Dr. Who animated special dates

We now have dates for the next animated Dr. Who webcast, Dreamland. It will be one of the last David Tennant appearances, and will show in 6 parts between 21-26 November.

Also, in case I haven't mentioned it earlier, the next Tennant special, The Waters of Mars, airs Sunday 15 November.

November should be a (relatively) good month for Who!

Tags: doctor who
Mood: optimistic

I actually like it better than the Eccleston/Tennant logo

Tags: doctor who Mood: pleasantly surprised

New Doctor Who Logo...tomorrow

Note, another thing changing with Doctor Who: Tomorrow the new Dr. Who logo design will be unveiled. Stay tuned.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: cynical

Shada

If you're looking for something to fill the sci-fi void, consider watching the (at long last) completed version of Douglas Adam's story Shada. As super-Whovians already know, this story was never completed due to a BBC strike that occurred in the middle of filming. Now it's been redone, bringing back Lalla Ward as Romana and John Leeson as K9. Tom Baker isn't in it (gee, I wonder why??), but a quick swap of Paul McGann will apparently do in a pinch.

I haven't watched it yet, but I plan to this weekend, maybe write a short review.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: optimistic

FYI SJA update

Okay! There are UK dates for The Sarah Jane Adventures posted on Wikipedia.

Seem this season will be a different format - although each story is still comprised of two 30-minute segments, they'll be airing them over the course of 6 weeks and not 12. The first half of a given story will air on Thursdays, with its conclusion broadcast the following day.

Season 3 will kick off with Prisoner of the Judoon (OMFG JUDOON HOORAY!!!) on October 15^th. Also be sure to tune in for the Oct 29^th/30^th story The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, co-starring David Tennant!

Season finale will air 20 November.

Tags: doctor who, sci-fi
Mood: excited

Slipped my mind...(Dreamland)

I knew about this a month ago but forgot to put it in my "upcoming stuff" post.



One last animated special with David Tennant, to be broadcast in the UK in "Autumn". Looks like it'll be a bit different animation style, too.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: curious

sci-fi calendar items

For my own reference, as well as yours:

• Oct 27^th: Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is released on DVD, Blu-Ray, digital download. Premeires on the Sci Fi Channel (no, I'm not using that other name) sometime in November.
  
• Nov 3^rd: V premeires on ABC.
  
• No word on air dates for Sarah Jane Adventures S3 (with Judoon kickoff and later ep w/David Tennant), other than "Autumn".
  
• Similarly vague about final Tennant episodes Waters of Mars (November) and 2-part finale The End of Time (Xmas).
  
• Also! We have an unoffical report that BBC has picked up a 4^th series of Torchwood. "How?" is another question - as a sendoff, it would've been the best in TV's history (at least as far as I know). But to continue? I'm not opposed, but I do wonder how they can just "go back" to the old format...

Tags: doctor who, sci-fi
Mood: nerdy

Dr. Who Cakes! (Thanks to Jason)

If you are at all into Dr. Who, this will make you squeeeeeeeeee.....

Tags: doctor who
Mood: impressed

Awesome but sad

Linked by way of Chris' friend Derrick: Funeral For a Time Lord. Of course, if I had been there I would've lost it once they quoted Hartnell's farewell speech to Susan: One day, I will come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine. If I were planning on being buried I'd request that someone do something similar for me - but I'm not, so I won't. Tags: doctor who Mood: impressed

Doctor Who has officially turned into Twilight....

The new (21 year old, looks fifteen) companion on Dr. Who for the 26-year-old Matt Smith.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: cynical

For those in need of a David Tennant fix...

David Tennant will appear as The Doctor in a full story of The Sarah Jane Adventures sometime in its third season.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: optimistic

OH NO they're reeeeeeal! (linked by glittachris)

What would your first reaction be if you dredged *this* out of a pond?

Mood: amused

Sent to me from someone I work with

Wow.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: impressed

The new face of Who

26 year old Matt Smith will be the next Dr. Who. I don't know - for one it's annoying to see the Doctor keep getting younger (at least Tennant was a few years older than me, this guy's almost a kid). I hope he can act. Also, I don't know, he looks too much like...Tennant. I was kind of looking forward to the possibility of a new direction, like say a non-white incarnation like Paterson Joseph (although I still say the writing team wouldn't have the maturity to handle a female incarnation). There you have it, folks. I haven't been able to find video on this other than on the BBC, which blocks everyone outside the UK from watching. Tags: doctor who Mood: eh

WHO will be the 11th Doctor?

