New Series Press Coverage (Minor Spoilers!)

[Milky Tears]

Press coverage seems to have picked up following BBC1's Winter/Spring season launch yesterday. Looks like they've seen some clips from Series Three... probably the trailer at the end of 'The Runaway Bride'.



Today's Sun reports that the Doctor and Martha end up in bed together!! "OMG!! FFS!! IT'S THE END OF MY FANBOY WORLD!! ENOUGH WITH THE SEXUALISATION OF MY FAVORITE SHOW ALREADY!!"

CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!!

Doctor Who's been a bed boy

Loving the comment after the story!!




Yesterday's Daily Mail had a similar story:

CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!!

Dr Who cosies up with his new girl

I look forward to the 'coming soon' trailer at the end of The Runaway Bride.



There was also an interview in The Times a few days ago with Jed Mercurio (Bodies, Invasion Earth and Cardiac Arrest) moaning about "how boring it is to have endless Doctor Who spin-offs.":

The TV writer with a bone to pick

Do you think he might be bitter that BBC Three are making Torchwood instead of another series of Bodies?

[Milky Tears]

The Sun's Ally Ross has Doctor Who as his main review.

A quote even makes the front page:

"Catherine Tate in a wedding dress...

enough to get every man above the age of consent cowering behind the sofa."

Dr... get rid of you know Who

CYBERMEN, Daleks, sea monsters, the space pig and that trampoline-faced Anne Robinson thing.

We've had to cope with some frighteners in the past on this show.

Mercy me though, none of them compare with the nightmare they brought to life this year.

Catherine Tate in a wedding dress.

Enough to get every man in Britain, above the age of consent, cowering behind the nearest sofa.

We're watching Dr Who's much-hyped Christmas Day special, of course. Featuring the scariest replacement since we lost Peri and got Bonnie Langford.

Bye-bye to Billie Piper. Hello to the whey-faced, ginger porkball in a meringue, screaming away like Lauren the teenager. The Runaway Bride episode. Or The Runaway Audience (Tate & Aisle) episode, as I've since come to think of it.

Budget

Nearly one million BBC1 viewers, exterminated in the time it took EastEnders to finish and Dr Who to start. And sci-fi fans are welcome to dream-up their own conspiracy theories on this one.

But it may well have had something to do with the fact that they were in danger of watching a 2006 Dr Who Christmas special that was just a re-hash of the 2005 Christmas special.
The full blummin' inventory:
Crap robot Santas - check.
Underground lair - check.
Big alien spaceship over London - check.
Blown out of the sky by the military - check.

All present and correct, they were. With the one new edition to the plot being?
Sarah Parish, the poor cow, in a giant spider's outfit. Alleged "Empress of Racnoss." Beamed down "from the very edge of the known universe." (Cutting It, series three). The Empress was unable to move, walk, send a text message and controlled an army of crazy alien spiders who remained tantalisingly just out of shot (not due to budget restrictions, you understand).

Yet she was still, like Davina, intent on conquering the earth by shouting a lot.

She didn't, naturally. Catherine Tate and David Tennant out-shouted her. However, that's not the point about the Dr Who Chirstmas special 2006. Which is this - ignore the plot holes and the fact London, Xmas Eve was Cardiff, mid June, then compared with the rest of the schedule, it was actually quite good.

An epic chase scene, neat gags, no gay agenda and a script that sent up the shows's clichs ("What? You mean there's a secret base hidden under a major London landmark?")
It was enjoyable stuff.

As was some of the last series.

The pain of it being, it's never as enjoyable and good as the BBC thinks. Or, for that matter, as popular.

A distant fifth it finished, in the ratings. Millions of viewers behind duff episodes of EastEnders, a Corrie and The Vicar of Dibley.

And that won't trouble Auntie one little bit.

As next year we're already looking at more hype, spin-offs, probably another Christmas special and, before that, David Tennant's third series, where Catherine Tate will make way for the Face of Boe.
Face?
Boe?
Do I look like I'm Boe-vvered? Etc etc.

I think he covers just about everything there.


Edited to add: This week's Lookalike section winner is "The Empress of Racnoss from Dr Who and Connie Fisher."

