Dr Who Planet of The Dead

I'm gonna miss David Tennant playing Doctor Who. He has all that snap and pizazz and has a lot of great expressions. That's why I always loved Tom Baker-he was kind of a nutty Dr Who, but he was my first Doctor. In The Planet of The Dead The Doctor mention the Giant Robot to the current commander of UNIT, which was the first Dr Who episode with Tom Baker.

Anyway. Planet of The Dead starts our with a Pink Panther/Mission Impossible style cat burglary, hanging from a thin rope and stealing the item in question from above. Since this is the preferred method of priceless item theft you'd think the people running security would know to put those lasers on the top of the artifact as well.

One thing leads to another and our crook finds her way to a bus where The Doctor catches a ride and they end up on another planet. Just another day on London Double Decker. The Thief is the same actress who played the Bionic Woman in the horrid and thankfully brief remake. She was stunning in Doctor Who and I'm a bit sad she didn't hang around as his latest Companion.

I am still mildly surprised by the special effects of the New Doctor Who, well, not all that new any more, but still. The Monsters in Planet of The Dead looked really good, for pure CGI flying stingray kind of things. The Fly Men did hearken back to the good old days when Doctor Who costumes were little more than fancy dress outfits. I would have liked the trans-dimensional bus to have been a Route Master, but hey, you can't have everything.

There was danger and perils and we're all going to die moments-just like all Dr Who episodes. It was very good. There was also a woman who could see the future who warned The Doctor that The End Was Near. Well, we all know that, but it is still fun to have a bit of foreshadowing of the Doctor's demise.

UNIT is back and I loved the super genius, slightly an idiot scientist who helped the Doctor solve the wormwhole problems. His specialty seemed to be naming units of measurements after himself and his family. The Doctor saves the day and all is well. The Planet of The Dead was a fun show.

Matt Smith to be 11th Dr Who

“David Tennant has made the role his own, brilliantly with grace, talent and persistent dedication,” Matt Smith said in a BBC press release. ” I hope to learn from the standards set by him. The challenge for me is to do justice to the show’s illustrious past, my predecessors and most importantly to those who watch it. I really cannot wait.”

Slightly mad comic Russell Brand wanted to be the 11th Doctor, but relatively unknown actor Matt Smith gets the job. I saw Matt Smith in The Ruby and The Smoke and The Shadow in the North and liked him well enough-though I was really watching those shows because they starred Billie Piper. I like the idea of a younger Doctor Who to help fill in the gaps in The Doctor's infinite lifetime.

There are always rumors about the New Doctor Who-often speculation about whether the New Doctor will be black or a woman or someone famous. Rowen Atkins and Hugh Grant both made fine Doctors in Doctor Who and The Curse of Fatal Death. Peter Cushing got mixed reviews as the Doctor. Basically, any Doctor is a good Doctor.

The Doctors over the years-

1. William Hartnell (1963-1966)

2. Patrick Troughton (1966-1969)

3. Jon Pertwee (1970-1974)

4. Tom Baker (1974-1981)

5. Peter Davison - pictured (1982-1984)

6. Colin Baker (1984-1986)

7. Sylvester McCoy (1987-1996)

8. Paul McGann (1996)

9. Christopher Eccleston (2005)

10. David Tennant (2005-2010)

11. Matt Smith (2010 - ?)

In other Doctor Who news Russell T Davies, the TV writer who resurrected Doctor Who, has received his OBE for services to drama from the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace. In May Davies announced he was stepping down as the programme's executive producer after a four-year tenure.

Dr Who The Next Doctor

Well, it wouldn't be Christmas without The Doctor, would it? In this years Dr Who Christmas Special we find The Doctor in London in 1951-a pretty dull year where nothing much happened. Except that the Doctor, of course, never lands in dull places where nothing happens.

This was a good episode. I liked the idea of David Tennant meeting his new self in the person of David Morrissey. The Next Doctor had more of an Old Doctor feel to him, as he kind of reminds me of both John Pertwee and Peter Davidson. Of course, all you really need to be The Doctor is a lot of self confidence in the face of hopeless situations. I was also happy to see one of my favorite actresses, Dervla Kirwan, playing the part of a villain. Oh Assumpta, how could you?

I was a bit surprised to see The Eighth Doctor in a flashback of all the old Doctors. Doctor Who, like many other interesting Science Fiction programs, had a chance of being a success on the American FOX network-the same chance that a snowball has in hell. FOX is notorious for airing new shows out of sequence or delaying thier airing because of sporting events, or just waiting so long to air them that everyone involved has moved on to something else. There was one episode of Doctor Who which featured The Eighth Doctor, but he seems to have had a great afterlife in comics, books, and the hearts and minds of fans.

Steampunk is one of my favorite bits of silliness. The main idea is what if Victorians invented say, cell phones, what would they look like? Knowing the Victorian love of intricate detail and the primitive state of Victorian technology, they would be both beautiful and clunky. The Wild Wild West was steampunk in that our old west heroes had all kinds of modern era gadgets. Spock made a steampunk TV in the best Star Trek episode ever, City on The Edge of Forever. Lots of people now make and sell their Steampunk jewelry and technology. The Golden Compass is filled with steampunk.

