Archive for the 'Speculation' Category

Children In Need exclusive preview of Christmas special “The Next Doctor”

If you missed the BBC’s annual Children In Need fundraiser, the showed a short preview of this year’s Christmas special, The Next Doctor. The clip will probably throw more questions than it does answers…

There’s been a history of Doctor Who doing something special for Children In Need from the showing of the 20th Anniversary Special The Five Doctors to last year’s Steven Moffat mini season joiner Timecrash which starred both David Tennant and Peter Davison as The Doctor.

You can still donate to this year’s Children In Need appeal via the BBC Children In Need website.

And now for your enjoyment, here’s the clip!

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Tennant’s TARDIS tenancy over - 2009 to be his last year.

David Tennant announced at last night’s National Television Awards where he picked up the award for Outstanding Drama Performance that he is to quit as The Doctor after four specials in 2009. Tenannt started work on the show in 2005, replacing Christopher Eccleston in the the newly revamped series. He said that with Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner leaving it felt like a “natural stepping off point” but added that “What became very difficult was when it was announced that Steven Moffatt was taking over because I’m such a fan of his!” The BBC website carries the full interview.

The announcement can be seen in the following video, filmed at the National Television Awards.

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With the Christmas special being called The Next Doctor even more speculation is likely to arise in the coming months and with Russell T Davies having tipped both Russell Tovey who played Midshipman Frame in last year’s Christmas special Voyage of the Damned and Harry Lloyd who played Baines in Human Nature and The Family of Blood.

Ten reasons why you could never* have a female Doctor Who…

  1. She’d want to change her clothes too often ‘You want me to wear this knitted scarf every week – what if we land on a warm planet?’
  2. She’d want to chat Can you imagine David Tennant turning round to Billie Piper at a crucial moment and asking ‘Where do you think our relationship is going?’
  3. She wouldn’t get ‘lost’ on strange planets No materialising on Abydos, Balhoon or Mondas by mistake. She’d stop and ask directions.
  4. She’d get the Tardis fixed All those bits of masking tape and hairy string holding the Tardis controls together would be gone. Someone would be bought in to ‘do the job properly.’
  5. No more psychic paper ‘You should just know what I’m thinking.’
  6. She’d always be visiting planets because the shopping’s good ‘K-9, attach your basket, we’ve arrived at planet Topshoppos!’ ‘Yes Mistress’
  7. She’d ask aliens how old she looked ‘Go on, guess. Two thousand? Davros, you cheeky git!’
  8. There’d be less travelling back to pivotal moments in Earth’s history… ‘We can go anywhere, anytime. Hmm, Brad Pitt’s bathroom, 7am, shower time… vwooorp, vwoorp, vwoorp, he-llo Bradley!’
  9. She’d want loads of companions She’d want work companions, companions she used to work with, companions that she didn’t really like but she could have dinner with every now and again, ugly companions that it’s alright to go out on the pull with…
  10. She’d give the Tardis a ‘proper name’ Time And Relative Dimensions In Space - what kind of name is that? – I’m going to call it… Bluebell.’

*Only joking. There are loads of fantastic actresses who would make an incredible Doctor Who. Here’s a few that I’d be more than happy to see take charge of the Tardis:

Jaime Murray
Julie Walters
Gillian Anderson
Helen Mirren
Zooey Deschanel

And five that would definitely add a certain ‘je ne sais qui’ to the role…
Delia Smith ‘Oi, Cybermen, let’s be ‘avin you!
Vicki Pollard ‘The Earth is in danger? Does my face look bovvered?
Kirstie Allsopp ‘These Tardis walls aren’t supporting walls, if you knocked through these walls, you’d have a lovely kitchen-diner-control room…’
Amy Winehouse ‘My Blake says it’s not bigger on the inside’
Bianca off of EastEnders ‘Mickaaaaaaay’

Do you think the next Doctor should/could be a woman, or do you think that it has to be a man? All your thoughts, suggestions and comments please!

The Cybermen are coming this Christmas!

Well, we knew The Cybermen would be back from the trailer after Journey’s End.

But; Cybermen?! How did they get to our parallel Universe? The last we saw of that world in the Cyberman two parter was at the end of The Age Of Steel (Then The Void stuff at end of Season Three). Unless of course, they’ve been around, rather longer and somewhat unsuccessfully. Oh, it also looks like to be the Victorian era. Watch out for the sewers then.

Cybermen marching through a graveyard, in the snow.

Did the TARDIS ‘burp’ on Bad Wolf Bay mean something other than ‘need to go now’ as opposed to certain things from other worlds were crossing over? With the collapse of the void, did creatures get pushed into other realities/universes?

Well maybe the Macra should have teleported to the stinking Earth and chopped off the heads of the Sontarans. With all that Atmos stuff going on.

