01. Fury From The Deep - Patrick Troughton
02. The Invasion - Patrick Troughton
03. The Evil Of The Daleks - Patrick Troughton
04. The Web Of Fear - Patrick Troughton
05. The Tomb Of The Cybermen - Patrick Troughton
06. The Power Of The Daleks - Patrick Troughton
07. The Dalek Invasion Of Earth - William Hartnell
08. The Daleks - William Hartnell
09. The Caves Of Androzani - Peter Davison
10. Revelation Of The Daleks - Colin Baker
11. The Curse Of Fenric - Sylvester McCoy
12. The Greatest Show In The Galaxy - Sylvester McCoy
13. The Mind Of Evil - Jon Pertwee
14. Inferno - Jon Pertwee
15. Genesis Of The Daleks - Tom Baker
16. The Ice Warriors - Patrick Troughton
17. The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit - David Tennant
18. The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances - Christopher Eccleston
19. Ghost Light - Sylvester McCoy
20. Remembrance Of The Daleks - Sylvester McCoy
21. The Ambassadors Of Death - Jon Pertwee
22. Doctor Who And The Silurians - Jon Pertwee
23. The Seeds Of Death - Patrick Troughton
24. The Moonbase - Patrick Troughton
25. Asylum Of The Daleks - Matt Smith
26. The Wheel In Space - Patrick Troughton
27. The Two Doctors - Colin Baker
28. Frontios - Peter Davison
29. Planet Of Giants - William Hartnell
30. Dalek - Christopher Eccleston
31. Blink - David Tennant
32. Delta And The Bannermen - Sylvester McCoy
33. The Daemons - Jon Pertwee
34. The Talons Of Weng-Chiang - Tom Baker
35. Vengeance On Varos - Colin Baker
36. Attack Of The Cybermen - Colin Baker
37. Resurrection Of The Daleks - Peter Davison
38. The Unquiet Dead - Christopher Eccleston
39. Planet Of The Dead - David Tennant
40. Daleks In Manhattan/Evolution Of The Daleks - David Tennant
41. The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People - Matt Smith
42. Planet Of The Ood - David Tennant
43. The Doctor's Daughter - David Tennant
44. Amy's Choice - Matt Smith
45. Midnight - David Tennant
46. Survival - Sylvester McCoy
47. The Sea Devils - Jon Pertwee
48. The Tenth Planet - William Hartnell
49. The Abominable Snowmen - Patrick Troughton
50. Earthshock - Peter Davison
Favourite Eras - based on the above list
01. Patrick Troughton - 402 points
02. Sylvester McCoy - 166 points
03. Jon Pertwee - 156 points
04. William Hartnell - 112 points
05. David Tennant - 100 points
06. Colin Baker - 96 points
07. Peter Davison - 80 points
08. Christopher Eccleston - 67 points
09. Tom Baker - 53 points
10. Matt Smith - 43 points
A special one-off drama about the creation of Doctor Who has been commissioned to mark the programme's 50th anniversary. An Adventure In Space And Time will tell the story of the genesis of the BBC science-fiction series in the early 1960s. "This is the tale of how an unlikely set of brilliant people created a true television original," said its writer Mark Gatiss. The 90-minute production will air on BBC Two next year.
Showing posts with label Matt Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matt Smith. Show all posts
Friday, 23 November 2012
Wednesday, 4 July 2012
Keeping it in the family
Mother and daughter Dame Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling are to star side-by-side in a Doctor Who adventure to be broadcast next year. Dame Diana is probably still best known for her role as high-kicking Mrs Emma Peel in two seasons of The Avengers during the Sixties. She has, of course, done much since including starring opposite James Wilby in the memorable BBC psychological drama Mother Love. She also played Lady Dedlock, to excellent effect, in the 1985 version of Bleak House, as well as appearing alongside Charles Dance and Emilia Fox in ITV’s adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. Rachael, on the other hand, achieved notoriety appearing alongside Keeley Hawes in lesbian drama Tipping The Velvet and has more recently been seen in the BBC Four retelling of DH Lawrence’s Women In Love (pictured) and its prequel The Rainbow. It is the first time the pair have worked together on screen. The actresses will play “a mother and daughter with a dark secret” up against Matt Smith’s Doctor and new companion Jenna-Louise Coleman. Filming of the story began this week at Roath Lock Studios in Cardiff.
