Is it just me...
...or does that new logo really, really, really suck. It's not quite as unspeakably awful as the Olympics 2012 one, but it's still rather dire.
The BBC has unveiled the new Doctor Who logo - due to grace the nation's small screens when Matt Smith takes over as the latest incarnation of the Time Lord in 2010. The new Doctor Who logo The Beeb explains that the revamped logo is the 11th to front the sci-fi series and the first overhaul since 2006. Before Smith gets the …
Something about this logo reminds me of the older style logos with the lettering stacked like that, which would seem to tie in with reports that Moffat wants to take the programme back to it's roots. We've seen the TARDIS has been restyled externally, and this logo seems to hark back to a scarier time.
Personally, I really like it, and it's nice to see it reflects the Doctor and the TARDIS, as the TARDIS is arguably a equal character to the Doctor himself.
The old logo was a bit like a cross between a super-hero logo and Blake's Seven. This new one looks dark and mysterious. Hope they also revamp the theme tune to get rid of the epic strings and make it more like Delia Derbyshire's haunting orginal.
Mind you, it's good to see the Beeb are playing to the 'dad vote' by putting Karen Gillan in a policewoman's outfit with miniskirt.
Go on - ask me what's with the 3D glasses ?
"The BBC earlier this year announced that Tennant's final exit will feature the return of John Simm as the Master and former 007 Timothy Dalton - a fact confirmed when a still of the three leaked onto the interwebs".
I've not seen the new boy in anything so I can't comment on him - but Dalton should be interesting, and I'm definitely looking forward to Simm's return (as good as known from the careful not-saying-anything when fans quizzed the producer and directors ... though you can't beat an official confirmation, of course).
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009szrh, if you missed it - and there are still a couple "Eighth Doctor Adventures" and "Beyond the Vortex" specials left to boot].
// PH icon for the "?", natch.
I dont mind it at all. Just hope it didnt cost the usual large 6 figure sum a BBC re-brand usually costs.
I just hope going forward they stop using the sonic screwdriver so much. It's just become a lazy get-out for sloppy plot writing.
"Oh we have a problem!" Waves sonic screwdriver at problem. Problem goes away. Plot continues.
Very poor!
Just one request.
Can they turn the incidental music down from the current setting of 11 and boost the level of the dialogue? I thought my surround sound system had blown up when I tried to listen to DW - then I heard what RTD had written and wished the music could be ever so slightly louder.
Not absolute shite, but very close to.
To be fair, he started all right, but the second series went downhill faster than a runaway bobsled. He's actually pretty good at doing characters and conversations. But he can't write plots worth a damn, and he *definitely* should be kept out of arm's reach of a music editor with access to an orchestra and choir (or samples thereof). The problem is that he doesn't seem to realise quite how bad he is at both of those.
Seems that DOCTOR WHO - DW is a bit redundant. That DW tardis is hugely contrived, I remember having to fit words and letters into the shapes of thing they described in art class when I was about 9.
Now if they'd done a large more square 'DW' on top of Impact-style tall lettering of
DOCTOR
W H O
as another square region under the DW they'd have a portrait rectangle to pop the tardis light on top of and a much less redundant looking 'logo' which might actually be cooler, emphasises the 'DW' style thingy (after all don't we all called Heroes 'H' and Lost 'L' *ahem*) while retaining the 'doctor who' branding.
Agree with the blake's seven comments about the current orange almost-star-trek-federation logo though :o)
[The first, The Waters of Mars, also features Lindsay Duncan, and promises "thrills as well as chills* when the Tardis touches down on the Red Planet".
* Who fans may find the fact that Russell T Davies co-wrote the episode a chilling enough prospect.]
You mean there is a RTD storey that isnt in Cardiff??
Replace the DW with the actual TARDIS. Throw in some animation of the police box light spinning round, creating some moody lighting and ominous shadows and it might be OK.