BBC confirmed today that it will reveal the identity of the Eleventh Doctor as part of a special edition of Doctor Who Confidential to be aired on BBC ONE tomorrow, Saturday 03 January at 17:35hrs.
...
In the Doctor Who special, to be aired tomorrow at 17.35hrs, the actor playing the new Doctor will be giving his or her initial reaction to being the new, eleventh incarnation of one of television's most loved characters.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: excited

Tennant leaving Doctor Who after 4 specials in 2009

With a post-date in the future (how appropriate): David Tennant leaving Dr. Who after the four 2008-2009 specials.

WTF, last I heard he was planning on doing the full 2010 season before regenerating?!

This is going to make life really difficult for Moffat when he takes over...

Tags: doctor who
Mood: sad

Halloween pics courtesy of Putz

Here are some selected pictures from Putz's Gallery of the Spellbound Halloween party:


glittachris makes a very convincing David Tennant.


I went as a Judoon, a rhino-headed alien. They formed a police-force-for-hire on the serial Smith and Jones. My mask is comically cartoonish, but you have no idea how hard it is to find a realistic Rhino mask. It was a major score just to find this one. I made the battle-skirt myself, and modified a Batman costume for the rest. Chris actually got his hair cut to better emulate the Doctor.


blindtilnow has no idea who's in this costume, but he's laughing his head off over it.


Look here! More alien menaces arrive to fight the Doctor!


Chris looks at me like I'm a lunatic. Of course I am, trying to dance with a rhino head that obscures 95% of vision, but dancing was easier than walking in that thing.

Tags: doctor who, halloween, pictures
Mood: amused

Green Death Mockumentary "Global Conspiracy?"

On the DVD for the Jon Pertwee episode The Green Death, in the DVD extras, is a ten minute mockumetary called "Global Conspiracy?". It follows on to the 1970's story as if it were fact, and charts a "recurrence" of the sludge/maggots in Llanfairfach, Wales, and what happened to characters Stevens, Steven's deputy, and Professor Jones (all roles reprised by the original actors). The "reporter" is Marc Gatiss, who writes for the new Doctor Who and also starred as Professor Lazarus in The Lazarus Experiment. I won't give away the ending, but let's just say it's proof that BBC doesn't take itself *too* seriously...

If you have this DVD or Netflix it (dj_vlad, looking in your direction), I recommend you drop in on the special features just this once - it's worth it.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: impressed

More releases

Doctor Who Season 4 is available for pre-order, to be released Nov 18. Same deal for The Infinite Quest, the animated mini-sodes from Season 3.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: fyi

hooray for the Brigadier!!

The Brigadier (Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart) will be featured alongside Sontarans in the 9^th & 10^th episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures!

About flippin' time too - Nick Courtney isn't getting any younger...

Tags: doctor who
Mood: excited

Thanks to proshowoff for linking

This Doctor Who cartoon is beyond adorable, utterly hilarious, and soon to be my desktop image.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: impressed

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 13

First off, bad points: No Judoon, no Dawkins. Bummer.

Following on from last week, Journey's End wraps up some plot points and opens up others.

Regeneration: As anticipated in my last review, the Doctor went with option #2 for the regeneration - it reversed itself. Psych, suckers! Well, not for us cynical folk. Anyway, aside from being a cliffhanger for the credulous, regeneration was also used to sprinkle the Doctor's pixie dust throughout the ship so that he could "merge" (could this be how Timelords reproduce?) with Donna and create his hybrid twin out of his own previously severed hand. Way to go all Farscape on us. The hybrid Doctor was also a handy way to commit genocide on the Daleks without the real Doc being held accountable. The hyrbid Doc is not knocked off in the end, as one might have thought, but married off (see "Rose" aka "pathetic" below).

Davros: Now that I've had a chance to see more of him onscreen, I can review the new Davros. Basically, I liked the old Davros better, but I'm not going to make a huge stink about the new one. The new one is a lot more...strapping...than the old.

The scary thing about Davros always was this terrible impotent rage he had from being so infirm, that when put into the hands of the Daleks or Kaleds or whatnot, was anything but impotent. The old Davros could ramp up from an almost inaudible trembling voice to a hysterical diatribe in a matter of seconds. Terry Malloy did a brilliant job of recreating Michael Wisher's original Davros performance, to the point I often can't tell who's in the chair unless I read the credits.

The new guy hisses and yells, but he sort of reminds me of the Emperor from Star Wars (and I was thinking this before he started raining blue electricity from his hands). You can totally tell that the guy is an able-bodied man in a chair, and that is not a sign of a compelling performance.