(My computer’s spell check dictionary was going to swap ‘Cyberman’ with ‘Dismemberment’)

Cybermen, Graveyard, Dismemberment.

It’s all adding up to something.

“Everlasting death for the most faithful companion…”

Ever since poor old Trojan handmaiden Katrina met her fate exiting an airlock in The Dalek’s Master Plan, death has been a very real threat to the Doctor’s companions. Sure, every week they’re threatened with extermination, death by slimy green maggots, or face the prospect of being devoured by giant rats in the sewers of Victorian London.

That, after all, is the point of a cliffhanger, surely? But with Katrina’s death (and Sara Kingdom swiftly after — that is, if you consider her a proper companion) the stakes were upped considerably. Sadly, some companions who deserved to meet with a sticky fate (take a bow, Melanie Bush, and then die in a hail of hot lead death) clearly didn’t.

Adric, of course, had it coming in spades — and his death at the end of Earthshock hardly caused many to shed tears of grief, despite the closing credits of Episode 4 running in silence. As a mark of respect, no doubt, but they hardly did much to blot out the howls of delirious laughter from those who found the Alzarian maths prodigy a tedious waste of space.

Anyway, we also lost roboboy Antimony (in the Radio 4 series, Death Comes To Time — is he canon? Buggered if I know).

And, of course, pint-size cutie Astrid Peth in Voyage Of The Damned; some considerable loss for those of who recognise Kylie as a post-modern Warholian icon with the infinite capacity for reinvention to rival Bob Dylan.

Anyway, apparently someone dies tomorrow. Will it be Rose..? Will it be Martha..? Will it be Sarah-Jane..? Will it be Donna..? Or — gasp — The TARDIS..? Well, assuming the pics of The Doctor and Rose on what looks suspiciously like Bad Wolf Bay are real, I doubt Billie goes. Martha, reportedly, is heading to Torchwood, so I guess that counts her out.

Season 2 of the Sarah-Jane Adventures is underway soonish, so similarly — I reckon she survives. Donna..? With all that foreshadowing going on, you’d think it’d be her, wouldn’t you..? But isn’t RTD such a tricksy old sausage that mebbe — jess mebbe — you might wonder if he’s being all counterintuitive on us? The TARDIS, I think, is due some kind of refit for the Specials. Make of this what you will. All, I’m sure, will be revealed in, ooh, just a little over 24 hours. Excited? Us..? Just a tad.

I know what the Osterhagen Key is and I’ll give you five facts

I’m not going to share my Osterhagen Key theories so as not to spoil things.

However, I will share 5 things that are not spoilers, make of them what you will.

1. At the end of World War Three, the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) said that Harriet Jones served 3 terms as Prime Minister. To date, she’s only done one term.

2. The bees are going missing/declining. I’ve not seen a bumble bee in ages. See this article on bee decline on the BBC website.

3. Richard Dawkins who appeared in The Stolen Earth as himself, is married to Lalla Ward who played Time Lady companion, Romana, to Tom Baker’s Doctor (Tom and Lalla were married earlier).

4. Calufrax Minor was one of the missing planets in The Stolen Earth. The planet Calufrax featured (in Douglas Adams penned episode The Pirate Planet) in the fourth Doctor Key To Time series, where Romana was introduced as a companion to aide The Doctor in getting the components together to restore the balance of the universe. The planet Calufrax itself was a segment of the Key To Time.

5. Dalek Caan got back into a ‘timelocked‘ war - The Time War.

I know where my theories are going and let’s not get started on theories about Donna

Post your thoughts on the 5 facts below…

A clip from the actual finale??!

Not wanting to get too far ahead of ourselves since we ain’t even seen ‘The Stolen Earth’ yet, but a Blue Peter clip has surfaced from the bowels of the web, of the full 65-minute ‘Journey’s End’ itself! It doesn’t give anything away, but for politeness’ sake we’ll give you the option of clicking through to watch it over here. And yes, you heard right, its been confirmed this month in Bad Wolf Magazine that the series finale will run at a record-busting 65 whole minutes. Squee!

What is Donna? What will she be?

We found out that she was going to have something on her back some time ago - Fires of Pompeii’s Caecillis said she had something on her back.

When she met Rose in Turn Left, she was told that it wasn’t just the creature on her back that was always making things happen.

The fortune teller in Turn Left’s final words were “What are you! What will you be! What will you be!

The Doctor said after the beetle had dropped off Donna’s back; “most of the time the Universe compensates around it, but with you: Great Big Parallel World.. Funny thing is, it seems to be happening a lot to you… Sometimes I think there’s way too much coincidence around you… It’s almost as if something’s binding us together”

Let us know your thoughts, I’ve certainly go some ideas!