There's also a page of "Carlyle v Tennant: Are the Daleks ready for Begbie? How Trainspotting Star Measures Up As New Who" in the Scottish Sun. Sections include: Fornicate! Fornicate!, Sexiest Co-Star, Kit Off, Intimidate! Intimidate!, Pink Power, Brushes With Timelord No9 Christopher Eccleston, Awards and Most Embarrassing Moment.

[Milky Tears]

Billie Piper Stole My Lover Exclusive in today's People.

Sadly, no Myleene Klass bikini pics in the online edition, but at least Garry Bushell has David Tennant as "Gallifreyan of the year" and "The Tardis careening down the Westway" as one of his Small Joys Of Xmas TV. "The Empress of Rachnos" makes his Rot On Xmas TV list.


http://www.people.co.uk/showbiz/bushellonthebox/

DR WHO-HO-HO-HO-NO
bushell on the box
ALIENS drilled a hole to the earth's core on Dr Who. It still wasn't as big as the ones in Russell T's script. It felt lazier than usual, with recycled Santa robots, the sonic screwdriver over-used as a magic wand, a spectacularly senseless plot, and a lift that appeared to go from Chiswick to the Thames Barrier 20-odd miles away... Insanely, the Thames drained (no word on the North Sea). A space ship strong enough to survive the earth's molten core was shot down by a few tanks. Maddest of all, the Doc asked Catherine Tate's thick, frumpy bride to join him. Why? I suppose a wife this grumpy would silence a Cyberman.

Nice to see that he still loves Dawn French as well.





The Sunday Mirror's Kevin O'Sullivan is just as positive:

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/showbiz/kevinosullivan/

DOC'S IN A BIT OF BOVVER
IF David Tennant is going to quit Doctor Who, I can understand why. Saving the universe week after week is a repetitive business.

As was proved by the dull-as-ditchwater Christmas special, The Runaway Bride.

"Your body's a battleground," said the Doctor after Catherine Tate's bride-to-be character Donna was beamed into the Tardis. He meant: "...the size of a battleground."

But who looked more scary? Tate in her billowing wedding dress or villainess Sarah Parish in her enormous spider outfit?

The prize went to terrifying Tate. Because, cackling constantly as the evil Empress of Racnoss, Parish's cartoon baddie was impossible to take seriously.

Naturally, the Doc foiled Racnoss. But Donna decided she wasn't up to this time travelling lark and went back to her mum's.

"Am I bovvered?" said the Doctor. OK, he didn't say that. But were any of us really bovvered?

Great joke at the end. :




Finally, some highbrow stuff/guff from Kathryn Flett in The Observer:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/revie...980339,00.html

..... on the big day Geraldine is allowed to wear a better piece of kit than Catherine Tate's drab rag of a wedding dress in Dr Who

But given that this Who was a Christmas special, and therefore an episode in which a certain levity and deftness of touch wouldn't - and indeed in the case of David Tennant's sweetly boyish Doctor didn't - go amiss, perhaps the award-winning comic actress (lest we forget) giving us an utterly charmless, strident and humourless performance meant that she got the frock she deserved. What a huge messy disappointment it was, full of Tate shouting and Tennant looking like he really really missed Billie Piper, and all of it drowned in hideously overwrought music. And what on earth - or even outer space - was the point in disguising the beauteous Sarah Parish as a giant red spiderthing? If you ask me, there was mix-up in both the casting and costume departments, and Tate and Parish were wearing each other's parts.

But at least they were given better material to play with than poor Don Gilet, forced (well, fair enough, paid) to play Tate's jilted husband-to-be without the benefit of any obvious characterisation at all. Fortunately he got a better gig later in the week in The Ruby in The Smoke, with Billie Piper. Indeed the Timelord's omniscience is such that almost every actor on TV last week could appear in the new parlour game (soon to be available as an interactive DVD if I have my way) 'Two Degrees of Separation from Dr Who'.

