Thu, 29 December 2011
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Sun, 25 December 2011
A secret meeting at the bbc... recorded for you... the true future about doctor Who Confidential | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 20 December 2011
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Fri, 16 December 2011
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Mon, 12 December 2011
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Fri, 9 December 2011
Doctor Who Confidential Still Canselled | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 16 November 2011
Cast: Direct download: TDP_217_sjs_at_bf_1_2_with_Lets_save_con.mp3 Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:12 AM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 15 November 2011
Reprinted from Wiki Pedia with thanks and respect Sarah Jane Smith: Comeback is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It stars Elisabeth Sladen reprising her role as Sarah Jane Smith.
[edit] PlotSix months after the last part of her investigative television series for Planet 3 Broadcasting went out, Sarah Jane Smith is running scared. Meeting new friend Josh Townsend, she finds herself investigating mysterious events in the village of Cloots Coombe. [edit] Cast
[edit] Trivia
[edit] External links
AutobiographyElisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography was released posthumously on 7 November 2011 by Aurum Press Ltd.[154] The BBC will be releasing an audio CD version of the book on 1 December 2011. [155] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Fri, 11 November 2011
You and Who is now available to pre-order So, here is the contents page! I've arranged the order of the submissions into that which I think best serves the material (and the authors), and I've tried to ensure that no essays too similar sit right next to one another in the book - unless I've specifiaclly wanted them to do so (there were a couple of instances of this). Wow! If your name's on this list, this must be pretty exciting stuff... | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 8 November 2011
Taken from http://www.nicolabryant.net Nicolas own site Nicola is probably best known to the public for her work in Television. Her first professional role was as the American companion Peri in Doctor Who opposite Peter Davison and Colin "I grew up in a small Surrey village just outside Guildford. My parents, Sheila and Denis had two daughters. I came along first and then three years later, my little sister Tracy arrived. Both sets of grandparents and many aunts and uncles all lived in the same village. It was a great way to grow up. It gave both my sister and I such freedom. Only once you reached your teens did the cosiness start to feel a little claustrophobic but that's all a part of growing up. I started dance classes at the age of 3 and piano a year later. When friends visited we would spend the day choreographing little shows that we would perform that evening for our long suffering parents. All I knew was that I wanted to be a dancer. I wanted to be on stage. I always wanted to go to ballet school and although at age 10 I auditioned and was accepted into several schools I couldn't go because I suffered so badly from asthma, which ran in the family. I was so upset by this that my mother got me involved in a local amateur dramatics company and I soon started to fall in love with acting. Once I had completed my formal education I auditioned for all the London drama schools eventually accepting a scholarship to the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. It was in my final year at Webber Douglas that a production of the American musical Weeks later I had completed my diploma at Webber Douglas and I was out in the big wide world of professionals, searching for work. At that time of course there was the catch 22 situation that you needed to work to get your equity card but you couldn't get work without an equity card. To make matters worse there were very few jobs that would give you a card. Well, to cut a long story short, Terry Carney called me to audition for the part of "Peri" the new American companion in Doctor Who. I was incredibly lucky to get that chance and after 3 months of auditions in which the producer John Nathan-Turner saw literally hundreds of girls from the States and Canada, I finally got the part. It was a wonderful time, in which I made a lot of friends and worked with some amazing people. I then spent nine months in the West End with Patrick McNee at the Savoy Theatre in the thriller "Killing Jessica" directed by Bryan Forbes. After a leading role in the West End and playing the companion in Doctor Who my career was well and truly launched. Since then I’ve been lucky enough to have had a very varied career, travelling the world and working with some wonderfully talented people in various mediums; stage, television, audio and film. This year I have made appearances in the soon to be released TV series 'Love in Hyde Park'; in the sit-com 'My Family'; and the controversial drama documentary on Princess Diana’s inquest, 'There are Dark Forces'. Direct download: TDP_214_nicola_briant_dwpa_interview_podcast_whoovers.mp3 Category:podcast -- posted at: 8:21 AM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 8 November 2011
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Tue, 8 November 2011
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Fri, 4 November 2011
Presenting the Frazer Hines DWPA interview podcast recorded at whoovers 3 - 2011 Biog taken from his own site http://www.thespeakersagency.com/speakerprofile/189/Frazer%20Hines/ Frazer (born in Horsforth, Yorkshire) is a British actor best known for his roles as Jamie McCrimmon in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, and Joe Sugden in Emmerdale Farm (later just Emmerdale). Direct download: TDP_213_frazer_hines_dwpa_interview_podcast_whoovers.mp3 Category:podcast -- posted at: 8:51 AM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tue, 1 November 2011
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Tue, 1 November 2011
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Tue, 18 October 2011
The Curse of Clyde Langer is a two-part story of The Sarah Jane Adventures which will broadcast on CBBC on 10 and 11 October 2011.[1] It is the second story of the fifth and last series.
[edit] Plot[edit] Part OneAt school, Clyde shows Rani The Silver Bullet, a comic he made. While Sarah Jane has a talk with Mr. Chandra on Sky's first day at school, a strange storm interrupts the meeting, when fish begin to fall out of the sky. According to Mr Smith, it is normal for the weather to be raining fish though the fish that day was abnormally large. Thinking it might be related to an old superstition involving a totem pole, the gang visits a museum that just opened an exhibition of totem poles and other such items. Before the entrance, a homeless woman begs for money, which Clyde gives to her, stating it probably wasn't her fault she is out in the streets. While in the museum, Clyde gets a splinter from an old Mojave totem pole. Dr Madigan explains the legend of the totem pole. Hetocumtek was a vicious warrior who fell out of the skies and tried to enslave the people on the Mojave plains. The Native American medicine men tricked the warrior, imprisoning him inside the totem pole. Sarah Jane suspects that Hetocumtek is both a warrior god and an alien. Having detected no alien signs of any kind the gang leaves. That night, Clyde finished his comic and signs his name on it before falling asleep. He fails to notice that his name on all of his documents, including his comic, begins to mysteriously glow orange. Walking to Sarah Jane's house, Clyde shows her The Silver Bullet. She at first takes interest in his comic. At the mention of his name, Clyde's name glows orange in Sarah Jane's eye. Suddenly, Sarah Jane takes a dislike of Clyde as she orders him to leave her house. At the front of the Chandra's residence, Clyde tries to tell Rani and Haresh his problem he had with Sarah Jane only to face the same conflict when Haresh says his name as it glows in their eyes. Haresh then expels him from school. Getting ready for her first day of school, Sky enters the attic. Sarah Jane tells her she will return to the museum to see if there are any connections between the totem pole and the fish incident. When she mentions Clyde to Sarah Jane, she is instructed to stay away from him. Unaffected by the curse, Sky notices the sudden hatred Sarah Jane has for Clyde. At the park, Clyde is treated kindly by Steve until his name is said. Barely escaping from Steve and his gang who was chasing after him, he enters the museum. Asking Dr Madigan about curses, Sarah Jane enters the museum where she advises her to keep away from Clyde. Dr Madigan, who said his name, orders the security guards to throw him out. Clyde returns home where he sees his mum with an envelope addressed to him. Realizing what has happened, he begs her to let him stay after she called the police to capture him. Finally escaping, he walks out of Bannerman Road. Out in the streets in the middle of the rain, the homeless woman he helped offers to assist him as she holds out her hand. [edit] Part TwoWhile his friends all turn on Clyde as a result from the curse, he meets a mysterious girl on the streets that helps him through the hardship of losing his friends and loved ones. She introduces herself as Ellie. Fearing the curse will do the same to her, Clyde introduces himself as Enrico Box. Ellie tells him about the Night Dragon, how people mysteriously disappears because of the Night Dragon. At the museum, lightning bursts out of the totem pole. Sarah Jane was called in to investigate the suspicions. Scanning, Sarah Jane receives detections of alien energy. She then sees one of the faces' eyes on the pole glow orange. Meanwhile, Sky at school notices how Sarah Jane and Rani hates Clyde but both fails to think of a reason why. Sarah Jane suddenly tears up in the attic although she doesn't know why. The same thing occurs to Rani later in the car as well as Clyde's mum when Sky visits her. All of them feel as if they are missing a person in their life yet they do not realize who it is. Clyde and Ellie visits Mystic Mags, who tells them the Night Dragon is coming and that it will take one of them. She also foresees something else that has put a mark on Clyde, a curse. The totem pole back at the museum begins to cause the weather to rain and thunder heavily as the faces begins to become alive. Within the rain, Clyde and Ellie connects with each other, keeping themselves warm by burning The Silver Bullet. Back in the attic, Sarah Jane and Rani share their tearing experiences. Sky, after being informed that Hetocumtek is getting stronger, discovers that Clyde activated the warrior god when he receives a splinter, creating the curse. She realizes that as long as Clyde is out in the streets, the alien warrior god will get stronger. Sky also sees that his name is the key to stopping Hetocumtek. She manages to convince Sarah Jane and Rani to say his name repeatedly to break the curse upon them. Clyde draws a portrait of Ellie and shows it to her. She then kisses him and tells him she will be back, leaving to get coffee. Sarah Jane and the gang arrives, bringing Clyde to the attic, though it was without choice. There, Mr Smith transports the totem pole to the attic where it begins to fight back, creating lightning and destruction. Clyde, holding onto the pole, shouts, "My name is Clyde Langer!" disintegrating the pole. Clyde, welcomed back by his friends and family, tries to search for Ellie. He asks many people only to find they do not know where or who she is. Clyde suggests they use Mr Smith to track her, but Rani points out her name on a sign, indicating that Ellie took the name. A man there saw Ellie board a truck named "Night Dragon Haulage". He explains that the truck driver occasionally would drive some people to other places for a better life. At night in his room, Clyde reminisces about Ellie as he stares at his portrait of her. [edit] Cast Notes
[edit] ReceptionCharlie Jane Anders of io9 thought this story to be as good as stories in the parent show Doctor Who.[2] [edit] References
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Mon, 10 October 2011
Doctor Who Has been mentioned on BBC Points of View Twice in two weeks. heres my thoughts... Contact the Points of View team by email: pov@bbc.co.uk Telephone: 0370 908 3199 (calls are charged at local rate, mobile tariffs will vary) Or write to us at POV, BBC Birmingham, Birmingham, B1 1AY You can also send your opinions via video-phone or webcam. Send your video submissions to pov@bbc.co.uk. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 10 October 2011
Reprinted from Wikipedia with thanks and respect Sky (The Sarah Jane Adventures)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sky is a two-part story of The Sarah Jane Adventures which was broadcast on CBBC on 3 and 4 October 2011.[1] It is the first story of the fifth and last series.