At least a new logo helps promote a clean break from Russell T Davies and the era of fart jokes. Although having watched the recent Torchwood mini-series Children of Men, he can write a damn good story when he tries (and I despised everything Torchwood before that). Shame he waited until leaving DW before pulling it out of his hat.
sonic screwdriver, pocket, etc.
Doctor Who BBC? The series is called Doctor Who. Not Doctor Who BBC. Keep the sodding BBC logo at the end titles thank you very much. Or are the BBC now adding BBC to the title of every programme they make?
"Now it's time for Crimewatch BBC/Ooglies BBC/Eastenders BBC/Party Political Broadcast by the Labour Party BBC..."
Yes, the BBC make Doctor Who. We know this. The BBC also made a shitload of good shows during the 1970s that they haven't repeated or released on DVD. Spend the money on that and not this logocrap.
Back on topic. Much as I love the Peter Howell theme (Peter Davison era) for me the classic theme and logo are the late Jon Pertwee and early Tom Baker theme and diamond logo.
Some of us remember the abysmal logo and music for the McCoy era. Are we heading down that slipper slope again? I hope not.
Sorry to have to inform you Brits that the first thing that comes to my American mind when I see the letters "DW" is Deutsche Welle, the international German news outfit.
German DW news is replayed on CBC (Canadian) radio:
http://www.cbc.ca/overnight/broadcasters.html
DW is also available on U.S. television:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4290768,00.html
Odd that a decidedly British TV show would choose to prominently display such an acronym as its logo. But you don't have to take my word for it; AcronymFinder reports Deutsche Welle as the very first hit for the letters DW:
http://www.acronymfinder.com/DW.html
One can only presume that the creators of Dr. Who don't spend much time listening to foreign (particularly German) news broadcasts, and were unaware of the DW = Deutsche Welle connection.
Oh well, WWII was a long time ago, maybe the British have forgotten by now - yet another "minor footnote" in thousands of years of British history, perhaps?
- AC because I admit to ignorance/forgetfulness of British history[1], except that I was under the impression that the British don't like both the French *and* the Germans.
[1] They don't teach much British-specific history/culture here in U.S. public schools, except for facts like how the British burned down the White House (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0920_washingtonwar.html) and suchlike.
All that aside, Dr. Who is an interesting program, although I haven't really liked any of the Doctors since Tom Baker :)
That the Russ Davies stuff was generally poor. Too much magic tech waving to paper over gaping plot holes and far, far too much supernatural stuff like the Devil living in an asteroid, ghosts etc. Someone should have taken him out the back of the studios in Cardiff and told him It Is a Sci Fi show with emphasis on the Sci. Punctuating each syllable with a kick to his balls. Even then it might not have done any good.
Bring back Christopher Ecclestone too.
What you said. Saying that, he'd have been a fantastic co-writer. Churn out interesting characters and scenes, get someone else to actually make them into storylines.
I'd like to see the return of multi-episode storylines. Cramming in the Doctor saving whole worlds in 45 minutes just leads to lots of Sonic Screwdrivering to get past obstacles. A few nods back to previous Who stories would be quite nice. Landing on Prehistoric Earth as the space freighter from Earthshock flies overhead- and shedding a tear for Adric. Avoiding "classic" cybermen in the London sewer system in 1968- or two types of cybermen in 1986 (a group hiding out to help aim halley's comet from Attack of the Cybermen and some earlier ones from the Tenth Planet that got lost on the way to the 10th planet). A quick visit to Skaro, helping the Thals rebuild after the Daleks have been sealed up- or a trip to Mondas where he helps someone work on a medical procedure (or prevents them being stopped) that eventually forms the basis of the early Cybermen. Maybe even bumping into his first incarnation during the 10th planet and giving himself a heart attack- causing his regeneration!
apologies for length...
what idiot decided Dr Who needed a logo.
It's survived over 30 years without one, AND more importantly it's NOT American so it has never and will never need one.
It adds nothing positive, but does somehow cheapen.
Is there anyone out there who would be in anyway confused by not having a logo.
