Return of the Doctor to these shores

The SciFi Channel doesn’t have a history of showing quality first-run material, though there are exceptions: “Farscape” and the Stargates come to mind. In a nice change of affairs, they have recently been broadcasting the new “Battlestar Galactica”, which despite initial doubts, soon won over large chunks of the geek populace. Heck, even though the new BSG is not really my thing, I’d watch it in a second over “Low-Budget CGI Monster Movie CLXI”.

Tomorrow night at 9 Eastern, they are showing the first two episodes of the new Doctor Who series. If you’re a Who fan, it’s probably already on the DVR, but if you aren’t, I strongly suggest you give it a try. You may have heard of “that weird British show with the scarf guy in the phone booth”, but this show bears the same resemblance to that as “Star Trek: The Next Generation” bears to the original “Star Trek” series. (Intentional comparison, as I have quite a soft spot for the ‘classic’ versions.) Now the stories come in one or two episodes each, not six half-hours of padding. The characters are much more fleshed out and three-dimensional, and even develop over the season. There’s even a late-season character who’s less discriminate than Riker about his bed buddies! And there’s a two-parter near the end of the season which may be the best 90 minutes of the Doctor we’ve seen since the show’s 1962 beginning.

Whovians: please watch or record it tomorrow. Many of us have seen bootlegs on the ‘Net, but the cable companies will read our DVRs and report back to SciFi – and the BBC is gearing up for season two.

Who is this guy?