[edit] Plot[edit] Part OneA meteor crashes in the middle of a junk yard to reveal a metal man. Meanwhile, Sarah Jane discovers a baby on her doorstep in the middle of the night who can create power surges. Sarah Jane calls Rani and Clyde over for them to help her and after Clyde shows his paternal side, Sarah Jane and Rani travel to the site of the meteor crash. There they are met by Professor Celeste Rivers who investigates the site with them. Sarah Jane and Rani find a homeless man who saw the metal man and describes him to them; they then discover that the metal man is heading to Bannerman Road. Meanwhile an alien woman named 'Miss Myers' appears at a nuclear power station and discovers that there was a power surge in Bannerman Road. She makes her way to the Chandras' residence and Gita announces that Sarah Jane has just fostered a baby, as Gita had seen Sarah Jane earlier. Miss Myers makes her way to the garden where Clyde and the baby named Sky are to discover that the metal man is about to attack them. Miss Myers saves Clyde and Baby Sky and takes them to the Power Station. Miss Myers reveals that she is Sky's mother and is also an alien. Sarah Jane and Rani return to the house to discover that Clyde and Sky have gone. Mr Smith locates Clyde at the power station and Sarah Jane and Rani make their way to the station. They find Clyde, Sky and Miss Myers who reveals that her species, the Fleshkind, are fighting a war against the Metalkind. She also reveals that Sky is a weapon who will put an end to the war and as she says this the metal man walks in. Sky then transforms from a baby into a twelve-year-old girl. [edit] Part TwoAt Miss Myers' command, Sky unintentionally attacks the metal man with a burst of energy. Miss Myers reveals that Sky was made and "grown" in a Fleshkind laboratory as a weapon to destroy the Metalkind. Sarah Jane and the gang escapes with Sky before Miss Myers could get ahold of her. Miss Myers then tells the metal man he would help her get Sky and has him wired up. Sky, who is still experiencing the world and words around her, is brought into the attic where Mr Smith scans her. He concludes that Sky's metamorphosis was caused by her synthetic DNA and was done to maximize her effectiveness as a bomb. Full activation would not only destroy the Metalkind but Sky herself as well. Although there is no cure for the energy from the Metalkind's presence would activate Sky's power, she can still be "defused". However, only Miss Myers can disarm her genetic trigger. Sky agrees to go there, stating that she might die anyway. Back at the power station, Sarah Jane tells Sky to stay with Clyde and Rani. With the absence of Sarah Jane at the time, Sky escapes, running inside the factory, trying to help Sarah Jane. Meanwhile, Sarah Jane, who is taken to Miss Myers, learns that the damaged metal man is wired up to the nuclear core in order for him to act as a homing device. Miss Meyers also reveals she reprogrammed his mind as he swears veangance on all flesh kind, including Earth's inhabitants, thus bringing their war to Earth. Believing that the Metalkind will be destroyed upon their arrival on Earth, she activates the calling of the Metalkind. Downstairs, Sarah Jane meets up with Sky, who tells her she must save Earth and goes up to the nuclear core room. Sarah Jane then orders Clyde and Rani to shut down the nuclear reactor in the control room before heading after Sky, whose activation started from the presence of the metal man and Metalkind's portal opened by Miss Myers. In the control room, Clyde and Rani discover the Nuclear Rod Regulation System and removes the rods based on the order of the visible spectrum. They were successful in closing the reactor as the portal closes with a large power outage. The energy from the portal backlashed on Sky, destroying her genetic programming as a bomb. Miss Myers doesn't want the child anymore for she is no longer a weapon. The metal man, who reveals that he saved some of the portal's energy, breaks loose and uses the energy as he takes Miss Myers with him. Sarah Jane explains Sky's appearance to Gita and Haresh back at Bannerman Road, telling them the adoption agency had a mixup. Some traces of Sky's electric powers are still present. In the attic, Sarah Jane finds the Shopkeeper and the Captain, previously met in Lost in Time. He reveals it was him who placed infant Sky on her doorstep. The Shopkeeper, answering Sarah Jane's question of their existence, tells her that he and the Captain are "servants of the universe". He then gives Sky the decision to leave with him in which she declines and stays with Sarah Jane as her adopted daughter. He then disappears before Sarah Jane could ask him any further. She then says they will find out who he is soon.... [edit] Continuity
[edit] ProductionThis was the first story to be aired following the death of Elisabeth Sladen. [edit] NotesThe ending credits for part one has mistakenly been put onto part 2 ending credits Luke Smith (Tommy Knight) and Baby Sky did not appear in part 2 and The Shopkeeper from Lost in Time was uncredited. [edit] References
[edit] External links
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Fri, 7 October 2011
Taken from Wikipedia with thankks and respect. The Wedding of River SongFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Wedding of River Song" is the thirteenth and final episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC America and Space on 1 October 2011.
[edit] PlotThe Doctor, aware of his death at the fixed point of time on 22 April 2011 at Lake Silencio, attempts to track down the Silence to learn why he must die. He encounters the Teselecta shapeshifting robot and its miniaturised crew who are currently posing as one of the members of the Silence; through them, the Doctor is led to the living head of Dorium Maldovar, one of the Doctor's allies taken by the Order of the Headless Monks. Dorium reveals that the Silence is dedicated to avert the Doctor's "terrifying" future, warning him that "On the fields of Trenzelor, at the fall of the Eleventh, a question will be asked - one that must never be answered. And Silence must fall when the question is asked." The Doctor continues to refuse to go to Lake Silencio until he discovers his old friend, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, has passed away. The Doctor then accepts his fate. To avoid crossing his own time stream, he gives the Teselecta crew the envelopes to deliver to Amy, Rory, River Song, Canton Everett Delaware III, and a younger version of himself, inviting them to witness his death. As shown in "The Impossible Astronaut", the Doctor joins his friends at Lake Silencio and then approaches the astronaut, now known to be a younger version of River Song trained to kill the Doctor by the Silence and Madame Kovarian. River does not want to kill him but is unable to fight the suit's control. The Doctor shows River her future self, sentenced to Stormcage prison for killing him, as evidence that her killing him is inevitable and that he forgives her for it. River, in the astronaut suit, surprises the Doctor by draining the suit's weapons systems and averting his death, despite his warning against interfering with a fixed point. Time becomes "stuck", and all of Earth's history begins to happen all at once, fixed at 5:02 p.m. on 22 April 2011. In a time-confused London, Winston Churchill takes the Doctor, his "soothsayer", out from his locked cell to ask him about the stuck time. The Doctor explains the preceding events, but notices they have lost track of time and tally marks are appearing on his arms, indicating the presence of the Silence. After they observe a nest overhead, they are rescued by Amy and an a number of her soldiers. Due to the effects of the crack in her bedroom, Amy is cognisant of the altered timeline, though she has failed to notice that her trusted captain is Rory. Amy takes the Doctor to "Area 52", a hollowed-out pyramid among the Giza Necropolis, where they have captured over a hundred Silence and Madame Kovarian. River is also there, aware her actions have frozen time and refusing to allow the Doctor to touch her, an event that would cause time to become unstuck. They all wear "eyedrives"—eye patches identical to the one worn by Madame Kovarian that function as external memories, thus enabling them to remember the Silence. They soon come to realise that this was a trap arranged by Kovarian, as the Silence begin to escape confinement and overload the eyedrives, torturing their users. The Doctor and River escape to the top of the pyramid while Amy and Rory fight off a wave of Silence and Amy realises who Rory is. Madame Kovarian discovers her own eyedrive is being overloaded; she dislodges it, but Amy forces it back in place with the intention of killing her, explaining that this is revenge for her taking Melody away. Amy and Rory regroup with River and the Doctor. River tries to convince the Doctor that this frozen timeline is acceptable and that he does not have to