Two Whoish things:
1) Catherine Tate was robbed! Of an award, that is. She won the popular vote for the People’s Choice at the British Comedy Awards, but a bit of back-stage shenanigans gave her award to someone who didn’t deserve it. She isn’t always my cup of tea, but she has done some fabulously funny stuff, and is really shining on Doctor Who as Donna, as I predicted.
2) Steven Moffat, the brilliant mind behind "The Empty Child", "The Doctor Dances", and the incredibly funny TV show Coupling, won a BAFTA award for writing "Blink", perhaps the single best hour of television in any genre ever (and I will even put it up against even Firefly’s "Out of Gas", which was extraordinary).
Congrats to both!
In case you’re curious, the title of this post is a joke on a great line from Blink.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I was skeptical about having Donna as a full-time character. Especially as a replacement for Martha. (Mmmmm…Martha….)
But I gotta admit, Donna’s been a lot of fun. It’s a shame she got swindled out of her award, though to be honest her comedy acts aren’t really my cup of tea.
Big props to Moffat, though. Rumor has it that if/when Davies decides to retire, Moffat wants to step in - and there’s no doubt he’d provide some amazing creative direction for the show.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
If ever there was a slam dunk case against “Intelligent Design”, then “Ant and Dec” are it!
May 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
She was stitched up so that Robbie Williams could present an award to ITVs ‘Golden Boys’ ‘Ant and Dec’ They didn’t win any of the ‘regular’ awards so they fixed the viewers choice.
It’s all tied in with the trouble they are in over fraud connected with phone in competitions on their Sat night show, they have had to hand back £millions and got a big fine.
I say ‘they’ but in reality their ‘Executive Producer’ credits were a vanity thing to keep them sweet.
May 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Weirdly Cleon, it’s been the other way round for me. Tate as a comedian was good, hilarious even. As Donna I find her the weakest of all the Doctor’s companions since the series restarted.
I must not be the only one coz they brought Martha back for a few episodes this season (I agree, BTW: Mmmmm… Martha…): The Sontaran Stratagem, the Poison Sky and The Doctor’s Daughter.
And apparently we could see Rose again at some point…
As for Moffat, the man’s is a genius and Coupling about the funniest thing on TV.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I’ve always found Catherine Tate about as funny as a dying kitten, to be honest, but the voting fraud was unforgiveable. As for Donna, well, I WANT to like Donna, I really, really do, cos the character has a huge amount of potential to humanise the Dr and make him less tortured… and I think that if Catherine Tate could just stop herself falling back into the “The Catherine Tate” show Catherine Tate and let herself be the Sensitive Serious Actress Catherine Tate we’ve seen in a few TV dramas over here she’d be amazing, but, like Jim Carey, who can also be a great serious actor, she just can’t resist the gurning and silly OTT voices, and every episode so far this series when it’s seemed like everything was ticking along nicely she’s suddenly turned into a chavvy, fish-wife screeching smart mouth, which is a shame, because some of her scenes have been the best in DW for a long time… Maybe she’ll calm down tho. I really hope so.
But whatever she does, she’ll never look as good in a red leather jacket and jeans as the Divine Martha does tho…!
May 13th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I certainly hope we’re going to see more of both Martha and the Doctor’s daughter!
Anyway, Ant and Dec have given the award back.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Agreed on both counts. I was worried about Donna being a “screeching fishwife” or turning the show into the Honeymooners, but Catherine Tate has managed to bring depth that makes previous companions seem two-dimensional. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Pin-ups are also two-dimensional.)
And “Blink” is brilliant. So scarily brilliant that the part of my brain that wants to watch it over and over again fights with the part of my brain that gibbers over those quantum observation monsters.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I certainly don’t think the Divine Martha was two dimensional. I think they made a mistake in having her moon so much over the Dr, and flogged the unrequited love angle to death with a soggy dalek eye stalk, but as a character, as a woman, she had great depth, and showed incredible loyalty and trust to someone who basically took her for granted.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
During the two Sontaran episodes Tate really comes into the character. You see her have some range.
