The Runaway Bride - your thoughts?

[Larry]

I don't know how official this is but over on the O.G forums and the christmas tv thread some one has posted itv's christmas day schedual and it has Emmerdale Farm down at 7pm. So are we to assume that Doctor Who will be going head to head with the Farm soap if it is shall we start opening the champaign bottles in celerbration of another ratings victory.

[Milky Tears]

A few of us nabbed that ITV Christmas schedule from a post on Digital Spy. I even posted a link to it in the Ratings War/Christmas Schedule thread the other day.

Fake schedules appear on DS every year, but this one is realistic looking.

It's looking like "OMG!! Explosive Emmerdale!" v Doctor Who... unless they bottle it again and swap it with Creature Comforts and the News. Celebrity Who Wants To Be A Millionaire might even put in an appearance.

[Dave Lewis]

"Beee'ave!"

Am I wrong to think that the clip I haven't just watched is strangely underwhelming? The TARDIS on the motorway looked quite good but the Doc just seemed a bit, well... crap. Lots of shouting, gurning, and not much else. Oh dear - I've turned into a whinging fanboy saddo. I must have been watching too much Torchwood.

Also, after about 2'37" of the clip, does the Bride tell the Doc to "f**k off"?

[Larry]

"Beee'ave!"

Am I wrong to think that the clip I haven't just watched is strangely underwhelming? The TARDIS on the motorway looked quite good but the Doc just seemed a bit, well... crap. Lots of shouting, gurning, and not much else. Oh dear - I've turned into a whinging fanboy saddo. I must have been watching too much Torchwood.

Also, after about 2'37" of the clip, does the Bride tell the Doc to "f**k off"?

well i'm sure the nearer we get to christmas we'll be seing a few more different teasers..

[Milky Tears]

Loads of Spoilery Runaway Bride promo pics at the link below:

http://www.sparklies.org/gallery/thu....php?album=316

[Milky Tears]

First press screening review of 'The Runaway Bride' has appeared on the Off The Telly Blog:

LINK CONTAINS SPOILERS!!

http://www.offthetelly.co.uk/blog/2006/12/rose.html

[Larry]

First press screening review of 'The Runaway Bride' has appeared on the Off The Telly Blog:

looks like i'll have to avoid reading the papers for the next few days then..

[Milky Tears]

Tate's name appears in the opening titles.

Major Plot Spoiler on the Daily Mail website:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1773

Nice nod to Logopolis.



and here's some pics of Parish as the Empress of Racnoss:

http://www.sci-fi-online.50megs.com/...18_WhoXmas.htm

[Rob McCow]

Yahoo! News page has a big feature on new Doctor Who this Christmas!

http://uk.yahoo.com/r/ty/14/m

[Milky Tears]

BBC News Preview with clips:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6190149.stm

[Dave Lewis]

FFS! Crappy rip off of Planet Of The Spiders/Terror Of The Zygons/Deadly Assassin/Babylon 5/Season 3 of Buffy/"cancer" arc of X Files/Balamory/porn/some fan video made by some ******s in the '80s.

The TARDIS is too three-dimensional, the hardcore pedant pound will fall against the softcore saddo fake cash that looks WORSE THAN MONOPOLY MONEY, and the spider woman looks like the alien out of Independence Day without its big suit on. AWFUL! RTD's straight agenda has FAILED. Fincham must be stopped - WHO MUST DIE.

[Milky Tears]

You've ruined my potential reply!! DAVE BLOODY LEWIS IS SPRY!!

[Milky Tears]

Links to today's Spoilery Breakfast bit. Not sure if Newsround will be up yet:


BOTH LINKS CONTAIN SPOILERS!!

Breakfast

Newsround

[Pip Madeley]

Lindsay must be losing his touch, I don't think he's put these up:

http://www.planetskaro.org.uk/news/runawayspoils.jpg

Woop.

[Milky Tears]

Here's another interview with that Smug Welsh Bloke bloke everyone hates:

Monster smash
A Tardis chase, a spiderwoman and Catherine Tate on the run - Russell T Davies tells Jonathan Wright why writing the Christmas Doctor Who was a blast
Friday December 22, 2006
The Guardian


The idea of Catherine Tate as the Doctor's one-off Christmas companion may smack of novelty casting - but nothing could be further from the truth, says Doctor Who's ebullient lead writer, Russell T Davies.

"One thing that people have been saying is that it's like a Comic Relief sketch, but it's not," Davies insists. "It's a proper hour-long drama and Catherine Tate has a proper part. She's amazing in it, her and David Tennant together are a joy."

The Christmas special, The Runaway Bride, sees the Doctor trying to get Tate's feisty Donna back to her wedding, only to face such distractions as murderous Santas and a humungous spider, the Empress of the Racnoss.

