Doctor Who 2008: Sontarans cometh, RTD Ood 'ave 'im etc.

he was 900 three years ago

He shares a birthday with Catherine Zeta Jones.

Photos from the set:

http://io9.com/5162583/the-comeback-that-brings-the-doctor-to-his-knees

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01359/dalek_1359465c.jpg

Dalek Found Submerged in Pond

http://www.gallifreyone.com/news.php

March 4, 2009 • Posted By R. Alan Siler

In a scene right out of a Doctor Who script, a team of volunteers clearing a pond of rubbish uncovered a long-submerged Dalek.

The Telegraph reports that sales executive Marc Oakland was pushing a rake around the bed of the shallow pool when he found the object with its distinctive eye stalk.

The 42-year-old said: "I'd just shifted a tree branch with my foot when I noticed something dark and round slowly coming up to the surface. I got the shock of my life when a Dalek head bobbed up right in front of me. It must have been down there for some time because it was covered in mould and water weed, and had quite a bit of damage. One of the dome lights was smashed, but the eye-stalk was intact and the head and neck stayed in one piece as I carefully lifted it out."

Pond warden Tony Brown, 70, was leading the volunteer squad clearing dumped rubbish from the pond, near Beaulieu, Hampshire. He said: "We made a very thorough search of the rest of the bottom of the pond and there were definitely no alien remnants lurking. We've all agreed it best to keep the pond's exact location under wraps. The last thing we want are sci-fi fans descending on the pond frantically seraching for other Dalek parts."

Mr Brown, who trained as a pond warden with Southern Water, has been helping clear out the area for the past eight years. He said: "We've dredged up everything from shopping trolleys, toys, and bicycles. But this is the first time a Dalek's appeared. We have no idea how it ended up in there, or how long ago. We discovered the BBC often took the Daleks out on location for filming, and they travelled to Hampshire on at least one occasion in the 1980s, when Colin Baker played the Time Lord. Who knows? This might be the remains of one of the originals from the old TV series. I'm told they were built to last."

The story is also covered by The Sun, Metro, the Daily Mail and Ananova.

First special is on tomorrow.

http://echidnite.livejournal.com/23690.html

okay I unreservedly hate this type of thing and I have to admit it's kind of cute

I still hate it, but it is cute

Yeah, I'm with you; annoying on principle, but definitely would.

definitely would.

lol

extermeniren indeed

new thread time. somebody give it a good title

I saw (most of) tonight's Easter special. I really quite enjoyed it, partly because it was ... comforting? - to watch, the standard new Who conventions rattling past with a hot cross bun and with a pale Spring evening outside, and even more partly because the chick in it was so very shamelessly attractive. I don't know whether it was good in other ways.

Having watched Michelle Ryan smirk bossily through this and Merlin, I've come to the conclusion that I don't like Michelle Ryan. Which made this episode a wash since it was basically subtitled Isn't It Charming When Michelle Ryan Smirks and is Bossy.

I thought it would've been interesting to take the two fly aliens back to the bus, to see how everyone dealt with aliens that were really just friendly refugees. But I guess it would've stolen focus from the epic Space Bus vs. Giant Fuckoff Stingray battle.

Lady Smug was pretty annoying, and I enjoyed the Doctor blowing her off at the end of the episode. But it was an otherwise entertaining hour of Doctor Who. Especially considering we're not getting any more until November. Suppose I'll have to make do with the watery gruel that is season 3 of Robin Hood.

I liked the sound of drums at the end. The rest was pretty good too.

november?! bah.

That was a pretty fun episode! i alternated between being really charmed and really annoyed by lady person but ultimately thought she was a good one-off sidekick.

i was hoping that weird eating things were vashta nerada - in keeping with the "of the dead" theme.

This felt oddly restrained for a Bank Holiday special - I'd expected all guns blazing. Actually after 15mins or so I had a feeling this would be Rusty ripping off Lost but with a bus in a desert, and felt strangely disappointed that there wasn't more weird shit going on on the planet itself.

It seemed a bit like a showcase for Tennant to go through his whole repertoire of Tennant things (manic, flirty, sycophantic, emo) one more time, rather than a full on story in its own right (far-off everything-eating stingray swarm? Is that the best you can do?) But then again the full repertoire of Tennant things is terrific so I'm happy to see it again knowing that it's end is near.

The portentious part at the end was the only bit that really excited me though. "Your song is ending" we all know about already. "It is coming through the darkness" = Gallifrey, surely? It's the only really big rabbit Rusty has left in his hat. I'd like to see The Master again though, unless he's played by James Nesbitt which is probably inevitable.

This was all right, but didn't quite have anything as fun as the ridiculous giant robot from the Christmas special. Ryan is pretty damn hot, but I don't know, maybe it was the bangs and the outfit, didn't work for me, and her character was generally more annoying than charming. Chilling ending bit was good, though.

November????? Shit!

