Actually, 1st season of the new series had the third episode as a historical piece that has a seemingly supernatural issue to solve (Dickens and The Unquiet Dead ). The second episode was The End of the World, which would by definition be the opposite of a historical piece.

And yes, knowing this makes me a nerd, thank you very much. :p

In that run, the Doctor was bombastic, loudmouthed, bossy, and cranky half of the time, and Peri was receptive, frequently yelled at, and quick to admit her flaws once pointed out by The Doctor.

In the current series, it's Donna who is bombastic, loudmouthed, bossy and cranky, and the Doctor who is being yelled at, is receptive, and who is quick to admit his own flaws once pointed out by Donna.

It's almost like it's an intentional role-reversal. Donna is essentially the 6th Doctor of Companions.

I like her. NOBODY here can convince me she's worse than Mickey, Mel, or that twat that hung out with the Doctor for two episodes a couple years back, only to be dumped by the Doctor because he couldn't obey orders and tried to exploit alien technology for his own ends. I do believe he's the only companion to be legitimately sacked by the Doctor.

And Mickey was just a toss-face.

what a laugh.

what a sad country the USA is.

But any gripe about this episode is a very minor one, because this was the best Who episode ince BLINK. Absolutely fantastic, great plot, some good dialogue, in involving plot, and a dark centre to it revealing how dire the dilemmas facing a Time Lord can actually be. It'll be interesting to see how Donna reacts to these moral dilemmas as the season progresses - but no complaints if they're all as great as this one. Fantastic!

Which is another way of saying, she is the next companion. Even her character arc in Blink set her up as someone who was primed and ready for companionship. She's a no-bullshit gal, who already had a taste of the weird and the fucking-terrifying world of the Doctor.

Russell T. Davies..... of course, thanks for bringing the show back.... however, what the hell? Why go through all the trouble to do so, and then cast Tate, instead of an perfect, pre-established character, like the brilliant Sally Sparrow?

And in last weeks episode, when Miss Foster-(mother) was speaking at the presentation in the opening scenes, did anyone notice that in her close ups, the words 'Adipose InDUSTries' were cropped in the frame, to reveal the simple word.... DUST.

Is Russell Davies truly hiding this series 'Bad-Wolf' / 'Vote Saxon' 'buzzword' from us? Could it be DUST?.... Or am I the sort of person who sees Venom in the eyes of the Spidey 3 poster, and was it really worth learning Japanese, just so I could read the back of the Cloverfield photographs?

Infact, thats exactly the rumour that I heard a while back... not heard anything since though.

And please... if Davros IS in this series, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't reboot him, or re-model him, or re-style him, or re-imagine him, or any other shit-kicking idea. Davros is Davros. He's great, hes terrifying, hes just fine how he is. Leave him the fuck alone. And you better get that voice right, or I'll find you, Russell.. I will.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't the last time we saw Davros in 'Remembrance'? Didn't the hand of Omega get sent to Skaro, and destroy it? or something? And didn't Davros escape in a pod? I don't know.. its been a while.

like this

The TARDIS is NOT a hologram or a hologram generator, although it DOES have a holographic generator which has been used to generate a hologram of the Doctor in the new series. The exterior can change but is REAL and not a projection. According to the "Operating Theory" of the TARDIS (Google it) they say...

The main doorway between the outside and inside is a natural portal existing between the interior and exterior worlds, maintained by the dimensional integrator circuitry. The only way the interior of the ship could be destroyed is by exposure to a very large blast of energy; this could be caused by a very serious disruption in the fabric of space-time, for example, two TARDISes colliding during flight.

Now I'm old, but I clearly remember them talking about the TARDIS interior is NOT in the same place as the exterior. That's why the police box can be lifted and moved about. When it looked like an Organ, it was no heavier than an actual organ. When the Master's TARDIS looked like a column it could be moved about, etc. And while this series of shows has been too cheap, or too pressed on time to show other rooms of the TARDIS (except when picking out outfits) It's wicked huge and is somewhere else.

Why would you move a big huge ship around when you could just move the portal, or words to that effect have been said in the past.

FLAME ON!

and I laughed because it's true.

And Seph_J's idea of an Eccleston regenteration as the final shot has given me a boner...

