Opening salvo

Doctor Who will return in September, this year, with an opening episode entitled Asylum Of The Daleks! Sounds intriguing. In the season which celebrates the programme’s Fiftieth Anniversary, in 2013, what better way to start than with a story that promises to feature every single Dalek design ever seen in the series, since its inception in 1963, on screen simultaneously. This is how a series of Doctor Who should begin. Go in with all guns blazing! Some fans sometimes suggest the Daleks are overused, especially since the show’s return in 2005. But the statistics don’t really support their argument, even if it seems as though the pepper pots from Skaro are always popping up. It’s true that, in the general public’s eye, the mutant creatures are synonymous with the series. When Catherine Tate joined Doctor Who as companion Donna Noble, the actress assumed the Doctor battled the Daleks every episode… clearly a big fan! The two Peter Cushing Doctor Who films, of the 1960s, did much to reinforce this notion, so it is understandable. Never underestimate the importance of the Daleks in regards the popularity of Doctor Who. You’re less likely to do so, I think, if you grew up during their initial heyday, rather than in the programme’s second decade where the makers of the series perhaps became less interested in harnessing their full potential.

Pictured with current Doctor Who regulars, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, is an appropriately dust-and-cobweb-covered version of a Dalek not seen in a Doctor Who adventure since 1967! I see this particular metal menace every night, before going to bed, and each morning, before my Malt Bites, because a scale model resides on my dressing table. Personal problems aside, this Dalek-type last saw the light of day in the original Series Four finale The Evil Of The Daleks. This seven-parter was supposed to herald “the final end” of the Daleks whilst creator Terry Nation tried, unsuccessfully, to flog them to the Americans. Apart from the first-ever repeat of an entire serial, a year after its initial broadcast, and not counting the odd cameo, the Daleks wouldn’t be seen again in the series until the beginning of Season Nine. With the exception of episode two, which saw the introduction of my all-time favourite companion Victoria Waterfield played by Deborah Watling, The Evil Of The Daleks is one of many stories missing from the BBC archives - Exterminated by the carelessness and crassness of bureaucracy! The Daleks themselves would be proud of such vile annihilation. It’s also the adventure many fans would most like to see recovered. Fury From The Deep is top of my list but Evil is second.

Much of the filming for the new Seventh Series of Doctor Who has been taking place abroad. The Producers must be onto some good package deals, considering the show has always been so budget conscious! But, they’ve visited Spain and are currently in the United States. Specifically, Matt, Karen, and Arthur Darvill are presently recording in Central Park, Manhattan - the very location of the David Tennant two-part Dalek adventure from five years ago. Except, David, and Freema Agyeman, never got to visit New York for the story, using Cardiff as a double instead! It reminds me a little of when Janet Fielding (Tegan) left the series, back in 1984, only for the next story to be partly shot in Lanzarote! Incoming Nicola Bryant (Peri) had all the benefits!! It seems unlikely the Daleks will also be revisiting Manhattan Island, as the logistics would surely make this impractical, but you never know what’s around the corner in the worlds of Doctor Who. They’ve shipped a red double-decker bus out to Dubai, in the past, so what’s a multiplicity of Daleks?!! In a television universe that’s seen fit to abandon Survivors, Outcasts, Spooks, Hustle, Medium and even Doctor Who Confidential, not to mention banishing the 53-year-old Blue Peter to CBBC, in favour of interminable coverage of both the Olympic Games and Queen’s Jubilee, I, for one, am looking forward to the next series of Doctor Who!

New TARDIS totty revealed

Former Emmerdale actress Jenna-Louise Coleman has landed the role of the Time Lord’s new companion in Doctor Who, the BBC has confirmed.

Producer Steven Moffat announced the actress will replace Karen Gillan’s character Amy Pond when she leaves the show in the next series.

Coleman, 25, has also appeared in Waterloo Road (above) and is about to be seen in Julian Fellowes’ four part mini-series Titanic.