die, but the Doctor explains that all of reality will soon break down. The Doctor marries River on the spot, whispers something in her ear, declaring that he had just told her his name. He then requests that River allow him to prevent the universe's destruction. The two kiss, allowing reality to return to normal. At Lake Silencio, River kills the Doctor. Some time later, Amy and Rory are visited by River, shortly after the events of "Flesh and Stone" in River's timeline. When Amy explains that she had recently witnessed the Doctor's death and regrets killing Kovarian, River reveals that the Doctor lied when he said he told her his name, instead saying "Look into my eye". The Doctor had in fact enlisted the Teselecta to masquerade as him at Lake Silenco, with the Doctor and his TARDIS miniaturised inside it ever since. The three celebrate the news that the Doctor is still alive. Elsewhere, the Doctor takes Dorium's head back to where it was stored; the Doctor explains that his perceived death will enable him to be forgotten. As the Doctor leaves, Dorium warns him that the question still awaits him, and calls it after him: "Doctor who?" [edit] PrequelA prequel to this episode was aired after the previous episode, "Closing Time". It was the fifth prequel in the series, the first four being for the episodes "The Impossible Astronaut", "The Curse of the Black Spot", "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler". The prequel shows Area 52, with a clock stuck at the time of the Doctor's death, Silence kept in stasis and River Song wearing an eye patch in the same fashion as Madame Kovarian.[2] As all of this is happening, there is a voice-over of the children, the same as that from "Night Terrors" and the conclusion of "Closing Time". They sing "Tick tock / goes the clock" three times, and then "Doctor, / brave and good, / he turned away from violence. / When he / understood / the falling of the silence." [edit] ContinuitySeveral scenes from the episode reuse footage from "The Impossible Astronaut" leading up to and immediately following the Doctor's death. The Doctor tells Dorium Maldovar, "I've been running all my life, why should I stop?", a precursive echo of his early, pre-death dialogue in "The Impossible Astronaut": "I've been running all my life...and now it's time to stop". Following the death of actor Nicholas Courtney, the Doctor learns in this episode that Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has died peacefully in a nursing home.[3] He last appeared in Doctor Who in Battlefield, and the character's final appearance came in The Sarah Jane Adventures story Enemy of the Bane. When listing all the things he could do with the TARDIS' ability to travel in time, the Doctor suggests visiting Rose Tyler in her youth (which Jack Harkness admitted in "Utopia" to having done) to help her with her homework, attending all of Jack Harkness' stag parties in one night (several of his marriages are mentioned or alluded to in Torchwood episodes "Something Borrowed" and Children of Earth), and returning to Queen Elizabeth I (met in "The Shakespeare Code", and mentioned in "The End of Time, Part I", "The Beast Below" and "Amy's Choice"). When the Doctor awakens in Amy's rail car office, he tries to remind her of the crack in her wall ("The Eleventh Hour") and fiddles with one of her TARDIS models ("The Eleventh Hour", "Let's Kill Hitler"). Amy's sketches include a Cyberman's face ("The Pandorica Opens") a Dalek ("Victory of the Daleks", "The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang"), herself seated in the Pandorica ("The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang"), a Silurian ("The Hungry Earth", "Cold Blood", "A Good Man Goes to War"), herself wielding a cutlass and sporting a tricorn hat ("The Curse of the Black Spot"), a Smiler's face ("The Beast Below"), a vampire girl ("The Vampires of Venice"), the first time she met the Doctor ("The Eleventh Hour"), Rory and another centurion ("The Pandorica Opens"), a side of the Pandorica ("The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang"), a Weeping Angel's face ("The Time of Angels", "Flesh and Stone", "The God Complex"), and the TARDIS. Winston Churchill and River Song describe Cleopatra as, respectively, "a dreadful woman but excellent dancer" and "a pushover". River posed as Cleopatra in "The Pandorica Opens". The Fourth Doctor claimed in The Masque of Mandragora to have learned swordsmanship from a captain in Cleopatra's bodyguard. Mickey Smith implied in "The Girl in the Fireplace" that the Doctor had had some romantic history with Cleopatra and that he affectionately called her 'Cleo'. River Song states that she used her hallucinogenic lipstick on President Kennedy; she used the lipstick on guards and Romans in "The Time of Angels" and "The Pandorica Opens". A Silent calls Rory "the man who dies and dies again". Rory dies in "Cold Blood" and appears to die in "Amy's Choice" and "The Doctor's Wife". In reference to the Doctor telling River his name, she reprises the line "Rule One - The Doctor lies" from "The Big Bang" and "Let's Kill Hitler". In "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead", River whispers something in the Doctor's ear that makes him trust her, which the Doctor states just before her death was "my name" and that "There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name". The Doctor also refers to the events and conversation shortly before her death in "Forest of the Dead", stating "You, me, handcuffs - must it always end this way?" when he is handcuffed in the pyramid and reversing part of his final exchange with her in the Library during their conversation by Lake Silencio ("Time can be rewritten" / "Don't you dare!", with the first line spoken by the Doctor in the Library and River by the lake). The episode's main plot centers around the damage caused by River when she tries to re-write a fixed point in time. The Doctor tries to do this himself in "The Waters of Mars" but fails when Adelade kills herself in order to keep history the same. Fixed points in time have also been mentioned in "The Fires of Pompeii" and "Cold Blood". [edit] Outside referencesCharles Dickens describes his upcoming Christmas special featuring ghosts from the past, present and future, alluding to A Christmas Carol. [edit] Production[edit] Cast notesWithin the alternate London several previous characters reappear, including Charles Dickens (Simon Callow) from "The Unquiet Dead", Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) from "Victory of the Daleks", and the Silurian doctor Malohkeh (Richard Hope) from "Cold Blood". William Morgan Sheppard is credited for his brief appearance in the background of the Doctor's death scene, reprised from "The Impossible Astronaut". Mark Gatiss previously played Professor Richard Lazarus in the episode "The Lazarus Experiment", and provided the uncredited voice of Danny Boy in "Victory of the Daleks" and "A Good Man Goes to War"[4] along with a number of roles in audio dramas based on the show. He has also written for the revived series of Doctor Who. He is credited in this episode under the pseudonym "Rondo Haxton", an ode to the American horror actor Rondo Hatton. American television hostess Meredith Vieira recorded her report of Churchill's return to the Buckingham Senate in front of a green screen while filming a segment for The Today Show’s "Anchors Abroad" segment.[5] [edit] ReceptionDan Martin of the Guardian noted that the episode "moves along the bigger, 50-year story and effectively reboots the show. After seven years of saving the Earth/universe/future of humanity," the show now has new impetus. Martin stated that the revelation that silence will fall when the oldest question in the universe is asked - "Doctor Who?" - will safeguard the programme for future generations.[6] Gavin Fuller of the Telegraph called the revelation of the Doctor escaping death by using the Teselecta a cop-out and likened it to serials of the thirties where scenes were cut and shown later to create a cliffhanger. However Fuller praised the episode as visually clever and noted that the question "Doctor Who?" harkens back to 1963 and the original theme of the show. Fuller concluded by surmising that Moffat is obviously plotting story arcs in the episode, hinting that the question will be asked at the end of the Doctor's eleventh incarnation.[7] Neela Debnath of the Independent stated that the series finale was a brainteaser which refused to tie up loose ends neatly. Debnath comments that Moffat is trying to return to the epic story telling that the series once had, spreading it over several series rather than episodes. Concluding, Debnath noted that the episode was underwhelming in terms of drama but overwhelming in terms of information.[8] [edit] References
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Sun, 2 October 2011
From Wikipedia with thanks Colony in Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in 6 weekly parts from April 10 to May 15, 1971.
