Category Archives: Doctor Who

Doctor Who

BBC to Re-Animate Old Doctor Who

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Back in the seventies, in order to clear out space in their archives, the BBC cleared out a lot of their old recordings, including a significant number of episodes of Doctor Who. Of course with the advent of the home video recorder, and subsequently the DVD player in the eighties and beyond, the BBC are now making a lot of money by selling old Doctor Who stories to fans, but of course with some episodes missing, that leaves them with a problem. Currently there are 108 missing episodes. Although there are pictures from all the episodes, and off air recordings of the soundtrack, many of which have been packaged up for the fans, it’s not the same as having an actual episode.

As a result, the BBC have recently announced a new advance, in November they are to release the Invasion – the story that brought us the iconic images of the Cybermen on the steps of St Pauls. Rather than having linking material as with the video release, the BBC have contracted Cosgrove Hall, previously responsible for the animated adventure Scream of the Shalka, to reconstruct the missing episodes as animation. The BBC are hosting a tempting 30 second trailer – certainly it will be interesting to see quite how the story comes out, and whether it will be a viable option for recreating the remaining missing episodes, as close to their original form as possible.

Doctor Who

Billie Piper Finally Confirms Her Departure

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News came today, that the BBC has confirmed that Billie Piper will be leaving Doctor Who in the final episode of the series. A number of sources report that the character will be killed off too, further backed up by the prophecy made in the most recent episode that Rose would die in battle. However, the BBC has refused to confirm this.

Rumours of Piper’s departure have been around as far back as November 2005, when the Daily Mirror reported that she would be leaving. At that point, the corporation dodged the question, however as late as March this year, the BBC reported that both Tennant and Piper were on board for series three.

Certainly with the new style more character based Doctor Who, if Rose does indeed die at the conclusion of this series, I’m sure we can expect a much more subdued and contemplative Doctor when the series returns, as he tries to come to terms with her death, and not having kept his promise to Jackie to keep her daughter safe. It will also be interesting to see whether the series continues to include Jackie with both Rose and Mickey gone, or whether the series again moves on to a different era in terms of the stories and locations.

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Leaving Loose Ends

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Tonight we got the second part of last week’s Doctor Who, The Satan Pit, and for once, the Doctor didn’t get all the answers. Sure he defeated the monster, but in doing so the alien planet complete with it’s ancient civilisation, and the ancient writing that couldn’t be translated were lost in the black hole. The Doctor is asked by one of the scientists in the final scene what he actually saw in the pit, but he merely dodges the question. As he says, if he knows all the answers, what is the point in continuing to travel?

Having said that, the episode itself was suitably spectacular. On the surface of the planet they had Rose trying to escape from the murderous possessed Ood, whilst down below, the Doctor took a leap of faith down into the pit. The monster had previously claimed to have come from before time, being imprisoned by a civilisation in the universe that came before (possibly the reason that the text was unknown), something which the Doctor did not believe was possible. When we finally saw the creature, it was a really spectacular giant devil. We also got an impressive sequence as the rocket from the base attempts to escape the black hole, before being sucked back by the destruction of the planet.

As predicted last week, quite by chance, and just in the nick of time, the Doctor discovers the TARDIS. We’ll put to one side quite how it ended up there considering that when the TARDIS fell down last week the pit was closed, although I guess it could be argued that it was somewhere above the pit, and dislodged – falling down the open pit when the lift plunged later in the episode… Anyway, with the help of the TARDIS the Doctor manages to rescue both the one remaining scientist, and saves the spaceship from the black hole, so we get the classic TARDIS spinning through space, hauling a great big spaceship behind it.

Interestingly, many people have described this as one of the more frightening episodes of the series – having said that, I didn’t find it particularly scary. Perhaps the devil associations add to the fear for some, I don’t know.

Next week we can look forward to Love & Monsters, where an obsessive group is trying to track down the Doctor and Rose. It also includes The Abzorbaloff, the creature that won the Blue Peter Design a Doctor Who Monster competition last year. The creature is actually played by the comedian Peter Kay, who also appears as a character called Victor Kennedy in the episode. Whether they will turn out to be one and the same remains to be seen…

Doctor Who

Impossible Planet – Impossible Task?

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One of the criticisms levelled at the first series of the new Doctor Who, was the fact that it was very Earth based – throughout the entire thirteen episodes, whilst it visited space stations, and travelled both into the future and the past, the stories were essentially always Earth based. The reason given harked back to the old series, where rather a large number of alien planets ended up looking like a gravel pit or quarry – essentially because that’s about the most convenient place to film a low budget TV series wanting a desolate planet!