Jenna-Louise said, “I am beyond excited. I can’t wait to get cracking.”

I think it would be healthier for Doctor Who if Ms Coleman was on board from the start. Fresh blood is always good for the series and the sooner the better…

The Amy/River storyline has run its course. It made the last series drag and spoilt some otherwise interesting episodes. I’m tired of hearing the Doctor being called “Sweetie” and sick of the repetition of the oh-so-internet savvy “spoilers”. However, these tedious expressions are to be given yet another airing. More imagination is required.

I suspect Amy will go on Christmas Day, midway through the Seventh series, in yet another emotional tearjerker! The relief of not having to listen to actress Karen Gillan preface almost every other sentence with “I have to say” anymore, on Doctor Who Confidential, will be a most welcome present!!

Getting shirty

Towards the end of the recent F1 season, motor-racing pundit Eddie Jordan purchased a pink/maroon-coloured Indian shirt, which he duly wore at said country’s Grand Prix. Later, he decided to auction the garment as part of Children In Need, having persuaded various dignitaries, including a visiting Sir Paul McCartney, to sign it, albeit rather scruffily. I don’t know how much the item of clothing fetched, or even if it was sold at all, as I didn’t watch the evening’s ‘entertainment’, despite the dubious draw of a Doctor Who sketch! The prospect of sitting through continuity tarts Tess Daly, Fearne Cotton and Alesha Dixon, for such an exhausting amount of time, held absolutely no appeal. I have occasionally wondered what became of Eddie’s shirt. Who would want such an item? What would they do with it once safely installed in their wardrobe? Would it have been laundered before leaving the confines of the BBC? It got me to thinking maybe other celebs should go down the same route, if they haven’t already, and would I be interested in purchasing any of their apparel?

As readers of this Journal are no doubt aware, I’m a fairly enthusiastic fan of Doctor Who! However, I’ve no interest in wearing David Tennant’s trench coat, even if it might make me look a little like Blade Runner’s Rick Deckard! I’m not particularly partial to bow ties either, even if they do possess a certain sartorial elegance! And maybe Chris Eccleston’s leather attire is better suited to The Stranglers’ Jean Jacques Burnel. Some of Billie Piper’s outfits, though, are a different matter. I wasn’t overly impressed with how she was dressed, on most occasions, but a few times they got it just right. I would’ve liked to have seen the white t-shirt she wore in Dalek, or the Union Jack one she wore in the Blitz two-parter, up for grabs. Even the orange affair Rose donned in the Olympic torch episode would be a welcome addition to any admirer’s collection! I wonder what became of the costumes after she left the series, when, presumably, the programme had no further use for them? I don’t recall seeing them at any of the programme’s exhibitions…

The thing is how far do you go when selling off a high-profile star’s clothing? There must be some out there who wouldn’t mind getting their hands on the thong Billie is wearing at the close of The Satan Pit, the backside of which is clearly visible over the top of her jeans on her return to the TARDIS. Others might prefer the thong which makes itself noticeable in the Doctor Who Confidential episode that accompanies Rose’s final regular appearance on the show. The problem is that these items probably belong to her rather than the BBC and she might not want to part with them. It’s all purely hypothetical as it’s quite likely these flimsy little pieces of cloth are probably long gone, worn out after frequent use… replaced by whatever is the latest fashion in these things. Doctor Who fans are mad. Graham Norton said so, so it must be true. I wouldn’t want to contradict his expectations so, if the described items no longer exist, I’d be quite happy acquiring the white bra our Billie is wearing in the above picture, even though she undoubtedly looks far better in it than I ever could!

