Even if you're a massive science fiction fan, there are probably still some great shows you've yet to discover. But for massively long-running shows, where to begin? Here's our guide to how to start watching twenty classic science fiction shows.It should be pointed out that this guide is meant for potential new fans, not people who already love these shows. We advise in quite a few instances to skip entire seasons of shows, and that's not something a big fan of a show is likely to agree with. But this is all about the best way to get hooked on a show, and we of course recommend checking out the rest of a series once you've sampled the best of what a show has to offer. We're also focusing more on seasons of shows than specific brilliant episodes, because it's easier to reach consensus - and thus make useful recommendations to the most people - on an entire season than one particular episode. So, let's start with the biggest, most daunting science fiction franchise of them all... Star Trek: The Original Series Since it only ran three seasons, the easy answer is just to tell you to watch all of it. Unfortunately, the third season has a whole lot of badness in it, which is the result of slashed budgets and the influence of new producer Fred Freiberger. (He also presided over the similarly derided second season of Space: 1999.) There are a few decent episodes in there - "The Tholian Web" is probably the best of the bunch - but most of the classics are to be found in the first two seasons, and almost all the notoriously awful episodes ("Plato's Stepchildren", "Spock's Brain") are season three entries. So just stick with seasons 1 and 2, then head into season 3 with extreme caution.

Star Trek: The Next Generation This one is fairly straightforward - start with season three. The show hit some real lows in its first season, and anybody unsure about whether they like TNG is unlikely to get past the first dozen or so episodes. The second season, while a bit of an improvement, is missing one of the show's main cast members, as Gates McFadden's Dr. Crusher was replaced by Diana Muldaur's Dr. Pulaski. There's a lot to like about the second season (and Pulaski is hardly a total disaster), but everything clicks into place with the third season. That season has the added benefit of ending on what may be the biggest cliffhanger in television history. If that doesn't have you coming back for more, nothing will.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Deep Space Nine was a far more arc-driven show than The Next Generation, so there's slightly more to be gained with starting at the beginning and putting up with the show's growing pains (which, to be fair, were never as bad as TNG's). Still, there's a fairly clear division in arcs between the first two seasons, which is more heavily focused on the Bajoran/Cardassian conflict, and the third season onwards, which focuses on the coming war with the Dominion. As such, for those on the fence about DS9, we suggest jumping in with season three.

Star Trek: Voyager There's really no sense in pretending otherwise - Voyager isn't really all that good of a show, and if you're going to dive into nineties Star Trek, I'd head to TNG and DS9 first. Still, the show has its charms, and it did get better as it went along. I'd jump right to the last episode of season 3, the first half of the "Scorpion" two-parter. "Scorpion" is consistently voted the series's best episode, and it also introduces the half-human, half-Borg, all-sexy Seven of Nine, who is pretty much the one iconic thing to come out of this show. Most of the show's best episodes come in the fourth season onwards, and you get to avoid the only Star Trek episode so bad that everyone involved disowned it. (Although, depending on your mindset, that might actually be just the sort of thing you want to check out.)

Star Trek: Enterprise When it comes to latter-day Star Trek, there's just something special about seasons 3 and 4, because that's where I'd suggest you start with for Enterprise as well. The prequel series took a while to find its feet, spinning its wheels for two seasons with a lot of not terribly interesting stuff about a new alien race called the Suliban and a far future conflict known as the Temporal Cold War. The show was retooled at the end of both the second and third season, and both were arguably improvements. The third season ditched the Suliban as the Enterprise headed into the war-torn region of space known as the Expanse, in the hopes of either stopping the coming war...or winning it. The fourth season went with less long-form storytelling in favor of shorter, more contained arcs, which again produced a bunch of standout episodes. Although do yourself a favor - unless you absolutely love Enterprise, skip the series finale. Actually, if you absolutely love Enterprise, that's even more reason not to watch it.

Doctor Who We're only going to talk about the new series, because a guide to getting into the classic series is an article in and of itself. (And here it is! Although I will say that "Robots of Death" is pretty much the perfect introduction to classic Who.) The best way to approach the new Doctor Who largely depends on what you want to get out of it. If you just want to get up to speed for the upcoming series, then I'd just watch the fifth season, plus "Silence in the Library"/"The Forest of the Dead" and maybe "Blink". That'll get you pretty much up to speed on the Steven Moffat & Matt Smith era. If you're looking for a more general introduction, then I'd suggest starting with either the first or fourth season. The show definitely improves as it goes along, but the initial season, starring Christopher Eccleston, season has its own unique energy that's still a lot of fun to watch, and it's a good place to start (although the second season hasn't aged very well). The fourth season presents a great mix of stories without any real duds...well, until you get to the final two episodes. Those should be approached with extreme caution. Finally, if all you want to do is sample the best (and biggest) of the new series to see if you like it, then here's the quick list: "Rose", "Dalek", anything by Steven Moffat and Paul Cornell, "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit", "Midnight", "The Waters of Mars", and, for better or worse, the five season finales.

Torchwood But what of Doctor Who's anagrammatic spin-off? The first two seasons aren't a complete waste of time, but they're dangerously close, and even the best episodes (probably "Captain Jack Harkness" and "Fragments") are some degree of flawed or derivative. So unless your tolerance for nonsensical plots, general silliness, and lots of sex and angst masquerading as mature storytelling is epically high, I'd skip the first two seasons completely and head straight for the brilliant, brutal Children of Earth. The mini-series might represent the greatest jump up in quality from one season to the next in television history, and it's Russell T. Davies at his nastiest and most pessimistic - which, as he also showed in the Doctor Who episode "Midnight", also happens to be Davies at his absolute best.

Red Dwarf While we're on the topic of British science fiction, let's talk about what is (pretty much by default) the best live-action science fiction comedy ever, Red Dwarf. I learned this the hard way when I tried to introduce a friend to Red Dwarf by showing him an episode from each of the six seasons: unless you fall instantly in love with the show, the first two seasons are very hit-and-miss. The show picks up considerably with season three, and it more or less keeps up the quality until the end of season six, when the original writing team parted ways and the show started to run out of ideas. So start with season three, save the first two seasons for later, and only head into the post-sixth season material if you really, really want more Red Dwarf.

The Prisoner The show only ran for seventeen episodes, so how hard can it be to start watching? The difficulty isn't the number of episodes, it's the order in which you should watch them. There are at least four different preferred orders in which you can watch The Prisoner, and the show's already challenging enough without have to figure out which episodes goes where. The fact of the matter is, although I think the so-called Six of One Order is probably the best, it doesn't really matter. Just watch "Arrival" first and "Once Upon a Time" and "Fall Out" last, and you'll be fine. Oh, and you can skip "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling." I'd say the same about "The Girl Who Was Death", but that one is just too stupidly fun to ignore.

The Twilight Zone Rod Serling's legendary anthology series represents a particular challenge for potential new fans. There are 156 episodes, and nothing connecting any of them apart from Serling's iconic narration. Although the seasons have all been released on DVD - the first two are mostly brilliant, the third and fourth are a mixed bag, and the fifth is more bad than good - an entire season isn't really the best jumping-on point. I'd suggest seeking out some of the old "Best Of" DVDs they put out a few years ago. There are a few particularly brilliant showcases of the Twilight Zone format: "Walking Distance", "Time Enough at Last", "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street", "The Eye of the Beholder", "The Odyssey of Flight 33", and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (starring William Shatner!) are all excellent places to enter The Twilight Zone.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 MST3K presents the same basic problem as The Twilight Zone. There are very few episodes that aren't at least mildly amusing, and the vast majority of episodes are hilarious. So where do you start? There's no point in going in any particular order - the show has barely any continuity, and it's all the better for it - so it's just a question of finding the right introductory movie. Some of the show's most famous episodes, like "Manos: The Hands of Fate" and the Coleman Francis magnum opus "Red Zone Cuba", aren't the best places to start because the movies being riffed on are just too horrendously boring. It's better to start with movies that, while equally awful, are a bit more exciting, like "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", "Space Mutiny", "Mitchell", "Time Chasers", or "Eegah", and then move on to the exquisite tedium that is "Manos: The Hands of Fate."

