At last it seems the months of speculation, rumours and in some corners, fervent wishing have come to an end, and it has been officially announced that Steven Moffat will be taking up the keys to the good van Doctor Who from Series Five. By which we assume, the full series, and not the currently-being-filmed 2009 specials.

It is, of course, huge news – arguably the biggest since the series’ return, and though the impact on fandom on the Web has already been very large (we only appear to have just literally woken to the report here in NZ), there’s still a good deal we don’t know about what lies ahead. These are perilously early days, but it would appear that the days ahead, and the new series, are both in very good hands indeed. Moffat is for the mean-time a busy man – he is scripting the Tintin movies, and has a new series Adam and Eve in production with wife Sue Virtue. We’ve a year of specials (numbers of which depend on semantics) to get through first, and before then, the rest of Series Four. But fandom is an impatient beast, willing to leave half a plate unfinished to skip to dessert, and cheese, coffee and after dinner mints. If there was ever an example of rude haste, then we’re it. The remaining days of Russell T Davies’ vision of the revived series are yet to play out. We can assume however that the transition will be a gentle one.

So ZeusBlog‘s prediction for the months to come is more of the same, but in different ways. You’ll likely hear lots of cheering and a few hearts being broken, the odd “too soon!” and questions about whether this new broom will usher in a new Doctor with it (definitely a “too soon” question to be asked). People will recall Blink and The Empty Child and imagine them to be the template for the series to come. I disagree. Some will cheer the end of bottom and fart gags in the series, forgetting that Moffat also gave us The Curse of Fatal Death. As seen in his other series he’s a man of varied stories and interesting turns, and he will surprise us. So it may not be time yet to get out that Photoshop montage you’ve been working on for your Forum avatar featuring James Nesbitt as the Eleventh Doctor with his companion Sally Sparrow. The future is over a year away, and as usual, much of it isn’t yet written. In the mean-time, we can be grateful that the series continues to be popular and entertaining.

Here’s to the days ahead and those beyond.

PA 

What a waste.

It’s not that we were all merrily lead up the garden path thinking we would see revelations about the Doctor’s past. It’s not the fact we’ve seen it before, you’d need a long memory for The Ark, or a fairly good book collection for Father Time. Even Martha traipsing round the surface of a desolate planet doesn’t grate after last years finale. The regulars are on top form, with a refreshing lack of Donna “funny” set pieces (although there is an obligatory “You’re brilliant” – methinks they protest too much) the titular guest is easy on the eye, and everyone does fairly well.

It’s just too damned short.

It’s full of great ideas, good concepts, but like (and even more than) Pompei and Ood (and I know I sound like a broken record) everything is crammed in and rushed. The story is a bit of a run-a-round, but there is so much potential; The Hath look great, but lets see more of them, why are they there, what is their history? Why was the map and other information hidden? Why is the human protagonist so much older than his clone troopers? Martha’s surface trek seems too quick a jaunt, Jenny and the Doctor seem to bond too quickly. Given what could be done, given the scope of who Jenny is and what she means to the Doctor (given Helen Raynor spent two episodes rewriting Daleks Take Manhattan with Sontarans in it) it all just seems too pat and too easy.

Because the really worrying thing is this is a setup, a quick bit of groundwork for something else later on. Mid-season is usually where Rusty starts lining up the pieces for later on (Dalek/Long Game, The Cybus Stories, Saxon references in Lazarus/42), and if so, it all seems like such a waste.

DR

PARTNERS IN CRIME
Cribbens! Tate! That cameo! RTD finally beating the press to a spoiler!! Surely the best season opener yet?

JUMPING THE MERCHANDISE GUN FOR FAT PROFITS
Before we all plumped for Adiposemania (we did. That as the idea, wasn’t it?) There was ample evidence to show the spirit of cottage industries and free enterprise unshackled by copyright issues so prevalent on the World Wide Web these days. Back in those heady early March moments you could have had one of Miss Foster’s finest fashioned (or sort of fashioned) in crochet, modelling clay or – what looked like plasticine… and it could be yours! Or go to the highest bidder.  Hang on… they seem to have all gone. I wonder where?

A VIDEO GAME AT LAST!
…and it’s based on the highly popular Top Trumps card game. Oh yes.  Er, why?
Hardly a thrill a minute, surely?

DRINKEL’S WINKLE
Oh so you didn’t want to see more of a Timelash cast (ahem) member than you’d bargained for? Then why did you buy Zygon then – silly boy? 

