And I think the odds of the Tenth Doctor regenerating into the Eleventh at the end of Series Four just went up, especially with a title like "Journey's End" and appearances by all of the companions from the RTD era in the series finale.

I just hope this change in creative personnel...combined with his time off...convinces David Tennant to stay around a bit longer. I'm not ready for another regeneration just yet. David Tennant is my all-time favorite Doctor (followed by Jon Pertwee) and with Moffat running the show and Tennant fully rested, I think we could be in for some of the most glorious and astounding WHO's ever.

this is very good news!

And let the anti-gay commentators begin their victory dance!

As for Torchwood, I also read they are dumbing down the series for kids. BIG mistake. I also heard Capt. Jack would not be returning. Also a BIG mistake if true. Isn't it bad enough they killed off some of the main cast? I don't need another Sarah Jane adventures. One is enough.

It's surprising to suddenly see all the RTD loving in this TB but it's all true I suppose. If it wasn't for RTD, we might not even have a fifth season of Doctor Who. He made some mis-steps, wrote some mediocre episodes but overall did a great job as a showrunner and brought in some great writers and actors to help him out. Plus, it was his decision to cast Tennant who is now my favourite Doctor.

BRING BACK TEGAN! (Grrr!)

So, respect and thanks to Russell the T for doing what he did - bringing it visually bang up to date and making it a global smash hit - and all the best for his future. And so...

ALL HAIL GRAND STEVE MOFFAT - AND LONG MAY HE REIGN OVER THE WHO!!!!!

Personally I thought Jekyll rocked the house! It was dark and amazing, and I wanted it to go on for another three series.

So fingers crossed here, let's just hope the changes are small and intelligent ones.

And I absolutely hated the bit in that final episode when The Doctor became a special effect. Absolute nonsense.

Bring it on!

BUT, I can't wait for Moffett. The man just rules all he writes.

I think Tate's doing a fine job.

Props to RTD. I love his work, even if I don't always love his writing. He brought WHO back, and that deserves high praise indeed.

I share many of the common complaints RTD's Who, but there have been some pretty good episodes. Loved Mike (the cool one) as a Sontaran general last week.

Best news in ages.

I've no idea who's in the running for the next doc, but I'd be surprised if they went older than 35.

And finally who cares what he has to say? It's not his call to make. It's obviously Tennant's, who is clearly INCREDIBLY popular with the fans. In fact, I'm willing to bet that the change-over might actually be something that reinvigorates Tennant's enthusiasm and makes him want to stay. Not to mention, he's an actor...he knows the score about getting good, solid, steady work...so I'm willing to bet Tennant is also smart enough to know a good thing when it's sitting right in his lap. Given sydication and DVD royalities and whatnot, this is his golden ticket for possibly securing financial freedom for him and his loved ones for life.

So I agree with something that someone said earlier: everyone should quit trying to push Tennant out the door, as if we need a regeneration to go with a new showrunner. CASTING hasn't been the problem, the WRITING was. So now that that problem has taken a giant step upwards, I hope Tennant stays and DOES break the record!

SARAH JANE (looking at K-9): What about you? Where do you fit in the picture?

MICKEY: I'm their man in Havana. I'm the technical support. I'm...oh my God. I'm the Tin Dog.

Then again, TORCHWOOD did piss me off big time last season. Frankly, I'm not a Gwen fan at all (I don't get the fan love for her at all), and I would have been FAR happier if they had bumped her off and kept the babealicious Toshiko around instead.

And finally, it's one thing to lighten the show up a little bit, but if they make TORCHWOOD more "family friendly" in the vein of the SARAH JANE ADVENTURES I'll stop watching. Sorry, but I just find SJA way too juvenile, to the point that it's almost painful to watch at times...

Good fucking riddance to the gurning twat and I hope he never darkens the telly again.

Ding dong, the Frog is dead ;D

I was wrong about Torchwood, by the way, the best thing about the end of Torchwood was that it was the end of Torchwood.

Anyway, he did a terrific job, and Stephen Moffat is possibly an even better writer, though I was not 100% convinced by Jekyll (that could have been the appalling direction, though). Yay for Moffat, and yay for more Who!

1. Tennant stays on after being rested next year and reinvigorated by Moffat's appointment.

2. That Moffat builds upon the RTD framework, improving where nessacary, but not changing everything. (To see a little more of the rest of the Tardis would be cool).

3. Bring back Sally Sparrow, if not as a companion then as a recurring character.

Thank you RTD for everything you've done and here's looking forward to many more years of Who.

... Nothing Davies has done has been anyway near as camp as Jon Pertwee in his velvet and lace doing "Venusian Karate" or ANY Timelord in his lovely frock...