Meanwhile, over on the other side, Matt’s immediate Time Lord predecessor David Tennant will play a detective in new drama Broadchurch, about the death of a young boy in a seaside town, ITV1 has announced. The eight-part series has been penned by Doctor Who and Torchwood writer Chris Chibnall. He wrote the real-time episode 42 in which David’s Doctor had to prevent a spaceship from crashing into the Sun and, more recently, the two-part Silurian adventure for Matt’s Doctor. Tennant leads an ensemble cast featuring Rev actress Olivia Colman and Will Mellor, best known for the interminable Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps and, latterly, White Van Man although, to his credit, he did once appear in an early episode of Merlin! Arthur Darvill, who plays current Doctor Who Matt Smith’s sidekick Rory, will appear as the town priest. See what I mean about keeping it in the family? Nepotism just ain’t what it used to be! Still, something to look forward to on the independent channel, bearing in mind that the much-delayed transmission of the fifth season of Primeval, screening at a ridiculously early time, is currently ITV1’s best show!!
Meanwhile, over on the other side, Matt’s immediate Time Lord predecessor David Tennant will play a detective in new drama Broadchurch, about the death of a young boy in a seaside town, ITV1 has announced. The eight-part series has been penned by Doctor Who and Torchwood writer Chris Chibnall. He wrote the real-time episode 42 in which David’s Doctor had to prevent a spaceship from crashing into the Sun and, more recently, the two-part Silurian adventure for Matt’s Doctor. Tennant leads an ensemble cast featuring Rev actress Olivia Colman and Will Mellor, best known for the interminable Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps and, latterly, White Van Man although, to his credit, he did once appear in an early episode of Merlin! Arthur Darvill, who plays current Doctor Who Matt Smith’s sidekick Rory, will appear as the town priest. See what I mean about keeping it in the family? Nepotism just ain’t what it used to be! Still, something to look forward to on the independent channel, bearing in mind that the much-delayed transmission of the fifth season of Primeval, screening at a ridiculously early time, is currently ITV1’s best show!!
Monday, 21 May 2012
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!
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!
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.
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.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
Breaking the silence
I haven’t written about Doctor Who in this Journal for three months. I’ve not even mentioned the programme in passing! Give the man a medal!! With the second half of Series Six fast approaching, it’s perhaps time to take a little look at the present state of affairs. I wasn’t happy with the cliff-hangers of the last two episodes. Why? After a terrific and traditional two-part story in which The Doctor advocated living in harmony alongside our Doppelgänger cousins, just as he’d done in Doctor Who And The Silurians in 1970, he whipped out his sonic screwdriver and reduced Amy to sludge. The Time Lord had suspected that, for the last half-dozen episodes, his long-standing companion was a double, constantly checking to see whether or not the TARDIS registered her as pregnant. But, why couldn’t he practice what he’d been preaching… tolerance. Why couldn’t Doppelgänger Amy exist together with her flesh and blood counterpart? The audience was fobbed off with some lame excuse about transmitting signals. Confine her where this couldn’t happen would’ve been a more sensible solution but nowhere near as melodramatic as the shock value of seeing The Doctor seemingly bumping off his friend. Writer Matthew Graham, co-creator of Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes, was asked to add this ending by show runner Steven Moffat to lead into the mid-season finale but, for me, only succeeded in spoiling The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People.
And so to the cliff-hanger of Episode Seven, A Good Man Goes To War, in which we learn the real identity of River Song. She’s none other than Amy’s long-lost daughter, Melody Pond. Doctor Who had been building up to this revelation for some time. Ever since River was introduced in 2008, in Steven Moffat’s two-part story Silence In The Library and Forest Of The Dead, the writer has been teasing us as to her true persona. The resolution is a bit of a cheat, in all honesty, as Amy had yet to be introduced to Doctor Who at the time of her offspring’s inception in the series. Karen’s character was still two years away. It needed to be something that was already in the many and varied worlds of Doctor Who for an audience to be truly taken by surprise. Something connected to The Doctor himself would’ve been best, where it doesn’t matter that Matt’s Doctor was also two years away when River was inaugurated because, central to the concept, the Eleventh Doctor is the same character as the Tenth. Maybe the familial connection, now established as mother and daughter, is a red herring to throw the audience off the scent of a much greater surprise, yet to come over the next six episodes. I hope so because, as it stands, the big mid-season denouement was nothing short of pure soap opera, which wouldn’t have been out of place as the climax to an episode of EastEnders! I wonder when I’ll write about modern day Doctor Who again? Soon, all being well!
