Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Doctor Who Discovers Pond Life

Quick round up of the day's news.  Firstly, Ben Cook and Lizo Mzimba on BBC Breakfast offering a first reaction to Matt Smith's new costume:



The official BBC site has coverage but is admittedly trumped by the Daily Fail who have the more iconic shots you might have expected, including one of the Doctor and Amy and the TARDIS which looks brandlipsmakingspanking new and blue and seems to have regained some of its 60s iconography.  Pity the windows are still the wrong size. The Guardian also has some rather good commentary, spotting a Press Gang connection.  The Times has quotes.

As we've seen in the past, choosing the Doctor's image is a sonic screwdriver dodging minefield.  Get it right and you have something fans will be beating down the door of the local Slaters or Greenwoods trying to recreate; get it wrong and your lead actor will spend his term on the show wearing what amounts to Test Card H or the kind of cricket jacket which still manages to look out of place on a cricket field.

I think this is a very well considered choice.  With Matt, the temptation might have been to go with a far more casual appearance, something akin to what he was wearing in his first publicity shots, the jacket and t-shirt.  This is braver, a kind of old school teacher or 40s newspaperman or indeed scientist, slightly incongruous, underscoring the idea of an ancient mind in a younger body and a nice contrast to Karen's rather more contemporary look.

The other news today was of course the reveal of companion Amy's surname.  Pond.  Amy Pond.  Let that roll about in your mouth for a bit.  It's the kind of name the 10th Doctor would relish saying, stressing the surname to its full stressablity.  It doesn't tell us an awful lot about the character other than, contrary to what the conspiracy theorists had in mind that she's not Donna regenerated or Romana (their way of explaining why the name hadn't been sent out yet). 

It's simply that The Grand Moff and the gang want to keep something back at such an early point in their new era.  Like this (if you reeeally want to be spoiled).  Exciting isn't it?

In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

So the Doctor’s new companion is Karen Gillan and I’m very excited.

Not because like the also largely unknown Matt Smith I can claim knowledge after having watched something she’s been in – with the exception of The Fires of Pompeii in which she played the Soothsayer -- you couldn't get me to sit through The Kevin Bishop Show if you paid me -- but because once again it demonstrates that the new production team are thinking very carefully about what the new version of the show is going to be like.

Selecting someone who's not already a household name, a Freema rather than a Catherine, potentially resets the dynamic of the show; the companion can once again be the viewpoint character for both kids and adults as we discover who the Eleventh Doctor is in much the same way that Billie did in Rose, something which has changed over time as we’ve become used to David.

Does the look in the publicity picture point towards the kind of character she'll be, someone rather more angstier than we're used to, perhaps prone to the odd voiceover relating how she's feeling any given second?

"When I stepped into the TARDIS for the first time, it was like, stepping into a new world.  It was, like, bigger, on the inside, than the outside.  I wondered if the Doctor's brain was like that too.  Or something."

Suddenly I See.

This doesn't seem to have been noted elsewhere so:  

Lance Parkin has been nominated for a Scribe award for his novel The Eyeless in the Best Young Adult Original category.

The Scribes are handed out by The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers for excellence in novels based on TV shows, movies, and games, which. I suppose, makes it the Booker prize of novelisations and shared world fiction.  Lance is facing competition from a Primeval spin-off and something from the Disney Club.

I raved about the book in this review here.  It was without doubt one of the best Doctor Who stories of last year in any media.

Easter Planet

The esteemed organ Den of Geek is reporting that the new Sky Mag confirms the Easter special is indeed unsurprisingly going out on Easter Sunday, though I wouldn't click the link -- it's almost like being drenched in spoiler nepalm.  The photos!  The link titles!  My eyes!  My eyes!

Five To Doomsday

It's easily missed, but in the middle of this interview with  Five chief executive Dawn Airey, it's noted that the channel are making a documentary about the Doctor Who "phenomena". 

Not since BSB Galaxy has a commercial channel entertained such an idea.  I can't imagine that since it is on a rival channel it's going to be a puff piece.  Does anyone know anything else about this or who's been interviewed for it?

Tachyon TV on the Radio

If you check out this BBC Tees link for The Bob Fischer Radio Show and go about 17 minutes in (after the Tom Jones single) you can hear me being interviewed on the topic of the 11th Doctor by the eponymous  host and author. 

If anyone from The One Show, Sky News or Newsnight wishes to get in touch then please contact my agent rather than the blog.

Last of the Party Animals

An outside choice who gained some currency this morning because someone put a suspiciously large stake on BetFair and low and behold there he was sitting in the weird lighting on tonight’s Doctor Who Confidential – during which I notice Paul McGann got more of a mention that Sylv and Col put together. But conspiracy theories about future episodes aside …

What a brilliant, brilliant choice.

