OK, Patrick Stewart being on Doctor Who is an awesome call, one of the best stunt castings they’ll do.
But then, why balance the cosmic karma with this?
OK, if done well — like, a really brief cameo where he walks by and utters one line (think John Cleese and Eleanor Bron in the Tom Baker era’s "City of Death") then this could be brilliant. If done poorly, well… we’ll know the exact moment my beloved Doctor jumps the Raxacoricofallapatorian shark.
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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October 14th, 2008 at 11:05 am
madge jumps to attention and hums the National Anthem!
October 14th, 2008 at 11:10 am
Phil, your blog is one of my favorites, but especially when you talk about Who. For some reason, an awesome blogger/writer/scientist such as yourself talking about my favorite Time Lord just makes me feel… vindicated… for being such a fan of the show… and you.
But I’d be way more psyched to see Stewart on the show than Charles, ESPECIALLY if he played Rassilon, since that could signal the reintroduction of Gallifrey.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Actually, I can think of several ways they could pull it off, and it’d be good.
I think the best way, would be a tie in back to tooth and claw.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:14 am
As far as I know, George, the character that Stewart would play would be the returning of the Meddling Monk. (the *first* Gallifreyan that the Doctor ran into, twice, before we even knew the name of their planet).
October 14th, 2008 at 11:15 am
At least Dawkins and Chuck can agree on this one thing.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:15 am
With those ears, the makeup department will save tons of money trying to convince you he’s an alien. Gotta look for the silver lining Dr Plait!
October 14th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Read the article. It seems we and the Brits have something in common as regards our opinion of entrenched power elites. I note however, that Charles has been environmentally active for some time. Have the Royals started getting smart by out breeding and re-enabling their gene pool? Snark.
Aside: Note that the Saudi clan has been outbreeding for the last four generations. That’s probably one reason that King Faisal and King Abdullah were/are both highly educated and progressive. It’s a tough job, bringing your country of 13th century conservatives into the 21st century. Maybe they could teach US a thing or two???
I wonder if King Abdullah is a SciFi fan,,,
Gary 7
October 14th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Of course, he wouldn’t be the first royal to show up on who… didn’t the Queen Mother have a “walking the dogs” cameo in one of Sylvester McCoy’s episodes? I think it might even have been “Silver Nemesis?”
October 14th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Perhaps he wrote an episode.
Like Thatcher writing an episode for Yes, Minister, in which she proposes to “abolish economists”. She also performed it live on stage with the original cast (who clearly did not want to be there). I’d link to it, but it is extremely unfunny (proved by the fact that the Tory audience lapped it up).
October 14th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Joe, according to http://www.gallifreyone.com/episode.php?id=7k that was someone playing the part of the Queen (Mary Reynolds).
October 14th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
@ Joe Meils
Nope, They tried but she was unbelievable so they had an impersonator.
October 14th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Phil, you’re awesome, but please take a little more care to warn for spoilers.
@Joe Meils – it was going to be in Silver Nemesis, but the scene was cut before filming started.
October 14th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
If Charles plays himself in a plot relevant way, it would be fine.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Doctor Who already jumped the shark with the climactic scene of Series 4, in which the T.A.R.D.I.S. exhibited its abilities as a cosmic tow truck.
October 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
The sharks are actually from Clom.
October 14th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Maybe Bush can be put on Dr. Who in a cameo and have him dropped
into a black hole.
Only the Doctor goes back in time to before 2000 to do this so
that the last 8 years were all just a bad dream.
October 14th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Why not our own scheptic in Dr Who? Come on. Can’t you see it before your eyes when Phil is trying to convince the good doctor that he is delusional and everything that happens only happens in his mind. Could be fun. Dontcha think?
Let’s start a campaign…
October 15th, 2008 at 1:52 am
Actually the TARDIS tow truck scene was one of the less problematic ones in that dreadful series ender. Isn’t it convenient how enemies like the Daleks and the Cybermen keep coming back every though every single time they appear in the new series, every single one of them is supposedly destroyed (barring a few exceptions with that ridiculous ‘emergency temporal shift’).
The new series of Doctor Who jumped the shark the moment it introduced a planet called Raxacoricofallapatorius. Possibly earlier.
Oh and Prince Charles said no, for which I don’t blame him. Soooo happy RTD won’t be in charge for series 5.
October 15th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I’m getting ready to sit down and watch Smiley’s People…. Jean-Luc Picard vs. Obi-Wan Kenobee!
October 15th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
If Patrick Stewart is playing the Meddling Monk, then it’s a pretty good role for him.
Ignoring the monk’s comedy aspects for a minute, the whole point about the monk was that he was trying to improve history.
He was doing things like trying to avoid bloodshed by having different battles won.
eg: In the show he was trying to prevent King Harold from losing to William the Conquerer at Hastings. If that had succeeded then there may have been no Viking invaders and the dark ages may have been skipped.
The monks activities would always have been restricted by the presence of the Time Lords – who guarded against such interference. If they were gone, then who could stop him.
Doesn’t that sound very much like Patrick Stewart… how many times did he really violate the prime directive in order to avoid bloodshed?
In the new who… it could take two interesting forms…
1. The Doctor could arrive in the future to find things changed. Perhaps something better but about to turn really nasty… he could then go back to find out why things changed and find the monk.
2. The Monk could be trying to reverse the effects of the time war – though why he’d want to resurrect the time lords – I don’t know. They might not thank him.
I think it’s a brilliant role for Patrick Stewart