Posted Feb 8th 2010 7:33PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Doctor Who, Celebrities, Reality-Free
As the title says, the Goth Geek God himself, Neil Gaiman,
has penned an episode of the British iconic program
'Doctor Who'. Gaiman has already written for television (including an episode of
'Babylon 5' and his British TV series
'Neverwhere') but this represents the first time he has written for a program that he actually watched as a child. If you listen carefully, you can hear all the nerd brains around the world exploding.
Gaiman himself announced this at a British sci-fi convention this past weekend and shocked everyone with this bombshell during an award acceptance speech. However, the folks behind our favorite Time Lord would not confirm Gaiman's statement. Hopefully he didn't jump the gun with this announcement. It would be a shame if he had to renege on it later.
The episode might be called 'The House of Nothing' (the announcement is nothing if not vague) and supposedly will air sometime in 2011, during the next season. Neil Gaiman, meet Matt Smith.
Posted Feb 2nd 2010 11:15PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: TV on DVD, OpEd, Video, Doctor Who, Reality-Free
For those of you still crying in your screwdrivers over David Tennant's exit from
'Doctor Who,' and waiting for Matt Smith to fill the void, BBC America has posted a three-minute video of "Tennant's greatest moments as the Doctor" to promote 'Doctor Who: The Complete Specials,' which is out today.
The clip takes us from "new teeth, that's weird" all the way up to the Master's death, with a good number of clips from the specials in between. And of course, Daleks and Cybermen. There are some nice reminders of how good Tennant was at playing both drama and comedy on the show, including his back and fourth with Sky Silvestry ("Shamble bobble dibble dooble") from 'Midnight' from series four and his exchange with a would-be companion from 'Planet of the Dead' ("People have traveled with me and I've lost them, lost them all").
Continue reading BBC America 'Best of David Tennant' Video
Posted Jan 28th 2010 9:00AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: TV on DVD, Doctor Who, Reality-Free, British TV
David Tennant's last appearance of the The Doctor to arrive on a
Doctor Who DVD will arrive this spring with the animated
Dreamland.
According to a BBC America news release, the CG-animated adventure will arrive in U.S. stores on May 4 for $24.98. Voiced by Tennant, The Doctor visits Dry Springs, Nev. in 1958 in an environment deliberately reminiscent of Roswell and the would-be New Mexico UFO crash.
In the one-off episode, The Doctor befriends a young waitress, Cassie, and her friend, Jimmy. When the Doctor examines an extraterrestrial artifact, he draws the attention of a mysterious man in black, an alien warrior and Colonel Stark, commander of "Dreamland" (the military base also known as Area 51).
Continue reading Doctor Who: Dreamland coming to DVD this May
Posted Jan 19th 2010 4:00PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Programming, Doctor Who, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
We can classify this under "train wrecks waiting to happen." Fox has picked up the rights to produce an American version of the BBC sci-fi spin-off of Doctor Who, Torchwood.
Series creator Russell T. Davies is writing the pilot (and several other former executives of the original are behind the show), so there will likely be many similarities and possibly even nods to Doctor Who continuity. Critics who haven't seen the original will likely pigeonhole the show as The X-Files with more ostentatious sci-fi elements.
The question is, how will the show be handled? Will it be a complete reboot? Will it be an American branch of the institution? Most importantly, will John Barrowman star as Captain Jack Harkness (hey, he's already got the American accent)?
Continue reading Fox to develop U.S. version of Torchwood
Posted Jan 15th 2010 12:41PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Doctor Who, Casting, Reality-Free
For those of you who might be worried about Steven Moffat taking over as lead writer and executive producer of
Doctor Who, take comfort in the man's lifelong dedication to the show. In this video, fans get to see a bit more of
departing Doctor David Tennant walking around the studios where
Doctor Who has been filmed over the years and talking about the show.
Moffat, who takes over for previous lead writer and producer
Russell T. Davies, remembers his father calling him excitedly to the television, saying
Doctor Who was on. It wasn't the show's regular night, but Moffat rushed to the television anyway, only to find it was the kids show
Blue Peter, which often promoted and previewed episodes of
Doctor Who, and burst into tears.
Continue reading Doctor Who in good hands with Moffat
Posted Jan 13th 2010 7:32PM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: TV on DVD, Doctor Who, Reality-Free, British TV
Doctor Who went from regular production to sporadic specials last year to freshen up the show and to give former lead David Tennant a shot at playing Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The end results of that year of specials are headed your way on DVD in a five disc set.
Doctor Who: The Complete Specials features what proved to be a mixed bag of special episodes that became a sort of de facto fifth mini-season for Tennant. While you're not going to find a bad piece of television anywhere on this disc (or anywhere in
Doctor Who's 21st century rebirth), last year's programs got weaker as they marched toward Tennant's regeneration.
The line-up includes
The Next Doctor,
Planet of the Dead,
The Waters of Mars and
The End of Time, Parts One and Two. The first two stand alone, but the last three create a sort of trilogy documenting the 10th Doctor's final days.
Continue reading David Tennant's Doctor Who swan song comes to DVD
Posted Jan 7th 2010 10:02AM by John Scott Lewinski
Filed under: Doctor Who, Reality-Free, British TV
The Gallifreyan dust cleared by now on the final episode of the Russell T. Davies era of
Doctor Who. And, after watching and digesting the final episodes of the David Tennant era, Davies couldn't move on fast enough for me.
The two-part story, "
The End of Time," was watched by 10 million in the UK -- flirting with a 50 ratings share. So, it's an undeniable success. It was also an undeniable mess of a story that proved unworthy of Tennant's swan song.
