Trailer: DOCTOR WHO, series 6 part 2 (BBC)

"An impossible astronaut will rise from the deep and strike
the Time Lord dead... and this is where it begins..."

The BBC have debuted another trailer for the second half of Doctor Who's sixth series. It's not as good, or as long, as the trailer shown at Comic-Con recently, but it gives us a few extra teases about what the final batch of episodes have in store: like a pterodactyl and a giant pyramid. How do they get involved?

DOCTOR WHO returns to BBC1 and BBC America on 27 August.

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Comic-Con 2011 panels: CHUCK, COMMUNITY, DOCTOR WHO, GAME OF THRONES, GLEE, Joss Whedon, RINGER & Women of Comic-Con

In the second compilation from San Diego Comic-Con (the first is here), we have the panels for Chuck, Community, Doctor Who, Game Of Thrones, Glee, upcoming series Ringer, a panel with writer-director Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly), and a special "Women of Comic-Con" roundtable featuring Buffy's Sarah Michelle Gellar, Chuck's Yvonne Strahovski, Fringe's Anna Torv and Nikita's Maggie Q.

As before, you'll have to click through to YouTube to continue watching the panels, as most are split into multiple parts. I think this just about covers all the weekend's Comic-Con panels I'm interested in, but if you have others to share just leave a link in the comments below. Disqus cleverly opens a pop-up window, which is very handy.

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Trailer: DOCTOR WHO, series 6 part 2 (Comic-Con)

"My time... is... running out..."

The BBC have released a trailer for the second half of Doctor Who's sixth series, which just had its world premiere at San Diego Comic-Con. It certainly looks impressive, right? Adolf Hitler with a British accent? Amy riding pillion on Rory's motorbike! The return of Winston Churchill! Was that a middle-aged Amy? River Song is Eye-Patch Lady, or just pretending to be? The Doctor's about to kiss a man? The TARDIS smashing through a window! The Silence are underwater? The Weeping Angels are back! Rory punching Hitler! Amy with twin samurai swords! Exploding Cybermen! A minotaur in a hotel? The impossible astronaut! Phew.

What do you make of this trailer for the remainder of series 6? Oh, and here's a sneak preview of writer Toby Whithouse's "The God Complex", which is episode 11:

DOCTOR WHO returns to BBC1 and BBC America on 27 August.

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Christopher Eccleston finally reveals the truth behind his DOCTOR WHO departure

Bad Wilf have reported on comments Christopher Eccleston made about his year working on Doctor Who and why he decided to quit. The actor was speaking at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, and his candid response to why he left the revived sci-fi drama is below:

I left Doctor Who, because I could not get along with the senior people. I left, because of politics. I did not see eye-to-eye, with them. I didn't agree with the way things were being run. I didn't like the culture that had grown up, around the series. So, I left. I felt, over a principle. I thought to remain, which would have made me a lot of money and given me huge visibility, the price I would have had to pay, was to eat a lot of shit. I'm not being funny about that. I didn't want to do that and, it comes to the art of it, in a way. I feel that if you run your career and-we are vulnerable as actors and, we are constantly humiliating ourselves auditioning. But, if you allow that to go on, on a grand scale. You will loose, whatever it is about you and, it will be present in your work.

If you allow your desire to be successful and visible and financially secure. If you allow that, to make you throw shades on your parents, on your upbringing, then you're knackered. You've got to keep something back, for yourself. Because, it'll be present in your work. A purity or an idealism is essential, or, you'll become-you've got to have standards, no matter how hard work that is. So, it makes it hard road, really. You know. It's easy to find a job, when you've got no morals, you've got nothing to be compromised you can go 'yeah, yeah. That doesn't matter. That director can bully that prop man and, I won't say anything about it'. But, then when that director comes to you and says 'I think you should play it like this'. You've surely got to go 'How can I respect you, when you behave like that?'

So, that's why I left. My face didn't fit and, I'm sure they were glad to see the back of me. The important thing is that I succeeded. It was a great part. I loved playing him. I loved connecting with that audience. Because I've always acted for adults and the suddenly, your acting for children. Who are far more tasteful, they will not be bullshitted. It's either good, or it's bad. They don't schmooze at after show parties, with cocktails"

That seems to confirm rumours that have circled his departure in 2005 after just 13 episodes playing The Doctor. He just didn't get on with the "senior people". It's not known if that includes showrunner Russell T. Davies, but how could it not? Of course, the very reason Eccleston got involved was because he'd worked with RTD on The Second Coming, so they definitely had a good working relationship at some point. It seems to me that the job and the creative direction just wasn't what Eccleston expected. And to be frank, I don't blame him for wanting to go. I didn't really like series 1, either. It was too childish and Eccleston looked uncomfortable whenever required to play the clown. It was definitely a wise move for him to go, particularly as his replacement David Tennant was a better fit for the demands of the role.

I appreciate Eccleston's candor here, but I'm guessing it's now impossible he'd come back for the show's 50th anniversary in 2013. Although some of those "senior people" have changed since the days of Russell T. Davies' reign...

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DOCTOR WHO: series curtailed for 2012, "special run" planned for 50th anniversary

Speaking at the Church & Media Conference, Danny Cohen (the Controller of BBC1) confirmed that Doctor Who won't be returning for a full series in 2012, although a "special run" is planned for 2013 to mark the show's 50th anniversary.

It's not yet known what this means exactly. Will Series 7 be truncated next year? Will they air "specials" throughout 2012, echoing what happened in 2009 when David Tennant took some time off? And what does a "special run" for 2013 mean exactly? Will we be getting more episodes than usual then, or does it mean they intend to have fun with the show's long history—by perhaps doing a multiple-Doctor episode involving some of the surviving actors. That's always felt like the ideal way to celebrate the show's half-centenary. Hey, I'd be happy just to have a two-Doctor scenario with Paul McGann.

Anyway, no doubt this news will be clarified in the weeks to come. It's also confusing because the BBC appeared to confirm 14 episodes have been ordered for 2012 just last week. But, as of right now, it looks like fans will have to brace themselves for a drought of Doctor Who next year. On the plus side, maybe Steven Moffat will have time to dedicate to Sherlock and we'll get more than three episodes in 2012?