What a waste of time and money. Whoever proposed the logo should be fined then fired for being a time-wasting uninspired peice of dog-toffee.
... we'll also get a decent title sequence to go with it? The current one looks like it was knocked up in an afternoon by pointing a camera at an old PC running a WinAMP visualisation. Circa 2001.
Delia Derbyshire's arrangements were also accompanied by equally memorable title sequences right up to 1973. (The more famous 'tunnel' animation was an admitted rip-off of the "stargate" sequence in Kubrick's earlier "2001" movie. Very well done, though.)
Will it look good on a t-shirt?
Wide-screen TV?
I'm not really impressed.
RTD does let his big plots get out of hand. I'm a little apprehensive about what he might do this time. He gave us the whole Last of the Time Lords thing, which cut off so many possibilities, but at least there was a work-around. He needs somebody else to impose a long term structure: he's a one story at a time man.
And look how he threw away the Donna problem in the last minutes of an episode. You could have got a whole Special out of that.
The logo isn't that important. Looking at the guy's history, I'm very hopeful about RTD's successor.
Terrible. From a typographic point of view, a crime against the series.
Blech. They need to go back to the original format too - shorter episodes but more of them in a story. Then we'll see some proper story development rather than "ooh, I'm the doctor and I know what to do." And can we have some stories WITHOUT aliens for a change, e.g. The Romans had the doctor's peril sourced from the barking mad emperor Nero, not some barking mad alien from Glom posing as a Roman Supremo.
Even the wife likes it, and she hates everything I like on the telly, we're just not telly compatible.
Here's hoping Donna Noble comes back, she was just fab.
Not super happy with the 15 year old Doctor and "girlfiriend". I'm sure my kids will like them though. A bit too much like twilight for my tastes - bloody useless "vampire" movie.
All I could hear was the wife and daughter swooning over yer man.
Actually .... no , it couldnt , if it was designed by a 4yr old with crayons.
As for the scriptwriting , its been weird seeing Doctor Who storylines rapidly runnning out of steam , and "Dead" characters reborn so quickly when they run out of ideas. Used to be the scriptwriting was ace and the sets were wooden. Now it seems the opposite.
Each half is fine on its own, but I do agree with those who say that the "DW" part should be the actual police box.
Oh, and the Tardis has been slightly changed over the years: it originally had an extra marking – Maltese cross, or something like that – on the centre panel of the right-hand door (looking at it from outside).
As for the theme music: something approaching the original or its immediate replacement a bit more than the current version (the ending isn't quite right) would be nice :-)
... the image shown in the article is probably a media / press release. For instance, the "DW" logo might be used for icons, book spines and possibly at the end of the credits sequence. (Apparently, the BBC recently introduced some harsh guidelines for those, hence the new theme and US-style rapid scrolling in Season 4.)
The main "Doctor Who" logo is likely to be the one we see in the opening titles, on BluRay / DVD covers, etc. Anywhere it'll fit without being too dominant. Where it won't fit, the smaller, "DW" icon is likely to be used instead. (E.g. on the spine of the DVD, and possibly near the small print stuff.)
In other words: It's extremely unlikely *both* will appear at the same time. And certainly not as shown.
A pretty horrible looking logo but so was the before it, and I got used to it. It is actually kind of nice it looks a little like the older series ones.
Honestly, this show hasn't really been able to hold my attention since Martha left. The last series was pretty bad, and the specials have been ho hum. Before that though, I really enjoyed it most of the time.
And say what you will about Davis (who I think is one of the series biggest strengths and biggest weaknesses), but this new direction looks even worse thus far. Hope I'm proved wrong. I miss being a Who fan. I'm staying as ignorant as I can about the whole thing, but everything I've seen hasn't left me impressed.
The new logo is awful. In fact, the show has descended to such
dumbed-down depths of late that I'm surprised the Tardis isn't
made up with the letters DH for Doctor Hoo.
AND another thing..... How the frickin frick can there *ever* be a last
surviving member of a race who travel through time fercrissakes!!
Sheeez !