Month: January 2010

A few morsels from Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale – The Final Chapter, p662, about The End of Time

8 January 2010 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

I have here a shiny review copy of Russell T Davies/Benjamin Cook’s updated version of The Writer’s Tale (aka The Final Chapter). I’ll be reviewing it next week, and then one of you lucky people can have it in a totally random competition. 

But on p662, I found these exciting nuggets on information that should help clarify a few things in The End of Time that are causing controversy.

Euros has just been on the phone to Timothy Dalton, about playing the Lord President! TIMOTHY DALTON!!! AS RASSILON!!! Early days, of course – it’s still not a definite booking – but it’s as close as it can be. (I wanted the bloke from The Five Doctors, but apparently he was banned from acting ever again.)

Then, in a footnote, "In 1983 Doctor Who Special The Five Doctors, Rassilon was played by the late actor Richard Matthews."

So definitely the same Rassilon then.

And then

Oh, and Claire Bloom is playing the Doctor’s mum! (Yes, that’s what she’s been told, too.)

That looks reasonably definite to me.

Sitting Tennant

Friday’s Sitting Tennant (from Toby): Touchstone

8 January 2010 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

David Tennant as Touchstone

Here it is. Get your thinking caps ready because here for your delight, courtesy of Toby, is the first captionable Sitting Tennant of 2010. It’s entitled Touchstone, so I’m guessing David Tennant is playing Touchstone in As You Like It, rather than auditioning to be the official mascot of Touchstone Pictures (now ABC Studios). But your captions may disagree.

Anyway, here’s the pictureboard at the end of week one

  1. Toby: 15
  2. Sister Chastity, Rullsenberg: 5

Caption away, my friends.

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery.

Every photo displayed on Monday (one per person who sends one in) gets five points; the best pic in the stash each week will appear on Friday and get ten points.

You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Friday’s Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.

What have you been watching this week? (w/e January 8)

8 January 2010 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

New Year’s here and we’re all snowed in, so hopefully we’ll all have been watching a load of tele. Apart from the stuff I’ve reviewed already, here’s what I’ve been watching:

  • 18 To Life: A new Canadian comedy about to 18-year-olds who decide to get married. One’s the son of a straight-laced Jewish family, the other is the daughter of a bunch of right-on hippy-types. It has to be said, it’s even less funny than it sounds, although the casting’s quite good and nothing’s done in an OTT Dharma and Greg kind of way. I gave up before the end – you probably will too.
  • The Day of the Triffids: Probably the scariest version so far, it had a whole lot going for it, managed to amp everything up a notch by dumping the irrelevant and dull parts of the book, and fleshed out Jo’s character. The Triffids were very well done, too. However, it was basically killed stone dead by having Eddie Izzard as the baddie. He came close to menacing a few times, but he couldn’t even walk in an unfunny way, let alone deliver dialogue without making you want to smirk at his semi-American accent and occasional tendencies to become James Mason.
  • Above Suspicion: Now I watched the first one of these back in January last year and it was all right. It was a complete retread of Prime Suspect, but starred the insanely hot Kelly Reilly, so I was able to overlook its faults. This year’s three-parter couldn’t sustain my interest until even the end of the first episode. My, there was some bad acting and dialogue going on there. Sure, no one on British TV does realistic looks at police procedure as well as Lynda La Plante, but this was clunky and obvious and not even Kelly could save the day. Plus, yet again, it’s another poor woman being hacked to death by a serial killer. Could we have a little variety please?

What have you been watching though?

As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you’ve reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might get killed by the spam filter).

Friday’s Mamma Mia! BBC3 news

8 January 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Doctor Who

Films

British TV

US TV

  • Laura Linney’s The Big C gets a greenlight
  • The Middle hits a series high in the ratings
  • TBS orders Uncle Nigel pilot from Monk creator