Come on RTD, let's be 'avin some!

Download some old Twilight Zone episodes... they are always good for the classes. Scary, but not too scary. My kids love em.

My little chinky lady thinks Doctor Who is silly, because she doesn't understand it....but she loves Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and she also loves Spielberg's Amazing Stories.

Whats with the Marta Love? To be honest, I'm fairly young, but I'd still choose Sarah Jane over any of the new companions....

Sally Sparrow would be the best though...

So how do YOU keep up with the DW episodes then? Where do you get them?

Let's see....

See!!!

I can't stand her "comedy". I think she's about as funny as a tax demand. To make matters worse I despised the Runaway Dog, and was less than thrilled at last week's effort.

However, this week- with a couple of notable estuary english screaches aside- she was a vast improvement on the previous week.

It seems strange that my most dreaded thing about the new series has got better by the week.

And it isn't because I'm intimidated by funny women. Where did this bollocks come from?

But hey, we chose to stay...

I

I personally like explaining to people that the CCP is just like a big company, trying to be successful, and make as much money for its shareholders as possible. The fair treatment and rights of the people of China isn't priority. And then they say "yeh, you would think that, your foreign - and we've been told thats the sort of thing you believe.. because YOUR Government doesn't like China, so its lies about the CCP".

At which point its very VERY hard to attempt to dissuade people from that idea.

I have taught a number of Chinese the word 'Motive' recently. As in... "what MOTIVE does the Goverment have for lying to you... many. What motive do I have for lying to you... none... Think about that"

Seems to have made a few people question the government.

If you are even looking for a headache, pick a random person, and try to convince them that Li HongZhi is NOT the son of satan.... trust me, it'll do your head in. Then try to get them to BELIEVE that he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize!! They will laugh at you.

Likewise with the Dalai Lama. If you can get ONE person to believe that 1) he isn't a terrorist, and 2) he WON a nobel peace prize... I'll send you 100 yuan in the post!

hang in there buddy

In most peoples minds, they are one and the same. Slag the CCP off, and they take it personally. I have spent DAYS of my life trying to seperate these two entities in the minds of the people around me. Trying to make them understand that EVERYTHING CAN'T BE PERFECT. THERE MUST BE PROBLEMS. Why cant you admit that, then deal with the problems... and then become a GENUINELY great country. Rather then denying everything bad about the place.

God its good to get this off my chest. Especially in a DR WHO talkback.

Err, I suppose I better say something about Dr Who. Err... wow, so... err.. Captain Jack is the face of Boe... Think that'll be dealt with at any point?

Whatever floats your boat, but I'm just bored of the character.

Oh, and yonder Priapic fellow - agree re: Peri, the assis-tit-ant from way back. Hubba hubba.

And Tegan, too. Brassy Aussie birds with big norks - gotta love 'em.

Bet she's never short of a jar of mayonnaise.

I was sort of hoping that the cult-women were going to chop that growth on her face off that has been bugging me.

"I ain't playing doctors and nurses with you, you fucking queer", and "Sonic fucking screwdriver? Bet you use that when you get lonely, you raging bum-boy".

Of course I love Doctor Who, but at least this would put an end to RTD over-homo-izing my beloved Dr Who.

The whole program is now camp.... and it never used to be... at least, not intentionally. Now its INTENTIONAL as all hell, and it shows.

The irony is, on C4 many years ago, there used to be a sketch show featuring the 'GAY-DALEKS'... where they used to run round shouting 'EX-SPERM-INATE'!

I used to laugh.

But hell, i'll take a 'slightly-gay-yet-not-always-i n-a-subtle-way' doctor who over NO doctor who.

Isn't it odd that it seems to be the navel-contemplating liberal intellectuallists - the very ones straining to be seen as smart, open-minded, and absolutely dedicated to pursuing the ruthless forcing of political correctness upon EVERYONE whether they want it or not - who keep coming up with this absolute fucking bollocks? How do you freaks even KNOW that a Tater, by extension, hates every other female comedian? How does RTD, in the interview in last month's SFX, even KNOW that everyone was going to hate Tate because she's a "successful female comedian"? Yes, Tate has been OK in some drama, but by and large, her "comedy" consists of bellowing and shouting. So does the humour of Johnny Vegas, but you don't see HIM being lauded as the next great serious actor of the year.