Anyway, I said I wasn't going to make a stink over casting, since they've pretty much got everything else spot on. Let's move on to something I will make a stink over:

Rose: So at the end of the show, the Doctor has to return Rose to her parallel universe, but she doesn't want to go. To pacify her, he offers her his hybrid clone, saying she could help tame his wild, angry side, just like she did with Eccleston, and that being half-human, he would actually f**k her. After a brief pretense of protesting the hybrid's identity, Rose opts for Blow-Up-Doctor (credit to glittachris for this zinger). If you looked up "pathetic" in the intergalactic dictionary, surely Rose's picture would be underneath. At least that virtually seals off any return of Trailer-Trash Barbie to the series.

Donna: The one who really got the shaft in this story was Donna. Mixing DNA with a Timelord was too much to handle, and the Doctor has to wipe all her memories to save her life. That is just rough, I was felt for them - she had to go back to the airhead she used to be, and her family (having *not* been mindwiped) had to watch. That's just a terrible fate, I was rather bothered by that, even dying is preferable in my mind. I can only hope that at some point the Doctor revisits, finds a way to restore her memories, and then just marry her off to that dude from the Library, since obviously she can't travel in the TARDIS forever.

I think in some ways I liked Donna best out of the new series' companions (not counting Jack). I think I liked Martha most in theory, but in practice, I don't think her character lived up to its potential until she got away from the Doctor. She spent way too much time mooning, or saying "what's that, Doctor?". Donna was not a character I would instantly gravitate to, but I think she was the most successful in filling out her role, and making it dynamic.

ASIDE: And why do they persist in saying people are going to "die", when in fact they don't? Neither Rose nor Donna died, but apparently "death" is the term that is used to mean "not hanging out with the Doctor anymore".

Martha/Mickey: Jack offers Martha a job at the seriously understaffed Torchwood Cardiff, and Mickey tags along, having nothing to do in his parallel universe. This is without a doubt why Julie Gardner's been quiet about the cast list for TW S3. I am fine with both of these additions, although I don't see why they needed to kill off Tosh and Owen to do it (The team wouldn't have been crowded at seven). Although squeaky-clean Martha's probably going to ditch the fiance if she's going to be as smutty as the rest of the crew - somehow I can't see her "pulling a Gwen" and shagging Jack behind her fiance's back. BTW, nice continuity bit about Gwen/Gwen from Dicken's story. If you blinked, you missed it, but basically in S1 E03 they meet one of Gwen's relatives, who looks just like her.

Well, that's it, no Dr. Who until December, and even then it's only 3 or 4 stories until 2010. :(
And Torchwood will only be 5 stories next season too. :(
I believe SJA was renewed for a 2^nd season, but I have no idea when that's starting up.

It's going to make for some lonely times...

Tags: doctor who
Mood: sad

so close, but so far away...

WHY is this costume only available in kids' sizes?? Don't they know how much time this would save me?

Do you think I could stuff my head in the mask, at least?

Tags: doctor who
Mood: frustrated

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 12

The penultimate S4 storyline was a super-friends-style reunion of companions past, old villains, the resurrection of one very old baddie, and an important new plot twist.

Rather than run down the entire plot (which was moving too fast to catch all the details in the 1^st viewing), here's a paragraph on everyone crammed on screen:

The Doctor: At the end of the story, the Doctor suffers a wound and starts to regenerate, despite all accounts having Tennant staying through 2010. The question is, will the regeneration fail, reverse, or will he actually regenerate into a new body, which presumably would be overwritten by some temporal slight of hand? And if so, would that be the new Dr. when he regenerates for real, or does body selection operate by some kind of randomized process?

Donna: Seems Donna still has the bug on her back, despite what Ep 11 had us believe. They're still hinting at her special destiny, but no advancement towards knowing it.

Judoon: Judoon make me dance up and down like a little schoolchild1 However, for now, they are filling the most inconsequential of roles - the security force at the Shadow Proclamation place. Here's hoping they'll be used in a more pivotal way in next week's conclusion (and be used in many future stories).

Martha: Squeaky-voiced Martha has been promoted again (possibly becoming the Lee Adama of Dr. Who), and gets to ride a nifty Sontaran temporal jetpack. And she visits her mum. Probably will get in a catfight with Rose (see below) in the next ep.

Captain Jack, Gwen & Ianto: The truncated Torchwood team only gets confused, except for Jack who tells them they're going to die, and Gwen who helpfully makes a pass at the Doctor. Jack leaves them behind trying to machine-gun a Dalek.

