Comments on: Into The Darkness…..

By: FrankC

FrankC — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 19:32:55 +0000

They broadcast a HD BBCA channel as of 2012. Most or all of their prime time stuff is HD.

By: mcfly

mcfly — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 13:43:35 +0000

It’s impossible to keep those guys straight.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:26:16 +0000

Moffat’s been writing for Dr. Who continuously since 2005, from “The Empty Child” in 2005 to “The Angels Take Manhattan” a couple of months ago (I’m so wikismart!). Which is great, because I agree with you about his ability to tell a story. I was seriously impressed by the story of River Song spanning a season and a half, and Moffat wrote most of the episodes about River. Artful the way River snuck in, seeming to be a minor character at first, and building slowly and subtly into a major character alongside the Master, Rose, and Captain Jack.

I have to admit that I think Tennant was the best Doctor. Maybe it was his ability to act like a grownup occasionally, where Matt Smith is more all Willie Wonka all the time. That’s a quibble, though. After I was hooked by the latest incarnation of the show, I went back and watched about half the old episodes starting in 1964, and I do believe that the 21st century doctors are all the best doctors. Ever. Davies and Moffat and Tennant and Smith really kicked Dr. Who into high gear.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:10:02 +0000

Judging by the Amazon inventory, most shows started out in low-def (480) for at least a couple of seasons. Then, presumably if the show proved itself with an audience, they authorized HD. Thus the first four seasons of the latest Dr. Who were in low-def, and some shows like Foyle’s War, never graduated out of it. Masterpiece Theater seems to be an exception, always in HD, e.g. Downton Abbey.

Low-def original resolution could account for some of the low quality you saw. On top of that, they might’ve chosen a high level of compression to get by with a narrower and cheaper channel.

How did Downton Abbey look on BBC America? That’d be a good test, given that it was produced in HD. Same with seasons 5+ of Dr. Who.

I’ve found that downloaded 480 video beats streaming or low-quality broadcast low-def by a mile, so you might consider purchasing the low-def shows you really care about it. It’s pretty much DVD quality, which can be upsampled for an HD TV with pretty good results. Low-def episodes tend to be a bit cheaper, with $1.99 the going rate ($2.99 for 720 “HD”).

By: ER

ER — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 04:48:40 +0000

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

By: mcfly

mcfly — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 18:43:19 +0000

He and Tennant left at the same time, didn’t they? I was terribly fearful for the future of the show, but I just love what Smith’s done with the Doctor. And the way Moffat will arc a story not only over a whole season, but several, is extrememly cool, imho.

By: TB

TB — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 18:15:26 +0000

BBC America:

The only place I can catch some shows (Dr. Who for example) until they come out on disc.

I don’t know if it’s widespread, or just my cable service, but my BBC America channel is really crappy. Resolution seems even lower than normal low res TV, there’s no Hi-Def version on my system as there is for many other channels, and the commercials are endless and on the level of late-night sales shows.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:41:00 +0000

The Beebe seems to have put its full catalog on Amazon, and based on sampling I’ve done, it was wandering in the wilderness in the ’90s. Nothing but crap, until first Russell T. Davies shook things up with “Queer as Folk” in the late 90s, and Steven Moffat came aboard at the same time. Seems like those two single-handedly gave the BBC its groove back. The post-millenial BBC is pretty amazing, what with Who and its spinoffs, Sherlock, Downton Abbey, Foyle’s War, Jekyll, Whitechapel, MI5, and on and on. Moffat and Davies aren’t responsible for everything, but they dominate and I’d give them credit for creating fertile ground at the stodgy old BBC.

Watch enough BBC and you start to see the TV production community in England as a pretty small one. David Tennant shows up as a guest on a lot of shows prior to becoming the Doctor, and Christopher Eccleston was the first choice for the lead in “Queer as Folk” (maybe that’s why the romance with Rose didn’t take off until Tennant came along to apply his Shakespearean emotive powers).

Ever since I cut the cable last year, my TV-viewing has settled into this strategy of watching whole series, and for months now, seems like I’ve been watching the BBC pretty exclusively. They seem to have a bottomless catalog of good stuff (and an amazing pile of crap, once you get to see the whole catalog and not just what makes the cut over to PBS and BBC America).

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:26:46 +0000

At least judging by search results I saw linking Cumberbatch romantically with several young hotties of the female persuasion. No doubt he’s considered equal-opportunity eye-candy, judging by blog post titles like “Why the boys and girls are just wild about Benedict!”, ad nauseum. I couldn’t tell you why his character in “Tinker…” was gay, but in Sherlock, of course, they’re riffing on a long tradition of speculation about Holmes and Watson, amid a gay-friendly society, on a network on a hot streak due largely to the militantly gay Russell T. Davies. If Doctor Who can get tongued by a guy, a little nudge-nudge-wink-wink on Sherlock is pretty mild.

Mainly, though, I wanted a subject line that would play off yours…;-)

By: mcfly

mcfly — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:51:57 +0000

Sherlock is the reason Steven Moffat left Doctor Who, so I despised it (Sherlock, that is) before I ever saw it. The first episode was enough to change that.

The first two seasons (or series, as the Brits call them) are available on Netflix (where you can also view Cumberbatch’s “The Last Enemy,” from 2008).

As for Cumberbatch & Star Trek…well, I’ll be cheering for the bad guy in this one, I’m afraid. As Sulu said in the first movie, Kirk and Spock are on their own.