... there have always been boys snogging other boys behind the sofa, Davies didn't "invent" *that*... he was just one of them, the legions of gay Doctor fans... drawn to the so-called "gay sensibilities" (whatever the hell THAT means, imagination? creativity? intellect as opposed to bloody-mindedness?) that the show purportedly presents...

... one could arguably even state that gay men helped keep the show on the air for decades... and that the cancellation was due in part to homophobic reaction...

I'm afraid that the mere fact that Davies is gay opens the show up to idiotic responses of it being "too gay" somehow, when he in fact toned down the campness considerably from the original series...

...other than that, he has acknowledged the existence of gays on the show, for some I suppose THAT is "too gay"... but in fact there has yet to be a major gay character at all...

Even the great Jack/Ianto affair on Torchwood is watered down by Jack's obsessive pining over Gwen, and Ianto's previous betrayal of the team for a Cyberwoman. I must actually agree with the homophobic twats who keep complaining "does everybody have to be bi on Torchwood?" can't we have someone who is actually gay?

... Finally to well and truly piss off the reaction-formation types on this TB, I now begin the campaign for Graham Norton as the eleventh Doctor...

Now I must go out tonight with my mates to get pissed out of our minds so we can have bloody street fights with Chelsea fans...

1)There was nothing homophobic about the decision to cancel Who. The BBC is suspicious of Sci-fi and that is at the root of cancellation.

2)He hasn't only acknowledged the existance of gays, he has pushed a homosexual agenda- the lesbian couple in Gridlocked being a prime example, or the blatantly unsubtle metaphor in the kylie Christmas special. To make any assertion to the contrary is to ignore the obvious.

3) can we not have a character in Torchwood that doesn't want to fuck everything regardless of species, let alone gender. Gay or Straight, I don't care- just mono rather than pan-sexual.

Good luck in your campaign, to retaliate I am going to start a "butt-naked woman for Dr" campaign.

You flame gay people as Spud does with the same tired old rhetoric, we are militant if we defend ourselves, we are twats if we act like we think we are equals, you wanna know what it reveals?, it reveals your a sad old twat yourself, firing blank comments and I'm sure other things as impotent rage consumes you.

Fucking cockknocker.

Your very base assumptions about queers are riddled with elitist and mocking rage and I ain't listening to your spewed thoughts anymore.

Go push your own heterosexual agenda of ignorance and general ladies fannyness onto people all you see fit but stop here and now telling me you can put yourself into my mindset or even attempt to speak for me you tiny, insignificant, no doubt fat little tosser.

If you look above I didn't mention the gay agenda at all. I did make a snide dig at Crazy Frog, and I did say that I thought it was great news. I didn't comment on it until I responded to Prof's ludicrous assertion that there was some anti-gay mafia that stamped out Dr Who.

In fact, in the past the only time I did mention it was when you were making your snide "breeders" comments. The only people I've ever heard use the expression "Breeders" are the most obnoxious militant gay twats around. You have marked your own card.

I would never dream of trying to talk for someone else, especially not someone with a completely different mindset to mine.

Hysterically, I love the fact that you think "your" so much above me when really you are nothing more than a nasty, bigoted closed minded individual that hides his true nature behind a blanket of political correctness. I

Call me a wanker, or petty or whatever I don't give a fuck (this is Talkbaaaaaaack, after al), but don't come on all superior. You don't have it in you.

... what appalled me about that was that on New Bloody Earth millions of years into the future an "old-fashioned cat" still can't bring himself to admit it.

...As for the Kylie thing... sorry the metaphor wasn't unsubtle enough for me, so I don't know what you're on about...

unless the mere presence of Kylie alone makes the show part of this "agenda"...

... as for me I haven't been "militant" in years... that's the sort of phase one goes through after first coming out...

... then you have to march in every parade and have rainbows on all your gear... you'll sort that all out when you finally find your "lost" self...

... as for a woman doctor didn't Joanna Lumley already do that?

Is it Civil Unions that is upsetting you so much? Is that what you mean by "agenda"?

Oh, I never said an "anti-gay mafia stamped out Doctor Who" ...

I said "It COULD be argued... that the cancellation was due IN PART to homophobic reaction"

Without stating it as absolute fact, I was putting forward the possibility that Michael Grade's abhorrence to the show MAY have, IN PART been to its being perceived as a camp panto fit for nobody but children and poofters.

It's great to hear we've got Who till at least 2010 for sure. And beyond.......?

I don't understand the persecution complex put forth by the likes of Smashing, but of course I am never going to, I just find it extremely odd that he throws around the bigoted language and then calls anyone else prejudiced. It's daft.

