I got Isaac a Doctor Who DVD for his birthday which has two documentaries on it totalling almost two hours.

Is that too much? I haven’t watched the docos yet, but it is a truly classic story (Genesis of the Daleks), with plenty to talk about in terms of how the story was written and produced, and the history of the Daleks themselves.

Memorably, the Twelve Monkeys DVD includes a movie-length documentary about the making of the film. Far from being the usual stuff about how the did the special effects, and the celebrity interviews with Bruce and Brad, it goes through the early script development, financing, and problems with final editing and test audiences.

Of course it’s all a bit over-the-top if you’re not at all interested in movie-making. Personally, I am, at least to a certain extent. So provided the extra material is well done, and not superficial vapid publicity fluff, I’ll usually take a look.

The Doctor Who stories “Dalek”, “Father’s Day” and “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” make up three of the seven nominees for this year’s Hugo Award for best dramatic presentation (short form).

Oddly, the Wallace & Gromit movie got nominated in the long form section. The Hugos are for sci-fi and fantasy, which I suppose covers W&G, but still…

Sounds like an April Fool’s Day gag to me: Bill Gates to guest star in a special Doctor Who episode. (C/Net apparently think it’s real).

Definitely real is the first David Tennant series, starting next week in Britain. (Trailer here.) No word yet on how long the ABC will make us wait to see it here.

Paul Cornell, who wrote the excellent Father’s Day episode of Doctor Who, has a blog, and remarks that Rose’s father Pete was based on his own dad.

The piece is really about me appreciating the sacrifices he made, and how I know he’d do what the Dad in ‘Father’s Day’ does. I think most Dads would.

Yup.

Paul goes on to say that he’s recently discovered his dad had a terrifying, chaotic time in WW2 in the Far East, including a spot of treasure hunting, and he now thinks of him in the same vein as Bobby Shaftoe, the character in Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.

I can’t help thinking that for most of us, there’s way more about our parents than we know about.

“Classic” Doctor Who repeats finish tonight on the ABC, after running almost every episode still in existence over the past 2 1/2 years. It’s funny to think they started just before the new series was announced. It was also a few months after I had introduced my kids to the show (with DVDs and old videos) and over time it’s turned Isaac into a total 100% Doctor Who fanatic. I wonder how well he remembers the days when he didn’t tune into the ABC at 6pm every weeknight.

Here, in no particular order, are a few of my top “Classic” Doctor Who moments:

• Genesis of the Daleks, episode 6: Having gone back in time, The Doctor holds in his hands two wires connected to explosives, which would destroy the Daleks before they became such a threat to the universe. But he faces a moral quandry: should he wipe them out forever? “Have I that right?”
• Pyramids of Mars, episode 4: Sutekh stands up from his throne, revealing the hand of a BBC props person holding a cushion in position.
• Caves of Androzani, episode 3: This is my all-time favourite classic-series story, a fast-paced plot full of unfortunate events leading to the ultimate sacrifice, with some pokes at big business along the way. Episode 1 has a very strong cliffhanger, with the Doctor and Peri seemingly executed by firing squad. But the episode 3 cliffhanger seems even more exciting, as the Doctor, desperate to get back to the planet to save his friend, ignores the threats of the gunrunners and flies the ship they’re on straight towards the planet. “I’m not going to let you stop me now!” He grips the joystick, shuts his eyes, and the planet zooms towards them. Roll credits.
• Remembrance of the Daleks, episode 1: This had me enthralled when I first saw it as a teenager. The Doctor, chased by a Dalek, runs up the stairs, to find the door in front of him unexpectedly slammed and locked. The Dalek lifts off the ground and levitates after him, shouting Exterminate! Exterminate! From the Dalek’s point of view, we see the Doctor turn, terrified, to face it. Roll credits.
• Inferno: As episode six comes to a close, the Doctor has seen the parallel universe disastrous Earth’s core drilling project go wrong, causing lava to spew from the ground, putting the whole planet at risk. He makes his way back to his equipment in a desperate attempt to escape back to our Earth. As he struggles to leave, a wall of lava comes at him… roll credits.

And let’s not forget the final line of dialogue from the show, as it finished up in 1989, from the last episode to air tonight:

There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea’s asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there’s danger, somewhere there’s injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we’ve got work to do.

A special charity episode with David Tennant and Billie Piper just aired in Britain, and is available online for a little while. (Though so far, I can’t get it to play. I assume that’s a heavy load, rather them blocking it for non-UK viewers.)

This looks vaguely familiar: Cybus Corporation.

I’ve just ordered the 9th Doctor boxset (the one with all the special features). At just under $100 (including postage) from Amazon UK, it’s substantially cheaper than the (almost exhorbitant) $150 asking price in Australia, and I should get it a week or two before the AU release.

Whoops, I forgot to mention this until now: the Doctor Who story that just finished on the ABC’s repeats last night, Warriors of the Deep, was the one that I used as the basis for my spoof: Doctor Who — Revenge of the Unrealistatrons. It’s still one of my favourite things that I’ve written.

According to The Independent, next year there’ll be a spin-off series from Doctor Who, called Torchwood. It’ll be more adult, described as “The X-Files meets This Life” and will star John Barrowman as “Captain” Jack Harkness, part of a team investigating alien activity on Earth.

• BBC announcement
• BBC has registered torchwood.org.uk

Three Dollars — It was an okay movie. Perhaps a bit close to the bone for me; I’ve seen some of those issues come up in the dim dark past of my life. I was watching out for various Melbourne locations… a few shots of Fed Square, and Flinders Street — where two Bad Things are shown happening on (shudder) platform 13. It had its good points, such as time spent with the tramps, which I found interesting. But the movie is so long it drags on a bit, and sadly fails my “Would I watch it again?” test.

“Excuse me Mr Davros, would you like a drink?”

“Oooh, lovely, yes please.”

“Ah, that hit the spot. I don’t suppose you’d have any biscuits?”

(From behind the scenes footage on the Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks DVD)