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.

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?

Chris talks about Who exit

Actor Christopher Eccleston quit “Doctor Who” after one series because he “didn’t enjoy the environment and the culture” of the show.

Eccleston, who is about to star in BBC Four biopic “Lennon Naked”, took on the role of the Time Lord when Russell T Davies revamped “Doctor Who” in 2005.

He told the Radio Times he was proud of the show but “wasn’t comfortable” working on it.

“I think it’s more important to be your own man than be successful, so I left.” Rumours, at the time, suggested Chris had had a huge falling out with one of the directors!

Christopher Eccleston has also said he has no jealousy towards his former “Our Friends in the North” co-star Daniel Craig, who made it big as James Bond.

Eccleston said: “No, really there wasn’t. You wouldn’t cast me as Bond physically. The sexual charisma that Dan has was a huge part of it.

“And I’m a different animal. I saw him on those billboards and it was a great feeling.

“I was an obsessive Bond fan as a kid. I loved the Sean Connery Bond and Dan is just as good. Fantastic.”

Eccleston will next be seen on TV playing John Lennon, whom he called a showman, but a cripple inside. “Torchwood” and “Absolutely Fabulous” actress Naoko Mori, whom Chris has worked with previously on the “Doctor Who” episode “Aliens of London”, features as Yoko Ono.

Elsewhere, “Doctor Who” star Karen Gillan has hit back at the “uproar” over her character Amy Pond’s sexy clothing - saying feminism was not the issue any more.

Gillan said Amy did not conform to a simple “girl next door” formula - and her short skirts were typical of what young women like to wear (no contradiction there then, Karen).

The 22-year-old told the Radio Times Amy was a “strong female” who would not stand around in awe of the Doctor.

She said the relationship between Amy and the Doctor was one of equals - and she liked the fact that Amy was the one who sometimes drove the plot with her own storylines.

The NICOLA BRYANT Years 1984-86

Most of my favourite “Doctor Who” companions hail from the 1960s. Carole Ann Ford was the original, back in 1963. She played Susan Foreman, the Doctor’s granddaughter, over the first ten stories. In her final story, “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, the Doctor told her she was in need of a good smacked bottom. Perhaps that’s why she left! Anneke Wills personified dolly bird Polly, who saw Hartnell regenerate into Troughton. Poor old Pat didn’t know what hit him when she wore a t-shirt to rehearsals with the slogan “Bring back Bill” emblazoned across her chest!! When Anneke left the series to marry “The Celestial Toymaker” Michael Gough, whom some of you may know better as Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred, her immediate successor was Deborah Watling. As Victoria Waterfield, she was adopted by the Doctor when her father was exterminated in “The Evil of the Daleks”. She left for a spot of rumpy-pumpy with David Essex in “That’ll Be the Day”!!! And, last but not least, the diminutive Wendy Padbury played squeaky-voiced computer boffin Zoë. Between takes, Padders took the occasional nap until, one day, Doctor Pat and Jamie-actor Frazer Hines decided to undo her skirt, in a church, with disastrous consequences when she woke and stood up to greet the incumbent vicar!!!!

I say “most of my favourites” because the exception to the rule is Nicola Bryant. Peri Brown joined the TARDIS crew, two decades later, in the mid-1980s. And what an entrance! Many fans assume she spent her entire time on “Doctor Who” in a bikini because of the first episode of her debut adventure, “Planet of Fire”. However, it is true that she spent some of her time in tightly fitting leotards and hot pants! In “Attack of the Cybermen” she sports a nice little bright-pink number until the Cybermen come over all caring and suggest she change into something a little warmer, more suitable for the cold climes of the tombs on Telos. Luckily, Nabil Shaban’s Sil wasn’t as thoughtful on Varos! Here Peri dons a super little bright-blue outfit for the entire serial. A couple of stories later, while opposing Laurence Payne’s Dastari’s illegal time-travel experiments, she’s back in skimpy shorts shaping up to the Sontarans in “The Two Doctors”, the excuse for her attire, this time, being that it was filmed in Seville, Spain… where it’s hot! But, hey, I didn’t mind!! I pretty much thought Peri looked perfect during the tail end of season twenty-one and for the whole of season twenty-two!!! Following the hiatus, Peri’s appearance changed for the first two stories of “The Trial of a Time Lord”. Gone was the cute bob, maybe inspired by Jenny Agutter’s hairstyle in “Logan’s Run”, to be replaced by a longer permed cut and more sensible clothes. Michael Grade had ruined everything!!!!

