Archive for the ‘doctor who’ Category

As We Expected, Piper to Return to Dr. Who

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007

Billie Piper, I may not have always bought your acting skills, but your chemistry with David Tennant was undeniable. My tears when you were sucked into a parallel earth, never to be seen from again? Totally real. Though apparently your exile was anything but. BBC announced today that Piper would be reprising the role of Rose Tyler for no less than three episodes in the upcoming fourth season of the new Dr. Who. This move doesn’t seem to be much of a surprise, as showrunner Russell T Davies intended to leave the door open for a Piper return, and Piper has done all of nothing since leaving the show.

Who seems to be taking a page out of The Book of Mormon these days, ‘cause the companion tally is now up to four. Piper joins more recent veterans Freema Agyeman and Catherine Tate (who’ll each be joining him for part or all of the season) and Christmas special guest star Kylie Minogue on the growing season four roster. There’s always the risk of too many cooks spoiling the broth, but each of these ladies has shown they have something unique to bring to the table–Tate, her distinctly British comedy, Agymeman, her charming sexual frustrations and Piper, her… highlights. The new season of Dr. Who will make it stateside sometime in 2008.

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Weekend TV: I Want Your Sex

Friday, September 21st, 2007


Three weeks into the football season and one week shy of the return of our network favorites, this weekend might be your last chance to check out some of cable’s recent offerings before both of your box’s tuners are otherwise ocupado. I’m referring to two shows in particular: BBC America’s run of Torchwood and HBO’s new relationship exposé, Tell Me You Love Me. Though one is about alien hunters and the other is about couples with issues, they have one thing in common: lots and lots o’ sex.

I wanted to review Torchwood in week one, but the pilot wasn’t remotely sexy – and that’s what has earned the show most of its buzz. That changed in the second episode when we met an alien that fed off of sex with humans until they were reduced to pile of dust. Not what you’d expect from a Doctor Who spin-off, but it’s what we got. DW veteran “Captain” Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) leads this small cast as they try to make the streets of Cardiff safe … and he’s more than happy to sleep with anyone who looks at him right. There are a couple of reasons to tune into this one. Barrowman’s real life sexuality is shared by his alter ego, and Torchwood’s willingness to show their lead in comprising positions with both men and women is definitely a first. The show is also entertaining as hell and captures the sublime amalgam of comedy, camp and drama that has made the new Doctor Who such dynamic programming. Either way, I’m sure the folks at Sci Fi are kicking themselves for not securing the rights to this one.

As for Tell Me You Love Me, it’s impossible to mention the show without making sex the focus of the discussion. The story of three troubled couples and the therapist they share, TMYLM aims to shed an unforgiving light on intimacy. And they accomplish this… by showing testicles. Creator Cynthia Mort maintains that the graphic sex and nudity is just there for heightened realism, but it’s actually quite distracting and, in many scenes, horrifying. Besides, is there ever any sex or nudity in film and TV that isn’t gratuitous?

That’s not to say it’s bad. Where the documentary style filming and elderly bjs are tiresome, the acting and character development (especially on the part of the women) is remarkable. Most interesting of all might be Carolyn (Lost veteran Sonya Walger). The British actress plays a woman desperate for babies with the steely resolve of a vampire on the prowl. Her ignorance of how she’s destroying her marriage with her quest to brood is hard to watch but even harder to turn away from. Also noteworthy is Katie (Profiler’s Ally Walker), whose sexless marriage and resulting loss of gender is like watching a car accident in slow motion. She’s so consumed with her role as mother; she doesn’t even remember how to be alone.

Torchwood (BBC America; Saturday; 9PM) is fun, and Tell Me You Love Me (HBO; Sunday; 9PM) is kind of fascinating. Neither are required viewing, but both are worth checking out.

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Doctor Who: Don’t “Blink” and You’ll Miss it

Friday, September 14th, 2007

You may have noticed that, on occasion, I will make an irrational plea for you, gentlereaders, to watch Doctor Who. You never listen, and that’s ok… except you really should today. Before you go out on the town this evening to do god knows what, you owe it to yourself to DVR tonight’s episode.

Once a season, the filming schedule of Doctor Who becomes too rigorous for star David Tennant and whoever is co-starring with him at the time, and we get a stand-alone episode that, for the most part, doesn’t feature the regular cast. Last season this episode was disastrous and boring, but this season, it’s one of the most unique hours of television you’ll likely come across all year.

Much in the vein of Buffy’s silent episode, “Hush”, Doctor Who’s “Blink” is a stylized creepfest not unlike something you’d read in a twisted fairy tale and much more suspenseful than anything currently available in theaters. The premise: statues with the power to drain the life from those who close their eyes their presence stalk a young woman named Sally Sparrow. As the dire situation unfolds, Sally realizes that she’s being sent messages through time (and DVD Easter eggs), and it is her responsibility to make things right.

