It’s obviously bollocks, but I’m going to go ahead and put it below the fold anyway to avoid any potential spoilers. Unless you’re reading this on an RSS reader, of course, in which case RUN FOR IT.

According to IMDb’s, frankly, ridiculous entry for 6×13, both David Tennant and Peter Davison will be making appearances as their respective Doctors. Yes, I know, it’s obviously a load of old wank. No one else appears to be covering this listing and no announcements have been made, so I’ve no reason to believe that it’s anything other than a steaming pile of Hotspur.

I mean, if any Doctor’s going to come back in the finale it’s obviously going to be the Eighth Doctor, right? Right. Glad we’re clear on that one.

The upside is that I’m going into each episode of the show with no preconceptions or expectations, although “The Rebel Flesh” works fairly quickly to instill some preconceptions during the first ten minutes. It’s an episode that fits a familiar mould – the Doctor shows up in base where people are doing something they shouldn’t be and things go tits up. Only just when it looks like it might defy the expectations you didn’t know you had and pull the rug out from under your feet, it stops tugging and, like a Mortal Kombat player who’s forgotten how to do a Fatality, just kicks you in the shins instead.

Spoilers ahead, obviously.

Our heroes arrive on the scene, yesterday.

It’s a promising set-up. It’s a wonderful set-up, truth be told. The pre-title sequence is simple and to-the-point, and rather nicely outlines exactly what the crux of the episode is about. Then the Doctor arrives, seemingly with some foreknowledge of the events taking place in the acid factory, but he’s not sharing.  Not atypical of the Doctor, but it is atypical of the type of story we’re being told, offering some much-needed variety. That said, it does feel odd that the Doctor would keep such important information from his companions given that lives are at stake. Again, it’s not strictly speaking out of character, but I do wonder how that’s going to pay off in “The Almost People”.

Once the storm reaches the factory and the power goes down, the story slows to a snail’s pace. This is proper old-school Doctor Who pacing, the sort that makes “Genesis of the Daleks” unwatchable for much of the New Who audience, and it’s made all the more frustrating by the predictable nature of the plot progression from this point onwards. Even after things picked up again, I spent a good deal of the episode waiting for the characters to catch up with what I’d already worked out.

Then there’s the conflict, the murder, and things start moving again. Stupid people doing stupid things because they’re human – some more than others – and at that point the story gets back on track, albeit predictably so. The Gangers’ decision to turn on the humans is sudden, almost gratuitous. Yes, alright, an idiot killed one of them, and it’d be expected that at least one of them would be slightly pissed off about that, but they almost unanimously make the decision to go after the humans without much of a debate. The Gangers’ conversation may well have gone, “Look, we’re nearly at the end of the episode and we’re not particularly menacing at the moment. We should probably fix that.”

"Now, from this point on, things get a little bit confusing."

And then there’s the Ganger Doctor. From the moment the Doctor put his hand on the surface of the Flesh vat I knew what the cliffhanger would be, and yet I can’t help but wonder how it’s going to play out in the next the episode. I even wondered briefly whether the older Doctor we saw killed all the way back in “The Impossible Astronaut” could perhaps have been the Ganger Doctor, but it’s such a mind-numbingly obvious solution to that predicament (not to mention an incredibly lazy one) that I don’t see it happening.

A lot of people seem to have taken issue with Rory’s willingness to help the Ganger Jennifer, but I don’t really have much of a problem with it. It’s not difficult to see how a bloke could want to help someone who very clearly thinks highly of them. I mean, we’ve all been there, haven’t we? A girl says you have pretty eyes or that you’re “such a sweetheart”, and you can’t help but want to keep them close. It’s a psychological thing, isn’t it? We all like feeling wanted or needed in some way. Having said that, I expect Rory’s motivations run a little deeper than that – he was a plastic copy of himself for 2,000 years, after all. There may well be an affinity there.