It seems like mere moments since I was writing patronisingly pat-on-the-back prose about Billie Piper reinventing herself as an actress. (Bless her! Quite good, isn't she? Wonder if she'll keep it up, or decide to make babies with Chris? That sort of thing.) I thought she might land herself a nice soap gig - nanny in Emmerdale, nurse on Holby - and that would be that. Safe to say I wasn't entirely prepared for Piper taking over the world, and I remain unconvinced.

Anyway, Piper's limitations aside, she is the casting director's darling, and so be it. Even with an oddly measured and breathy speaking voice (perhaps she felt this made her more posh and authentically 'period', and therefore more feminine? At heart I think Piper is uncomfortable with girlish stuff) she made a feisty enough Sally Lockhart. And anyway it didn't much matter because Sally floated, like a little crouton on the surface of The Ruby's boiling pot of melodramatic Victorian soup. Who knew that we needed more drama featuring teenage girl accountants who are handy with a pearl-handled revolver and able to balance the books like a bloke? But we do.

Elsewhere, among the opium dens, corpses, gems and orphans and all the rest of the deftly plotted foggy intrigue, Julie Walters's gloriously gothic turn as the wicked Mrs Holland more than made up for the previous week's Driving Lessons, Don Gilet got to do some proper acting, and the likeable JJ Feild (a great deal of whose life must be spent telling people that, yes, it really is e-before-i, and I sympathise: four decades of 'it's Flett-not-Fleet' has been dreary) made a charming nearly romantic lead.

[Perry Vale]

A space ship strong enough to survive the earth's molten core was shot down by a few tanks.

That's a good point!

[Si Hunt]

The space ship wasn't in the Earths core was it?

Si.

[Perry Vale]

Not the same one, but an identical one, wasn't it? You see it at the creation of the earth, it causes all the rocks to form around it to make the Earth 4.6 billion years ago.

[Si Hunt]

Perhaps that one was made of extra strong metal not impervious to tank fire , able to withstand temperatures at the Earths core and with ensuite bathrooms.

Si.

[Milky Tears]

From today's Daily Star:

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news_detail.html?sku=1113

Dr Who and the sex-mad Britney clones
26/01/07

POP babe Britney Spears is set to take on Doctor Who playing a raunchy bunch of sex-mad aliens.

Writer Russell T Davies is a huge fan and wants her to appear in an episode created especially for her.

Blonde Brit, 25, right, will be cast as an entire race of lusty cloned creatures who all look identical to the twice-wed beauty.

Id love Britney to do it it would be so much fun, said Russell, 43.

Im not sure if shell come to Cardiff where the show is shot so Im nagging the BBC to fund a Hollywood special.

The new series of Doctor Who, which starts in the spring, again stars David Tennant, 35, as the Doc with Freema Agyeman, 27, as new assistant Martha Jones.

Hope she's wearing some knickers.

An early contender for "Best Doctor Who Tabloid Story Of 2007"?

[Si Hunt]

Well that's just certain to be true.

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

Dr Who and the sex-mad Britney clones

Sydney Newman would be spinning in his grave.

[Larry]

Brittany Spears in series 3..

[Dirk Gently]

It's a disturbing turn of events I don't mind telling you. But I'll wait to see it (if it happens) to judge it.

[Larry]

It's a disturbing turn of events I don't mind telling you. But I'll wait to see it (if it happens) to judge it.

well I've all ways had a lot of faith in RTD - but this would be the first time i'd question any thing he's done if it turns out to be true.

[Milky Tears]

Newish Daily Telegraph RTD interview:

INTERVIEW PROBABLY CONTAINS SPOILERS!!


Master of the universe


"A fourth series of Doctor Who has already been commissioned, and Davies is putting the finishing touches to scripts for Christmas 2007. His work here is - almost - done."



Nice to see the Toclafane get a mention.

[Larry]

very interesting read that and you do get the impression RTD is looking to move on after series 4...

[Pip Madeley]

'Take The Talons of Weng Chiang, for example. Watch episode one. It's the best dialogue ever written. It's up there with Dennis Potter. By a man called Robert Holmes. When the history of television drama comes to be written, Robert Holmes won't be remembered at all because he only wrote genre stuff. And that, I reckon, is a real tragedy.'

Well said RTD.

