DW: Day of the Doctor

It's been almost a year since I last posted about that time traveling (television) genius, Doctor Who! And although the last segment of episodes earlier this year were...well, acceptable, but not the greatest...I have very high hopes for the special 50th anniversary episode premiering on November 23rd! After all, it brings back Dr. David Tennant and reportedly many of the other earlier Doctors in a segment that celebrates 50 years of this British sci-fi show. John Hurt returns too as...well, I guess he's another future incarnation of the Doctor? I'm confused. But, I must say, I'm also rather excited, even if I have little idea what's actually happening in the episode, although Queen Elizabeth I makes another appearance in mid-1500s England, and the Daleks get to scream "Exterminate!" as they take great pride in doing. We do know that Dr. Matt Smith is leaving the show and Peter Cabaldi is stepping in as more-mature Doctor #12, so I wonder if this upcoming episode will actually be Smith's last one, that he will regenerate into the newest Doctor at the end, as has happened in previous incarnations. In any case, the good news is that we won't have to wait too long to find out. And to whet your appetite, here's a teaser of what's coming. And can I say again...Dr. David is back!!! I really do think he was awesome.

DW: Christmas 2012

There's nothing more delightfully Dickensian than a Victorian-themed Christmas. Throw in The Doctor, some aliens in Victorian clothing, man-eating snowman creatures, and what a fun-filled Christmas it will be! Yes, clips for the upcoming annual Doctor Who Christmas special have been released, and it looks like great fun. (Here's last year's post.) We see some familiar alien faces, and the first episode with his new companion, pictured above. A Victorian girl who will be brought to the future? Rather clever, I must say. Below are two video clips: first, a brief prequel that picks up where we last saw The Doctor, mourning the loss of his companions the Ponds; second, the preview clip for the upcoming episode, also starring Richard E. Grant as the bad guy. Since I don't have official plans for Christmas yet, I'll be happy to curl up with some hot cocoa and watch this on BBC America.

DW: Farewell to the Ponds

Last night was the mid-season finale for Doctor Who with the episode "The Angels Take Manhattan." Most notably, this episode was the last in which the Doctor's devoted companions for the past few seasons, Amy Pond and and her faithful husband Rory Williams, ended their time with the Doctor in a rather sad, time-traveling farewell, which also happened to take place in 1930s NYC. Having chased aliens through multiple galaxies, traveled millions of years through time, meeting their child as an adult upon giving birth to her (really great episode!), and restarting the universe with a another mirror-image big bang (don't ask, you had to watch it), the Ponds have entered a new dimension of past companions in Doctor Who lore. And what better alien creature to bring into this mess but the most frightening aliens they've ever had: the Weeping Angels (aka Lonely Assassins). The Angels "kill" by sending their victims back in time just by touching them, and then feed on the potential energy created by the vanished person's life. The best part is that they freeze when you look at them--they turn into statues!--so don't blink. Yes, what makes them so freaky is that any statue around you could be a Weeping Angel, and not just a figure in stone or bronze. So don't blink! Or they may touch you and send you back in time. (You know the art historian-studying-sculpture in me LOVES the Weeping Angels concept. Check out how creepy they are below!) Alas, I can't say the episode touched me as much as I had anticipated, but then again for me this whole version of Dr. Matt Smith hasn't compared to Dr. David Tennant, as I've noted before. Still, it's sad to see the Ponds go. We await the next Christmas special and season with a new companion.

Subway Shots 3

It's been a while since I've shared more of my Subway Shots, but I couldn't resist sharing these, which I took  with my iPhone tonight while riding home on the F train. We're used to seeing crazy things on the NYC subway, but I can say for a fact that this is the first time I've ever seen a walking 8-ft. tree! (She also made me think about Doctor Who, was definitely onto something with the eventual evolution of trees, most notably in the memorable heroine Jabe from the Forest of Cheem.)