[edit] SynopsisThree Time Lords meet at an observatory and discuss the theft of confidential files relating to "the Doomsday Weapon." They begrudgingly realise that only one man can help them — and the Doctor, accompanied by Jo, is temporarily released from his exile and sent in the TARDIS to the desert planet of Uxarieus in the year 2472. There he finds an outpost of human colonists living as farmers. The colony is not a success — the land seems unusually poor and recently they are being besieged by representatives of rapacious mining corporations, and more recently, ferocious reptiles. The colony's governor, Robert Ashe, makes them welcome, and explains the colonists fled a year ago to the planet to escape the overcrowding and pollution on Earth. Two colonists die in a reptile attack that night, and the next morning a man named Norton arrives at the settlement, claiming that he is from another colony that was wiped out by the reptiles. While the Doctor is investigating the dome of the dead colonists he is surprised by a mining robot controlled by Caldwell, a mineralogist for the IMC. Caldwell invites the Doctor to talk to his bosses and hear their side of the story. His superior, Dent, is a ruthless mining engineer, who has been using the mining robot to scare and now kill the colonists - something which Caldwell finds repellent. Dent knows the planet is rich in rare minerals and wants it for IMC and his greedy troops agree that this should be done at any cost. The original inhabitants of the planet, known to the colonists as primitives, have a truce with the colonists - but this is tested when Norton kills the colony's scientist and blames it on a primitive, whom he insists are hostile. Later, Norton is seen communicating with Captain Dent, implying that he is in fact a spy sent from IMC to further disrupt the colonists and not the sole survivor of a similar colony as he claimed. The Doctor meanwhile returns to the central dome of the colonists, having evaded an IMC attempt to kill him, and explains to Ashe that the miners are behind the deaths. An Adjudicator from Earth is sent for to deal with the complex claims over the planet - and when he arrives it turns out to be the Master. In this alias he determines that the mining company's claim to the planet is stronger. The Doctor and Jo have meanwhile ventured to the primitive city. From images on cave walls they interpret it was once home to an advanced civilisation that degraded over time. In the heart of the city, in a room filled with massive machines and a glowing hatch, they encounter a diminutive alien known as the Guardian. It warns them that intruding into the city is punishable by death, and lets them go, but warns them not to return. The Master's adjudication is heard by a returning Doctor and Jo. Still in the Adjudicator's guise he tells Ashe that an appeal will fail unless there are special circumstances, such as historical interest and is intrigued when Ashe tells him about the primitive city. By this ploy he finds out more about the planet and the primitive city while Ashe is drawn away from the Doctor, who begins to lose his credibility with the colonists. The Master then manipulates the Doctor into accompanying him to the primitive city. The situation between colonists and miners has meanwhile reached flashpoint with a pitched battle between them. Dent and his forces triumph and he stages a false trial of Ashe and Winton, the most rebellious of the colonists, sentencing them to death but commuting the sentence if all the colonists agree to leave the planet in their damaged old colony ship which first brought them to Uxarieus. Inside the city, the Master tells the Doctor that the primitives were once an advanced civilisation. Before their civilisation fell apart, they built a super-weapon that was never used - and he wants to claim this weapon for himself. The room with the machinery in the city is the heart of a weapon; so powerful that the Crab Nebula was created during a test firing. The Doctor rejects the Master's overture to help him rule the galaxy using the weapon, stating that absolute power is evil and corrupting. The Guardian appears, demanding an explanation for the intrusion. The Master explains that he's come to restore their civilisation to its former glory. The Doctor argues against him, and the Guardian recalls that the weapon led his race to decay, and its radiation is ruining the planet. It instructs the Doctor to activate the self-destruct, which he does. The city begins to crumble, and the Guardian tells them they must leave before it is too late. While the Doctor and the Master flee the decaying city, they find Caldwell and Jo, and the four get out before the city explodes. The colonists' ship has meanwhile exploded on take-off as Ashe predicted it would. However, the colony leader was the only one to die. He piloted the ship alone to save his people. Winton and the colonists now emerge from hiding and kill or overpower the IMC men, with Caldwell having switched sides to support the colonists. Amid the confusion, the Master manages to make his escape. With the battle over, the Doctor explains that the radiation from the weapon was what was killing their crops but this limiting factor has now been removed. Earth has agreed to send a real Adjudicator to Uxarieus, and Caldwell has decided to join the colonists. He tells them that he can help them with their power supply. The Doctor and Jo return to the TARDIS, which returns to UNIT Headquarters mere seconds after it left. Having accomplished what the Time Lords intended, the Doctor is once again trapped on Earth. [edit] Continuity
[edit] Production
[edit] Cast notesSee also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.
[edit] Broadcast and reception16mm colour film trims of location sequences for the story still exist and short clips from this material was used in the BBC TV special "30 years in the Tardis" (1993). [edit] In printA novelisation of this serial, written by Malcolm Hulke, was published by Target Books in April 1974 as Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon. This was the first serial of the 1971 series to be so adapted; as a result, Hulke breaks continuity by having Jo Grant introduced to the Doctor for the first time, even though on television her introduction was in Terror of the Autons (and this would be reflected in the later novelisation of that serial). There is another extensive Malcolm Hulke prologue as an elderly Time Lord describes the Doctor-Master rivalry to his assistant and learns of the theft of the Doomsday Weapon files. There have been Dutch, Turkish, Japanese and Portuguese language editions. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by actor Geoffrey Beevers was released on CD in September 2007 by BBC Audiobooks.
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Thu, 29 September 2011
reprinted from the guardian news page he BBC is to axe Doctor Who Confidential, the BBC3 spin-off from its sci-fi drama, as part of the corporation's ongoing cuts programme. Doctor Who Confidential, which features behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Doctor Who as well as interviews with the cast and crew, has aired in an early evening slot on BBC3 since 2005, when the corporation revived the main series with Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Time Lord. However, with the corporation facing budget cuts of up to 20% across its output as part of its Delivering Quality First initiative, BBC controller Zai Bennett has chosen to axe the show at the end of its current series. Bennett is understood to be pursuing a strategy of focusing investment on original commissions in post-watershed time slots. Since taking over, he has decommissioned shows including Ideal, Hotter Than My Daughter, Coming of Age and long-running sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. Speaking last month at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, Bennett said: "It's about focusing my budget on 9pm and 10.30pm; those are the time slots that count. Budgets are tight, so we have to be sensible with the money we have." Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, will unveil the corporation's cost-cutting strategy – the outcome of the DQF process – on 6 October. It is thought to include proposals to exploit greater "synergies" between BBC1 and BBC3, with the digital channel acting as a "nursery slope" for its terrestrial cousin. BBC3 will also fill a greater proportion of its 7pm to 9pm slots with repeats of BBC1 shows. A spokeswoman for the BBC said: "Doctor Who Confidential has been a great show for BBC3 over the years but our priority now is to build on original British commissions, unique to the channel." | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 24 September 2011
from wikipedia. "Closing Time" is the twelfth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC America and Space on 24 September 2011.
[edit] Plot summaryNearly two hundred years have passed for the Doctor after leaving Amy and Rory in "The God Complex"; and the Doctor is on a farewell tour as he knows he has one more day in his relative time before his death (depicted in "The Impossible Astronaut"), saying goodbye to his past companions. He stops by Craig ("The Lodger"), finding he is living with his girlfriend Sophie, moved into a new home, and now raising their baby, Alfie. Craig, tending to Alfie alone while Sophie is away for the weekend, suspects the Doctor is investigating something alien. As the Doctor leaves, he notices an strange electrical disturbance in the area, and decides to investigate. Craig, while at a new department store with Alfie, discovers the Doctor working in the toy department. The Doctor reveals that he has traced the electrical disturbances to the store and using the job to allow him to investigate more. The Doctor and Craig enter a lift and find themselves teleported to a Cyberman spacecraft, but the Doctor manages to reverse the teleporter and disables it. As Craig returns home, the Doctor sees Amy and Rory shopping, but stays out of their sight. The Doctor continues to follow rumours of a store clerk's disappearance and of a "silver rat". With Craig's help, the Doctor enters the store and catches a Cybermat, which has been siphoning small amounts of energy to the spacecraft. The Doctor also encounters a malfunctioning Cyberman in the building's basement, and is curious how it arrived in the store. At Craig's house, while the two are distracted, the Cybermat reactivates, but they are able to stop it, and the Doctor reprograms the unit to track down the Cybermen signal. The Doctors leaves on his own to locate the Cybermen at the store, but Craig shortly follows, bringing Alfie along. The Doctor finds the spaceship actually sits below the store, underground, accessed by a tunnel from a changing room. The ship has been slowly siphoning energy from the store's power lines, reactivating its crew. The Doctor is captured by the Cybermen, who tell him that their ship crashed long ago, but with this new energy, will soon have enough power to convert the human race. Craig, leaving Alfie with a store clerk, follows the Doctor into the tunnel, and is also captured and placed into a conversion machine. The Doctor reveals his own impending death and urges Craig to fight, but the conversion appears to be complete until Alfie's cries over the closed-circuit television echo in the ship. Craig fights the conversion, sending the rest of the Cybermen into overload as they painfully experience the emotions they have repressed. The Doctor and Craig escape via the teleporter as the ship explodes, the blast contained by the cavern. The Doctor slips away unseen, but Craig returns home to find that the Doctor has used time travel to clean the mess from the previous night. The Doctor tells Craig that Alfie now has a much higher opinion of his dad. The Doctor leaves just before Sophie returns. Nearby, the Doctor tells the TARDIS he knows this is his last trip in her and offers some parting words to a small group of children. In the far future, River Song, recently made a Doctor of Archaeology, reviews eyewitness accounts from those children, and also notes the date and location of the Doctor's death. She is interrupted by Madame Kovarian and agents of The Silence; Kovarian tells River that she is still theirs, and will be the one to kill the Doctor. They place her in an astronaut's suit and submerge her in the lake to await the Doctor. [edit] ContinuityTwo hundred years have passed for the Doctor since the events of "The God Complex", taking him to the age his older self was in "The Impossible Astronaut".[2] Multiple events in the episode correspond to those of "The Impossible Astronaut": the Doctor takes from Craig's home the "TARDIS blue" envelopes he uses to bring Amy, Rory, River, Canton Delaware and his younger self to Lake Silencio; Craig gives him the Stetson hat he wears at the start of that episode[3]; and the "impossible astronaut" is confirmed to be River Song. The Cybermen, like those in "A Good Man Goes to War", do not bear the Cybus Industries logo on their chests. Cybermats are shown for the first time in the revived series. In the classic series, they appeared in Tomb of the Cybermen, The Wheel in Space and Revenge of the Cybermen.