The X-Files The X-Files is a good example of a show that, if you're going to start watching it now, it's probably wise to not get too invested in it, because it's all going to end in frustration. (Lost is another obvious example.) The show gets off to a good start in its first season, and it keeps up a consistently high quality for roughly its first six seasons, including the first movie. But the show starts running out of steam in the seventh season, and by the time Mulder has left the show in the eighth and ninth season the show is a pale shadow of its former self. Worst of all, the show's central mystery has never really been fully resolved, and it most likely never will. So definitely enjoy the first six seasons of The X-Files as nineties science fiction - hell, nineties television in general - at its finest. Just be prepared to have more questions than answers when it's all over.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer This one is a bit tough, because there's no obvious consensus as to which seasons were the best, and there's even less consensus as to which season is the worst. Still, it's probably safe to say that season 1 can be left for later, and the second season is a good place to start. The show had worked through a lot of its first season growing pains, and the second season sets up a lot of the characters and arcs that would endure for the rest of the show's run. If you want to skip ahead to the even stronger third season, I don't have a problem with that. (Particularly because the bad guy is Mayor Wilkins! How cool is that... for me!?) As for when to stop watching... well, some people hate the later seasons, which had less direct involvement from Joss Whedon, and some think they're the best of the bunch. So this is probably one of those rare times to just bust out the pragmatism and keep watching until you no longer enjoy it.

Angel Do yourself a favor - skip the first two seasons of Angel. A very worthwhile show eventually emerged, but it took a while for that to happen, and you're not missing anything if you just skip right ahead to the third season. Seriously, what is it about science fiction shows getting really good in their third seasons? If this is actually a general rule of science fiction, I'm a little scared to imagine how good Firefly would have gotten if it had survived another couple of years. I think we can safely assume it would have won multiple Nobel Prizes for Literature... and Chemistry, just for the hell of it.

Dollhouse For Joss Whedon's shorter-lived shows, the temptation is to say you should just watch them all. For Firefly, that's pretty much the case (although "Shindig" and "Safe" aren't that great), but Dollhouse definitely has some eminently skippable episodes. The first five episodes are all fairly inessential, the result of - this will come as a shock - meddling on the part of Fox executives, who wanted the show to be more episodic and less serialized. There's an argument that it's worth watching the first episode "Ghost", which helps introduce this strange new world, but the sixth episode "Man on the Street" rehashes most of the essential points anyway. After that, all the rest of the episodes are more or less essential. (It's also worth watching the unaired pilot, which is included as a DVD extra and covers a lot of the same ground as the first half-dozen episodes.)

Babylon 5 Series creator J. Michael Straczynski always intended the show to be one big story told over five seasons - unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way. When the creative team thought the show would be canceled at the end of the fourth season, they condensed the final two seasons worth of story into one... and then they got a fifth season anyway, forcing them to come up with new stories from scratch. So, although all of the first four seasons are essential to the show's overall arc, it's only in the second season that the ongoing story picks up and the show really starts cooking. (In fact, there's an argument to be made that you'll get more out of the first season if you come back to it after seeing the later seasons, the better to appreciate the more subtle groundwork Straczynski and company put in.) The fifth season has its critics and isn't quite up to the standard of what came before, but it's also worth checking out.

Highlander: The Series Although the original movie is more stupidly enjoyable than legitimately good, the TV series it spawned enjoys a relatively solid critical reputation. Like a lot of shows on this list, its first season is a bit shaky, but the second season is definitely well worth watching, and the next few seasons are also a lot of fun. Unfortunately, the show goes over a cliff in its sixth and final season, so that one can be safely left alone.

Battlestar Galactica When we're talking about shows with an overarching mystery and complex mythology, it's difficult to say if it's better to just start at the beginning or jump on when the show actually got good. Thankfully, the 21st century BSG removes that conundrum completely, because the first episode of the series proper, "33", is quite possibly the show's best episode. Indeed, the first three seasons are all consistently very strong, and I actually don't think there's much of a dip in the fourth season either. (That point is...debated.) So, unless you really don't think you can commit three hours to something you've seen before, just start with the mini-series and go from there. Although do yourself a favor and skip "Black Market" and "The Woman King" when you get to them. Anything worth knowing from those will be in the next episodes' recaps.

Lost It's hard to imagine who would want to start watching this show right now, particularly after all the rancor over the series finale. Still, if you are looking to get into Lost, the show is so heavily serialized that it really only makes sense to start with the first season. That said, the show had a tendency to spin its wheels and go nowhere slowly, particularly in the second season. If a season becomes too much of a drag, you might want to skip ahead to the next season and restart - just be prepared for a lot of googling to figure out what the hell's going on. (Another trick is to track down those special recap episodes Lost would air before some of its seasons.)

The Stargate Franchise Let's finish off with a look at the three Stargate shows. Of these, the original SG-1 is the most difficult to get into, considering it ran a colossal ten seasons. The first season is a bit bumpy, like a lot of the other shows on this list, and it starts to show its age in the ninth and tenth seasons. We'd recommend the second through eighth seasons, with seasons three and four as particularly strong. As for Atlantis, our resident Stargate expert Meredith Woerner recommends anything spotlighting Rodney McKay (but then...she would). The show was fairly consistent in quality throughout its five-season run, so you can just start at the beginning. Finally, Stargate Universe is still just starting out, so we can recommend particular episodes to get you hooked: "Lost" and "Time" are two of the show's strongest episodes, and should help you decide, one way or the other, if Universe is a show for you.

This is what happens when you stay up late. Good news comes to you! Digital Spy just exclusively broke from the Edinburgh TV Festival that the next series of Doctor Who will be split into two parts with the first half airing in Spring 2011 and the second airing in Fall 2011. The reason for the split? Two words: Game. Changer. Giddy yet? According to a statement released by the BBC, the spilt was a request from current showrunner Steven Moffat, who will introduce the “game changing” event at the end of the spring run of episodes, leaving the fans and audiences “on the edge of their seats, until the autumn to find out what happens.” There will be 7 episodes in the Spring with the final 6 episodes following suit in the fall. No word has been given on when the episodes will air in the U.S. or if the U.S. will be treated with the same break or if we will get all the episodes in one swell swoop. If anything, this news can be seen in two ways 1) being with open arms and an open mind or 2) with complete and utter dire. I welcome the former, but Mr. Moffat and company will have to bring the goods for this to pay off. Read the Official Press Release From The BBC Here.

