11 posts tagged “drwho”

Russell T Davies was interviewed by the Independent last Sunday and he happened to mention that Richard Dawkins will be appearing in this series of Doctor Who.

The evolutionary biologist and best-selling author of The God Delusion will appear as a guest star in the new series of Doctor Who, which began last night. "People were falling at his feet," says Davies, creator of the BBC's flagship show. "We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins people were worshipping."

Slightly unfortunate choice of words with "worshipping", but this sounds like really good news to me. And it would be a great nod to the older Who fans if they could squeeze in a cameo by Dawkins' wife too.

As is becoming traditional (well, this is at least the second year I've done it) at this time of the year, it's interesting to look around for hints about when the new series of Doctor Who will launch. Normally it's about Easter, but Easter is about as early as it gets this year - and it's definitely not starting this weekend.

Of course, it won't start until Torchwood has finished. And there are still a few episodes of that to run. But the BBC seem to have noticed that issue too and from this week, they'll be showing two episodes a week (on Wednesday - as usual - but also on Friday), so that means that Torchwood will be out of the way in just over a week.

The BBC Doctor Who site isn't giving anything away yet (well, yes, it's giving away Doctor Who wallpapers - but you know what I mean) but a couple of days ago they ran a news story saying that the trailer for the new series will be shown on Saturday 22nd. Since when was the broadcast of a trailer such big news?

Obviously the show won't start on the same day as the first broadcast of the trailer. So we can say that the earliest it will start is Saturday 29th March. But then I saw this post on TV Scoop (which I found via Planet Dr Who) which claims that David Tennant and Catherine Tate will be guests on the Jonathan Ross show on Friday April 4th. It seems likely that this appearance will be promoting the start of the new season. So that's where I'm sticking my marker.

I reckon the new series will start on Saturday 5th April.

Update: Looks like the CBBC Newsround site is the first one to confirm that date.

How many obvious errors can you spot in this Sun story: Jennifer could be Dr Who

Ab Fab star Jennifer Saunders is set to be the first female Timelord – for just one episode.

The comic actress is in talks to become Doctor Who as David Tennant, 36, will leave after filming three specials in 2009.

TV bosses are keen to get a woman on board the Tardis for one of those shows.

A source said of Jennifer, 49, best known as Edina in Absolutely Fabulous: “She’s in the running and we all think she would be fantastic.”

Kylie Minogue is in the Christmas Special that previews tonight.

Bit puzzled by that last sentence too. Has someone got their Tuesdays confused?

On Saturday the third series of the revived (maybe "regenerated" is better) Doctor Who finished on BBC One. The last episode (capsule review - all a bit too silly for my tastes) ended with the Doctor alone in the TARDIS again as Martha Jones had decided to leave him and stay one Earth. Which all came as a bit of a surprise to viewers as there had been no news of her leaving the show (well, other than a ridiculous Sun story claiming that she had been sacked).

There was no information about what was going on from the BBC until Monday. At which point they started issuing a  new press release every day to give more details about what was happening. Here's a summary of what we know so far.

• Martha Jones will be back. She is in three episodes of the forthcoming second series of Torchwood and will return for the second half of the next series of Doctor Who.
• Kylie Minogue will be playing a major role in the Christmas special. I suppose this will be a kind of one-shot companion like Catherine Tate played in the last Christmas special. Kylie's involvement has been hinted at on a few news sites previously.
• Catherine Tate will be the full-time companion in the next series. This came as a bit of a surprise. And, to be honest, not a particularly welcome one. I didn't really enjoy Tate's performance in the last Christmas special. But we'll just have to wait and see how she does next year.

There are also rumours flying round that this will be Russell T Davies and David Tennant's last year working on the programme. But as far as I can see, that's all speculation. There's been no confirmation from the BBC.

The success of this weekend's Doctor Who story, "Blink", has led to a number of comparisons with last season's "doctor-light"[1] story, "Love and Monsters". And I really don't know why "Love and Monsters" comes off so badly in the comparison. It's true that "Blink" is right up there as one of the best Doctor Who stories ever, but I don't understand why "Love and Monsters" has a reputation as one of the worst. "Love and Monsters" was one of the funniest Doctor Who stories ever. Ok, so Peter Kay overacted massively and the Azorbaloff monster was a pretty stupid idea. But that wasn't really what the story was about. The story was about Elton and his group of misfit friends trying to track down everything they can about the Doctor.

One of the main criticisms that I remember from last year was that the Doctor wasn't in it enough. But that same criticism can be levelled at "Blink". And no-one seems to dislike "Blink" - so I can't see how that criticism can be at all valid.

The cast is very strong and the writing is great. If you're one of the deluded fools who think it's rubbish, then I strongly recommend that you watch it again. It's not as good as "Blink", but it's certainly one of my favourite episodes of the recent series of Doctor Who.

[1] A story that the Doctor only appears in briefly.

I haven't been very impressed with this season of Doctor Who so far. Gridlock was ok and the recent two-parter ("Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood") had some very interesting ideas which were spoilt by a horribly mawkish ending - but other than that it's all been rather disappointing.

But last night's episode, "Blink", was wonderful. This is why we watch Doctor Who. The whole time paradox plot was really well written and the "weeping angel" monsters were well thought-out. And it was far scarier than you'd think they would get away with on BBC One early on a Saturday evening.

It was written by Steven Moffatt. He also wrote the"Empty Child"/"Doctor Dances" two-parter two years ago and "The Girl in the Fireplace" last year. Which means that he's been responsible for some of the best stories from recent Doctor Who.

Only three more episodes to go this year. It was looking like a really poor year, but this has really brought the average up.

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I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that March 31st was looking like the date that the new series of Doctor Who was going to start.

The Radio Times web site has listings for the next two weeks, so by now it should have the programme listed. And yesterday it was definitely there. It was shown as starting at 7:55pm on BBC1. But today it seems to have vanished. That slot (and the ones either side of of it) is showing as "to be announced".

I wonder what's going on.

Update: It seems that the Radio Times was all rather confused last week. It has now settled down and is showing Doctor Who as starting at 7pm next Saturday (31st March). A news article on the BBC Doctor Who site confirms this time.

I didn't see the Metro this morning - so I missed this story which might be considered the start of the publicity for the new series.

Doctor Who scenes showing actress Freema Agyeman have apparently been cut from the family-friendly show.

David Tennant - who plays the Timelord - told the Daily Star: "There was an underwear scene in a draft of the next series but we nixed that. It was bordering on the inappropriate."

However, there are scenes of the 27-year-old assistant, who plays assistant Martha Jones, in bed,

"It's not all that it seems," David explained. "You can't have shagging in the Tardis.