And so to the cliff-hanger of Episode Seven, A Good Man Goes To War, in which we learn the real identity of River Song. She’s none other than Amy’s long-lost daughter, Melody Pond. Doctor Who had been building up to this revelation for some time. Ever since River was introduced in 2008, in Steven Moffat’s two-part story Silence In The Library and Forest Of The Dead, the writer has been teasing us as to her true persona. The resolution is a bit of a cheat, in all honesty, as Amy had yet to be introduced to Doctor Who at the time of her offspring’s inception in the series. Karen’s character was still two years away. It needed to be something that was already in the many and varied worlds of Doctor Who for an audience to be truly taken by surprise. Something connected to The Doctor himself would’ve been best, where it doesn’t matter that Matt’s Doctor was also two years away when River was inaugurated because, central to the concept, the Eleventh Doctor is the same character as the Tenth. Maybe the familial connection, now established as mother and daughter, is a red herring to throw the audience off the scent of a much greater surprise, yet to come over the next six episodes. I hope so because, as it stands, the big mid-season denouement was nothing short of pure soap opera, which wouldn’t have been out of place as the climax to an episode of EastEnders! I wonder when I’ll write about modern day Doctor Who again? Soon, all being well!
Monday, 6 December 2010
The Twelve Doctors
Actor Sylvester McCoy has said he would be keen to return to “Doctor Who” for its fiftieth anniversary.
McCoy, who played the seventh Doctor from 1987 to 1989 (his last regular appearance was twenty-one years ago to the day, on 6th December), said fans wanted a multi-Doctor story to mark the programme’s golden jubilee in 2013.
Sylvester, now 67, also suggested that earlier Doctors - played by actors who have since died - could be brought back using computer technology.
“They’ve got such imaginations, they could do anything,” McCoy added. “I was a lucky little fellow to get that job,” he concluded.
Cynics may suggest Sylvester could simply be “touting for business”, to quote “Revelation of the Daleks”, but I believe he was sincere in his proposal. He doesn’t necessarily need the work. He’s participating in an Evelyn Waugh stage production well into the New Year before heading off to New Zealand to work on Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit”. McCoy was actually down to the last two for the role of Bilbo Baggins in “The Lord of the Rings”. The other actor got it, and that was Ian Holm. Sylvester also continues to work on “Doctor Who” audio dramas so he’s keeping busy! He did once say that he shouldn’t have been in the 1996 American “Doctor Who” TV movie, not because he didn’t want to be but because they should’ve started afresh rather than change lead actors thirty minutes into the story! Introducing the concept of regeneration so early into a revamp, and to an American audience unfamiliar with the idea, was one of the reasons, he believed, the production ultimately failed. I’m curious to know how he thinks a multi-Doctor story might succeed…
And, I’m not sure how much truth there is in the notion that die-hard “Doctor Who” fans want a multi-Doctor story. They’ve not always been amongst the show’s most successful adventures. There were three official ones in the classic era of the series, “The Three Doctors”, “The Five Doctors” and “The Two Doctors” celebrating the tenth, twentieth and twenty-first anniversaries of the programme respectively. My favourite of these is the latter. It was skilfully written by Robert Holmes but let down by poor direction. Robert rejected authorship of the previous celebratory offering on the grounds that its spec included too many leading characters. While “The Five Doctors” might be fun, sharing the limelight with all your illustrious predecessors and numerous companions, and enemies, proved Holmes’s fears well-founded. “The Two Doctors” is more focused with fewer actors, and a longer playing time enables it to highlight the banter between the chosen incarnations, together with their respective companions, to greater effect. By the time we reach 2013, Matt Smith’s eleventh Doctor is likely to have regenerated into a twelfth and the problem, as Holmes saw it, will be all the more compounded.
McCoy, who played the seventh Doctor from 1987 to 1989 (his last regular appearance was twenty-one years ago to the day, on 6th December), said fans wanted a multi-Doctor story to mark the programme’s golden jubilee in 2013.
Sylvester, now 67, also suggested that earlier Doctors - played by actors who have since died - could be brought back using computer technology.
“They’ve got such imaginations, they could do anything,” McCoy added. “I was a lucky little fellow to get that job,” he concluded.