Tater haters, drop this fucking politically correct bullshit, for the love of all that does not suck! You CAN actually hate Tate because she's a bellowing Cockney fishwife, NOT because you suffer from some intrinsic fear of successful wimmin blah blah blah. Not all of us suffer from some post-Imperialist middle class white guilt complex that makes people who were not remotely responsible for anything the British Empire did suddenly feel ashamed of their own race. THAT is the root of this sickness that is political correctness, and its result is that the white, rich upper-class majority of the British Government now loathe themselves and everything they think they stand for, and the rest of us are going to pay for it.

FUCK political correctness. Call me a misogynist for not being a Tate fan, and I'll call you the kind of twat who ends up giving England away to the non-English, the kind off person who puts the indigenous Anglo-Saxon English to the back of the queue so some hands-out illegal immigrants who arrived on the back of the Eurostar last month can have the benefits before someone like me who has worked in this country and paid their taxes for over twenty years. Get off your fucking hetero-hating, misogynist-seeking race-obssessed sex-obssessed white-working-class-Caucasian hating high horse and rejoin the human fucking race. In other words, get off the cross, honey - someone needs the wood. Fucking amateur sociologists.

*Caveat - Yes this rant is mainly aimed at the psuedo-intellectual political correction thought Nazis of the UK, but hey - feel free to apply it the good ol' US too.

I mean, how many hot chicks in Hollywood have Gay Best Friends? They feel SAFE around gay men!

OMG - The Doctor is GAY!!!

(I watched some classic John Candy last night. Great, great times :D)

Anyone fucking dumb enough to believe the above, shoot yourselves in the head. Repeatedly, if necessary. Especially Smashing, and his unreconstructed martyr complexes (you know - the ones where the evil straight white men ruined everything for everyone and only the poor, oppressed homosexual non-whites of the world have any intrinsic worth).

What time is this ep going out on Saturday? Are we going to get this gory moment on telly?

Plus, things are shit at the moment, the Government (as usual) are falling over themselves to help the minorities and the immigrants way before the indigenous such as myself (as usual) so, yes, I feel a little sensitive at the moment. I'd just like the courtesy of being taken at face value when I say I don't like Tate's humour. Sometimes a dislike of gobby Cockney fishwife humour is just a dislike of gobby Cockney fishwife humour. It's nothing to do with a fear of successful women or a need to work out blah blah blah this week's PC bullshit. As for the top of the heap hetty white boy position - worry about losing it? We lost it when Blair came into power. If you're British, you'll already know this - if not, apologies for the history of new Labour politics, but this is the way it REALLY is.

But back to Who - what do you think about this Ood upcoming ep? Gonna be good, bad or indifferent? I'm going to keep my expectations nice and low, so I'll enjoy it whatever, but I'm not sure it's going to be as good as POMPEII, which will, I'm sure, be one of S4's highlights.

I see a lot of gay fear here. Some of you seem to hate ANYTHING the show does, because RTD is associated with it, and you know he's gay. I'd bet you wouldn't say jack-shit about it if RTD were in the closet.

I also see a lot of teeth-gnashing about the choice of picking working-class Britons as companions. I'm a yank, so I don't know the class structure in the U.K. right now, but as an actor I know dialects well enough to know that some Britons seem judge each other on their particular dialect, and apparently some people get a lot of hate just for being from a particular region or economic background.

I suppose it's no different than the way we regard rednecks, hicks, hillbillies, white trash, trailer trash, and white kids who act "ghetto" in the States, but still, Donna and Rose were CHARACTERS in a show, and yet I keep seeing lots of hate for the chavs they portray.

That would be like Americans hating "My Name is Earl" because it's a show all about white trash characters. The ACTORS aren't white trash. They're playing roles. We get that-- Why don't you Brits?

Honestly, from an outsider's point of view, Billie Piper's dialect is kind of charming and quaint. That proper BBC English is more of a turn-off! It's so plain. I like the regional and class-based dialects of your country.

I'm Welsh in heritage, though, so you'll probably not take my word for much.

So far, Martha's my choice. She's hot in every way. I do happen to prefer Black women, and when a Black woman is speaking U.K. English, it's an incredible turn-on. When she has an ass like that, there's no contest. She makes Billie Piper look like Catherine Tate.