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DOCTOR WHO, 6.7 – "A Good Man Goes To War"

The mid-series finale was in the exact same mould as Steven Moffat's other tent-pole episodes; a big, cluttered, exciting, ludicrous, exhausting, riotous, wantonly confusing, propulsive spectacle. It was the kind of episode that hid its deficiencies behind all manner of fairly extraneous moments and setups, as the story didn't really begin to take shape until The Doctor (Matt Smith) made his belated entrance almost halfway through. There's no denying Moffat's got a very cinematic attitude towards the show, which is very often a delight to bask in (especially when you remember how cack-handedly Russell T. Davies attempted the same), but it's a shame his enthusiasm and talent isn't on some kind of leash—as there were moments when "A Good Man Goes To War" resembled a feverish child's video-game.

Picking up from last week's terrific but overrated (and certainly widely confusing) cliffhanger, we met the inhabitants of militarized asteroid "Demon's Run", under the command of the fearsome Madam Kovarian (Frances Barber), the so-called Eye Patch Lady who somehow managed to smuggle Amy (Karen Gillan) off the TARDIS to give birth to her baby, replacing her with a psychically-operated "flesh avatar". From there we saw The Doctor amass his own personal army, calling in favours from a variety of familiar and unfamiliar faces—Rory (Arthur Darvill) in his Centurion costume, Sontaran nurse Commander Strax (Dan Starkey), a Silurian (Neve McIntosh) vigilante living in Victorian England, Captain Avery (Hugh Bonneville) from "The Curse Of The Black Spot", Danny Boy the Spitfire pilot from "Victory Of The Daleks", etc.—and hatching a plan to swoop into the Demon's Run base to run circles around the army of Clerics who've come to believe The Doctor's a legendarily dangerous foe who needs to be killed. Conspicuously absent was River Song (Alex Kingston), who refuses to leave her Storm Cage prison, aware of future events and that the only role she must play will come at the very end of The Battle of Demon's Run when The Doctor's at his lowest ebb...

Like a great many of Steven Moffat's episodes since he was handed the reigns of Doctor Who, it was definitely guilty of over-egging the pudding. If you took away all the flourishes and irrelevant moments, the actual plot could probably have been told in less than half the time—particularly as so much of it was just building up to River Song finally, finally revealing who she is. Undoubtedly this final scene, much like last week's, will come to dominate discussion of the episode because it was the only moment actually gave the audience a solid answer instead of juggling mysteries. River Song is Amy's daughter Melody Pond—being the closest translation of her human name from the planet she'll grow up on. I'm sure many people will be slightly underwhelmed by this explanation, because the mystery's been teased for years now, which means fans have been able to hypothesize every single possibility available. Having River be revealed as Amy's child is definitely the nicest answer, however, whether you predicted it or not. It may be interesting to go back and watch the interaction between River and Amy/Rory in previous episodes now, too, as Alex Kingston apparently knew in advance of her co-stars what River's big secret was. And in remembering back to her debut in "Forest Of The Dead", that somehow makes River's death even more poignant and heartrending.

It also poses lots of further questions, too. If the little girl in the astronaut outfit was Melody/River, was she abducted by The Silence and ordered to kill The Doctor? Is he therefore the "good man" River was jailed for killing? And if Melody's part Time Lord because she was conceived inside a TARDIS (okay, sure) and was seen regenerating into, I'm guessing, a more recognizable form at the end of "Day Of The Moon", why couldn't River regenerate at the end of "Forest Of The Dead" instead of dying and having her consciousness uploaded to a super-computer by David Tennant's Doctor? Does River have less regenerations than a Time Lord and had run out? Or will Steven Moffat come clean and admit that, actually, he had no idea River Song was half Time Lord when he first introduced her?

And what are we to make of the oddly-named Lorna Bucket (Christina Chong), the young soldier who joined the Clerics but took pity on Amy and helped The Doctor's friends in their hour of need? She was a very strange character to introduce just for that meager purpose, so I'm guessing The Doctor will be meeting her as a little girl (as she remembers meeting him) at some point in the future—perhaps relating to the search for baby Melody...

Overall, "A Good Man Goes To War" was an exhilarating mess that will perhaps get worse on reflection, mainly because it was so reliant on visuals and pizzazz to cover a lack of actual story—and certainly story that hasn't, in some way, been tackled before by Moffat. All writers have hallmarks and flavours, but there's definitely a sense that Moffat needs to find a new bag of tricks soon. It was also a disappointment that Matt Smith didn't quite sell some of his big speeches, and I'm personally a little irritated that people keep berating The Doctor for being "arrogant" and unwittingly creating a dangerous mystique about himself that causes his friends' lives to be put in danger. I mean, really? The man's saved the goddamn universe multiple times and nobody becomes his companion unless they really want to—what do you want from him? Sorry, but River's bitchy speech designed to humble The Doctor and make him see everything's his fault was built on shaky ground. As if that was meant to symbolize this great fall from grace the mid-series finale has been teasing for The Doctor, which wasn't anywhere near as convincing and shocking as hoped.

Still, let's not end on a big negative. There was plenty to enjoy here and it was a remarkable feat in terms of production design and special effects, together with a brilliant performance from Karen Gillan, who appears to have really found her characters this year. The pace didn't flag for a second and most of its later surprises worked well, even if the impact of learning River Song's identity was perhaps lessened by having predicted it for yourself ages ago. Let's face it, it was always a tossup between a companion's daughter and The Doctor's wife.

What did you think? Did "A Good Man Goes To War" satisfy you on most levels, or were expectations just too massive? Did the River Song reveal cause a surprise or a shrug? And what are your hopes for the rest of series 6, when Doctor Who resumes in the autumn?

