In a recent video interview with the BBC, Doctor Who‘s David Tennant chatted up Andrew Marre about the hit science-fiction series, his breakthrough role on Taking Over the Asylum and his upcoming turn as Hamlet.
I’ve embedded the full Andrew Marre episode below, but you can watch a higher-resolution version focused on the Tennant portion of the show, over at BBC News.
(semi-via LitG)
Various news sites are reporting that church leaders in England are studying the "religious parallels" between the BBC television series Doctor Who and certain themes of Christianity.
According to Telegraph:
They have been urged to use examples from the programme in their sermons in an attempt to make Christianity more relevant to teenagers.
At a conference last week, vicars watched Doctor Who clips that were said to illustrate themes of resurrection, redemption and evil.
It analysed the similarities between the Doctor and Christ, and whether daleks are capable of change.
The reports mention a few other examples, including The Doctor’s time-travelling TARDIS as a representation of a church and, as Wired blog "The Underwire" pointed out, they both appear in Christmas specials.
Rich Johnston ignited a flurry of discussion among both comics fans and Doctor Who
According to Johnston:
Such as the rumour running around my BBC sources that Neil Gaiman being approached to write an episode for 2010. That would be this Neil Gaiman, comic author, fantasy novelist, screenwriter, poet and writer of the Duran Duran Biography 1985. With possibly the most non-committal non-confirmation I’ve ever read. And I’ve read the responses of current Labour ministers.
In fact when I asked Neil if he’d care to comment, he pleaded the Francis saying, "You may very well think that, but I could not possibly comment."
I do very well think that. I do.
Of course, nothing will actually have been commissioned by the BBC at this stage, and there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and prosthetic lip, but it’s looking good.
For more on the rumor, including other "potential facts" regarding the future of Doctor Who, check out this week’s "Lying in the Gutters."
And remember to check back here on ComicMix every week after a new episode of Doctor Who airs in the U.S. for our weekly Doctor Who in Review analysis of all the Easter Eggs, hints and continuity checks from the current series.
According to our friends at Outpost Gallifrey, Steven Moffat will be succeeding Russell T Davies as the chief writer and executive producer of Doctor Who beginning with next year’s series of specials. Moreover, he will be taking over as showrunner for the 2010 series.
This move was long expected by fans and predicted by the omnipresent rumor mill.
Moffat has written a great many episodes over the past four seasons, including the award-winning “Blink,” the forthcoming “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead,” “Empty Child,” and the crossover special “Time Crash.” He has a great many credits, including the upcoming Tintin movie for Steven Spielberg.
Moffat also wrote the classic 1999 Doctor Who episode “The Curse of Fatal Death,” which starred Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and Joanna Lumley as The Doctor and Jonathan Pryce as The Master. Some regard this broadcast as out-of-continuity; however, given the nature of the show one can never be certain.
He told the BBC’s publicity department “My entire career has been a secret plan to get this job. I applied before but I got knocked back ’cause the BBC wanted someone else. Also, I was seven.”
Born in Swansea, Wales in 1963, Russell T. Davies was immediately entered in academia—his father Vivian taught Classics and his mother Barbara taught French. Davies attended Olchfa Comprehensive School in Swansea and was a member of the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre.
He graduated Worcester College, Oxford in 1984 with a degree in English literature and turned to the theatre but soon left to work for BBC television. Davies started as a floor manager and then graduated to production assistant, but in the late 1980s he took the BBC’s directors training course. From 1988 to 1992 he produced children’s shows for BBC Manchester, and began writing for that division as well.
In 1991 Davies wrote his first television drama, Dark Season. Two years later he wrote Century Falls, technically a children’s show but dark enough that Davies realized he was better suited for adult programming. In 1992 he moved to Granada Television, producing and writing their children’s hospital drama Children’s Ward. He also began writing for several of Granada’s adult shows.