DW: Christmas 2011

The trailer for the annual Doctor Who Christmas special has been released. Entitled The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, you can imagine that it definitely is taking as its inspiration C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but with an alien twist, I'm sure. It takes place during World War II, so the added historical element will make it an even more enjoyable Christmas, as last year's did, inspired by Charles Dickens but successfully mingling the futuristic with the past. From the new trailer, it looks like Amy and Rory are both absent from the episode, which is a refreshing change. It will be good to see Doctor Matt have his own adventure without having to rescue those two. Here's the trailer, but if YouTube breaks the link, you can view it here, or keep up with all things Doctor Who on their BBC America website.

DW: A Good Man Goes to War

Was it already 3 months ago that I last wrote about Doctor Who? I must say, so far the first 7 episodes of the 6th season have been a roller coaster ride of an adventure. One realizes now that last season, when Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Darvill were premiering their roles, they were just getting their feet wet. This season they have dived in headfirst and the season really has been great so far. The opening 2-part premiere with aliens all around us and the surprise opener with the Doctor's future death definitely knew how to get enthrall the viewer. But this latest episode, "A Good Man Goes to War," was simply fantastic. Steven Moffat gets major kudos for writing this episode. The Doctor, Rory, and a group of new heroes from the past and future, all of whom owe the Doctor favors, rush to save Amy Pond from the asteroid prison Demon's Run (seriously, ya gotta love this stuff!). You couldn't help but wonder about the backstories behind all of these new characters and their relationship to the Doctor (e.g. we now know how Jack the Ripper died). And then of course there is River Song. It was the plot twists that just made this episode one of the best written so far. I dare not reveal how it ended, but it packed a punch. Now, of course, we have the frustration of having to wait to see what happens next. The show has gone on hiatus and will return "late summer," whenever that will be.

DW in the USA

Doctor Whoovians (such as myself) are excited that Series 6 (the second season with Doctor Matt Smith) will be premiering in the US this coming April 23rd on BBC America. Companions Amelia "Amy" Pond, Rory, and the mysterious River Song all are returning as well. Little Britain fans will be titillated to know that David Walliams will be on an episode playing an alien, which should be great fun (Walliams also is an admitted Whoovian). The big news though is that much of the season is going to take place in the United States during various points in history, including the first episode which starts in Utah and winds up in Washington, D.C. That gives a new spin on things for Brits used to the Anglocentric plots in its nearly 50-year history. But of course it isn't the first time The Doctor has visited the US. In the new series alone, Doctor David visited NYC with Martha Jones during the construction of the Empire State Building in the late 1920s, with the Daleks turning New Yorkers into pig-faced mutant alien slaves. (Come on...ya gotta love this stuff!) In related news, I'm curious to see Matt Smith playing gay writer Christopher Isherwood in Christopher and His Kind, a British movie that is going right to DVD here in the US. (For those not in the know, Isherwood wrote The Berlin Stories, which became the basis for the musical Cabaret.) For now, however, we look forward to The Doctor and Amy Pond in about 4 weeks time. Here's the trailer for the new season: http://bcove.me/6ht2w0hq.

UPDATE 3/21/11: I had drinks & dinner with my friend and fellow Whoovian CW here in St. Petersburg tonight. Imagine my surprise when she presented me with my very own Doctor Who-inspired blue bow tie and button that shouts "Geronimo!" I now have my proper attire for the April 23rd premiere.

