Matt Smith and David Tennant chatting behind-the-scenes on the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special (coming on November 23).
Until I watched this I hadn't quite realised how much I miss David's Doctor. No disrespect to Matt - who I think is great as well, just has generally shoddy material to work with - but there really was something rather special about Tennant's joie de vivre.
I'll also stick to something I said at the time that I felt weighed enormously in his favour: he's a massive Doctor Who geek himself and that helped him bring extra character to the role.
Aaaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhh! I wanted to hate The Name Of The Doctor - it was archetypal Moffat, all flash and bang, ridiculous deux ex machina use of time travel, a villain with no motivation and a story that could have been compressed into ten minutes.
But, on the other hand, we got the solution to the "mystery of Clara", we saw - albeit glimpses of - most of the previous Doctors (I particularly enjoyed seeing The First Doctor stealing The TARDIS - I wonder how many 'new Who' fans have ever thought what it looked like before it got stuck in the shape of a police box?) and then there was THAT final scene.
There's not really much else to say, really. It was a typical Moffat mess up until the final moments, even if it did tell us why Clara is the "impossible girl".
But outside of that it was pretty dire fare - there's a message, "the one place The Doctor should never go" has been discovered and he goes to investigate... or something.
Without giving too much away I will say that a major plot point here has been handled much better in one of the handful of Doctor Who novels I've read - Alien Bodies.
Madame Vastra and co. are in The Name Of The Doctor but their only purpose is to pad the story out and slow down The Doctor's actual involvement in events.
River Song's also in the story, but for some reason is now dead (and a 'ghost') because sometimes Moffat conveniently forgets what time travel is capable of. And it's not really explained how - or why - since their wedding The Doctor and River have spent no time together. As I said, it's a jumble of half-thought-out plot threads tangled up with some genuinely clever ideas.
And, yes, someone speaks The Doctor's name - but because they're "not really there" we don't hear it (thankfully).
The final scene aside - as that's setting up the 50th Anniversary Special in November - I'd pretty much written this episode off as a return to the worst excesses of Moffat's early years as showrunner (ie The Ponds era). It's a shame really as the latter half of this season (again, post-Ponds) has - generally - been very good and rekindled my optimism for the show.
Unfortunately I now fear the future will hold more convoluted clap-trap spiced up with leftfield money shots to make us forget the crap that has preceded.
THE FINAL MOMENTS (Major Spoilers - and I think this might be region locked anyway - but if you haven't sat through The Name Of The Doctor then DON'T watch this)
Nothing turns a frown upside-down faster than a nice parcel in the post - and you'd have to go a long way to beat a personalised Judge's badge, fresh off the streets of Mega-City One, courtesy of the talented people at Planet Replicas.
As (a slightly bewildered) Rachel said: "That'll probably come in useful when you're fighting crime!"
It's something I've always desired, but to find a place that does it and to have the means, at present, to afford one, it was too good an opportunity for this geek to pass up.
I also think we can attribute the recent wave of high-calibre Judge Dredd fan films to the superb craftsmanship of the Planet Replicas' team (a complete bespoke Judge's uniform for two grand, anyone?).
Here's another extra from that brilliant Judge Minty movie - a stunning selection of scenes showing a variety of before/after effects shots:
Star Trek: Deception is a short Kickstarter-funded eight-minute fan film which follows two Starfleet officers aboard a Danube Class Runabout, transporting a Klingon prisoner to a detention centre. On the way they are ambushed by a Klingon Bird of Prey that has been lying in wait.
After weeks of bitching and moaning about declining hits on the site I discovered a quick and simple solution to overcoming this problem: I removed the widget that was supposedly counting hits!
I actually did this a couple of weeks ago on a day when I checked my hit count and the widget told me NO ONE had visited HeroPress for three days! It was at that point I realised the counter clearly wasn't working properly (as I'd had comments and I knew from Blogger that people were visiting the site).
So now I've entered a new state of blissful ignorance where I no longer care about hits - which is as it should be - and I'm back to writing - and posting - what I want to read and watch.
And it seems to be working as I've managed to attract some new recruits this week to our big adventure. So please join me in a rambunctious roundelay to welcome:
Ryan B of Critical Grumble (a brilliantly-named RPG blog that describes itself as "frothings of a new-school player wishing he was born in time for 1974")
Using a range of eye-catching graphics, it reveals who are the most popular writers and directors, all the places on Earth the Doctor has visited, which companions gained the most experiences from their travels, the most common comeuppances for New Series enemies, how long it would take to watch every episode back to back, and much more.
Each chart is accompanied by detailed notes discussing the background and context of the areas under examination, how the data was compiled and what it
reveals.
The last episode of the first season of crowdfunded audio drama The Minister Of Chance is now available for free download.
The unofficial Doctor Who spin-off, starring Julian Wadham, Jenny Agutter, Lauren Crace, Paul Darrow, Beth Goddard, Tamsin Greig, Peter Guinness, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann - and joined for the finale by The Hobbit's Jed Brophy, and Life on Mars' Philip Glenister - concludes with its fifth episode, In a Bark on the River Hex.
To find out more visit www.ministerchance.simplesite.com for executive producer Clare Eden's blog, which charts the making of the series including video interviews with Jed Brophy and Julian Wadham and which profiles all the cast and crew on their careers and why they love working on Minister of Chance.
The debut trailer for Riddick is a huge leap in the right direction after the franchise-misstep that was The Chronicles Of Riddick.
Sure, the trailer pretty much shows you the whole plot and, in many ways, it appears to be a rehash of Pitch Black... but so what? Riddick looks fun and that's the most important factor.
