No rest for the Damned

Far be it for me to expound upon how much shite The Sun newspaper dole out claiming it’s all true. Let’s forget the ‘Kylie in a cybersuit’ and ‘Freema Agyeman sacked’ reports for now. Let’s just say, someone there is either getting insider information before the other tabloids, or just very, very good at guessing, dunt sleep and simply grabs every tidbit of info and publishes it before anyone else can.

For example, they’ve announced (exclusively, mind), that Geoffrey Palmer, he of the ‘slam in the lamb’ telly adverts, is to be Captain of the Titanic in the‘Doctor bloody Who’ 2007 Christmas special, ‘Voyage of the Damned’. Having been in Who before, and being the dad of one Charles Palmer who directed a couple of series three goodies, dunt hurt, I suppose.

However, trawl back through their other shite and you’ll notice stories such as Dennis Hopper being approached to star as some ee-vil baddie – and that The God That Is Russell T. Davies is stepping down after writing series four. It also goes on to say that the normal thirteen-week run of programmes will stop here for the time being, replaced with occasional TV specials from time to time to keep it ticking over.

While I can’t lend any credence to owt The Sun says, I can believe it’s time to take it down a peg and take a breather. After all, they’ve managed three (hopefully, soon to be four) series of cracking, breath-taking telly. And that’s bloody hard to do – look at any other long-running series and tell me it didn’t get crap after the first few seasons. Of course, they’ve had the added bonus of changing cast lists at the end of every series, but somehow they’ve kept it exactly the same. Genius.

It also means that perhaps the Tennster is going ahead with the entire batch of series four episodes after all, and then he’s free to pursue all those other things he wants to do without being stuck in a BBC contract. Like that adaptation of ‘Hamlet’ he’s always wanted to do.

And so to last night’s telly. I posted last time that those jolly good sports at BBC Entertainment, the broadband TV channel from Now TV here in HK, are showing series one (twenty-seven, if you want to be pedantic) in its entirety on Monday nights over here. Great, I thought, no need to buy the DVD boxed set and then find out it’s not as great as I thought it’d be. But wait – I were only half right. They are showing series one, but they’re showing it every night, with the Wednesday slot a repeat, I think. And you even get the fifteen minute Confidential straight after it.

First thoughts? Bearing in mind my Doctor (in a subliminal, used to sometimes watch it kinda way) is Five, Peter Davison? And then I adjusted to this Ten?

Christopher Eccleston is always fab, no doubt about that. I was worried I’d watch it and find he didn’t quite fit the whole Time Lord persona. But then, what is that? After all, it’s been recreated (necessarily) by everyone who’s taken on the job. For better or for worse, you get the new alien in his best and sometimes worst lights. Nine is a wholly different Doctor to the others I’ve known, and yet he’s extremely Doctor-ish, as he should be. There are moments where it feels the new cast and/or crew are a little shaky on their feet, the pacing or attitude wavering from one scene to the next, but we have to remember this was the first big come-back, and these first episodes were the newest of the new. (And I nearly choked when I saw the big old Face of Boe again – for the first time – again – for the-. Oh, whatever. I will never be able to look at him the same way again…) So yeah, it’s fine. It’s not my Doctor, but it’s great fun. It passed the test.

And so to ‘my Doctor’. Oh the emotional turmoil over this one, I tell you. After I posted a fan-fic on the archive last, I had replies and reviews, all of which are gratefully received, be they good or bad. But one mentioned I’d made a glaring error transliterating one of the Doctor’s favourite phrases. The review was right, and after I’d realised and almost thrown meself out of me seventh floor window fer being so amazingly stupid, another wave hit me.

The word it should have been were French. French. And my immediate thought was (bearing in mind I write stories about Ten – the current David Tenninch Tennant incarnation – and Martha) ‘my Doctor wouldn’t speak French!’ And then – woah woah woah, since when was Ten MY Doctor?

When did that happen? When did I go from Five being the last proper incarnation of the Gallifreyan that I saw, to Ten ambling in, hands in pockets, sticking his jaw out in abject disapproval and stealing the show? When?

Ah. It’s all becoming clear now. I know David Tennant attracts a helluva lot of criticism, mostly concerning his reliance on his eyes to sell a scene. Bollocks, I say, the people who don’t think he’s a serious actor should watch those wee bits where he’s tasked to sell a sob story. He’s ace, whether he’s making you laff or making you cry – and he does em both so easily.

That’s it, I have to go to work. And stop blogging about ‘Doctor bloody Who’. Even though I’ve not quite finished that latest fan-fic yet.

Soopytwist.

Tags:
Doctor Who ~ David Tennant ~ Martha Jones ~ Freema Agyeman ~ BBC ~ Geoffrey Palmer ~ Dennis Hopper ~ Peter Davison ~ Hong Kong ~ fanfic ~ Christopher Eccleston