My Hero, 'who' else but the BBC?

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• Publication: National Post
• Date: 2007-01-20
• Author: Chris Knight
• Page: TO25
• Language: English

As a boy, I was amazed by the television show Doctor Who (anyone under 50 is young enough to have been amazed by the show as a child, since it first aired in 1963). It wasn't the special effects, which even I found laughable at times. It was the notion that extraterrestrials might come to Earth and not make straight for New York and Washington. In Doctor Who, Britain rather than the United States drew the attention of alien nasties (and niceties), and Britons (or at least a British- accented outsider) saved the day. If you ascribe to the not-American version of Canadian nationalism, this not-American show was almost Canadian in its vibe.

Doctor Who is as British as ever in the second season of the newest incarnation, just out on DVD. The 14 episodes feature David Tennant replacing Christopher Eccleston in the title role (new doctors are something of a signature for the show; Tennant's the 10th) but Billie Piper returns as his trusty, sexy sidekick. The writers also resurrected some of the show's famous heroes and villains, including the robot dog K9, the metallic Cybermen and actress Elisabeth Sladen, who was the Billie Piper of the 1970s.

"And the Daleks are back," says head writer Russell Davies on the extensive making-of, "because the Daleks always come back. That's what they do." Clayton Hickman, who edits a Doctor Who magazine, compares British institutions by calling Doctor Who without the boxy robotic monsters the equivalent of fish without chips.

The making-of comprises 13 indepth mini-features, the only complaint being that if you watch all of them you have to sit through each one's opening and closing credits as they unspool. But they show how far sci-fi television has come since the days of cardboard sets and papier mache monsters; one sequence involved a stunt co-ordinator from Batman Begins, and combined the best of Hong Kong wire work (think Crouching Tiger) and "the Britishness of 28 Days Later." (There's that Britishness again.)

Of course, sometimes our greatest fears can be conjured with nothing more than a shadow on the wall and a stagehand rattling a closet door. And sometimes the simplest-looking moments are the most troublesome, as the crew learned when they tried to convince a cat to walk into a cardboard box on cue.

There's also a certain excitement that comes from working on an institution such as Doctor Who. "I'm not going to be in a Star Wars," grins actor Shaun Parkes on the set of one episode. "I missed being a hobbit. So this is the next best thing."

Color Photo: BBC; The Doctor Who with Billie Piper and David Tennant, above, and My Hero, about an alien (Ardan O'Hanlon) with super powers (like Mork meets Superman), are two solid BBC creations now available on DVD.

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• APA 6th ed.: Knight, Chris (2007-01-20). My Hero, 'who' else but the BBC?. National Post p. TO25.
• MLA 7th ed.: Knight, Chris. "My Hero, 'who' else but the BBC?." National Post [add city] 2007-01-20, TO25. Print.
• Chicago 15th ed.: Knight, Chris. "My Hero, 'who' else but the BBC?." National Post, edition, sec., 2007-01-20
• Turabian: Knight, Chris. "My Hero, 'who' else but the BBC?." National Post, 2007-01-20, section, TO25 edition.
• Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=My Hero, 'who' else but the BBC? | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/My_Hero,_%27who%27_else_but_the_BBC%3F | work=National Post | pages=TO25 | date=2007-01-20 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=22 November 2024 }}</ref>
• Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=My Hero, 'who' else but the BBC? | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/My_Hero,_%27who%27_else_but_the_BBC%3F | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=22 November 2024}}</ref>