For a start he’s an almost unknown, which means, and I know this is an unfortunate comparison, like Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, everyone is scrabbling to find out who he is, which means that Doctor Who will stay in the public eye even during a year when the show’s hardly on the telly box. I hope he’s prepared for the onslaught of tabloid scrutiny in which any embarrassing photos will be published on page seven (they’re probably scouring Facebook as we speak and good luck to them – there are over five hundred Matt Smiths listed).

Plus, he’s young. At 26, he’s the youngest official actor to take the role. Though it’s odd that the Doctor is now physically eight years younger than me, he’s closer in age to the kids watching, which means that for once it’ll be lead not the companion which they’ll be identifying with. I suspect he’ll bring a kind of studentiness to the thing which is different again to anything which has gone before.

Story wise, it throws up all kinds of interesting possibilities. If any of the old companions like Ian Chesterton put in an appearance the dynamic will be really interesting now that the roles have almost been reversed and someone else is the grandfather. And also, since he does look so young, when he enters a situation he might not be able to engender the usual authority straight away – though if he somehow does it adds a bit of magic as we wonder why and how.

As the interview segments began my first thought was how much he reminded me of Tom Baker, the run on sentences suddenly ramming into a pause, the slightly manic look in his eye, the gesticulations, the indescribable hair, basically, mad as a bag of spanners. Unlike some actors, he’s not trying to intellectualise the role and since he doesn’t seem to be a fan he might bring something even fresher to the thing.

Plus, if he was the second person The Moff and Wenger saw and then spent the next three weeks basically looking at actors who weren't quite as impressive, it must have been a bloody good audition (and can't you wait for Mr Pixley to fish out that list in ten years?). They're both fans and wouldn't simply picked someone for the sake of it. They understand the legacy and if they didn't think Matt was right, they simply wouldn't have cast him and I'm willing to trust their judgement. I know that sounds defensive, but lets give him a chance, naysayers. And his chin isn't that big.

Most importantly, he’s a great actor. I’ll hold my hands up and say that unlike Tennant during Casanova, I didn’t detect Smith’s Doctorishness during Party Animals (back copies available here). In fact, when I reviewed the first and last episodes on my own blog, the most I could find to cheekily say about him was that he looked a bit like Adric. But on reflection, in his corduroy jacket, as those carefully selected clips tonight demonstrated, it was a multi -faceted performance and exactly the kind of thing you’d want from a Doctor (Who).

I'm giddy.

Chin! Chin! It's The Eleventh Doctor!

Who saw that coming? Unless you've been watching Betfair all day.

So what's the verdict?

Who's Next?

The BBC will announce tomorrow evening at 5:35pm, during a special edition of Doctor Who Confidential on BBC1, the identity of the actor who will take over the TARDIS in 2010.

So here's your last chance to make any predictions before the news breaks and fandom turns into an embarrassing shambles once again. Will it be Paterson Joseph? Chiwetel Ejiofor? James Nesbit? Jennifer Saunders? Harry Hill? Some bloke out of Hollyoaks? Place your bets now...

Maybe nothing. Possibly something.

I've just had the following conversation on Twitter which I thought was worth posting here for reasons that will become apparent:

kariebookish Has the new Doctor been revealed by actor's slip-up on BBC24's entertainment show? Actor said "P. Joseph .. y'know the new .. *potential ...

feelinglistless Which actor?  Although they could just have been working from speculation.  C. Tate did that once.

kariebookish He's in Survivors with Mr Joseph - Phillip Rhys was talking about his fellow cast members in the new series and looked mortified afterwards

feelinglistless Oh fuck.  You're right.  PJ probably found out during the Survivors production and told people.  Happened to DT during Quatermass.

kariebookish Can't believe nobody else caught the interview. Where are the fanboys I want to know.

feelinglistless I'm off to Outpost Gallifrey to see if its a thing there yet.

kariebookish Tragically I'm heading to LJ and a knitting forum. Need to broaden my fangirl horizons. Have also blogged just to say told-you-so ..nor not.

feelinglistless Current OG discussion:  "What if the Doctor regenerates into a Dalek? "  Typical.  Would you mind me posting this conversation on Behind The Sofa?

kariebookish Nope. Go ahead.

I didn't see it myself (obviously) but this sounds exactly like the way we'd get a confirmation in this day and age, a slip of the tongue by Reza from the second season of 24, doing fluff ironically for the remake of a series created by Terry Nation.  So then.  Paterson Joseph off of Neverwhere (and a few things since).  I was hoping for Callum Blue myself.

Update:

Yep, pretty much.