And Another Interview...

As I said yesterday the interview madness has begun, and while most of them consist of pretty much the same question and therefore also the same answers, thisone is an exception. It's TVChoice interviewing Matt Smith, and while the beginning is just the same as usual, they also ask him about Doctor Who "not picking up anything" at the National Television Awards. Actually, this is the first time I hear a statement on that topic and he said the best possible thing to say in such a situation:'There’s always next year.'

Combom's RadioTimes Scans

The always so awesome 'Combom&Team' are scanning this week's RadioTimes, so if you're interested, here is a link. Maybe the most interesting part is Matt Smith's US Diary even though it does not give us any spoilers. But it's fun to read how they did some of the scenes...

I remember to have got several questions regarding how to navigate through the album last year. So here is what I wrote then on this topic.

Interview with A Mad Man in A Box...

So, I just opened this season's interview session with my previous post a couple of minutes ago, and here is the next bit. This time it's UnrealityTV asking Matt Smith about the new season, and he gets the chance of talking about the desert-film sessions they had in the US, stetsons, the Silence, his clumsiness and that getting soaked at 4am while filming is apparently just part of the job. Some of the film details are moderately interesting, but actually there is nothing, or not much, that we would not already know about.

Crazy & Bizarre...

With Doctor Who's season opener being less than a week away, and I know I'm overusing this phrase, but it's true, all kind of newspapers are starting to take an interest into the more or less leading actors of our all time favourite series. The result is that around this time we are getting quite a number of interviews. And The Telegraph is no exception. So, here is their rather ... bizarre interview they did with Karen Gillan. But I'm only posting this so that I can say I did not miss it, because actually it's not too interesting.

Anyway. This week just has started, so I think this won't be the only one we'll have the pleasure of reading this week.

The Partners In Crime Doing Shakespeare

I know what you're thinking, with 'The Impossible Astronaut' coming up in less than a week's time probably ther may be more interesting things to write about than the latest episode of The Graham Norton Show, the one with Catherine Tate and David Tennant promoting their Shakespeare project, well, mostly. But if you're interested, here it is.







It's pretty entertaining at least up to David Tennant's socks-joke. After all, who does not know how it is to face 1oooo almost identical black socks... And Catherine Tate's Footlocker-experience is a picture-book comedy-sketch.

Matt Smith's Introduction to Doctor Who

Just dedicate 8 minutes of your precious life to watch that interview: Matt Smith gives a really nice summary of Doctor Who's (that's the show's) main ideas, which most fans know by heart, however, we can't take for granted that people who are actually making this series also agree with them. Furthermore, now we know how to answer questions such as what is Doctor Who about ('A mad man comes along and saves the day with a toaster and with a piece of string. ' just in case you did not know) and if I should find myself confronted with someone asking me to describe the Doctor's character, I guess I'm going to give them a link.

I know, longterm fans are not going to learn any shocking details in those 8 minutes; the interview is rather an ode about how great the series and Moffat's story telling is. And I guess if I were not such a big Moffat fan myself I could not stop pondering whether he had a certain motive to call Moffat the greatest science-fiction writer in the world... But as things are, I could not agree more. Moffat certainly brought back the mystery to Doctor Who. It is genuinely scary and witty at the same time. Additionally, there is again a generation of children to whom watching the episodes from behind the sofa does make sense.

The only thing I'm not too sure about is whether people who have never seen Doctor Who before could really understand season 6 without any problems. After all, looking at what we have learned so far, the opening 2 parter has the impression of being a firework of hints and teasers referring back to loose ends and at the same time introducing completely a new set of them. Still, the interview as such is maybe the best (and shortest) available summary and a pretty good introduction dealing with the most important concept the series is about.

Anyway, I guess the interview's main purpose is that of getting us excited. And that is something it really achieves to do. I for my part can't wait.

Just a short Note on....

...io9's First Impression of this year's season opener.

Here is a spoiler-free review by io9 and it's a good one. Even if we aren't told too many things we don't already know about. Well, I'm not complaining and there are a few pretty nice bits after all... And even if I actually wanted to introduce a few people to Doctor Who this season, I guess Moffat will compensate that for us. After all, the Big Moff seems to know what success is made out of and according to io9 there will be no need for us to miss that easy going cheerfulness paired with genuinely scary story-lines he made us to fall in love with last season.

Spoilers. Really BIG Ones. Seriously...

...and I have to admit I have not read them.

But you may if you chose. Still, there are reasons not to do so.

One of the few things I'm missing about the upcoming season is that Doctor Who does not seem to care much about making a secret of its storyline. Generally, I would not be against it, I guess fans are even supposed to love spoilers, and we do. But actually it is rather a love-hate relationship than a pure love story, because where is the fun in waiting for a season when you know what is going to happen beforehand. The best spoilers are those which reveal the least. After all, it's not the final touch we are curious about. It's a bit like reading ones future diary...

