Matt and Karen are Everywhere

So Matt Smith and Karen Gillan are in publicity overdrive for series 1/5/31/Fnarg. Adverts are truning up all over the Beeb on TV and Radio with some nice special recordings made by the two stars as the TARDIS cleverly turning up in various studios. There are magazine covers galore with all the usuals like DWM (obviously, although there are two variants out tomorrow) and the Radio Times (who got the scoop on the new TARDIS interior) and other listing mags but also GT (never bought Gay Times before), a cover picture on the Times last Saturday and even some strange places like a technology mag I saw in Tesco earlier this week. Plenty of news reports are being made too, on local programmes and places like BBC Breakfast and Newsround, all now being spurred on by a bus going on tour round the country. All good stuff. It has led to the inevitable flurry of clips and a fair few spoilers for those who have got to see the episode early, so I imagine that there are a fair few spoiler-phobes hiding under their beds between now and Saturday night. So, how excited are you getting now? To help you on your way, here are some links from friends and Gallifrey Base users who’ll be tracking the new series…..

• Leadworth Green (by Gareth Bundy)
• Doctoreleven (Sarah’s LiveJournal)
• TV Lover (by Shawn Lunn)
• CathodeRayTube (by Frank Collins)
• Millenium Elephant
• The Medium Is Not Enough (by Rob Buckley)
• Nebula One
• Blogtor Who (brilliant for up-to-the-minute news and reviews)
• Behind The Sofa (many, varied, fun, and excellent contributions)

Tags: BBC Breakfast, bus, Gay Times, Karen Gillan, Matt Smith, Newsround, Radio-Times, TARDIS

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

Here’s to BBC2

It’s nearly Christmas for crying out loud and where exactly is the festive fun? Not on the TV that’s for sure. There has been such a paucity of decent telly so far since this little experiment started that I half expected Radio Times’ selections to include a documentary about Scrabble… Oh, Hang on, there is one! I kid you not, it’s part of Alan Yentob’s Imagine… series and is almost worth tuning in for just to see how they make it run for 65 minutes. If that’s not your cup of cocoa then Five are offering yet another CSI marathon, while over on Auntie we reach the conclusion of

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Tags: BBC4, Christmas-TV, HIGNFY, Imagine, Mock-The-Week, Never-Mind-The-Buzzcocks, Oliver Postgate, Paradox, 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

Ticket to Ride

Slow but steady anticpation is building in advance of the second (or first, depending on your perspective) of this year’s Doctor Who “Gap Year” specials.  I’m looking at Planet of the Dead as “2 of 5″ rather than “1 of 4″ because The Next Doctor is as much a part of the period between Series Four and Series Five as anything else.  There has been a bit of a push from the Beeb’s  marketing peeps with a few guest appearances on the usual outlets, such as Michelle Ryan on Blue Peter tonight; RTD on yesterday’s BBC Breakfast; something to do with a

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Tags: bbc hd, Bernard Cribbins, David Tennant, Michelle Ryan, Planet of the Dead, Radio-Times, Russell-T-Davies, Waters of Mars, Wilf

Christmas 2008 has been consigned to the history books and with it the festive fortnight of strange and delightful television schedules have concluded. I have to confess that I didn’t watch a great deal of the stuff over the last two weeks but now, as the bumper edition of the Radio Times heads off to the nearest recycling plant, I feel it is time to look back at my personal choices of shows that were blessed by the highlighter pen here at Chez Fazzinchi.  Not that  there were too many but here are the few bits and pieces that I sat down to enjoy with varying degrees of success.

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Tags: 39-Steps, Blackadder, Christmas, Doctor Who, Gavin-and-Stacey, Radio-Times, Survivors, Wallace-and-Gromitt