Category: Doctor Who

Via Topless Robot.

I’ll confess I’ve not been a fan of the old “new” Doctor Who logo (though I love the current main titles). The current one has a bit more edgy character (though I remain most fond of this classic).

The trailer for the Doctor Who Easter Special is online (not much spoilers) …

Yeah, I’d feel a lot better, if I hadn’t see the Doctor promise to get people to safety about eleventy-zillion times over the last few years. Usually followed by “I am so sorry …”

(via Les)

So they’ve announced the new Doctor for Doctor Who: Matt Smith. His main noteworthy quality seems to be his youth, at age 26.

Cue angst, fear, and trembling amongst the TruWhoFen (as would be the case with any casting).

Me? I reserve judgment until I see him actually in the role for a bit (I was cool to David Tennant at first, too). I don’t think his youth is either a qualification or disqualification, any more than the prospects for a black or female time Lord overly-disturbed me. 

Certainly the official word is enthusiastic.

Steven Moffat, the programme’s executive producer and new lead writer, said, “The Doctor is a very special part, and it takes a very special actor to play him. You need to be old and young at the same time, a boffin and an action hero, a cheeky schoolboy and the wise old man of the universe.

“As soon as Matt walked through the door and blew us away with a bold and brand new take on the Time Lord, we knew we had our man. 2010 is a long time away but rest assured the 11th doctor is coming – and the universe has never been so safe.”

Good enough (provisionally) for me. I’m more worried that — well, it seems that at one point it was determined that Time Lords could only have twelve regenerations and so thirteen incarnations. We’re beginning to run a bit low …

Observations and comments from the series producer, Peter Bennett.

What’s the plotline of this series?
“It’s different to every other year. It’s not a story about spaceships, but it’s about a government that did a deal with aliens back in the ’60s, and they’re now dealing with the consequences of that deal when the sins of their past come back to haunt them.”

What was the thinking behind switching to doing a five-episode serial?
“Having done 26 standalone stories, we kind of wanted to take this series to another level and by making it one story over five nights, we feel we’ve done that. It’s big, it’s epic, and it’s very different.”

It’s also changed channels. How has the move to BBC One affected the tone of the show?
“Taking over a week of primetime BBC One is a big responsibility, and something none of us have done before. So we had to approach everything differently, from the way we storylined the series, to the scripting and filming, then right through to the editing. The script has a big cliffhanger and a few unexpected twists along the way. Telling one story has also given us the opportunity to have one director across the whole series, Euros Lyn, who’s been incredible and taken the show to a new level.”

Hmmmm … when does hit BBC America?

(via Les)

The BBC has released some early archive material around the development of its long-running show, Doctor Who, back in the early 60s. Reading some of the early notes, as well as concerns over doing something as dodgy and fringe as “science fiction” on TV is fascinating.

The Doctor without his time-travelling police box is difficult to imagine, but its creators initially proposed he journey through space in an invisible machine covered in light-resistant paint. When BBC producers were devising the show in the early 1960s, they thought viewers should see no machine at all, only “a shape of nothingness”.

The BBC’s head of drama Sydney Newman, who commissioned the first series, insisted an invisible machine would not work and the doctor’s vehicle should be a strong visual symbol. Wisely, writers also said a transparent, plastic bubble would be “lowgrade”. But a seed of the Tardis idea is sown when they suggest using “some common object in the street” like a night-watchman’s shelter.

And then there was the initial description/concept for the Doctor.

In Mr Cecil’s illuminating background notes, he describes the Doctor as follows:

“A frail old man lost in space and time. They give him this name because they don’t know who he is. He seems not to remember where he has come from: he is suspicious and capable of sudden malignance; he seems to have some undefined enemy; he is searching for something as well as fleeing from something. He has a ‘machine’ which enables them to travel together through time, through space and through matter.” 

It’s hardly heroic but that description, apart from being frail, fits David Tennant perfectly, says Mr Sangster. He’s quite unforgiving and it’s up to humans to remind him of his moral duty. […] That first description of the Doctor, played initially by an old-looking William Hartnell, still holds true today, says Doctor Who Online editor, Sebastian Brook, and his mystique is one of the show’s guiding principles. “The suspiciousness is something that’s passed on through the years and the undefined enemy is things going wrong with the universe.

“And the mystery as well. It’s not just a question mark, but the character itself – who is he? If that’s ever resolved in the series, then that’s the day it fails.”

 Interesting stuff.

Via Les, a clip from the upcoming 2008 Doctor Who Christmas special. Huzzah!

So … when do we get this in the States again? ‘Cause, damn, this makes me so happy just to see a bit of …

Word’s come down confirming that David Tennant will leave Doctor Who after all the various 2009-2010 one-off specials.

The Guardian newspaper this evening broke the story prematurely, reporting on their website (in a report subsequently pulled down) that Tennant is “vacating the TARDIS and leaving the BBC’s Doctor Who series at the end of next year. Tennant’s decision brings to an end his popular four-year tenure as the time lord.” The article went on to say that the BBC had confirmed that the actor “would complete the filming of four special episodes to be screened this year and in early 2010, as well as 2009’s Christmas special.”

Tennant’s truly grown and grown into the role, but it’s not surprising he’s leaving, especially as the timing and direction (Russell Davies giving way to Steven Moffat) of the series evolves. I’ll confess I still prefer Chris Eccleston by a nose (so to speak), but I’ll look back on Tennant with great fondness.

No word on who the Eleventh Doctor might be, but there are some interesting rumors.

I suppose if you’ve been on TV for 30 or 40 years, you can find a lot of, um, parallel dialog between episodes. And it looks like the complier of this Doctor Who video found nearly everyone one of them. Or at least eight minutes worth. Including my (pantomime) favorite.

For a show with “Who” in the title, that’s a lot of “What”s.

(via Les and io9)

Well, maybe not really — but triffically well done.

Yeah, the use of sound effects and music helps, but, let’s face it — there’s also a family resemblance to some of the, um, somewhat cheesy SFX of the past. And I just love Capt. Jack.

(via Les)

I forgot to write about our marathon session watching the last three eps of the current Doctor Who — which I’ll simply sum up by saying (a) it would be hard to get more epic in scope while still remaining faithful to the show, and (b) I’m almost willing to let the show fall into its planned slower pace of production, as it might take us a few years to catch our breath from the drama.

Meantime, courtesy of Les, here’s a homage to the 45-year history of the Doctor (or, for those who have no idea of how cheesy the sfx on the show used to be, some clear illustrations of same). There’s actually very little Doctor face time — but lots of pics of the Bad Guys.

Good stuff.