So I've been slowly catching up on the new Doctor Who (the Christopher Eccleston version), which just started showing on the SciFi channel here. And its strange to watch something as an adult that was so iconic as a child. It seems they've tried to make the Doctor both deeper and darker than I remember (but maybe I was just too young to pick up on that in the Jon Pertwee era, not to mention the unfabulous Baker boys).
It has decent storylines, good moments and some funny lines ("lots of planets have a North"), and I'm glad they decided to stick with Cheap and Cheesy for the special effects. But... is it just me, or does it seem like the current writing staff spent a lot of time watching Hitchhiker's Guide, Men In Black and Stargate growing up? I mean primarily in terms of the "tone" of the writing and humor, although also a little bit the plot points. And they definitely seem to be using the same CGI software as Jurassic Park: watching the bugeyed monsters that took over Downing Street move, pause, then move again is *exactly* like watching JP's velociraptors.
So I'm wondering: is it the writers drawing on a little too much "inspiration" from elsewhere? Is it me, now seeing the Doctor through the lens of almost 30 years of Sci Fi (seminal moment in my childhood was seeing Star Wars for the first time, aged 13)? Or is it simply that the Sci Fi mine has been worked so heavily by now, its inevitable that everything start to resemble everything else?