Tags: BBC, Doctor Who, Doctor Who Series Six, karen gillan, matt smith, Steve Moffat, The Eleventh Doctor, Toptv

Absolutely bloody brilliant! The third and final episode of Sherlock was the best of the series.  The first episode was excellent and the second okay, but this one didn’t put a foot wrong for the entire 90 minutes. I have to admit I had my doubts going in. Mark Gatiss recent Doctor Who episode hadn’t  impressed me much and Steven Moffat is rarely out-written. On top of which I was very dubious about the wisdom of introducing Moriarity so early in the series existence. I’m pleased to say that I was wrong on all counts though. Gatiss penned the most authentic Sherlock Holmes episode I have ever seen even if it was set in the present day. It captured everything from the characters to the atmosphere perfectly. I can even forgive him for that cliffhanger. As in the last two episodes Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman make an excellent Holmes and Watson. Their interaction is much more convincing than that of the recent movie. It was nice to see the rest of the supporting cast return as well since they add a lot of depth to the world of Sherlock Holmes. It’s hard to develop a story arc in a 3 episode season and the Moriarty plot seemed ham handedly forced onto the end of the last two stories, but here it fit in perfectly.  Andrew Scott gives us a wonderfully insane Moriarty and one that feels like a genuine threat to Sherlock. Throughout the episode we are shown that Moriarty is really a dark reflection of Sherlock. Moriarty is what we were warned that Sherlock could become in the first episode.  Sherlock’s enjoyment of the “games” that Moriarty makes him play is obvious and his casual manipulation of people and their emotions is unsettling. And yet there is a difference. While Moriarty revels in his own brilliance and the chaos he causes, Sherlock does seem to follow some sort of moral code and clearly has a strong tendency towards order. There’s really nothing bad I can say about this episode and I am already waiting impatiently for it to return for the promised second season. Related articles by Zemanta

Updated Sherlock ‘will be back’ (bbc.co.uk) Sherlock to return for second series (guardian.co.uk) Sherlock finale: your verdict on The Great Game (guardian.co.uk) The mysterious case of the unknown Moriarty: how Sherlock Holmes will reveal all (guardian.co.uk)

Eoghann Irving is a sci-Fi fan, self professed geek, owner of too many computers and general know it all. Follow me on Google Buzz, LinkedIn or Twitter to chat about this or anything else.

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I heaped glowing praise on the first episode of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes. So what do I think of the second episode, The Blind Banker?

Well, sad to say it isn’t as good as the first episode.  It just lacked some of the spark.  That’s not to say it was bad, because there were still a lot of strong points in the show. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman remain pitch perfect in their respective roles as Sherlock Holmes and Watson. They make the most of their scenes and the character material they are given to work with. Similarly Euros Lynn (perhaps the best of Russel T. Davies Doctor Who directors)  has picked up on many of the visual cues from the first episode and delivered something that while not identical was stylistically similar. The problems with this episode all lie squarely in Stephen Thompson’s script.  While he does seem to have a firm grasp on the characters and his plot was certainly full of puzzles, it failed to compel in the way that a Study in Pink did. To make matters worse, some elements seemed outright cliched. Really, Chinese smugglers and a Chinese circus troop? And there seemed to be a few places where the logic just didn’t add up at all. On top of that we have the frankly baffling decision to omit almost all of the secondary characters established in the first episode and in their place have one almost characterless detective. Perhaps that was a budgetary decision or based on the availability of actors, but it definitely hurt the show. But for all my negativity, in truth I still enjoyed The Blind Banker because the relationship between Holmes and Watson (still clearly in its early stages here) is so compelling. Throwing in a romantic interest for Watson was a nice touch too although I’m not clear if the intent is for her to be a recurring character. As far as the series story-arc is concerned I’m going to hold my tongue until I’ve seen the final episode. I have a fairly strong opinion on it and how it has been handled so far, but it would be unfair to judge without seeing the end. Bottom line then is that The Blind Banker is a fun, but not great episode of Sherlock.  I’m hoping that Mark Gatiss’ episode next week will step things up again. Related articles by Zemanta

Why I’m no fan of Sherlock (newstatesman.com) TV review: Sherlock (guardian.co.uk) “The Game Is Afoot”: Modern Day Sherlock (pinkbananaworld.com) TV Review: Sherlock – The 2010 Super Sleuth (blogcritics.org) Culture Club: Sherlock, Sunday, BBC1 (independent.co.uk) Sherlock, BBC One, review (telegraph.co.uk) Sherlock makes Sunday night TV sexy (guardian.co.uk)

Eoghann Irving is a sci-Fi fan, self professed geek, owner of too many computers and general know it all. Follow me on Google Buzz, LinkedIn or Twitter to chat about this or anything else.

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Neil Gaiman (far right, next to the Moff) has recently posted again on his blog, and he has once more updated us on the progress of his Doctor Who script for Series 6, thought to be the third episode (remember that Moffat will be writing more).As of 2:30 this morning I was certain I'd be blogging again today. I'd just sent off the finished draft of the Doctor Who script, and I was done. Then I got up somewhat later this morning, and read an email from my script editor at the BBC a) giving me a thumbs up for all the new stuff [which I wrote for practical and budget reasons, but which will, I think, actually be much cooler than the stuff it replaced] and b) having formatted everything correctly according to BBC rules, letting me know that the script's actually a good ten pages too long. So there will be another draft, over the next couple of days. By the end of it, all redundancies, slow bits, things that can be thrown overboard, or lines of dialogue that the author is particularly proud of will have gone, and it will be ten correctly formatted pages shorter. And I will keep them in reserve in case they call to tell me that the episode's coming in short, and can I write three pages of sudden conversation?Then, on the next post, the incredible author referenced his (at that time) upcoming trip to Australia.If you are on a plane to Australia today and you hear the sound of weeping coming from a nearby seat, it will be me, fighting to lose ten pages from a pretty tight script. (I bet I will lose two or three pages easily. Then the pain will start.)Don't forget to keep up with more of Neil Gaiman's humorous blog posts such as this one. But to answer his earlier question: it might be a bit awkward if the Doctors just suddenly bursts into conversation at the end of the episode. Though, of course, even if it's overtime, you can't just it off mid-sentence, right in the middle ofThis post started off on my blog - http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com - there are so many features on there that are not in the newsfeed, or posted elsewhere, you really need to check it out! Thanx!

Toby Whithouse, who penned the rather popular episodes "School Reunion" and "Vampires of Venice", might have accidentally confirmed a question while trying to avoid it at SFX's San Diego Comic-Con panel. One audience member asked Whithouse if either he or Paul Cornell, who also sat on "The British Invasion" panel, would consider writing for Doctor Who again, to which the author replied, "We're contractually not allowed to say."Fellow panelist and cheeky novelist China Miéville then said, "We can apply a bit of detective work here. If Toby’s contractually advised not to say anything, that must mean he’s under contract."The SFX article described Toby Whithouse's response as "a 'no comment' stare". Does this mean that Whithouse is indeed under contract with the often secret BBC, or was he simply caught saying the wrong thing? Perhaps he used the common "Sorry, not allowed" response by mistake without realizing what others would think of it. Or maybe Toby Whithouse and Paul Cornell really are writing for Series 6 . . .This post started off on my blog - http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com - there are so many features on there that are not in the newsfeed, or posted elsewhere, you really need to check it out! Thanx!

After Matt Smith's first year in the titular role of Doctor Who (a very good one at that, in my opinion), there were rumors that, like Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston, he might be leaving the show just a series after he started. Various reasons were given, including Smith's desire to move to America and focus on films, or that ratings for "The Big Bang," were bad enough to send him packing. Steven Moffat, Doctor Who's current showrunner, has dismissed those rumors. The question of a regeneration was posed to him by BBC News after Benedict Cumberbatch, the star of Moffat's miniseries Sherlock, didn't deny an inquiry of whether or not he would be the Doctor in his upcoming recurring role in the series. "Maybe," Cumberbatch replied simply, and the rumor mill began to churn. Moffat has decided to put a stop to the rumors of Cumberbatch — or anyone — replacing Smith. "There is no vacancy," Moffat stated, putting at ease the minds of Smith fans everywhere. "Matt Smith is the Doctor and he's been an astonishing success and – who knows – maybe he'll never regenerate again." While of course the quotation that "maybe he'll never regenerate again" translates to "he won't regenerate for a few years," it's still nice to see that bit of reassurance coming straight from the horse's mouth. Smith has been my favorite Doctor since Eccleston in 2005, and is the latest in a stream of great actors to portray the time-travelling alien. Within the continuity of the series, the Doctor can only have thirteen incarnations, and Smith is the Eleventh. While it seems likely that the story will find some way around this, regenerating the Doctor so soon seems like a self-destruction just waiting to happen. Doctor Who will return in December with a Christmas special (starring Smith alongside companions Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill), and then again next spring with a sixth series.