Anyway. If you still feel like it this is the link. It's your choice. But don't blame me for not warning you. I tried.

Let's Not Jump to Conclusions...

...even though the title of Neil Gaiman's episode has been revealed.

It is... 'The Doctor's Wife' and I know what you're thinking, moreover Moffat knows what we are thinking and that approxy 1o1% of us are not amused by this choice.

But before starting an anti-Moffat/Gaiman demonstration, let's remember the last time we had to deal with such a... less favourable episode title e.g. 'The Doctor's Daughter' or 'The Next Doctor'. And, it wasn't what we expected it to be.Furthermore, during Moffat's reign the number of misleading episode titles has been increasing. E.g. I'm still wondering what 'The 11th Hour' has to do with the actual episode being named that way (11th'S Hour would have made more sense to me; or 'VAMPIRES of Venice' (which has, strictly speaking, a certain lack of actual Vampires in it), not to forget about Flesh and Stone' (yes, everyone besides the angels are not made of stone, at least when observed by others, but when I 1st heard the title it was a bloody ritual coming to my mind). And I bet Moffat has plans to keep up this rather new-ish tradition. After all, misleading titles are certainly not bad for getting some extra attention. So let's hope for the best.

EDIT: Giving it another thought 'The Doctor's Wife' might turn out to be an episode about River Song without her being actually in it. At least this is the most sensible thing I can come up with ATM.

Just for the Record...

... again.

Maybe it's just me getting old, but last year I was much more excited when the Beeb was so gorgeous to release a glimpse of the upcoming season-opener. And a few days ago the BBC gave us a... promo-something AND a proper prequel, still, somehow I can be hardly bothered to dedicate a post to them. If they had done this with 'The Eleventh Hour' (which is still an odd title in my humble opinion) last year some of us maybe would have needed tranquillisers. Ok, I'm joking. Obviously.

Well, I'm not saying the prequel isn't great, even if it is rather a combination of the 'Silence in the Library' opener and the Blink's storyline: Child's voice is recorded on a tape-recorder to deliver a cryptic message which is part of a future conversation, and therefore, only makes sense at a special point in time. Moreover we know the president is wrong, there is at least one white-ish something in the oval office which seems to be an alien. And there is certainly more from where that one came from. Let's go and poke it with a stick...

Maybe the most exiting news are that there are more and more rumours about episode 2 airing just one day after the season-opener. So it may be not entirely insensible to be looking forward to a Doctor Who Easter-weekend.

Time And Space - Red Nose Day

... those who still think Doctor Who is mostly aimed at children should have paied more attention yesterday. Still, as an already adult whovian I loved it... well, actually not that much for I think Moffat should stop writing illogical episodes, but apart from that it was... no, not brilliant. I guess it will take at least another year until that word loses its Doctor Who reference.

Back to Time & Space. We understand that Moffat has a strict paradox + paradox = o and not 2 paradoxes policy. But he is wrong with that. There is a reason why that theorem does not work with let's say bana... apples. However, at least we got some sort of an explanation of how the TARDIS could have possibly landed in herself. Well, then that got spoiled by the Doctor telling himself that it's the wibbly-leaver he has to use to solve the situation. We already had that sort of discussion for 'The Big Bang' only that then it was the collapsing universe (time included) which saved Moffat's dignity.
But thanks to the two Amy Ponds' skirts many of us aren't remembering that tiny problem anymore. At least not too well.

So the only remaining thing to ask ourselves is 'What was Amy's question?'. And we finally know why Moffat does insist on those episodes being canonical because he twittered back 'That WILL come back. But not for a while. Oh, how ANNOYING!!'

Moffat's beloved Paradoxes

There has been too many articles featuring Moffat-caused paradoxes lately, sorry for that. But I'm afraid this year's Red Nose Day 'Comic Relief' mini-episodes will just add to an already enormous list.

Although there is to say the Big Moff didn't give too many hints away when talking to SFX, it's still more than enough to tell us that this year's plot seems to focus on a paradox, again. We remember, in his last 'Comic Relief' contribution we had two Doctors, now it will be two Amy Ponds, who even end up flirting with each other. And if things weren't already complicated enough, because after all there might *be* an explanation for someone flirting with themselves (or is that just Amy?), Moffat made sure to introduce also the question of how a TARDIS can land in her own self. I hope this time it will be him solving his own canonical problems. And all that in less than 8 minutes.
Well, giving it another thought it may have something to do with the 'Clone-Doctor' of season 6. Which would be brilliant, BTW.