DW meets VVG - Part 2

You'll recall that on June 19 I posted about an upcoming episode of Doctor Who in which the Doctor and Amy meet Vincent van Gogh. I finally watched the episode in the wee early morning hours, courtesy of BBC America On Demand. It was actually one of the better episodes of the entire season, in part because they did strive for some sense of historical accuracy (despite the alien monster bit), even going so far as to pronounce his name throughout the episode in its Dutch-inflected guttural "Gogh," not "Go" as has become the custom around the English-speaking world. They even filmed segments of the episode in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, showing an imaginary special exhibition based around their wonderful holding of paintings by the artist. The pivotal picture in the episode, however, turned not to be Starry Night from 1889, but a less instantaneously recognized work which you see here, L'église d'Auvers-sur-Oise, vue du chevet (The Church of Auvers-sur-Oise, View of the Apse) from 1890, a picture that was one of my all-time favorites by Gogh when I visited the Orsay in 2006. I love the sinewy effect of the bifurcated road surrounding the gelatinous church, the shimmering effects of which make the building seem alive and thus a spiritual experience for the artist and viewer. In the episode, the Doctor and Amy discover in the painting a monster in the window of the church and realize something is wrong, so they hurry back to 1890 Provence where they are responsible for convincing a frustrated and melancholic Gogh to paint the church. Indeed, as the Doctor helps Gogh with his depression and encourages him to paint, he takes on the role played in historical fact by Doctor Gachet, who treated and befriended Gogh in the last year of his life. There are parts of the episode that are funny, like when Vincent proposes marriage and 12 children to Amy, and she ponders how all their children would have very red hair, but by and large it is a typical DW alien adventure story that, unfortunately, has a sad ending. After all, despite his artistic accomplishments, Gogh was troubled emotionally and did commit suicide, dying after a few days of intense suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1890. But according to DW, this happened only after the Doctor and Amy give Vincent a rare opportunity to realize the full potential of his art in a scene that is rather touching. There are some wonderful advantages to time travel after all.

DW meets VVG

I love it when my disparate areas of interest converge. When it comes to Doctor Who, this does happen on occasion. For instance, in the episode "Tooth and Claw," Doctor David and Rose go back to 19th-century England and have an adventure with Queen Victoria and werewolf-like aliens, during which Rose keeps trying to get the queen to say "We are not amused!", and HRH eventually establishes the Torchwood Institute for the protection of the British Empire from alien attacks. In the next new episode of the show, however, Doctor Matt and Amy head to 1889 Provence in which they meet Vincent van Gogh (whom, I might add, has never looked so beefy!). The artist is being hounded by an invisible monster-like alien. I must say, it's an interesting idea: it certainly offers us another explanation as to whether he was mentally unstable or not. The image you see above is a digital adaptation of van Gogh's famous painting (from the Museum of Modern Art) in which Terry Lightfoot has added in the upper right corner near the moon the Doctor's TARDIS (i.e. his time travel spaceship in the shape of a blue police box). The strange thing about all of this is that last year SVH actually sent me a magnet with the exact same image, although on the magnet the TARDIS is more in the center and larger. I cannot for the life of me find the magnet anywhere on the Internet, so I now suspect she traveled to the future and brought one back, probably in anticipation of this storyline. The episode aired on June 5 in the UK, but Americans will see its premiere next week. Alas, I'll have to wait even longer, but for a good reason. NV from Miami Beach will be staying with me while we celebrate NYC Gay Pride with friends.

DW: The Eleventh Hour

If I hadn't been so focused on studying for Orals this weekend, I probably would have succumbed to the temptation of watching the Doctor Who marathon today on BBC America. It was all part of the hype for the much-anticipated 9pm premiere of the new season with Matt Smith as the regenerated Doctor and Karen Gillan as his new companion Amy Pond. As bklynbiblio readers know, I'm a bit of a Doctor Who fanatic, and I was among those crushed by David Tennant's departure as the 10th Doctor (and by crushed I also mean my crush on Tennant himself). When I first heard about Matt Smith, I was uncertain what to expect. Gillan and he seem so young to me, I was convinced the producers were aiming for a new target audience that, alas, I was now passed in age. All that said, of course I sat down and watched the premiere episode tonight, and I was not disappointed. It had all the fast-paced action and quick wit that we've come to expect from the show. The producers have done a great job reinventing things a bit. Not only does the 11th Doctor have a nerdier academic wardrobe (bowties and suspenders!), but the TARDIS regenerated too and has a whole new look. Like Smith's Doctor, the TARDIS now has retro-flair, a 1950s futuristic gloss that I think will work well as a contrast to the previous, more biomorphic TARDIS. I admit it's going to be a challenge to get used to Smith as The Doctor, but I like feisty Amy Pond, so it should be an adventurous season. Sneak-peaks are showing the Daleks and the Weeping Angels will be making comebacks, so we're in for some exciting sci-fi TV!