Almost a quarter-of-a-century after Nicola’s departure from “Doctor Who”, I’m happy to report that all is not lost! As of today, Monday, 14th June, 2010, Miss Bryant’s three-year portrayal of Peri is now available complete, to drool over as-and-when you choose, on DVD. With the release of “Planet of Fire”, partly filmed in Lanzarote… where it’s even hotter, all her adventures are, at last, available on disc. Coupled with a Special Edition of the story, on a separate disc, featuring an augmented soundtrack, “Planet of Fire” forms part of the boxed set “Kamelion Tales” and is complemented by the earlier two-part Peter Davison adventure “The King’s Demons”. At the RRP of £29.99, or even with a moderate discount, it’s fairly expensive for what is essentially six twenty-five minute episodes of “Doctor Who” but this is a special case. Well, it’s probably made of card and plastic, like all the others, but you know what I mean! Go on, be a devil, pretend you’re Mark Strickson’s Turlough, for the day, and go rescue Peri from drowning in the ocean in her pretty salmon-pink bikini!

(And, I didn’t even mention Nicola Bryant’s two best “Doctor Who” stories, “The Caves of Androzani” and “Revelation of the Daleks”!)

Warden’s Watch: Medium

During 2009 the programme that became a regular viewing fixture for me was “Medium”. BBC Two ran repeats of the first four series, mostly in double bills, during the early hours of Saturday mornings. Living has shown Series Five in the UK and now Freeview viewers have a chance to see it on Virgin1. Meanwhile, in the States, Series Six has just completed airing. There are a total of 117 episodes (16, 22, 22, 16, 19, 22). While both “Heroes” and “Ugly Betty” have fizzled out after just four seasons apiece, “Medium” is quietly stronger than ever. On paper “Medium” doesn’t look as though it should work. It’s a supernatural-cum-detective-cum-domestic drama about a housewife, Allison Dubois, whose dreams help solve crimes. Sounds ludicrous but it’s terrific.

As regular readers may know, I’m not keen on kitchen sink anecdotes in fantasy stories. It’s the main reason why Steven Spielberg films aren’t a favourite of mine. Spilling milk on the wood-panelled floor adds unnecessary clutter, getting in the way of a rollicking good adventure! In “Medium”, however, the family scenario is the programme’s most interesting feature. That’s not to say the show falls down elsewhere. Dream sequences are often imaginatively constructed while the information needed to solve the criminological puzzle can be disseminated non-chronologically. It seems ironic that I can relate more easily to the domestic arrangements and traumas of this fictional American family than I could those of the Tylers in “Doctor Who”!

Cast in the lead role, in “Medium”, is Patricia Arquette, best known hitherto for her performance in Tony Scott’s “True Romance”. I suspect the original casting director, on the television series, may possibly have remembered her from “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”. Despite having wildly different iconography, the essential scenario of a “Medium” episode and an instalment in the “Elm Street” franchise is the same - criminal enters the dreams of the protagonist. When at home, Allison’s husband Joe is her moral compass, while, at work, District Attorney Devalos and Law Enforcement Officer Lee Scanlon perform the same function. However, it is Allison and Joe’s three daughters who invariably steal the limelight! Bridgette, the middle child, is just the right side of precocious in her curiosity over all things worldly. Maria Lark’s performance is the best I’ve ever seen by any child actor while Sofia Vassilieva, as eldest daughter Ariel, is thoughtful and stunningly beautiful. “Medium” is a marvellous mixture to mull over!

Telly Visions Special: Michelle Ryan

This is an extra post for fans of Michelle Ryan mainly to let you know she will be appearing on BBC Two this Sunday morning, at 10am, as a guest on “Something for the Weekend”. Not quite sure what she’s there to promote but I’ve heard she may be returning to “EastEnders”. You’ll probably have to put up with Tim Lovejoy’s endless waffle on football but you can always leave the programme on in the background until the lovely Michelle’s appearance!