Sarah Jane & Luke: Sarah Jane's comment to Mr. Smith about always fanfaring her made me L-O-L. Seems like Luke is getting left behind next ep, which is good because he's rather dull.

Rose Tyler: carries around a big gun and throws a tantrum when the Doctor says hi to Martha. Still as pathetic as ever, but fortunately she's the only real detractor in this story.

Donna's Mom & Grandad: You gotta love the grandad playing Dalek-hunter vigilante with a paintball gun.

Harriet Jones, former PM: The disgraced politician returns, but seems to harbor nothing more than a difference-of-opinion with the Doctor. She sacrifices (?) herself in the end, to buy the others time. If in fact she's dead (camera cut away), it was a good way to go, she met death bravely.

Richard Dawkins: Again, another part in the show that was far too limited. Dawkins was shown in a television interview on the causes of the mysterious planets that appeared, and Dawkins pointed out (correctly) that the Earth had come to them, not the other way around. Now, why they were interviewing an evolutionary biologist about matters of astronomy, I have no idea, but it was awesome nonetheless.

Davros: The new Davros looks a lot like the old, maybe a little less infirm, and more dark. Can't really evaluate the performance at this point, he didn't have much screen time, and even less fully revealed.

Dalek Caan: The last time we saw him (in the "Daleks of Manhattan" two-parter), he escaped the Doctor by "Emergency Temporal Shift". This apparently knocked him into the locked (by who?) time period of the Time War. Upon arriving, he presumably used his knowledge of events to save Davros who, according to the old timeline, died in the first year of the war. This "locked" history is the new plot twist - it explains why no one can go back and change events in the Time War (that would be a very dangerous timeline to muck around with), including the Doctor. At the same time, now that Caan somehow found a way through, it gives the writers a way to resurrect any or all Time Lords (Romana? Borusa? Drax?). However, for Caan, "madness takes its toll". Undoubtedly, more will come out of this in seasons to come.

The Rani? Although it was reported in August there would be a return of The Rani in S4, none has yet materialised. Could it be in the next episode? Wikipedia says nothing =. What is available for next week is that we'll see the addition of Mickey and Rose's mom.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: epic

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 11

This story starts the runup to S4 finale, which looks as though it's going to be a doozy.

The story stars Donna almost exclusively, as she is time-raped by a parasitic bug creature, who forces her to make a critical decision that causes her to never meet the Doctor. Never having met him, she is not there to stop him when he fights the Arachnid brood on Xmas, and he dies (having perished "too quickly" for regeneration). After that, the whole world and then the whole universe unravel, and then all universes. Because if Donna is a temporal lynchpin, the Doctor even more so.

Throughout all this, Donna's rewritten self gets recurring visits from trans-dimensional traveller Rose. Unfortunately half of what Rose said was completely unintelligible, due to her accent and waaaay too many teeth in her mouth. Rose (I guess due to living in another dimension) is immune to the unraveling of the space-time continuum, as opposed to the other companions who all perish trying to fight, in the Doctor's stead, the various alien manaces that occurred since his initial encounter with Donna.

In the end, Rose convinces New Donna to go back in time to undo the decision the bug-creature forced her to do (turn her car away from the job that would lead her to knowing the Doctor), and set time right again. But Donna has to die to make this happen. Time is rewritten, but Reset-Donna still remembers snippets of the experience, which she relates to the Doctor, who guesses it's Rose and flips out. Somehow the whole "Bad Wolf" thing is involved, but that is left for next time. I sure hope they tell us what the frack all that is about - I'm getting tired (to the point of tedium) of all the teasers, when there's no traction.

But largely I really enjoyed the episode - RTD really packed a lot of action into 45 minutes (which makes me wonder about some of the less stellar eps). Also seems there's a further story to Donna than just being another companion - I look forward to seeing that that is....

Next week: Every companion, every spinoff show join forces to battle Daleks and OMFG JUDOON!!!

That oughta' keep the fans panting for more over that looong hiatus...

Tags: doctor who
Mood: excited

Doctor Who Season 4 Episode 10

You could call this week's episode a "no frills" storyline - there were only 3 actors cast beyond the 6 in the shuttle (only Donna, the pilot, the mechanic), few special effects, all basically set in one room. It was simple, mysterious, and intense. The alien (malevolent, we think) is never seen. Order degenerates into chaos as the passengers + 1 crew fall into a panic over what to do with a woman who becomes possessed and repeats everything said. In the end, the day is saved in an act of courageous self-sacrifice from the hostess, who up to that point had been as flawed a personality as any other on board.

