"You just defended us using a water pistol? I bloody love you!"

Couldn't find a clip of Pompeii erupting, but this is pretty good as well:

Who says watching TV never gets you anywhere?

Last night, for the first time ever, there was a Doctor Who question at the pub quiz I go to. Turns out that I was the only person in the pub (aside from the quiz master, obviously) who knew what U.N.I.T. stood for.

I feel quite proud about that. Not sure if I should or not. But I do.

Doctor Who

That was pretty good, wasn't it?

It's not that bad...

Slightly underwhelmed by the recent trailers for Doctor Who, although this one isn't too bad:



But then the ones for series 1, 2 and 3 weren't that impressive either.

Still, while I might find it a bit on the pompous side, it apparently didn't rub me up the wrong way as much as the person over at 'Behind the Sofa' who saw fit to denounce it as “xenophobic” and “patriarchal,” bordering on the “fascist”.

Eh?

On TV just now...

A decent episode of 'Torchwood'.

A decent episode of 'Torchwood', written by Chris Chibnall.

F*ck me.

Gratuitous Davros

Happy 2008

The Web of Fear:





Evil of the Daleks:

Fact of the Day:

Discovering that the BBC Audiobook versions of the missing Patrick Troughton stories are available on iTunes will be very bad for my bank balance.

The true meaning of Christmas

Hope you had a good one.

I know I said no more posts this year, but...

As one of the comments over at Behind The Sofa puts it:

This is the kind of festive entertainment we want: people dying really horribly on Christmas Day. Splendid.

The future is safe

I suspect that this will only really appeal to the Tin Drummer and myself, but it's my blog, so...

After months of media speculation, the BBC can confirm that the BAFTA award-winning Doctor Who will return for a fifth series in Spring 2010.

Viewers are in for a treat this Christmas, as a special episode starring David Tennant and Kylie Minogue will be broadcast on BBC One in December 2007.

Series Four, which went into production in July 2007, will hit UK screens in Spring 2008, followed by a special episode for Christmas 2008.

In 2009 Doctor Who will return with three specials starring David Tennant, with Head Writer, Russell T Davies.

The full-length fifth series will transmit in 2010.

Dr Who: Spoilery goodness

I realise that I may have been one of the few people to actually watch all of 'Torchwood', but if like me you're still wondering exactly happened to Jack in that last minute or so, look no further.

This is a clip from the upcoming Doctor Who episode 'Utopia':



I'm not quite sure what to make of it. A lot of that, however, is probably down to the fact that I stumbled across a spoiler of this on the web a while back.

More on Mr Saxon

Interesting factoid:

Using the term 'Vote Saxon' in your post headline will get you more traffic than using the term 'Paris Hilton'.

I leave you to reflect on what this says about the kind of people who visit blogs.

Vote Saxon

'Dr Who' ain't on this Saturday, 'cos of Eurovision. Still, at least the absence meant that we got this:



Mind you, it also means that I have an extra week to "accidently" stumble across information on who John Simm's "Mr. Saxon" really is.

A hypothetical question

Let’s say that an individual – call him Mr. X – was a fan of a TV show – call it ‘Dr W’ – of which a considerable number of episodes were made over the past few decades. Say that while most of these episodes were available (second hand) on video, only a tiny fraction had been released on DVD.

Now, say that Mr. X had discovered that pretty much every single episode of ‘Dr W’ in existence was available to download from the Internet in torrent form - would it technically be wrong for him to try to download as many as humanly possible, bearing in mind that were the episodes available on DVD he would either rent or buy them anyway because of the extras?

Also, given that the hypothetical Mr. X only has a small amount of space left on his hard-drive, does anyone have any general advice on DVD writers?

Matt Elsewhere

Quoted in an article on the Guardian website.

(On Dr Who. Obviously.)

Priorities #2

Average viewing figures:

Man United v Watford - 6.1 million
Doctor Who - 8.0 million

Yet - in wonderful BBC logic - an over-run of the footie would have seen 'Doctor Who' bumped from the schedules until next week.

And people wonder why I hate sport.

The Philosophical Significance of Blind Date (and others)

I no longer feel quite so bad about liking Doctor Who.

Via Talking Philosophy

I'm a Dalek! Why do you zink I have zis outrageous accent?

New Who

Charlie Brooker sums it up nicely:

...a new series of Doctor Who (Sat, 7pm, BBC1) starts this evening - a phrase that never fails to cheer me up, because it means I get to gurgle like a delighted child every Saturday for the next 13 weeks. I like the way it coincides with the start of British summertime, so the Doctor arrives just in time for the warm, sunny evenings. Hopefully when climate change kicks in, and the entire year is one long warm, sunny evening, the series will expand to 52 weeks accordingly. Might take our minds off all the polar bear skeletons that'll be cluttering the streets by then.

Anyway, preceding series of "New Who" have had a wobbly start with their premiere episodes. This one bucks the trend by including all the right ingredients - monsters, peril, eccentricity - in just the right quantities. And Martha, the new assistant, has confounded my expectations already. It's a big fat smile of a programme, and hooray for that. If you don't like it, you can piss off. My love affair continues.