Whedonesque : Comments on 13650 : (SPOILER) The Doctor Who Fan's Phrasebook

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July 08 2007

(SPOILER) The Doctor Who Fan's Phrasebook contains a range of Buffy references. Collated by Keith Topping author of 'The Complete Slayer'. Big spoilers for the third new series, which has just begun on Sci-Fi in the US, and possibly Torchwood. Everyone else though...

“Bad Wolf? Torchwood? Mr Saxon? What’s all that about?”
Most of my contemporaries watch series like Lost, The West Wing and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yet I still can't get my head around the idea of season-long plot threads.

feelinglistless | Fandom&Fun | 02:20 CET | 34 comments total | tags: doctor who, buffy

Oh dear lord most of those comments I've seen thrown about in our fandoms.

Also 100% brilliant. Best send up of fandom I've seen in ages. God we really do need to look in the mirror sometimes.

Simon | July 08, 02:48 CET

Those are indeed direct quotes from the board - the James Marsters/Tony Head pair certainly are, because I winced at them at the time.

Funniest thing in a long time and cruelly accurate in the best way. And required reading for every regular poster here or on Outpost Gallifrey. Ouch!

roadrunner | July 08, 03:06 CET

That was a very amusing read.

TamaraC | July 08, 04:39 CET

Considering I've been a Doctor Who fan since the Golden Days, that was nothing but a load of old ‘fanwank’. By which I mean: Fuck. Busted. About 8 times. *skulks off in embarrassment*.

(pretty funny. Plus, I may never post to the intarwebs again ;( ;-)

Saje | July 08, 06:06 CET

SPOILER: God dam it! I was watching BBC World and they gave out a really big spoiler on the season finale.
NOTE: We in North America are just starting this season.
BBC also announced that the disco queen Kyle will star in the x-mas show, Oh Joy to the world..

demon magnet | July 08, 07:36 CET

Ha! Hopefully the Doctor Who fandom can laugh at itself.

electricspacegirl | July 08, 09:02 CET

Oh gosh, are we really that bad,bad,badly bad,bad? Explainy?

Madhatter | July 08, 09:37 CET

Madhatter, yes. At least the Browncoats are. I can't speak for the Buffy/Angel fandom. I came late to that party.

TamaraC | July 08, 09:39 CET

As far as I can remember, Keith is a member here, so maybe we'll hear from him.

Oh... and this is how I find out TWOP has stopped doing Doctor Who recaps? *bursts into tears*

Caroline | July 08, 13:45 CET

That thread and indeed the blog entry inspired by it is so painfully, hilariously true . For Who read Buffy then set fire to your keyboards :)

( though of course the Buffy version would have more " my vampire is better than your vampire" and lots more wank about season two :)

debw | July 08, 14:07 CET

And complaints about Joss's feminist agenda (or not) rather than RTD's gay agenda.

roadrunner | July 08, 14:41 CET

Plus a liberal sprinkling of " The show was only good in the
"classic days" when Buffy and Angel were true love forever and a nice helping of " why I loved/hated season 6" ... ohhh and of course the endless arguments about screentime for the core four :)

In fact a Buffy version of this might either be great fun or start World War three

* steps away from the keyboard"

debw | July 08, 14:53 CET

>>As far as I can remember, Keith is a member here, so maybe we'll hear from him.

Stranger things have happens...

xx

keithtopping | July 08, 17:04 CET

Well, our vampires are better than theirs.

What's this about defective keyboards?

Madhatter | July 08, 18:41 CET

Buffy jumped the shark when they killed Jesse. I never watched it again.

(Go on, try and beat me. How about "It jumped the shark when Darla killed that boy in the teaser")

zz9 | July 08, 23:46 CET

Nah, it definitely jumped when the continuity announcer said "And now, Buffy the Vampire Slayer ...". It was never the same after 'now' followed 'and' that first time, knew it was all down hill from there. I mean "," ? Puhleeeese.

Saje | July 08, 23:54 CET

Is that what he said, Saje? I'd turned off in disgust before he'd finished saying "And..." By the time you heard him say "Now" I was already posting my thoughts on the net.

zz9 | July 09, 00:32 CET

According to the recap anyway, which I would occasionally read to amuse myself at the opinions of those that actually needed to see the show before deciding it's not as good as it was.

Obviously I stopped watching at the announcer's first intake of breath pre 'And ...'. It was never going to be as good as it was 5 minutes before it started anyway (as outlined in my essay "Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Golden Planck Instant and How None of the Following Smallest Units of Time Could Compare" - which I wrote before Joss was born).

