Tag Archives: Sarah Jane

Midnight – David Mamet meets Doctor Who

So it’s Episode 10 (Season/Series 4) of Doctor Who, it’s pretty much a Doctor Who only episode, Donna Noble hangs back at the spa so we see her about a total of 60 seconds. The episode “Midnight” is written by Russell T. Davies, the man who revived the Doctor Who series four years ago and is still executive producer for Doctor Who and does the same for spinoffs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures (occasional writes episodes for both).

The conversation is cRaZy and and has a bunch of people talking and no one listening and when they are, they aren’t paying attention. It made me think of a David Mamet story multiple times, the conversations seemed so much like that of Oleana and other things he’s written, if you don’t know what I mean I’m not sure how to explain it. It was an interesting episode, if you watch the show you’ll see what I mean, if you know agree with me please let me know. Actually, it was a great episode, but it certainly wasn’t a “regular” episode.

Oh, and Rose shows up on the monitors again. No big surprise there…

I’ve got some spoilers (labeled with “SPOILERS”) but I’m going to talk about the next 3 episodes: previews, rumors and conjecture (some might consider the next few paragraphs spoilers too, so stop at any time). Generally Doctor Who seasons have 13 episodes and several times that last story has spanned the last three episodes (even if you didn’t realize there was more to come after episode 11) and generally the final episodes aren’t too much of a cliff-hanger since the Christmas Special (actually broadcast on Christmas between seasons of the show) has generally been meant to sort of stand on it’s own. Continue reading

The BBC SciFi Phenomenon (or “My Doctor Who Weekend”)

So I’ve really been liking the BBC’s SciFi shows the last few years and this weekend was a Doctor Who related weekend. I’ve never liked Doctor Who until the last few years (I’ll lean more towards I disliked it).

Here’s my Doctor Who related activities this weekend:

  • The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Glittering Storm audio book – Read by Elisabeth Sladen, who plays Sarah Jane Smith on the new series, as his companion in the 1970’s Doctor Who and did a cameo a few seasons ago (which then spun off the new children’s series). The book was good, started a little slow, I felt like she didn’t like the way her character was written but the book was unabridged so she couldn’t change it, but it got much much better as the book went on. Sometimes I got the boys confused but you could always tell the who the kids were. Good story too.
  • Doctor Who S4E5 The Poison Sky (part 2 to The Sontaran Stratagem) – I was excited that it was on this weekend, but I forgot that it was part two of a two-parter! And it’s got Martha Jones in it. Great second part, can’t say much without giving anything away, but another very (very) short appearance of Rose. I think we’ll see a bit of her (and hear about the Bees until those episodes come up). I was surprised at the mention of Torchwood, but I think Capt. Jack’s due for another appearance too (and maybe Sarah Jane).
  • Torchwood: Hidden – Read by Naoko Mori, who plays Toshiko. This is a good story, but it’s really hard to tell the character’s apart. It probably reads okay, but when there’s more than a few of them, it’s hard to tell who’s who. I’m not done with this one, but it’s good so far.
  • Doctor Who Confidential – It’s not strange to have a “making of” for movies of TV series, but Dr. Who has one every week and this week it was another 45 minutes of show (right after the series on a different channel). It’s just really bizarre to see another show just about the previous show just on, I don’t normally watch it but it was pretty good. Torchwood has a “confidential” too, but I’m not sure they’re as long. Just think of it as the DVD Extras, but right after the show.

    So it was a good weekend of entertainment. And I got lot’s of non-Doctor Who stuff done too… Continue reading