So, Doctor Who is coming back VERY SOON. This Saturday, to be precise. Naturally, this means Unlimited Rice Pudding! will be waking up from its usual series-not-broadcasting slumber, so get ready for all kinds of nonsense and chatter as of next weekend. You have been warned.
See you at 7.10pm on the 27th, yes?
(Oh, and if you fancy doing an episode review this series, get in touch. We might give you the Tom MacRae one or something.)

Okay, here’s the thing. We managed to not have someone tapped in advance to review “The Almost People” – and those who might have been available to do so are simply too busy this week to fit it in. Furthermore, when the episode aired, it became apparent that it was among the most “more of the same” episodes (the last few minutes aside, which we’ll come to) that there’s been. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – I quite liked part one, and I quite liked part two, as well – but it does mean that there’s very little new to say about the ep that wasn’t already covered by Ben’s review of “The Rebel Flesh“.

And besides which, let’s be honest – that closing couple of minutes made it difficult to want to think about the preceding forty, because they made us all entirely obsessed and preoccupied with thinking about “A Good Man Goes To War” instead, didn’t they?

So, the short version is: we won’t be reviewing “The Almost People” (although there’s a vague consensus that it was “pretty good”, depending on whether you liked the first). But feel free to continue yammering about it in the broadcast discussion thread, or if you want to yammer here about your thoughts/theories/speculation regarding the mid-series finale, you can do that as well. And we’ll be back on Saturday, natch.

Well, hello.

So, naturally, we went quiet again. It was always meant to be this way, really – in an ideal world, there’d be enough of us with enough time to make URP! an ongoing concern, all-year round. But really, this place is here for us to talk about the series while it’s going on (and in the buildup and immediate aftermath), but we don’t really have the time/inclination to turn it into a full-on news/discussion site for the rest of the year (apart from the odd time when it strikes us to write about something). If you’re fine with this, then so are we.

But! Doctor Who is coming back! Very soon! We don’t have a definite date, but it’s reckoned to be the Easter weekend – so probably Saturday 23rd April – which is also confirmed as the US broadcast date for the still-untitled Episode One. So now that it’s nearly back, I thought it was about time to start kicking the site back into gear. As we get closer, we’ll start to actually report and comment on any news or speculation that comes out, and we may even do some general features to take advantage of a hopeful resurgence of interest/readership. Won’t that be exciting? And as well, if anyone reading would like to join our lovely team, do get in touch.

Oh, and sorry we didn’t review “A Christmas Carol”, but none of us could really think of anything to say about it. It wasn’t bad, like, but nor was it particularly memorable. So, yeah.

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.

Wait, that doesn’t work.

Anyway. Hello. We’ve finally got around to spotting the setting on the WordPress dashboard that means we can allow user registration for our readers. So, er, we’ve allowed it. It’s not that big a deal, but should you sign up it’ll save you having to fill your name in each time you comment, and also means you’ll have protected access to your chosen posting name, and so on. And you can probably set an avatar or something, although everyone’s probably already got those spooky Gravatar things that FOLLOW YOU AROUND THE ENTIRE INTERNET no matter where you sign up.

We’re not making registration compulsory in order to comment, or anything, it just makes things a bit easier if you’re here all the bloody time anyway. So if you fancy registering… get to it!

For those of you with a passing interest in The Beautiful Game will know that today’s FA Cup semi final between Aston Villa and Chelsea is kicking off at the odd time of 5pm.  So, just late enough to cross into Doctor Who‘s territory, then.  Shamefully, I’ll be chosing the football over Who (I’M GOING TO WEMBLEY, actually) but I suspect anyone in the same position as me will be time-shifting Who, so the overall ratings should take no major hit.

This weeks episode certainly looks like a cracker, and if you want to whet your stupid appetite then you could do much worse than having a look at these preview clips.  The words “feel”, “like”, “McCoy” and “era” leap instantly to mind, which certainly bodes well for our Scouse in Chief.  Be sure to talk incessantly about what you thought of the episode in the comments, and we’ll have a review up for you at some point during the week.

By the way, by reading this post you have automatically agreed to its Terms & Conditions, stating that Chealsea are cunts and Aston Villa are the greatest football team the world has ever seen.  Just so you know, like.

It may not have failed to escape your notice that, although our friends in the Colonies as a whole generally tend to treat Doctor Who with the sort of indifference that a Chris Chibnall script is greeted by, there’s nevertheless a bally great big convention going on over there this weekend, with a fair few attendees who are actually, you know, relevant and exciting and whatnot.

Your trusty Unlimited Rice Pudding! editors are, of course, not in attendance. But we do have a roving reporter on the scene. Mr Ben Paddon, who – just like Hugh Laurie, Philip Segal and Torchwood – originally sprung from these fair isles but decided he’d be much better off in California, will be floating around (not literally, that would be hideous) all weekend. We’ll hopefully get some updates from him on the site itself, but in the meantime, we’ve also granted him access to our Twitter account (are you following us yet? If not, why not? Do we have to remind you to do everything?), from which he’ll be posting throughout the weekend using the #gally hashtag. Which makes me think of a ship’s kitchen, frankly, but apparently it’s the popular choice. Those crazy Septics.

Slower… slower! Concentrate on one thing… one thing.

Shoes… must find my shoes.

I tell you, Brigadier: there’s nothing to worry about.

Ah, you’ve come to help me find the Zero Room.

You were expecting someone else?

That was a nice nap… now down to business.

Who am I?

Run!

Hello… ooh. New teeth. That’s weird.

Legs! I’ve still got legs!