[Editors' note: Yes, we were (separately) away from our computers all weekend, and FORGOT to set up the Broadcast Discussion post in advance. Sorry. Seb will be along with a "Day of the Moon" review later in the week, but in the meantime, leave it to Julian to pop up once again and pick up the slack with the following post. It's INTERESTING. It's also massively spoilery, of course.]

The gripping conclusion to the opening story of Series Six leaves us loyal viewers with far more questions than answers. A stock take is clearly in order, and so we present Unlimited Rice Pudding’s scorecard of the issues that matter. And a few that don’t.

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It feels like sacrilege, really. Attempting to review “The Impossible Astronaut” on only one viewing seems somehow inappropriate. On the other hand, however, it’s quite possible that even a dozen viewings would leave one under-equipped to convey the full impact of the next stage in the evolution of Doctor Who as a television programme.

Setting aside the TV movie, the train that leads from “Survival” to “Rose”, via a decade of original, mature-readership novels, is clear. The faster storytelling of the last few seasons of McCoy is built upon, and the increased emotional complexity of the companion character made the linchpin of the series, not a welcome bonus. The key element is the re-use of a chance inclusion, with something very similar to Ace’s Perivale council estate retained to provide a permanent and identifiable backdrop to the Doctor’s more outlandish exploits.

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This’ll probably be quite good then, what?

You know how this works by now. Thread for all your comments/discussion below, and then a Proper Review in a couple of days’ time. GO.

As we gear up for what promises to be one of Doctor Who‘s most exciting series, it’s hard for things not to be overshadowed by the absence of two of the programme’s dearest friends.

We posted a brief tribute to Nicholas Courtney after his passing earlier this year, but the untimely death of Elisabeth Sladen has shaken us even further. Others have paid tribute in far more elegant and correct fashion than we could hope to, so all I can really add is that she, along with Nicholas, will be sorely missed. That she was able to become a hero to countless children across the country entirely independently of her appearances in Who itself is testament to what a brilliant, lively, wonderful and inspiring figure she was. It’s arguable that she has had a greater impact on Doctor Who than any actor outside of its lead eleven, and she has been taken from us far too soon.

Elisabeth Sladen 1946-2011
The Doctor’s best friend – and all of ours, too

And so the dance begins again. With the launch of a new series of Who a matter of weeks away, suddenly we’ve been hit by all manner of promotional images, blurbs, video clips and so on – making the urge to sit and figure out what it all means an irresistible one. It’s often a futile game, and there’s an argument – one that I’m sort of coming around to – that it’s better off just to keep away from the forums, the set reports and the endless fan-fictiony predictions of what the plots might be that litter Gallifrey Base around this time of year, and instead just sit back and enjoy the episodes as they come. It’s especially pertinent when it comes to Moffat, who’s already shown a singular inclination towards wrong-footing the viewers, and building complex and misleading plots that can’t be pieced together simply by people standing watching location filming with a camera phone.

Nevertheless, it can be fun, particularly if you lay down various predictions about what things mean and they turn out to be utterly, utterly wrong. With that in mind, I’m laying on the table everything that I think is the case about the first seven episodes of the series, and I fully expect to be proven wrong on most of them. But to enjoy being proven wrong and having my expectations confounded. Because there’s only one prediction that really matters, and that we all know will come true: MoffatWho is going to be bloody spectacular.

Note of course that after the jump there will be spoilers – nothing much that hasn’t been seen in trailers, mind (if I end up getting anything right, I assure you it’s a lucky guess), but if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing you might want to avoid reading any further. And I’m also aware that the opening two-parter has now been seen in its entirety by a number of people – so please, if you happen to be one of those people, don’t spoil the game by giving away anything that’s either right or wrong out of the below. With that in mind, and with a healthy pinch of salt at the ready, let’s see what we think we know…

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Okay, I’m officially pooing myself, now.

So, as I’m sure you’re aware, last night a brief teaser trailer for The Impossible Astronaut aired across the various BBC channels at 9pm. If you haven’t already seen it, head on over to the main site now. Not much to see, right?

Well, er, wrong. Because there were actually two different versions. And depending on what channel you were watching – and even, it seems, what region you were in – you may have seen one or the other.

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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.

Really not very much more than can be said about this at the moment. RIP Brigadier Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart.

Nicholas Courtney 1929-2011

Tomorrow is the opening day of Gallifrey One, one of the biggest Doctor Who conventions in the US, and this reporter (ha! – Ed.) will be there, phone and camera in tow, documenting the event for all seven of you. I’m just nice like that. I’ll be tweeting from the event, assuming I can get a signal, using the official URP! Twitter account, which almost never gets used for anything else, although a word of warning: I imagine I’ll be saying “fuck” on occasion.

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.

With the rights for Paul McGann’s only televised outing as the Doctor split between the BBC, Fox and Universal, it seemed like the TV movie would never see a release in the US, meaning Americans had to either import from the UK or snag a bootleg copy (which exist in abundance, by the way – I’ve seen more than my fair share at events like Comic-Con).

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.