My Favourite Peruvian Folk Band

Okay, okay, I know that I have missed a week and failed to post up a review of the Vampires of Venice. It is coming soon I promise, but first I wanted to get my thoughts about the latest episode that aired at the weekend, Amy’s Choice. And in the words of the Doctor himself… this is going to be a tricky one. Events kicked off with a very Jam and Jerusalem opening. There was rolling countryside, picture postcard cottages, free-range geese and sit-up-and-beg push bikes. There was even a distracting Miss Ellie-style soft focus shot of the very pregnant Amy, while she baked her cakes (which sounds like a euphamism but isn’t). It was

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Tags: Amy's choice, Arthur Darvill, Doctor Who, Dream Lord, Karen Gillan, Leadworth, Matt Smith, Simon Nye, TARDIS, Time-Lord, Toby Jones

Angels With Dirty Faces

Well, if last week’s return of the Daleks wasn’t quite the unmitigated success that everyone had hoped for, then this week’s installment saw two returns for the price of one but the question was, could they live up to the hype? The answer: a resounding “Yes” and the pre-credit sequence alone was worth the price of admission. First up, and making the most memorable of returns was Alex Kingston, clearly having a whale of a time repising her role as the Doctor’s bickering future “love interest”, River Song. Not qualified as a professor yet, this version of Song was obviously younger than the one we saw at the end of her real-world life in The Forest of the Dead two years ago. Devising an ingenious escape from a starliner

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Tags: Alex Kingston, Doctor Who, Karen Gillan, Matt Smith, River Song, Steven-Moffat, TARDIS, Time Of The Angels

Basically, I Rule!

So, The Beast Below should have been The Moff’s difficult second album. We appear superficially at any rate to be following a familiar formula. Like “Rose”, “End Of The World” and “The Unquiet Dead” at the start of the RTD era, here we get “Eleventh Hour” as the contemporary companion introduction, “The Beast Below” as the trip in to the far future, and next week’s “Victory of the Daleks” as the trip in to the past, this time set in WWII (and, I think coincidentally, penned by Mark Gatiss too). On the principles that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery coupled with the fact that if ain’t broke don’t fix it, I think it’s a perfectly fine path to tread. However, other than a gentle nod to the penultimate scene in The End of the World,

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Tags: Beast Below, Doctor Who, Karen Gillan, Modern Drama, Sophie Okenedo, Starship UK, Steven-Moffat, The-Doctor

Feels Like 2005 Down Here

Well, if the 3-D trailer left you feeling a little intrigued but rather… meh! about the whole Series 1/5/31 return, then the latest trailers from the BBC and the Press Launch have really whetted the appetite of this blogger. Starting to hear the dialogue and see some of the sfx that will look amazing in HD and more importantly than all that, finally getting to see what a Moffat-helmed thirteen weeks of Doctor Who will be like… well, it’s like 2005 all over again. If Doctor Who is “about” anything at all, it’s about change. And this is promising to be a change on a really rather big scale. After further neglect of this old blog (as my other personal blog has dominated my writing juices of late), a new series of Doctor Who is enough to redress the balance and, if that wasn’t enough, there’ll be a sprinkling of Ashes to Ashes and the final 9 episodes of Lost to keep us busy too. Hope you’ll stick around with me.

Tags: Ashes-To-Ashes, Doctor Who, HD, Karen Gillan, Lost, Matt Smith, Stephen-Moffat

Christmas Ain’t Coming Any More

You really don’t need me to tell you what to be watching on Christmas Day, do you? Doctor Who, Gavin and Stacey and find yourself a good DVD or two. Job done.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’d just like to take the opportunity to wish each and every one of you, all the very best for the season. Your support is much appreciated.

Tags: Christmas, Doctor Who, Gavin-and-Stacey, Radio-Times

“Barrowmaaaaan!!”

So, as promised, a look forward to Day One of the Christmas telly schedule as defined by the glorious bumper edition of the Radio Times. Saturday 19th has bugger all on offer in the great scheme of things. It sees the final of this year’s “Strictly” and RT proudly lumps that in as its Pick Of The Day, not for me though ‘cos I have not seen a single second of it this year (nor any other) so that won’t be part of mine nor the Other Viewer’s watch list. The other choice cuts from the RT recommendations include a Take That concert, a CSI marathon, “Love Actually” if a rom-com is what you’re after, and finally “Merlin” whose second series comes to a close. This will be the 7th or 8th

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Tags: Bladerunner, Cricket, CSI, Doctor Who, Frost Nixon, Love Actually, Merlin, Radio-Times, Strictly, Wife Swap