Not that Tate's horrible. She's passable. She's got nice cans, anyway, and she's a redhead which is apparently more attractive to Americans than it is to some Britons. She's loud, though-- I'll give you that. She comes off rather shrewish.

Before Martha came along, my favorite companion was Ace. It's a shame her story was never followed-up on, because she was interesting, and Sophie Aldred was quite cute, and also happened to have a lovely ass.

Jackie Tyler was pretty hot, too. We don't get much of that actress over here in the States-- She's been in a few things, but when trying to explain who she is to a fellow Yank, I have to reference "King Ralph", which was not exactly an A-list film.

I kind of wish the Doctor would take a non-Brit companion again. He keeps grabbing women from the U.K. and flying off with them--- And you call him gay? --- and the only American he ever took (well, American-sounding, anyway) was Captain Jack.

The companion is necessary. They're a proxy for the audience. The Doctor without a companion would be pretty quiet, because he'd have no one to explain things to-- He'd just do the job and get gone.

But to my title-- I did not like Adam, even before he turned out to be a rotten little git. I NEVER liked Mickey. Not when he was the whiny boyfriend, and not when he was the freedom fighter. He always came across as a toss-face, whinging loser. I'm sure the actor's an OK fellow (I liked him on The Weakest Link) but Mickey, the character, was annoying as hell.

I will note, however, that they need to stop calling Martha the Doctor's first Black companion. Mickey beat her by a couple years.

Anyway, I know there were Yanks in the past. Even though they were played by Brits, and they tended to overdo the American accent a bit. (I used to enjoy Nicola's version of American English. She was good, but she enunciated too much sometimes.)

And on the Spud/Smashing debate, yes minorities are being carried somewhat in the country, and I can't help but feel they MUST be laughing at us. But the alternative is a racist and uneducated approach, such as in China... where people genuinely think that if you are black, then you MUST be selling drugs... or if you are white, then of course you are disgustingly promiscious, and have 10 girlfriends. And its a really unconfortable place to live for anyone. They even have MASSIVE prejudices against people from other provinces.

What we are doing by placing the importance of these 'minorities' above that of our own peoples, is encouraging people to resent them. Which is gonna end up the same anyway. I'm a tolerant guy... and the UK is a VERY tolerant place, but when I think back to that incident where that play that was being shown in Birmingham was cancelled due to the protests of some 'minority' Sikhs, I get very very angry.

VERY angry indeed.

And you wouldn't like me when I'm angry...

Cos i'll gather a bunch of my mates, storm down to the theater, destroy loads of shit, and demand that your countries freedom to write and perform drama, be stopped immediately!

THATS going too far. THATS when the people of the UK need to become decidedly LESS tolerant.

Peri's Tits were the actual companions, NOT Perpugilliam Brown, simply her tits.

'Tis true, occasionally, the Spud occasionally has a sense of humour failure (though you have to give me the Uncle Buck references!). It's just that when these talkbacks degrade into "you hate RTD 'cos he's gay" or "you hate Tate 'cos she's a woman and a successful one!", that's not proper criticism, that's hiding behind political correctness to hide what you really think of me. You think I've got you wrong? I probably have: we've never met, I've no idea what you're like as a person, and I'd never guess you were ex-Forces unless you told me (I do understand the old boys thing: I went to private school, Assisted Places scheme, and a lot of the rich snotty bastards ended up in Sandhurst, all manifestly unable to do the job of an NCO, but in there anyway thanks to the Old Boys Network). There's a lot about you I'd never guess unless you told me. But what I DO have to go on are your comments, and even allowing for you being sensitive to comments against RTD being gay because, for all I know, you're gay and have suffered some persecution because of it, and that's one of the buttons in you that's easy to push. But it seems this state of affairs has blinded you to the possibility that some of us are against RTD's writing purely because it's clunky. It's telling that the first time Capt Jack appeared was in a Moffat script, and the fact that he's gay wasn't ignored, but neither was it made an issue of - he flirts, the Doctor puts him back in line - eyebrows may have been raised, but essentially it's part of the plot, it's organic, it's real. Contrasted with the old ladies in GRIDLOCK - which, cu