There are three Tardises: one made from glass fibre, to lug around on location, and two made from wood. And there are four Daleks.

It's nice to know there are some things that haven't changed much since the old days.

This is interesting:

BBC Books published six Doctor Who novels last year, all featuring new stories not seen before on television. Each sold at least 50,000, while the top seller, The Stone Rose, has so far sold 70,000, an amazing figure given that most hardback fiction sales reach just a few thousand. A further nine new titles will come out in 2007 along with eight Torchwood novels to accompany its second series. Penguin also benefited from the RTD effect last Christmas when its Doctor Who Annual sold more than 300,000 copies, way above the few thousands sales the industry usually expects for children's annuals.

earlier this year the Doctor Who Voice Changer Helmet was voted Toy of the Year by the Toy Retailers' Association, while Doctor Who action figures - more than 1,221,978 million of which were sold in Britain last year - picked up the Boys Toy of the Year Award.

Internationally, the show is also selling well: broadcasters in more than 32 countries including Russia, Japan and India have acquired the series from the BBC. Torchwood has so far been bought by nine broadcasters.

the complete series one compilation quickly became BBC Video's top grossing 2006 release in North America

In the last week of 2006 the Top 50 hardback fiction list included nine Russell T. Davies-inspired books: six Doctor Who and three Torchwood titles. In the first week of January 2007, three of the top five best-selling fiction hardbacks were Torchwood stories. As a result, despite publishing no other fiction titles, the BBC is now the 10th biggest publisher of fiction in Britain.

with Dr Who/Torchwood ALONE!!!

Doctor Who merchandise was responsible for an estimated 50 million of retail sales

Davies will never complain about the funding of Doctor Who - not publicly, anyway. 'But it's still the sort of budget, I gather, that they get for Waking the Dead. And they're standing around in morgues. We're blowing things up, with monsters everywhere. We could make a much smaller show. We don't. We make it big and blousy.'

You think of all the money the BBC have made from Doctor Who in the last two years and they still seem to be making it on the cheap. No wonder we hardly get any episodes set in outer space...

[Larry]

Well said RTD.

You think of all the money the BBC have made from Doctor Who in the last two years and they still seem to be making it on the cheap. No wonder we hardly get any episodes set in outer space...

you suspect the BBC, must be making or has made millions with the merchansise in the last few years and you would think because of that they could the series budget by at least 2 or 3 million a year.

[Milky Tears]

New Freema Agyeman interview in today's Sun:

PROBABLY CONTAINS SPOILERS!!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2...120665,00.html

I hate her hammy acting and stinky jacket already! Get rid! End of!

[Milky Tears]

An interesting Observer interview with RTD... where James Robinson spends most of the time spurting all over him:

PROBABLY CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!

Television's lord of prime time awaits his next regeneration

[Pip Madeley]

It says:

As the third series begins the Saturday after next, Davies won't be packing up his typewriter until the turn of the decade, a date too far into the future to worry even the most nervy time-traveller, but one that will worry BBC executives.

So that sounds like he'd be around for series 4 and possibly 5, he also says:

'I'm not going to go on and on,' he says, from his spacious flat overlooking Cardiff bay, where the series is filmed. 'I wouldn't want to do series seven. There are other things I want to do.'

WE'RE DOOOOOOOMED!

[Dirk Gently]

So he could be writing up until series 6! I personally would like to see him back off from the writing & may be just do 3 episodes in series 4, may be 1 or 2 in 5 & then Exec.Produce series 6 only.

[Larry]

It says:

So that sounds like he'd be around for series 4 and possibly 5, he also says

perhaps we're all reading a bit to much into this but if RTD did stay untill the end of series 5 or 6 and the BBC decided to end Doctor Who, when he left then I don't think we can really complain.

[Pip Madeley]

Of course we can! Dr Who shouldn't end just because RTD's had enough...

[Milky Tears]

But think of the moaning fans. They'll be lost without RTD!

[Milky Tears]

Short RTD interview in Metro's 60 seconds:

http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/intervie...&in_page_id=11

HOW BLOODY BLOODY DARE HE! MY BITTER OLD FANBOY BLOOD BOILETH OVER!