Blog: Articles filed under Doctor Who

Monday signalled the beginning of a week of mass mayhem, Scotland versus England humour, and alien threats to the security of our planet. Yes, I‘m talking about the American and Canadian premiere of season 3 of Torchwood, aka Torchwood: Children of the Earth. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, this is a five-part miniseries format change to accompany Torchwood’s move to BBC One.

For those of you in Canada who missed the broadcast or who don’t get Space, you’re in luck! You can watch Torchwood online for up to seven days after it airs on television. Now, the CBC has also been good about making its television shows available online; they‘ve shafted Doctor Who and Torchwood over and over, however, so I’m happy to see them finding a new home on Space. Space will also be showing the Easter Doctor Who special, Planet of the Dead, this Saturday.

I must confess that I‘m not in love with Torchwood the way I’m in love with Doctor Who. I watched the first two seasons sporadically. The only character who really fascinates me is Captain Jack, with his TARDIS-conferred immortality. Beyond that, the storytelling was inconsistent—just like the storytelling on Doctor Who, but without the compelling character of the Doctor to pull you along anyway. And the set for Torchwood looks like a melange of steampunk and James Bond villain base of doom.

That being said, Children of the Earth “Day One” was pretty good. Not awesome, but satisfactory television. Russell T. Davies has worked in his usual humour—you know things are bad when the main characters begin making jokes, and things are worse when they stop making jokes because they’re running for their lives. My favourite line was probably when Gwen has to run back inside the Torchwood complex after talking to a new potential member of Torchwood. He asks, “What’s in there?” and she replies, “A science fiction superbase … seriously.”

People who are unfamiliar with Torchwood in general will miss a lot of the subtext, particularly when it comes to Jack and Ianto’s relationship. There’s a couple of new twists that address Jack’s immortality, one from a characterization point of view that shows why it sucks, and one from a plot point of view that shows why it makes him vulnerable. However, there’s still plenty of a self-contained story to keep viewers interested. When all of the children on Earth (hence the title) just completely stop for several minutes and begin speaking in a weird alien voice … well, that may just be suspicious enough for Torchwood to investigate.

I get the idea that we aren’t supposed to like the people at the Home Office. In addition to the fact that Mr. Frobisher orders government officials to kill Captain Jack (because, you know, that’s going to work…), they’re pretty useless. The Prime Minister is even more useless, refusing to get involved in a threat to international security and instead saying, “You never told me this” and telling Mr. Frobisher to deal with it.

I like how as an organization Torchwood has become a non-secret and fairly run down. Considering Davies killed off its three other main characters last season, it’s a good symbol for what has happened to the show too—always a bit experimental, Torchwood has taken risks that didn’t pay off (and some that did). I’m just glad it’s not on Fox; they would have stuck it in a Friday night time-slot and then cancelled it for poor ratings….

In related news, io9 has plenty of photos of the new Doctor’s look and the redesigned exterior of the TARDIS (no word on what the interior looks like yet). Also a tip about who will be coming back to guest star. Fun fun! Be careful when browsing the site though, since they have some Torchwood-related spoiler articles.

So what if it’s plastic and doesn’t actually unlock things (which would be ever so slightly illegal)? It still makes authentic noises, extends, and lights up. Plus it pulls double duty as a regular pen and a UV pen!

Yes, I‘m talking about the sonic screwdriver toy. It may be a simple toy, but it makes me happy. The sonic screwdriver is a brilliant little device from Doctor Who, so even a plastic replica is cool. However, this toy is slightly special because it isn’t based off the prop—the prop is based off the toy. The producers were so impressed by the durability of the toy that they acquired the moulds and used it to make a newer, slightly larger sonic screwdriver. So that’s neat.

I ordered it online from Pixel Barrel, a Canadian company. Originally I saw the toy on Amazon UK, but they wouldn’t ship to Canada. So it was a double stroke of luck, since the overall cost was cheaper, and the shipment only took 3 days to arrive. I also got a hardcover edition of Serenity: Those Left Behind. There’s all sorts of tasty collectibles there from science fiction/fantasy series. However, I’ve never been much of a collector person. I like the occasional neat gadget or literature, but poseable action figures? Trading cards? No thanks. That’s just more stuff to clutter up my room.