Cottage industry

The following post contains strong language, good grammar, perfect punctuation, and a superfluous sub-clause, I have to say! But when the BBC precede a programme with the announcement - or warning - that it includes strong language, the corporation invariably means swearing, what most people call bad language. Strong is used as a euphemism. Broadcasters do not wish to imply, before it has even begun, that the drama on which viewers are about to invest their time may be poorly written! Strong language, taken literally, is more likely to be found in the work of Dickens, Hardy and Shakespeare than it is in the latest BBC or Channel 4 offering set on a housing estate. Yet I consider Dennis Potter to be television’s all-time greatest writer, and he used ‘vulgar’ vocabulary, likely to upset the late Mrs Whitehouse and all like-minded folk, on a fairly frequent basis. Lipstick On Your Collar opens with a character proclaiming, out of sheer boredom with his mundane job at the war office, “Bum-holes! Bum-holes, say I, in the plural!!”. This, no doubt, seemed shocking at the time of its first transmission, although it certainly grabbed your attention, but, now, not many would bat an eyelid. The passage of time has eroded resistance to left-field literary ideas. In the third instalment of Fry’s Planet Word, entitled Uses And Abuses, originally shown on BBC2 on 9th October, Stephen Fry explored the benefits of so-called bad language, finding out from Brian Blessed how swearing can help relieve pain, and discussed, with Armando Iannucci and Omid Djalili, its power in comedy. I, myself, have found that ‘letting rip’ at key moments is certainly a great reliever of stress! And, if you want to read that the wrong way, be my guest!!

There is, perhaps, only one taboo swearword left in broadcasting and that is the word cunt. Fuck has become acceptable despite many still hating it. I can remember the first broadcast, on ITV, of Alien in which Ripley exclaims, “We’ll trap it in the airlock and blow it the fuck into space!”. “The fuck” was edited out as offensive and ultimately unnecessary whereas, these days, the film is shown complete. The original Terminator has Linda Hamilton sweatily cry out, “You’re terminated, motherfucker!”. This doesn’t seem to me to be out of place. The android has come back through time to kill the mother before she gives birth to the future saviour of mankind and is, as it’s about to be crushed into oblivion, as Linda describes and not in the least gratuitous. But, considering the amount of fuss when Jeremy Hunt’s surname was mispronounced recently, on two separate occasions, how will the powers that be treat the Andy Serkis comedy-horror The Cottage when the time arrives for its initial terrestrial transmission? It concerns the attempts of two estranged brothers, after a successful abduction, to ransom a gangster’s daughter, Tracey, played with an enormous amount of enthusiasm by Jennifer Ellison. The problem with the movie, for any potential broadcaster, is that the girl in question has the ultimate potty mouth. She is gagged for a reason! Once the gag is removed everyone under the sun is a fucking cunt. She’s bright but aggressive with it, breaking the nose of one of the brothers with a head-butt for staring at her breasts. Can’t say as I blame him! But Jen seems to relish the opportunity to give it all she’s got, in her best Liverpudlian accent, and some critics have claimed she steals the show. Maybe the movie would’ve been better titled The Curse Of The Cottage!

Adventures of a lifetime

And so the final episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures was transmitted on Tuesday afternoon at 5.15pm on the CBBC channel. Part Two of The Man Who Never Was completed the curtailed run of the Fifth Season. There was talk that the series might continue without its leading lady. It’s happened before. Blake’s 7 survived, after the departure of Gareth Thomas, as did Taggart, on the death of Mark McManus. But the BBC finally took the opportunity to pull the plug. Credit to Russell T Davies, who fought hard to keep the show on air when it was threatened with cancellation earlier in its life. I believe the BBC took some persuading to make the show in the first place. Bringing back a character, popular in the Seventies, to front a programme aimed primarily at twelve to fourteen-year-olds doesn’t seem like an obvious choice! But it seemed to work, though, in real life, one would no doubt question the motives of a sixty-year-old woman hanging out with a bunch of school children, even if some of the children in question did look as though they were in their early twenties themselves! Yasmin Paige, as Maria Jackson, and then Anjli Mohindra, as Rani Chandra, certainly gave the adventures in which they appeared that additional bounce! But The Sarah Jane Adventures belonged to the late Elisabeth Sladen and, in the present economic climate, it is unlikely we shall see its kind again in the foreseeable future.