[3] The Doctor stops by to see Craig before he dies, as the Tenth Doctor popped in on his former companions before regenerating in The End of Time.[4][5] The Doctor claims to be able to "speak 'baby'", as he did in "A Good Man Goes to War". The Doctor expresses his dislike for Craig's "redecorated" house in a variation of lines spoken by the Second Doctor in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, and Craig explains to the Doctor that the reason his house looks different is that it is a different house from the one he had in "The Lodger"; Craig also remarks that he has inspected the upstairs level, alluding to the false story shown in "The Lodger".[6] The Doctor echoes himself in the classic series serial Revenge of the Cybermen when he recites the mini-poem "Not a rat, a Cybermat" from the novelization of Revenge of the Cybermen.[7][8] Amy appears in an ad for Petrichor perfume, with the tagline, "For the girl who's tired of waiting." The concept of petrichor was used as a psychic password in "The Doctor's Wife" and means "the smell of dust after rain".[6][9] The Doctor frequently refers to Amy as "the girl who waited". [edit] ProductionWriter Gareth Roberts said in an interview that he was considering bringing the character of Craig back when James Corden was cast and he saw his performance, saying that "it already felt like he was one of the Who family". It was also his idea to bring back the Cybermen, because there were no other returning monsters in the series and he thought "there should be a sense of history about the Doctor's final battle to save Earth before he heads off to meet his death".[2] [edit] Cast notesThis episode marks Lynda Baron's third involvement with Doctor Who, having provided vocals for the "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon", heard in The Gunfighters, and appeared in Enlightenment as Wrack. The accompanying Doctor Who Confidential to "Closing Time" is entitled "Open All Hours" in honour of Baron's role in the sitcom of the same name.[6] BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James appears in a non-speaking cameo role, as a man shopping for lingerie.[10] [edit] Broadcast and reception"Closing Time" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 24 September 2011[11] and in the United States on BBC America on the same date.[12] It achieved overnight ratings of 5.3 million viewers, coming in second for its time slot behind All-Star Family Fortunes.[13] [edit] Critical receptionThe episode received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the comic interplay between Smith and Corden. Jack Pelling of Celluloid Heroes Radio praised Roberts' deftly crafted comic script, and described it as "one of the most enjoyable episodes of Doctor Who in recent years".[14] Dan Martin of The Guardian questioned the decision to air a standalone episode as the penultimate show of the series, calling "Closing Time" "something of a curiosity" as well as writing positively about "Smith and Cordon’s Laurel and Hardy double act".[3] Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph awarded the episode three out of five stars, comparing Smith's performance favourably to that of Patrick Troughton.[15] Neela Debnath of The Independent said it was an "intriguing change of pace" and succeeded with "great comedic moments" and the "brilliant chemistry between the Doctor and Craig". She praised Corden for excelling after his "average" performance in "The Lodger".[16] Patrick Mulkern, writing for Radio Times, thought that the ending was an "emotional overload...but what better way to deal with the emotionally deprived Cybermen?" He was pleased with the "sweet cameo" from Amy and Rory and the "tense coda" with River Song and Kovarian.[17] IGN's Matt Risley rated the episode 7.5 out of 10, praising the chemistry between Smith and Corden as well as Smith's interaction with the baby, but was disappointed with the Cybermen, who he said "never really delivered on the threat or horror fans know they're capable of".[18] SFX magazine reviewer Rob Power gave the episode three and a half out of five stars, saying it "[worked] wonders" as a light-hearted episode before the finale and with "properly bad" Cybermen. Though he thought the Cyberman lacked "real menance" and Craig escaped in a "cheesy way", he considered the main focus to be on the Doctor's "farewell tour" and praised Smith's performance. He thought that the moments of "sad-eyed loneliness and resignation" added weight to "what would otherwise have been a paper-thin episode". He also praised the ending for bringing things together for the finale, though he thought the final scene with River Song felt "a little tacked-on".[9] [edit] References
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Mon, 19 September 2011
reprinted from wikipedia with thanks and respect The God ComplexFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The God Complex" is the eleventh episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC America and Space on 17 September 2011.
[edit] Plot summaryThe TARDIS, while traveling to a new planet, arrives in what appears to be a 1980's Earth hotel, but the Doctor recognizes it as an alien structure specifically designed to take that appearance. They soon meet a group of four, humans Rita, Howie, Joe, and the alien Gibbis, each who had previously been taken from their routine lives and found themselves in the hotel. The four explain that there is a minotaur-like beast in the hotel that consumes others. It does this by enticing them to enter one of the many rooms in the hotel which contains their greatest fears, upon which they become brainwashed to "praise him" and allow themselves to be taken, their bodies left without any signs of life; many others have experienced this, and photos of them and their fears cover many of the hotel's walls. The hotel is inescapable — its doors and windows walled up — and its halls and rooms can change on a whim. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory soon find the TARDIS has also disappeared, and the Doctor warns them from opening any door they are drawn to, for fear of being possessed. As the Doctor tries to ascertain the situation, Joe, already possessed, has been drawn away from the group and is killed by the beast. Howie soon becomes possessed after entering a room against the Doctor's warnings. The remaining group set up a trap to lure the beast into the hotel's parlor using Howie's voice, upon which the Doctor questions the trapped creature and learns it is in agony wishing for its end. The Doctor realises the hotel is really a prison for the creature, and the "fears" in each room are harmless illusions. Howie escapes from the group, allowing the beast to escape and chase him down, killing him before the Doctor can save him. While exploring more of the hotel, both Amy and the Doctor are separately lured to look into two specific rooms, facing their own fears. Rita soon follows the fate of Joe and Howie. The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Gibbis regroup, and the Doctor surmises that the other three believed that some higher fate controlled their lives. The hotel and its rooms were, by design, meant to challenge their faith by fear to allow the beast to possess them. The Doctor identifies that Gibbis has survived due to the extreme cowardice of his species, while Rory lacks any such faith to be broken. However, the Doctor realises that it is Amy's faith in him that is being challenged; Amy soon becomes possessed like the others. As the beast comes for Amy, the Doctor and the others grab her and take her to the room of her entrancement. Inside, they find the illusion of young Amy, Amelia, still waiting for the return of her "raggedy Doctor" ("The Eleventh Hour"). The Doctor asserts to Amy that he is "not a hero" but "just a mad man with a box" to break her faith in him; her faith broken, the beast outside the door collapses on the floor. As they watch, the hotel is revealed to be part of a large simulation; the Doctor identifies themselves aboard an automated prison spaceship, and the beast as a relative of the Nimon, a creature that feeds off the faith of others. The ship's automated systems had provided it "food" by bringing aboard creatures who had a strong faith. The Doctor identifies Amy's faith in him as the cause of their arrival on the ship. The beast mutters that "death would be a gift" for the Doctor before it passes away. The Doctor finds his TARDIS nearby, offering Gibbis a lift home. He then takes Amy and Rory back to their home on Earth, believing it best for the two to stop traveling with him for fear that their faith in him would lead to their deaths. The Doctor sets off alone in the TARDIS, contemplating these recent events. [edit] ContinuitySeveral references to past alien species are displayed throughout the wall of photos of the past victims of the beast: Tritovore, Silurian, Sontaran, Judoon, Cat Nun, and the Daleks are referenced as the nightmare faced by one of the late guests. The Doctor identifies the beast as being from a species who are close relatives to the Nimon, previously a foe in the serial The Horns of Nimon and audio drama Seasons of Fear; and the group witnesses two illusions of Weeping Angels, from the episodes "Blink", "The Time of Angels", and "Flesh and Stone".[1] Though the audience is not shown the contents of the room that the Doctor is lured to open, the sound of the TARDIS' cloister bell can be heard.[2] This episode is the third time in the television series where the Doctor has forced his companions to leave the TARDIS, following Susan Foreman and Sarah Jane Smith.[3] Young Amelia, played by Gillan's cousin Caitlin Blackwood, is shown waiting for her "raggedy Doctor" to return from the episode "The Eleventh Hour". The Doctor, being forced to break Amy's faith in him, repeats a previous event in The Curse of Fenric where the Seventh Doctor is forced to break Ace's faith in him.[4] [edit] ProductionToby Whithouse originally pitched the episode for the previous series with the idea of a hotel with shifting rooms.[5] Showrunner Steven Moffat thought that there were too many instances in which the characters were running through corridors in that series, so Whithouse wrote "The Vampires of Venice" instead and "The God Complex" was pushed to the next series.[6] The idea to have a Minotaur be the monster came from Whithouse's love for Greek mythology.[5] David Walliams, who plays Gibbis in this episode, previously appeared in the Fifth Doctor audio drama Phantasmagoria where he played two separate characters.[7] [edit] Outside referencesThe hotel and setting has been compared to Stanley Kubrick's film, The Shining, using similar composition such as long corridor shots.[8][9] [edit] Broadcast and reception"The God Complex" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 17 September 2011[10] and on the same date in the United States on BBC America.[11] Overnight ratings showed that 5.2 million viewers watched the episode on BBC One, beaten by direct competition All-Star Family Fortunes on ITV1. This made Doctor Who third for the night behind The X Factor and Family Fortunes. The episode was ranked number 1 on BBC's iPlayer the day after it aired service and also was popular on social networking site Twitter, where the phrase "Amy and Rory" trended the night it aired.[12] [edit] Critical receptionThe episode received generally positive reviews from critics. Jack Pelling of Celluloid Heroes Radio praised look of the episode, describing it as "stylishly directed by Nick Hurran, whose use of Dutch camera angles and Hitchcock zooms gave the episode an impressive, cinematic quality."[13] Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph awarded the episode 3 and a half stars, stating that "the surreal tone to the episode, helped camouflage the fact that the plot made very little sense."[14] Dan Martin of the Guardian was surprised by the exits of Amy and Rory stating that "since the reboot they've been big, climactic, end-of-the-universe tragedies." Martin also praised Karen Gillan for her performance and stated that her exit was "the kind of ending that would have been nice for Sarah-Jane, really." Martin also praised Smith's Doctor stating that we start to see the darkside more, particularly directed at himself and stronger than Tennant's portrayal. The main part of the episode Martin felt that it was "like a runaround bolted on to make way for the ending." Continuing to add that as has already been shown in this series the formula is not a recipe for success. Martin sums up the episode though by describing it as funny and thoughtful.[1] [edit] References
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Wed, 14 September 2011
Here is the explanation of the Blessing as seen in Torchwood Miracle Day | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mon, 12 September 2011
Taken from wikipedia with thanks and respect ay of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 1 January to 22 January 1972.