Tags: Benedict Cumberbatch, Doctor Who, matt smith, Sherlock, Steven Moffat

There was no new episode of time-traveling action-comedy Doctor Who on BBC America this weekend, but that's okay. In lieu of another recap, we've got something to get off our chests. With vague spoilers for the end of season five. Doctor Who's new season has been a lot of fun to watch, in general — Matt Smith is the most Doctor-ish of the recent Doctors, and his performance just bursts with acting tics and neat ideas. Karen Gillan is a totally thrilling companion. The season-long arc was pretty thrilling, and kept us guessing. The whole thing has been cute, sparky, moving and extraordinarily watchable. There's just one thing that's been bugging me quite a bit — and that's the extent to which Steven Moffat's Who is already feeling like a one-trick pony. Or maybe, more accurately, a three- or four-trick pony. It may seem like a pusillanimous complaint — every era of Doctor Who has had its repeated motifs and go-to ideas, after all. And surely, what matters is how you use these repeated ideas, right? And most of all, when you complain about reusing plot devices you risk elevating plot about characters, or story, or the little moments that make Moffat's Who such a joy to watch. But still, to me, a big part of the thrill of Doctor Who is wondering what happens next. And when I heard Moffat was taking over as the show's new head writer, the first thing that jumped to mind was, "I can't wait to see what clever stuff he comes up with this time." And to a large extent, this year, it's felt like Moffat's clever ideas are the same ones he's had in years past. There are a couple ideas that he's reused over and over, and some that he's reused once or twice. In either case, I wouldn't mind seeing these plot devices take a vacation for 2011:

The Doctor tells scary aliens to go away. Especially if he tells them to look him up in a directory, or read up on him somewhere. Or if he encourages them to think about all the times he's defeated them before. I loved the "It is defended" speech in "The Christmas Invasion," and I quite liked the "look me up" speech in "Forest Of The Dead." But enough, already. The Doctor is getting blustery and self-promoting here. He's starting to remind us of those Internet hipsters who've somehow managed to convince angel investors that their totally impractical business plan will rock the cybersphere, and can't stop talking about it loudly in cafes. Remember when the Eccleston Doctor gave Mickey a disk that would erase all references to him from the internet, because he wanted to remain a secret? We want that Doctor back. Someone stops a deadly machine by admitting to their true feelings. This one first cropped up in "The Doctor Dances," to some extent — Nancy saves everybody from being turned into gasmask zombies by admitting that she's Jamie's mother. And it's turned up a few times since then — in the Dalek story, the android Professor Bracewell is able to keep himself from self-destructing by thinking about a girl he's had a crush on. In "The Lodger," an explosion is similarly averted by having two characters confess their love for each other. And in "Amy's Choice," Amy can only escape from the dream world after admitting, at last, that she really loves Rory. And then there's a bit of this in the finale as well. It's easy to see why this trope persists — after all, it allows you to have character resolution and plot resolution neatly in one go. But if it rears its head too often, it starts to feel a bit too neat and tidy. In the real world, coping with our feelings often gets in the way of coping with the big explodey machines, and vice versa — part of how we prove our worth as people is the way we balance those two challenges. Deadly and unknowable aliens use a dead humans's lingering remains to communicate. This has really only popped up twice — the Vashta Nerada use the last recorded thoughts of the humans in "Silence In The Library" to communicate with the Doctor. And then the Weeping Angels use the corpse of Sacred Bob to fashion themselves a ready-made sock-puppet with which they can speak into Sacred Bob's walkie-talkie, to taunt the Doctor. But if we see this one again next year, it'll start to seem distinctly tropey.

A little girl is trapped in an unreal world where she's the only one who can touch reality. This was the setup for "Silence In The Library" — the little girl is stuck in a virtual paradise, but Doctor Moon tells her it's not real, and only the Library, where the Doctor and his friends are trapped, is real. This motif crops up very strongly once again in "The Big Bang," where there's another little girl who's stuck in a world that's "wrong" in a very basic way, but she remembers the "real" world. A little girl meets the Doctor, and then she sees him again as an adult, but it's only been a few minutes for him. This is the plot of Moffat's acclaimed season-two story "The Girl In The Fireplace," and he cannibalizes it pretty heavily for the season five opener, "The Eleventh Hour." The overall effect of this trope is to make the Doctor a central figure in the female character's life, while to him she's just someone he's bumped into during his travels.

Timey-wimey cheating that actually affects the plot. We all know that Moffat loves to play with the sheer perverseness of time travel — he wrote a whole Doctor Who spoof, "The Curse Of The Fatal Death," in which the Doctor and the Master keep traveling back in time to outsmart each other, in sillier and sillier ways. And when it works, it's really brilliant — I'm completely enthralled with the Doctor's relationship with River Song, in which they "keep meeting in the wrong order." But it's a different matter when the Doctor faces an insoluble dilemma — until his future self steps in and helps him out, by tossing him the solution. If you follow that logic to its ultimate conclusion, the Doctor can never face a no-win situation, because he can always travel back in time from a future in which he's already solved the problem, and give himself the solution. At that point, the tension and drama go right out of the series, forever. This has been turned up in a lot of Moffat's scripts — in the otherwise perfect "Blink," the Doctor knows what Sally Sparrow is going to say to his DVD easter egg, years in the future, because her future self gave his past self a transcript. In "Forest Of The Dead," the future Doctor remembers that River Song is going to die in the library, so he gives his past self a way to save her. And then — spoiler alert — this device appears again in the season five finale, "The Big Bang." This one is the one I'm grumpiest about — partly because it gives the Doctor an easy "out" in any sticky situation, but also because it makes time travel into the Doctor's superpower, rather than just the way he arrives at his latest adventure. Moffat is still one of the most clever writers ever to have handled Doctor Who. And with the creation of Amy Pond, he's finessed the biggest problem of them all: How to create a version of the companion-centric story arc that doesn't feel like a repeat of Rose, Ace, Martha or Donna. So maybe it's excessively nit-picky to point out that he seems to reuse motifs and plot ideas an awful lot. Mostly, we know that his enormous brain still has some new twists and surprises stuffed into its root cellar, though, and we're dying for him to trot them out for Matt Smith's second season. Here's hoping it happens!

There was no new episode of time-traveling action-comedy Doctor Who on BBC America this weekend, but that's okay. In lieu of another recap, we've got something to get off our chests. With vague spoilers for the end of season five. Doctor Who's new season has been a lot of fun to watch, in general — Matt Smith is the most Doctor-ish of the recent Doctors, and his performance just bursts with acting tics and neat ideas. Karen Gillan is a totally thrilling companion. The season-long arc was pretty thrilling, and kept us guessing. The whole thing has been cute, sparky, moving and extraordinarily watchable. There's just one thing that's been bugging me quite a bit — and that's the extent to which Steven Moffat's Who is already feeling like a one-trick pony. Or maybe, more accurately, a three- or four-trick pony. It may seem like a pusillanimous complaint — every era of Doctor Who has had its repeated motifs and go-to ideas, after all. And surely, what matters is how you use these repeated ideas, right? And most of all, when you complain about reusing plot devices you risk elevating plot about characters, or story, or the little moments that make Moffat's Who such a joy to watch. But still, to me, a big part of the thrill of Doctor Who is wondering what happens next. And when I heard Moffat was taking over as the show's new head writer, the first thing that jumped to mind was, "I can't wait to see what clever stuff he comes up with this time." And to a large extent, this year, it's felt like Moffat's clever ideas are the same ones he's had in years past. There are a couple ideas that he's reused over and over, and some that he's reused once or twice. In either case, I wouldn't mind seeing these plot devices take a vacation for 2011:

