I like the USian nerdy pop-punk band Nerf Herder very much. I like pop songs about Doctor Who very much. So, this pop song about Doctor Who by the lead singer of the USian nerdy pop-punk band Nerf Herder? Well, I like it very much.

Lots to talk about here, I expect, even if most of it isn’t to do with the slightly plodding and predictable script (sorry, I’ve been chastised for constant Chibnall-bashing, but I just… can’t get on with his writing). Anyway, lovely prosthetics, Stephen Moore, and… yeah, some big Season Arc stuff, eh? Feel free to talk about the events in spoilerific fashion all you want.

Oh my word, wasn’t that exciting? The twists, the turns, the astounding revelations. My heart was pounding in my chest when it wasn’t leaping up into my throat. And that ending! What an ending.

But enough about the Ashes to Ashes finale. Let’s talk about “The Hungry Earth”.

“Worst Ratings For Over 20 Years” Shock!!!

Or, alternatively:

- Hottest day of the year so far meant barely anyone was watching telly. Top-rated show of the night only got 6.2 million. So it’s not like Who is suddenly getting tonked by whatever’s on the other channel. In fact, it’s still beating it.

- It would take a sustained drop in ratings, for at least the duration of a full series, for this to become anything like a “problem”.

- The indications are that the BBC don’t seem to care hugely about Who‘s overnight ratings any more – which would explain the recent inconsistency over scheduling. They know that plenty of people will watch it timeshifted or on iPlayer – it’s no longer about specifically getting the ratings one that one occasion on BBC1. So long as the indications are that roughly between 6 and 8 million people are watching it, somehow, each week, then the show is as safe as houses.

- Besides, 4.5 million viewers in 1989 and 4.5 million viewers in 2010 are two very different things.

None of this is attempting to blindly put a “brave face” on ratings that, in isolation and out of context, do look poor. Merely an attempt to get a little perspective before the inevitable hysteria (and no, I haven’t checked the GB forums yet) kicks in. But the pure figures only tell part of the story. So if this makes you panic, you’re a FOOL.

As twittered by Mr N. Gaiman:

See that chunk of paper he’s holding? That’s guaranteed to be approximately 1,000,000,000,004 times better than “The Hungry Earth”. And yet we’ve got to wait until next year for it. BAH.

Er, yes. Forgot to do this before the episode. But should you have woken up sufficiently to have anything to say, do so here.

Episode sevens occupy a curious place in a typical series of New Who.  That is to say, the criminally underrated Long Game aside, they’re always a load of fucking shit.  Or, at least, a lot of people perceive them that way.  They represent that worrying and slightly odd period mid series when the head writer isn’t taking the main writing duties and you’re in the hands of a string of ‘others’, so it’s always a nervous time and the unseemly gap between the first and second two-parters of the series are nearly always a bit rubbish.  Last week Vampires of Venice was probably one of the most successful episodes to occupy the screaming mid-series void and now we have Amy’s Choice, an episode that could easily be regarded as one of the best single episodes New Who has had.

We’ve recently had a number of people hit Unlimited Rice Pudding! by searching for terms including jo grant dalek, jo grant darlek picture and picture of jo grant with a dalek. Unfortunately, these people are presumably arriving at the site unsatisfied by what they’ve encountered, as there are no pictures of Jo Grant with a Dalek to be found here. Until now. For I’ve decided to do these people a favour and post what is presumably the picture they’re looking for, so that now on, if someone arrives here having searched for a “jo grant dalek picture”, they’ll get what they want. Aren’t I nice? Find it after the jump.

I always thought it was a shame that, although the classic “so-and-so is The Doctor!” covers have become a Doctor Who Magazine tradition ever since the Peter Davison (sorry, Davidson) one in 1981, the previous four Doctors never got their chance to have an equivalent. I mean, imagine how great it would look to have all eleven alongside one-another! Better than it does with the first four conspicuously absent, anyway.

But! It seems I was wrong! Because I – like many of you, I’m sure – was previously unaware of the first volume of Doctor Who Magazine, which started up alongside the series in 1963 (originally known as Doctor Who Monthly), before being cancelled six months prior to the launch of Doctor Who Weekly in 1979. At a recent car boot sale, however, I found a stack of old mags from the ’60s and ’70s, and among them were a number of issues of the original DWM – including all the “first appearance” covers of Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee and Baker T! I’ve finally got round to scanning them, so for the first time, you can put together a full set* of “… is the Doctor!” covers! Enjoy!

* er, not counting Sylv, as his announcement cover simply said “The New Doctor!” You’re on your own for that one.

We’re quite behind the pace on this one, but the recent announcement of a Doctor Who stage show has been getting the Internet into a bit of a kerfuffle.   The jist after the jump, then.