Asides

• The next episode is called, rather hilariously, "Let's Kill Hitler." Best. Title. Ever. But how will killing Adolf Hitler factor into The Doctor's plan to rescue Melody Pond? And why is he doing this alone suddenly?
• Thinking ahead, it'll be interesting to see how Moffat handles the rest of this season. I assume most of the questions posed by the two-part premiere (regarding Melody and The Silence) will be kept simmering until the series 6 finale, but can you really have "standalone" episodes like "Curse Of The Black Spot" and "The Rebel Flesh" going on while a child's in jeopardy, and these big important things are on everyone's mind? I do worry that the standalone/mytharc balance is being screwed with too much this year.
• I missed this, but apparently a "skeleton holding a sonic screwdriver" appeared at the end of the credits. Do you think that could be The Doctor's remains after his Viking funeral from the premiere, somehow still able to live—like those Headless Monks? (Update: video embedded below.)
• Cybermen are cool again—incredible what some better direction, CGI and lighting can achieve.
• Stevie Wonder was taken to sing under London Bridge in 1814 but doesn't know it happened because he's blind. Genius.
• What is it with Moffat and military clerics? They also appeared in the "The Time Of Angels" two-parter last year. A little dig at organized religion? Enjoyed the mention of a female "Papal Mainframe", too.
• So what did River whisper to The Doctor in "Forest Of The Dead"? It was always assumed she told him his real name, proving she's someone very important to him—possibly his wife. But now we know that's not true, so what did she whisper?

written by Steven Moffat / directed by Peter Hoar / 4 June 2011 / BBC One

Next time...

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DOCTOR WHO, 6.6 – "The Almost People"

Some two-part conclusions are intentionally different to their setups and take things to a whole new level (see: "Day Of The Moon"), while others are just concerned with fast-paced resolution and pay-off. "The Almost People" was definitely in the latter camp, which makes it a tough episode to review separately, as I've said all I wanted to say about this story's direction, writing, location filming, and performances in my review of "The Rebel Flesh" last week...

However, freed of exposition and with a better way to let audiences differentiate between the humans and "Gangers" (the latter tended to wear Chronicles Of Riddick uniforms), this episode was a far more satisfying jolt of action, drama and light comedy. I was still disappointed the characterizations remained thin for the guest stars, which didn't help when we were supposed to feel attached to Jimmy (Mark Bonnar) over his son's holographic message, but the story definitely moved into a higher gear to distract you from most of its problems. It also helped that, with the arrival of a "Flesh-Doctor", the episode could have fun with The Doctor (Matt Smith) interacting with himself, and everyone else's reaction to having two identical Time Lords around.

Amy (Karen Gillan) was understandably less warm towards the "copy", which was a prejudice both Doctors couldn't understand, and in general the episode did a good job exploring the concept of identity--as the duplicates are supposedly impossible to tell apart. If only writer Matthew Graham hadn't decided to give the Gangers the ability to contort their bodies like Stretch Armstrong, together with their tendency to revert back to their malformed, glassy facial features—both huge giveaways that they're very different beings...

The story escalated the sense of jeopardy well, helped by a countdown element as the factory started to disintegrate, and the revelations that the humans are far from innocent in their mistreatment of the Flesh worked well. (That pile of melted Ganger bodies was a strong nightmarish visual.) I also appreciated how the episode continued to give Rory (Arthur Darvill) something to do in his own subplot with Jennifer (Sarah Smart) instead of hang on Amy's hip making jokes. I can't deny there were still times when my head would spin trying to remember who's human and who's Ganger, which wasn't always intentional, and there were many times when split-screens and actor-doubles were noticeable and distracting, but in general things were handled nicely. Smith definitely relished the opportunity to play a darker version of The Doctor, when his allegiance to his Flesh brothers was tested, and I'm sure Whovians enjoyed the Flesh-Doctor's initial difficulty parsing 900 years' worth of memories and speaking in Tom Baker and David Tennant's voice ("would you like a Jelly Baby"?) I even liked the CGI for the spindly wax-insect Jennifer transformed into which looked particularly effective in moody lighting moving down a corridor.

It's just unfortunate for "The Almost People" that its denouement featured an entirely separate cliffhanger that eclipsed everything that's happened in the previous two weeks. It was like Steven Moffat stepped in to write the last page as a prelude to his mid-series finale, and simply stole the show in a heartbeat. For we learned that Amy isn't the real Amy, but a "Flesh-Amy" who's been placed aboard the TARDIS in her stead. The Doctor's finally figured this out, and my guess is the Flesh-Amy was substituted by The Silence when Amy was captured in "Day Of The Moon". The real Amy is actually in some unknown location, about to give birth under the supervision of "midwife" the Eye Patch Lady (Frances Barber), and it's now up to The Doctor and Rory to find and rescue her...

Inevitably then, the questions viewers will be asking as the credits rolled had nothing to do with this two-parter, and everything to do with series 6's mytharc and random predictions for next week. Why did Flesh-Amy have a psychic link to the real Amy? I assume the TARDIS' unresolved pregnancy test was because Amy is pregnant, but Flesh-Amy wasn't? And why do The Silence want Amy's child, if they're behind all this? Is Amy's child the little girl we saw regenerating in "Day Of The Moon"? And while it seemed very plausible the Flesh-Doctor could be the Doctor we saw killed in "Impossible Astronaut", he was himself vaporized in this episode--although The Doctor did suggest his duplicate could endure ("your molecular memory could survive this, you know... it may not be the end.") Is it still feasible The Doctor's death was actually his Flesh double sacrificing himself, perhaps as payment for 200 years of life with no regeneration?

Overall, "The Almost People" was a good resolution of an average storyline and concept, mostly succeeding because it had a stronger pace, more energy, and more successful humour than "The Rebel Flesh" managed. It's cumulatively still a fairly unremarkable two-parter, but not the colossal waste of time it was threatening to become last week. As I said, it's just a shame so many episodes are made to feel like distractions to Moffat's masterplan, as there's definitely been a feeling since series 5 that stories that are unconnected to the year's mytharc needs to be "juiced" with breadcrumbs (the Eye Patch Lady sightings) or include epilogues that, in the show's near-future, will feel as extraneous as those "cracks in time" from last year.

written by Matthew Graham / directed by Julian Simpson / 28 May 2011 / BBC One

Next time...



"A Good Man Goes To War" Prequel...

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DOCTOR WHO, 6.5 – "The Rebel Flesh"

Matthew Graham (Life On Mars, Ashes To Ashes) wrote the execrable "Fear Her" from series 2--a nadir in Doctor Who's revival--so I was relieved "The Rebel Flesh" was an altogether more satisfying and competent episode. That said, it was unexceptional work, following the show's unspoken story-template in such a way that boredom threatened to get a foothold. As a piece of sci-fi, it was merely dressing up an over-familiar situation regarding sentient duplicates, so I had a tough time warming to it...