The Doctor tells scary aliens to go away. Especially if he tells them to look him up in a directory, or read up on him somewhere. Or if he encourages them to think about all the times he's defeated them before. I loved the "It is defended" speech in "The Christmas Invasion," and I quite liked the "look me up" speech in "Forest Of The Dead." But enough, already. The Doctor is getting blustery and self-promoting here. He's starting to remind us of those Internet hipsters who've somehow managed to convince angel investors that their totally impractical business plan will rock the cybersphere, and can't stop talking about it loudly in cafes. Remember when the Eccleston Doctor gave Mickey a disk that would erase all references to him from the internet, because he wanted to remain a secret? We want that Doctor back. Someone stops a deadly machine by admitting to their true feelings. This one first cropped up in "The Doctor Dances," to some extent — Nancy saves everybody from being turned into gasmask zombies by admitting that she's Jamie's mother. And it's turned up a few times since then — in the Dalek story, the android Professor Bracewell is able to keep himself from self-destructing by thinking about a girl he's had a crush on. In "The Lodger," an explosion is similarly averted by having two characters confess their love for each other. And in "Amy's Choice," Amy can only escape from the dream world after admitting, at last, that she really loves Rory. And then there's a bit of this in the finale as well. It's easy to see why this trope persists — after all, it allows you to have character resolution and plot resolution neatly in one go. But if it rears its head too often, it starts to feel a bit too neat and tidy. In the real world, coping with our feelings often gets in the way of coping with the big explodey machines, and vice versa — part of how we prove our worth as people is the way we balance those two challenges. Deadly and unknowable aliens use a dead humans's lingering remains to communicate. This has really only popped up twice — the Vashta Nerada use the last recorded thoughts of the humans in "Silence In The Library" to communicate with the Doctor. And then the Weeping Angels use the corpse of Sacred Bob to fashion themselves a ready-made sock-puppet with which they can speak into Sacred Bob's walkie-talkie, to taunt the Doctor. But if we see this one again next year, it'll start to seem distinctly tropey.

A little girl is trapped in an unreal world where she's the only one who can touch reality. This was the setup for "Silence In The Library" — the little girl is stuck in a virtual paradise, but Doctor Moon tells her it's not real, and only the Library, where the Doctor and his friends are trapped, is real. This motif crops up very strongly once again in "The Big Bang," where there's another little girl who's stuck in a world that's "wrong" in a very basic way, but she remembers the "real" world. A little girl meets the Doctor, and then she sees him again as an adult, but it's only been a few minutes for him. This is the plot of Moffat's acclaimed season-two story "The Girl In The Fireplace," and he cannibalizes it pretty heavily for the season five opener, "The Eleventh Hour." The overall effect of this trope is to make the Doctor a central figure in the female character's life, while to him she's just someone he's bumped into during his travels.

Timey-wimey cheating that actually affects the plot. We all know that Moffat loves to play with the sheer perverseness of time travel — he wrote a whole Doctor Who spoof, "The Curse Of The Fatal Death," in which the Doctor and the Master keep traveling back in time to outsmart each other, in sillier and sillier ways. And when it works, it's really brilliant — I'm completely enthralled with the Doctor's relationship with River Song, in which they "keep meeting in the wrong order." But it's a different matter when the Doctor faces an insoluble dilemma — until his future self steps in and helps him out, by tossing him the solution. If you follow that logic to its ultimate conclusion, the Doctor can never face a no-win situation, because he can always travel back in time from a future in which he's already solved the problem, and give himself the solution. At that point, the tension and drama go right out of the series, forever. This has been turned up in a lot of Moffat's scripts — in the otherwise perfect "Blink," the Doctor knows what Sally Sparrow is going to say to his DVD easter egg, years in the future, because her future self gave his past self a transcript. In "Forest Of The Dead," the future Doctor remembers that River Song is going to die in the library, so he gives his past self a way to save her. And then — spoiler alert — this device appears again in the season five finale, "The Big Bang." This one is the one I'm grumpiest about — partly because it gives the Doctor an easy "out" in any sticky situation, but also because it makes time travel into the Doctor's superpower, rather than just the way he arrives at his latest adventure. Moffat is still one of the most clever writers ever to have handled Doctor Who. And with the creation of Amy Pond, he's finessed the biggest problem of them all: How to create a version of the companion-centric story arc that doesn't feel like a repeat of Rose, Ace, Martha or Donna. So maybe it's excessively nit-picky to point out that he seems to reuse motifs and plot ideas an awful lot. Mostly, we know that his enormous brain still has some new twists and surprises stuffed into its root cellar, though, and we're dying for him to trot them out for Matt Smith's second season. Here's hoping it happens!

You can file this under "News to Be Happy About." The BBC has confirmed that, despite rumors to the contrary, there is no Doctor Who film currently in the works. Earlier this week, I posted a little news item about reports of a Hollywood Who film, written by Russell T. Davies,  starring Johnny Depp as the Doctor. As it turns out, the news was just as false as it appeared. The BBC has put the rumor out of its misery by calling it "pure speculation" and reiterating that there were "no plans" for a major film. This news comes amidst reports of Matt Smith possibly being dropped as the Doctor following a drop in viewership for "The Big Bang." The BBC released no statement on this matter, and I'm assuming that Smith is perfectly safe in his role, considering his contract, which should have him on the show for at least another four years. I'm personally happy about the news of no Who film. The rumored plot sounded absolutely awful, and a change in actors would have been a horrible move that in the end would have only alienated new and old fans alive. Having said that, I would not mind seeing, in the future, a Doctor Who film that fits in with the television series. It would be wildly successful overseas, of course, and probably fairly successful here, if done right. It would also have to star the actor currently in the role of the Doctor, be that Matt Smith or whoever is playing the twelfth incarnation. I've never been able to bring myself to watch the old Peter Cushing films for this very reason. Doctor Who will return to television with a Christmas special on Christmas day, and will return for a sixth series in April. Airdates on BBC America are still up in the air, but I hope that they can get over the silly two-week delay and just air them on the same days.

Tags: Doctor Who, Johnny Depp, matt smith, movie, Russell T. Davies

Here is some news about Doctor Who 600 The Christmas Episode, some is rumour, some confirmed fact, but are subject to change, just in case a pinch of salt though please;Filming for the Christmas Special will begin July 12-16 in Swansea. The episode is written by Steven Moffat and will feature both a former cast member of British soap Eastenders and a Hollywood actor. There are also rumors of a big, big name playing a massive role, which likely describes one of those two other people. Silence, the major story arc of series 6, is mentioned at least once in the special, and we hear again from the voice first heard in the TARDIS during 512 The Pandorica Opens - apparently this voice still has some control of the TARDIS!The story was originally thought to be set in 1500s England, possibly involving Henry VIII. However, the lines about the Egyptian goddess and the Orient Express in space at the end of 513 The Big Bang were an absolute last minute addition, so they may represent the new direction for the special?There are rumors the special will have undertones of A Christmas Carol - something thats been rumored since at least The Runaway Bride - complete with a possible appearance by a past Doctor as the Ghost of Christmas Past! Those Doctors under consideration for this are supposedly Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, and David Tennant, which makes sense when you consider the other Doctors ages, appearances, or total unwillingness to ever have anything to do with the show ever again (and 3 of them are dead also). This may be nonsense anyway, but heres hoping for a little multi-Doctor Christmas goodness.Onto series six, Rory will remain the Doctors companion, and have loads more to do. Amy has a biiiig secret to get off her chest (nothing bad)! Obviously we are meant to think she is pregnant from this statement. Most importantly, River Song is definitely back, but with a big difference when we see her in series 6, it'll be the first time she meets the Doctor.And the confirmed writers for series 6 include; Steven Moffat, Neil Gaiman (probably Episode 3), Paul Cornell, Tom MacRae, Phil Ford (probably the non-Moffat two-parter), and Rob Shearman.Source.And remember the Yeti graphics for the Christmas show, here, I wouldn't worry about the silly missing script story though, these days everything is backed up :)Remember the pinch of salt for some of it please!This post started off on my blog - http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com - there are so many features on there that are not in the newsfeed, or posted elsewhere, you really need to check it out! Thanx!