However, no matter what was on Moffat's mind when writing his 'Comic Relief' episodes, the fuss it's already making is certainly not bad for Doctor Who. And fans are also curious about how 'Life Abroad the TARDIS', as Moffat unofficially calls it, looks like. Furthermore, after several Doctor Who-less months I guess there aren't many of us who care that much about the scientific background anyway.

The Bycantium Paradox

'Is Moffat rewriting River's Spoilers? Or is that just part of the Big Plan?'

With River Song's really wibbely wobbely timelne it's really remarkable that there has been, to my knowledge, only one paradox regarding her character up to now. Namely, when she meets the Tenth Doctor in 'Silence of the Library' she appears to think that it was him with whom she was investigating the Crash of Byzantium*. But we know better than that. So why doesn't she ?

Certainly, there are several sensible and even more less sensible explanations for this, however one of the more reasonable reasons go back to the famous 'The Waters of Mars' fixed-point domino-effect, which altered the universe's and the Doctor's timeline.** Obviously, it wasn't the Eleventh Doctor who should have shown up in the 'Delirium Archive', the final resting place of the headless monks. But we also understand that between 'The Waters of Mars' and 'The End of Time' the Doctor wasn't visiting as many museums as he apparently was supposed to. So back then in the Library things (or time) seem to have been more straight froward for River.

But is that the only time she meets him then? Probably. At least up to our *recent* knowledge that's how it appears to be. Surely, the Doctor would have mentioned a certain 'Picnic at Asgards' when telling the Ood what he was all up to before visiting them. Come on, he even told them about having tinkered with the TARDIS' locking circuit. Additionally, the Doctor doesn't seem to have learnt much more about River since his very first encounter.
Moreover, that domino-effect could have also effected River's timeline through what certain events don't take place exactly as they should have. I'm not saying she won't find herself sacrificing her life in the Library. But the Doctor, River and we know that Time can be rewritten... and it wouldn't surprise me if Moffat did take advantage of this, at least a little bit e.g. for sorting a few paradoxes out...

____________
*In a DWM(#147) interview Moffat says that when filming his Library episode in 2oo8 he knew that it won't be David Tennant's Doctor whom he'll be writing for during his time as executive producer. And Doctor Who has already dealt with bigger last minute changes than dropping one part of a line.

**Although personally 'The Waters of Mars' does not belong to my most favourite episodes, every single future Doctor Who script writer is going to be thankful for Russel T Davies allowing them to take the parts RTD contributed to that serials canon less seriously.

Shattered Dreams...

Sadly, yesterday neither Sherlock nor Doctor Who could stand their ground at the National Television Awards (NTA), which is for the latter one the first time since it has been brought back to life. If you feel like torturing yourself, these YouTube videos show how they are NOT getting the awards. (Best Drama, Best Drama Performance).

And the winning parties forgot to thank Sherlock and Doctor Who being nominated in the same categories, which was the main cause for Waterloo Road (never heard of it) and ... erm who? - David Jason getting any awards in the first place.

Because, the obvious reason for this is that both shows have more or less the same fan-base, and as the two of them were put up against each other in the same categories, fans had to make up their minds what to vote for. And because of the split votes both failed... Well, I wouldn't say failed for Doctor Who is still one of the Beeb's most important series, and Sherlock is on the best way to get there, nevertheless, we are not pleased. I mean, back in 2oo5 the show could scope three awards, and I think since then Doctor Who has improved a lot.

Let's hope next year we'll have learnt something of this, because with Sherlock's new season it's more than just very likely that two of our most favourite serials will be nominated against each other again.

'Doctor Who' goes Shakespeare...

... at least sort of.
Actually, this one will be more about Shakespeare than 'Doctor Who', however, maybe there are still a few fans out there who are interested into this BBC interview with Catherine Tate and David Tennant which is mostly about their new 'Much Ado about Nothing' Shakespeare project. But naturally, there are also several remarks about 'Doctor Who' and other 'stuff' they used to work on together. So it ends up to be at least some sort of interesting also for a few fans of that TV show this blog is mostly dedicated to.

And I really hope someone will come up with the idea of adapting that Shakespeare production for film, just as they did that with Hamlet a few years ago. Don't panic, I'm not going to make a Hamlet review out of this post, but to sum it up, saying it's a great one would be some sort of an understatement, even if a few conservative teachers and professors might disagree with me about that.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading the first reviews of that 'Much Ado about Nothing stage production. The two of them seem to be enthusiastic enough to turn it into something well worth seeing.

PS: I just couldn't help noticing David Tennant's familiar 'old trainers - suit' combination...

EDIT: Thanks to DoctorWhoDom we are able to watch the complete version of the interview on YouTube. And credits go to Combom for pointng this out.