After the TARDIS was snared by a solar tsunami, The Doctor (Matt Smith), Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) found themselves crash-landing on Earth in the 22nd-century, on the grounds of a monastery/factory where the four human inhabitants are mining acid and, consequently, download their consciousness into the wax-like bodies of doppelgangers (referred to as "Gangers") when handling the corrosive material. Unfortunately, after the solar storm causes a major power outage (shades of Frankenstein), everyone woke up to find their Gangers have all achieved sentience and are demanding to be treated as human beings.

I can't really get enthused about "The Rebel Flesh." It most definitely wasn't a bad episode, but it was so typical of Doctor Who in its laziest form that I found it hard to care about anything going on, and slightly resented the fact another hour's going to be swallowed up resolving this story next week. That's irritating enough with a 13-episode run, but knowing we're only getting seven episodes before a summer hiatus exacerbates things. I'd have preferred a few more standalone stories, particularly as there was nothing here grand enough to justify the extra time.

Tolerances will vary, but I've had my fill of stories where beings gain sentience and demand to be treated as regular humans. It's a staple of sci-fi, but not an idea that ever gets tackled in a very fresh or original way. "The Rebel Flesh" trod a familiar path in how everyone reacted to their impostors, with only The Doctor able to take a step back and view the dilemma with no bias. There was also something slightly confusing about this episode, perhaps because of the amount of people running around similar corridors wearing identical orange boiler suits. A combination of that, and my ambivalence to the unfolding story, led to me occasionally losing track of who's a Ganger and who's a human--and it didn't feel like this was always intentional, with potential for Thing-style paranoia mostly falling by the wayside. And why do these Gangers believe they're undeniably human if they have the ability to contort their bodies, Tex Avery-style?

It was ultimately a lot of running around (when isn't it?), pausing for breath to talk about the obvious issues regarding the Gangers' desire to be treated as people, with the TARDIS taken out of the equation as an escape route (swallowed by an acid pit), and a cliffhanger ending anyone with half a brain could see coming a mile off, as "the Flesh" copied The Doctor himself. Incidentally, did anyone else have trouble noticing much of a difference between Matt Smith and his waxen equivalent?

It was also the kind of episode where there's so much exposition to impart that the characters are reduced to very basic shells--Jimmy the Scotsman (Mark Bonnar), snarky northerner Buzzer (Marshall Lancaster), cute Jennifer (Sarah Smart), stern Foreman Cleaves (Raquel Cassidy)--and the situation they were facing was just a variant of many stories we've seen on Doctor Who before. I was reminded of "The Waters Of Mars", mostly. These two-part stories need a story with considerable depth, or a concept that's overflowing with imagination to justify the time spent on them, but I don't think either was true of "The Rebel Flesh". It was nice to focus on Rory as the main companion, rather than watch him play sidekick to Amy, as he grew to identify with Ganger-Jennifer's plight, but there wasn't much else holding my attention beyond some impressive make-up (owing a debt to Star Trek's Odo) and good location work that made excellent use of Cardiff Castle, Caerphilly Castle, Neath Abbey and St. Donat's Castle.

Overall, I didn't dislike "The Rebel Flesh", but I just didn't respond to it--beyond enjoying the production design and visuals. The story just didn't go anywhere unexpected or especially imaginative, and I don't get the feeling the concluding part will retroactively improve this episode. I'm also still confused about why these Gangers are required if the humans wear suits to protect them from the acid, and it was a terrible shame all of the guests stars were uniformly dull in underwritten roles. There's really no excuse for that, when you remember how "The Waters Of Mars" did a much better job with a much bigger crew.

Asides

• Raquel Cassidy starred alongside Matt Smith in the political drama Party Animals.
• Marshall Lancaster starred as Chris Skelton in Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes, which were co-created by this episode's writer Matthew Graham.

written by Matthew Graham / directed by Julian Simpson / 21 May 2011 / BBC One

Next time...

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'DOCTOR WHO' 6.4 – "The Doctor's Wife"

It was mooted that renowned author Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Coraline) might write an episode of Doctor Who during Russell T. Davies' era, but only now does the Hugo-winning wordsmith make his debut on the estimable sci-fi drama he grew up watching. "The Doctor's Wife" was a heady brew of fan-pleasing assortments, but sutured to the kind of barnstorming storyline that denied it becoming simply "one for the fans". Exemplifying many of the show's delights in a swift and pleasurable 45-minutes, it's very likely this could replace "Blink" as the ideal episode to show non-fans, as it worked as an effective entry point for Doctor Who as a concept.

This week, The Doctor (Matt Smith) received a distress call from a fellow Time Lord, via a levitating cube containing a psychic message. After detecting the source comes from an adjacent universe attached to ours like a benign parasite, The Doctor, Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) found themselves on a junkyard planet populated by two "patchwork" people called Uncle (Adrian Schiller) and Auntie (Elizabeth Berrington), their Ood servant Nephew (Paul Kasey), and a buxom woman known as Idris (Suranne Jones) who, shortly after the TARDIS landed, became the host body for the TARDIS's consciousness itself. Soon after, The Doctor realized the distress call was a trap set by the planet's own consciousness, referred to as House (voiced by Michael Sheen), which achieved residency in the "lobotomized" TARDIS and vanished with Amy and Rory trapped inside, aiming to devour more TARDIS's in the contiguous universe...

What can you really say? This was a wonderful episode from lifelong fan Gaiman, who seemed to scratch several itches pertaining to Doctor Who while he had the chance, offering audiences some surprising insights into the TARDIS and, most importantly, the machine's relationship with its "thief", The Doctor. It's been alluded to before that Time Lords have a psychic connection with their TARDIS, but by actually giving the TARDIS a physical form with the delightful Idris, we got a much deeper sense of the bond that's shared between them. It was actually quite comical, as Idris believes she chose The Doctor and has been taking him on adventures for the past 900-year, but also rather touching when The Doctor admitted his private name for the TARDIS is "Sexy", and rather heartrending in the final moments when The Doctor had to say goodbye (or rather "hello") to the closest thing he has to a life partner. That title's more apt than you may think.