Here are 30 teasres about 512 The Pandorica Opens;01 Steven Moffat’s on top form with a brilliantly crafted episode – the perfect start to a two-parter.02 The Doctor and Amy visit the oldest planet in the universe, where the first words in history have a familiar ring to them.03 The stakes are every bit as high as in an RTD season finale.04 Characters from earlier in the series make surprise appearances before the opening titles – and we’re not just talking about the series recap.05 There’s something funny going on at Stonehenge.06 If you thought “The Lodger” looked like a money-saving episode, you soon realise where all that spare cash went.07 There’s a scene in a bar rather reminiscent of the Star Wars cantina.08 There’s an armada of alien spacecraft.09 The Doctor gets to deliver one of his “Get out of here!” speeches.10 There’s a brilliant scare involving a human skull.11 You could market an entire range of action figures on the back of this episode alone.12 Amy’s engagement ring is crucial.13 It’ll make you want to go back and watch the whole series again.14 Someone other than the Doctor pilots the TARDIS.15 The Doctor and Amy face a foe reminiscent of fembots.16 There’s a fantastic nod to The Thing.17 The Pandorica does indeed open.18 It also closes.19 The episode ends in a cliffhanger so devilish that it seems utterly inescapable. Its going to be a very, very long week.20 26 June 2010 is a very important date indeed – and not just because it’s the day of the series finale.21 Hello sweetie writ large. Literally.22 "This is royal collection and I'm the ****** *****!23 Cleopatra's comin' atcha!24 Drahvins, Zygons, Draconians, oh my!25 A nifty new Cyber-feature is revealed.26 An unlikely alliance is formed.27 The Pandorica opens. And closes.28 We finally find out where those pesky cracks are coming from.29 Death. A whole lot more death than you probably anticipated.30 But don't despair, the last word of the episode is "love".source1, source2This post started off on my blog - http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com - there are so many features on there that are not in the newsfeed, or posted elsewhere, you really need to check it out! Thanx!

A Van Gogh painting is ferried across thousands of years, communicating a disturbing prophecy to the Doctor, a message on the oldest cliff-face in the universe and a love that lasts a thousand years. In 102ad, Romans receive a surprise visit from Cleopatra, nearby, Stonehenge conceals the Pandorica, a prison-box of legend. As it slowly unlocks from the inside, terrible forces gather in the heavens above. The fates are drawing close around the TARDIS – is this the day the Doctor falls? But there is just one certainty - Silence will fall...So that is how its sold to us, but what else do we know?Amy Pond appears as a little girl and as the adult companion.We meet Rory in 102ad, he is not dead, but a Roman Soldier!The TARDIS explodes.Many old enemies have been confirmed to appear; the Daleks, Cybermen, the Sontarans, the Judoon, the Hoix, Weevils (TW), Uvodni (SJA), Sycorax, Silurians, Autons, Roboform, the Blowfish (TW), Slitheen and the Nestenes.Some of these are involved in putting the Doctor into the Pandorica. It is a small room with a chair (similar to the one that the Master had in the End of Time), the Doctor gets strapped into it. It is rumoured to contain his future self, or perhaps past self(s). Other more intelligent rumours include Omega, Solon and Morbuis.The rumour about a museum episode where the exhibits come to life was confusion with 512, we see Amy fending off a damaged Cyberman, and Amy is tied down by a currently unseen enemy.In space is the main Sontaran Ship, Sontaran pods, Dalek Saucers, Judoon Ships, and Stonehenge is right below them.And I still say the Crack in time is the remains of TARDIS, and River Song is a baddie, or at least has her own agenda!This post started off on my blog - http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com - there are so many features on there that are not in the newsfeed, or posted elsewhere, you really need to check it out! Thanx!

In 1985 a film called "Fright Night" rocked cult horror fandom with a frankly ridiculous concept: a teenager, who is an avid horror film fanatic, gets some new neighbors who happen to be vampires. No, it's not the cleverest film ever, but Doctor Who viewers will be excited to know that David Tennant has been cast as Peter Vincent.In the original film this character was the host of a late-night horror show, but this time around he is reported to be a Vegas-styled magician whose act involves horror-styled imagery. He will claim to be a vampire expert who is not much help when the teens need his 'skills'. The character was the third billed in 1985, so presumably Tennant's character will be similarly important. David Tennant lovers will recall that his NBC pilot "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer" was not picked up by the network; this is therefore his first American media entry that is independent from Britain.Wikipedia has an excellent article on "Fright Night", and additional sources (saying the exact same things) can be found here and here.This post started off on my blog - http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com - there are so many features on there that are not in the newsfeed, or posted elsewhere, you really need to check it out! Thanx!

Right from the beginning of this episode Vampires of Venice felt like a very traditional Doctor Who historical episode. I consider this a good thing. Rather than start with the Doctor, we were given a little teaser of what the TARDIS was going to land in. And then it was back to where we left off last week. I loved the Doctor’s entrance in the cake at Rory’s bachelor party. Rory is an interesting character. The obvious comparison is with Mickey, but Rory is much cleverer and more perceptive than Mickey was. Putting aside the comedic aspects of the character, there are several times during this episode where Rory challenges the Doctor. And the eleventh Doctor reacts very differently to Rory when compared to the 9th’s reaction to Mickey. Not least in the way that he actively encourages Rory to travel with them. Vampires of Venice was written by Toby Whithouse, who had previously written School Reunion, an episode I loved. He clearly has a handle on the characters and feel of a Doctor Who episode. He also has Being Human to his credit. A show that I haven’t seen but which receives very positive reviews. This particular episode is not nearly as heavy with story arc relevance as the last couple. In essence it’s a fun stand-alone adventure. But there are a few references to the silence. It’s not perfect but it is fun from beginning to end. There’s some gorgeous imagery throughout the episode and some snappy dialogue: “Blimey! Fish from space have never been so… buxom” I loved the little fanboy moment where William Hartnell’s picture appeared on the psychic paper. Story wise there were a few things that didn’t work though. Once again the episode seemed a little rushed and some scenes jumped about rather abruptly. Isabella’s dialogue in her death scene was kind of unneccessary and unconvincing. I also have a few nitpicks. Why do people not react when the TARDIS lands right in front of them? Once upon a time the sonic screwdriver didn’t work on physical locks. Now it can even heal people. It’s an easy crutch for writers. Does everyone know about the Time Lords now? Special effects were a mixed bag. The alien itself looked great, but the electrocution and the shots of the Doctor climbing were cheesy. On the acting front I’m loving Matt Smith’s mannerisms more and more with every episodes. Particularly the scene where he is figuring out what the alien’s plan actually is. This Doctor has poor social skills. Which fits his obvious intellect. Karen Gillan hit all the right notes this week too. Particularly the expression on her face when the Doctor sends Amy back to the TARDIS. So all in all this isn’t the knock it out the park success of Time of Angels or Flesh and Stone, but it’s fun from beginning to end. Related articles by Zemanta

Doctor Dan And His Countrymen Have Seen DOCTOR WHO Take On The Vampires of Venice!! (aintitcool.com) Doctor Who The Vampires of Venice review (spoilers) – you have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves! (scyfilove.com) Doctor Who 5.06: “The Vampires of Venice” (pinkbananaworld.com) Doctor Who: The Vampires Of Venice – series 31, episode six (guardian.co.uk) Doctor Who review: Vampires of Venice (telegraph.co.uk) The Vampires of Venice (11th Doctor, episode 6) (reprog.wordpress.com)

Eoghann Irving is a sci-Fi fan, self professed geek, owner of too many computers and general know it all. Follow me on Google Buzz, LinkedIn or Twitter to chat about this or anything else.