Review: DW: The End of Time

New Year's: a time for endings and beginnings. This past Saturday, I was glued to my television watching the last two episodes of Doctor Who with David Tennant. It's so sad to see him going. He was undoubtedly the best Doctor ever. His charisma, brilliance, and good looking nerdiness made him absolutely charming in his neverending journey to save the universe. John Simm as The Master was frighteningly good in this episode as well. Although, all that said, I still find myself thinking that the episode wasn't as good as I would have hoped. I don't want to say I was disappointed, but I was confused at times by the storyline and maybe I was looking for a little more emotional punch. I think the biggest problem was being interrupted every 7 minutes with commercials, which was seriously annoying, so I will have to rewatch it on DVD when it's released next month. And it was emotional at times. With the entire television audience knowing he would die and regenerate at the end, it was not so much the ending as much as how we got there that counted. The round of farewells was well done (yay for The Doctor matchmaking Captain Jack with cutie sailor-boy Alonso!), but when Doctor David muttered "I don't want to go!" just before regenerating, it did tug at my heart a bit. (All right, yes, I am a sap for sentimentality, but only when it's over someone whom I really like.) Who knows what's going to happen when the new episodes return this year with Matt Smith. I'll try not to pass judgment before watching them. But it's hard. We want Doctor David back. Doctor Matt will have big shoes to fill.

In the spirit of endings and new beginnings, Happy New Year! I'm writing this post from a computer at school, since I'm still waiting for my new computer to arrive.

First Snowfall & Snowstorm: 2009-2010 Winter

A few minutes before 1pm today, I was walking to the laundromat when I noticed the first snowflakes of the season falling from the sky. In the suburbs they've had snow already, but this is our first snowfall for the season. The weathermen had been predicting that NYC was going to get a full snowstorm this weekend, which I think is always exciting because, for just a brief time, the City looks like it's covered in a beautiful, soft white blanket and becomes tranquil and still. Most of the afternoon, the snow was very light, so I didn't think much of it. I spent the evening drinking tea and watching the exciting new episode of Doctor Who (The Waters of Mars) on BBC America. When it was over, I figured I would shovel off our front stoop and sidewalk. Imagine my surprise when I saw that we had accumulated over 5 inches already and the snow was coming down quite heavily! (Yes, when you live in a brownstone without a superintendent, you have to do things like shovel your own walkway.) The picture you see above is a shot from the top of the stoop that I took with my digital camera about 10:30pm. The amber color is quite accurate; the streetlamps reflect off the snow and illuminate the sky with this lovely golden hue. But if you really want to get a sense of how hard the snow is coming down, check out the picture below, which is the same view but with the flash on. I'll have quite a bit of shoveling to do in the morning, I have no doubt! I only hope the airports will be back on track for when I fly on Monday morning (which, oddly enough, I was worried about last year too because it snowed right before I was leaving town).

DW: The End of Time, Part 1

I'm glad there are blogs like Anglophenia that keep me up-to-date on my favorite BBC America shows like Doctor Who. BBC has released a teaser for the first part of the final two-part episode in which David Tennant will appear as The Doctor. The episode is called "The End of Time" and from the clip below you'll see that the Ood play an important part of the story. In the picture above, that little globe thing in the Ood's hand is a communication device. And, if I may be so bold as to note that I guessed correctly, it looks like The Master (John Simm) will be returning for The Doctor's end! The next episode in the cycle, "The Waters of Mars," premieres on BBC America on December 19th, which I will be able to see. Part 1 of "The End of Time" premieres on December 26th. I just hope my father's cable system in Florida has BBC America by now, or I'm going to be seriously upset!