[edit] SynopsisRebels from a future Earth conquered by the Daleks travel to the 20th Century to prevent that from happening. But will their actions prevent that future, or make it inevitable? [edit] Plot
Sir Reginald Styles, a British diplomat trying to organise a peace conference to avert World War III, is in his study at the government-owned Auderly House when a soldier dressed in grey camouflage and wielding a futuristic looking pistol bursts in and holds him at gunpoint. However, before the guerrilla can fire, he vanishes, leaving Styles to shakily tell his secretary he has been visited by a ghost. As the conference is of vital international importance, UNIT is called in. The Chinese have pulled out of the conference and Styles will be flying to Peking to try to persuade them to rejoin, and nothing must interfere with the conference's success. However, when the Third Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier go over to Auderly House, Styles denies ever seeing the "ghost", even though the Doctor notes the presence of muddy footprints in the study. The guerrilla reappears on the grounds in a vortex-like effect, but he is intercepted by two huge humanoid aliens, Ogrons, who attack him and leave him for dead. UNIT soldiers discover the severely injured guerrilla and take him to the hospital while the Doctor examines his weapon and a small black box that was found in a nearby tunnel system. Styles leaves for Peking, while the Doctor discovers that the pistol, which is an ultrasonic disintegrator, is made of Earth materials, not alien, and that the box is a crude time machine, complete with a miniature dematerialisation circuit. As he tries to activate it, the vortex effect appears again and the guerrilla vanishes from the ambulance. The temporal feedback circuit on the time machine also overloads — as the Doctor explains to the Brigadier, it has blown a fuse. Since everything seems to be centred on Auderly House, the Doctor decides to spend the evening there. The night passes without incident, but in the day, three guerrillas appear from the time vortex — Anat, a woman who is in command of the mission, along with two men, Boaz and Shura. They come across a UNIT patrol and disintegrate the two soldiers while making their way to the house. In the study, the Doctor tries to reactivate the time machine, causing an alert to be sounded in the 22nd Century. Shura enters the house, but the Doctor subdues him with some Venusian karate. Shura begs the Doctor to turn off the box, as in the future, a human Controller reports to the Daleks that the machine has been activated. The Daleks command that once the spacetime coordinates of the box are confirmed, whoever is using that device must be exterminated. In the present, Anat and Boaz enter with Jo as their prisoner and demand that the machine be deactivated. The Doctor complies, and the conversation makes it apparent that the guerrillas believe that he is Styles, whom they are apparently here to assassinate. The Doctor shows them a newspaper to convince them otherwise, and Anat demands to know who the Doctor is. When Captain Mike Yates and Sergeant Benton enter the house to search for the missing patrol, the guerrillas usher the Doctor and Jo into the cellar where they tie them up. Finding the Doctor and Jo gone, Yates contacts the Brigadier, who tells them to search the grounds again. In the future, the Daleks order the Controller to send troops to the frequency they detected earlier, and activate a time vortex magnetron, so that anyone travelling between the two time zones will be drawn to the Controller's headquarters. In the past, Anat sends Shura to contact the future for more orders, but Shura only manages to retrieve a bomb from near the tunnel before being attacked by Ogrons. He is wounded, but manages to stumble away. In the cellar, Jo asks the Doctor why, if the guerrillas wanted to kill Styles, they do not just travel back to the previous day to try again, and the Doctor says that this is due to the "Blinovitch Limitation Effect". Before he can explain further, they are ushered back up to the study — the Brigadier is calling on the house phone. The Doctor is forced to pretend over the telephone that everything is fine at Auderly House. The Brigadier tells the Doctor that Styles has convinced the Chinese to rejoin the conference and that the delegates will arrive the next day. The Brigadier asks for reassurance that everything is all right, and the Doctor tells him it is, but the Brigadier gets suspicious when the Doctor asks him to also "tell it to the Marines." The Brigadier decides to go to the house and see for himself. Jo frees herself from her bonds and threatens to destroy the box the first guerrilla used, but Anat and Boaz tell her that it only worked for that person. Suddenly, the time vortex effect activates and Jo vanishes into the future, appearing in the Controller's headquarters due to the vortex magnetron. There, the Controller ingratiates himself with Jo, who tells him everything, including the exact time and location where she came from. The Daleks use this information and send a Dalek supported by Ogrons to the present, where they attack the house. Anat and Boaz fire back, and flee towards the tunnels. The Brigadier arrives just in time to gun down an Ogron, and the Doctor commandeers his jeep in pursuit of the two guerrillas. In the tunnels he meets a Dalek, and runs away, finding Anat and Boaz just as they activate their time machines, and is swept up in the same vortex. In the 22nd Century version of the tunnels, the Doctor and the guerrillas are separated when Ogrons pursue them. The Doctor climbs out of the tunnels onto the surface, where he sees a Dalek order Ogrons to exterminate some rebels. When the Controller informs the Daleks that Jo mentioned a "Doctor", the Daleks react violently, declaring that the Doctor is an enemy of the Daleks and must be exterminated. The Doctor stumbles into what appears to be a factory, and sees humans being used as slave labour, guarded by other humans. He is captured by an Ogron, and is being interrogated when the factory manager comes in and persuades the interrogator to let him speak to the Doctor. When they are alone, the manager asks the Doctor which guerrilla group he comes from, but the Doctor says he is not part of any group. Before any further conversation can take place, the Controller arrives, and takes the Doctor to see Jo. The manager contacts the guerrillas, who have made it back to their base with their leader, a man named Monia. The manager tells them of the Doctor, but he is discovered by an Ogron and killed. Monia decides that they must rescue the Doctor, because he seems to be the only man the Daleks are afraid of. After an abortive escape attempt, the Doctor is strapped down to a Dalek mind analysis device, where images of the Second and First Doctors confirm to the Daleks that he is indeed their sworn enemy. The Controller bursts in, saying that using the mind analysis device will kill the Doctor. They should keep the Doctor alive for information on the rebels, and he will question the Doctor personally. The Daleks gloat to the Doctor that they have discovered time travel, invaded Earth again, and changed the course of history. The Doctor calls the Controller a traitor, and the Controller explains that at the end of the 20th Century, a hundred years of devastating worldwide wars began, killing 7/8ths of the population and forcing the rest to live in little more than holes in the ground. It was during this period that the Daleks invaded, conquering the world and using it for raw materials to fuel the expansion of their empire. Some humans cooperated — the Controller's family have been officials for three generations. The Doctor calls them a family of quislings. The rebel guerrillas attack the Controller's base and rescue the Doctor. Monia is about to shoot the Controller but the Doctor tells him not to — the Daleks would have used somebody else in any case. The rebels take the Doctor back to their hideout and tell him the rest of the story. Styles organised the peace conference, and when Auderly House was blown up, everyone was killed. The rebels believe that Styles engineered the whole thing, and caused the century of war that followed. That was why they used Dalek-derived time travel technology to travel to the past, to kill Styles before he could destroy the peace conference. They used the tunnels because that is the only common location shared by the two time zones. The Doctor is sceptical, believing Styles to be stubborn but basically a good man. When the Doctor finds out that the rebels brought a bomb made of dalekanium with them, a powerful and unstable explosive that will affect even Dalek casings, he realises that the rebels are caught in a predestination paradox. They will cause the very explosion they went back in time to prevent, and create their own history. Indeed, back in the 20th Century, Shura has found his way into Auderly House and plants the bomb in the cellar. The Doctor and Jo make their way back to the tunnels so they can travel back and stop Shura, only to run into an ambush the Controller has set up. The Doctor convinces the Controller that he has the means to stop the Daleks even before they have begun, and the Controller lets him go, only to be betrayed by the interrogator and exterminated by the Daleks. The Daleks send a strike force to the 20th Century to ensure their version of the future is preserved, and attack as the delegates arrive at the house. In the ensuing battle between the Daleks, Ogrons and UNIT, the Brigadier evacuates the delegates. The Doctor, back in the present, makes his way down to the cellar to try to convince Shura not to activate the bomb; Auderly House is empty, it will all have been for nothing. However, once Shura hears that the Daleks are entering the house, he tells the Doctor and Jo to leave — he will take care of the Daleks. The Brigadier tells his men to fall back to the main road as the Daleks search the house for delegates. Shura detonates the bomb, destroying the house and everything in it. The Doctor tells Styles that it is now up to him to make the conference a success. Styles assures the Doctor it will be, because they know what will happen if they fail. The Doctor, nodding at Jo, says that they know too. [edit] Continuity
[edit] Production
[edit] Cast notes
[edit] In printThe novelisation of this serial, by Dicks, was published by Target Books in April 1974. There have been Dutch, Turkish, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese language editions. A Brazilian edition, separate from the Portuguese version, was published with the title Doutor Who e a Mudança da História (Doctor Who and the Change in History).