My objection to the gay stuff is not that it exists (I liked Queer as Folk), but that I think Who is the wrong place for it. I also think that if RTD put as much effort into plotting as he did into drawing clever analogies then the sonic screwdriver as get out of jail free card would be used a lot less.

I also don't give a fuck if same-sex couples marry. Good on them- commitment should be encouraged.

I'm a misanthropist not a homophobe.

http://tinyurl.com/5wwf8s

I don't need a complex to know that.

You at least attempted to answer my first question about what "less gay" is supposed to mean, although I do not see how Davies' Doctor Who is any more or less gay than any other show today.

I would still like to know exactly what this "agenda" is though...

... it could just as easily be applied to racism or anti-semitism or anything else...

... stretch it enough and you could make anything fit ... oh, I suppose the Ood are supposed to represent persecuted gays because they all seem to be of one gender?

Persecution complex= Smashing: "Each week you flame the same tired, cliched anti gay bullshit and gussy it up as a pseudo intellectual standpoint, go fuck yourself, I'm done typing to you as an equal, your quite simply beneath me.

You flame gay people as Spud does with the same tired old rhetoric, we are militant if we defend ourselves, we are twats if we act like we think we are equals, you wanna know what it reveals?, it reveals your a sad old twat yourself, firing blank comments and I'm sure other things as impotent rage consumes you.

Fucking cockknocker.

Your very base assumptions about queers are riddled with elitist and mocking rage and I ain't listening to your spewed thoughts anymore.

Go push your own heterosexual agenda of ignorance and general ladies fannyness onto people all you see fit but stop here and now telling me you can put yourself into my mindset or even attempt to speak for me you tiny, insignificant, no doubt fat little tosser."

Can you be fat and tiny? It's only just occured to me.

In all seriousness, Smashing's belief that gay people are being persecuted and must "defend" themselves on these boards is just plain daft. It doesn't matter how many times we can reasonably say things like "It isn't just Gay, I don't want any relationship shit on who" without him throwing his dummy out of the pram and using phrases like "breeder". When I pointed out that using bigotry like that was out of order (I don't refer to people like that- I'd call them a cunt), he then gave me a tirade about being in the closet.

I never thought of that about the ood- You've just given my simple little nazi mind some more ammo!

...and if there were no "relationship shit" on Doctor Who at all...

...then you'd have a series about a man who dresses up a lot... who hangs out mostly with girls, but isn't interested in shagging any of them... "just friends".

heh, funny.

I could live without the latter.

Tennant less so, but still more than any pre-Davies Doctor.

And Davies also changed the Doctor from "a man who hangs out mostly with girls, but isn't interested in shagging any of them" to a confident heterosexual who has feelings for women - not without all sorts of problems and complications of course, but it was a first for the show anyway (outside of a couple of computer adverts with Romana, and the Curse of Fatal Death, that is...)

Would an episode in the Time War not be cool?

It isn't the Doctor Himself as gay Icon- although now you mention it, I never even thought of it (goes to show that watching things when young makes you less cynical)- And I understand what you mean about Tennant and Especially Eccleston being less closeted than previously.

But really, he's a FUCKING Timelord- he should be miles beyond that sort of thing, and if you can see all of time and space would you not be confident?

... over the past five decades we have seen Timelords who have gone mad, who have been petty, who have been silly, who have not been "above" anything... and several of them have been the Doctor!

... perhaps the reason for regeneration is that if a Timelord did possess ALL of the facets of his/her being at once... in one incarnation... they really would be God?

... and I think the Time War is coming... we've been building up to this for too long... but Davies will not likely be the one to bring it to us.

... and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Moffat's Doctor might turn out to be a bit "gayer" than Davies' !

and I don't care if he's a bit gayer- just lets have a more adult programme. It can't hurt. can it?

...you either type very fast without proofreading, or English is not your first language...

... this is not meant as an attack, it's just that sometimes I have to read your posts several times to decipher them...

IF thats what you call not mentioning it I stand by calling you a hypocrite.

Go Who I guess, though I hope its not a catching TV trend.

I am really excited to see what Moffat does with the show, though I hope the show does not become colder too much, remember when Colin Baker took over and seemed angry with the companions a lot, I did not like that. I suspect a much scarier/adult tone and maybe Sally Sparrow will return and make a million talkbackers happy.

I would have no issue with that as long as her sexy bf came along too, hairy shoulders and all.

