Visit the official Doctor Who website

Visit the official Doctor Who website
Look to the future

Asylum seekers...

Asylum seekers...
Refuge of the Daleks

Doctor Who picture resource

Doctor Who picture resource
Roam the space lanes!

Explore the Doctor Who classic series website

Explore the Doctor Who classic series website
Step back in time

Infiltrate The Hub of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood

Infiltrate The Hub of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood
Armed and extremely dangerous

Investigate The Sarah Jane Adventures

Investigate The Sarah Jane Adventures
Fearless in the face of adversity

Call on Dani’s House

Call on Dani’s House
Harmer’s a charmer

Intercept the UFO fabsite

Intercept the UFO fabsite
Defending the Earth against alien invaders!

Uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse

Uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse
Programmable agent Echo exposed!

Hell’s belles

Hell’s belles
Naughty but nice

Love Exposure

Love Exposure
Flash photography!

Primeval portal

Primeval portal
Dressed to kill or damsels in distress?

Charmed, to be sure!

Charmed, to be sure!
The witches of San Francisco

Take on t.A.T.u.

Take on t.A.T.u.
All the way from Moscow

Proceed to the Luther website

Proceed to the Luther website
John and Jenny discuss their next move

DCI Banks is on the case

DCI Banks is on the case
You can bet on it!

On The Grid with Spooks

On The Grid with Spooks
Secret agents of Section D

Bridge to Hustle

Bridge to Hustle
Shady characters

Life on Ashes To Ashes

Life on Ashes To Ashes
Coppers with a chequered past

Claire’s no Exile

Claire’s no Exile
Goose steps

Vexed is back on the beat!

Vexed is back on the beat!
Mismatched DI Armstrong and bright fast-tracker Georgina Dixon

Medium, both super and natural

Medium, both super and natural
Open the door to your dreams

Who’s that girl? (350-picture Slideshow)

Friday 9 September 2011

Doll parts


He’s shagged Susan Lynch, stolen a bus (causing pensioners to miss their regular game of bingo!), blown up a house (using its central heating system!!) at precisely 6pm and much, much worse in Cracker… attempted to blow up a London railway terminus, as a terrorist in Spooks… mutinied, then had his back flayed for his trouble, in Hornblower… and, if all that wasn’t enough, he wasn’t a particularly pleasant character in Survivors either… but Andrew Tiernan never short changes the viewer. Andy, as he was credited in this week’s episode of Doctor Who, always turns in a bloody good performance. He played the landlord of a rundown block of flats in Bristol, demanding rent money with the menacing aid of his bruiser-of-a-dog, Bernard! Andy had many of the story’s best lines and moments, bemoaning there was nothing to watch on television except thirty-year-old repeats of Bergerac. Lord knows why he was tuned into Yesterday if he was after the boxing! He brilliantly got sucked into his mangy old carpet much to the total disinterest of his pet but, best of all, was his transformation into one of the demon dolls! Possibly the finest use of special effects since Richard Wilson grew a gasmask in the first series.

Then there was Daniel Mays, whose career continues to be in the ascendancy. ITV3 have been running the 2007 movie Atonement, in which he co-stars with James McAvoy, a romantic drama where a man is accused of a rape he didn’t commit. More recently, Daniel attempted to sort out Gene Hunt’s nick, not the easiest task you can imagine, in the third-and-final series of Ashes To Ashes before being banished to the outer reaches of the solar system in Survivors-style drama Outcasts. In Doctor Who he played Alex, father to a little boy, George, unsure how to connect with his son’s phobia of the dark - when all the scary things come out to play. Boy George turned out not only to be adopted but also alien, living his life in fear of rejection. The coming together of father and child, at the story’s climax, was a pure Railway Children moment, and all the more moving for that! If you’re going to “borrow” then do it from the best!!

And the man who wrote Night Terrors, which may well turn out to be this year’s finest episode of Doctor Who… well, all his previous scripts have been set in the past whereas his latest is set in the present day. He tackled Dickens in The Unquiet Dead, when the novelist was in the last year of his life and about to embark on The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, while Christopher Eccleston was The Doctor… bullying in The Idiot’s Lantern, set during the Queen’s Coronation in 1953, was his next choice of subject after David Tennant had taken over the role… and, after a few years away from writing for Doctor Who, he returned to the fold, last year, to pen Victory Of The Daleks, in which the pepper pots from Skaro were outgunned by Matt Smith, with a great deal of help from the forces and spitfires assembled by a certain PM Winston Churchill. I’m talking about Mark Gatiss, author of all three, whose latest (fourth) instalment of everyone’s favourite science fiction series also included the death of a dear, little old lady by multiple black bin bags! Maybe it was because she looked like Patricia Hayes whilst sounding like Frank Spencer?! When Steven Moffat relinquishes his post as show runner, and assuming he wants the responsibility of the top job, surely Mark is his natural successor.

7 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

Spitfires v Daleks must have been a hoot. Machines that can fly against machines that can't go up the stairs. If I were a Dalek I'd head for the air-raid shelter.

TimeWarden said...

The spitfires impossibly went into space, which made it an even bigger hoot! Come in, Danny boy, over!!

Steve said...

It was a cracking episode - hugely atmospheric - and rather reminded me of Sapphire & Steele for some reason.

TimeWarden said...

Mark's probably a fan!

Doctor Who is always at its best when it taps into the fear factor. They should do it more often.

Gorilla Bananas said...

Hah, Sapphire and Steele! Trust old beardyface to remember that one fondly!

Steve said...

Gorilla Bananas: you say it like it's a bad thing.

TimeWarden said...

She's not my favourite but Joanna Luvley might have something to do with it!