Musings

9 June 2018

Life has been very busy lately: doing two jobs, working on two books (medieval bastards and a guidebook to the Chilterns) and selling my mother's bungalow, so not much time for blogging, or for Doctor Who.

I did read the Target novelisation of The Day of the Doctor, which was excellent, in a very Steven Moffat way.  Naturally he had to tell the story from multiple viewpoints and include a running gag about Chapter Nine. On the subject of Moffat, we also re-watched Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead recently.  They are still great stories, and what struck me particularly was how well River Song's first appearance stands up even when viewed with the benefit of hindsight. The Doctor's face when someone accuses him and River of bickering like 'an old married couple' is priceless. I still want to know why Audrey Niffenegger didn't sue, though.

There are rumours that Captain Jack will return to our screens to meet Doctor 13.  These seem largely fuelled by the fact that Chris Chibnall was the showrunner for Torchwood. Whilst I would love to see the Captain back on our screens, the TARDIS is already going to be quite crowded.  I hope Jodie Whittaker has enough space to be the Doctor, and doesn't get crowed out as Peter Davison did at times.

Oh well, all will be revealed in due course.

St George's Day

23 April 2016

It is St George's Day, and the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death (or at least the 400th anniversary is being celebrated today.)

To honour the occasion, the BBC have decided to announce the new Doctor Who companion at half time of a football match.  Do Doctor Who fans watch football?  The new companion turns out not to be David Tennant as Doctor 10.2 (my ideal choice), or Frank Skinner (my second choice, after his performance in Mummy on the Orient Express), but then Peter Capaldi is on record as saying that he didn't want a male companion, in case he got to do all the action stuff. It is actually a girl named Bill, played by Pearl Mackie.

This will naturally led itself to some great puns and headlines in Doctor Who Magazine. How long before they run with 'Kill Bill!'

Meanwhile in Stratford-upon-Avon, the DoctorDonna (i.e. David Tennant and Catherine Tate) are hosting the Shakespeare Live! gala at the RSC. The start was a bit shaky, and there was rather too much music and not enough Shakespeare but it cheered up no end after the Nine Hamlets sketch with David Tennant, Tim Minchin, Paapa Essiedu, Harriet Walter, Ian McKellen, Rory Kinnear, Benedict Cumberbatch, Judi Dench and, er... Prince Charles.

I was left a little disappointed though that it didn't start with Dean Lennox Kelly coming on and saying 'Shut your mouths'

December 2006: return of the Robot Santas

25 December 2006

The Runaway Bride     

Russell T Davies is on record as saying that he likes Christmassy Christmas specials.  None of your Lovejoy Goes to Prague for him.  No surprises then, that The Runaway Bride was set on Christmas Eve.  But the Christmassy elements were mostly a reprise of last year’s Christmas Invasion: robot Santas, a killer Christmas tree, a snatch of Slade, a snowy ending.  The cynical might think that he was just going through the motions and writing a Christmas special by numbers.  The more charitably inclined might cling to the possibility that he intends to start a new Christmas tradition, with robot Santas becoming as much a part of the festivities as Wizzard and Christmas cards with penguins on.

Stripping away the Christmas wrapping, we are left with an episode that is fairly light on plot, with some great set pieces and entertaining one-liners.  Catherine Tate is no doubt a talented actress, but all her characters are deeply annoying.  Donna was no exception.  However this did set up some great dialogue.  Donna’s failure to grasp the “bigger picture” owing to being hung-over or scuba diving during recent alien invasions was amusing. However my favourite line was during the chase scene along the motorway. The Doctor is trying to persuade Donna to leap out of the taxi and into the TARDIS.  Donna protests “I’m in my wedding dress!” and the Doctor replies “Yes, you look lovely.  Now JUMP!” Other dialogue triumphs included “this time it’s Personnel’, but am I the only one who noticed that the “doesn’t even know where Germany is” line is straight out of Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason?

The chase sequence itself was excellent. We have never seen the TARDIS doing anything quite like that before.  The Doctor’s piloting skills have clearly improved since last Christmas, though not much.

I was also impressed by the Empress of Racnoss costume, which looked authentically spidery.  But I did feel that Sarah Parish was rather wasted – it could have been anyone overacting away in there.  There were some large holes in the plot – and I don’t just mean the one down which the Racnoss children were flushed at the end.  The Racnoss ship has been at the centre of the Earth since the planet was formed.  The Empress, who has been lurking somewhere since the Dark Times without anyone noticing her fairly distinctive-looking ship, suddenly decides to take advantage of a newly-vacant Torchwood base under the Thames Barrier to bore a hole to get them. Surely she could have found somewhere rather more remote to commence operations?  And with all that access to alien technology, is a Segway really the best means of transport Torchwood could come up with to get from the basement of HC Clements to the secret base?

Still, it’s Christmas, and the Doctor has only just been through a traumatic experience with Daleks and Cybermen and jettisoning Rose in an alternative universe.  He deserves a nice easy adventure.  Pass the turkey sandwiches.

June 2006: Farewell to Rose

3 June 2006

I thought this episode was going to be terrible, but it was excellent.  I liked the double bluff at the beginning with the Ood appearing menacing and then turning out to be merely hospitable.  The scene where Toby was possessed was really spine-chilling.

 10 June 2006

Not quite as good as last week, but very good nevertheless.  I have spent all the past week muttering “the Beast and his Armies shall rise from the Pit”. Especially on Tuesday. [6/6/6]. 

17 June 2006

This is the episode we have been worrying about.  In the end, I quite enjoyed, it, but I’m not sure that it was Doctor Who.  It is the first time I have really warmed to Jackie, but I think it might have been better without Peter Kay.  Apparently the kid who designed the Abzorbaloff intended it to be the size of a double decker bus, but forgot to mention this in his competition entry.  I think it might have worked better if it had been that bit bigger and less like Peter Kay in a green fat suit.

 24 June 2006

This week’s episode was surprisingly good.  Unfortunately, I was filled with the urge to make some little cakes decorated with ‘edible ball bearings’ for tea on Sunday. I managed to drop the sieve, sprinkling copious amounts of icing sugar over the kitchen floor and my jeans, and then, when I finally managed to get the top off the tub of silver balls, they scattered far and wide.  I now have a very sticky kitchen.  Still, the cakes tasted all right.  (Culinary note – those silver balls are also handy for making marzipan Daleks).

1 July 2006

I don’t know quite how we managed it, but today we are flying to Italy for a holiday, so we won’t be seeing tonight’s episode live.  The one good thing about this is that we don’t end up spending large amounts of money on buying day-old English newspapers while we are there, in case they have anything about the episode in them.

 9 July 2006

We arrived back late last night, missing the final episode as well.  The first thing to do this morning after unpacking and loading the washing machine, was to watch Army of Ghosts. This could have been extremely silly, but fortunately wasn’t.  The unveiling of the Daleks at the end was a surprise.  I had heard vague rumours that Daleks might be involved because the trailer appeared to show a Dalek gun being used, but didn’t think a Dalek gun necessarily meant actual Daleks. After all, we already knew that one Dalek had fallen to Earth, and Torchwood collects alien artefacts.

Later, we saw Doomsday.  Well, it was fairly obvious that Rose wasn’t really going to die, or she wouldn’t have been there to tell the story, and once the parallel Earth came up again it was fairly obvious what was going to happen.  Still, it was a moving end, if not quite as good as The Girl in the Fireplace. Not sure about the Catherine Tate bit though.  It had rather the same effect as the “Phil’s back…and he’s not happy” voiceover on the ending of Casanova when it was broadcast on BBC1.