It’s a shame really. Programmes such as The Sarah Jane Adventures were commonplace once upon a time. Everyone took them for granted. ITV were always trying to create a winning formula with which they could rival Doctor Who in the mid-to-late Sixties and throughout the Seventies. For the most part, they were as successful. The obvious examples are the string, no pun intended, of hugely popular-to-this-day Gerry Anderson puppet series. They began in the Fifties, of course, but took off when Gerry and then-wife Sylvia turned their hands to science fiction. Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons, Joe 90 and The Secret Service were all hugely exciting. Live action series were equally as popular. Sexton Blake, Freewheelers, Timeslip, Ace Of Wands and The Tomorrow People all left their mark, as did UFO and Space: 1999 when the Andersons put Supermarionation behind them. Peter Davison’s first acting role was in The Tomorrow People, up against the very series he would eventually helm! We’ve seen their like since. The Demon Headmaster and Moondial were two such. Ironically, other than Sarah Jane, the last were Dark Season and Century Falls in the early Nineties, both excellently written by Russell T Davies. Children are being sold short without such fantasy stimulation, and televisual creativity will suffer further because of the demise of this genre!

Strictly Confidential

As the Prime Minister sups on another glass of claret to accompany a not inexpensive joint of roast lamb, and as the rich keep getting richer by not carrying loose change, and while the poorer among us deliberate over whether or not to invest in a six-pack of crisps (cheese and onion flavour), the future of broadcasting is being decided over at the BBC. You might think this a more mundane matter but, despite the country teetering on the brink of financial ruin, the impact of programming on the nation’s health and wellbeing should not be underestimated. My father has been trying to persuade me to indulge in a more modern television, one that doesn’t drift out of tune five minutes into a programme and every few minutes thereafter, one that actually comes complete with a SCART socket! He’s even offered to purchase the thing for me. My thoughts, however, have been leaning towards chucking the old set out and not bothering to replace it. Why, you might be inclined to ask? The answer is simple. Quality drama is in decline. We’ve been told the 20% cuts, to be implemented by the BBC between now and 2017, will hardly be noticed. Unless you’re a totally casual viewer, this simply isn’t true. I’ve been noticing it all year, even prior to the recent announcement, and the axing of BBC Three’s Doctor Who Confidential, at the end of last month, is not an inducement to my continued support.

Added to the demise of Confidential is the knowledge that Doctor Who itself will not be returning until the Autumn of next year. The next series will again be split in two so that the second half will not actually see the light of day until the Spring of 2013. In other words, one series spread over two years. And, all this as the programme approaches its Fiftieth Anniversary in November 2013. Presumably, this will mean next year’s Christmas Special is sandwiched between the two halves of the Seventh Series. All in all, the proposed schedule means less new content than was broadcast over 2008 and 2009 when the Fourth Series was followed by a handful of specials. Doctor Who fans should’ve got rid of their television sets back in 1989 when the show was quietly cancelled following the furore of four years earlier. The resulting accumulative-reduction in license income would’ve forced the BBC to rethink their strategy and reinstate the programme forthwith. Thus, consequently, there would not have been a sixteen-year hiatus. Then, perhaps, the series might still be more like it used to be! Money is tight, I know, unless you’re a politician or banker, but you can rest assured that Strictly Come Dancing will return year after year, budget intact, regular as clockwork, to appease all upstanding simpletons! The only Come Dancing I want to hear is by The Kinks!!

Holly’s humongous hooters!

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I am of course referring in my post title to the inordinate amount of maternity leave taken recently by Holly Willoughby from ITV1’s flagship weekday magazine programme This Morning. I mean, what a hoot! You’ve got to hand it to her… the sheer audacity of the woman. She managed to conceive the child so that her time off ‘work’, post childbirth, would run straight into her summer break. Talk about having it made. And, presumably, all the time she would be on a retainer. How else can you account for the fact that, every show, she looks as though she’s stepped straight from a clothing catalogue? Every edition, a different outfit - each designed to show off her assets! If only all mothers had the luxury of being paid to bring up a family on money that’s ostensibly for presenting a television series. I’m sure there isn’t a person in the world who wouldn’t love a similar, all-expenses-paid, protracted holiday!