Sometimes RTD (who wrote this ep) really delivers, other times, he writes limping, childish stories. This was the former. There's no distractions of bad CG or flimsy technical explanations, allowing one to be just swept up in the hysteria that comes from 6 people trapped in a box. Probably also means the director (Alice Troughton, no relation) should get props as well.

A couple of casting notes:

Sky (the possessed woman) is another of Davies' "pet" actors - she starred in his short-lived comedic/romantic series, "Bob and Rose" as Rose (he must really like the name Rose), which was a story about a gay man who falls in love with a woman. Davies usually points to that series as his best work writing.

Also, David Troughton, son of 2^nd Doctor Patrick Troughton was in this story as Professor Hobbes. I seriously did not recognise him, the last time he was in Doctor Who was as the King of Peladon, back in the 3^rd Doctor's tenure in the '70s.

Also, Rose does her Max Headroom impression...badly. Seems we're to find what that's all about next time...

Tags: doctor who
Mood: impressed

Doctor Who Season 4 Episode 9

I actually did watch this story on Sunday, but something was bothering me about it. But now that I've settled down, I can evaluate more objectively...

This is, of course, the continuation of "Silence in the Library", which left the heroes trapped with the evil flesh-eating creatures chasing after them in an animated space suit of the person they'd just consumed. The protagonists escape with the writer's-block device, the Sonic Screwdriver (used this time by the mysterious wifey figure).

Anyway, not going to recap the whole story, the main points are:

• The whole Library/little girl issue is resolved - the Library's computer core (for some reason I can't fathom) is hooked up to the consciousness of a little girl who really likes books. Dr. Moon is actually its anti-virus software. When the Vashna Narata come around to hunt, people's consciousness are "saved" onto the hard drive. Um - a cute explanation, but kinda ridiculous.
  
• So Donna is not dead, but spirited away to a Matrix-type world, where she is married and has two kids and seems happy. But the damaged-in-download "spirit" of Ms. Evangelista comes and tells her it's all a lie. The part about misplacing a decimal point on her IQ? Again, cute, but implausible. Overall the parts with Donna I liked, with her coming to terms with her life/children not being real. Also, we now make a reasonable guess as to how she'll be leaving the series - turns out her Matrix-"husband" was actually a real person, also trapped in the machine. They miss each other on exit, but they'll undoubtedly meet up again and then Donna will leave to marry him (for real).
  
• The Vashna Narata are in the library because they normally live in forests, and books are made of trees.
  
• The Doctor's "wife" dies at the end, plugging herself into the machine to give it more memory or something so as to get all the people out. But due to the wacky consequences of dating a time-traveller, Future Doctor previously gave Wife modified sonic screwdriver that captured her consciousness so that Past Doctor could resurrect it in the machine. Along with the spirits of the other expedition casualties. *Sigh* Ok, clap clap, very good from a storytelling perspective, but it was already established that the "ghosting" was just an echo in technology. If someone took their space suit off, the same thing would happen, right? This is the futuristic version of saving someone's diary - the woman is still dead.

So there you go - Moffat's* starting to inject his first influences onto the show, before taking over in 2010. When this happens, my guess is we'll see:
(1) More Doctor romance. **
(2) Better storytelling, but maybe not vetted against reality.
(3) Probably less of the classic-series villains and monsters.

* - Before any of you jump on me, I think I've made it clear that I think Moffat is an excellent writer. He is also unquestionably a loyal fan of the classic series from an early age. But I have listened to his interviews, I have heard him speak in person, and I have every reason to believe what I've wrote about the future direction of the show.

** - "Hey, here's an idea - how about we 'break new ground' with the Doctor by having him do what every other television show is already doing!"

In the upshot, tonight is the last BSG before the hiatus! Last night glittachris got caught up to the end of S3, so we can discuss all the Cylon models that are currently known & share theories on those remaining...

Tags: doctor who
Mood: okay

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 8

Just as with Stephen Moffat's other, 1^st-Season 2-parter, there's an undeniable "WTF?" feeling upon watching the cliffhanger:
- What is this Library, and how does it relate to the little girl?
- Who are these expeditionaries, and why does the lead archaelogist seem to act as if she's the Doctor's wife in a future timeline?
- What are the shadows?
- What happened to Donna?
- What do the "father" and "psychologist" represent?

Moffat is unquestionably a fantasic writer, playing his cards one by one, but never letting you see the full hand until the end.

However:
The story's premise (evil from the shadows) is just too close to his last story, Blink (evil if you close your eyes). Different events surrounding it, yes, but I'm just hoping his next story isn't "evil when you step on sidewalk cracks".

