So it’s Easter, then

20th February 2010 • Blog Post by Seb Patrick •

And the trailer is basically an animated version of that promo pic.

So:

– Nice to hear Smith’s Doctor speak a bit more, and Amy for the first time as well.
– That Dalek didn’t look noticeably different, but that could just be for the trailer considering what we (well, some of us) know about Victory.
– That is a Silurian, isn’t it?
– Don’t like that music, hope it’s only for the trailer and not representative of the new score.
– Also not sure I like the idea of the TV trailer being the same as the 3D cinema one, since it clearly loses something by not being viewed in 3D – it’s entirely geared towards it. Nice vortex, though.
– As a trailer, I’m not sure it did a huge amount to heighten anticipation – really, its purpose seems to be just to make the non-fans aware that there even is a new series coming soon. The lack of actual footage from the show was somewhat disappointing, as nice as the scene with them lying on the grass was. Still, though…
– OH GOD WHY HAVE WE GOT TO WAIT UNTIL EASTER?

Seb Patrick once met Paul McGann, who immediately pretended to be Mark McGann. He writes for Den of Geek, BBC America, Film4 and the official Red Dwarf website, among others. He owns over thirty toy Daleks and wishes the Dapol factory tour was still open.

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18 Responses

  1. Smith’s inflection seemed a bit off on occasion. And I couldn’t decide whether Gillan was speaking with a Scottish accent or not.

  2. I agree with Michael about Smith’s inflection. It seemed off at times, and I can’t tell whether I didn’t like it, or whether it’s just alien in a good way that I’ve yet to settle into. “All of time and space, everywhere and anywhere, every star there ever was. Where do you want to start?” That line, with words that ought to have sent shivers down my spine, for some reason felt odd when Smith said them. And I didn’t connect with the way he appeared suddenly out of breath after saying the last words, either. I want to feel it was alien in an intriguing way, but it actually seemed more like poor editing than anything else. I wonder whether this is actually a shortened version of what will be shown in cinemas.

    Too little to go on. Insofar as I feel disappointed I think it’s just because I was really looking forward to the trailer for several days.

  3. I like that name- I’m keeping it for a little bit.

    We were told in advance that the trailer as broadcast this Saturday would be forty seconds, and sure enough, the version on iPlayer is longer, at over a minute. The extra-stuff appears to be primarily designed to be viewed in 3D, as I’m certain that the lingering bullet-time shots of Smith & Gillen weren’t in the BBC1 version. On this basis, I’d say that putting it out on the channel was a mistake. It’s clearly going to look brilliant in 3D, but on standard-def TV, the effect is lost.

    Oh, and that’s a Sea Devil. The third eye is missing.

  4. Loved the music and the visuals. And I love that it really *doesn’t* feel like RTD Who – it’s got a whole different tone. But two things:

    a) Surely the Doctor “Who” joke has been overused by now?

    b) Matt Smith just isn’t convincing me. Which is an admittedly a completely fucking ludicrous thing to say when we’ve only seen two trails, and I’m sure I’ll be begging on my knees for forgiveness come the first episode. Wish he’d just immediately grabbed me, though.

  5. Smith did come across a bit ropey, but then it’s worth remembering that it took Tennant nearly a whole series to find his stride. It took Eccleston a few episodes before he really reached his best too.

    This won’t be a series without its faults, but like John I’m glad that it doesn’t feel like RTD-Who and that alone is kind of exciting.

    Also ginger girl, sco whilst staring up at the stars.

    Somekind of Gregory’s Girl reference surely?

  6. a) Surely the Doctor “Who” joke has been overused by now?

    Is there a list somewhere of all the occasions characters have done this? A part of me would take glee in putting one together, but nowadays I couldn’t justify spending the time. In any case, I suspect that it hasn’t happened as often as we feel. In my memory the last occasion was The Christmas Invasion, with Jackie Tyler saying it, which would make it four years since then – a long long time in the mind and imagination of a young child.

    I think it’s great to have somebody say it every now and then. History repeats – people meet the Doctor for the first time and say “Doctor Who?” This question (not necessarily the asking of it) is why the show is called what it is, and its repetition over the decades is as beautiful in my opinion as the many different ways people can enter the TARDIS and wonder how it can be bigger on the inside than the outside.

    More than what any producer can make of the show over a number of series, Doctor Who has become so special because we’ve all aged with it, and because it allows us a space to reflect on this aging. For a child four years is aaages, and when we’re old enough to see it repeating a certain number of times, it might seem like this corny “Doctor Who?” gag has been wheeled out once too often. But in another way, this repeated joke is a reiteration of an unchanging “new” perspective on the Doctor and his world. It can’t go away completely – that’s the point. You’d have to change the name of the programme if it did.

    At the same time, securing our relationship to this “newness” we have characters like Lethbridge-Stewart, and Sarah Jane Smith, aging in (our) real time as the Doctor moves on to new things without them. They have their own perspectives on the newer companions, and their own views of the relatively timeless Doctor and their adventures with him. And we connect with their position of aging (kind of like Beckett’s Krapp) when we notice our relationship to things in the show that seem to be staying the same, and other things that seem to be changing. It’s wonderful.

  7. That was something I quite liked about Love & Monsters, actually: “He’s called The Doctor.” “Doctor What?”

  8. I liked that too, because “Doctor Who” sounds somehow archaic, and maybe always did. Maybe this is why it rubs some people up the wrong way. It’s a moment of serendipity whenever somebody happens to say the name of the programme itself, so once every four or five years is probably as often as they could get away with it. I also don’t consider it fourth-wall breaking when it happens, which helps I think.

    I can’t remember which story or decade this was, but one of the most clunky attempts was: “Doctor? What Doctor? Doctor Who?”

  9. > Is there a list somewhere of all the occasions characters have done this?

    Moffat’s a repeat offender is he not?

  10. After watching it a few more times, I’m actually really warming to the trailer. I really like the music but mostly I really like how Matt sounds. The delivery is really odd but it’s great.

    It’s just a shame the dialogue was mixed badly and it looks a bit ropey, really.

  11. >mostly I really like how Matt sounds

    GOOD. I was starting to think I was the only one.

    Unlimited Rice Pudding! – being CORRECT since 2010.

  12. > GOOD. I was starting to think I was the only one.

    Matt has been getting a lot of positive comments on the way he sounds and look on a couple of non-Ming Mong forums, I’ve noticed. I think he’s going to be very popular indeed.

  13. I think he’s going to be very popular indeed.

    I hope you are right. The best things take time to grow on you, and I’m hoping people’s initial uncertainties with Smith just come down to that. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Leisure Hive lot will ever turn around their current view that all new Who is predestined to be shit. I have agreed with them in the past about certain aspects of RTD’s era, but they’re too depressing for me now.