“My father Sydney was a watchmaker from Nottingham, and my mother Verity was - well, she was a nurse, actually.” — John Smith/The Doctor, in the episode Human Nature, 2007.

For all you did, thank you, Verity.

So there we go, the series has ended. Some great episodes.

The Runaway Bride: Enjoyable enough. Loved the highway chase scene — and the way it captured the excitement of the TV audience in the little kids in the other car. One day the ABC programming people will learn to programme Christmas specials at Christmas, instead of six months later. (Though it could be worse… in Canada the CBC put this episode on after the following one.)

Smith and Jones: Some fun moments, but obviously it’s mostly to introduce the new companion. Some of us who have been watching for a while thought the Judoon were Sontarans when they first appeared.

The Shakespeare Code: Oh, good stuff. Some very funny moments (I really liked the barely noted “No you can’t have yourself sketched with me”), and an interesting concept, the power of words.

Gridlock: I was put off by the concept of the multi-decade traffic jam, which just seemed a little too ridiculous. But as the episode went on, it grew on me a lot.

Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks: It was all going well for me until SquidMan appeared. After that it just seemed a little bit silly. But Solomon’s demise was a good antidote to the kind of “inspiring hero miraculously escapes” plotlines you sometimes see.

The Lazarus Experiment: Nothing too challenging.

42: I found this one really exciting. In space, noone can hear you shouting “I’ll save you!” Okay, so the plot was lifted from the second half of Planet Of Evil (circa 1975), but still very enjoyable.

Human Nature/Family of Blood: *sniffffff* Very clever, and one of those plots that had you wondering what’s happening. Nice touches in John Smith’s journal. (Some people freeze-framed it and noted pictures of past Doctors and numerous other series references.)

Blink: Oh great stuff from Stephen Moffat, once again making great use of time in his stories. No wonder he won a Hugo for last year’s effort. The weeping angels were superb. I wish I’d watched this episode in the dark the first time I saw it.

Utopia: Ooooh yeah. Derek Jacobi! John Simm! Captain Jack’s back, and so is… you know who! Superb, with just niggling doubts about the apparent re-appearance of 20th century technology in the year 50 trillion. Best line? “…and you two are BLOGGING!”

Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords: Wrapping it all up nicely, though I’m getting a little weary of Russell T Davies and his mega-CGI-massed-alien-invasions at the end of every season. But it did all neatly use bits from the rest of the season: the watch/Chameleon Arch, the mysterious Harry Saxon, The Face Of Boe’s final utterance, the power of words, and more about the last great time war.

And Torchwood? Well, you’ve gotta love a spinoff. It ranged from the excellent (”Random Shoes”) to the pointlessly horrifically mundane (”Countrycide”), and not forgetting Fight Club With Aliens (”Combat”). But I can’t help thinking they could have done it almost as well without the gore, swearing and sex, and then I could have let the kids watch it. Ultimately while Doctor Who manages to include secondary themes and some deep thinking in many of its plots, Torchwood seemed a lot more superficial.

The forthcoming Sarah Jane Adventures spinoff looks interesting, too.

The Doctor Who spinoff series Torchwood starts tonight on Channel 10. I’ve seen a few episodes — at first it seems to revel in its adult timeslot, with (arguably gratuitous) use of sex, swearing and violence. Then it settles down a bit and starts telling some good stories, though none seem as deep or well thought out as the best of the recent Doctor Who scripts.

The third series of Doctor Who itself starts next week on the ABC, and evidently the final episode of Torchwood ties back-in to its parent show.

Unfortunately, by my calculations, the way they’ve been scheduled (and assuming each channel sticks to one episode per week without missing weeks) the bit where Captain Jack jumps out of Torchwood will air two days after he jumps back into Doctor Who. Whoops. Maybe Channel 10 will show the last two episodes of Torchwood together, like they did in Britain… that would solve it.

I have to admit, when I was growing up, Doctor Who was never really one of the cool kid shows. Scifi generally probably wasn’t something the cool kids watched.

But now, on the eve of the third series (starts Saturday night in the UK; who knows when we’ll see it in Australia), David Tennant’s Doctor Who has been voted the coolest television character of all time.

(MX, 30/3/2007)

Finally, Doctor Who fans, our time has come. Our show is cool. (It must be true — I read it in MX.)

Jeremy, Isaac and I were being chased by kind of zombie-type things, that on-touch would change you from human into their kind. It was a bit like a cross between Shaun of the Dead and Rise of the Cybermen.