Cynics may suggest Sylvester could simply be “touting for business”, to quote “Revelation of the Daleks”, but I believe he was sincere in his proposal. He doesn’t necessarily need the work. He’s participating in an Evelyn Waugh stage production well into the New Year before heading off to New Zealand to work on Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit”. McCoy was actually down to the last two for the role of Bilbo Baggins in “The Lord of the Rings”. The other actor got it, and that was Ian Holm. Sylvester also continues to work on “Doctor Who” audio dramas so he’s keeping busy! He did once say that he shouldn’t have been in the 1996 American “Doctor Who” TV movie, not because he didn’t want to be but because they should’ve started afresh rather than change lead actors thirty minutes into the story! Introducing the concept of regeneration so early into a revamp, and to an American audience unfamiliar with the idea, was one of the reasons, he believed, the production ultimately failed. I’m curious to know how he thinks a multi-Doctor story might succeed…
And, I’m not sure how much truth there is in the notion that die-hard “Doctor Who” fans want a multi-Doctor story. They’ve not always been amongst the show’s most successful adventures. There were three official ones in the classic era of the series, “The Three Doctors”, “The Five Doctors” and “The Two Doctors” celebrating the tenth, twentieth and twenty-first anniversaries of the programme respectively. My favourite of these is the latter. It was skilfully written by Robert Holmes but let down by poor direction. Robert rejected authorship of the previous celebratory offering on the grounds that its spec included too many leading characters. While “The Five Doctors” might be fun, sharing the limelight with all your illustrious predecessors and numerous companions, and enemies, proved Holmes’s fears well-founded. “The Two Doctors” is more focused with fewer actors, and a longer playing time enables it to highlight the banter between the chosen incarnations, together with their respective companions, to greater effect. By the time we reach 2013, Matt Smith’s eleventh Doctor is likely to have regenerated into a twelfth and the problem, as Holmes saw it, will be all the more compounded.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
The Vital Statistics of “Doctor Who”
There’s interesting news for “Doctor Who” enthusiasts, as the television series approaches its forty-seventh anniversary, with the confirmation of a double world record for the programme…
“Doctor Who” star Matt Smith has been officially recognised as the youngest actor to take the role in the new edition of the Guinness World Records. The 2011 book also features another record for the hit show which is listed as the longest-running science-fiction TV series in the world. I’d never have guessed!
Smith, as we all know, made his debut as the Time Lord on New Year’s Day at the end of Part Two of “The End of Time” although, rather bizarrely I thought, his casting was announced in a special programme on BBC One almost a year earlier. He was just twenty-six when he filmed his first scenes last year, three years younger than Peter Davison.
“Doctor Who” has extended its own record for a lengthy run, having produced 769 episodes up to June of this year, consisting of 212 storylines plus a TV movie.
“Doctor Who” star Matt Smith has been officially recognised as the youngest actor to take the role in the new edition of the Guinness World Records. The 2011 book also features another record for the hit show which is listed as the longest-running science-fiction TV series in the world. I’d never have guessed!
Smith, as we all know, made his debut as the Time Lord on New Year’s Day at the end of Part Two of “The End of Time” although, rather bizarrely I thought, his casting was announced in a special programme on BBC One almost a year earlier. He was just twenty-six when he filmed his first scenes last year, three years younger than Peter Davison.
“Doctor Who” has extended its own record for a lengthy run, having produced 769 episodes up to June of this year, consisting of 212 storylines plus a TV movie.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
Shower Flower
Not so long ago, the Doctor, the eleventh Doctor to be precise, took up lodgings in order to sort out a bit of an alien problem on Earth, as you do! Wisely, he took the opportunity to avail himself of some of the amenities. I think he’d been playing football or something. So, our hero Matt was a bit sweaty, had mud on his knees, that sort of thing. What better way to freshen up, you might think, than to take a shower. Only problem was, when he got out the cubicle, who should he bump into but his landlord, the lesbian-loving, vampire-loving, bit-of-a-killer James Corden. Oh, dear! And all Mister Smith was wearing to protect his modesty was a towel!!
A similar thing happened to me, quite recently. I’d been driving round the track at Silverstone, one of my many manly pursuits in the quest to maintain a fit body. A hobby suggested to me by motor-racing pundit Eddie Jordan, no less. Anyway, like the good Doctor, I, too, was a little bit hot under the collar. Nothing else for it but to nip in the shower. Steaming hot, plenty of lather, soon cools you off and gets you clean. With not a care in the universe, I stepped out singing Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have Fallen in Love)”. You won’t believe it but guess who I bumped into? One thing’s for sure, I was so much luckier than Matt!