In the late ’90s Davies left Granada for Red Productions and created Queer as Folk and several other shows. He returned to the BBC in 2003 when they offered him his dream job, helming the revival of the long-running science-fiction series Doctor Who.
Since then, Davies has produced and often written not only Doctor Who but also two spin-off shows, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures—he can be reasonably credited with introducing a new generation and much of the world to the adventuring Time Lord and his companions and friends.
Outpost Gallifrey reports that Doctor Who Executive Producer Russell T. Davies has become quite vocal in his disappointment regarding a decision to move the hit series to an earlier timeslot on the BBC, as well as other changes planned for Season Four.
According to various reports cited by the Doctor Who news site, the decision to move the program to 6:20 PM in the weekly schedule, and a push to film in high-definition video, have met with significant opposition from Davies and others involved with the show.
From a Broadcast report posted on the site:
Russell T Davies is predicting that Doctor Who could lose up to 1.5m viewers when it returns in a new 6.20pm slot next month.
The writer and executive producer of the series told the Broadcast television drama conference today that the BBC should maintain the later 7pm-7.15pm slot and the budget for the sci-fi series but it had mucked it up.
The BBC believes the programme would do as well in the new slot, he said. "Well, we’ll see, but I think I’m right."
Not all time travel is welcome.
See what they did with that "time travel" line? Clever.
What does this mean for the American audience? I’m not certain, but it seemed worth noting for all of the Doctor Who fans here at ComicMix. Feel free to discuss in the comment section.
Today in 1938, the Brits did television a mitzvah when the BBC created the first sci-fi TV show, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Capek play "R.U.R.", which coined the term "robot."
For those of you who thought "The Matrix" was revolutionary, it was Capek who introduced androids that rebel against their human creators. We’re also pretty sure she wasn’t the first to think that one up either (the first probably being the golem stories from the Talmud).
Anyway, the piece was translated from Czech to English, which explains the etymology of the word, "Robot." In its original Slo, "robota" means "work."
MySpace users will soon be able to view bits, pieces and even full episodes of BBC original programming, thanks to a deal between the two entities announced last week.
According to the deal, the site’s video platform, MySpaceTV, will present selected programming from the BBC, including interviews and episodes of programs such as Doctor Who, Torchwood and Robin Hood. The deal is the first of its kind for social networking site MySpace, which is heavily concentrating its efforts on video and multimedia development.
MySpace launched MySpaceTV in June 2007. The BBC video channel on MySpaceTV can be found at: www.myspace.com/bbcworldwide.
John Barrowman, the actor who plays Capt. Jack Harkness on the hit BBC series Torchwood, says he plans to stay on the series as long as they’ll have him.
In this interview with SciFi Wire, Barrowman said he hopes to see a few more seasons come out of the darker, more adult-oriented Doctor Who spin-off series. He added that he has no plans to vacate his command of the Torchwood crew, either.
If I was asked to do Jack for the next five or six years I would do it with a big smile on my face, because I absolutely love playing him.
Barrowman also provided a few hints at what viewers can expect from the second season of Torchwood, which already premiered in England, but is set to air its first episode in the U.S. tonight, Jan. 26. SciFi Channel will broadcast the episode at 9 PM ET.
You’re going to also see much more of Jack’s history. Our time travel in Torchwood is different. [In] Doctor Who, the Doctor gets in a Tardis and travels. Our time travel is done through memory.
Not to encroach on Glenn Hauman’s turf, but, hey, happy 100th birthday, William Hartnell!
The man who created the role of Doctor Who – his first broadcast was transmitted immediately after the BBC announced the death of President Kennedy – and stayed with the role for three years had been performing on stage and in movies for 40 years by the time he was cast, including the classic British comedy Carry On Sergeant.
Retiring due to ill health, Hartnell returned to the role to film a few scenes in the groundbreaking 10th anniversary episode "The Three Doctors." His role, in which he helped save the Doctor’s next two incarnations, was curtailed somewhat due to his poor health. It was Hartnell’s final performance; he died two years after the show was broadcast.
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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