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Note: The following review contains spoilers for all aired episodes of Doctor Who, including the most recent, “The Vampires of Venice.” I’d been looking forward to this episode of Doctor Who, “The Vampires of Venice,” for a long time, because it was penned by the creator of one of my other favorite shows, the brilliant, supernatural comedy-drama, Being Human and features a guest appearance by Alex Price, who had a very memorable one-episode role as a ghost, Gilbert, on that show.  While it may lack the epic sweep, mindbending twistiness, and tumultuous events of the previous two-parter, that is also a bit of a relief, particularly considering how extremely complex next week’s episode, “Amy’s Choice,” looks like it’s going to be.  ”The Vampires of Venice” is a nice, brief respite from the tension of its surrounding episodes, but one that at the same time furthers the arc along, while continuing to offer some tantalizing clues as to where the series may be heading. On its surface, “The Vampires of Venice” is a classic Doctor Who romp about things that seem to be vampires but are actually fish monsters from another dimension who want to pull an Atlantis on Venice by dragging it under the water, in order to make it a habitable environment for them.  The plot is extremely silly when spoken aloud but, as usual, the show manages to completely sell it in the moment, because the characters take the situation seriously.  Furthermore, Whithouse infuses the script with his strong knack for excellent character dialogue that makes Being Human so wonderful.  His specialty, also on display in his previous Doctor Who script, is to juxtapose realistic character interactions and relationships with supernatural and/or outlandish goings-on. And so, the Doctor’s attempt to reunite Amy and Rory both physically and emotionally is played out against the backdrop of the fish monsters from outer space.  The script is full of moments that ground it in reality and the mundanities of modern day, however, from Rory’s stag party at the start to Amy posing for a photo on his iPhone.  More importantly, of course, are the discussions between the Doctor, Rory, and Amy about their relationship entanglements, and the fun, little dance that occurs when the Doctor proposes pretending to be her father (it’s a nice detail that, for the moment, he forgets how young he looks), then her brother (also summarily rejected), and then her fiance, which hurts Rory’s feelings, only for Rory to end up playing her brother instead of her fiance.  While the ironies being played with here are entertaining, it also says a great deal about the extent to which Amy is trying to avoid her future and adult responsibilities that a day before the wedding (sort of), she still isn’t ready to refer to him as her fiance. Early on in the episode, it all seems like a bit of a game to her.  At the start, she doesn’t seem particularly regretful about kissing the Doctor nor extremely happy to have Rory with them.  At this point, it’s difficult to tell if it’s because she felt like she settled for Rory and doesn’t really love him, or she is simply afraid of settling down.  This is fascinating character writing, however, because when Rose treated Mickey with the same level of apathy, the series never seemed to really ask us to question her as a character.  It often felt like we were just supposed to understand that he wasn’t very bright and kind of dull, and, in short, just wasn’t really for her, which justified her breaking his heart over and over again.  With Amy, however, there is a greater sense that we aren’t supposed to applaud her actions, evidenced by the show repeatedly referencing her “running away.”  Interestingly, just as with the Doctor, having a life-threatening adventure with Rory leads her to be turned on by him again by the end, so it might simply be that she does love him but has felt a bit bored and constrained and that seeing him in heroic situations with her will lead to her feelings for him being reignited. The dialogue between Amy and Rory in this episode is excellent, the dialogue between the Doctor and Rory even better.  In another example of Whithouse’s fantastic writing, Rory scolds the Doctor, at one point, telling him that the reason he is dangerous isn’t because he puts his companions in harm’s way, but because he inspires them to do stupidly dangerous things in order to impress him.  What makes this great writing is that when one looks at the situation in a certain way, one can almost think Rory is right, and it seems to be a new interpretation of the Doctor/companion relationship that was always staring us in the face but wasn’t ever quite articulated in that way in previous episodes.  At the same time, Rory is missing out on a key factor–that the companions’ actions may be dangerous, but they are also courageous.  Assuming that Amy can’t take care of herself is underestimating her, the very thing that the Doctor doesn’t do.  He respects his companions and this respect inspires them to perform acts of bravery that they otherwise wouldn’t have done, something which Rory comes to learn himself by the end of the episode.  Again, however, one can see exactly why he at first sees the Doctor in one light–not the least of which is due to jealousy over thinking he wants his girl–and how he comes to change his opinion.  The Doctor comes to instill bravery in him, as well. The other most important aspects of the episode, to me, revolve around the aliens.  Firstly, there is, of course, the nuance that the reason they are in Venice now is because they ran away from the cracks that began to swallow up their world, what they call “The Silence”–interesting, considering the title of “The Silence in the Library.”  And so, despite mostly having a “standalone” plot, the events of this episode are a direct outgrowth of the seasonal arc.  Additionally, when the vampire fish queen, Rosanna, speaks to the Doctor about time ending, I couldn’t help but think of the title of the last Davies episode, “The End of Time,” and wonder if this is all more closely connected to its events than we realize at this point–a result of re-time-locking the Time Lords, perhaps?  Whithouse wisely keeps Rosanna from being a scenery-chewing villain and instead makes her a desperate creature who just wants to save her people. Of course, the Doctor must stop her, because in “just saving her people,” she has to kill and/or forcibly transform a large number of humans–another example of Whithouse’s beautiful writing is the Doctor’s assertion that the reason he can’t join her is that she hadn’t even learned the name of Isabella, the girl she killed, indicating that he would have more sympathy for her had she shown remorse for her actions, that she was ending lives to further her own–but it is to the episode’s credit that there is no showdown between the two at the end.  Rosanna’s attempt fails and she feeds herself to her sons, accusing the Doctor of once again causing the end of an entire race.  We have had similar scenes on the show before, but really struck me this time was that this was an episode after the Doctor said that time could be rewritten.  Will one of these “rewrites” in the future be restoring this race?  Or is the indication simply that this race being ended is an example of a “rewrite” that has already happened, due to the cracks?  Could it be both? By the way, when I was a kid, I would have nightmares about fish, so once again, it seems that Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who has peered into my soul and made television out of my childhood fears (this is the fourth time this year now, I believe).  Thank you for potentially interrupting my sleep yet again, Mr. Moffat!  And Mr. Whithouse, please come back to Doctor Who again soon! All Doctor Who Reviews

Related posts:Doctor Who 5.05: “Flesh and Stone” Doctor Who: "Midnight" Doctor Who 5.03: “Victory of the Daleks”

Here are 12 very vague teasers about Doctor Who 5.06 Vampires Of Venice.1 It’s a great, big fun episode with probably the biggest number of laugh-out-loud one-liners so far this season – but more “Shakespeare Code” than “The Unicorn And The Wasp” in tone.2 There’s a great visual gag involving the Doctor getting everyone to shush up.3 Croatia plays Venice pretty well.4 The final shot is a very unusual. Not sure what it means, but it’s cool.5 There’s more snogging6 Somebody swaps clothes with somebody else.7 There’s a great reason why the vampires don’t have reflections.8 Structurally it’s a very traditional Doctor Who story.9 Guest stars Helen McCrory and Alex Price (Gilbert from Being Human) are both excellent.10 The Doctor makes an unexpected entrance.11 There an extratextual in-joke that’s a doozy.12 Some of the cinematography and lighting is just exquisite.Source.Thanx to Jane/Kako 97 for the heads-up :)This post started off on my blog - http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com - there are so many features on there that are not in the newsfeed, or posted elsewhere, you really need to check it out! Thanx!