The big finish of The Next Doctor has our hero fighting a Cyber King-a dreadnought class Cyberman battleship-only it was made using 1851 London materials and techonlogy. So it is a giant steam powered Cyberman complete with glowing red eyes and giant gears and pulleys. This is a brilliant bit of steampunk which actually steams.

It would have been fun to see a Steampunk Dalek, as that is one of the first steampunk things I really noticed online. Well, maybe next Christmas.

Doctor Who is Brilliant

Spoilers-

And so is Doctor Donna and Doctor Who 2-Journey's End was really good.

Oh there was a bit of worry that David Tennant would be leaving Doctor Who, but then, his future wife did recognize him, didn't she? So he must not have changed that much.

I thought Russel T Davis being appointed an OBE by the Queen last month was a bit over the top, but then, Doctor Who is a really great show. I liked that whole the gangs all here aspect of this season's last two episodes. Good to see everyone from the Russel T Davis universe fighting over who gets the chance to save the Universe this time.

About 7.4 million people tuned in for the season's last Doctor Who episode-and millions more will be watching as the days go by. Doctor Who is a great show and I have been very happy the new series. There is still some question as to what will happen with Doctor Who now that the great and powerful Russel T Davis is stepping down. It is possible for the Clone Doctor and Rose Tyler to cross that Sealed Forever Gap one more time if they need to.

Captain Jack had the oblivious desire to spend some time with both Doctors and Donna after it was revealed that they were all three The Doctor. Jack always has been an ambitious lad. There was that whole possibility of happily ever after, but those never really work out, do they?

While I'm on the topic of great season endings, I loved the end of Sarah Jane-Mr Smith, how could you? I really didn't see that coming. It was great.

Anyway-Doctor Who is fun, no matter who plays him or who writes him. Of course, you do wonder how many times one Time Lord can save the Universe. So tell me, if the Daleks can constantly come back, why can't the rest of The Time Lords? I know they were all prats anyway, but they were good for a laugh once in a while.

For more serious details about the show, visit Dalek Base and Of Code and Cats.

Long Live The Doctor! Oh and The Tardis, of course.

Flapper or Slapper?

slapper n person on the prowl for anything they can get. Anything. The word is applied more often to females, arguably because it is a built-in function of blokes and doesn't deserve a separate word. "Slappers" wander around the dance floor looking for the drunkest blokes and then, when they've found them, woo them by dancing backwards into them "accidentally". The are invariably spotted at the end of an evening telling the bouncer how lonely they are and trying to sit on his knee.

Dr Who is a great show and it is often filled with a bit of British slag which leaves the average American dazed a confused. In the recent Dr Who episode, The Unicorn and The Wasp, featuring Agatha Christie, we are treated to several bits of Brit Slag from the Doctor's most recent companion-not his girlfriend-Donna Noble. When she sees a man she suspects is gay she tells The Doctor-All the decent men are on the other bus. When she emerges from the Tardis dressed in 1920s fashion she asks the Doctor-What do you think? Flapper or Slapper?

Donna also makes reference to Noddy-and while the Teletubbies have established a stronghold in America, Noddy & Friends has not really caught on. It is still good to know that Noddy is not real.

There was also the wonderful bit of business about The Colonel being killed in the Library with a Lead Pipe. And it is always good to see Felicity Kendal. This may be the best of the New Dr Who episodes so far-well, except for that silly giant wasp.

Season Four of Dr Who

Dr Who is very much a love it or hate it kind of thing. I pretty much love it and have for lo these many years. The new, new Dr Who has been fun to watch. This season we see the return of the runaway bride from a couple of Christmases ago that didn't want to run off with The Doctor. She has changed her mind and has been following every strange event she can find to track him down.

The Doctor is tired of people who just want him for his body, like Martha Jones and Captain Jack, and claims that he just wants a Mate. His new companion has not romantic interest in The Doctor at all and makes retching nosies at the very idea of mating with him. This is fine with The Doctor, as it is what he wants.

We see that dark side of the Doctor twinkle in his eye, but then he goes back to being all happy and sunshine-the villains in the story are children who don't deserve to die, even though they killed a few people being born. The real villain is a super nanny who looses the support of her charges parents.

The story was sort of funny and odd and the effects of the little aliens were shockingly good. But all that is small potatoes, the real shocker of the show was a glimpse of Miss Rose Tyler-apparently in some kind of transitional state of being. Rose looked anything but happy, what can her strange appearance mean?

Otherwise the show was fun, one of the many sight gags involved a man with a telescope looking the wrong direction when a huge flying saucer passes by. The plot was the same basic story of all the Earth bound Dr Who episodes, some evil something is here and the Doctor has to save us.

The new Doctor Who website has some fun stuff, like Captain Jack's Monster Files and clips from the first show and trailers of one sort or another. They have a bit of blurb on the site that they had some technical difficulties as the site has proved so popular. Lots of images and videos and games and the like.

This looks like it is going to be a very good season.