Also, Gone With the Wind came out during a definite “lightning in a bottle” time frame. Americans flocked to the movie theater as a cheap way to escape from the troubles of the Great Depression. Britons went to it as a way to (figuratively) escape from Hitler’s bombs. It was a true “event” movie that allowed people to escape from the horrors of modern war and poverty to a more romantic (though fictional) time. It played for four straight years in the theaters. Nothing like that could possibly happen today because people have countless avenues to escape their everyday lives–and many avenues to see movies without going to the theater.

Also, if you’re going to call out Star Wars for being re-released, call out Gone With the Wind, too. It was re-released on several occasions: 1947, 1954, 1961, 1967, 1971, 1989, and 1998.

My point being (if I have one): Movies such as Avatar, Titanic, LOTR, Harry Potter, and even poor little Spider-Man 3 at the bottom of your list are, I think, doing astonishingly well considering all the other entertainment options they’re competing against. To say any of them is less “popular” than the really older movies is problematic, no matter how many numbers you crunch.

*spoiler if you have not seen EOFW II*…

Why does the TARDIS endure such internal destruction and mayhem during Tennant’s regen when the same did not occur in the reg episode when Doctor Donna came into being? No other regens have had this. Seemed such, o, so much “teatro” to throw into it.

I’m from the Pertwee/Baker era (as a child), although I’ve seen many other episodes through the years. The sets moved, the monster makeup was as good as low-budget gets, and the SFXs were even worse BUT what made the show was the (mostly) excellent scripts and actors who took the thing seriously.

RTDs idea of “action” is to have people running around screaming and a Doctor who just utters garbage most of the time. His idea of suspense is to have things appear to happen in “after the nick of time” (witness the ridiculous Waters of Mars where none of the characters are near the TARDIS in the last 4 seconds yet somehow all get inside it before the place explodes). His idea of a good script is to write himself into a corner and then in the last few seconds magically fix it all a la Deus ex Machina. His idea of a “plot twist” is to keep a new actor or some “dramatic” event (like characters kissing) under wraps until the episode is broadcast. His idea of something “novel” is to throw away something from the old series and replace it with his own tired out Hollywood style device (eg: replacing the Master’s “tissue compression eliminator” with a (yawn) “laser screwdriver” - i.e.: a laser gun). His idea of “humour” is fart jokes and blatantly obvious humour rather than anything subtle. His idea of writing a script suitable at different levels for adults and children (the mark of a truly great writer) is to write it for children and dumb it down even more. And WHY would you ever introduce sex into this show?! It did fine without it and I’m sure we don’t need it. After all, so many other things in it don’t follow reality… But then, Russell T. Davies seems to be pre-occupied with sex. He goes on about it so much you have to wonder whether he has a problem with his own sexuality.

I expect sci-fi to have a level of suspension-of-disbelief but this new version of Doctor Who requires your brain to have been removed. Why can’t writers write characterisations that make sense and situations that actually reflect what would actually happen? And the plot holes - they make any Bruce Willis vehicle look like a carefully crafted script!

As for the actors - well, what can they do with this pile of drivel except go along with it. Tennant is purely awful. Does he actually do any acting? Maybe he does in his West End theatrical shows but not in this production! A gurning idiot who has verbal diarrhea.

So many people are against this new Doctor, Matt Smith. I’m hoping that he might portray something better than we’ve seen so far. Maybe the scripts might now be better seeing that Davies is no longer writing or fiddling with them. I hold him fully responsible for the pile of horse dung that this show has become. I imagine he was like Irwin Allen and Lost in Space; whenever a writer came to him with an intelligent script he’d scream “Don’t get logical with me!”. Davies obviously never had a schooling in science which is why he can’t even present simple scientific principles in his script. He represents all that is dumbed down in Britain’s schooling of today and is the antithesis of what Doctor Who started out as being.

And what is so frustrating is you can see how GOOD it COULD be! The special effects are very good (and seem now to have replaced the decent scripts this show demands). I mean, look at Julian Bleach’s Davros - an excellent and chilling portrayal but stymied by a weak and ludicrous script. There are numerous other hints at intelligent script writing and brilliant characterisation, but they are so swamped by illogical cack-handedness that it’s like searching for diamonds in a sewage farm.

Lastly I end by telling you how “The End of the World” part II ends. Isn’t it obvious? Having written himself into a corner (yet again) by making every human on Earth a copy of the Master, RTD will easily fix it all by getting the Doctor to “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” of the machine and then flick a switch to change everyone back again to how they were (how that could possibly happen is, of course, exactly the illogical dung that RTD is famous for). Either that or he’ll get the Timelords to do a Star Trek Voyager and set the time back to the day before, thus neatly erasing everything that happened.

See - even I could write these scripts!

But the blame doesn’t stop squarely at the actors - the writing is horrendous. I agree that the show is being made more like a US “sci-fi” bit, but it’s not exactly the best way to go. Every episode I’ve seen - not many, but I did watch Waters of Mars last night here in the US - involves way too many scenes of people running around, accompanied by frenzied “dramatic” action scene music, and then ultimately the plot is resolved by the villains’ complete lack of any real, tangible threat being defeated by the push of a button or throw of a lever. Absolutely awful.

I’m not sure who this show is aimed for, but it does seem to me that the people who love it are the same people who like their telly sci-fi mild and harmless. I imagine a big chunk of them are also fans of the weaker Star Trek spinoffs like DS9, and lugubrious nonsense like the old Beauty and the Beast.

Can’t imagine I’ll ever come back to it. Russell T is too entrenched in the “success” of the revitalized show for anyone to try to care about strengthening the multitude of weaknesses it suffers from. This isn’t Dr. Who at all. I agree wholeheartedly with the poster who likened it to “the Russel T. Davis Show”.