Besides which, we’re now five episodes into the series and apart from some conspiratorial conversations between Amy and Rory and the Doctor occasionally running a sly pregnancy check on Amy to reveal that, yes, she’s still pregnant/not pregnant/pregnant/not pregnant, we haven’t really come back to the threads left dangling by “TIA”/”DotM”. That being said, I also complained this time last year when the Weeping Angels were sidelined in “Flesh and Stone” by the crack, which felt decidedly lazy at broadcast but made much more sense in the bigger picture of the series as a whole. It’s entirely possible that the Doctor’s disinterest in addressing the events of the opening story will fit into the series in a much grander manner, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, but it’s not a jigsaw, and there aren’t any pieces. Forget the jigsaw.

Obligatory "Ganger Doctor" screencap.

I’m complaining a lot about this episode, but there are some great ideas in there. The supporting characters are interesting if a little lacking in depth – the decision to make ‘em Northerners certainly adds a little variety considering most Who characters these days are either Welsh or from London. And certainly I’m eagerly anticipating “The Almost People” to find out how it’s all going to play out. Right now, though, it just feels wobbly.

I half-wonder whether Amy and Rory themselves may also be Gangers, with the real Amy and Rory having been stashed away somewhere. They woke up together not too far from the Flesh vats, although they haven’t experienced any of the characteristic facial gubbins that the other Gangers have there’s every possibility that they simply don’t know that they’re not the real deal. It might go some way to explaining where that lost hour went. Or maybe it doesn’t and I’m grasping at straws.

I applaud writer Matthew Graham for attempting to do something different with a well-worn Doctor Who formula, even if it doesn’t quite work.

You’ll be able to follow other, more general “coverage” of the convention on Twitter – virtually anything to do with the con is being tweeted under #gally, which seems as good a way as any of following what other, less URP!y people are experiencing at the con. There’s also the official Gallifrey One Twitter feed, on which I’ve learnt that a film crew from The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson will be in attendance during Saturday afternoon. Which is nice.

I’ll also be posting end-of-day reports on the blog, which will invariably involve discussion of costumes, panels, events, guests, and possibly other things. Hopefully they’ll be a little more prompt than last year’s efforts which, as you may recall, went up a couple of days after the event had actually finished.

However it appears the success of the revived series on SyFy and BBC America has given the three companies something of an incentive to finally shake hands and get this thing pushed out of the door – the film was released Stateside on February 8th.

Rather than just crap out the original DVD release from 2001, however, Americans are being treated to the lavish two-disc “Special Edition” from the Revisitations box-set featuring the new commentary with McGann and outgoing Doctor Sylvester McCoy, along with all the other extra stuff including McGann’s audition tape (which, I’ll confess, has me a bit excited).

You can pick up the film from Amazon.com for a paltry $22.99. Or, if you’ve got a multi-region DVD player (or you live in the UK) you can grab the Revisitations box-set from Amazon UK for £24.99 – about $40, not including shipping. If you must have the film absolutely immediately then Best Buy tend to be good at stocking British TV on DVD, but be warned that their price may creep a little closer to the RRP of $34.98.

I think the studio audience reaction is ours. The dance number was recorded during rehearsals before we were let in to the studio, but they did show it to us on the day and we did clap in time with the music. I can’t imagine them going to the trouble of putting in canned laughter/clapping for something like this, especially when the equipment to record our reaction hovered mere metres above our heads.

Oh, if you’re not interested in reading my lengthy recap because “Studio audience story, boring”, you might be interested in reading it to find out how long Matt Smith intends to continue playing the Doctor for. Read on…

If you’re interested in watching the show, it’s up on YouTube in convenient chunks. I won’t go to the pains of embedding them, particularly as The Powers That Be won’t let me, but here are some handy dandy links for you:

[Cold Open + Monologue]
[Email Twitter Attack with guest Chris Hardwick]
[Interview with Matt Smith]
[Obligatory "Get tickets to see the show" commercial]
["What Did We Learn From The Show Tonight, Craig?"]

