According to a BBC press release, there will be a Series Five of Doctor Who (yay!), but it won’t be until 2010 (boo!). David Tennant is going to play Hamlet with the Royal Shakespeare Company next summer (yay!). So, he won’t be available to film the series for 2009 (boo!). However, rather than just find someone else for the role, they’re going to film three Doctor Who specials (yay!) and come back with Series Five in 2010 (yay!). At an award ceremony where David Tennant won Best Actor, he said that he did not know if he would play Doctor Who in the next full series, because “it’s in 2010”.
For you confused ‘murricans, we’re currently watching Series Three on SciFi and re-runs of Series One with Christopher Eccleston on PBS and Series Two on BBC America.
Meanwhile, the series won the Hugo Award for “Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form” for the Series Two episode The Girl in the Fireplace by Steven Moffat, which is one of my favorites from last season. The Empty Child, another Moffat scripted episode, won the award last year, too.
Also, this coming Saturday, BBC America is going to start showing the Who spinoff show Torchwood, which is supposed to be a lot less for kids and a bit more like X-Files. I just know that it stars Captain Jack (John Barrowman) who was one of the best Who sidekicks ever.
Does The SciFi Channel have the rights for all the new Who’s? If so, why do you have to go to PBS or BBC America for the earlier seasons? You’d think they would be better off running “Dr. Who” repeats instead of some of the other stuff they play over and over. (Although I did start to get a chuckle watching “Dead Like Me”)
I think they have first dibs on showing it in America. I don’t think they see it as a money-maker for them, though. They show it as a summer filler show, and it’s ratings are about what you’d expect for summer filler… a lot closer to “Painkiller Jane” than “Battlestar Galactica”. Still, I don’t know why they don’t air it a lot more. You have to believe that if PBS stations can afford Season 1, SciFi should be able to.
See, the thing that sucks is that you’re going to find out something about Jack in the last eps of DW that are a spoiler for Torchwood. Ah well.
Plus, Torchwood eps are a little longer than DW eps – @51 minutes long, so to compensate for commercial time, they’re going to be cutting out a good 7 minutes from each episode on BBCA. There’s a lot of homoerotic stuff (Jack being who he is, of course, but it’s not just him) and we’ve been taking bets that those scenes are going to be the first to get axed. Sadly, my cable company is shite and I don’t get BBCA.
Still, Torchwood has a number of DW tie-ins, of course (and Tosh – the Japanese woman – was in the Series One ep Aliens of London) but it also works well as a standalone. I really enjoyed it, but I might also be biased because, well, it’s Jack, and also Ianto looks really good in a suit. 😛
Doctor Who fandom is wanking big time over the news. Then again, it’s still wanking itself over the last two episodes, plus we can’t forget the ever-present racewank, and Martha vs Rose wank. I just sit back and mock them in the privacy of my own home. 😛
And hey – what do you think of this series so far? I love Martha. 🙂
Is there any place to watch the episodes online? (Without a subscription, of course, hee.)
I’m seeing more and more shows available through the respective networks websites. But Dr. Who is available so many places…
I thought by the post title that there was gonna be some juicy tidbits about Pete, Roger, John, and Keith. But it’s just another post about that silly British TV show.
:^)
Won’t get fooled again, willya?
{ducking}
No.
Because I can see for miles and mile…
Oh nevermind.