Last night, millions of Britons (8.4 millions to be exact) sat down to the first episode of the latest series of Doctor Who, the first with Catherine Tate (who co-starred in the 2006 Christmas special). And today, millions of people outside the UK downloaded it and watched it as well. I watched it on my television via my Vista laptop running the media center extensions for a show I’d downloaded on my Linux desktop computer. The wonders of a home network 🙂 As I watched it from the couch with my morning waffles and Diet Coke, I thought how wonderful it will be when BBC makes some sort of deal with some US network so we can see it the SAME DAY.
I mean, it’s the same thing going the other way. People around the world watch our Lost and Battlestar Galactica; I bet they’d love to see it same day as well. I faithfully watch Jericho, Lost, BSG and so on, on the television, as they are broadcast, with commercials, because I want to support these programs and see more like them. I would gladly do the same for Doctor Who if I could get it on Saturday evening like the do in London. So, speaking of London, on to the show.
I don’t know much about the UK aside from what I learned in school — the king, mad with lead poisoning, puts his onerous taxes on us until we elect George W. Bush who cuts them and then we declared independence and gave them Canada or something. I’m not sure on the specifics. Apparently they no longer even have a king! Maybe they lost him in a poker game with France? Battle of Hastings… William of Orange… I dunno, I’m an American. Reformation. Are they still doing that? But I’m pretty sure that Cardiff must be the Vancouver of England, though. A nice city in another country which you can claim is New York, Los Angeles, or London.
Anyway, past here is all spoilers. So if you want the episode to be deliciously unspoiled, stop here. Otherwise, click on through.
Adipose Industries has been selling miracle diet pills — “the fat just walks away” — for weeks to a million Greater Londoners. Now they want to go nationwide. Apparently, when they say the fat just walks away, they mean it. At approximately ten past one in the morning, a kilo of fat pops off your body as a little chubby doll and scampers off. So that’s weird. Seems some aliens are using Britain as a breeding ground for their young. Because. Britons. Are. So. Fat.
IN YOUR FACE, ENGLAND. YEARS of making fun of us Americans for being fat, but when the aliens come for the truly rotund, they skip RIGHT OVER US and head STRAIGHT TO WALES LONDON.
Anyway, since Catherine Tate’s Donna decided not to hang out with the Doctor after her adventure with him a year and a half ago, her life has taken a turn for the dull. Nagging mother. Doesn’t even have her own car. Her granddad is a kook who spends the nights gazing at Venus (the only planet named for a woman, he tells Donna). (What he doesn’t go on to say is that Venus is an acidic, vitriolic planet with a dead landscape that you can’t live with. And it’s good he didn’t, because I’d have been ALL OVER him. I think he implied it, though, so I’m still kinda heated).
So she decides to go looking for the Doctor. She piles all her luggage in her mom’s car and goes looking for trouble, sure he’ll be there, too. She finds trouble, and after fifteen minutes of near misses, finds the Doctor as well, as they look in through opposite windows as the villain is explaining her master plan to a hapless bystander in true villain fashion. Donna tries to explain what she’s DOING there. This goes on for awhile until the villain excuses herself, but hopes she is not interrupting anything.
Well, it’s all chases, sonic pens and screwdrivers, and alien spaceships from then on. Once again, London is assaulted by aliens. But of course, it’s all a hoax, because that’s what they read on the Internet.
In the end, though, when Donna starts to move her luggage into the TARDIS, the Doctor says no, she can’t come, even though maybe he offered. He broke Martha’s heart when he didn’t mean to; he lost his true love, Rose, to another dimension; he broke Sarah Jane’s heart many years ago as well. All he’s looking for in a companion now is a mate.
“You want a MATE? You want to MATE with me?”
“Nononononnono!!11!!! I just want A MATE. A — MATE.”
Don’t they have the word “friend” in Britain? Buddy? Pal? I guess that’s why Gandalf was so confused outside the gates of Moria. If the dwarfs had written, “Speak, Mate, and enter” — they’d have sailed right in. “Friend”? I guess you can’t be friendly in England. It’s all “oh, he acted all mately, but I knew he wasn’t a real mate. Mateship isn’t something you give lightly!”
Anyway, after explaining wistfully to her granddad that she’d found the man of her dreams and let him “fly away — in a blue box”, she assures the Doctor that she has no interest in his skinny butt, and off they go — to buzz her granddad and head off to Pompeii. Pompeii, hundreds of years old, but guess when they arrive? Yup. Volcano day. Don’t they always?
