posted
I always thought British shows in general were around six or eight episodes per year. I didn't know that was peculiar to the BBC.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Damn, I forgot Hugh Grant played one of the Comic Relief Doctors.
Tim: traditionally, most UK shows seem to hover around the six-to-eight-episode mark, not just the BBC. Some drama shows seem to manage twelve occasionally, but bear in mind they're longer - fifty minutes usually. I don't really see enough UK TV to speak with total confidence about trends in series (our word for season) size.
Miniseries seem to have become popular in recent years. Touching Evil, Messiah, Waking the Dead, Prime Suspect. . . Then there are the shows that operate at telemovie length: Inspector Morse, A Touch of Frost, etc.
posted
Sorry, but the Tom Baker "Doctor" was the one that I enjoyed most. (Never say McCoys'....how Ironic a DOCTOR named MCCOY?) His humor and nonchalance just bordered on arrogance but it was always directed only at the idiots he encountered and not just a shotgun approach to people in general.
-------------------- I am the Anti-Abaddon. I build models at a scale of 2500/1
Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
John Pertwee was really good with the sarcasm and rolling eyes too. More of a bitter old man kind way though, so it's a good transition from Pertwee to Baker to Davison: He becomes less grouchy as he gets younger. ...and as the companions get hotter. A coincidence, of course.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I think the ones I remmeber seeing on PBS starred Tom Baker. I remember them being very long... but I think they strung a bunch of episodes together.
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
The typical Doctor Who storyline was three or four episodes long - for American syndication in the seventies (I think), they strung them together (poorly, sometimes) and sold 'em off that way. I believe they still show the individual episodes on some European channels.
posted
I'm sure they're repeated on UK Gold or BBC 4 or something... most things are.
-------------------- "I am an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman, which means I can be a cast-iron son-of-a-bitch when it suits me." --Jubal Harshaw
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
They're repeated on UK Gold roughly seven billion times a day. They're on DVD too (both Region 1 and region 2), if you're keen.
The original episodes were half hour (or 24-28 minutes), and the stories ranged from 3 to 13 episodes long (scary crazy Daleks running everywhere!)
The original point of the show was partly educational. During Hartnel's tenure they'd often have stories set on past-day Earth. They got dropped as the series went on, but present day Earth stories became more popular.
During either Davison or Colin Baker's time (I can't remember), the episodes became 45 minutes long, but only for a brief time.
Also, the number of episodes shown over a year gradually decreased.
And to add to Lee: The reason that most British shows are only 6-10 episodes long a season is that they are often written by just one or two people, rather than the big teams US sitcoms have.
And Red Dwarf had low production values? Okay, the sets for seasons 1 and 2 were pretty bad, but the ship shots were pretty close to early TNG levels, at a fraction of the cost.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Yeah and the old model Red Dwarf with the rock sticking out of it was MUCH better and more realistic than that pathetic CGI contraption they did.
Can anyone tell me with the DVDs do they have the old episodes that DON'T have the cuts in them. I remember one of my favourite scenes from "Better than Life" was cut... where Cat's fantasy "Miranda the Mermaid" appears on the Golf course... of course the bottom was human and the top fish - and he did a 'licky-licky' motion with his tounge.
There are lots of other cuts in at least season 1 and 2 that I've seen... some quite annoying.
posted
Good news, Andrew, as far as I can tell, the episodes on the DVDs are the original versions. No CGI effects (at least up to now, season 1 and 2), no cut scenes. But a lot of extended and deleted scenes as bonus material. But that material was never aired before.
Oh yes, the Miranda the mermaid scene IS in the episode on the DVD.
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Try play.com! Seasons 2 and 3 are 14,99 Pounds, Season 1 is 11,99. Season 3 is pre-order of course. How much are they in Australia?
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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Seems to be a little more expensive than in GB. Well small wonder.
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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