Matt Smith was at his very best throughout "The Doctor's Wife". We know he's very comfortable with the comedy and physicality of the role, but this was perhaps the first time he's been required to emote to David Tennant levels. His lip-quivering in the aforementioned final scene with Idris was genuinely moving, and in many ways has changed the way we see The Doctor and the TARDIS as the show's enduring duo. Equally good was guest-star Suranne Jones (a very underrated actress who deserves a successful post-Coronation Street career.) Her performance was spirited, naughty, magical and sublime, perhaps owing a debt to Helena Bonham Carter's Red Queen in Alice In Wonderland. She found an instant bond with Smith that radiated through the television screen, and it was a significant wrench when her character had to disappear. The idea of a talking TARDIS has never been a good one, but Jones' performance almost made me regret The Doctor will never have more dialogue with his trusty time-machine.

Amy and Rory had some fun sequences, which were notable for giving us an extremely rare glimpse beyond the Console Room of the TARDIS. Sure, it my have only consisted of some hexagonal corridors (well, until David Tennant's Console Room got an encore), but it was still a treat for fans. The jeopardy for them was a little too illogical, as House toyed with them by playing tricks with Space and Time (did Rory really live until he was elderly, alone in a corridor?), but if nerdy nitpicks are about all you have negative to say that's a good position to be in.

Overall, "The Doctor's Wife" thankfully lived up to the considerable hype surrounding it. I'm sure even Neil Gaiman's been nervous about the reaction. Well, he needn't have worried because he has same creative spark as Moffat when it comes to Doctor Who and its ramshackle energy, but as a contributing writer he's also forced to ensure everything ties up neatly. It's been awhile since I've been able to say the same thing about Moffat, who these days appears to enjoy the freedom to leave plot-threads dangling for weeks, even years. But this was a self-contained episode blessed with wonderful production values (the scrapheap planet was beautiful), full of excellent ideas, great performances, lovely moments of humour, and held together because it was fundamentally the story of an old man's love for an inanimate object that's been given life. Doctor Who's version of Pinocchio.

Asides

• The visual of Idris "bleeding" TARDIS energy, which closely resembles the yellow energy Time Lords give off when they regenerate, had me pondering some connection to the little girl from the premiere who was seen regenerating (we assume.) Is there a connection with Idris, or are both visuals just similar?
• Do you think the idea for this episode popped into Neil Gaiman's head after fans speculated that Kylie Minogue's character Astrid (an anagram of TARDIS) was going to somehow be the TARDIS in "Voyage Of The Damned"?
• I loved the fanboy questions Gaiman managed to squeeze into the script: where does The Doctor sleep? Why does he always push the TARDIS door open, when the sign on the door says pull? Plus, we got to see the Tenth Doctor's Console Room again! I bet they're glad they kept that in storage over at BBC Wales.
• Before "dying", Idris had Rory pass a message onto The Doctor ("the only water in the forest is the river"), which must surely be a reference to River Song in the episode "Forest Of The Dead". Has Gaiman been asked to lay some groundwork for something Steven Moffat has planned, hearkening back to that season 4 two-parter? Is River's demise not actually set in stone? Would any return to that story in Matt Smith's future necessitate the return of David Tennant? I doubt it, but... speculate.
• There were some truly delicious and hilarious lines here. A few favourites being Amy's reaction when The Doctor introduced the bosomy Idris as his TARDIS/woman ("did you wish really hard?"), or "biting's excellent; it's like kissing only there's a winner".
• The revelation that The Doctor's been making newlyweds Amy and Rory sleep in bunk-beds!
• The working title for this episode was "The House Of Nothing", which I kind of prefer. It was also known as "Bigger On The Inside" for awhile.
• Did you catch The Doctor referring to "himself, or herself"? That surely confirms that Time Lords can change gender, right?
• It was fun to see another Ood, particularly now they have luminous green eyes. Or have they always had those?

written by Neil Gaiman / directed by Richard Clark / 14 May 2011 / BBC One

Next time...

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'DOCTOR WHO' 6.3 – "The Curse Of The Black Spot"

Quite literally calmer seas for Doctor Who after its tempestuous two-part premiere, as the TARDIS appears aboard a 17th-century pirate ship that's fallen foul of a becalmed ocean. To make matters worse, Captain Avery (Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville) and his shipmates are also under siege from an ethereal Siren (Lily Cole), a turquoise apparition who's summoned whenever someone draws blood and receives her a black spot on their palm, meaning they're marked for death...

The prospect of an episode set aboard a pirate ship was an encouraging one, and there's no doubt "The Curse Of The Black Spot" was a spirited adventure, despite the ship being marooned so as not to stretch a BBC budget. Written by Steve Thompson (who also scripted the maligned "The Blind Banker" installment of Sherlock last year), the episode contained enough forward-momentum to ensure it never dragged its heels too much, and I was pleasantly surprised by the direction the story took in its final act. What was in danger of becoming a rather thin story involving an entity that evaporated poor unfortunates, if she's allowed to spring forth from reflections, took a welcome step into more elaborate territory that involved an inter-dimensional spaceship and the reveal that the incorporeal Siren was in fact a holographic physician trying to carryout orders after the death of its own crew.

I'm sure there will be fans gnashing their teeth over the fact this episode didn't continue any of the many dangling threads from last week, but those people clearly don't understand how television works -- especially shows like Doctor Who, that are fundamentally built around standalone adventures. Besides, there were enough nods to series 6's story arc to pacify most people: Amy (Karen Gillan) being awoken by an hallucination of the Eye Patch Lady (Frances Barber) on the wooden hull of the ship, calming her with the words "you're doing fine, just stay calm" (is Amy dreaming all of this?); Rory (Arthur Darvill) and Amy sharing a look when The Doctor (Matt Smith) mentioned the inevitability of death (unaware they know he'll be dead in 200 years); and a denouement that saw The Doctor again contemplating the ambivalent pregnancy scan the TARDIS has performed on his redheaded companion. There was no progression, just reiteration, but at least it's now clearer that the Eye Patch Lady has a very important connection to this year's storyline. And perhaps this episode's exploration of a multiple-universe (for the benefit of those who missed that Cyberman two-parter?) is another hint that the explanation for The Doctor's death could be that we saw his counterpart from another reality?