Donna leaves the keys to her mum’s car in a trash bin near the scene of an awful accident — seems a woman fell off a spaceship, horrible tragedy, all too common these days — and tells a blonde woman to tell her mum “THAT bin THERE” if she should come by. Donna doesn’t know her, but we do. It’s Rose. She turns and fades away.
It’s airing on scifi on the 19th, so a two week delay ain’t so bad. And um, I guess I missed something but… what happened to Martha?
Two weeks is FOREVER. I’d heard they were going to do it the day after, which would have been okay. Well, better than a year. I may still watch it.
Martha wanted a relationship, but the Doctor is still in love with Rose. So she left, and joined UNIT — the UN agency that Doctor #3 (Jon Pertwee) was always running around with. She was on Torchwood for a couple of episodes when they locked horns with UNIT, and she — as well as Rose — will be on later in Series 4. We don’t know how Rose gets back to this universe. Rumor suggests an alternate Doctor in the zeppelin universe sent her, but nobody knows for sure. She doesn’t appear to be all the way in our universe yet — since she fades away as the Doctor faded away to her as the universe separated (and how Peter Davison — Doctor #5 — faded away from David Tennant after their TARDIS-es collided in “Children in Time”).
Interesting and thanks!
“So, speaking of London, on to the show.”
Technically speaking a lot of the episodes aren’t filmed in London, over in England, but in my home town of Swansea, Wales (Which is where Russell T Davies grew up, he went to my school though long before I did,) For instance the recent Christmas special with Kylie was actually filmed in a building near to my home, while the ‘London’ scenes were actually just outside Cardiff Castle (Torchwood territory.)
I know why Rose faded away though I won’t spoil it for you, I also know how and why she’s returned. However despite having overloaded on spoilers (These are just the ones I know have been relatively confirmed) they did a wonderful job of keeping under wraps the fact that Rose reappears in Episode 1. My only real spoiler will be to say you should keep an eye on the little things and remember that this season’s theme is ‘consequences’.
Oh there’s a LOT of juiciness in this coming season.
And RTD seems to be taking great delight (from what he has said in interviews) in tormenting the Whovians.
Really looking forward to it.
Thanks for the info. When I read this last night instead of reading the spoilers I went and found the episode. SHIBBY!!! I was giving the episode a C untill that jaw dropping moment at the end. Then it shot up to an A 🙂
I’m more glad than ever that I added the spoiler wall! I’ll be sure to keep doing that 🙂
Yeah, that was a stunner, wasn’t it? I knew that Martha is coming back mid-season and that Rose would be around at the end, but had no idea she’d be in episode #1.
Also, go to Youtube and look up some Catherine Tate stuff — look up her “Not Drunk Enough” sketch. That had me on the floor dying 🙂 For those of us on the wet side of the Atlantic who maybe don’t know her well… she’s a pretty funny lady 🙂
OMG
I have this show ready to watch…but Battlestar started, Torchwood ended (and what a freaking ending…you would never catch a US made show pulling that kind of stunt), I did not get a chance to watch it yet…
Also, with Catherine Tate, who I feel will be an added bonus…(even though overseas she is slightly …uh…not as well liked?) will make this season a real watcher for sure..
Also, if I may, I want to throw in for another good TV show…and a show which really needs more viewers…
Everyone watch REAPER by Kevin Smith (he of Clerks and Dogma fame) if you get the CW
New episodes return later this month…and this show has wit, a fun style, a story line that has an under lying theme of something more important is going on, that we ALL need to find out (ok, ok,..I have to find out, but still…help me out…ok? lol)
And also watch a gentleman by the name of Tyler Labine in this show (called Sock)…who is reminiscent of Jack Black…but is actually funnier..
And Ray Wise (he of Twin Peaks) is truly an incredible Devil (Satan, the big cajones)!
Thanks guys
I watched a few episodes of Reaper and it was okay in a quirky way, but then I forgot when it came on and stopped watching it. Yes, I really do need a Tivo or something. Or some sort of program guide that tells me when shows will be on. tv.yahoo.com is incredibly clunky and oversaturated with ads — which is too bad, because when they first started, it was an incredibly awesome basic TV grid. I find I can only remember about three shows at once, and currently they are BSG, Lost and American Idol. Doctor Who makes four, and so I forgot to watch it until a Doctor Who blog updated, mentioning it, and I scurried off to Torrent to grab it. Now I will be very much trying to remember to get it Sunday mornings.