You’ve probably realised by now - my new blog-header kinda gives it away - that I enjoyed last year’s “Doctor Who” Easter Special, “Planet of the Dead”. I expected to enjoy November’s “The Waters of Mars” more, being horror based and directed by Graeme Harper, but preferred the rapport between the two leads on the red bus to the comedy robot on the red planet! Due to the prominence of said bus, “Planet of the Dead” reminded me of the Sylvester McCoy adventure “Delta and the Bannermen”, for which I’ve always held a soft spot. Both stories are great fun. However, I suspect Michelle’s episode was probably more influenced by “The Mummy Returns”. I thought David Tennant and Michelle Ryan worked extraordinarily well together and, like the relationship between Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor and Nicola Bryant’s Peri in “The Caves of Androzani”, they left me wanting more…

Michelle is building quite a reputation for herself in the fantasy genre altogether. What with a returning role, playing a villainess, in the first series of “Merlin”, an aborted attempt, after eight episodes, to revive the “Bionic Woman”, and as one of the protagonists in Steven Moffat’s “Jekyll” it would be good to see her continue in this vein rather than return to soap land. It may be a question of needs must but that would be a shame for this fine actress. Her turn in corset drama “Mansfield Park”, alongside Billie Piper, is also worth a mention. Support Miss Ryan on Sunday!

Telly Visions: Ruth Wilson

It seems a little ironic that, a few years ago, Ruth Wilson made her name playing plain “Jane Eyre” when she is clearly one of the best-looking actresses working in television today! It’s the long red hair, searing eyes, and that thing she does with her lips that make her so striking. More than a regular femme fatale!! However, with the use of theatrical cosmetics, and unflattering costumes, an actor can be made to appear dowdy where, in the everyday world, makeup would be applied to enhance one’s appearance. It seems a shame to go out of the way to make a beautiful girl look less pretty. Jane Eyre, the character, is renowned for her inner beauty but television, being mainly a visual medium, has to express this loveliness outwardly so Ruth Wilson seems perfectly cast.

I discovered recently that Ruth and I have a number of things in common. Before her breakthrough role, she read history at Nottingham University. This is the same establishment of further education I attended, though my subject was music. Whilst there she participated in amateur dramatics, as some of us do with a theatrical inclination! If we ever cross paths at least we’ll have something to talk about!! She was born in the same month as me so we’re both Capricorns. And, she’s also a big fan of American soap-cum-murder-mystery “Twin Peaks”. That revelation may go some of the way to explain why she took one of her most recent roles…

Ruth Wilson is currently appearing in two television series. On ITV1 she is 313, appearing alongside Sir Ian McKellen in the six-part remake of the 1967 cult classic “The Prisoner”. She says she took the part because of similarities to David Lynch’s earlier surreal television series “Twin Peaks”. In last Saturday’s episode, “Schizoid”, Bill Gallagher, screenwriter of the new version of “The Prisoner”, even went so far as to quote “Twin Peaks” delight of food stuffs. Perhaps it was that which made Ruth think of her childhood favourite. I’m not sure how well the new series works. It quotes the original’s catchphrases in abundance but is colder and less colourful. The interiors of Number Two’s residence, for example, are shot in a manner similar to “Blade Runner”. It may all be going on in his wife’s medicated mind but Sir Ian assures us that, unlike the end of the original series, everything will be explained in this week’s final episode.

On BBC One Ruth is playing Alice Morgan, a psychopathic genius who has murdered her parents, in the six-part classy crime thriller “Luther”. Detective John Luther is played by Idris Elba while a whole host of famous names pop up throughout the run. Eighth “Doctor Who” Paul McGann comes to blows with the lead in the first episode while Third Doctor Jon Pertwee’s son Sean battles the police from within his prison cell in the following instalment. You may recognise Suzie (“Torchwood”) Costello actress Indira Varma as Luther’s wife with whom McGann’s character is having an affair. There’s a marvellously stylish moment, near the end of part one, where Luther is holding Alice over a bridge and she invites him to “kiss me, kill me”! He should’ve reluctantly unhanded Ruth at that moment and said “be seeing you”!!

Warden’s Watch: Doctor Who - Series Five, Episodes Four to Six

The new series of “Doctor Who” continues to be a mix of the good and the downright awful! Episodes four and five, “The Time of Angels” and “Flesh and Stone”, attempt to develop ideas from two of Steven Moffat’s earlier stories, the Weeping Angel statues from Series Three’s “Blink” and Alex Kingston’s River Song from the two-part library story of the Fourth Series. I like the former, not so keen on the latter! All this “sweetie” nonsense, and continued reference to “spoilers”, is a bit cringe-making. For heaven’s sake, it was only in the previous story, “Victory of the Daleks”, that the Doctor called one of the pepper pots “sweetheart”! Despite liking the statues in the Carey Mulligan episode, I’m not so sure it was a good idea to bring them back. The new story seemed to virtually ignore the original concept of what happens to an Angel’s victims. Less importantly, but nonetheless irritatingly, the Doctor loses his jacket to one of the stone beasties, at one point, then, unseen by the viewer, somehow manages to retrieve his tweed threads by the end!

