Eccleston is new Doctor Who

Shallow Grave actor Christopher Eccleston has been named as the new Doctor Who to front the cult BBC sci-fi show when it returns next year.
Eccleston, who starred alongside Nicole Kidman in the horror movie The Others, will be the ninth TV Time Lord to control the Tardis in a 13-part series.

The 40-year-old has starred in Flesh and Blood, The Second Coming, and TV series Our Friends in the North.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3552087.stm

Eccleston is a very good actor - quite possibly better than any who have played Doctor Who. He normally gets very serious parts (though Shallow Grave had some very dark humour in it).

me that he doesn't quite fit the role, from what little I know of the show. I could be wrong, because, like I said, I don't follow the show. Am I?

Still, most of the Drs have been nobodies who became successful because of it.

Did you see the British Queer as Folk series--running gag about Dr, Who, and who played him. All I know is that the actor who portrayed the Dish of the Day in Hitchiker's Guide went on to play Dr. Who.

married, at the time, to Sandra Dickinson, who played Trillian in the TV Hitchiker's. He was already fairly well known on British TV playing Tristan Farnon in the vet series All Creatures Great And Small - and his acting career has stayed going far better than Doctors 6 and 7.

Can't recall the reason.

I knew he was married to Trillian, because I have the DVD and I think she mentions he was just about to start playing Dr. Who, and was worried about being in Hitchhiker right before Dr. Who--as it was, the way he looked as that animal no one could tell it was him.

Eccleston is the third youngest Doctor.

Let's see:

13 episodes

~50 minute length

40 year old playing the Doctor

edgy and eccentric

Well, by golly, that's the 6th Doctor - the one everybody hates for no valid reason!

But seriouslly, this is good news. I can't wait to see the final result!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/new_media/1436019.stm - where's McGann? The Yank Doctor? I mean, did the BBC keep the 8th Doctor around just so they could write 100 mediocre books based on the pseudo-5th-Doctor-plus-a-libido character who's half human (but obviously on his dad's side)?

Surely that'd never work. Can you imagine if the characters from Red Dwarf were played by Americans. It'd be a farce...hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!

Oh, imagine it.
A Texan Lister: "Howdy Smegheads"
A NY Cat: "I'm stuck on this hunk of junk for how long??? And there's no Sacks? No Bloomingdales? No Pottery Barn?"

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(and before anyone says anything, I am aware that Red Dwarf did go over to the US and bombed. I'm just making the point that some things are typically British - Lister, Rimmer, Dr Who, whilst some things are typically US - Friends, ER, The Simple Life, Sex and the City)

ER and the Simple Life? Only one out of those three is any good any more (Sex and the City) and even it has gone downhill.

All he did was get into street chases, get shot by a street punk, and engage in foreplay with women. How isn't that typical Yank activity? :-)

The worst part is, a British guy wrote the thing... the son of the guy who was in "The Gunfighters". The failure was ultimately a "bipartisan effort" as Segal yummed it up... Although some of the US Televmovie did work, a lot of it didn't... in terms of plot, it's equal to "Time-Flight" in terms of coherence.

Not to forget "Coupling" in the list of shows that simply wouldn't work in the US, how someone in the US could think that "Coupling"'s format would work over here, for a mainstream American audience, was nuts. Not to add the scripts were cheaply translated and so poorly acted, by people with no talent whatsoever... And yet "Three's Company" did work...

Now Steven Moffatt (writer, "Coupling", who'll have to keep a series going without its best character (Jeff)) is a big Dr Who fan ("Coupling" has the occasional reference to DW), but will he be a good sci-fi writer? I'd much rather see a story come from Steve Lyons or Paul Cornell, or even Gareth Roberts.

Amusingly, Red Dwarf was attempted twice in the US. I used to have both versions, low quality, on tape. Not worth keeping...

Terry Farrel, Dax in DS9, played Cat in one of them... which reminds me, Marina Sirtis of TNG fame auditioned for the role of Dayna in Blake's 7...

Eccleston will make the role his own. My great fear was that the BBC would select someone reminiscent of a previous Doctor. Eccleston sure as hell isn't that. What's more, he's the best actor (from a technical point of view) to play the role since Troughton.

but I'd have liked to see somebody a bit less serious playing the Doctor. Bill Bailey would have been great!

Or perhaps The Prisoner? Now there's an idea.

But I think that Klingon Lookalike Bill Bailey would be be a better doctor.