Also, I have a real dislike of using child actors in central roles. I mean, their use of kids hasn't been excessive, but as a general rule having a central "kid" part annoys me.

That said, I can get past it (and the tenuous scientific explanation of the creepy "ghosting" phenomenon) enough to enjoy it. More when I know what the frack is going on here the 2^nd half airs.

Tags: doctor who

The rumors are true

Steven Moffat to take over as Executive Dr. Who producer from RTD.

From a writing-quality standpoint, this is good news. But (ever the wary realist) who knows what new directions he could have in mind. Interviews with him about Girl in the Fireplace imply he may be itching to add more romance into the Time Lord travels...

Tags: doctor who
Mood: curious

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 7

The Doctor and Donna travel back in time to the 1920's, where they meet Agatha Christie on the day of her infamous "disappearance", after discovering her unfaithful husband (she reappears days later claiming amnesia). Rather than the mundane explanation of Cristie's mental illness/artistic temperment, we find the *real* story is a gigantic hybrid wasp creature that is somehow tied to her brain through its human mother's fandom of Cristie's books.

Erm, huh?

Gareth Roberts wrote this episode, and I really haven't gotten into any of his work other than "Whatever happened to Sarah Jane?". I often find his stories simplistic, if not childish. This murder "mystery" wasn't of high enough caliber to pay homage to someone like Agatha Christie, as I guessed two main plot developments well before they happened.

The scientific explanations were flimsy at best (how would a 8-ft wasp be able to regenerate a stinger in 5 minutes?), and overall the story bored me. The only funny part was when the guy in the wheelchair stood up and admitted his (pointless, really) deception to his wife, before he could be unveiled, and it turned out he was about to be exonerated.

As glittachris pointed out, this Who episode was relying too much on "humor" to help the story along. The roving, pointing finger? Dumb. The charades routine after the Doctor is poisoned? Painful. And they managed to work some stupid kissy stuff in for the totally-not-interested Donna, lest we become bored with *gasp* a television show where the main plot thrusts are not hormone-driven. Maybe if they had purged all this stuff out, there would've been room for more characters (and thus more subplots) so that the audience wouldn't be able to guess the ending before it happened.

So no Doctor Who next week, although they did show the previews for #8. Which looked like a repackaging of "Blink", so across the board I am not impressed.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: moody

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 6

Despite the title, this storyline was wildly uncontroversial and a tad predictable.

The "daughter" in question is in fact not a product of a sexual (or otherwise) union between the Doctor and some other being. She is a insta-Clone grown from the Doctor's genetic material. The Doctor + Donna & Martha land on a planet with two warring factions and the first faction they meet forces the Doctor to give up a DNA sample. Although she is female, they claim in the story that she contains only the Doctor's genetic material, which raises the question of whether this meets the definition of being his "child" and not some wacky clone variant. Like I said, quite uncontroversial backstory to the "daughter".

The setup gave me some high hopes to the story. Mysterious war going on for as long as the two sides (humans and the fishlike Hath) could remember, strange set of tunnels, and odd creation myth that had the two sides worked up. Martha ended up with behind Hath lines, after she fixes up one of their injured with her Mad Doctorin' Skillz. The Hath she helps becomes her friend, and toddles off with her when she goes looking for the Doctor.

However, the story loses it at the end, particularly when they find the Source (actually a terraforming device), and both sides put down their weapons and kumbahyah. I don't buy the bit about the war only going on for 7 days, because of their high casualty rate and that they can replace the ranks with the instaClone device. Seven *months* maybe, but if their causualty rate was really that high that the average lifespan of a warrior was only a few hours (going on the assertion that the war's been on for generations), then it seems annihilation of one or boths sides would be a more likely outcome.

Also, while I really liked the fishy Hath, Martha was really going over the top when her Hath friend was killed. I mean, I know what they were doing here, and it's good - they were humanising the very non-human Hath, and trying not to make the humanlike aliens always be the good guys. But she sort of acted as if it were her first time seeing death on these adventures, so it might have been better had Donna been the one to play it so "devastated".

So the daughter ("Jenny", real-life daughter of actors who played 5^th Doctor and HHGttG's Trillian) gets shot by one of the Earthers, but doesn't instantly regenerate so the Doctor thinks she is dead, and leaves. But she wakes up (non-regenerated), takes a spacecraft, and goes off to save the universe. Do I smell another spin-off?

