	tv - doctor who

Six Reasons to Watch New Who
Real Life is nothing to write home about, and am not feeling very meta about The Office (btw, I'm now *meh* about Pam/Jim and am totally jumping on board Kelly/Ryan), so instead I shall list....

Six Reasons to Watch Doctor Who

1. It's delightful. Intelligent and complicated and rather dark at times, but with an underlying (and sometimes up-front) spirit of sheer giddiness. It's just plain *fun*. Though they're really nothing alike, that spirit almost reminds me of pre-Angelus BTVS. ;)

2. Christopher Eccleston as Nine. Fantastic! Though I knew all along he'd only last one season, I was so very sorry to see him go. Damn, he bring so much joy to the role, along with a delicious thread of darkness.

3. Rose/Nine! It's not a canon 'ship... well, technically. DW has always been geared toward kids, of course, and the weight of the show's history (it's over forty years old!) means that there ain't gonna be any kissin' in the TARDIS. But Russell T Davies paints their relationship beautifully over the course of the season, showing a deep, abiding love and companionship that can easily be seen as romantic. More than that, just watching them play off each other is so very lovely.

4. Captain Jack Harkness. My boyfriend! As I said when I started the Jack thread on TWOP: "On paper, he's the quintessential (male) Mary Sue -- charming, handsome, multi-talented, and with a hint of darkness. But damned if John Barrowman doesn't pull it off beautifully. Bonus points to the writers for playing Jack's bisexuality with such nonchalance, even treating it as another aspect of what makes him so much fun. We don't see that nearly often enough on television. The whole season is one huge treat, and Jack is the cherry on top -- which is exactly where he'd want to be." (Alas, he doesn't appear until episode 9, so hang in there. ;)

5. The continuity is awesome. Many of the episodes feel like one-offs, but everything ties together in the end into a complicated, supremely cool whole. So, pay close attention and don't dismiss anything that seems random at the time. And keep an eye out for "Bad Wolf".

6. You can jump right in. The weight of twenty-seven seasons of canon can be a bit intimidating, but don't let that stop you. In fact, you don't need to know anything except that the TARDIS is a time machine, and that when he "dies", the Doctor just transforms into a new body. RTD keeps things very accessible, informing the new series with its past but making it newbie-friendly. If you want a bit of backstory, the DW Wikipedia entry is great, along with the SciFi and BBC sites (spoilers on the last one, natch.)

So, please give it a shot tomorrow night! SciFi starts things off with a two-fer at 9pm EST. The first episode is a teensy bit cheesier than the rest, but the second is wonderful, with a sense of what this show will turn out to be. And hey, at least it'll give us BSG fans something to enjoy over the next seven (sigh) months. And one of the few upshots of the stupid extra-long hiatus is that SciFi will apparently pair up DW and BSG next fall. Yay!