Month: December 2008

Thursday’s “slightly sarcastic” news

18 December 2008 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Doctor Who

  • No. Not Matthew Horne. A woman. Or even an ‘ethnic doctor’ (instead of an ‘ethnic actor’ presumably). Oh the shock. I think I’m going to have a touch of the vapours
  • Although Dervla Kirwan (who’d know of course) reckons there’s a shortlist of six actors for the part including Martin Clunes

Film

Theatre

  • Lucy Davies is the new producer of the National Theatre of Wales

British TV

US TV

  • Trailer for future Smallville episodes
  • Watch The Flight of the Conchords season two premiere [US only, because only the US counts of course. Screw New Zealand who’d have no interest]
  • 24‘s James Badge Dale to star in AMC’s new political thriller
  • ABC greenlights An American Family
  • HBO greenlights Hung. What a surprise
  • Life on Mars, 24 and Dollhouse production budgets being cut
Audio and radio play reviews

Review: The Companion Chronicles 3×6 – The Darkening Eye

17 December 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

The-Darkening-Eye.jpgWe’re now entering the fifth Doctor’s era for the first time in Big Finish’s Companion Chronicles range. To a certain extent, I can’t help but wonder why.  

Peter Davison’s willing to do just about any old muck Big Finish throws at him; all the actors who want to recreate their roles as companions (Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, Nicola Bryant as Peri, Mark Strickson as Turlough) and even some of those who don’t (Janet Fielding as Tegan) have had a go, too.

So this really feels like “we couldn’t get the budget to do a proper production of this” rather than a justifiable entity in its own right.

On the other hand, it does enable a “full companion” story featuring Nyssa, Tegan and Adric, which they probably couldn’t get to happen otherwise. So I’ll give them the benefit this time.

However, there’s a couple of things I won’t give them the benefit over:

  1. Bringing back the cocking Dar traders from The Death Collectors
  2. Picking, of all the fifth Doctor stories to write “in the style of”, the most goddamn boring one of them all Terminus

Continue reading “Review: The Companion Chronicles 3×6 – The Darkening Eye”

Sitting Tennant

Today’s Sitting Tennants (from Rullsenberg and Rosby): DT’s video diary and a taxi ride

17 December 2008 Rob Buckley 24 Comments

DT's video diary

David Tennant in a taxi

Now pay very careful attention because in the run-up to Christmas, the rules of Sitting Tennant are going to change. Read on.

The competition to win the 2008 Sitting Tennant Awards is definitely hotting up, with Toby and Marie doing their best to out-caption each other and Rosby and Rullsenberg indulging in all out Google Image carnage on the picture front.

Today’s Sitting Tennants are the second from that big stack that Ms Rullsenberg sent me, and appears to be from his video diary, no doubt from when he was doing some ceiling painting; and some rare evidence from Ms Rosby that Mr Tennant can be swayed by the occasional brunette.

As a result, the Sitting Tennant picture competition table now stands as follows:

  • Rullsenberg: 10.5
  • Rosby: 9
  • Persephone: 6.5
  • Toby: 5
  • Poly, Scott: 3.5
  • Jane: 2.5
  • Anna, Electric Dragon: 1.5
  • Marie: 1

The Witty And Amusing Captions league table sees Toby matching and topping Marie’s burst of captioning to maintain his lead (will Marie now wait for Toby to caption to see if she can do one more than he?), Persephone edging closing to Rullsenberg and Electric Dragon finally pulling ahead of Rev:

  • Toby: 29
  • Marie: 26
  • Jane Henry: 16
  • Rullsenberg: 14
  • Persephone: 13
  • Electric Dragon: 7
  • Rev: 5
  • Stu_N: 2
  • Poly, Andrea: 1

As always, captions and new submissions for the gallery, please. Remember, you can submit as many (witty) captions as you like for each and every picture, with topical captions getting extra marks – as do pictures of David Tennant in current productions.  

The rule change
BUT, just to add a little bit of excitement, since there’ll be another advent Sitting Tennant tomorrow, only captions added before the next one goes up will count. And I’m not telling you when that’s going to happen, so you’re going to have to time it nicely.

Also, I will allocate double points to what I judge the wittiest caption of the day. So if it’s the wittiest and topical, it’ll get three points.

I can see I’m going to win a lot of friends with this new innovation. Let me know what you think of the rule changes – too much faff or a necessary adjustment?

The final Sitting Tennant of 2008 will be on December 23rd when the results will be announced.

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery. You can also enter the witting and amusing captions league table by commenting on existing photos in the gallery.