Those videos are subject to be shot out of a cannon directly into the sun at the behest of the copyright owners, although they appear to have been rather forgiving of it so far so who knows?

So before I talk about the show proper, allow me a moment to confess something – I’ve never been to a show taping before. Not once. I have friends in London who probably go to show tapings all the time, probably using them to occupy themselves on otherwise uneventful evenings (“I’m bored, shall we go to see QI being filmed?” / “Oh, I suppose so.”) but I’d never been to one before. And, as a word of advice, I would suggest never going to a taping with me at all. Ever.

I’m not kidding. We parked the car an hour earlier at 1:50pm knowing (or rather, believing) that we had to be at the studio by 2pm and that we’d parked at a shopping center a good fifteen-minute walk away, and I was pretty vocal about about how worried I was that we wouldn’t make it and get turned away.

As it was we didn’t get let in until 3:30pm, so we spent a fair bit of time in the line with other fans of Craig Ferguson and Doctor Who alike. I like to think I fall into both camps. Americans make a big deal out of Conan O’Brien, and certainly Conan is an interesting and slightly bizarre late-night talk show host, but Craig always comes across as far more genuine than his contemporaries. He seems more interested in just having a good time and enjoying himself. I can’t fault that.

However it became clear that rather a few people who had come to the taping were there just for Matt Smith, and there was concern from the production team that there would be too many Doctor Who fans and not enough fans of Mr. Ferguson. It was not an invalidated worry – the sheer number of fezzes, scarves and Sonic Screwdrivers in line was very clear, and while a couple of people had come dressed as the Doctor (one Eleven and, oddly, one Four) almost nobody had come dressed as Craig Ferguson. It was a concern.

All four of the people in my group were toting Sonic Screwdrivers, and Ray wore a fez and a bow tie. For this reason we were the first to be pulled aside by production assistants and told, in no uncertain terms, that if we didn’t drop the Who crap we wouldn’t be let in. That’s not to say they weren’t friendly about it – they wanted us to get in, but the Producers were apparently shitting their pants. Fair dos – Ray lost the bow tie and the fez, we stowed our Sonics away in Michelle’s purse, and we were allowed to return to our place in line. Which was nice.

Oddly the cosplayers managed to get in without a fuss.

I’ll skip the boring part where I bumped into my friend Jay’s girlfriend Bronwen, who works for CBS and bumped Helen and I up to kick-ass seats, and start talking about the show itself.

Blimey, that studio is small. It seats 105 people, and the stage itself is probably no bigger than a decent-sized living room. It looks a lot bigger on TV thanks to clever set dressing and camera work.

The monologue and the cold open were filmed in reverse order. This is probably because they want a fantastic audience reaction when Craig steps out onto the set to give his monologue. Secondly, the cold open was supposed to feature a fantastic song-and-dance number using Orbital’s Doctor Who theme remix with lyrics written and performed by Craig, but they didn’t get clearance to use the track and so nobody outside of the production team will ever see that dance number.

Except for those of us in the audience, of course, who got to see a recording of the dress rehearsal. Not much I can tell you about it other than that it was remarkably well-choreographed and that the lyrics explained the basic premise of the Doctor Who and some information on its broadcast history. It was rather clever, truth be told, and it’s a shame that it never made it to the show proper. Here’s hoping it leaks some point soon.

So with a Who-themed night, it’s no surprise that the regular Email Twitter Attack segment featured almost exclusively emails and tweets about Doctor Who. Chris Hardwick was a lot funnier than I thought he’d be as well, owing to the fact that he’s actually a huge Doctor Who fan and drew on that for a lot of his jokes. So there we are.

