Doctor Who and Ultraman. My two faviort shows.

[Spark Doll King]

Two very different types of shows, who's stars are two very unconventional heroes.



The Doctor, a Timelord from Gallifrey who travels throughout time and space, exploring the universe and unravelling what ever evils he comes across.



Ultraman, a kaiju sized warrior from the Land of Light in Nebula M78, who is bonded to a human host and battles giant monsters & marauding aliens.



One show was a small budgeted production thanks to the strength of it's story telling, imaginativeness and characters ran for 26 seasons against all adversity, an became one of the most iconic shows in British television. It was so loved it was eventually brought back, though sadly in the hands of people who cared not for what made it truly great.



The other was an attempt to bring the silver screen to the small one, with a budget 3 times that of it's contemporise. And it did succeeded, depicting imaginative stories and titanic battles the likes of which could only be found in Godzilla movies. The show is now one of the longest running sci-fi shows, with the most spin-offs of any of them and continues to be a staple of Japanese TV even to this day. It's not always been an easy ride, with the franchise hitting many rough patches during it's long run, yet it survives, ever changing and adapting.



Despite how unalike they are, in their beginning Doctor Who and Ultraman were not so different. Befor Ultraman there was Ultra Q, a 12 episode proof on concept series. It involved a group of human characters investigating strange occurrences connected to giant monsters and aliens. It's success would pave the way for Ultraman that same year.



While Doctor Who was the more well written of the two, thanks to it's multi-part formula vs Ultraman's monster of the week style stories, they were both highly imaginative and Ultraman did have some very thought provoking stuff for it's time as well as deeper themes. Another reason I love the show was that I grew up on late showa era Godzilla, with almost all of my VHS collection in the 90s was were films after Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, though I didn't know that at the time. My first Godzilla movie was the original King Kong vs Godzilla, an while my first VHS was the Heisei era Godzilla vs Mothra, my next was Invasion of the Astro Monster, which might as well be a film version of an Ultraman plot. After that it was Ebirah Terror from the Deep, Godzilla vs Hedorah, Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla vs Megalon (which featured a robot based on Ultraman), Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla and the Terror of Mechagodzilla. The Return of Godzilla, the first film in the Heisei era was the only exception until I made concerted effort to collect more films after the 2000 began.

Ultraman, to this day, is very much a kindred spirit with that era of Godzilla film, though each series has very different tones and styles. Like Doctor Who, Ultraman is an every changing series. Some are very light hearted, some are very serious. Each series and each era have their own feel that helps them stand out. I should point out that unlike the Doctor, each series has it's own Ultraman for whom that season is titled after. 


My intreast in Ultraman goes back to the 10s, however I was strongly put off by it's lack of any offical releases. Ultraman at that time was very, very niche. It's first series had been realised in the US dubbed, much like series such as Monkey, but that was really it. It was popular else were but had never mad the push into west. The fan subbing at the time was out right awful, you had to go go to dodgy sites to find episodes of shite quality. I bought the original series release by Mill Creek and really enjoyed it, but could not shake of the feeling that I would be unable to truly get into the series proper as I would like. So I called it quits. 

That changed  in resent years, as Mill Creek have gained the wrights to produce blu-rays of almost every Ultraman series and films, allowing me to watch the franchise from start to finish. That might be what was truly holding me back. While most of Ultraman is pretty pick-up-and-play, I personally, as I did with Doctor Who when I was older, wanted to watch the franchise from it's beginnings. 

This was really something of a late night ramble, with now real end goal beyond saying I like these two shows, I see some similarities between the two and what can I day I'm a guy who likes watching guys in rubber suits kick the shite out of eachother. 

Also as final note, the film Shin Ultraman recently released, and was directed by the same team who made Shin Godzilla.