Doctor, Doctor, Gimme the News

When she appeared on the Doctor Who Christmas special last year, Catherine Tate did not get far from the one-dimensionality of the characters on her eponymous BBC3 show. The episode was critically panned by fans, primarily due to her.

Now she’s back as the Doctor’s companion in series 4. This is not a positive direction for the show. Freema Agyeman did okay in picking up where Billie Piper left off. But there was the real problem: Billie should have never left. There was a lot more time and space mileage left in Rose.

Now I suppose Donna will have to fall for the Doctor as well and there will be more women (and Captain Jack) pining for him, keeping the tension up with unrequited love.

Freema is spinning the Martha Jones character over to adult-oriented Torchwood for three episdoes, before coming back to the Doctor in the middle of series 4 – at which time there will be two companions for the rest of the series (or season, as it would be called in the States). I don’t care if it is bigger on the inside, the TARDIS is going to be a bit crowded.

I hope they don’t crowd me out as a viewer. Given that all this will bypass Aidan’s brain and his appetite for Doctor Who programming is insatiable, I’m sure we won’t miss an episode.

Creatures Great and Small

We are only four episodes into the new series of Doctor Who and I can already anticipate the new toys that will shortly become available to Aidan.

So far we have rhinocerous bipeds called Judoon, the android Slabs, Carrionites, Cat People, Pig Men, and a Dalek-Human hybrid. I predict a new alien invasion will join the various creatures that descend from Aidan’s room and take over the floor, couch, and tables downstairs.

I have to wonder how the Doctor decides to wander off to various times and places and yet nearly every single time stumbles into world-threatening situations, only to save civilisation as we (or occasionally as the inhabitants of some other world) know it. The chance of this happening over and over and over again must be astronomical.

The place of Doctor Who in the world of science fiction is secure. With the third episode of this series, the franchise has, with a total of 727,  exceeded the number of episodes in the various incarnations of Star Trek.

Cash in the Attic

Today they showed the pilot of a new Doctor Who spin-off, The Sarah Jane Adventures. It is about Sarah Jane Smith, the companion to the Third and Fourth Doctors. She also appears in an episode of the last series.

I thought it might be a family-oriented pre-watershed BBC1 show to balance out the mature post-watershed BBC3 spin-off Torchwood. As it turns out, it is out it is planned as a children’s show. It is going to be shown on CBBC.

The real winners winners are the toy manufacturers and the BBC as the licenser. Sarah Jane has her own gadgets – sonic lipstick instead of sonic screwdriver, a watch that detects alien life, and a super computer called Mr Smith. That’s just from the pilot. There are all sorts of things stored in her attic that will be used in future episodes.