Before long it was the defining moment, the reason most of the 105-strong audience had turned up for today’s shooting – the interview with Matt Smith. Now if you’ve already watched the show you’ll be thinking to yourself, “Blimey (or possibly Goddamn if I’m American), that’s a short, oddly-edited clip from “Vampires in Venice” that they used there.” You may be interested to know that they actually showed a fair bit more of that scene to the audience, starting from about the point when the Doctor turns around to see the vampires and ending with him running up the stairs (no library card moment, but we did get to see the full “Tell me the whole plan!” moment as opposed to just the “One day that’ll work” line as seen in the broadcast version of the show). In terms of showing an American audience how fantastic Doctor Who can be they made a rather odd editing choice and consequently I don’t think American TV audiences will be able to see what all the fuss is about. “Doctor Who? Isn’t that the show about the guy who thinks women are Christmas?”

Sitting in the room watching Matt Smith chat with Craig is an odd experience, especially when compared to the later interview they recorded the same day with Jeff Goldblum (which you can watch here, and then here). Matt still gives the impression of someone who still isn’t used to the idea of self-promotion, of sitting down and just being himself. It’s fascinating to watch, and it’ll be interested to compare to how he interviews in a few years’ time. Compare now, instead, to Jeff Goldblum and his comfort joking around with and even touching Craig. In fact Matt puts me in mind of my friend Chaz, who none of you know and so the comparison is lost on you. Huzzah!

The interview did yield at least one potentially interesting piece of news – at least it’s interesting to me, having not heard Matt Smith talk about it before: how long he intends to play the Doctor. Matt revealed that he was definitely doing another year of the show, and “maybe” another year after that. Is he stepping down? Are we going to lose the Eleventh Doctor at the end of series 6, or will he stay on for a seventh series? Or an eighth? Who knows! It’s all very exciting stuff.

Finally, after the show had finished filming, everybody in the audience got a free copy of Doctor Who series five on DVD for their troubles. Hoorah! Then Ray bought the four of us dinner at Chipotle. Hoorah! Then we went home and watched “Death of the Doctor” before falling asleep because both Helen and I’d only had three hours’ sleep the previous night. Hoorah!

That’s more or less it. Huge thanks to Ray and Michelle for getting us tickets, and to Bronwen for getting us great seats in the audience, and to Craig Ferguson for being one of the most unique and entertaining late night chat show hosts in the US, and certainly better than the tripe that appears on British telly. Against all reason (and certainly showing a disdain for ratings) he’s dedicated much of this entire week to Doctor Who and to British television as a whole. I can’t think of another chat show host in the States who would do that, and I can’t think of another network that would let him.

I can’t slap it up here – unfortunately my posting privileges here at URP! don’t allow me to embed YouTube videos – but you can click this link and check it out for yourself. It’s pretty bloody spectacular.

The first two episodes will be filmed in part in Utah, forming two parts of a single story (opening the series with a two-parter, eh? A bit cheeky, that). Oh, and Alex Kingston is in ‘em as River Song. Lovely.

Meanwhile Amazon US is still using the artwork I showed you, so it’s possible that American audiences will wind up with that along with their slimmer packaging.

I live in LA now, and I had been importing my Doctor Who DVDs from the UK (I still do with the classic stuff so that my collection looks uniform on the shelf). Doctor Who: The Complete Specials was the first set I’d bought from the US. If BBC America doesn’t use the cover Blogtor Who have shown us then I’ll be left with little choice but to import from the UK. Or something.

Probably the biggest name in the list is Jane Espenson, which is a name that fans of Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica will probably recognise. That’s a pretty big deal, there.

Joining Fay and Espenson are John Shiban (The X-Files, Smallville, Breaking Bad) and Doris Egan (Smallville, Dark Angel, House). Pretty meaty, I’d say. Not a bad spread for the ten-part series. Indications seem to point towards “Torchwood International” being a series-long story a la Children of Earth rather than the “monster of the week” format we had for the show’s first two series. Which is good, because those first two series are mostly shit.