FOUR TO DOOMSDAY OUT SOON?
Now, it is true that we know so little about telebiogenesis, but this tid-bit of gossip has us interested. Especially when you consider the potential – Davison’s lowest rung combined with the promise of a Davison/Sutton/Waterhouse/Fielding commentary. Just turn the picture down and the sound up – brilliant!

OUTPOST GALLIFREY’S SONTARAN STRATAGEM
Is it us, or does this caption just make the photo seem
even more like another one of those ‘Who F*rted’ pictures?

THE FACE OF GE
According to scoop.co.nz

and (hopefully) finally…
TORCHWOOD GETS ROLLED
It had to happen sooner or later. Poor Tosh.

Generally the reviews on the boards seem quite in favour of the new Sontaran two-parter, old monsters returning with gusto and more pizzazz than, well, the other, more lacklustre early two-parters of previous seasons.  And really that isn’t a good yardstick to compare these episodes by.  Having felt that a bit of extra time would’ve benefited both Fires of Pompeii and Planet of the Ood to expand plot strands and ideas that were begging to be developed, Stratagem and Sky seemed too much like a runaround.  By co-incidence I ended up rewatching Girl in the Fireplace shortly after seeing the closing episode and it simply brought home to me (as Jamas noted in his blog) that this is just a really good Sarah Jane Adventure story.  It has it all, simple plot, in-jokes, turns-out-nice doppelganger, lots of action, backyard setting, eco-theme, villainous kid, and cutesy aliens.

I never thought I could describe the Sontarans as cutesy – but here they’ve taken one of the series’ design classics and tweaked it out of skew.  It’s not that they’ve made them short (they always were stocky, but they never made jokes about it before; I don’t see Pertles or Tom B wrestling with Chris Ryan); it’s not that they dressed them in baby blue (though black always looked niftier); it’s not even that they’ve turned them into cut-price Klingons; it’s because they’ve made them so bad at it.

After years of lone clones living by their wits, the warriors have arrived en masse, but seem a lot less sharp for it, the new army less than the sum of its original parts.  All the bluster about honour, and yet they resort to subterfuge, using kids and look-alikes (a Rutan method), shooting the unarmed as sport – they used to be even more shrewd and cunning, but they didn’t prattle on hypocritically about it.  All the moaning about females (whereas they used to be a curiosity), they seem more like gung-ho schoolboys.  The aliens of this story could be almost anyone, just with a lot of Sontaran window dressing, like the good old probic vent; their only weakness… that and bullets.  The new Sontarans have no fear of death, which is handy, as they seem far too good at it.

Donna continues to shine, although some of the set pieces (“you’re leaving?” TARDIS key) are such parodies they detract from the plot.  Bernard Cribbins needs to do a Mickey and come onboard for a stint on the ship (although given the behind the scenes reasons for his casting, the way his character is developing may be in slightly pour taste); even Sylvia gets a chance to look good (how would’ve we reacted to Jacqui or Martha’s Mum with an axe?).  Sadly they had to clone Martha to give her something productive to do, but all this aside it all just seems far too clever, mummy jokes, handy hammers, but really it’s almost an exercise in ticking the boxes: bring back Martha, tick; UNIT, Sontarans, tick, tick. Valiant, family issues, special effects, obligatory Rose reference etc.  Given the potential scope of what could be done with these two episodes what we’ve been given just seems a little mundane.

DR

Blogging can be backbreaking work. But there was no need for him to take it so literally.

Not even a year on from an arm-breaking effort in his own back yard, Peter A has upped the ante with a weekend accident on a friend’s trampoline, landing with some force on a stationary obstacle and fracturing his vertebra in the process (L1 for those of you keeping score at home). After a two-day stay in hospital, he’s now home and braced-up, on heavy medication and muttering feverishly about “making a man” out of all the various x-rays of limbs collected over the life of ZeusPlug (score to date: a head, lower torso and an elbow).

His message: apologies for the delay in Fast Return and new series reviews; normal service will resume shortly.

Thanks

PA

It’s bigger on the inside!

Temporal engineering is surely the only way to explain how Alex has managed to fit such an embarrassment of riches into what is still a relatively slim volume. An interview, articles, reviews, artwork, comic strips and cartoons – there’s even a crossword, for heavens sake! You can keep your official activity books – get RTP! instead.