Holly Willoughby isn’t the first television ‘personality’ to hustle herself some extended paid leave. Natasha Kaplinsky pulled the same trick on Channel 5. No sooner had she acquired the plum position of presenting the early evening news than she, too, took maternity leave. Following her return to work, she ‘fell’ pregnant again and needed more time away. After delivering her second child, she quit her post as the station’s news anchor having presented hardly anything while on the job, so to speak! And, now, Jenni Falconer’s at it! This onetime GMTV presenter filled in on This Morning for Willobooby, as idiot Keith Lemon refers to her (I wonder what’s the key to Holly’s success?!), during her time out. I imagine Falconer will also return, in her case to the BBC’s lottery-presenting game - once the services of a nanny have been acquired. I recommend Alan Sugar, or at least someone with similar inclinations, head one or other of these broadcasting corporations in order to stamp out the abuse of such privileges! Ask these women, before they’re offered a prestigious post in live media, if they intend having a family.

And what are Holly’s qualifications to front This Morning anyway, pregnant or otherwise? Like her co-presenter, Phillip Schofield, she started out in children’s television. Nothing wrong with that except it doesn’t necessarily make you a serious journalist! Some of the subjects that arise on the programme make her unsuitable for the job. She can deal with the fluff alright. She’s in her element discussing all the latest soap updates or X Factor shite. But when it comes to dealing with serious stories like serial killer Fred West or interviewing nurse Rebecca Leighton in connection with saline poisoning, Holly hardly says boo to a goose. Schofield isn’t much better, to be honest, desperately attempting a grim expression while Booby checks to see if her tits are still there! There’s almost a sense of relief when the programme repeats the competition for the umpteenth boring time. Treating the viewer with a considerable degree of respect, to help ‘steal’ the cash required to pay the presenters’ inflated salaries, a question is patronisingly posed for which you might win the princely sum of £25,000 (for the price of a premium rate phone call!)… Who has the biggest breasts on daytime television - is it A) Jeremy Kyle, B) Matthew Wright, or C) Holly Willoughby?

Release Roderick!

You don’t have to have a speech impediment to work at the BBC but it sure-as-hell helps! Replacing the letter r with a w is not necessarily a bad thing though. It’s definitely an attention grabber when done with alliteration. And, if the presenter with the problem delivers the script with boundless enthusiasm, they’ve almost certainly got it made. One such, at the present time, is Dr Lucy Worsley. She’s a diminutive historian who has just completed a three-part BBC Four series entitled Elegance And Decadence: The Age Of The Regency, detailing how British culture was transformed in the early 19th century. We’ve learnt about Britain’s construction boom, following the defeat of Napoleon, and heard the gossip which led to a backlash against the Prince Regent’s excesses… and all to a soundtrack including The Stranglers’ Nice ‘N’ Sleazy in the second instalment!

But it was the trailer for Elegance And Decadence: The Age Of The Regency which initially caught the attention. It’s not just that said trailer has been played to death but whoever wrote it categorically set out to exploit poor little Lucy’s lisp! Why else would they ask her to say, “Britannia really did rule the waves” knowing it would air again, and again, and again! She’s cute but I suspect she’s a no-nonsense lady who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. A big fan of Jane Austen, Lucy soon put one interviewee in his place, pointing out the camera was still rolling when he started to flirt with her. Then there was the Royal Mail coachman who called her “love” as if she’d just boarded a number sixty-nine bus!