Sarah Parish (Tennant's co-star in Blackpool) plays the Empress with imperious ferocity, no mean feat considering that each day she had to spend four hours in makeup before being lowered into an arachnid body.

"We haven't done a huge, prosthetic creature before, so we really went for it. Ooh, it's gorgeous," Davies says. "And on top of that you get a great actor."

But is there anyone he wouldn't cast? Ken Dodd - "he doesn't need it, frankly", Davies jokes - would convey the "wrong image", too redolent, perhaps, of the show's 1980s nadirs, when Dodd had a cameo.

A highlight of The Runaway Bride is an expensive chase scene in which the Tardis pursues a cab down a crowded motorway. Parts of the chase were filmed on location. Cardiff's authorities shut down the road for two days, so that a crane, crew and cameras could hare down the tarmac unhindered.

"It's so fluid it's breathtaking," says Davies. "I remember writing the scene, thinking, 'We'll be lucky if we manage it,' but, you know, they closed off the road for us. At one point David Tennant is strapped to the low-loader lorry that has the crane on it, so that he can be in the foreground of the shot visible as the motorway is whipping past."

With the third series of Doctor Who currently in production and the Who universe expanded to include the spin-offs Torchwood (expect a big, fan-pleasing cliffhanger when season one ends soon) and the child-friendly The Sarah Jane Adventures, Davies is deeply ensconced in a role the Americans call show-runner.

Davies says he loves every minute of it all. A few weeks back, he visited the company that does Who's visual effects, and found a room full of people busy creating monsters and alien cities. "I've never been so happy in my life," he says.

So what if he could spruce up another vintage series? If he really had to, he'd go for Daleks creator Terry Nation's Survivors, the 1970s tale of a mysterious pandemic that wipes out swathes of the population. "You could make it with bird flu . . ."

[Larry]

The idea of Catherine Tate as the Doctor's one-off Christmas companion may smack of novelty casting - but nothing could be further from the truth, says Doctor Who's ebullient lead writer, Russell T Davies.

well being a cynical old git can't say I believe that and casting Tate is all about winning the ratings battle on christmas day..

[Dave Lewis]

I thought it was beautiful... and terrible.

[Matthew T]

I thought it was great fun.

VERY VERY silly, but great fun.

[Lissa]

The rating I clicked at Roobarbs summed it up better than I otherwise could.

AVERAGE : Watchable but not very inspired and flawed. Lacking something without being dire.

Even if the first sentence doesn't really make sense.

[Anthony Williams]

SO many plot holes!

yet so much fun!

Ant x

[Andrew Curnow]

We all enjoyed it (except the dog who slept right through it - I think he's more of a Hartnell fan). We laughed at the funny bits, we enjoyed the thrills & spills, and it was perfectly-pitched for a Christmas evening. The TARDIS along the motorway sequence was marvellous, and considering we'd seen most of it in the DWC earlier in the afternoon, still managed to hold our attention.

My inner-fanboy glowed when I knew the Doctor was going to say, "Gallifrey" (and again when he said it) and we all, all, ALL gasped in delight at the re-reappearance of the Dalek at the very end of the season 3 trail.

[Andrew Curnow]

Oh, and we liked the sort of running gag about Donna missing all the action such as the battle of Canary Wharf, and last year's Christmas Invasion. "I had a bit of a hangover" - classic moment!

[Dave Lewis]

I really really wanted to like Catherine Tate, simply because it would have been too easy not to do so, and dismiss her as "that person I find completely unfunny". I really wanted to believe that she was a good actress as well as a crap comedienne.

And I so nearly did. Not at the beginning, oh dearie me no. But at certain points, there was something good shining through, particularly at the end, in the snow. But it all felt a bit too much like I was being heavily guided towards feeling a certain way, rather than me finding my own way to any emotional resolution.

We both tried, but ultimately it wasn't enough for either of us, me or Catherine. Symptomatic of my love life, and her televisual career.

[Andy Frankham]

I liked it a lot. Great fun. As per the norm it was spectacle over substance, but that's what I was expecting, so I wasn't disappointed. Surprisingly I liked Donna - didn't think I was gonna, but it turned out fine.

And absolutely loved the series three trailer. Wow. Vampires. Mark Gatiss. Oh, and look, the Daleks are back. Again! *snore*

[Doctor Vendetta]

My inner-fanboy glowed when I knew the Doctor was going to say, "Gallifrey" (and again when he said it) and we all, all, ALL gasped in delight at the re-reappearance of the Dalek at the very end of the season 3 trail.

I'm glad he's finally mentioned Gallifrey if only to hush up all the OG types moaning about it