All Change...........

More often than not, am I right in thinking the old series made changes gradually? For instance, the time tunnel effect took place in Season 11, before the Mighty Nose left, and the star-field sequence started in Tom Baker's last season. And there were a lot of tweaks as each season went by. Rarely was there any huge changes, and audiences were "weaned" onto these.

Even when there were huge changes, eg JNT in Season 18, we still had familar faces to ease the transition. Even with the big format transformation in Season 7, we had characters introduced the previous year (UNIT) and a contemporary-Earth setting to give a sense of the familiar.

I think this would be a more sensible option myself. It sounds like with a new (black?!) Doctor, new companion, new TARDIS set, new musical director, new logo, new writers, new bog roll in the Upper Boat loos, new everything, it'll be a huge, huge shock for an audience which isn't used to this.

If Moff and Wenger are going to go ahead with these changes, I'd ask them to keep something of RTD-Who in the mix story-wise. Starting the new Doc off by having him battle the Daleks would be a good start! And a return by Captain Jack might be a good move as well.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:

Aspadistra wrote:I have age, cunning and the ability to knock you over with my bahookey.

Wow. Nothing, but nothing, tops a bit of bahookey.

*nods grimly*

People at work have been commenting about Tennant's loss to the show. Possibly changes will be made gradually?

*realises that sounds daft, given the obvious major change*

Aspadistra wrote:People at work have been commenting about Tennant's loss to the show. Possibly changes will be made gradually?

*realises that sounds daft, given the obvious major change*

Tennant will regenerate into Paterson Joseph gradually - an arm here, a leg there...

Lucy McGough wrote:Tennant will regenerate into Paterson Joseph gradually - an arm here, a leg there...

Are you saying that Troughton's idea of playing the Doctor in blackface will finally be realised?

More seriously, I think a lot of those changes won't be noticed by the audience. I think the new console room is likely to be just an evolution of the current one, in the same way they used to change the details of the old one but not the overall style. The new composer probably won't sound too different to Murray Gold to the average audience member, and the new titles will be in the same vein as the current ones, just updated for HD.

Of course, I could be wrong and we could see them bringing back the McGann console room, atonal electronica on the soundtrack and titles that consist entirely of a zoom around the Doctor's winking face.

Rich Flair wrote:Why bother? What's so bold about changing an indentifiable logo, that's on thousands of products?

I had similar thoughts when JNT took DW's unique idosyncratic theme tune and credits and 'updated' them into bland, unoriginal conventional 80s arrangements that simply served to date them anyway - just two of the Hawaiian Shirt's unhinged ideas when it came to DW (transforming the costume into a bloody uniform rankled me even more, so don't even get me started on the question-marks). It's stunning how much JNT got fantastically wrong over 9 loooooong years.

Nick Barlow wrote:The new composer probably won't sound too different to Murray Gold to the average audience member... Of course, I could be wrong and we could see them bringing back... atonal electronica on the soundtrack.

Ya know, if you're trying to bait me, you've succeeded...

No, the thing is, one reason the music is... an inflammatory element among some fans, shall we say... is that it somehow has put as much of a stamp on the show as the other *big* core RTD New Series features. I mean more than the sets or the costumes or the logos. It is part of the newly openly emotional show, along with having moms and home-based stories with emotions and drama and... yeah, music that reinforces that.

I say that not just as defender of the score, but as part of *why* I'm defender of the score. Somehow, in certain fans' heads, this particular composer is as much responsible for the mainstream-popular thing that is New Who as RTD himself. So the criticism of the RTD-haters is simply magnified as open vitriol towards him... Let's just say it's messy. And get back to the normal fans...

My opinion... is that those composing shoes will be hard to fill:
- I can't say whether another guy or gal can make the sort of music that will top the UK iTunes soundtrack charts (like each of Murray's Who albums) or sell out concert halls faster than Kylie. He makes very very good melodies... and:
- he's an award-winning playwright, so (back to the show, here) he has more than the usual composer's instinct for how to treat dramatic moments musically.
- Plus, although it's usually a bit hidden, he's actually also a fan of the show from childhood. Listen to the Voyage audio commentary; like David Tennant in some interviews, Murray was going along correcting some of the Classic-Who continuity details that the other speakers got wrong or couldn't remember. We all like to think that everybody's a fan of the show, but he really is--and you can also hear it in the score, in little homages to the classic series music from time to time.

Yes, the type of music will probably remain mainstream. Less distracting I imagine. But when you've got fellow composers like David Arnold hearing an episode's score and saying "geez that must have been a lot of work," and the answer to that track of thought eventually ended up as "it's got balls, and a lot of love, and that ultimately is worth being happy about" (all quoted from the S4 soundtrack liner notes) - it's going to be a lot for anybody to live up to.

Hey, I know, the show's been around 45 years. I get that. It will go on--but this was a special crew. I could say similar things about the indefatiguable Julie Gardner. I just mean--let's keep in mind the special magic we've had the last 4 years as we look forward.