Francesco Francavilla was so inspired by the World War 2 Daleks in last night's episode of Doctor Who that he made this wartime morale-boosting poster. Victory through extermination! [Francesco Francavilla via Super Punch]

Francesco Francavilla was so inspired by the World War 2 Daleks in last night's episode of Doctor Who that he made this wartime morale-boosting poster. Victory through extermination! [Francesco Francavilla via Super Punch]

This year's big Dalek episode of Doctor Who was a fun, colorful romp with enough silliness, and crazy enough action, to make almost anyone happy for 42 minutes. But it did make us wonder: Will the Daleks ever rock again? Oh, and there are MEGA spoilers for "Victory Of The Daleks," and very minor spoilers for the two episodes that follow. In a way, "Victory Of The Daleks" was the same Dalek story we've been getting for years, except for the ending. Once again, the Doctor discovers that the Daleks weren't destroyed totally in the Time War, as he thought. Rather, a few of them survived, and they're making plans for a sneaky comeback using genetic engineering or their creator Davros, or zoot suits, or whatever. Every one of those previous stories pretty much ended with the Doctor thwarting the Daleks' comeback once and for all. This time around, the Daleks' wacky scheme actually succeeds, and the story hints that the mutant blobs of hate are back as a force to be reckoned with. So "Victory Of The Daleks" is really aimed at being a reboot for the Doctor's oldest and nastiest foes, and only time will tell how well it succeeds.

Maybe I'm just being optimistic because the Steven Moffat-penned two-parter which followed "Victory Of The Daleks" was so immaculate that it restored my faith in the universe — but "Victory Of The Daleks" did at least leave me intrigued about where the Daleks are going next. Which is something that hasn't been the case in, oh, years. Not that this was an all-time classic episode, by any means — it was mostly pretty silly fluff. But it did a few things right. For one thing, it reminded us that the Daleks' greatest strength has always been their cunning. The first half of the episode very deliberately recalled the 1966 classic "Power Of The Daleks," in which a group of Daleks are crashed on the planet Vulcan without enough power to get away — so they trick the human colonists on the planet into thinking the Daleks are their humble servants. The Daleks are always more fascinating when they're manipulating people and concealing their true malevolence.

And plunking the Daleks down in the middle of World War II is a touch of genius, since they're meant to be Nazis. (Creator Terry Nation was pretty up front about this, and put a Nurnberg Rally pastiche into "The Daleks Masterplan" and goose-stepping into "Genesis Of The Daleks.") The Daleks' whole deal is that they're space racists, who believe they're the superior life form of the universe. So having them volunteer as Winston Churchill's new secret weapon during the London Blitz is a stroke of bizarre genius. (Shame we didn't get to see any actual Nazis in the episode.) Also, having Winston Churchill resort to using the Daleks as weapons despite his misgivings is a nice metaphor — the Daleks were created in a terrible 10,000-year war, and when they don't symbolize fascism, they symbolize the ultimate weapon and militarism gone too far. So bringing up those questions of just how far you're willing to go to win in a total war is a nice way to bring them back to their original thematic roots. They're an ultimate weapon that got just a wee bit too ultimate for comfort.

Plus, the idea of Daleks serving a nice cuppa tea only gets more hilarious the more you contemplate it. And the callback later, when the Doctor admits his "self-destruct device" is a jam cookie, because "I was promised tea!" was priceless. To be honest, the first half of this episode almost felt like the Doctor Who team were admitting that they'd run out of Dalek stories, so why not have a lark? So it was sort of a pleasant surprise when the Daleks' scheme was revealed — they needed the Doctor to recognize these genetically impure Daleks as Daleks, so that they could activate their progenitor thingy and spawn the new generation of bigger, shinier Daleks.

I don't hate the new Daleks as much as many people do, by the way. I'm still getting used to them, but I sort of like the sleekness. But I get why lots of people hate them. I do find the weird individual titles a bit meh, but whatever. But can the new Daleks restore the horror and thrills of the killing machines at their absolute best? Maybe. I'm a smidge dubious, but keeping my hopes up. It's worth recapping, briefly, how we got here. Doctor Who introduced the Daleks in its very second story, back in 1963, and they were an instant hit, propelling the show to ratings heights that only a few other monsters, like Kylie Minogue, would ever garner. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) The Daleks died off at the end of their first story, but such was their success, the show figured out a way to bring them back the following year — for one of their best ever stories, "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth." The merciless metal Nazis conquered Earth and zoomed around London exterminating people. It remains one of the show's best episodes.

Ever since then, the Daleks have had their ups and downs. The next two stories were pretty forgettable. And then the two stories after that are considered classics again, although only snippets of them remain. In the 1970s, Jon Pertwee had three fairly disposable Dalek stories, with a few good moments sprinkled in. And then the Daleks got their second reboot — the story "Genesis Of The Daleks" told their origins for the first time, and introduced their mad-scientist creator Davros. But more than that, it gave them back a lot of their edge once again. The overexposed Daleks appear pretty sparingly in the story, especially the first few episodes, and when they're on screen, they're mostly slaughtering everyone in sight. They don't stand around and debate amongst themselves for minutes at a stretch. Most of all, "Genesis Of The Daleks" introduced the cleverest idea of them all — that the near-omnipotent Time Lords themselves were terrified of the Daleks because they foresaw a possible future where the Daleks had succeeded in wiping out all other life. That's pretty radical stuff. Every classic-series Dalek story after that took the wrong idea from "Genesis." Instead of borrowing the idea of using the Daleks for maximum effect, or playing with the idea that the Daleks might be destined to win in the end, the writers brought back the character of Davros, over and over, with less and less justification. (If ever there was a character who deserved to appear in only one story and then vanish, it would be Davros.) There were some neat bits here and there, and "Remembrance of the Daleks" does some nice things with the Doctor — but for the most part the new potential created by "Genesis" was squandered.

The new series gave the Daleks their third reboot, with the fantastic first-season episode "Dalek." Almost everything about this episode is perfect (I can do without the Dalek wanting to see the sun at the end.) One single Dalek is able to pwn a whole facility full of heavily armed humans, and you're left with no doubt that this Dalek could trash a lot of the planet Earth the same way. And the Daleks are given a new backstory: they went to war with the Time Lords, and the Doctor had to destroy his own people to stop the Daleks. The invention of the Time War was pure genius, and it gave the Daleks a whole new power, reaffirming that they were powerful enough to scare the crap out of the Time Lords. And when the Daleks came back next, you couldn't help remembering that the Doctor made the ultimate sacrifice to rid the universe of them — and the Daleks' continued existence means the Doctor's sacrifice was in vain. (Of course, we eventually learned that the Doctor didn't just destroy the Time Lords because it was the only way to stop the Daleks, but also because the Time Lords were asswipes.)

And just like the previous new leases on life the Daleks had gotten, the show squandered this new potential with a slew of inconsequential, increasingly silly stories. To be fair, the Dalek-Cybermen battle royale was pretty freakin great, but it did culminate with the Daleks flying through the air like skittles. And the less said about "pig slaves," the happier we'll all be. There's bound to be an element of wishful thinking in pondering the idea that Skaro's Finest could carry some real weight once again, and be restored to their true glory. But as goofy as it is, "Victory Of The Daleks" does leave me feeling as though the writers are at least heading in the right direction, by touching on all of the major thematic elements of Dalek lore. And the Daleks win in the end, which is a plus.

The real question is whether there are any new stories to be told about the Daleks, or whether we're doomed to endless rehashes. Which reminds me of one other point that "Genesis Of The Daleks" brings up, which the show's never addressed since — maybe some things in the universe are better because the Daleks exist. Maybe they bring out the best in people. Maybe out of their great evil must come something good. It would certainly be interesting to find out if that's true.