DW: The Waters of Mars

Imagine my pleasant surprise this morning when I discovered that BBC America was showing a marathon of episodes from the last few seasons of Doctor Who! I was seriously tempted to watch, even though I've seen them all already (some more than once), but since I had other things to do today I just switched on the TV every once and a while to see what episode was playing. It still strikes me how fantastic the show is. David Tennant really brings The Doctor to life (it helps that he's adorable to look at...great hair!). His co-stars are all superb as well. Tennant, sadly, is leaving as the 10th Doctor and they've been filming his last few episodes as specials that are being released over the course of this year and into next. After the recent Planet of the Dead episode (about which I wrote back in April), there are 3 left, and the next one coming soon is entitled The Waters of Mars. The new 11th Doctor, Matt Smith, will be premiering next year, probably in the very last Tennant episode when he regenerates. I've been a bit disturbed at how young he and his female co-star Karen Gillan look, as if the producers are targeting a younger generation of audience members, but I don't want to pass judgment yet. I think some of the best episodes are the ones when past companions return, and I have my suspicions that The Master, his longtime nemesis, will be part of the final episode, and that they will be bringing back the characters Donna Noble, Martha Jones, and Captain Jack Harkness. I'm also convinced that there's something about rings involved...the one on The Master's pyre, and then the one flashing on Donna's finger at the end...hm, we'll see... Speaking of Captain Jack and Torchwood, I was pretty shaken from the Children of Earth miniseries. Oddly, I was in the UK when it premiered in the US, so I watched it upon my return on DVD. It made for incredible sci-fi television, and I highly recommend it. There were moments when I was jumping in my seat it was so frightening, but I must confess that by the end of the fourth day, I was a bit of an emotional basket case after one of my favorite characters was killed. But one must move one, right? So we await the release of Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars. Rumor has that it will air in November. Here's a preview.

DW: PotD...Coming Soon!

The BBC has released the preview for the first episode of the new season of one of my all-time favorite shows, Doctor Who. Sadly, this will also be the last season for David Tennant (right), who plays The Doctor. According to his website, the first episode of the new season, entitled "Planet of the Dead," goes something like this (cue freaky space music): "When a London bus takes a detour to an alien world, the Doctor must join forces with the extraordinary Lady Christina, in this one-off seasonal special. But the mysterious planet holds terrifying secrets, hidden in the sand. And time is running out, as the deadly Swarm gets closer." The "one-off seasonal special" part means it's the first episode of the season and is meant to whet your appetite for the rest of the season, which will air over the course of the year. This episode is supposed to air in the UK over Easter weekend. The only question is...when the heck is it going to air in the US so I can watch it???!!! If only I had a TARDIS, I could jump two weeks into the future and visit my friend CC and her family in northern England, watch the episode with them, then jump back in time to now, and write a blog post about having seen the episode already! But I wouldn't want to ruin it for you, would I? Here's the preview for the episode (or click here to see it on YouTube).

Doctor David Tennant

Oy! Such a tragedy to befall us fans of Doctor Who! My friend CC in England just sent me word that David Tennant has announced he will be leaving the show at the end of next year's episodes. On the BBC website announcement about his departure, Tennant was quoted from an acceptance speech last night as saying, "Now don’t make me cry. The 2009 shows will be my last playing the Doctor. I love this show and if I don’t take a deep breath and move on now I never will and you will be wheeling me out of the Tardis in my bath chair." (For those uncertain what he's talking about, the Tardis is his time-traveling spacecraft in the form of a 1950s British police phone box.) So life must go on, but without Doctor David Tennant, although the show will continue with a new, 11th Doctor (the Doctor and other Timelords have the ability to regenerate themselves whenever their lives are threatened). Fortunately, Tennant isn't a flash-in-the-pan. The Scottish-born actor is a Shakespearean-trained performer who recently did a stint in Stratford-upon-Avon playing Hamlet alongside Patrick Stewart as Claudius, for which both got rave reviews, so I have no doubt we'll see more of Tennant. In the meantime, executive producer Russell T. Davies is promising to make sure they send off Tennant's Doctor with "the most enormous and spectacular ending, so keep watching." I thought it would be interesting to pair the announcement of his departure with this report on the BBC website from when he first started as the Doctor in 2005. The picture here is from that episode, and just to make things clear, Tennant is the human, not the Sycorax alien in the background trying to take over Planet Earth.