I am downloading S2 of Torchwood right now. S1 didn’t grab me so I didn’t get far, but S2 sounds strange enough to be worth looking at a couple episodes at least.
“I am downloading S2 of Torchwood right now. S1 didn’t grab me so I didn’t get far, but S2 sounds strange enough to be worth looking at a couple episodes at least.”
RTD has admitted to having issues with the tone of series 1 (all that angst) which led to a fairly impressive change of pace for series 2, a lot more humour. Still heaps of drama but this time handled far more effectively so it was actually drama rather than angst and depression.
Catherine Tate was an acquired taste for me and I never acquired it (“Am I bovvered?”) but I was suitably impressed when she turned up on Who, it was nice to know she could pull off a semi-straight role.
I’d say Catherine Tate was the British Tracy Ullman, but then, she’s a Brit as well. Must be something in the air over there? Their comedy seems very similar.
Oh yeah — any Whovian who loved that “Love & Monsters” episode really needs to get this “Face Bank“. This won’t mean anything to you unless you’ve seen the episode, so sorry if you haven’t 😛
Season 2 of Torchwood was pretty good especially the later episodes dealing with Owen. I must warn you though that some Americans might be uncomfortable with the more in your face gay portrayal they give Captain Jack this season. I think there’s another spin-off besides Torchwood called the Sarah Jane Chronicles which isn’t as overtly sexually. The Sci-fi channel is going to play it as the lead in show for Dr. Who. If they keep making a new spin-off each year you can expect Dr. Who to give Law and Order a run for their money.
It’s kinda of funny but I think I first found this site looking for reviews of Doctor Who and Eureka and was pleasantly surprised to find it also dealt with MMOs.
My favorite episode of Doctor Who was the one where Max Headroom mast a guest appearance.
Classic. ^_^
Tipa > Catherine Tate is, I’d say, fairly standard for our comedy over here. I was under the impression that until recently our comedy didn’t go down so well in the States (I think Ricky Gervais helped to change that, though.)
Relmstein > I’d say The Sarah Jane Adventures wasn’t really sexual at all, as it’s the childrens spin off 🙂 Despite being made for Childrens BBC I’ve heard some great things about it (Never got around to watching it myself) and it’s been getting a lot of kudos for the quality of it’s drama.
I think the way Torchwood handled the Owen storyline was great, I certainly didn’t see any of it coming. Russell T Davies has really been pulling out the stops for the plotlines, some amazing twists and turns. The end of Torchwood series 2 had me almost in tears which is another example of just how good the writing is.
I haven’t watched it, I just skipped the post, so why am I commenting? I don’t know, I just can’t wait for it!. arrgghhh!!!
I am getting tired of Torchwood. But the thing I am getting tired of is the thing most police and military dramas do: every episode people mutiny or rebel or simply ignore orders and there’s never consequences. In Torchwood it goes even farther and people try to kill each other. It just really pushes the believability.
Some of it really rises up, like the most recent one where she finds the people disappearing, but it fell flat with the poor writing of Jack’s part for that episode, and the end where she just says “it’s better for no one to know” and destroys the evidence and gives up.
I guess the fact that they try to tackle issues makes the “everything gets resolved and is back to normal in an hour” that much more annoying to me. I’d like to see real changes and consequences. Since “consequences” is one of the themes, you’d think there’d be more.
I was pleasantly surprised by the battlestar galactica premier. I was worried it would just be a continuation of talking heads and tons of exposition like season 3 but it was not bad. I had almost given up on them.
Well, Monty Python, Benny Hill, Fawlty Towers, Reginald Perrin, etc were all staples of public television here in the US all while I was growing up, as were dramas like Doctor Who, Upstairs Downstairs and so on. My sister was into The Young Ones and my daughter loved Father Ted. I do know some people who don’t like British humor, but then, we have Seinfeld and South Park which probably aren’t well liked outside the US. As for Gervais… well, I have to admit I didn’t find The Office all that funny, but then, I don’t think the American version is all that funny either. I did like Gervais in Extras, though. I found that hilarious 🙂
At the end did Donna’s father say “It’s him! It’s the doctor!”? I kept repeating that to try to understand what he was yelling. But I thought he said “doctor” once. I was wondering if he was the guy at the end of the Titanic special.
(It just aired for the first time for me on Friday April 25)
In the Sontaran Stratagem, it turns out EVERYONE in Donna’s family knows the Doctor from somewhere 😛