I think I like Doctor Who as much as Buffy/Angel now. As the 4th season of the new Doctor Who series slowly coming to an end, (Just 2 more episodes left!) I can’t help but want to talk about it.

At first it’s hard to compare DW to B/A, even though DW has 26 years of classic episodes, the new series is entirely different experience. If we only counted the new series started in 2005, DW is fairly young comparing to 7 years of Buffy. But now that DW carries almost 4 years of age, I think it’s finally at a fair position to compare them.

Russell Davis, the creator of the new series said in an interview that he modeled the show after Buffy and Angel in terms of structure. There are stand-alone episodes but there is always a story arc for the season. The season story arc usually lead to a big bad as Buffy fans would called it. Actually in this sense Doctor Who’s spin-off Torchwood is even more similar to Buffy than its parent show. Doctor Who has a much more thought out season arc that it actually has a main phrase that gives clues and also linked whole season together. First season was Bad Wolf, second was Torchwood, third was Mr. Saxon, and fourth is an anomaly because it doesn’t have a clear phrase but more of subtle tiny events in each episodes that points to the idea that, the stars are disappearing.

And of course Doctor Who’s storylines has no resemblance to Buffy at all. Other than both title character carries the weight of the world on their shoulder, they couldn’t be more difference. Doctor Who is a loner, at most he would have one single friend travels with him and that’s about it. Buffy, no matter how alone she felt, her friends and family are always there for her; Buffy lives at a fix location because she needs to guard the hellmouth. The Doctor, on the other hand, travels between time and space without limit. (unless it’s a parallel universe that got sealed off.) Once again Torchwood is much more similar to Buffy than Doctor Who: Captain Jack has a team and not alone. He is located at Cardiff, which is on top of a rift of time and space – the reason the city is fill with aliens and strange events, just like Sunnydale is full of demons and evil because of the hellmouth.

The best thing about having the parent show and the spin-off together is the ability to do crossovers. Buffy/Angel had a number of crossovers or just simply referencing people and events of the other show. But there were never a large scale crossover other than just a character visiting the other show and that’s about it. Doctor Who/Torchwood followed the same routine until now. From last week’s preview of the finale for this season, We can see the entire Torchwood team, not just Captain Jack but Gwen and Ianto as well, are on Doctor Who for the first time, not to mention characters from Doctor Who’s other and smaller spin-off, Sarah Jane Adventures, will also make an appearance. (Sarah Jane Smith and “her kids”) Then there’s past characters from the previous seasons, from Rose to Mickey to Martha. The scale of this crossover and guest starring is the biggest, and is the sort of thing that would have been nice in the finale of Buffy or Angel. (Granted Angel briefly at the end of Buffy, but that was pretty nothing since he didn’t stay and fight much; and Angel’s finale: There was no way that Buffy wouldn’t bring help~)

As you can see I am super-excited at the upcoming finale of this season, given that I have written this much on the show~ haha~

Related posts:

1. Doctor Who Finale Part 1
2. Blink
3. Torchwood: Children of Earth
4. Demons
5. Big Bang Doctor

Tagged: Buffy · Captain Jack Harkness · Doctor Who · Television · Torchwood