More TV news…
DOCTOR WHO SPOILERS AHOY!
The BBC confirms that Billie Piper is coming back to Doctor Who for a few episodes!
W00t!
I was surprised to see that Martha was listed as a companion for next season; looks like she’ll be coming back too. I’ve long been curious to see what would happen if she met the fabled Rose… and how does Donna play in? Looks like the Doctor will have his hands full.
The bummer news is that their seasons are short (13 episodes) and the show will go on hiatus for a year or so after this one, to return in 2010. Oh well, at least they’ll be doing specials and such.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Schweet! I liked rose much better than martha. I think her and the doctor had a much better dynamic.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:19 am
It’s great news but hardly surprising; iIn every interview she’s given since she left DW, Billie has been very obviously regretting her decision to leave, and stressed that “the door wasn’t shut” to her returning in some way. I think it’s been very hard for her, personally and professionally, watching the show’s success rocket since she left – not that the two were connected, it’s just that the writing really took off as all the writers grew more and more comfortable with the characters and mythos – and I’m really pleased she’ll be coming back. I’m looking forward to seeing her and Martha meet, but I’m sick of people slagging off Martha on all the message boards etc and I hope that won’t begin again. Freema is a great actress who was given very poor material to work with until the end of the season – all that doe-eyed unrequited love – and I’m sure that she’ll be superb in Torchwood and again in DW. I still have serious reservations about Catherine Tait, but happy to be proved wrong when the Tardis picks her up and whisks her off next year.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Phil, I don’t know if you caught the BBC Children In Need special of Doctor Who which fits between the end of the third series and the Christmas special. It is only 8 minutes long.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Awesome! I love Rose! I always thought she had a great combination of wit/sass/and budding intelligence. Not to mention the empathy she showed.
I don’t mind Martha…though I thought she fell in love a little too quickly.
I only watch the show on Sci-Fi, so all I’ve gotten are Rose and Martha.
As for the actresses themselves, I think they both do a fine job.
I apoligize for any mis-spellings…I’m currently swiming in Day-quil.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Sally Sparrow for Companion!
I do like Martha more than Rose, though, but think she might be a better fit for Torchwood.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Gah!
Look, I liked Rose, but the not-so-subtle romantic tension between her and the Doctor drove me absolutely *crazy*.
Considering the way Rose left the show, I hope this means the Cybermen are going to be back again, in addition to the Sontarans. *That* would rock.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:42 am
One thing this Yank notices about the way the Doctor’s new series have been developed is that they very much are attuned to the fans, both new and old. The Children in Need special made my eyes mist as I thought of the legacy that this show wields. I found a t-shirt that says “Everybody remembers their first Doctor”, and as I sit here at a maternity hospital waiting for my first granddaughter (hey, wasn’t she the First Doctor’s companion?
) it holds a double meaning, but I know to which Doctor it is inferring. My first Doctor was Tom Baker, but enjoyed Peter Davison just as much. Now my son can’t wait for BBCAmerica or our local PBS and watched the latest episodes posted on YouTube. I’m still a big Trek fan, and enjoyed all the Star Wars sextet (didn’t say they were equally good, but I did enjoy them!), but Doctor who has a staying power that literally spans generations. Who knew a Time Lord could be timeless! And, oh yes, Rose rox my sox!
November 27th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I wonder how they’ll manage getting Rose back in, it should be interesting it could very good, or it could be a bit gack. Personally as someone whose first doctor was Tom Baker I got a bit fed up with three seasons of perfect size 10 (UK) poppets with wonderful skin doing the doe eyed thing at the Doctor so I’ve got high hopes of Donna bringing a bit more vim and vigour as a Doctor’s Companion.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Hiatus? For a year? Say it ain’t so. The long pause between seasons is long enough already – but an extra year? Ouch!
November 27th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I only recently discovered the new Dr. Who series. I was a big fan of the original. Also, I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve got a raging Billie Piper crush now too.
I need to add Torchwood to my netflix Q. It sounds like that one will be really good to.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Wow — hope there’s nobody coming along who’s hoping not to be spoiled, eh? This isn’t so much a spoiler warning as a spoiler flaunting — “Beware, therearespoilersaheadHERE THEY ARE!!!”
Less cool than usual, dude.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
I dunno. As much as I liked Rose, I was hoping that they’d keep the door shut on that whole thing. Not everything has to come back ’round again, dammit. This sort of makes the entire previous season’s “Martha watches Ten pine for Rose” thread that much more annoying instead of any more poignant.
Guh. If you want to bring someone back, bring back Ace. *shrug*
November 27th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
If anyone REALLY wants to drown in Spoliers – and see pix of Billie filming! – then this is the place to go…
http://www.gallifreyone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=153761&page=8#282
but ONLY go there if you want to read some serious spoilers, and discussion by very dedicated hardcore Who fans! If you’re put off by that kind of thing then don’t go there. You have been warned!!
November 27th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I don’t really mind the 13-episode seasons, considering they’re 45-minute episodes and thus the equivalent of a 26-episode classic season.
