M80 have been to some marketing seminars it seems. Apparently, this new Web 2.0 thing is going to be a great way to get free marketing done, with bloggers the new way to spread word-of-mouth publicity, bypassing those traditional gatekeepers and arbiters of opinion, the critics (yes, I do write for marketing mags. Why do you ask?).
News
News that happened while I was away and over the weekend
Some of it you might know, some of it could well be news:
Doctor Who
- Jessica Stevenson, who is 5’6″ and has grey/green eyes, is filming a two-part Doctor Who episode.
- There’s going to be a hint of Torchwood in this Christmas’s episode (see pic. Click on it to make it bigger and look for the logo at the back).
- Newsround has a load of publicity shots from that episode, too.
- The Daily Mail (and other ‘newspapers’) are claiming that new companion Martha Jones and the Doctor are going to wind up in bed together – fully clothed, mind. Adds The Sun, ”TV Biz can reveal feisty Martha (Freema Agyeman) has a huge crush on the doc (David Tennant). The pair are forced to bunk up together in one scene and Martha moves in for the kill. But her love intentions are ruined — by a monster.“
- There’s an interview with Dan Zeff, director of Love and Monsters, over on Ain’t It Cool News.
- There’s a clip from The Sarah Jane Adventures available from the Beeb’s Doctor Who web site.
Film
- There’s a preview of Mitchell and Webb’s Magicians over on Ain’t It Cool News, based on a test screening.
British TV
- Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse are re-uniting for a new sketch show.
- The Beeb is planning a show about Merlin. It’s going to be a ”3g“ show, which now means ”three generations“ apparently. Because that’s what family television needs more of – shows about slightly dodgy wizards that live their lives backwards and have a demon for a dad.
- Instead of doing something sensible like getting State of Play 2 together, Paul Abbott has created another bollocktile drama for ITV1 (cf the UK version of Touching Evil). Called Butler Did It, this ”three x 120-minute returnable franchise“ (urgh) tells the story of a top MI5 officer who is ”imprisoned for murder but, after the government realises his potential as a powerful weapon, he is reprogrammed as a ruthless, state-controlled assassin“.
- Lucy Davis, star of The Office and rising star of Studio 60, got married on Saturday at St Paul’s Cathedral – handily, her dad Jasper Carrott is an OBE.
- Matt Lucas is reportedly being lined up to play Friar Tuck in the next series of Robin Hood. He’s already set to appear as Toad in The Wind in the Willows this Christmas.
US TV
- Day Break is either going to be killed off on the 27th or moved to another night.
- Heroes co-star Thomas Dekker is to play John Connor in the forthcoming Terminator spin-off The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
- The hilariously rubbish product placement – sorry, prequel – for the next season of 24 is now available on YouTube.
- Heroes is going to air in the UK at 10pm on the SciFi channel, starting on February 19th, according to Digital Spy.
- Ronald D Moore answers questions about Battlestar Galactica, over on E! Online’s Watch With Kristin.
- Peter Casey, one of the creators of Frasier, explains why Lisa Kudrow was recast as Roz.
TMINE
Teaching an old blog new tricks
Woo hoo, I’m back. Let there be feasting and a national day of celebration. Or a collective rolling of eyes at the very least.
There are a couple of new things for the blog that I just thought I’d draw your attention to. First, you can now get blog updates by email. Each day, between 5pm and 7pm UK time, you’ll get sent all the new posts of the day in a beautifully formatted email. It won’t be the full post, necessarily, just the bit you’d see on the front page, but it’s quite nice and saves you from having to remember to come to the blog.
You can sign up for it here or over in the sidebar. There’s a similar email for the day’s comments, too.
Second new thing is “threaded comments”. Now you can indicate you’re replying to a previous comment by clicking on a reply link next to the comment. When the comment appears, it’ll have a link to the original comment, so everyone can see who you were talking back to.
It seems to work, anyway, although I haven’t implemented it on the preview page yet. Use it, don’t use it, the choice is yours. It just seemed nice to me, even if does slightly upset the formatting at the moment.
All the news I can write before I have to leg it for the train
- David Tennant has been voted best Doctor Who by readers of Doctor Who Magazine.
- The Christmas double-issue Radio Times will include part one of an audio book read by David Tennant.
- The Christmas episode of Doctor Who will be airing at 7pm on Christmas Day.
- Lost‘s getting a new time slot in the US, with Knights of Prosperity now going up against American Idol.
- Day Break might be getting the chop.
A word on the rest of the week’s postings
I’m going to be out and about for the next few days in an exciting combination of work and birthday celebrations, so posting’s going to be erratic or non-existent for the rest of the week. But I’ll be back on Monday at the latest or maybe I’ll pop up during a lunch break or something. Until then, have fun!