The scifi blog io9 has the teaser for the first two minutes of the Doctor Who Christmas Special on their site. I can’t embed it here without doing some coding that isn’t totally fair to io9, so just go there to watch it. Spoilers, of course!
It’s pretty cool, and I think it bodes well for the special. The only complaint I have with it is how happy the Doctor seems to be as he steps out of the TARDIS. He wasn’t exactly laughing with joy at the very end of season 4. He should have been somber at first then cheered up. Still, it looks like fun, which is what the specials are supposed to be.
November 15th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Ooh! That bodes … interesting.
He did seem rather cheerful, but what the hey.
November 15th, 2008 at 10:33 am
To be fair, we don’t know how much time has passed since the end of the last season. I’m more interested in why The Other Doctor doesn’t recognize himself. Parallel universe where a regeneration went a little differently, perhaps?
November 15th, 2008 at 11:25 am
We watched it last night and that was our first thought too! Why is he smiling? Think of poor Donna! Found it VERY jarring. Looks fun though. Roll on Christmas.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:31 am
io9 also has the new Star Trek trailer.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am
It was shown for the BBC’s Children in Need appeal. If you enjoyed those couple of minutes, consider donating to them – http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/
November 15th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Looking forward to that!
Also: I saw the “Einstein and Eddington, coming soon” on BBC2 a few days ago. Tennant plays Eddington, and Andy Sirkis (of Gollem fame) plays Einstein. I am also looking forward to that.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Did you specifically request the Dr.Who ads, or is that an adbot?
November 15th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Russell T Davies has said that there is a large gap of time between Journeys End and this so it could start off with the Doctor happy.
Regarding the other Doctor, I think he’s an impostor.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Sweet! Can’t wait to see it.
Meantime, I made up a stupid joke yesterday.
What’s the difference between Sarah Palin and a dalek?
One is an evil menace that’s on TV entirely too often… and the other one’s just a dalek.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Sorry for being off topic, not sure if anyone is interested in this – Bill Maher, Ashton Kutcher and a republican senator just showed incredible ignorance in mocking NASA and the space program in the overtime segment of Real Time with Bill Maher. You can watch it from the HBO site – http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/ .
Usually I agree with Bill on most issues, but that segment was just absolutely horrible, I thought it was worth mentioning.
November 15th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Well, that’s exactly what a teaser is supposed to do all right!
November 15th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
@ Oded, could you be more specific about where to look on the site? Sorry.
November 15th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
So it seems the “Next Doctor” is an impostor then! If he wasn’t, surely he would recognize himself! And he does seem a bit over the top.
As to why the Doctor is so happy at the beginning, I’m just guessing, but there must be a rather large time-gap between Journey’s End and this. Enough to make him excited again. Which is good!
November 15th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
@The Chemist: The link is “Next Overtime: 11/14/08″, it’s on the right.
I see at least some people in the message boards spoke up against it, so that made me feel better…
November 15th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
@ Oded
Found it, thanks. I was kicking around the archives, which it turns out was the wrong place to look.
When they first brought it up I was kind of like, “Okay, they’re wrong, but it’s not that bad. I mean it’s common bad idea.”
Then they started lampooning the science. That’s when I got [bleeped] off.
November 15th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Maybe the reason he is there is to look for some cheering up?
November 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
*bounce bounce bounce SQUEE!*
Can’t wait! Looks like a lot of fun.
I bet he’s spent some time sitting on a deserted moon somewhere recuperating, and has decided to get back out there. And he loves snow.
November 15th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Yep, going with the ‘long periods of time’ thing too.
Also, is it just me, or was the not!Doctor’s sonic screwdriver a stick? o.O
November 15th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
As for the Doctor being “too happy,” I think the general assumption is that, between Companions the Doctor goes on a lot of travelling that we don’t see, that can be squeezed into novels and comics and radio plays. At the end of Tennant’s run, it’s not going to be true that the Doctor was only in that incarnation for four years – in reality it may have been as much as another fifty or a hundred years, that we don’t see and is spent in various empty spaces between seasons. Or so I’ve always thought.
So his cheerfulness can be attributed to a long space between saying goodbye to all his pantheon of recent companions, and this episode.
November 16th, 2008 at 8:03 am
GuanoLad, that sounds plausible, of course, but it sounds too much like a retcon, and we have too many of those already from other programmes. One of the charming things about Doctor Who has always been the total lack of anything resembling continuity or “canon”.
November 16th, 2008 at 11:46 am
The situation may be akin to the one in the fanfic “Grandfather Paradox”. In there, there are multiple Time Lords known as the Doctor, not just the familiar one (“Curtis”), with the total being as high as seven. I suggest that this other Doctor is probably a descendant of the familiar Doctor, most likely a son of Jenny. I would not rule out a son of Susan, a son of the Doctor by Romana, or a previously unknown son of the Doctor, an ancestor of the Doctor, or an unrelated Time Lord either. I could also be completely wrong. In any case, my interest is piqued.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Re the Doctor being too happy. I guessed that the Doctor is happy because he just came from a visit with River Song.