Hello everyone. Been a while, eh? Well, the intent of this site was always to be active when the show was running, and kinda dormant when it wasn’t, so I suppose this is the first time we’ll find out whether the experiment’s worked – i.e. if people come flooding back to chat Who with us now that it’s ON TELLY AGAIN.

So, yes. Merry Christmas Eve, and in honour of the festive occasion, and the Eleventh Doctor returning to our screens, I thought I’d get in early with the discussion post – so, feel free to post your hopes and thoughts and speculation about the episode in the buildup, and comment on it during (if you really are sitting there on Christmas Day with your laptop in front of the telly) and afterwards. But remember, if you’ve read about the episode or even seen it at the recent screening, please don’t post any spoilers/details until the episode has aired.

Well, I said it would happen, although to be fair that’s because Craig Ferguson hinted at it enough – the recorded rehearsal of the Doctor Who theme dance number that was originally going to open The Late Late Show‘s Doctor Who episode has finally found its way onto the internet:

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.

Fans on forums that pretending that the reason they want to buy this boxset:

… is because they’ve been waiting ages for a Sil figure.

Also born on this day: Miley Cyrus, Zoe Ball, Ross Brawn, Joe (Parting of the Ways) Ahearne, Kelly Brook and Billy the Kid.

On Tuesday Matt Smith appeared as a guest on American late-night chat show The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and Yours Truly was lucky enough to be in the audience. It didn’t occur to me to actually write about it until I mentioned it to some of the other URP!ers, at which point I’m sure they all tried to reach across the Atlantic and throttle me to death with their bare hands. Or something.

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…

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As you’re doubtless aware, Doctor Who has a longstanding association with Children in Need (ah, who can forget… actually wait, no, that’s better). The link with tonight’s edition of the annual telethon is that the opening of this year’s Christmas special (we never got round to mentioning the news of its title, did we? Oh well, it’s called A Christmas Carol, in case for some baffling reason we’re the only Doctor Who outlet you ever read) will be shown (as with The Next Doctor two years ago); but there’s something else that I thought was worth flagging up.

Writer of the IDW comics series, Tony Lee, is selling his own copies of issues #1-16 of the series (the entire Tennant run – the Smith comics kick off early next year with a brand new #1), all signed with a personal message to the winning bidder. Tony is a massive supporter of Children in Need himself, for reasons outlined on his blog, and this gesture is particularly apt given the existing link between CiN and Who. As it happens, if you’ve never read them, the IDW comics are pretty darned good – and the single issues are generally quite tricky to get in the UK (though the auction is open to anyone, Tony will ship ‘em worldwide), so this is well worth a look, and it is – of course – in a good cause to boot.

Incidentally, I was pondering sitting and liveblogging CiN – including the Who segment – for your pleasure tonight. But I’ll probably just end up playing Pro Evo instead. We’ll see what I feel like when I get home.

Yes, alright, slightly slow on posting these – but if you haven’t yet bought the series five boxset (or you don’t want to out of general principle based on the addition of a fucking stupid animated BBC logo to the opening titles), you may well want to watch the two Meanwhile In The TARDIS insert scenes. Just two little extra pieces, written by Moffat, that bridge the gaps between eps one and two, and then eps five and six. They are, of course, utterly wonderful – and each involves Moffat being far more fanboy than one suspects he’d ever be allowed to be in the main show…

Thanks to Hendiadys for sticking the links in comments DAYS ago.

Have two people ever enjoyed quite such diverse career trajectories in such a small space of time?

Well, isn’t this odd. Matt Smith isn’t the only one getting a new coat this year – apparently the Eighth Doctor has a brand new costume. He’s got a big shiny naval jacket with brass buttons, and – er – a bag. Oh, and a new sonic screwdriver that’s sort of a bit like the Eleventh’s, but with more wood involved. Lookiesee:

There are two ways of looking at this, really. The first is that they’re finally tired of using all the fourteen-year-old publicity pictures of McGann for the Big Finish covers, and wanted to take some fresh ones to more accurately reflect how he looks now – and at the same time, he decided that he didn’t want to wear (or couldn’t fit into) the old costume, and if they were changing it anyway, they might as well take the chance to be a bit more drastic with it.

The second is that they’re finally tired of using all the fourteen-year-old publicity pictures of McGann for the Big Finish covers, and wanted to take some fresh ones to more accurately reflect how he looks now – and at the same time, he decided that he didn’t want to wear (or couldn’t fit into) the old costume, and if they were changing it anyway, they might as well take the chance to be a bit more drastic with it and also the Eighth Doctor is going to appear in New Who in a new costume at some point.

I’ll leave it up to you to decide which you think is more likely.

In Between Men, her seminal study of homophobia in history and literature, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick posited a phenomenon which she called ‘homosexual panic’. According to Sedgwick, homophobia is an offshoot of sexism, since keeping women subordinate means rigidly separating heterosexual marriage from the homosocial relationships (male friendships) required on a daily basis in the running of government, in gentleman’s clubs, in public schools and so forth – institutions from which women were omitted, to be confined to the home which is deemed their proper sphere. As long as men are defined in relation to women the power of the male hierarchy will always depend on women being defined as subordinate (and upon the perpetuation of the myth that their subordination is not a construction, but an innate feature of their biological nature). Such a system is totally upset when men are seen to be just as good as women for the purposes of certain social roles – such as love making, or life companions. Society is policed through the collective making a pariah of anything beyond the proper bounds of behaviour as collectively conceived. Hence, homophobia, which polices the proper parameters of what it means to have a relationship with a male or female acquaintance.

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