SERIES 6 IS GOING TO BE SPLIT IN HALF AND PARTLY AIR IN SPRING AND PARTLY IN AUTUMN, WAH.
The split transmission is the result of a request from Steven Moffat to write a new Doctor Who story arc which involves a big plot twist in the middle of the series. By splitting the series Moffat plans to give viewers one of the most exciting Doctor Who cliffhangers and plot twists ever, leaving them waiting, on the edge of their seats, until the autumn to find out what happens.
Massive plot twist, eh? Unannounced regeneration, perhaps? I FUCKING WELL HOPE NOT.

Yes, alright, another post about toys. But I think it’s taken about two and a half years to do it – since the release of the first three Classic Doctors – and it’s a damned fine feeling to actually see all eleven together like this.

I still refuse to join the consensus that says the introduction of five differently-coloured new-design Daleks were simply a cynical ploy by the BBC (presumably egged on by Character Options) to sell more toys.

… but it’s working on me.

HELLO EVERYONE.

As you may have noticed, it’s got a little quiet around here lately. That’s hardly surprising – this site was originally set up largely so that a group of people who discussed Doctor Who over on another site whenever the show was on could have some place a bit more focused and dedicated to do so. So it was always to be expected that without new episodes being broadcast (or much in the way of buildup/excitement to talk about) things would die down for a bit.

Nevertheless, things have gone quite well here since the launch (in terms of reader figures and comment threads), and rather than leaving things stagnant until the build-up to the Christmas special and hopefully re-attracting your attention all over again then, we’d quite like to keep the momentum going as much as we can even in the off-season. But we don’t necessarily have the time/energy to expend on writing loads of stuff or keeping up with news tidbits (although there will still be some non-new-series content, reviews etc., on the way at some point).

So, I’m opening up the floor: if you’ve got something you’d like to write about Doctor Who, any aspect of it (old, new, TV series, books, audios, toys, comics – anything), then feel free to do so, and send it to me. Could be an opinion piece, an analytical essay, a review, anything. If I like the look of it, it’ll go on the site as a guest post – and if things work out we might even invite you to become a regular contributor and give you the chance to post reviews up while the new series is running. I can’t guarantee everything will get published, but there are lots of areas of Who that we don’t really cover yet, so if you have something new to offer and you can write half-competently, chances are you’ll be useful to us. So if you’ve anything to offer, drop me a line and we’ll see about using it.

Well. Well, well, well. I suggest you watch this.

You don’t have to be an expert in subtly reading body language and hidden meaning to make the assumption that Cumberbatch is referring to the fact that he’s likely as not going to be appearing in more than one episode of Doctor Who at some point in the future. Unless you’re going to believe The Sun’s rumour-mongering about Matt Smith leaving after next year (and I’m choosing to stick my fingers in my ears and go LAA LAA LAAAA about that on), there’s only one safe conclusion to draw: he’s playing The Master.

Or possibly Omega.

Or whoever else is behind The Silence.

But probably The Master.

So, filming for El Chrimbo Speciale has finally begun, and courtesy of the ever-reliable “alun vega” on Flickr (is this a special account set up of a variety of scoopers to use, does anyone know? Or is it really just one person that takes every good filming picture ever?), we can see that the Doctor has got a SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT NEW OUTFIT:

I loves me the time travel, is the thing.

It’s not the reason I originally got into Doctor Who – at least, I don’t think so. At the tender age I was when a Dalek chased Sylvester McCoy up some stairs, I wasn’t yet as hung up on the notion of time travel fiction as I’d later become. But the story possibilities offered by a central character that can hop around time are almost certainly among the reasons I’ve stuck around all these years. And it’s not something that I’m necessarily sure that RTD – for all the strengths of his run – shared. It’s true that the words that persuaded Rose to join the Doctor in the TARDIS were “It also travels in time”, but for Russell, the time travel was still more about the places (just places in the past and future) that could be visited. But considering that a number of my favourite films have words like “Back”, “Future”, “Bill” and “Ted” in their titles, it’s clear that what I like about a time travel story is the chance to play with the sequential – to wit, the sort of story in which a single changed event can create an alternate timeline, or the sort in which a character can influence their own present by pledging to use time travel to set up the past retrospectively.

And it’s clear from “The Big Bang” that Moffat – who’s always enjoyed playing with narrative order in shows that didn’t hand him the keys to a time machine – is a bit of a fan of that sort of thing as well.

I can’t have been the only person excitedly looking forward to this. One of the best – if not the best – console rooms the TARDIS has ever had, lovingly rendered in 5-inch-figure-scale form by Character Options, who did such a great job creating a wonderful playset for the last one (I came so close to buying the thing, but sadly was living with a Who-hating ex at the time and couldn’t justify the living room space).

Yes, I’m looking at you, Digital Spy and IO9.

This is the “story” it is originally sourced from. It is obvious to ANYONE with a functioning brain that it is COMPLETE AND UTTER FICTION. So stop bloody giving it currency by repeating the once/twice-removed versions (I’ve seen a number of places quoting IO9 already, even though IO9 got it from Tor who got it from Pub Articles) without checking where it came from! It’s BULLSHIT.

(I’m not saying the movie isn’t happening, or anything. But this story, which purports to contain actual quotations from RTD and Depp, is a complete fabrication, and if you can’t tell that simply from reading it, you’re a MORON.)

Well, Series Fnarg is over. And we’ll have plenty of comment to come – we’ve still got reviews of both eps 12 and 13 (as it happens, a wedding – yes, on 26.06.10 – got in the way of Capps doing “Pandorica”, and I’ll do “Big Bang” once that one’s clear) to post, but as well as that we’ll also do a big old retrospective of the series as a whole, and how the episodes stand up in context, and that sort of thing.

In the meantime, though, there’s one thing that surely everybody with any sense can agree on – Matt Smith was fucking brilliant. Not just “the Eleventh Doctor”. Not just “the new Doctor”. Simply… the Doctor. Effortlessly, wonderfully so. And in reflecting on just how perfect he turned out to be in the role (and from his first moments onscreen, to boot), thoughts naturally turned to how we reacted to his casting back when it was first announced.