The Doctor should visit Discworld...

[fajrdrako]

Terry Pratchett - who is one of my heroes - wrote about Doctor Who:

Doctor Who... had an episode wherein people's surplus body fat turns into little waddling creatures. I’m not sure how old you have to be to come up with an idea like that. The Doctor himself has in recent years been built up into an amalgam of Mother Teresa, Jesus Christ (I laughed my socks off during the Titanic episode when two golden angels lifted the Doctor heavenwards) and Tinkerbell. There is nothing he doesn't know, and nothing he can't do. He is now becoming God, given that the position is vacant. Earth is protected, we are told, and not by Torchwood, who are human and therefore not very competent. Perhaps they should start transmitting the programme on Sundays.

And yet, I will watch again next week because it is pure professionally-written entertainment, even if it helps sometimes if you leave your brain on a hook by the door. It's funny, light-hearted, knows when to use pathos and capable of wonderful moments; I remember the face of David Tennant as the Doctor watching some public schoolboys machine-gunning a bunch of walking scarecrows (a reversion to the cheaper monsters of earlier incarnations) and we know that he knows that the First World War is only just around the corner where the scarecrows are for real. And I remember too, "The Empty Child" – I never once hid from the Daleks but the Empty Child was almost a back of the sofa moment....It’s fun and occasionally wonderful.

His bottom line:

Besides he now has a kissogram girl for his sidekick, so things can only get better.

I heartily agree!

On Torchwood:

I still preferred Torchwood, though, which tried so hard and came up with some memorable episodes, of which "Small Worlds" (the one about fairies) sticks most in the mind. It was clever.