Back to this episode itself, and "The Curse Of The Black Spot" was nothing but a well-meaning romp, apparently written by someone who's digested many of the show's general tropes and delivered what was ultimately a very old-fashioned, typical episode of Doctor Who. The TARDIS lands in a historical location, The Doctor and his friends are mistaken for enemies by the locals, they prove themselves useful in explaining a threat so are allowed to stay, and eventually discover that the extra-terrestrial menace is just misunderstood. There was plenty for kid's to enjoy, in a story that was definitely easier to understand than the premiere, so I'm sure plenty of adults were sighing with relief to be given a story they could wrap their brains around... that still managed to push the imagination a little. I particularly liked how Avery and his crew became "space pirates" by the end, perhaps as a nod to Blake's Seven given their number?

The actual subplot for Captain Avery, a seafarer who made some bad life choices and was forced to become a pirate at the cost of a good relationship with his family, wasn't really very satisfying. It felt like something the script knew it had to involve, otherwise the week's guest star wouldn't accept such a thin role. Bonneville tried gallantry to give his character some shading, but nobody's attention was focused on him with the impressive visual of model-turned-actress Lily Cole screaming at seamen like a banshee. Or Amy Pond slashing the air with a cutlass.

Overall, "The Curse Of The Black Spot" wasn't the thrilling, swashbuckling spectacle I'd have liked, or even a particularly memorable adventure, but it was an enjoyable enough hour with fun ideas swirling around. But I'm pretty sure it was scheduled between the ambitious two-parter opener and next week's Neil Gaiman fanboy treat, to as to do the least damage to the flow of this series.

Asides

• Any more theories to throw onto the fire regarding the questions posed by last week's episodes, now seen through the prism of this episode? I wasn't taking the "dream" theories very seriously, but that felt more plausible here after the scene with the Eye Patch Lady. But who's dreaming? Amy? Her alleged daughter? Or is someone being asked to recall events, which is what we're seeing? Have their memories been taken by The Silence?
• How many times is Rory going to apparently die on this show?

written by Steve Thompson / directed by Jeremy Webb / 7 May 2011 / BBC1

Next time...

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'DOCTOR WHO' 6.2 – "Day Of The Moon"

It's tough reviewing episodes like "Day Of The Moon", which are so thick with incident and swathed in different layers that you end the episode gasping for air, feeling like your brain's been shaken for 45-minutes. As I said last week, there's a certain distancing effect when plots are as knotted as writer Steven Moffat enjoys making them, but I was glad the concluding part of this premiere had a greater sense of cohesion -- by virtue of resolving most of the storyline.

Moffat seems to enjoy reuniting-the-team sequences, as the episode opened with another one set three months after last week's 1969-set cliffhanger, with Amy (Karen Gillan), River (Alex Kingston) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) on the run across Utah from the FBI's Canton Everett Delaware (Mark Sheppard), while a bearded The Doctor (Matt Smith) languishes in a variant of last year's Pandorica prison inside Area 51. I'm still trying to fathom why that was the case, seeing as The Doctor earned the permission of President Nixon (Stuart Milligan) to solve the mystery of the "spaceman" and the crank calls to the Oval Office, but these are the kind of "plot holes" you suspect a repeated viewing or a question on Gallifrey One will patch over.

Regardless, it was another knockout sequence that quickly recaptured the frenetic pace of "The Impossible Astronaut", as the details and implications of The Silent villains took over. These sartorial alien memory-erasers proved to be the real stars of the episode, as Team Who devised a way to investigate creatures you forget about if you break eye contact with them. The Doctor later providing high-tech Dictaphones, buried in everyone's palm, which they activate and describe encounters with The Silent for a future replay. Or you can ink your skin with black marks to signify an encounter, Memento-style, although I didn't quite understand why you'd do that once The Doctor had implanted one of his pill-sized bugs...

One again, Moffat proves himself the master of ruthlessly gripping scenes built around fundamentally simple ideas that he stretches to logical extremes. Canton realizing he's made a recording of seeing a Silent over his shoulder, seconds after being given his bug; Amy, dressed conspicuously like The X Files' Scully, investigating a spooky orphanage with Canton; the aforementioned opening sequence, ending with River free-falling off a skyscraper and into the TARDIS, landing in its unseen swimming pool. Really, you could rattle off most scenes and find something memorable in the visuals or twinkling dialogue. Perhaps best of all, the method eventually used to rid humanity of The Silence (which we learn have been pervasive in society for millennia, nudging mankind along like parasites) was both simple, effective and actually made some sense -- with The Doctor inserting a recording of a captured Silent into the famous Moon Landing footage, edited to give humans a psychic nudge to kill any lurking Silents on the spot.

There were some strong character moments, too -- especially Rory feeling jealous about Amy's attachment to "best friend" The Doctor, made worse when he kept her extracted voice-recorder and learned about her false alarm pregnancy second-hand. More than at any time in the show's history, it really feels like this group are a close-knit family that also have to tackle their emotions and relationships in-between battling aliens. Plus, the first kiss between The Doctor and River Song when she was returned to prison -- although, from River's perspective, this kiss was tragically their last. To be honest, my brain turns to mulch whenever I try to parse the chronology of their relationship. All I know is it's heading towards an event we've already seen (David Tennant's Doctor putting her consciousness inside a supercomputer for eternity), so in some ways the love story loses its grip on me when I remember that fact. I just hope the actual identity of River Song (his wife, Amy's daughter?) is a surprise worth waiting for.

Of course, this story isn't really over. The Silence are too good to dispose with so easily, so they'll be back. Amy's pregnancy (why is the TARDIS scan so indeterminate?) will obviously be a central storyline going forward. And we still need to complete the season's arc by explaining who the little girl is, why she kills The Doctor, and how The Doctor is going to escape what appears to be an inescapable fate only his companions know about! Plus, there's the small matter of why that child is able to regenerate from injuries, exactly like a Time Lord, in this episode's jaw-dropping denouement.