A similar thing happened to me, quite recently. I’d been driving round the track at Silverstone, one of my many manly pursuits in the quest to maintain a fit body. A hobby suggested to me by motor-racing pundit Eddie Jordan, no less. Anyway, like the good Doctor, I, too, was a little bit hot under the collar. Nothing else for it but to nip in the shower. Steaming hot, plenty of lather, soon cools you off and gets you clean. With not a care in the universe, I stepped out singing Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t Have Fallen in Love)”. You won’t believe it but guess who I bumped into? One thing’s for sure, I was so much luckier than Matt!
Thursday, 29 July 2010
If U Seek Amy
If you’ve been suffering from withdrawal symptoms since Series Five of “Doctor Who” finished just over a month go… if you didn’t get around to setting your VCR to record all the episodes on original transmission… if you haven’t purchased either of the currently available DVD vanilla releases or downloaded every episode in AVI format… then help is at hand…
BBC Three takes you right back to the beginning of the Matt Smith/Steven Moffat era of “Doctor Who” this coming Friday with “The Eleventh Hour”, continuing next Tuesday and Wednesday with the second and third episodes, “The Beast Below” and “Victory of the Daleks”. This is your first chance to see it all again, from the top, since “The Big Bang” drew to its strange-but-majestic conclusion at the end of June.
You’ll be able to wonder, like you did originally, just why the Eleventh Doctor believed Amy Pond to be a real WPC when she was wearing such non-regulatory uniform! And, dramatically, why did Karen Gillan have to slip into that impossibly-tight short skirt anyway? Viewing figures?!! I constantly keep abreast of them! So settle down with another plate of frozen fish fingers and custard… and enjoy!
BBC Three takes you right back to the beginning of the Matt Smith/Steven Moffat era of “Doctor Who” this coming Friday with “The Eleventh Hour”, continuing next Tuesday and Wednesday with the second and third episodes, “The Beast Below” and “Victory of the Daleks”. This is your first chance to see it all again, from the top, since “The Big Bang” drew to its strange-but-majestic conclusion at the end of June.
You’ll be able to wonder, like you did originally, just why the Eleventh Doctor believed Amy Pond to be a real WPC when she was wearing such non-regulatory uniform! And, dramatically, why did Karen Gillan have to slip into that impossibly-tight short skirt anyway? Viewing figures?!! I constantly keep abreast of them! So settle down with another plate of frozen fish fingers and custard… and enjoy!
Saturday, 17 July 2010
The Television Set
“Heartbeat” returns on Sunday evening for its final run of nine episodes to conclude its twenty-four part eighteenth series. Have no fear, this isn’t a post about to sing the praises of this easy-going show. Its demise has prompted Alison Graham, on page 51 of this week’s Radio Times, to claim that “the era of the long-running television drama is over”. In her conclusion she goes on to suggest that “maybe even “Doctor Who” should call it a day after another couple of series - there’s nothing like going out on a high”. I don’t actually think “Doctor Who” has reached anywhere near its full potential and could continue as long as there is the imagination and creativity to invent “new worlds and new civilisations”, to borrow a popular American slogan! Is Ms Graham suggesting that television drama, from here on, will become totally transient? I enjoy series with returning characters. It’s one of the reasons I prefer television to cinema.
What exactly constitutes long-running? I’ve often thought, in the back of my mind, if a series makes it to its seventh year then that show is a commercial success. Other folk may have different ideas. There are no hard and fast rules. American seasons have greater episode counts than their British counterparts. “Medium” is about to enter its seventh year of production, and seems to alternate between sixteen and twenty-two episode runs. It has reached the benchmark set by most of the series in the “Star Trek” franchise! Were “Doctor Who” to finish at the end of Matt Smith’s three-year run then Russell T Davies’s baby would achieve approximately the same. It would be a mistake for Alison Graham to assume that “Doctor Who” has been running since 1963. It was as good as off-air from the end of 1989 to early 2005. It was given a long rest and this new interpretation is but five years old. That’s not to say it won’t be rested again, when ratings eventually fall, only to be reincarnated again another day.