But to get inside, you must first get past the cover.

Are we about to read RTP! 26, or Doctor Who and the Sorcer’s (sic) Weapon?  It’s wonderful to see RTP! with a colour cover and always charming to see some artwork from a young and enthusiastic fan, but in this case the result is definitely less than the sum of its parts.  What we actually have is a landmark full-colour cover which looks as if it’s been hand-drawn by a young and enthusiastic fan.  Instead of taking the opportunity to enhance RTP!’s own brand by adding colour to that sharp masthead logo, we see it instead shrunk and stuck somewhere near the bottom – in black and white!  Cropping, angling, or drop-shadowing the illustration might have helped to make it an element of, rather than becoming the cover so that RTP!’s traditionally clean typography could still have been maintained.  Never mind there’s always the back cover, where we have – a black and white illustration! (An extremely good one, but another missed opportunity for colour, regardless).

Alright, we’re now inside, and despite the terrifyingly narrow outside page margin (getting to the end of right-hand sentences is like playing chicken with the page edge, at times) RTP! 26 is, as usual, a delight.  As implied earlier, there’s far too much on offer to do justice to in a short review – but three of the main features deserve focussing upon.

If the 8 page first part of ‘The Tower of Angum’ was a film, I’d have to say that it’s stylishly directed; with the panel composition and content both innovative and adept at communicating the story visually.  I’m looking forward to Part 2.

James Grant’s reply (or rebuttal?) to Lorna Fleming’s recent TSV article ‘Planet of Fear’ is a well-researched piece which could so easily have become inflammatory, or at the very least pedantic.  In fact, the Fleming TSV article is not just deconstructed with sensitivity and respect, but Grant offers equally fascinating alternative theories and observations for us to mull over.  Articles like this show how much Fandom has grown up – leaving behind the days when differences of opinion often seemed centred on whether a story, Doctor or entire ‘era’ was ‘crap’ or not.

Speaking of intelligent opinion, the Morgan Davie interview also contains many thoughtful and balanced views on Fandom and writing in general. Davie also communicates the enviable excitement of living in Britain as the ‘new series tsunami’ built and broke in 2005 – something the rest of us can only imagine.

I’ll close by urging that everyone contribute to the always excellent ‘Fanboy Confidential’ at least once in their lives.  It’s enormous fun, a cornerstone of RTP! and, as compiler Peter Adamson says:

“When we share, we heal.”

AH

Slaves to the Music or Bad Things Happen to Ood People

Spoilers follow… Read the rest of this entry »

Ooh. Spoilers. Read the rest of this entry »

From Outpost Gallifrey:

‘Unofficial figures show that episode three of Series Four, Planet of the Ood, was watched by 86.9 million viewers, giving it a 33.4% share of the total television audience.’

This makes Planet of the Ood the most-watched Doctor Who episode of all time, beating the previous champion, City of Death Episode 4, by more than 70 million viewers.

Due to some unallowed content , the commentary for the episode The Last of the Time Lords was removed for the US Series Three box set. This is well known, this wasn’t the only change. And so, we present the Top 10 changes for the US Series Three Box Set.

1. Freema Agyeman was digitally replaced with Jessica Simpson, as the American audience expects companion actresses to be a) blonde (to a degree) and b) have had a failed singing career.

2. Gridlock now takes place in the Holland Tunnel and is “based on real events”.

3. The Beatles question in 42 has been replaced with a British group the Americans do know: The Spice Girls.

4. There is an extra features praising the US for getting involved in the War in Iraq and everything they do is wonderful, and please don’t bomb the UK next.

5. There is an alternative Angle option on the two Daleks Take Manhattan episodes which feature waving American Flags in Every Single Shot! Just like in every US show!

6. Just so no-one feels like they are missing out (no viewer left behind!), whenever Mr Saxon is mentioned, there is a ten second pause, and scrolling text that reads “This is an important arc-plot point! Mr Saxon will be revealed to be the Master, who shows up at the end of the series!”

7. There is an extra commentary on Blink assuring American watchers that yes, it is possible to have TV this decent.

8. [Reference to “guns in schools” feature removed due to sudden attack of taste.]

9. There is an hour long documentary about how the British term is Series and the American term is Season. Guest presenter: Adam McGechan.

10. And, of course, the US Box Set doesn’t feature the ten hours of intro scenes and logos everyone else has to suffer through.

JE