Doctor Who

An archive of blog entries about British science-fiction programme Doctor Who.

News

Thursday’s “one man can make a difference” news

27 September 2007 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Knight Rider

Doctor Who

Film

Theatre



British TV

  • GMTV fined £2m over phone line scandal
  • Decided not to watch ITV1? Now you can decide not to watch it again an hour later: Michael Grade is considering ITV1+1
  • Channel 4 ratings at 15-year low

US TV

UK TV

Review: The Sarah Jane Adventures 1×1

25 September 2007 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Sarah Jane Adventures

In the UK: Mondays, 5pm, BBC1

In the US: God knows

Blimey. Don’t know about you but it’s been a while since I tuned into Children’s BBC. Okay, technically I didn’t, because Bastard, my PVR, failed to record this and I had to borrow a copy, but all the same, I feel very odd, tuning into a programme that’s put out by the broom cupboard people of yore.

The action picks up where the pilot left off, back in sunny, not too offensive BBC-land. Luke the Asperger’s wannabe (oh yes, They’ll be watching, you know They will), with his poor social skills but top notch science powers, is ensconced in Sarah Jane’s house as a surrogate son. The female neighbour is still living with her nice dad and improbably brain dead mother.

Everything is pretty much as it was before, except the intrusion of the “a little bit too inner city for our liking” female sidekick from the pilot has been rebuffed by those fearsome BBC bosses and a less gabby male sidekick from Zone 6 of the tube map has been added to the roster of alien defeaters. He’s more generic, less screamy. He’s more parent-friendly. He’s just what the Beeb is looking for.

Continue reading “Review: The Sarah Jane Adventures 1×1”

News

Tuesday’s eruptive news

25 September 2007 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Up Pompeii

Doctor Who

  • David Tennant and Catherine Tate take Peter Capaldi, Tracey Childs and Phil Davis over to Rome for a week’s filming for the new series [spoilers]

Film

  • Jessica Biel to be the Justice League‘s Wonder Woman?
  • The Rock to play either hero or villain in Shazam!
  • Die Hard director John McTiernan sent to prison for four months for lying to the Feds

British TV

US TV

UK TV

What bit of Doctor Who history for series four?

24 September 2007 Rob Buckley 35 Comments

DavrosAutumn is in the air. The leaves are falling from the trees. The weather alternates between chucking it down with rain and bright, blinding, car-crash inducing sunlight.

It must be that time of year again. The time when we start coming up with idle, groundless speculation for what’s going to be in the next series of Doctor Who.

As we all know from watching Doctor Who Confidential for series three, Rusty plans to bring back another element of Doctor Who history for series four. Of course, I don’t know about you, but I have a Memento-style tattoo somewhere that says “Don’t believe Rusty’s lies”. All the same, we can probably assume it’s true, judging from his track record.

So who or what do you reckon it’s going to be?

My two pitches, to open the proceedings, are:

  1. Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor
  2. Davros

Although Rusty doesn’t do “Doctor meets” allegedly, he might well take the opportunity to include a previous Doctor next year – which is going to be more fun, apparently. McGann, being the only one of the previous Doctors (except for Eccles-cake) who still looks reasonably like he did during his on-screen appearance, would be the obvious candidate and since he didn’t exactly last a long time in the role, it wouldn’t really be a clash of egos thing if he did turn. Plus there have been all those rumours…

As for Davros, which is a bit more likely, we’re down to one Dalek now. If they turned to him in the past when their fortunes were decidely better, now would be an ideal time to go back to the Dalek-creator and get him to rustle up a new batch and thus ensure the continuity of the franchiseDalek race. Plus Terry Molloy did say he’d been talking to the production team.

Over to you, my friends. What are your bets?

Who’s your favourite fictional journalist?

20 September 2007 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

Occasional contributor Linda Jones is asking over on her blog who our favourite fictional journalists are. My somewhat incoherent reply:

Ooh, tricky. So many good ones to choose from. Tin Tin? Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who, etc? There’s Kevin McKidd in Journeyman to look forward to. I was always kind of partial to David Warner in Hold the Back Page. And Julia Sawalha in Press Gang. Danny in The West Wing? John Simm in State of Play?
I’d probably go for Darren McGavin in Kolchak: The Night Stalker though.
Who says I watch too much television?

But how about you guys? Answer here, answer there, answer in your own blog: the meme is on.