I’m not even sure I would’ve resurrected “Doctor Who” in the first place. It suggests a lack of new concepts and ideas where once there was an abundance. “Doctor Who” was a happy memory and RTD’s vision tainted it for me. I was forgiving when the original series presented weak stories where, now, I’m relentlessly unforgiving. Perhaps it’s because I’m older, more critical, cynical, and probably less accepting of writing that falls short. I’m a loyal personality, though, and will stand by the programme through hell and high water! I remember Alison Graham being a fan of “The Cops”, a short-lived, relentlessly grim, police drama. That appeals to one type of viewer while “Heartbeat” appeals to those who find pleasure in stories about something other than drugs and prostitution! Live and let live!! And, now that Nikki Sanderson has taken off Dawn Bellamy’s mini-skirt for the last time maybe the actress should consider joining the cast of “Doctor Who” before it’s too late!!!
What exactly constitutes long-running? I’ve often thought, in the back of my mind, if a series makes it to its seventh year then that show is a commercial success. Other folk may have different ideas. There are no hard and fast rules. American seasons have greater episode counts than their British counterparts. “Medium” is about to enter its seventh year of production, and seems to alternate between sixteen and twenty-two episode runs. It has reached the benchmark set by most of the series in the “Star Trek” franchise! Were “Doctor Who” to finish at the end of Matt Smith’s three-year run then Russell T Davies’s baby would achieve approximately the same. It would be a mistake for Alison Graham to assume that “Doctor Who” has been running since 1963. It was as good as off-air from the end of 1989 to early 2005. It was given a long rest and this new interpretation is but five years old. That’s not to say it won’t be rested again, when ratings eventually fall, only to be reincarnated again another day.
I’m not even sure I would’ve resurrected “Doctor Who” in the first place. It suggests a lack of new concepts and ideas where once there was an abundance. “Doctor Who” was a happy memory and RTD’s vision tainted it for me. I was forgiving when the original series presented weak stories where, now, I’m relentlessly unforgiving. Perhaps it’s because I’m older, more critical, cynical, and probably less accepting of writing that falls short. I’m a loyal personality, though, and will stand by the programme through hell and high water! I remember Alison Graham being a fan of “The Cops”, a short-lived, relentlessly grim, police drama. That appeals to one type of viewer while “Heartbeat” appeals to those who find pleasure in stories about something other than drugs and prostitution! Live and let live!! And, now that Nikki Sanderson has taken off Dawn Bellamy’s mini-skirt for the last time maybe the actress should consider joining the cast of “Doctor Who” before it’s too late!!!
Friday, 16 July 2010
In Time
Production started at the beginning of the week (Monday 12th July) on the 2010 “Doctor Who” BBC One Christmas Special in which the thrilling adventures of the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) and newlyweds Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) will continue in a fun-filled and heartfelt festive story.
In the grand tradition of “Doctor Who” Christmas specials, this year the show has once again attracted stellar guest stars as veteran actor Michael Gambon (“The Singing Detective”, “Cranford”) and mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, in her first acting role, join the Time Lord for what might be his most Christmassy adventure yet!
Arriving on set for her first day of filming, Katherine Jenkins said, “I’m over the moon to be involved in the “Doctor Who” Christmas Special - I can’t quite believe it as it’s a part of the family tradition at the Jenkins household. I heard the news that I got the role on my 30th birthday and it was the best birthday present ever!”
About the story, lead writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat, commented, “Oh, we’re going for broke with this one. It’s all your favourite Christmas movies at once, in an hour, with monsters and the Doctor and a honeymoon and - oh, you’ll see. I’ve honestly never been so excited about writing anything. I was laughing madly as I typed along to Christmas songs in April. My neighbours loved it so much they all moved away and set up a website demanding my execution. But I’m fairly sure they did it ironically.”
Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning, said, “Matt Smith and Karen Gillan captivated audiences in their debut series and the “Doctor Who” festive episode’s clever twist on the much loved “A Christmas Carol” will thrill BBC One viewers this year with special guest stars Sir Michael Gambon and singing sensation Katherine Jenkins joining Amy and the Doctor for an unforgettable present!”
Filming on this year’s “Doctor Who” Christmas Special continues until August.
In the grand tradition of “Doctor Who” Christmas specials, this year the show has once again attracted stellar guest stars as veteran actor Michael Gambon (“The Singing Detective”, “Cranford”) and mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins, in her first acting role, join the Time Lord for what might be his most Christmassy adventure yet!