Tags: doctor who
Mood: rainy

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 5

This is the 2^nd half following "The Sontaran Strategem". The cliffhanger had everyone running around like headless chickens after the Atmos cars spewed poison gas. Donna's mother, mercifully had enough sense to smash the winshield with an axe, saving the grandfather.

This story saw a lot of the Doctor yelling & giving his forehead veins a real workout. Corporal Cute bought it when the Sontarans ground troops finally beamed down to earth. The plot all along had been to turn Earth into a clone breeding planet, and the gas was an atomised nutrient source (toxic to humans though). The funniest part of the episode was when they all had gas masks on and the Doctor asked the Colonel, "are you my mummy?". Many LOLs.

Also, the Bigadier is finally mentioned! Although for this storyline he is "trapped in Peru". I can't say it too many times, it would be absolutely wonderful to have the Brig on, just for a short poignant reunion with the Doctor.

So the Sontarans (I guess) tricked the boy genius annoyance Luke into helping him with the promise of relocating to a new planet with his genius-school brood. The Sontarans of course did not deliver, and Luke ended up sacrificing/avenging himself by blowing up the Sontaran base ship. However, I must take issue with the caliber of his "geniuses". The Rattigan alumni looked more like they should be in a CK underwear ad, and nothing that they said or did really set themselves apart from the normal human refuse that they were supposedly so far above. Corporal Cute was wittier, to tell the truth.

True to history, mention of the (often referenced, only seen once) Rutans was made. I guess now, with the CG of 2008 and beyond, it would be a lot more viable to have an evil jellyfish race as the primary baddie, but I'm not holding my breath on that.

Also, in case you forgot about S4's reunion with Britney-Spears-in-SpaceTime, we got a clip of Rose on the TARDIS vidcom system, just as Donna's flipping the channel. Argh. Guess it's best if we just got this over with, like ripping off a bandage. At least Donna & Martha get on well, and will be traveling together with the Doctor next episode, when we apparently will find out how Time Lords reproduce.

Tags: doctor who
Mood: calm

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 4

The Sontarans are the latest Classic-Who baddie that's made it onto the new series. This two-parter starts off with their re-introduction, and (finally) getting re-acquainted with U.N.I.T.

First the obvious - when did the Sontarans get so wee? The last time they were seen (The Two Doctors), they were 6 feet tall. OMG though, is Mike from the Young Ones really that short, or did they get a stand-in? I don't think I saw his face in full-body shot, so it's possible. Also, the re-vamped Sontaran uniforms (kind of plasticky blue, cartoonish) kind of add to the silliness. They probably should have redesigned the uniforms as *more* gritty and not less, if they wanted to have a short alien that was also menacing.

Other than that, the continuity was good - for the Sontarans (warrior race, neck vent) and U.N.I.T. (The "Greyhound to Trap 1" callsigns). No Brigadier, Sgt Benton, Capt Yates, etc. (*sniff*), but the whole thing about expanded budget, "homeworld security" was a good explanation of how it went from DIY to major military force. I also liked how the Col. mouthed off to the Doctor.

So U.N.I.T. rushed Martha's MD degree so she could command battle contingents (hmmm, not following that part), but thank goodness RTD didn't script a catfight between Donna and Martha (I know it was Helen Raynor penning the ep, but RTD provides guidelines). I am soooo glad that they're dialing down the romance in this season, may be part of the reason that I'm really liking Donna as a companion. Oh, and Martha got engaged to that guy she met in the S3 finale, so she's moved on with life.

On the story itself, it's just (what's becoming) the standard plot configuration, cashing in on fear of technology/capitalism as the instrument of alien invasion. In this story, massively popular car guidance systems are rigged to kill/poison people. *yawn* Seen it, 'cept it was called Adipose and was a diet drug. The cliffhanger seemed bizarrely over-stretched, with everyone flailing around and not doing anything for an extended period of time. Maybe the Ep was running short on time...?

Anyway, next story should have some fightin', yay!

Tags: doctor who
Mood: excited

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 3

The Ood episode was a story explaining how the Ood came to be in their present form (subservient slave creatures with the occasional habit of electrocuting people with their translator globes).

Overall, I liked it. I'm not going into full story recap because I'm not in the mood for it. Only questions:

42^nd century humanity must be very advanced indeed if they're conducting inter-galaxy shuttle runs for Ood cargo. Even at light speed, the time involved would be ridiculously long. Assuming they're talking FTL, that the technology would allow them to cover such mind-blowing distances as a matter of routine would make the human race to be a devastating presence in the galaxy universe. Um, how about a more reasonable scale, like three constellations? Sorry, but I have kind of a bug up my butt about inter-galactic travel (it needs to be handled very carefully if at all).