That last scene between Rose and the Doctor was just so sad, but poignant. It wasn’t the catharsis for which I was looking—not really—but it came close. I cried. I knew that the Doctor would run out of time before he could say it, but still, watching it happen…. Wow.

The Tenth Doctor is my favourite television character bar none now. At the beginning of season 2 I was worried, I’ll admit, that David Tennant would not make a good Doctor. However, he has shown himself to be a stupendous Doctor (not that I’m really qualified to judge, since I haven’t seen any of the older episodes). The way that he captures the character of the Doctor—and the character of the Doctor himself, his actions—is why I love to write. I must admit that I am envious of Russel T. Davies and the other Doctor Who writers. Season 2 wasn’t the best television I’ve watched, but the Doctor himself made it worth watching.

The DVD set for season 2 is $113.96 on Amazon though, and I can’t find it on the Future Shop website, so I don’t think I’ll be buying season 2 anytime soon, sadly—even though I am becoming addicted to buying DVDs, I have not yet fallen so far as to justify a >$100 purchase. That’s more than the cost of my DVD player.

I don’t know where to go from here. I hope that the CBC will show the Christmas special sometime before, say, next Christmas. You never know; it could happen.

And I‘m freakin’ jealous of the TARDIS. The Stargate has nothing on the TARDIS (anyone who knows of my love for the Stargate as a plot device will know how significant a statement that is).

The Ninth Doctor’s catchphrase was “Fantastic!”, but I think that the Tenth prefers to say variations of “That’s brilliant!” I really like the Tenth Doctor; David Tennant is doing a brilliant job at portraying his character, and the writers have done a smashing job with the plot.

I just finished watching “The Impossible Planet” tonight (yes, I know the CBC is behind on the shows…). Wow. Part of the reason I love the Doctor, of course, is because he’s one of the last action heroes on TV who is fun for the entire family. He doesn’t swear and spit as he shoots a massive laser gun into the hordes of rampaging aliens. In fact, when the chips are down, he is usually seen admiring the work of his enemy and attaching adjectives like “brilliant” and “stupendous” to things.

Like in tonight’s episode, the Doctor and Rose end up beyond the range of the TARDIS’ knowledge—smack on a base on a planet that is orbiting a black hole (as opposed to being ripped apart by its gravity). And the Doctor, upon hearing the story of why this ship full of humans came to the planet, hugged the captain. He even warned him—“I’m going to hug you now.” He hugged the captain because he just loves the human spirit of exploration. And watching the Doctor’s admiration for adventure, especially when it comes to beating the odds, is quite enjoyable.

Of course now I can’t wait until next week’s episode to find out how Rose and the Doctor get out of this one… (no spoilers!!)

Last updated Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 1:07 PM

Doctor Who is coming along quite nicely. Although I think the character personalities are still somewhat quirky, they are believable. Tonight was the third episode, I still prefer the second because it was more space-orientated, but this episode was kind of cool.

I‘ve been feeling rather under the weather for the past few days, it’s just a cold though. And I discovered a great new webcomic, Irregular Webcomic!. It’s absolutely brilliant, I strongly advise you read it regularly, especially the Death-themed ones. It’s insane and humorous, and perfect combination!

I watched the CBC’s premiere of the BBC’s new Doctor Who series last night. Sadly, I’ve never had the opportunity to see any of the previous series, but I do think this one is … okay. I haven’t really seen a lot of British television before, so it was a little surprising. But overall I did like the storyline, if the episode itself wasn’t that great. The teaser for next week does look interesting, so I’ll be watching that.

Hmm … well, I got to borrow hair spray from my principal today. Indeed, that was first. I made a propaganda poster for history class, and because I used chalk my history teacher suggested I spray it with hair spray to prevent smudging. Thus, I borrowed someone’s hairspray (and the poster didn’t smudge!).