Saje | July 09, 01:06 CET

This is turning into the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, isn't it?

/We were evicted from our hole in the ground.

zz9 | July 09, 01:11 CET

All conversations tend towards the "four Yorkshiremen sketch" as a stable end-point. It's like a physical law (that I just made up).

Hmm, might have to consider an additional "fork handles" clause.

Saje | July 09, 01:40 CET

Ahh, Fork Handles. One of Gerald Wiley's best.

That'll confuse the Americans...

zz9 | July 09, 02:12 CET

And which Americans are those, zz?

I think Saje has you pinned here.

Madhatter | July 09, 02:35 CET

Any Americans. I'm not fussy.

Though I can argue that since Saje heard the continuity announcer introduce the first episode, and since he lives in the UK, that means he watched it on British TV and was therefor many months behind the US viewers in the rush to register their disgust at the appaling travasty of this so called "show" and it's pathetic drop in quality after its lacklustre "And now..." introduction.

The original movie, now THERE was quality. Donald Sutherland is a God.

( I'm banned, aren't I?
I'll get me coat...)

[ edited by zz9 on 2007-07-09 00:10 ]

zz9 | July 09, 03:09 CET

Some of that is hilarious, and so very true, so of course there's already people moaning about it!

Ghost Spike | July 09, 04:11 CET

That? Was hilarious. AND that is why I don't usually post on message boards anymore. They just get so...cranky. After going through all the Buffy fallout from seasons six and seven, I'm just done.

I, too, am very, very sad that Dr. Who is no longer recapped on Television Without Pity.

Selannia | July 09, 04:58 CET

Ahh, Fork Handles. One of Gerald Wiley's best.

Aye, 'tis a classic (Ronnie B was, dare I say it, almost Whedonesque in his playfulness with language). And yeah, busted on the UK viewership, tried sending "disgusted" posts back in time, no joy. Bloody time's arrow.

Film ? Pfft. Nowhere near as good as that first note Joss made on his napkin that time ("~~Blind~~ Blond ?") ...

Saje | July 09, 12:23 CET

You had a hole in the ground? You soft Southern -

Craig Oxbrow | July 09, 16:25 CET

I'll be the obligatory dumb American if someone wants to explain "fork handles."

Of course, you foreigners missed the WB's brilliant promos before the debut. The show never lived up to them. Nice try, though.

dreamlogic | July 09, 18:57 CET

Were the promos on before Joss was born and/or wrote on that fateful napkin ?!?

And here's a look at that sketch (as performed by 'The Two Ronnies' - the bigger guy is Ronnie Barker who also wrote a lot of sketches, many of them pseudonymously as 'Gerald Wiley' and starred in one of my favourite sitcoms of all time, 'Porridge'). Be interested to hear how it stands up a) 30+ years after the event (for someone that isn't "polluted" by nostalgia) and b) to foreign ears.

Saje | July 09, 19:38 CET

That's classic. Thirty years doesn't hurt it. I think I understood everything except the last joke. "Bill hooks?"

dreamlogic | July 09, 20:12 CET

Outpost Gallifrey scares me a bit. There are quite a few very angry people there. Of course, that holds true for all fandom in general. Which is why I tend to stay on the periphery.

I didn't know TWP stopped recapping Doctor Who :(

Lady Brick | July 09, 20:20 CET

Thanks for the link Saje, and it is comforting to know that Brits can't understand each other, it isn't just people from the USA from whom they are divided by a common language!

embers | July 09, 20:26 CET

Cool, glad it stood up, you're both very welcome ;). We're meant to surmise at the end that the shopkeeper has mistaken "bill hooks" for "bollocks", the joke I guess being partly just the idea of "bollocks" (in the mid 70s on primetime BBC1 it would've been completely out of the question to actually say it so it had that frisson of naughtiness) and partly that the shopper's writing is also hard to understand.

Very 'safe', family comedy but that's partly what's great about it (and if it's funny, who cares, right ?).

Saje | July 10, 01:03 CET

I actually thought that pun-ish thing might be the joke, but then I thought, nah, it couldn't be just the slang I learned from Buffy (and the Sex Pistols). Good for amateur linguist me! Especially after that "plank" debacle.

[ edited by dreamlogic on 2007-07-10 05:17 ]

dreamlogic | July 10, 08:10 CET

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