Tennant and Agyeman quickly established a great deal of chemistry in the third season, but their absence is not troubling. Sally Sparrow is played by British actress Carey Mulligan (Bleak House; Pride and Prejudice), who is developing an impressive résumé abroad, but remains painfully underexposed stateside. On a show where guest stars are frequently (and justifiably) cheesy, Mulligan’s skill carries an episode that could have gone either way.

As should be the case with episodes of this nature, previous knowledge of Doctor Who is unnecessary. All you really need to know is that this dude and this girl can time travel.

Doctor Who airs tonight at 8pm on Sci Fi

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Doctor Who Is Too Good For You, America

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

dr who = sex

It’s a bitch convincing people to like you. Especially in a country where your five decades of genealogy are almost completely unknown, you have the supreme disadvantage of being labeled science fiction (high camp, at that) and your humor is more alien than your subject matter. Such is the plight of Doctor Who in the US. It returns this week after two painfully low-rated runs on Sci Fi, and having already watched the latest season online (it airs in the UK months earlier), I can say that it’s the best thing on TV this summer.

My newly deepened affection and even deeper appreciation are likely an effect of, as one British writer recently put it, the increasing buffyfication of the series. And though it may do nothing to expand his American audience, creator Russell T Davies’ open Whedon-emulation has removed almost all the filler from a series that has been unfortunately inconsistent for the past two years.

So Doctor Who has managed to recreate itself yet again; the most distinguished difference this season, aside from our now firmly established familiarity with (and adoration for) David Tennant, being the introduction of Freema Agyeman as the Doctor’s new companion. Agyeman’s Martha Jones is a more intelligent and capable partner for the Doctor, but she lacks the excitement and naiveté of her predecessor, Rose Tyler. Her inevitable swoonage for the Doctor comes a little too soon, but her solid acting and verbal sparring with Tennant more than make up for it.

With the exception of a boring trip to 1930s Manhattan, there isn’t a single episode that isn’t rife with suspense and pitch-perfect wit. The final three politically charged episodes are certainly the highlight, but a stand-alone episode titled “Blink” might be the most awesomely horrifying hour of television since “Hush.” But that probably means nothing to you anyway, silly countrymen.

The third season of Doctor Who sees its US premiere on Sci Fi this Friday, June 6th, at 8:00 pm.

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Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!

Friday, March 30th, 2007

alien rhino!

If it wasn’t sad enough to openly worship BBC’s latest incarnation of Doctor Who, I’m now suffering an emotional crisis over how to watch the rapidly approaching third season. In a mere two days the Brits will be introduced to the Doctor’s newest companion and see exactly how he’s coping with the departure of former pop-star Billie Piper. Meanwhile in America, the folks over at Sci Fi, who secured the rights to air all first-run episodes of DH, haven’t even announced when the third season will start on this side of the Atlantic. Given the unnecessarily long gap between the first two, I don’t have high hopes for a speedy turnover. And I don’t think I can wait for the end of the summer. Ergo, DILEMMA!

The internet is ripe with free, illegal television, but I’ve always avoided it out of distaste for laptop viewings. Then this past holiday not-so break, while sitting in an empty office, I decided to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special. It was new, it was just one episode and I was sure there was no chance of getting lured into watching the whole season online because the season was still over three months off. But those months are now days and pretty soon they’ll be mere hours! I want to watch, but I feel dirty! Just as I wouldn’t want my initial viewing of the next theatrical installment of Harry Potter to be on a bootleg Chinatown DVD, the thought of seeing all of the third season of Doctor Who at a dirty, pop-up filled whorehouse makes me sick. Do I really want my first glimpse of laser-wielding alien rhinoceri in motion to be painfully low-res?

The answer is a reluctant “yes.” I am a weak excuse for a man, and I would sell myself for one grainy scene of new DH. For me, jumping on board with the Doctor was something of a revelation – if only for the fact that I can no longer call myself a sci-fi elitist. Favorites like Buffy, Battlestar Galactica and even Dead Like Me are so easy to justify watching for their critical acclaim and widely acknowledged ability to explore the depths of the human predicament. There is so much more going on underneath the vampires, robots and reapers. And though I feel a twinge of guilt to say it, Doctor Who does not. Doctor Who is unabashed sci-fi camp, perfectly executed camp, but camp all the same.

Now that the genre has come to rely on sophisticated CGI (or subtlety when they lack the finances), the clunky vestigial cold-war villains of the Doctor are a comforting constant. And it is a comfort that I will not stave off for the sake of a more organic viewing experience. Whatever the means, this weekend sees the return of Doctor Who.

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