The new Dr. Who

Those of you who knew me as a lad will recall that I was a fan of the BBC series Dr. Who. This was a British science fiction series that started back in the 1950\'s and ran until the 1990\'s. Well, it\'s back and it\'s playing on CBC on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. There are some changes. The old series was serialized, that is, the story ran over several half-hour episodes which would play out over several weeks. The end of each story would also run into the start of the next. The new series is episodic, the full story is told in an hour episode with the episodes not being connected to each other. This does have an advantage for syndication, as a TV station playing the episodic version can play them in any order.

The effects are better, of course, as video technology has made leaps and bounds since the \'80s and \'90s. The episode I saw had a darker, more edgy feel than the older series.

Though entertaining, the stories and characterization that made the old series what it was (it certainly wasn\'t the acting or special effects) may suffer with the hour long format. A story that used to have over two hours to develop (most stories were five, half-hour episodes long) now has to be done in one, and something has to go. The effects and acting are better so it will remain to be seen how well the new format will do.