Somehow I knew it was a dream, but we kept on running. Isaac nearly got caught, but just escaped. I knew we had to get to somewhere called Bletchley Park, because that was where the resistance to the zombies was based. We’d be safe there. I think we’d almost made it, rowing down a river, when the dream ended.

Once I’d woken up I determined that Bletchley Park is a real place; it’s where the Allied forces had their code-breaking during World War 2.

Funny net find of the day: Tardis Environmental — it’s like Doctor Who meets Kenny. (via Paul Cornell)

Here’s my quick reviews of the second half of this year’s Doctor Who. (First half here.) Some spoilers for people who haven’t seen it. (Les, this means you.)

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit — Terrific stuff. The tension in the first episode was fantastic, especially when the beast was stalking the archeologist. Scared the crap out of me. Loved the ending. Trivia: Voice of the Beast was done by the same guy who did the voice of Sutekh (also a manifestation of the Beast) way back in 1975.

Love & Monsters — Some people in fandom hated it, but I quite enjoyed this episode. A very quirky story, and I reckon a bit of a piss-take on the fans. And yes dammit, I do like a bit of ELO.

Fear Her — A couple of amusing bits, but ultimately a light fluffy episode that didn’t challenge the braincells too much. (more…)

The Doctor Who episodes The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances won the Hugo award for best dramatic presentation, short form, beating other worthy contenders including Battlestar Galactica, much to Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell’s surprise.

So how are we all enjoying the 2006 series? Overall, I’m loving it. And in keeping with my one-year-old tradition, here’s a review of the first half of it. (Matching what the ABC is up to.)

The Christmas Invasion — a fun introduction to the new Doctor. Gotta like any story which has references to Arthur Dent and in which a cup of tea saves the day.

New Earth — an okay romp in the future, but a fairly bland story, and one which doesn’t stand up at all to a second viewing, IMHO.

Tooth and Claw — ah, that’s more like it. Starting with martial arts Matrix monks, a nice exciting claustrophopic big monster chase. Torchwood reference rather rammed down the throat at the end.

School Reunion — lump in the throat stuff. Few TV shows can build such a rich pop-culture history they can draw on decades later. Nostalgia overload and Buffy’s Giles make up for the light story.

The Girl in the Fireplace — first really clever writing of 2006, a genuinely intriguing story in which the viewers (but not the Doctor) see the real answer to the mystery at the end.

Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel — ooh yeah, the Cybermen are back. Terrific visuals with the zeppelins. Amusing Mickey/Ricky bits. Loved the mid-story cliffhanger.

The Idiot’s Lantern — some amusing moments. Some moments that are probably meant to be thought-provoking but which don’t quite get there. Fun nontheless. Notice how even the dog almost falls victim to the alien?

(Previous: 2005 part 1, 2005 part 2.)

Note: If you’re leaving comments and have seen the remaining episodes, be careful to leave no spoilers for other viewers.

You have to feel some pity for the Australian morning daily papers. All this World Cup excitement, including a game last night won by Australia, but the lead times to get their newspaper onto peoples front lawns by breakfast time means they can’t report the results. They try and make up for it, but there’s only so many World Cup colour supplements one can handle.

Personally I’m nowhere near fanatical enough to tune in that late at night (knowing what havoc it would have the following day through lack of sleep). But there are those that do. One guy at work did the ultimate and flew to Germany for the month, without even having to book a ticket to see a game. That’s dedication.

There’s been talk recently of moving the AFL Grand Final from its Saturday afternoon slot to an evening one, apparently for the benefits of TV. My question is: what could they gain? It’s already a sell-out at the ground, and consistently the highest rating single TV programme of the year. I find it hard to believe they’d gain any more viewers or advertising dollars.

Meanwhile the ABC has finally announced the new series of Doctor Who will air in July, starting with the Christmas episode. Yep, “Christmas in July”. I wonder how long it took the promotional people to come up with that one, and more importantly, did they hold off on showing it specifically to gain that piss-weak tagline?

They don’t seem to have learnt yet that big audiences might be gained by jumping on the bandwagon of worldwide near-simultaneous broadcasts, and harnessing existing publicity. In the global village, I want to watch what my neighbours are watching.

Did they really delay broadcasting Doctor Who (a show which is mainstream enough to be the subject of many downloads on what’s becoming known as Channel BT, and regularly gets mentions in popular newspapers such as MX) just so they could show Rocket Man in that timeslot first? All respect to Robson Green and the rest of the cast, but a cute premise, a setting in yet another UK village full of eccentrics, and an Elton John song for the theme tune don’t make a hit.