Overall, "Day Of The Moon" was an unremittingly entertaining and surprisingly scary episode that I'd feel bad about nitpicking too much. It wasn't as baffling as part 1, and despite the fact a good 30% of everything that happened still needs to be fully explained, those are the plot threads Moffat's chosen to weave throughout this series, so categorical complaints will have to wait for the end of year finale. Above all, the pace, scares, humour, dialogue and a sense of scale was all present and correct. You can furrow your brow about many things, and I'm sure there will be people who felt bamboozled by the whole episode, but with the caveat that you allow several things to wash over you, "Day Of The Moon" was an extremely enjoyable and ambitious piece of sci-fi entertainment.

Asides

• So -- any theories on who the little girl is? It must surely by Amy's daughter, if the photos on her bedroom table are to be believed. But the child's ability to regenerate surely means that (a) Rory isn't the father, but a Time Lord is? Or (b) Amy spending so much time in the TARDIS has given her as-yet-unborn child the ability to regenerate like a Time Lord? Trouble is, both seem like humongous stretches to be plausible. Amy is unlikely to have slept around, certainly not with a Time Lord! Or was her joke about having a baby born with a "Timehead" right on the money? But how would that work? Have no companions ever had children after leaving the TARDIS? Or maybe the child is River's -- who at some point sleeps with The Doctor and gives birth to his daughter, but Amy becomes her baby's adopted mother? It's not Georgia Moffett's character Jenny from "The Doctor's Daughter", is it?
• Maybe we should be asking not who the little girl is, but who she'll be regenerating into? I'm guessing River Song. There, said it. No, actually -- she's a clone of The Doctor, who we later see dying in "The Impossible Planet"? So the "little girl spaceman" murdered her future self? Oh, my head hurts.
• Time Lords CAN grow facial hair! Did he use the sonic screwdriver to shave?
• Who was the strange lady with the eye patch in the little girl's room? A creepy nanny? The eye patch must be significant. Who is going to be losing an eye at some point? The character is known as Eye Patch Lady (Frances Barber) and is confirmed as returning to the show later this series...
• Rory can remember his 2,000 years spent as a Roman soldier, despite the fact that technically happened to a different Rory before the "Second Big Bang" that restarted the universe. It would be much easier to just say Rory can't remember that stuff, so I suspect the fact he can is a clue of sorts -- right?
• The character of Renfrew at the orphanage was an obvious nod to Dracula's Renfield. I also felt some similarities to the Silence and the sack-cloth headed boy in the Mexican horror The Orphanage, how about you?
• It's confirmed that The Silence have a proto-TARDIS like the one seen in last year's "The Lodger", but it's probably not the same one.

written by Steven Moffat / directed by Toby Haynes / 30 April 2011 / BBC One

Next time....

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Who's at the Royal Wedding?

via GaryTomWilliams

Did you enjoy the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton this morning? I certainly had a fun time tweeting snarkily about it for a few hours, but it was genuinely a lovely occasion. One of the funniest tweets that caught my attention was the above photo, proving that The Doctor himself couldn't resist making an appearance, which I can't resist posting here.

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TV Ratings: 'Doctor Who' (BBC America)

Alex Kingston as River Song in DOCTOR WHO

The ratings for Doctor Who's series 6 premiere on BBC America are in! "The Impossible Astronaut" is confirmed as the cable channel's highest-rated show ever. 1.28m people tuned into the episode on Saturday evening, which was itself set in America. That's an improvement of 71,000 viewers over series 5's premiere last year.

Naturally, broadcasting the episode the same day as the UK helped matters (by curbing online piracy), but it's perhaps surprising only an extra 71,000 people were added to last year's figures. Maybe the BBC have overestimated the number of Americans willing to download the series online? I wonder if the BBC were imagining there were hundreds of thousands of American fans who wouldn't ordinarily wait for BBC America's broadcast, when in fact most probably do wait for it to be televised. Or download in addition to watching it on US television?

Any thoughts, American readers?

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TV Ratings: 'Doctor Who' (BBC1)

Saturday's series 6 premiere of Doctor Who attracted 6.5 million viewers at 6pm, the show's earliest timeslot to date. That's down 1.2m viewers from series 5's launch, but obviously there was more hoopla about Who's return with brand new actors last spring. The atypically hot Easter weekend also played a part, with many people likely to have deferred the live broadcast with the intention of catching a repeat or watching the BBC iPlayer. Doctor Who was still the second most-watched show that evening, beaten only by Britain's Got Talent on ITV1. Who's consolidated viewing figures are also likely to push the overall rating up to 8.5m or more.

This was a successful return, dampened by the weather and a timeslot that arguably clashed with some barbecues and outdoor pursuits. It'll be interesting to see what next weekend's ratings are, seeing as it's the second of a two-part premiere (the first for nu-Who.) Hopefully those who missed its return will have caught up by 30 April, so the next episode makes sense to them.

What are your thoughts on the ratings and timeslot? Did you watch live, or wait for a repeat on BBC3? Maybe you chose to iPlayer the episode the next day? Have you yet to see it, owing to the weather? Maybe you took an Easter break, so that's why you haven't got around to it yet? Or were you sat comfortably on your sofa come 6pm, eager to watch the latest adventure?

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Review: 'DOCTOR WHO' 6.1 - "The Impossible Astronaut"

Time travel to Obsessed With Film, where I've reviewed the series 6 premiere of DOCTOR WHO, "The Impossible Astronaut". Spaceman! Aliens! Stetson!

Steven Moffat's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. The episodes he wrote during Russell T. Davies' era of Doctor Who's revival buzzed with a complex playfulness that was mostly absent at that time in its history. As the incumbent showrunner he can indulge himself with similar takes on almost a weekly basis, and there were times during "The Impossible Astronaut" when you missed the show's simplicity and, to be honest, the narrative somersaults were too dominant. This is a show that, while still fundamentally simple and beautifully accessible (eccentric alien travels through Time and Space saving the universe with human companions), now revels in in-jokes, Cat's Cradle plotting, and geeky references. The good news is that most people watching can keep up, or want to try, but this was still a dizzying, hectic storyline -- and one that likely confused Americans the BBC so clearly want to convert into Whovians...