I loved the little ‘in-joke’ reference they made in “Poison Sky” to an earlier Who episode. Caught me off guard and made my laugh my ass off. Phil knows what I’m talking about.
The writing is consistently clever.
May 13th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Shawn: yup, the gas mask scene. The Little Astronomer and I laughed ourselves silly at that; it was brilliant. Especially since it was the 9th Doctor!
May 13th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Finally, after being an avid reader all this time, I’ve found something I disagree with you about. “Blink” was good, but better than “Out of Gas” Preposterous.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I totally agree with Shawn and BA about that scene. Totally caught me off guard and made me do a double take, too. XD
That rip-off of Catherine’s award is horrible. Stealing the People’s Choice Award just gives the rude gesture to the entire voting population as well as to Catherine. I’m glad to see that she’s getting it, after all, but still…
I really, really like the way Donna’s been developing as a character in the first six episodes. She has a way to get the Doctor to really open up in a way that he never has with any other companion. Also, their dynamic is so fluid that everywhere they go, they’re being mistaken as a couple. The Doctor is getting constantly surprised by her, too. Her ingenuity and ability to think in ways that the clinical and scientific minds of the Doctor and many of his past companions is really refreshing. I think I like her so much because I could see myself in her shoes. Kind of an ordinary person who could “never go back to a normal life” after seeing what’s out there. She’s very human, too, and she’s really filling the role of the someone that the Doctor needs. If you want an excellent example of what I’m talking about, just watch the scene in “The Doctor’s Daughter” where she’s ribbing him about Father Shock.
OH! Did you know that the title character in “The Doctor’s Daughter” is really the Doctor’s daughter? I happened to look it up because I read Moffett and thought of Moffat (didn’t realize the spelling was different).
May 13th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I feel comfortable declaring that Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble is the best Companion of the new series, so far. All have been good, but Donna’s the best.
I say this because Donna Noble has a huge emotional range, plenty of depth, and she’s strong enough to stand toe-to-toe against the Doctor if she thinks she has to.
Plus, Catherine Tate has a vast amount of (platonic) chemistry with David Tennant, and it shows up in their acting. They play off each other extremely well. (Same basic sort of thing you see when Colin Mochrie and Ryan Styles do improv together.) That precious scene where Donna and the Doctor spot each other through windows while eavesdropping on the Foster/Nanny is a great example of this.
May 13th, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Moffat not only won BAFTA. He won the Hugo Award for The Empty Child/Doctor Dances, another one for the Girl In The Fireplace and, if there is any justice, will take his third in a row for Blink, easily he best episode of the series. This would be a run that would match Babylon 5 in its prime (although B5 was up against movies as well).
Bring back Sally Sparrow!!
May 14th, 2008 at 8:33 am
UGH! I started watching Doctor Who a few weeks ago and I’m in the middle of Season 2… Everyone keeps telling me that Blink is BETTER than “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances,” and since those are in my top 5 list of TV episodes/movies, it’s very hard for me to wait!
Out of Gas– brilliant, but painful, especially if you watch it when you know the show is going to end in 6 episodes. Best written episode of Firefly, for sure, another favorite.
The only other TV episode that I can think of that’s as good as “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” or “Out of Gas” is not sci-fi, but still awesome: “Two Cathedrals” from the West Wing.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:28 am
You know, I’ve never watched a Dr. Who episode… I just read the Wikipedia entry for “Blink” and realized that I don’t think I have the brain power available to understand the DW universe. Is it really that complicated all the time? Yikes!
CJSF
May 14th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Chris, no, episodes are not usually that complicated. Time travel obviously plays a role in most episodes, but they don’t usually go quite that far playing with paradoxes. Those are, after all, something the doctor tries to avoid. They’re apparently dangerous.
This particular doctor does technobabble from time to time (wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey), but as Martha suggests, just smile and nod at appropriate intervals.
May 14th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Since someone mentioned her, I feel compelled to point out that Martha Jones is by far the most wonderfully, superfantastically beautiful of the Doctor’s many companions.
And I agree completely about Blink. What an absolute genius of an episode.