User:Jeffm23

Hello, I guess I should put something in here. I'm not embarrassed by being a newbie, so if you're a contributor who's taken exception to something I've posted or added, be gentle and generous, and I'll certainly return the favor.

Trying hard to keep discussions limited to the article, think I'm getting better at it. Ironically, especially since this was their big "Doctor Who Xmas", BBCAmerica's discussion forum is down. Oh, well.

If Anyone Cares Dept.

Like it says in the Declaration of Independence, when you try something new, you should be able to explain yourself.

For years I used Wikipedia just for looking stuff up. I may have put something in a discussion long ago (if so, it seems to have left no trace that I can find), but I'd never actually edited anything. Then I discovered Doctor Who.

This is only really notable because, um, I'm not a kid, and I've been aware of Doctor Who for pretty much its entire existence, even watched a few episodes in the 70s and 80s. But I never really picked up on it, it never really caught my attention, became a habit. I expect much of that is because, in the U.S., Doctor Who was carried almost exclusively on "educational TV" (PBS didn't exist yet). In addition, for some reason, it tended to be carried, not on the "first tier" PBS station in the area (e.g., Ch. 13 in NYC, 26 in DC, 9 in San Francisco), which were weak enough, but on even-weaker "2d-tier" stations (Ch. 22 in MD, 54 in San Jose), and late at night. Since VCRs didn't arrive until the mid-80s, people with straight jobs (like me) had trouble watching a 4-part serial after midnight. Besides, it was opposite Letterman.

And then there was the image quality. BBC, in the 60s and 70s, used B&W videotape a lot (unlike in the US, where producers relied much more on film until color videotape became practical). Then, it had to be converted from PAL to NTSC for North American telecast. By the time it got to my TV set, it was just too damn hard to watch! And that's not even taking the accents into consideration.

So when, a few years ago, Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) ran the "Rose Tyler" seasons of the new series, I just didn't care. But not too long ago, and I don't know exactly when they started, Doctor Who reruns started showing up on BBC America — and in HD. In Spring '10, they began running each fifth new series episode about two weeks after it ran in the U.K. I think I saw "The Time of Angels", and then one of the Donna Noble episodes. I was hooked. Bought a couple of DVDs. Then I found BBC America was running all the new episodes (starting with "Rose"), in order, more or less one a day. (And please let me know if anyone hears of a "Win a Date with Alex Kingston" or "Win a Date with Camille Coduri" contests.)

Well, this was a terrific opportunity to catch up. I started watching them in order, multiple times (I'm currently in the middle of the Martha Jones season)(we say "season in the U.S. — sorry). It's a very dense mythology, with a lot of referring back to "earlier" events, and particularly since '05, referring ahead to events that haven't "happened" yet. Way more complex than Star Trek, and I'm a big Trek-head.

So, looking for an episode guide (you do really need one), good old Google led me to Wikipedia. There are several good episode guides here, with takes from different angles. So I got into the habit of looking at the episode article after watching each episode (I'm now on the second time through for most, and more than that for a few).

Now, please, no offense to anyone out there, but most of the plot summaries are really clumsily written. Run-on sentences, multiple subordinate clauses, just plain bad grammar. I know this is an encyclopedia, and not a fan forum, but there's no reason the plot summaries have to read like 4th-grade book reports.

So that's what I've been doing, for a couple of weeks now, trying to give the plot summaries a cleaner narrative feel. I recognize that I need to be careful not to get too flowery (this is an encyclopedia) or too detailed (they're supposed to be summaries), but I feel what I'm doing is appropriate, that I'm contributing to a "better" Wikipedia.

In my reviews of the articles in light of just having watched the episode, I have occasionally found a non-plot item that is incorrect, or unclear, or omitted. A few of my corrections have engendered disagreements with some of the Doctor Who Wiki "veterans" who undid them. And that's OK; I might disagree in some cases, but I do recognize that I am a newbie, and am still learning the lay of the land, so to speak. I like to think I'm not the kind of person who's emotionally vested in being "right" all the time. I hope, in my exchanges with said vets, I have been in all cases reasonable and courteous. I strive thus.

So there you go. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Allons-y! Or, I guess, now it's Geronimo!