An unspecified time after series 5's finale, newly-married companions Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), together with time-travelling enigma River Song (Alex Kingston) are summoned to the epic vistas of Monument Valley in Utah by cryptic TARDIS-blue letters supposedly sent by their mutual friend The Doctor (Matt Smith.) From there, things get complicated, as they're apt to with a script from Steven Moffat: involving the apparently irreversible death of one of their party by a creepy "astronaut" emerging from a lake, which necessitates a trip to the White House of 1969 to help President Nixon (Stuart Milligan) solve the riddle of a crank caller. Oh, and there are bizarre aliens at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue known as "The Silents", resembling alien Grey's that have had their mouths dunked in toxic waste before being sent to Saville Row for a tailored suit. Continue reading...

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RIP: Elisabeth Sladen (1948-2011)

Actress Elisabeth Sladen, who played faithful companion Sarah-Jane Smith on Doctor Who for 38 years, has died of complications arising from a battle with cancer she kept quiet for several years. She was 63.

Sladen made her Doctor Who debut as feisty reporter Sarah-Jane Smith in 1973, when Jon Pertwee was playing The Doctor, and throughout Tom Baker's tenure until 1981. Upon leaving the show she appeared in several Who specials and radio plays (including ill-fated TV pilot K-9 & Company), before a guest appearance in Doctor Who's 2006 episode "School Reunion" led to Sladen being given her own TV series the following year, entitled The Sarah-Jane Adventures. 

Sladen's career was dominated and defined by her work on Doctor Who over almost four decades, as she appeared in only a few other TV shows and plays in her lifetime.

Russell T. Davies, Sarah-Jane Adventures' creator:

I absolutely loved Lis. She was funny and cheeky and clever and just simply wonderful. The universe was lucky to have Sarah-Jane Smith, the world was lucky to have Lis.

Steven Moffat, incumbent Doctor Who showrunner:

"Never meet your heroes" wise people say. They weren't thinking of Lis Sladen. Sarah-Jane Smith was everybody's hero when I was younger, and as brave and funny and brilliant as people only ever are in stories. But many years later, when I met the real Sarah-Jane -- Lis Sladen herself -- she was exactly as any child ever have wanted her to be. Kind and gentle and clever; and a ferociously talented actress, of course, but in that perfectly English unassuming way. There are a blessed few who can carry a whole television show on their talent and charisma -- but I can't think of one other who's done it quite so politely.

Elisabeth Sladen is survived by her husband Brian Miller and daughter Sadie Miller.

DoctorWhoNews.net have a comprehensive write-up of Elisabeth Sladen's passing.

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'Doctor Who': Series 6 BBC America Trailer

Now it's the turn of BBC America to debut a trailer for Doctor Who's sixth series, premiering 23 April. It's not as exciting as the native trailer (partly because of the weaker music and silly voice over) but you can appreciate the visuals more because it's not as hectic. And there's lots of new footage, including our first look at guest-star Mark Sheppard in the White House. I'm guessing everyone's said all they want to say, but for those who haven't... what do you think?

(Oh, and did you click the video's special "1911" button for a special treat at the end? What's THAT all about?)

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'Doctor Who': Series 6 Full Trailer

The BBC have debuted the official, full-length trailer for series 6 of Doctor Who online. This one-minute tease will make its television debut tonight at 8pm on BBC1. Behold! Doesn't it look awesome? I'm so pleased the quality of production design and special effects keeps improving. I always thought the Russell T. Davies era looked like a glorified kid's show, but Steven Moffat's ensuring it's more rich and stylish these days.

Scary clown! Pirates! Dolls! River Song!

"Fear me: I've killed hundreds of Time Lords"
"Fear me: I've killed all of them."

Excited now? Doctor Who returns on 23 April.

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Video: 'Doctor Who' does Comic Relief 2011

Together with the Christmas specials, it's become a tradition for Doctor Who to deliver a mini-episode during the BBC's three major telethons (Comic Relief, Sport Relief and Children In Need.) Keeping that custom alive, the excellent Steven Moffat-penned charity special "Space & Time" just aired on Red Nose Day, showing us what would happen if the TARDIS accidentally materialized within itself.

I like how Moffat uses these specials to tackle ideas that perhaps wouldn't fuel a normal-length episode, but instead scratch geeky itches. Oh, and who doesn't want to see two Amy Ponds flirting with each other? You can watch the very "timey-wimey" seven-minute video above and below.

Did you enjoy that? If so, why not donate some money to Comic Relief?

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Talking Point: are same-day American premieres of British TV shows unfair?

Doctor Who's sixth series is being shown on BBC America the same day as its UK premiere on 23 April. This continues a trend started by Doctor Who with its 2010 festive special "A Christmas Carol" and the fourth series premiere of Primeval. I'm sure many Americans are overjoyed at this news, and I certainly don't blame them, but is it fair to British viewers, who pay for the show?

My argument boils down to the fact British viewers, who already have to wait weeks/months for US shows to be legally broadcast, have very few "TV events" to get excited about. The fact a world-famous show like Doctor Who premieres in its native land, weeks before anywhere else, gives British fans a sense of ownership and, yes, some fun bragging rights. For just a few times in the year, it's the rest of the TV-watching world who are jealous of us, and not the other way around. Or am I alone in getting jealous?

There are times when a US show airs within a week of its transmission here, too -- and that's fantastic. I don't begrudge the US getting to see their own shows first. That same-week system should be standardized and cut both ways. If Doctor Who premiered on BBC America within 7 days of its BBC1 premiere, that's absolutely fine with me.

I suppose we should be grateful Doctor Who's broadcast isn't simultaneous because of time zone issues. Thanks science! And I wouldn't complain if more UK broadcasters had regular same-day transmissions of equivalently popular US dramas. But it rarely seems to work that way. Maybe one day global simulcasts will be commonplace. That's fair. But, as it stands, I'm frustrated a perk of being a UK TV license fee payer has been eroded like this.

Do you agree with me? I bet Americans don't! I know it's a (very) petty issue, at heart, but I don't want the few instances of temporary exclusivity on globally popular UK shows to disappear, especially if it's a one-sided situation that benefits American audiences. In light of this news, Torchwood: Miracle Day had better broadcast on BBC1 the same day as Starz in the summer, considering it's actually co-created by the BBC...

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