BABloggee James H.G. Redekop sent me a link to a webcomic called Retail, which did a brief Doctor Who series for Halloween. It’s not a knee-slapper, but it’s cute. Still, I think the protagonist screwed up. As much as I loved Tom Baker’s Who, it’s been 20 years. David Tennant would’ve been the way to go.
When you check it out, make sure you look at all five, up through Halloween itself.
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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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November 9th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I can sympathize with the guy who dressed as the Doctor. I took a radio-controlled Dalek with me to synagogue on Purim, and only one other person had any clue what it was.
(And I can here it now, someone asking “What’s Purim?”…)
November 9th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Funny thing is, I went as Tom Baker’s Doctor for Halloween (my son was a Tardis) and everyone thought I was Charles Dickens!
November 9th, 2008 at 11:17 am
This comic is also in print; I first saw the sequence in the Toronto Star.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I think Tom Baker’s Doctor is still the most iconic and recognizable incarnation, at least to long-time fans of the show, and has the advantage of actually having a distinctive style of his own – there’s something actually alien about his style of dress (although really you could say the same about Pertwee through McCoy). I don’t think you can really say the same for Tennant’s Doctor, aside from the hairstyle anyway.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Nahhh.. You want to avoid Tennant, because everyone is going to dress as Tennant. My friends at Dragon*Con, who does a great Tennant, went as the Sylvester McCoy Doctor (which he also did an excellent job as) instead as there was around two dozen 10th doctors there but he was the only 7th, and therefore got a bit more notice.
November 9th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
IMHO if you go as the 4th Doctor, you get to offer people Jelly Babies. That alone make it worth it.
November 9th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I went as the 10th Doctor. Nobody had a clue. You’d think, living in Europe, more people would watch BBC… I even built my own sonic screwdriver
November 9th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Phil Plait,
Just out of curiosity, why do you like Doctor Who so much? I’ve never seen it.
November 9th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Not to mention the mistake of referring to the character as “Doctor Who.” Any fan should call him either “The Doctor” or “The Fourth Doctor” for that particular incarnation.
November 9th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Oi, Infophile, I was about to say that :p
But yeah, truly, everyone does dress up as the Tenth Doctor. I was at Gallifrey One this year, and there were a bunch! (Although not as many as the big cons, like Dragon*Con or ComicCon.) I like to see more obscure costumes, like, say, anyone other than Ten or Rose XD (WHYYY. WHY SO MANY TEN AND ROSE.)
November 9th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
That’s brilliant! I have very fond memories of watching Tom Baker in Doctor Who with my oldest brother back in the early 80’s. We’d gather around the telly with a big bowl of peanut M&M’s. Good times.
November 9th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Check out Sheldon today, it’s very a propos (sheldoncomics.com)
Tom Baker (and to a lesser extent Pertwee) will remain for me the pre-eminent Doctors.
November 9th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
New principle: Given sufficient time, 100% of humanity will either _be_ The Doctor, a companion, a Tin Dog, or exterminaaaated by the Daaleks.
Dibs on the Tardis.
November 9th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
The punchline in the Nov. 1st comic (re: “reversing the polarity of the neutron flow”) is a classic line from the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee).
November 9th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Phil wrote:
“As much as I loved Tom Baker’s Who, it’s been 20 years.”
Some might even say 30 years. Plus.
“David Tennant would’ve been the way to go.”
While I respect Tennant’s role in reviving (regenerating?) Dr Who, I can’t see anyone toppling Tom Baker. Not only due to his idiosyncratic portrayal – pretty much every episode from that era is a classic. Makes me go all misty-eyed every time I see them again…ah, fond childhood memories.
November 9th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I’ll tell you what’s so great about Tom Baker. This is the Doctor who (ha!) will separate the wannabe sci fi posers from your hard core brethren. You don’t even need to dress up like Tom Baker, hell, just knit up and wear the scarf, and you will easily spot everyone who identifies the correlation before words are spoken. To most, you are just some weirdo with way too much tacky scarf. But to the initiated, you are as a god among mortals. Offer them a jelly baby, for theirs is the kingdom of Gallifrey.