Also, the Doctor notes that the Ood's subservience perplexes him, because that trait would've never evolved on its own. Ok, but how about the fact that nothing was made about the relative likeliness of a species that evolved to have a second brain that they have to carry around in their hands and that they're all linked to a giant 3^rd brain that just lies around loose on the ground??

Lastly, Ood Epsilon says something to the Doctor as he's leaving, about his "song being over very soon". What is that supposed to mean? They're not going to regnerate Tennant, right? He's signed up through 2009! Maybe they mean Rose, although it's hard to square that with what was said.

Next up: Martha, U.N.I.T., and one of the Young Ones as a Sontaran...

Tags: doctor who
Mood: gloomy

Doctor Who Season 4, episode 2

The traditional 2^nd-story historical number was set in Ancient Pompeii, and was written by James Moran, who previously gave us the "Sleeper" story in Torchwood S2.

Basic story - The Doctor and Donna mis-shoot Rome and hit Pompeii on Volcano T-1 day. But there's more afoot than that. Mysterious vapors are causing the city's previously "less than precise" psychics to now predict with unerring accuracy. But, they are also slowly transmogrifying into stone. The source? some kind of alien magma-dwelling creature, which also has a relationship with time and pyschic wavelengths, which is why dispersal of its particles into the "vapors" causes the former frauds to now be genuine (and slowly pertifying).

The alien itself turns out to be no problem to vanquish, but the kicker is that its interference is actually holding back the natural, "fixed" course of events where the mountain explodes and kills the 20,000 people of Pompeii. So for the Doctor to restore the timeline, he must, by his own action, set in motion the event that will kill large numbers of people.

I liked this story a lot better than Ep 1 (I may have given that one too favorable a review simply because Donna wasn't as annoying as her Xmas appearance). The story was well-spun, and there was a wide range of characters on the screen (although I'm not sure what the rivalry between the Sybilene and the Augur had to do with it all).

Donna's brashness was directed in a more altruistic direction than her why-me braying of the Xmas story, and I found myself cheering her on a couple times. If she does keep up the trend, I'll rank her above Rose (although that's not hard) for favorite companions. Martha's still my fav so far.

They also added a little to the idea of the Doctor's (and all Time Lords') "special relationship" with time. The Doctor can see the way things are, the way they should be (but aren't, due to external interference), and what is still negotiable, or "in flux". This idea, while probably not explicable under close scrutiny itself, can be used to answer a whole host of questions from why he can't save his people, or change events, etc, but can go back and visit.

Sort of like on Voyager, when that "time ship" captain was rewriting the timelines over and over again - although he was recklessly tinkering with space/time, there was the whole notion of relationships and dependencies and "moods" of time. Anyway, interesting idea, hope they find time to expand on it a bit.

Next: Ood!

Tags: doctor who
Mood: pleased

Doctor Who Season 4, Episode 1

The story is: The Doctor (on his own) and Donna (on her own) are investigating a fad diet pill. The Doctor is presumably using his 6^th sense for otherworldly activity, and Donna is there because she is searching for the Doctor, who she regrets parting ways with. She figures she'll find him "anywhere there's trouble". As I predicted, her time with the Doctor has changed her, i.e., she's not as annoying. They bump into each other (eventually) and fight the menace together.

So the diet drug turns out to be some kind of seeding of an alien birthing process, that turns fat (harmlessly) into cute little alien marshmallow babies (erm, interesting idea...). So basically it's win-win, the dieters lose weight and the babies get born. Unfortunately, it's against intergalactic law, so the alien nanny Foster resorts to killing people who get tipped off to its true purpose. But Foster gets screwed in the end when the alien parents who hired her decide to take their babies and kill the witness. This time the Doctor decides not to exterminate a brood of children, which Donna correctly picks up on.

In the end Donna goes off with the Doctor after they clear up that the Doctor just wants a friend and not a lover. And then the big twist to finish with: Ghost-Rose was in the crowd, foreshadowing later in the season when she will appear.

I liked the episode overall - it seemed like the setup/baddie was going to be more 2-dimensional than it was, but there were reversals later that gave it a little bit more depth. The only dumb part was the attempted humor at the end, with the reporter tied to the chair.

Looking forward to more - hopefully the trend of the shows getting better with each season will continue. Oh, and the Ood story got moved to slot 3 - next up is a historical adventure, keeping with tradition of the last 3 seasons.

Now: To watch the 4^th season premeire of Battlestar Galactica, or save 'til tomorrow...?

Tags: doctor who
Mood: excited