After the success of the first series, this year they’re becoming more ambitious. Although the honour of the first off-world episode really goes to New Earth, that was essentially set on an Earth like planet. Last night, we got the first really alien environment – a remote research station on a barren planet, that is impossibly held in a geostationary orbit of a black hole. The irony of course being that it was still filmed in a local gravel pit…

The big question is whether it harked back to Doctor Who of old, to which I can say a resounding no. If it wasn’t for Doctor Who Confidential, I wouldn’t have known it was a gravel pit. If anything it was more reminiscent of some of the gritty sci-fi movies, both in terms of look, and plot.

The episode opens, with the TARDIS materialising in a storage area, and the Doctor and Rose go off an explore. They are quickly apprehended by the human crew of the base, and their telepathic servants the Ood. However, the introductions are cut short by an alert, warning of an impending earthquake, which whilst it passes without loss of life, results in the part of the base in which the TARDIS has landed, disappearing down a newly opened chasm into the centre of the planet.

The crew explain to the Doctor their situation. The planet appears impossible, as some sort of force coming from deep within the planet is holding it in a geostationary orbit around a black hole. The team is there trying to find the source of the incredible power that is keeping the planet in orbit, whilst the nearby black hole is sucking all sorts of other planets and stars to their destruction.

However, strange things are going on. On the planet there is evidence of an ancient civilisation, with strange writing that nobody, not even the Doctor can translate. There are also strange problems with the Ood’s translation units – periodically it mistranslates and comes out with strange warnings about ‘the Beast’. Another member of the crew is hearing strange voices. As the episode drives towards the cliff-hanger, the expedition reach the source of the power, and are confronted with a massive trap-door, covered with more of the unknown writing, and the Ood are taken over by a presence that claims that it is amongst other things, known as Satan. Quite whether this will turn out to be true will be seen next week I’m sure.

Whilst it’s not the best episode of the series, I certainly didn’t think the Impossible Planet was bad. Despite the worries of the production team, they did a good job of the planet – certainly it didn’t look like a gravel pit, even if it was! The black hole itself looked spectacular too as it hung above the planet. In terms of the characters, it was probably a fairly predictable mix of different characters, and much as you’d expect for this kind of story, again, not fantastic, but still pretty reasonable. There were also some interesting moments, for example the conversation between the Doctor and Rose where they discuss what to do now the TARDIS appears lost. Rose asks whether the Doctor could build a new TARDIS to get them home, to which the Doctor replies that with Gallifrey gone, that would be impossible, as a TARDIS is grown rather than built. Having said that, since the episode has established that there is definitely something at the centre of the planet, even if we have to wait for next week to find out what it is, the chances of the TARDIS having survived, are probably quite high… Certainly, I’ll not be surprised if at the end of the episode they find the TARDIS, or even if it gets used as a bargaining chip in some big battle with the enemy.

All in all it was an enjoyable, and well executed episode, and certainly I’m looking forward to the conclusion next week.

Doctor Who

Too Much TV Bad For You?

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Last night on Doctor Who we got the contribution from Mark Gatiss. After last year where the monsters came through the gas supply, this year his story was set in 1953, with the monster coming through the TV, in The Idiot’s Lantern.

Much as with his story last year, the Doctor hasn’t quite hit his target destination. Instead of his target of New York for a performance by Elvis, he instead ends up in early fifties London, who are preparing for the coronation. Along the street, a local electrical store is selling TV sets at knock down prices, apparently out of duty. However, strange things are happening – residents of the houses are being found, with their faces mysteriously gone, and no sooner does this happen do the Police turn up, and take the faceless people away.

As with his previous script, Gatiss has produced a great episode. The story is based around a lot of the warnings that parents used to give their children about what would happen if they watched too much TV, and there are some amusing jokes based around the whole TV monster idea, indeed the ultimate conclusion where the Doctor defeats the monster effectively by recording it onto a video tape continues the joke. As with some of the earlier stories, it’s all a bit of preposterous hokum, but enjoyable none the less. We again had the mixing of an alien threat, with a bit of domestic drama, and the character of the Doctor seemingly a lot more balanced than he has been – perhaps due to the friendship between David Tennant and Mark Gatiss himself. We also had Maureen Lipman doing her best BBC announcer – but becoming the monster…

Next week we have another of this seasons visits to a planet other than Earth. Although New Earth was set off world, it was on a planet that was supposed to be similar to Earth following the destruction of the original planet. The Impossible Planet is going all out for a really alien planet apparently, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out, as one of the often mentioned reasons for focusing on Earth based stories has been that the production team have been concerned that they couldn’t do an alien planet justice. The writer of the episode, Matt Jones although new to the series, is another who has been involved in writing Doctor Who before, in particular two stories in the New Adventures range.