Just like wearing a Jayne hat in public. You will shunned by most, but every once in a while, you’ll come across someone familiar with that one episode of a somewhat obscure sci fi show, and you’ll get to see grown men jump up and down and point and make high pitched squee noises.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
I’m with Phil on this one. I loved Tom Baker’s Doctor while growing up, but I honestly think that David Tennant is a slightly better doctor. He has the same type of wily eccentricities as Baker’s doctor, but also brings an astounding amount of depth to the character. A depth that I don’t believe has ever been explored in the Doctor Who series before.
November 10th, 2008 at 5:21 am
PG said:
Hmmm … Pertwee was before my time, I’m afraid. To me, that line comes from ST:TNG (usually uttered by LaForge).
For me, Tom Baker and Peter Davison were the classic Doctors; but New Who has a different vibe to it, which has worked well with Chris Ecclestone and David Tennant. Plus, I think “Blink” trumps any story from classic Who.
November 10th, 2008 at 6:21 am
Tom Baker is marvelous, and easily my favorite Doctor (though I have only seen partial story-lines and some various clips of many of the other Doctors). He’s also a lot more recognizable, as opposed to David Tennant’s Doctor, who is just wearing a suit.
I was fortunate enough to have to research which of the Doctors (of those I had seen (Four, Nine, and Ten)) was best, for a paper for my freshman English class over the summer (my professor actually suggested the topic). It was easily the best week’s worth of homework I’ve ever done in my life, though most of the kids in my class had no idea what I was talking about.
Now, I’m just hoping to finish my scarf before next Halloween. Stupid homework keeps getting in the way…
November 10th, 2008 at 9:30 am
I would love to send you a link to the current National Geographic article about the End of Night, and they do not mean dawn. How does one go about that?
November 10th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I don’t recall Geordi LaForge ever uttering that line — and oddly, Pertwee only ever used it once. However, he was often reversing the polarity of *something*, because Pertwee had astutely realized that the actual content of the technobabble/bafflegab wasn’t as important as how confidently you said it, and figured that for most occasions, a simple stock phrase served just fine.
Tom Baker did say “reverse the polarity” on one occasion — “City of Death”, which was written by die-hard fan (and Series 17 script editor) Douglas Adams. It was a deliberate reference to the Pertwee-era cliche. A reference was also made somewhere this last season, I think.
“Blink” was damn good, as was “Silence in the Library”. Heck, anything by Steven Moffatt seems to rock. But I’m not sure they trump everything from classic Who. There were some damn good stories there too, especially since they had more time to develop. (The majority were four-parters.) One of my faves, despite some rather sad giant rat FX, was “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”, a classic from Tom Baker’s era in which he actually doesn’t wear the scarf — but instead dresses as Sherlock Holmes.
He takes Leela to visit Victorian England, and is quickly embroiled in a mystery: a serial killer is stalking the streets of London, and young ladies are going missing. It has elements of Jack the Ripper, The Phantom of the Opera, and, of course, Sherlock Holmes. Oh, and a bit of Pygmalion too. It’s a very good story, well acted — and six episodes long, if memory serves.
And there are a lot of other good stories too. That’s just one of my favorites.
It’s also got connections to the new series. Christopher Eccleston (who wasn’t familiar with Dr Who) studied it to get a grip on the character, and one of the actors (Mr Jago, the theater owner) appeared in “The Unicorn and the Wasp” (as the supposedly wheelchair-bound husband).
November 10th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I still don’t see what’s the problem — there’s only been one true Doctor, and he seems to have got the costume right…
November 10th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Even with the wonderful David Tennant on TV, and the equally excellent Paul McGann on BBC Radio, for me it will always be Tom Baker’s portrayal at number 1.
He was the mad eyed chap on the TV when I was a very little boy, and I remember being totally devastated when the Fourth Doctor fell off that radio telescope in 1981. There was a helluva lot of Tom in the performance, and the man is a total one-off. It’s unlikely that anyone will have any sort of impact as large as his in any series, let alone Doctor Who – David Tennant is doing marvellously to come anywhere close.
BTW: It’s a gorgeous cartoon strip isn’t it?
November 11th, 2008 at 3:39 am
@ Calli…
“City of Death” was a damn fine Who. I just happen to feel that “Blink” is the best episode of any TV series that I have seen (yes, it even trumps “Hush” – or should I not open that can of worms…?).
November 12th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Naomi said:
>> (WHYYY. WHY SO MANY TEN AND ROSE.)
Because they’re the current incarnation. And the love story angle, allowing couples to participate.