Rather enjoyed this--had a mini-movie feel because of the obviously upped budget and so on. Pity the way the wormhole was created was basically the same as 'Superman flies around the world anti-clockwise really fast and goes backwards in time!'. Also like the chilling ending.

Poor effort I thought. The premise was OKish, but no real drama, and far too much I wuv you Doctor bullshit at the end. And Michelle Ryan's character was just crap.

I was looking forward to the fly-aliens coming on board the bus too, thought that would have been an interesting setup. Michelle Ryan's obnoxiousness and man-faceness took away from the overall episode, I know it's law for there to be an attractive female sidekick though but perhaps they could have worked around it and had the various passengers accompany him for his

IIRC there were pictures of John Simm on set filming the next episode.

Really liked Michelle Ryan's character in this.

Quite liked this episode, but I'd have rather one of both of the fly dudes had survived, coulda sacrificed a human or two in exchange.

Great done-in-one, and definite improvement on the Christmas episode, I thought. Ryan a nice antidote to the usual RTD screaming harpy. And low on the cringe factor, with the exception of the "I like to do things... EXTREME" line. Yikes.

"I like to do things... EXTREME" line. Yikes.

It was a very Poochie moment.

Maybe I'm taking it all too seriously, but I felt that they really misjudged the mood of the general populace at the moment. Does anyone really want to see an uber-posh character who only steals for the larks (unlike those horrible plebs) when they're fearing for the security of their jobs and homes?

How do the anti-gravity clamp things allow the bus to, like, move forward/accelerate etc.?

This RUINED the whole thing for me.

I agree the aristo thing is a load of cobblers, but don't really think the general populace has a mood in that sense or that such a thing could matter

anyway it's all on TV again now!

I hated it, and wanted to punch Michelle Ryan's smug face back through that wormhole again. Also, y'know, Lee Evans was in it. He can fuck off as well.

The portentious part at the end was the only bit that really excited me though. "Your song is ending" we all know about already. "It is coming through the darkness" = Gallifrey, surely? It's the only really big rabbit Rusty has left in his hat.

Aye, that was OK. But it took a long time to get there. Doesn't Martha still work for UNIT? He was all on about how he keeps losing people, fuck's sake, look them up when you're hanging around with their colleagues, eh (not to mention the fact that his hand's off doing things with Rose)? At least ask after them? If you're going to be all emo, at least be coherently emo. Also, nice to see the "no second chances" doctor letting a crook off with crookyness and letting her nick a space-bus into the bargain.

I reckon the Doctors gonna get offed by an evil Santa.

Played by Brian Blessed.

i thought the portentious bit was probably the most eye-rolling moment and just rehashing same old thing. "your song is coming to and end..." stfu already

but after last season finale i'm not so into Who now unless it's Moffat

This kind of reminded me of the Langoliers. o_O

Doesn't Martha still work for UNIT? He was all on about how he keeps losing people, fuck's sake, look them up when you're hanging around with their colleagues, eh (not to mention the fact that his hand's off doing things with Rose)?

I heard RTD was angry with Freema Agyeman for doing L&O instead of Torchwood, so he's unlikely to write anything about how great Martha is right now.

she was fired by UNIT for mentioning Project Indigo to Jack and then telling him 'no-one's supposed to know about it'

lol @ ppl being all "waah he let her get away with it". Jeez, lighten up.

If that was at me, Tennant's doctor was introduced as being a hard bastard who didn't give anyone second chances. Rusty's quite big on continuity and themes and shit, he seems to have forgotten that one in favour of woo-lovey-dovey bollocks.

Rusty had given us ample evidence that he will always throw continuity and themes and shit away in favor of woo-lovey-dovey bullshit all the way back to the on New Adventure he wrote with the 7th Doctor for Virgin Books.

Tennant's doctor was introduced as being a hard bastard who didn't give anyone second chances

He was?

"Don't you think she looks tired?"

"No second chances. That's what kind of man I am."

Eccleston was the same (if not more so) tho

Also the Doctor didn't let her get away with anything, he didn't let her on the Tardis but at the same time he had no reason to want to see her arrested especially given that gold chalice she nicked helped them get out of the desert. These are ridiculously minor things to be finding fault over.

Ach, it's a wee thing that's bugged me for a while, not just in this episode. He was going to save fucking DAVROS!

supposedly Donna softened him up (as he her). otherwise yeah he would've just committed genocide against the Daleks like he drowned the spider things (altho that seemed awfully inconsistent itself given his past form). blame the writers.

Tom Baker's Doctor dithered over destroying the Daleks at the moment of their creation and ultimately blew it. This isn't a new thing.

whereas Hartnell basically just said "fuck you, I'm out" and ran away and Troughton said "oh dear" and ran away and Pertwee said "JUDO CHOP!" and ran away when it didn't work and Davison said "I'm peaceful!" then tried to shoot them all and CBaker said "I will melt your face" and then proceeded to melt Davros's face and McCoy said "lol blow yrselves up" which the Daleks did and McGann said "Daleks? I don't think I'm allowed to fight those unless they are in really shitty stories written by John Peel"