To complement Dr Lucy’s show, BBC Four elected to repeat The Romantics, another three-parter, presented by Peter Ackroyd and detailing the effects of literature on historical movements. Each episode was illustrated liberally with the lyricism of Lord Byron, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley played by the likes of David Threlfall, a million miles away from Frank Gallagher, and TARDIS incumbent-in-waiting David Tennant. Peter, like Dr Worsley, ‘suffers’ from a speech defect, though, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me saying, I don’t find him as alluring as the lovely Lucy. But he delivers with a great deal of panache, worthy of one of the great romantic poets himself, repeatedly gazing off into the middle distance - not unlike Derek Thompson’s Charlie in numerous episodes of Casualty!

One right, royal, pain in the arse I’m glad to see the back of from the BBC is Jonathan Ross. He’s defected to ITV, claiming he was at the peak of his game when earning six million at the Beeb. What game was that, Wossy? Duping the license payer into watching non-interviews in order to fund a telephone habit? Every time I read anything about him, the article always mentions Andrew Sachs. And, I’ve just mentioned him too! JR’s first show on ITV1 gained ‘respectable’ ratings, though, back in the day, Doctor Who was cancelled for achieving its lowest-ever viewing figures with approximately the same figure, a little over four million. Ross’s numbers can only decline hereon in, especially after the deadly-dull interview in which Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton revealed his girlfriend, ex-MoggyDoll front woman Nicole ScarySinger, squeals especially for him! Whoopee!!

Let’s Stick Together

When it comes to relationships, television - and the BBC in particular - is obsessed with two diametrically opposite aspects. One was laboriously regurgitated, for the umpteenth time, in last week’s seventh episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. Russell T Davies has his agenda, which he will doggedly pursue to the end of days, that isn’t helping his cause, either as writer or in terms of sexual orientation, in any way whatsoever. Eighties’ Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner was homosexual but didn’t insist on forcing it down our throats, if you’ll pardon the expression, at every available opportunity! All RTD is doing is, metaphorically, boring the pants off everyone by carping on about it and, yes, I know the episode in question wasn’t actually written by him! And, yes, I’m fully aware the instalment was authored by a woman! Similarly, the BBC’s other preoccupation, concerning affairs of the human heart, is about to be foisted upon us, yet again, in a dramatisation of the recent Royal Wedding. Ex-Spooks actor, and one of the many stars of the superlative BBC adaptation of Dickens’ Little Dorrit, Matthew Macfadyen will play heir to the throne HRH Prince William. Ex-EastEnder, though still a Bionic Woman in my eyes, Michelle Ryan will slip into the shoes, if not the smaller brassiere, of Kate Middleton while Rowan Atkinson, assuming he has made a full recovery from his recent motoring accident, will once again attend the Royal Court… this time as best man Prince Harry!!

Alright! It’s a tissue of lies. I made it all up! The BBC aren’t spending any more of the licence payers’ hard-earned reminding us how certain wealthy sectors of the population choose to overindulge. The Royal Wedding reputedly cost fifty-three million pounds which makes the five million smackers that Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone spent on his daughter Petra’s nuptials seem like chicken feed. I do think spending £4,000 per bottle of wine is obscene though. Apparently, both Fergies were there! The ex-Royal, who wasn’t invited to the Royal Wedding, and the female member of Vengaboys sound-alike pop combo The Black Eyed Peas. Stacey and the boys were paid a whopping one-and-a-half million to perform whereas Sarah was the one who could’ve probably done with the cash. Instead, she had to make do with emulating her eldest daughter’s performance at the earlier bash by turning up in another silly hat… presumably! Even the rather feisty Mels, in this week’s opening episode of Doctor Who, lied (or did she?) claiming not to “do” weddings when we all know the series, and its two spin-offs, is obsessed with them. I won’t bore you all to buggery by recounting every single occasion we’ve seen a white meringue in the last seven years. If, in the series finale, the Daleks unexpectedly trundle through the vestry door, and gatecrash The Wedding Of River Song crying ex-ter-mi-nate, then it’ll all have been worth the wait!