Arriving on set for her first day of filming, Katherine Jenkins said, “I’m over the moon to be involved in the “Doctor Who” Christmas Special - I can’t quite believe it as it’s a part of the family tradition at the Jenkins household. I heard the news that I got the role on my 30th birthday and it was the best birthday present ever!”
About the story, lead writer and executive producer, Steven Moffat, commented, “Oh, we’re going for broke with this one. It’s all your favourite Christmas movies at once, in an hour, with monsters and the Doctor and a honeymoon and - oh, you’ll see. I’ve honestly never been so excited about writing anything. I was laughing madly as I typed along to Christmas songs in April. My neighbours loved it so much they all moved away and set up a website demanding my execution. But I’m fairly sure they did it ironically.”
Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning, said, “Matt Smith and Karen Gillan captivated audiences in their debut series and the “Doctor Who” festive episode’s clever twist on the much loved “A Christmas Carol” will thrill BBC One viewers this year with special guest stars Sir Michael Gambon and singing sensation Katherine Jenkins joining Amy and the Doctor for an unforgettable present!”
Filming on this year’s “Doctor Who” Christmas Special continues until August.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Return of the Rani!
The names of the six new narratives comprising Series Four of “The Sarah Jane Adventures”, as usual running over twelve episodes, have been detailed as follows…
4.1 & 4.2 “The Nightmare Man”
by Joseph Lidster
4.3 & 4.4 “The Vault of Secrets”
by Phil Ford
4.5 & 4.6 “Death of the Doctor”
by Russell T Davies
4.7 & 4.8 “The Empty Planet”
by Gareth Roberts
4.9 & 4.10 “Lost in Time”
by Rupert Laight
4.11 & 4.12 “Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith”
by Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman
The series is expected to be the biggest and best yet (don’t they always say that?), due to the support from CBBC, and hosts some brand new villains including The Nightmare Man, The Dark Horde, Men in Black, Tudors and Nazis!
Julian Bleach, who appeared in “Doctor Who” as Davros, two years ago, and previously played The Ghostmaker in “Torchwood”, guest stars in the opening story of “The Sarah Jane Adventures” as The Nightmare Man. This new character is rumoured to be his scariest villain to date (again, don’t they always say that?)!! Will Julian be the only actor to have appeared in all three titles?
4.1 & 4.2 “The Nightmare Man”
by Joseph Lidster
4.3 & 4.4 “The Vault of Secrets”
by Phil Ford
4.5 & 4.6 “Death of the Doctor”
by Russell T Davies
4.7 & 4.8 “The Empty Planet”
by Gareth Roberts
4.9 & 4.10 “Lost in Time”
by Rupert Laight
4.11 & 4.12 “Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith”
by Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman
The series is expected to be the biggest and best yet (don’t they always say that?), due to the support from CBBC, and hosts some brand new villains including The Nightmare Man, The Dark Horde, Men in Black, Tudors and Nazis!
Julian Bleach, who appeared in “Doctor Who” as Davros, two years ago, and previously played The Ghostmaker in “Torchwood”, guest stars in the opening story of “The Sarah Jane Adventures” as The Nightmare Man. This new character is rumoured to be his scariest villain to date (again, don’t they always say that?)!! Will Julian be the only actor to have appeared in all three titles?
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Warden’s Watch: Doctor Who - Series Five, Episodes One to Three
It’s “Doctor Who”, Tim, but not as we know it! The much-loved science fiction fairy tale is back and it’s still as beleaguered with problems as under its previous show-runner. On the plus side, gone are the gratuitous references to homosexuality which Russell T Davies forced upon his audience every episode - John Nathan-Turner was gay too, but didn’t see the series as the place to air a personal agenda - and, better still, gone are all the companions’ annoyingly-grating mothers. Rose, Donna, Martha - they all came with one! It’s already established, in “The Eleventh Hour”, that Amy’s parents are dead and that she lives with her aunt. We’ve never had that before in “Doctor Who”! I was also hoping new Executive Producer Steven Moffat would drop the season-umbrella idea, so poorly realised previously with Bad Wolf, Torchwood and Saxon, and keep the stories self-contained. But the crack in the wall in the first episode and again this week, at the end of “Victory of the Daleks”, coupled with Amy’s lack of memory concerning the events of “The Stolen Earth” suggest these ideas are the running themes of Series Five.