[edit] VHS, Laserdisc and DVD release
[edit] References
[edit] External links
[edit] Reviews
[edit] Target novelisation
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Sat, 10 September 2011
Notes to follow Sorry the dvd reviews are behind. they have been recorded but I have no room on my lybsyn account. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sat, 10 September 2011
TDP 200: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep 9 and Ep 10 Review (Contains Spoilers for UK) Notes to follow | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wed, 7 September 2011
Reprinted from Wiki Pedia with all due respect "Night Terrors" is the ninth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC America on 3 September 2011.
[edit] SynopsisThe Doctor decides to make a "house call" after his psychic paper receives a message from George, a frightened 8-year-old child, asking his help in getting rid of the monsters in his bedroom. On arrival at a council estate on present-day Earth, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory split up to try to locate the child. The Doctor, taking the guise of a social services worker, finds the right flat, and meets George's father, Alex, while his mother Claire is working a night shift. Through Alex's photo album, the Doctor learns that George has been frightened all his life, fearing many of the sounds and people around the flat and is helped to cope by various habits, including metaphorically placing his fears within his wardrobe. Meanwhile, Amy and Rory, while taking the lift down, suddenly find themselves in what appears to be an eighteenth-century house, but shortly discover most of the furnishings are wooden props. Other residents of the estate appear in the house, but are caught by life-sized peg dolls that laugh and sing like children, and transform the residents into more dolls. Amy and Rory witness one transformation and try to flee, but Amy is caught and becomes a doll herself, joining the others in chasing Rory. The Doctor, suspecting that the wardrobe is containing the evil that George fears, opens it to find its contents are simply clothes and toys, including a doll house. The Doctor suddenly recalls from Alex's photo album that Claire did not appear pregnant in the weeks leading up to George's supposed birth, causing Alex to remember the fact that Claire was unable to have children. The Doctor asserts that George is a Tenza child, an empathic alien who took on the form of Alex and Claire's desired child through a perception filter, and has the ability to literally lock away his fears within the wardrobe. George begins to panic from this revelation and the Doctor and Alex are pulled into the wardrobe, joining Rory in the dollhouse. As the dolls descend on the three, the Doctor calls out to George to face his fears; George is able to open the wardrobe and appears in the dollhouse, but the dolls turn to advance on him. The Doctor realises that George is still frightened that Alex and Claire plan to send him away, having mistakenly interpreted a conversation they had earlier that night; Alex rushes through the dolls to embrace George as his son. They all soon find themselves back at the estate, restored to normal. Claire returns the next morning to find George no longer scared while Alex and the Doctor make him breakfast. After being thanked, the Doctor rejoins his companions to set off for their next adventure. [edit] ContinuityThe Doctor refers to "Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday", "The Three Little Sontarans" and "The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes" as being among his childhood nursery stories, referencing the 1974 stage play Seven Keys to Doomsday[1] and the Sontarans and the Emperor Dalek, two of the series' recurring monsters. He also repeats his predilection for tea and Jammie Dodgers from another Gatiss-written episode, "Victory of the Daleks". He expresses his irritation that his sonic screwdriver still does not have "a setting for wood," a criticism also made by Rory in "The Hungry Earth" and "The Curse of the Black Spot" and by Donna Noble in "Silence in the Library". Rory states "we're dead again" after dropping down the lift shaft, referring to his previous deaths in "Amy's Choice", "Cold Blood", "The Curse of the Black Spot" and "The Doctor's Wife", and Amy's in "The Pandorica Opens". The episode's final shot continues the story arc for the second half of the series, showing the Teselecta file on the Doctor's date of death from "Let's Kill Hitler". [edit] Production
Mark Gatiss told Radio Times that he had always been scared of dolls, and was surprised that Doctor Who had never used them before. He was especially interested in peg dolls, which he said were "the stuff of proper nightmares".[2] In order to achieve a greater variety of stories in the first half of series 6 "Night Terrors" was moved to the second block of episodes, having been filmed as episode four.[3] This necessitated minor changes to the episode, including the removal of a sequence featuring Madame Kovarian.[1] [edit] BroadcastThe episode achieved an overnight figure of 5.5m viewers, with an audience share of 25.9%, and Doctor Who was the fourth most-watched programme for Saturday [edit] Critical receptionReception to the episode has been largely positive[4]. Assignment X gave a positive review "There’s plenty of tension to be had in awaiting the arrival of the episode’s central creatures – the creepiest dolls you will ever see. In fact, the horrific, bone-crunching transformation of human beings into dolls may trump the gas mask zombies as one of the most unsettling body horror moments in modern DOCTOR WHO. Amy’s scene is probably the most affecting, although it’s slightly undercut by the knowledge that she’s going to be all right."[5] Crave Online gave a positive review saying "This episode was reminiscent of "Fear Her," from the second season of the revived "Doctor Who." But "Night Terrors" fared a little bit better because it didn't rely on Jamie Oram's George to be anything more than a scared little boy. Matt Smith carried the day with another impressive outing as the Doctor. I think the key to Smith's tenure as the Doctor has been the sheer manic energy he throws into his performances. Some online commentators are already suggesting that the writer, Mark Gatiss might be the next showrunner after Steven Moffat."[6] Dan Martin of the Guardian also commented on the suggestions of Gatiss as a future showrunner, commenting that the episode was an improvement on Gatiss' previous two episodes ("The Idiot's Lantern" and "Victory of the Daleks"). He complimented it overall as "a classy, creepy episode of retro Doctor Who" in comparison to "Let's Kill Hitler", though he saw its plot as over-similar to "The Empty Child" and other episodes written by Steven Moffat[7]. [edit] References
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Tue, 6 September 2011
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Thu, 1 September 2011
reprinted from wikipedia with thanks and respect "Let's Kill Hitler" is the eighth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, Space and BBC America on 27 August 2011. It is the second episode of a two-part story,[1] continuing stories from "A Good Man Goes to War".[2] It features alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and her husband Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), plus their daughter and the Doctor's sometimes-assistant River Song (Alex Kingston).
[edit] Plot[edit] PrequelOn 15 August 2011, the BBC released a short "prequel" to "Let's Kill Hitler", written by Steven Moffat.[3] This procedure had previously been done earlier in the series to give a short introduction to "The Impossible Astronaut", "The Curse of the Black Spot" and "A Good Man Goes to War".[4] In the prequel, Amy calls the Doctor and leaves a message for the Doctor on the TARDIS' answer phone, begging him to find her child, Melody. Though Amy knows Melody will grow up to be River Song, she does not want to miss seeing her grow up. As she ends her message, it is revealed that a very upset Doctor was listening but did not pick up the phone, even though Amy had pleaded for him to.[5][6][7] [edit] SynopsisIn modern-day Leadworth, Amy and Rory create a crop circle to gain the Doctor's attention. He arrives with his TARDIS, but they are soon joined by Mels, Amy and Rory's childhood friend who knows of Amy's "raggedy Doctor" and was responsible for Amy and Rory's relationship; Amy had subsequently named her daughter Melody after Mels. On the run from the police, Mels brandishes a gun and coerces them to escape in the TARDIS and "kill Hitler". Inside, she fires the gun, hitting the central console which fills the time machine with a poisonous gas and sends it out of control. Back in 1938 Berlin, "Justice Vehicle 6019", a Teselecta[8] robot manned by a human crew from the future miniaturised inside it and able to take on the appearance of other humans, is seeking to deliver justice on war criminals like Adolf Hitler. They do this by using the Teselecta's weapons to torture the criminal, near the end of their timeline. Having taken on the appearance of a Wehrmacht officer to meet with Hitler, they are surprised when the TARDIS crashes into Hitler's office. Hitler, already panicked, fires on the Teselecta, but his aim is poor and strikes Mels. As Rory locks Hitler in a cupboard, the TARDIS crew finds Mels regenerating, becoming the woman they know as River Song—Melody as a grown woman. River, having been trained by her captors to kill the Doctor, makes several attempts but the Doctor has taken precautions to nullify these. Instead, River kisses him and before disappearing into the streets of Berlin, reveals that her lipstick is a poison that will kill the Doctor within the hour and prevent his regeneration. The Doctor orders Amy and Rory to follow River, passing her his sonic screwdriver, while he returns to the TARDIS to try to discover a cure. The Teselecta, aware that the Doctor's death on 22 April 2011 is a "fixed point in time" ("The Impossible Astronaut"), instead follow Amy and Rory in chasing down River, having identified her as their most wanted war criminal, responsible for the Doctor's death. Amy and Rory chase River to a café at the Hotel Adlon, but the Teselecta arrives, bringing them aboard as allies, and takes on Amy's appearance, allowing the robot to get close to River to attack her. Before they can complete the attack, the TARDIS materialises; the Doctor, spurred on by the TARDIS' "voice interface" hologram of Amy's younger self, Amelia, has found time to dress for the period and stops the attack, now aware of the Teselecta's nature. The captain speaks to the Doctor, informing him that River has been trained to kill him by the Silence, a religious order that believes that "when the oldest question hidden in plain sight" is asked, silence will fall across the universe. When the crew refuse backing down from attacking River, Amy uses the sonic screwdriver to turn the robot's "antibodies"—its security robots—against the crew. The crew power down the robot and are teleported away by a mothership, leaving Amy and Rory to face the antibodies. The Doctor finds himself too weak from the poison's effects to pilot the TARDIS to rescue his companions; River is inspired by the Doctor's sympathy, and finds herself guided by the TARDIS itself to pilot the ship, and rescues Amy and Rory in time. On returning to the café, the Doctor whispers something in River's ear before he passes away. River asks Amy who River Song is; Amy uses the Teselecta to show River her form stored in the robot's database of who she is to become. With this, River sacrifices her remaining regenerations to bring the Doctor back to life, and passes out. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory take her to a hospital in the far future, leaving the TARDIS-shaped diary as a gift by her bedside, and depart. Later, River is shown becoming an archaeologist so she can find the Doctor herself. Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor has discovered the date of his death from the records aboard the Teselecta, but does not reveal this knowledge to Amy or Rory. [edit] ContinuityThis episodes alludes to several previous elements of the River Song character, several which include ontological paradoxes. River reveals herself as the young girl seen regenerating at the end of "Day of the Moon" before she became Mels, short for Melody; Mels' name would used in turn by Amy to name her daughter. River's ability to regenerate is a result of being a "child of the TARDIS", from the infusion of Time Lord DNA into Melody during her conception aboard the TARDIS on Amy and Rory's wedding night as described in "A Good Man Goes to War".[9] Later, when regenerating into the form of River Song, she learns of this name from the Doctor and Amy. River's TARDIS-coloured diary, which the Doctor and his companions have seen in River's relative future, is given to her anew by the Doctor. The Doctor further introduces River to the concept of "spoilers" of her future timeline, a phrase River has used in previous adventures. River's aptitude with flying the TARDIS, taught to her by the machine itself, is alluded to from "The Time of Angels" where River explains she "had lessons from the very best" (which the Doctor has assumed referred to himself).[10] During the moments after her initial regeneration into the River Song form, River reenacts the iconic scene between Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft) and Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) from the movie The Graduate, calling out to the Doctor "Hello, Benjamin".[11] The Doctor likens River to Mrs Robinson in "The Impossible Astronaut".[12] The Teselecta crew consider River a wanted dangerous criminal; River has been shown to be imprisoned in her personal future in "The Time of Angels" for killing "the best man she ever knew".[13] In the episode's epilogue, River is shown asking Professor Candy of Luna University to become an archaeologist as to find the Doctor; previous episodes that take place later in River's personal timeline show that she has acquired these degrees. Both the professor and the university appeared previously in Steven Moffat's 1997 Doctor Who short story Continuity Errors, which showed Candy as having himself conducted research concerning the Doctor. The concept of "fixed points in time" has been explored before, including the episodes "The Fires of Pompeii" and "The Waters of Mars". The supposed "state of temporal grace" within the TARDIS was previously alluded to by the Fourth Doctor during The Hand of Fear. Like River giving up her remaining regenerations for the Doctor, the Doctor has been shown prepared to do this to save his companions during the Fifth Doctor serial, Mawdryn Undead. While bringing up the voice interface aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is shown holograms of his former companions Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate).[14] He rejects these, as they all cause him guilt, eventually settling on the young Amelia. She also appears in flashback scenes from Amy's past interacting with a younger Mels and Rory, revisiting the various toys and props Amelia created of her "raggedy Doctor" shown throughout series 5. The Amelia hologram refers back to "fish fingers and custard", a phrase used between Amelia and the Doctor during "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Impossible Astronaut". The Silence are revealed not to be a species as shown in "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon", but a religious order who believe silence will fall when "the oldest question in the universe" is asked.[15] They are also revealed to be responsible for training Melody to assassinate the Doctor. The Eleventh Doctor wears his secondary jacket, a long dark-green military overcoat, for the first time in this episode.[11] [edit] ProductionThe read-through for "Let's Kill Hitler" took place on 21 March 2011.[12] The opening scene in the cornfield were the last shots filmed of the series on 11 July 2011.[12][16] The Temple of Peace in Cardiff used in the episode for the German dinner party, was also used for Karen Gillan's first Doctor Who appearance, when she played a Soothsayer in "The Fires of Pompeii".[17] Exterior shots of the Hotel Adlon were filmed outside Southampton Guildhall. One scene involving the Teselecta (disguised as a German soldier) chasing Amy and Rory on motorcycles through Berlin was cut from filming due to budget issues. AT&T, who wanted to advertise in the United States broadcast of the episode on BBC America as a tie-in to their "Rethink possible" slogan, brought the idea of using a motion comic to create a bridging scene within the advertising break where this scene would have been placed. AT&T and BBC America worked with Moffat and Senior to create the 60 second scene, which was animated by Double Barrel Motion Labs. The scene will be included in all international home video releases of the episode, though lacking the AT&T branding used on the initial broadcast.[18] [edit] Broadcast and reception"Let's Kill Hitler" was first broadcast on 27 August 2011 on BBC One in the United Kingdom.[19] Internationally, it was broadcast in America on sister station BBC America on 27 August[20] as well as on Space in Canada.[21] Overnight ratings showed that the episode was watched by 6.2 million viewers on BBC One, the second most viewed show of the day behind The X-Factor and the second most-viewed Doctor Who episode in Series 6 behind "The Impossible Astronaut". The episode also came in a number one on the BBC iPlayer service the day after it aired.[22] The episode also received an Appreciation Index of 85.[23] [edit] Critical receptionThe episode received generally positive reviews from critics. Dan Martin, writing for The Guardian, was more pleased with "Let's Kill Hitler" as an opener than "A Good Man Goes to War" as a finale, and said it was "an energetic, timey-wimey tour de force with with gags and flourishes like the car and the crop circles that still maintained a strong sense of what it was about". He also commended Alex Kingston's performance, saying that "she got to steal her every scene even more completely than usual, masterfully swerving the episode into a properly emotional final act".[14] Michael Hogan of The Daily Telegraph gave the episode four out of five stars, praising it for being "jam-packed full of ideas, twists, turns and wibbly-wobbly time-bending stuff" and "giddily thrilling entertainment, albeit rather exhausting". He also praised the way it allowed Rory to "finally find his niche".[11] Writing for The Independent, Neela Debnath praised the lighter mood and "great slapstick moments". Though she thought the identity of Mels was "obvious to everyone but the characters", she said that Toussaint-White was "excellent" and that "it was shame that she regenerated so early on because she brought a different energy to the character".[15] Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern, unlike Debnath, admitted that Mels' true identity "took [him] completely by surprise". He thought that a plot hole was generated in terms of what Melody did in between regenerating in 1969 and joining Amy and Rory, still as a child, 20 years later, but said that "the episode moves too fast for such quibbles to stick, and it is hilarious".[24] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly called it "a marvelously energetic, funny, clever, noble mid-season start" and praised the acting of Smith, Gillan, Darvill, and particularly Kingston, as well as the emotion that developed in the episode.[25] IGN's Matt Risley gave the episode a score of 9 out of 10, saying that it was "arguably Moffat's most unashamedly fun Time Lord romp yet". While he praised the humour, plot, and character development, he was critical of the Teselecta; though they "score[ed] high on the sci-fi kitsch factor" they were "anything but memorable".[26] SFX magazine critic Richard Edwards gave "Let's Kill Hitler" five out of five stars, thinking it "has to rank among the cleverest Who episodes Moffat has ever written". While he praised Kingston's performance, he wrote that "it's Matt Smith who steals the show, in one of his finest performances as the Doctor...he's utterly magnificent, whether acting the joker, or living out 32 minutes (ish) of death scene. The mix of optimism...and sadness is a tricky thing to pull off, yet Smith does it in a quintessentially Doctor way".[27] Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club graded the episode as a B+, saying that he was "a bit divided". He praised Moffat's River Song arc, which made "the mind [reel]...in a good way", as well as the dialogue and "big concepts". On the other hand, he did not think the Teselecta's mission was developed and "as characters they seem kind of bland". What "really [troubled]" him was that it did not have the "impact" of some previous episodes and he thought it unlikely that Amy and Rory were willing to quickly accept that they were meant to raise their daughter as a school friend.[13] Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph said the Moffat "delivered a pacy romp" and praised the concept of the Teselecta, but was disappointed with the "wasted opportunity" of the setting. He thought that the setting offered "great dramatic potential" but was "little more than window dressing for the story". He thought that using Hitler as a comic relief "struck a wrong note given the nature of the man and the regime he led" and that it was "an odd way to treat such an historically significant character". He was also critical of Moffat's "seeming keenness to kill the regular cast in some way, shape or form".[28] Entertainment Weekly's Tucker thought that it "didn't need Hitler to be an excellent [Doctor Who] episode".[25] Assignment X gave a negative review of the episode: "Matt Smith is wonderful as always and I love his new coat. And there ends the positive part of this review."[29] Jim Shelley of The Daily Mirror also was negative about the episode, especially towards Alex Kingston, who appeared to be acting while "the rest of the cast play their parts perfectly naturally".[30] [edit] References
[edit] External links
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