Rose’s last story was so beautiful that I hope they don’t ruin it by bringing her back. By that, I mean I hope they bring her back in a profound and meaningful way, something worthy of her legacy.
Apparently, the 2009 hiatus is because David Tennant is going do to Hamlet for a year. So that should put to rest all of the new Doctor rumors. And as of the 2010 season, he’ll have played the Doctor for longer than anyone save Tom Baker (at least for years; the early Doctors might have him in terms of hours worth of episodes).
I LOVED the Children In Need special. And I’m thankful it was Steven Moffatt who wrote it. I love his episodes!
November 27th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Shane, I loved the Children in Need special as well, but one thing bugs me… why wasn’t the celery affected by the “time differential” that aged the 5th doctor?
November 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
To be fair, this spoiler wasn’t released by Phil. A UK newpaper printed it this morning and it was confirmed by the BBC by lunchtime today (GMT).
There had been many hints that this was going to happen – even Noel Clarke (Mickey Smith in the series) had hinted at it some time ago.
There have also been rumours of a feature film. Now that would knock spots off any futurama cinema flick.
November 27th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
If there’s one thing you can count on from Doctor Who, it’s that things the Doctor says are impossible (like resuming communications with a separated parallel universes) are never really.
November 27th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
How ’bout some love for Torchwood, too?
November 27th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Quiet_Desperation: Torchwood was given rather a hard time here in Blighty; the rather, um, “adult” storylines didn’t sit well with some folk, and Torchwood’s Capt Jack was a lot darker and more miserable than DW’s Capt Jack too. But some of the storylines were excellent, very sharp and touching writing, and the characters were just starting to develop nicely, so high hopes for Season 2, when Martha (as everyone knows by now) will join the gang. I know Torchwood has got a very big and dedicated following in the US, which is great!
November 27th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
A Rose by any other name…
http://www.galacticast.com/2007/04/16/rose-by-any-other-name/
Hi-larryous!
November 28th, 2007 at 12:52 am
>”the rather, um, “adult†storylines didn’t sit well with some folk, and Torchwood’s Capt Jack was a lot darker and more miserable than DW’s Capt Jack too. ”
That one of the reason’s I’m a fan. You need some conflict within the ranks of the “good guys”. I want some ambiguity. As you can guess, I’m eating up the new Battlestar Galactica.
And I’m 42. I rather not have all my fiction sanitized to the level of pre-teens, you know? Seems so many SF fans get turned off by anything remotely spicy. That’s a weird reaction in my never humble opinion.
The adult stuff was a bad thing there? The country that gave us a comedy show with full frontal nudity (well, almost) in the 1970s? Wow. And I thought the US was repressed.
What the hell happened?
November 28th, 2007 at 1:10 am
A Rose by any other name…
Geeze, I remember when Kevin Rose was ‘the guy who discovered the Windows Messenger” hack.
J/P=?
November 28th, 2007 at 5:03 am
@QD
I don’t think the objections were to the “adult” content per se, just that it seemed to have been shovelled in at the expense of other elements of good writing: to the extent that the bed-hopping was too often the main impediment to saving the Earth from whatever-was-imperilling-it-so-gravely-that-week. That said, the last episode attracted some ire for its overstretching of the suspension of disbelief: by the climate and law of the time it was set, the last scene should have resulted in riots and courts martial…
November 28th, 2007 at 5:47 am
Lee:
I’ll explain later.
:^P
November 28th, 2007 at 6:35 am
There are only a very few ways they could make this work well and a whole lot more ways this could go wrong. I’m hoping for the best with Rose’s return.
I wrote more thoughts about this on my blog too that you’re welcome to check out if you like.
Peace,
James
November 28th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Rose is for girls. If you want a real man’s Dr Who companion, you need Leela – she once took out a Sontaran single handed armed only with a knife.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdWjkxbzXJ0
November 28th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
Oooh, a lone fat-headed Sontaran… big deal… Rose destroyed a whole Dalek army with her gorgeous, flashing, Bad Wolf eyes, remember?
November 28th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Looks like the took the Children in Need video off youtube.
And speaking of Torchwood, the “adult” stuff doesn’t bother me because it’s adult. It just sometimes seems like they’re sticking it in just to say, hey, look, we’re not Doctor Who. Which is not a good reason for it. I do like the show though.
And Martha rocks.
November 29th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I’m of two minds about the return of Rose….
As a general rule, returning characters = **BAD**.  It’s very hard to bring off successfully– I think largely because the Character needs to have grown during the hiatus and that almost never happens.Â
On the other hand, I am one of those rare American males who *automatically* dislikes blondes. I’m far more likely to react well to a brunette (see Xena or Erin Yun) than I am to a Pamela Anderson character. In fact, at first I disliked Rose intensely. Fortunately, though, she went from being a rather petulent angst-driven teenager to an insightful young lady, with immense inner strength. Now, Rose is on the short list of ”Acceptable Blonde Characters”
Whether she remains there…
(As for Leela/Rose - Remember, Rose was essentially supernatural when she toasted the Daleks, whereas Leela was just a babe who needed to eat more in a leather bikini.)