As for the chemestry between Baker and Ward back in 1980, of course there was. They were dating at the time.-----later-----m

If he's over 900 years old - and I've heard Jarv bring up this point more than once - wouldn't he, quite possibly, have got a bit fucking BORED with sex of one kind or another? There's a famous hetero proverb* regarding relationships - "Wherever there's a sexy woman, there's a man tired of fucking her" - which means that no matter how long you're with someone, or how long you're in the market for one-night stands or whatever, at some point you'll get bored. If you love your partner and want to stay with them, you'll flip the boredom on its head by trying to spice things up. Maybe you'll allow other partners in, or have an "open" relationship. Maybe you split up and go your separate ways.

After 900 years, maybe you just don't give a shit any more. Maybe you've fucked EVERYTHING in the universe that there is to fuck (so far). Maybe by that point, your intellect is more interested in being stimulated than your libido. People in this day and age live perfectly satisfactory lives as celibates, or wait until marriage, or just don't care as and when it happens. I happen to think the Doctor isn't interested because he's just outgrown that stuff. If it's possible to outgrow it in a human lifetime (ask any monk, nun or celibate if they're bothered about not having sex - there are as many answers to that as there are celibate people out there), it's almost certainly possible for a Time Lord just to be piss bored with sex by now. And if almost every human female who travels with you fawns over you in that same boring moon-eyed way, you'd get irritated by it.

Why does there have to be sex in EVERYTHING? Once upon a time, and not many of those who read and post here will want to fucking admit this to themselves, but once upon a time sci-fi was the preserve of those too socially awkward and too shy / scared / bullied / frightened of life / unschooled in society's "rules" / different to blend in with the mainstream. It was all we (yes, I count myself in there) had, and it kept us going, kept some of us from doing something really fucking stupid. Now the mainstream gets a hold of something like Who, and suddenly it has to have a sexual agenda - gay / straight / fucking whatever - because suddenly "cool" people vfrom the non-sci-fi mainstream like it, and suddenly sci-fi has to be fucking soap opera-fied, has to have "ooh who's fucking who" oozing from every pore. In my humble opinion, those fucking pinheads who spend all their time while watching LOST wondering whether Kate will end up with Jack or Sawyer, or sit watching BSG wondering if Adam will ever fuck Roslin or not - those mental midgets are completely MISSING THE FUCKING POINT!!! What makes LOST different are all the SF issues about that damn weird island; the central issue with BSG is the survival of the human race, and what that means in so many different ways. The soap opera bullshit is crowbarred in there nowadays becuase the fucking casual non-SF viewers demand some silly bollocks like that to make the SF palatable to them. As a result, the old-school SF fans get unhealthy dollops of soap opera right in their favourite genre shows that (a) they didn't want in the first place and (b) stick out like a sore fucking thumb because they DON'T FIT THE GENRE!

Is sex ever right in SF? Of course: FARSCAPE handles sexual tension very well; BUFFY, DS9, LEXX all handled non-hetero relationships well. WHO did not - and as far as TORCHWOOD is concerned, it doesn't seem to be possible to hold down a monogamous gay relationship without fucking everyone else as well. I've given up trying to figure out why the gay community has no problem with this overwhelmingly negative portrayal of gay relationships - does this mean gays CAN'T be monogamous? Not in SF shows on the Beeb right now, NO! - and I just fucking despair right now. WHO was primarily a history show with SF overtones and a set of cool characters aimed at people who weren't fucking interested in sex at that age. In these "enlightened" times, where 7-year olds wear tops that say FUTURE PORN STAR on them, I'm not surprised about the fact that sex is crowbarred into shows that are plainly aimed at an audience too fucking young to need this kind of complication - gay OR straight. Dr Who was never about sex - it was about SF: space ships, SF concepts, morals, ethics, battles, aliens, monsters, and in the middle, a pacifist hero who never excluded anybody. He managed this BECAUSE he was asexual - it FUCKING WORKED FOR THAT CHARACTER!

Now RTD is obsessed with getting all the fucking HEAT readers and Paris-Hilton-wirshipping twats watching his pet show, all his episodes are full of references to stuff that has fuck-all to do with SF and everything to do with him, his interests and his lifestyle. None of which were written into the character of the Doctor up to the end of his reign in 1989, so why the fuck should they be now?

End rant. Smashing, Prof, bring it on.

*Must be a hetero proverb - I read it in PLAYBOY!!!

I have them posted, but I am loathe to self link twice in one talkback. But hey, the eve Myles naked photo was worth it, no?

Would be a blast.

Not hypocrisy, lazy writing on my behalf.

Sorry.

Phillip Glennister (guy from Life On Mars)? I'm easy, as long as it's not a pretty boy under 25 with jack experience.

Although - they DID get Moffat in. Maybe not because of the fans, but...

There's hope. A tiny, sparkling glimmer of hope...

A Time War prequel is not needed. However, I'm all for it if another Time War happens..