The best scene in the Fifth Series, so far, came in the second part of the Weeping Angel yarn. I’d go so far as to say it’s the best scene since Jefferson’s eulogy to Scooti Manista, four years ago, in “The Impossible Planet”. I’m talking about the marvellous dialogue between the Doctor and Father Octavian upon the latter’s demise. Genuinely moving. The trouble is, it is almost immediately undermined by the ending of “Flesh and Stone”. New “Doctor Who” does this a lot. It’s afraid to capitalise on truly emotional moments. What does Moffat do? He has new companion Amy come on to the Doctor in the most ludicrous manner. We’ve been there before. Russell did all that ad nauseam… for five blooming years! I’d hoped we’d put such crassness behind us. At first I thought it was padding because the story had under run again, like the Dalek episode two weeks earlier, but its dubious purpose is to set up a ménage à trois between the Doctor, Rory and Amy exploited during the sixth episode, “The Vampires of Venice”, written by Toby Whithouse - the man behind “Being Human”, the “Doctor Who” episode “School Reunion” and the “Torchwood” episode “Greeks Bearing Gifts”.

And what a flippant beginning to the much-awaited vampire tale. It would’ve been amusing in any other drama but “Doctor Who”. We’d already had Amy as a WPC kissagram, in the opening story of the series, and so we return to the idea with the Doctor replacing the stripper at Rory’s stag night! I was hoping for some genuine gothic horror, just for once, but “The Vampires of Venice” is undermined before it has barely begun. Why does the series try so hard to be domestic just to appeal to the “EastEnders” crowd? Why doesn’t it simply be itself? It managed it for twenty-six years. I don’t buy into the notion it had to change to appeal to a modern audience. Only if said audience lacks intelligence! (There is a current series does domestic brilliantly, by the way, even though it’s ostensibly a supernatural drama. I won’t reveal its name here as I hope to devote a future post to it.) The vampires themselves were terrific looking, as you can see from the above picture - a scene reminiscent of the Haemovores breaking in through a vestry window in “The Curse of Fenric”, while their two leaders were portrayed suitably seriously until being revealed, predictably pseudo-scientifically, as “fish from space”! “They bite”!!

Telly Visions: Eliza Dushku

Hello, Dolly! Eliza Dushku first aroused the interest of the viewing public playing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s young daughter, straddled across the nose cone of a Harrier Jump Jet, in James Cameron’s James Bond-esque “True Lies”. That’s a pretty titanic start to anyone’s career! However, the actress has really made her name working in American television. It’s probably fair to say that Miss Dushku became more of a household name when she became a recurring character, a semi-regular as they’re known in the television industry, in Joss Whedon’s “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and its spin-off series “Angel”, playing a violently-wayward member of the Scooby-gang.

From a supporting role in “Buffy”, Eliza has gone on to play the lead in not one but two US series. First up was “Tru Calling” in which she inherits her mother’s gift for saving lives through reliving days at a deceased’s request. “Groundhog Day” with a pretty girl at its centre. Sounds an unlikely concept for an ongoing show and sometimes it works brilliantly, others not so. Tru works at a morgue, whilst studying to become a doctor, and each episode a dead body will suddenly turn to her from the slab and cry “help me”! The show ran for two seasons but the second was cut short. People lose interest very easily these days!! Anyone curious in seeing what it’s all about, for themselves, can find repeats on Sky Three (Freeview 11).

Reunited with Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku is currently starring, as programmable agent Echo, in the unusual Sci-fi adventure series “Dollhouse”. Already broadcast in the States, the show returned to British television, again on ITV4 (Freeview 24), for its second season, on Wednesday, 28th April, 2010. In the first episode, “Vows” (as in wedding), after her encounter with Alpha, Echo has seemingly recovered. But, as she embarks on a long-term engagement, she begins to behave strangely. And, in the next episode, “Instinct” (as in maternal), Topher’s extraordinary abilities backfire when Echo takes too strongly to her new role as mother to a newborn baby and runs away with the child.

If you’re familiar with “Joe 90”, Whedon’s new show plays like a sexed-up version of Gerry Anderson’s Sixties’ Supermarionation series, with the added attraction of supermodels rather than models! But, the characterisations in “Dollhouse” are even less-well developed than those of either their earlier wooden counterparts or the figures of the actresses inhabiting the American show!! Still, over the course of the next thirteen weeks, I’m looking forward to uncovering any evolution of Echo and her gloriously well-endowed bunny girls!!!

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”!