Upon his arrival, Mister Moffat indicated a desire for all things new. New Doctor, new short-skirted rather than trouser-wearing companion, ghastly new opening titles in which the actors names are almost unreadable, terribly uninspired new logo, the worst arrangement of the theme tune ever, new - better than the last one - TARDIS console room, new lick of paint for the old Police Box, and now five new impressively-oversized individually-coloured Daleks! But all these things are cosmetic. It doesn’t really matter that much which actor plays the Doctor, ask Tom Baker! What you really need are superbly-written scripts and both “The Beast Below” and the Dalek extravaganza were too short for their good ideas to be fully realised. We’ve been landed with the same format, ten stories over thirteen episodes, when we’d be better off with just six stories over those same thirteen instalments. The classic series’ four-parters were ideal in length, structured a bit like a traditional symphony. If you want superficial then forty minutes is fine but, if you’re looking for substantial, one hour forty minutes is preferable. There was never any need for this change in format when the programme originally returned in 2005. The one thing they should’ve retained they threw out with the bath water!
The “new” Executive Producer has held onto those blessed stallholders much beloved of RTD. We met them in “The Long Game”, we met them in “Gridlock”, we met them in “The Fires of Pompeii” and again in “Turn Left”, and up they popped most recently onboard the Starship UK. These villains return more often than the Daleks! The stallholder, one of many ideas “borrowed” from the JN-T era, was better realised by Peggy Mount in “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy”. Then there’s the obligatory gunk-tank, splattering all and sundry, firstly whenever there’s a Slitheen around, next getting messy in the canteen kitchen in “School Reunion”, and now hurtling down a tube into slime onboard, yes you’ve guessed it, the Starship UK! And where are the Doctor’s table manners? Compare the Tenth Doctor’s eating habits in “The Unicorn and the Wasp” with those of his successor in “The Eleventh Hour”. Both very very mucky!!! I did admire how writer Mark Gatiss managed to cram all three best things from Christopher Eccleston’s single year into a single episode, namely an historical figure, new-look Dalek and Blitz-ravaged London. Churchill was fun, the pepper pots buggered off too quickly and the Second World War setting always works in “Doctor Who”… just watch “The Curse of Fenric”!
Upon his arrival, Mister Moffat indicated a desire for all things new. New Doctor, new short-skirted rather than trouser-wearing companion, ghastly new opening titles in which the actors names are almost unreadable, terribly uninspired new logo, the worst arrangement of the theme tune ever, new - better than the last one - TARDIS console room, new lick of paint for the old Police Box, and now five new impressively-oversized individually-coloured Daleks! But all these things are cosmetic. It doesn’t really matter that much which actor plays the Doctor, ask Tom Baker! What you really need are superbly-written scripts and both “The Beast Below” and the Dalek extravaganza were too short for their good ideas to be fully realised. We’ve been landed with the same format, ten stories over thirteen episodes, when we’d be better off with just six stories over those same thirteen instalments. The classic series’ four-parters were ideal in length, structured a bit like a traditional symphony. If you want superficial then forty minutes is fine but, if you’re looking for substantial, one hour forty minutes is preferable. There was never any need for this change in format when the programme originally returned in 2005. The one thing they should’ve retained they threw out with the bath water!
The “new” Executive Producer has held onto those blessed stallholders much beloved of RTD. We met them in “The Long Game”, we met them in “Gridlock”, we met them in “The Fires of Pompeii” and again in “Turn Left”, and up they popped most recently onboard the Starship UK. These villains return more often than the Daleks! The stallholder, one of many ideas “borrowed” from the JN-T era, was better realised by Peggy Mount in “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy”. Then there’s the obligatory gunk-tank, splattering all and sundry, firstly whenever there’s a Slitheen around, next getting messy in the canteen kitchen in “School Reunion”, and now hurtling down a tube into slime onboard, yes you’ve guessed it, the Starship UK! And where are the Doctor’s table manners? Compare the Tenth Doctor’s eating habits in “The Unicorn and the Wasp” with those of his successor in “The Eleventh Hour”. Both very very mucky!!! I did admire how writer Mark Gatiss managed to cram all three best things from Christopher Eccleston’s single year into a single episode, namely an historical figure, new-look Dalek and Blitz-ravaged London. Churchill was fun, the pepper pots buggered off too quickly and the Second World War setting always works in “Doctor Who”… just watch “The Curse of Fenric”!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