Davies forever deserves credit for taking the street credit his successful work on series like
Queer as Folk gave him and investing it in one shot from the BBC to bring back the network's crown jewel,
Doctor Who. And he deserves credit for increasing the nerdy guy-friendly show's popularity with women by introducing "Buffy-ized" romance and humor.
But, the hard truth is Davies isn't a gifted sci-fi genre writer. And it showed in "The End of Time."
Continue reading Give thanks that Davies' Doctor Who finally regenerated
Posted Jan 4th 2010 8:02PM by Nick Zaino
Filed under: Video, Doctor Who, Casting, Reality-Free
[Warning: mild spoilers for Doctor Who: The End of Time ahead] David Tennant's tenure as Doctor Who ended this weekend, and not without a few tears (including a few from
our own Brad Trechak).
On a personal note, this was the end of an era for me, because it was Tennant who pulled me back into Doctor Who a couple of seasons ago. I had heard the new series was great, but didn't manage to catch Christopher Eccleston's incarnation. I have since gone back and watched his series, but I may not have had Tennant not been such a fantastic fit for the role (Brad also explained this in out
Best TV of the '00s feature).
Continue reading The Doctor says farewell
Posted Jan 2nd 2010 10:00PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Doctor Who, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
So who cried at the end? I cried my eyes out.
It's very difficult to write about this episode without using any kind of spoiler. Excellent performances all around with a little more credit going to David Tennant for his final bow. They also broke out the remainder of the special effects budget for this one, probably spending more on this episode alone that an entire season of William Hartnell's era. There were also surprises galore along with some familiar faces at the end. Anybody that accuses me of spoiling the fact that this is Tennant's final episode has not been reading this site for the past six months.
Real spoilers follow ...
Continue reading Review: Doctor Who - The End of Time, Part 2
Posted Jan 2nd 2010 2:07PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Doctor Who, Reality-Free
For those who live in England and watched the final moments of David Tennant's run as the Doctor, they were also treated to a trailer for the new season of
Doctor Who starring Matt Smith. Thankfully, the miracle of the Internet brings such knowledge world-wide in a matter of moments after its completion.
More after the jump ...
Continue reading Doctor Who new season trailer
Posted Dec 31st 2009 3:02PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: OpEd, Doctor Who, Reality-Free
BBC News has an article up regarding the upcoming changeover on
Doctor Who (which is being broadcast on the BBC on New Year's Day and BBC America the day after), in which David Tennant will (presumably) regenerate into Matt Smith. They ask a few of the participating actors (minus the regeneratees, of course) as well as Russell T. Davies about the importance of regeneration in the series.
Regeneration is a brilliant idea, enabling the program to continue while changing the lead actor. This in turn allowed the program to continue on the air for 26 years before being put on hiatus, then restart a couple of times in the same universe without much fuss. The beautiful thing is that it's built into the character that every actor who plays him can be completely different. It doesn't suffer the limitations of, say, the different actors playing James Bond.
My first Doctor was Colin Baker and I started right after his regeneration from Peter Davison. Contrary to most fans, I enjoyed him in the role. For all you fans reading, which regeneration sticks in your mind?
Posted Dec 30th 2009 11:06AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: OpEd, Law and Order, Lost, Rescue Me, Doctor Who, NCIS, Breaking Bad, Reality-Free, Mad Men
More of our best of the decade coverage, which started on Tuesday. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about the best dramatic actors of the decade. And, boy, was it a tough choice.
From a meth-making chemistry teacher to a damaged 1960s ad exec, the guys populating the dramatic actor category in our best of the decade are nothing short of brilliant.
It's hard to choose favorites when you're dealing with the likes of Jon Hamm, Bryan Cranston, Mark Harmon, James Gandolfini, and many others, but the
TV Squad team has spoken.
Did your favorites make our list? If not, feel free to add them in the comments below.
Continue reading Best TV of the '00s: Dramatic Actor
Posted Dec 28th 2009 10:36AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Doctor Who, Reality-Free
I hope everyone had a great Christmas. The people who put this tree up looks like they went all out. They're true
Doctor Who fans. It was actually the idea of 7 year-old twins, who saw a similar tree last year and wanted to do it.
Here's a bigger version of the pic.
Posted Dec 26th 2009 11:30PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Doctor Who, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
The first part of David Tennant's final episode of
Doctor Who as the lead role has been broadcast in both the U.K. and the U.S. Part 2 will be broadcast on January 1st and 2nd in each country respectively. It's nice to know that the BBC took my advice and had the two networks broadcast within 24 hours of each other to minimize piracy.
The first part was somewhat disappointing. The reasons for this cannot be explained without revealing key elements of the story. In fact, there is absolutely no way to talk about this episode without revealing major spoilers. With that in mind, I am refraining from my commentary until after the jump. You have been warned.
Continue reading Review: Doctor Who - The End of Time, Part 1
Posted Dec 21st 2009 5:06PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Late Night, OpEd, Survivor, The Biggest Loser, Doctor Who, Game Show, Chuck, Dollhouse, Sons of Anarchy, Cougar Town, Modern Family, Jay Leno
2009 was a good year for television. It offered the resurgence of the comedy on network television, and the continuing growth of original programming on cable. In all honesty, I don't think I could just do a list of what was great and what was horrible on television because I would need pages and pages.
Instead, I'm going to focus on the things that really stood out this year. Sorry,
Mad Men fans, but even though this was a great third season and an amazing finale, I expect it at this point. It's the only way I could come up with to keep my list manageable.
Also, as a point of protest I did not include Jon, Kate or the balloon boy hoax. These events got more attention than they deserved already this year, and I feel bad I even mentioned them.
Continue reading Best and Worst TV of 2009: Jason's List
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