Saturday night’s debut for season three of the revamped Doctor Who scored big time for the BBC, with early indications showing it picked up over 8 million viewers, easily trouncing rival ITV’s spoiler attempt (showing a Harry Potter movie at the same time). The first episode saw the introduction of new companion Martha Jones, rhino-like alien rent-a-cops (who had a little in common with Douglas Adams’ Vogons, I think, but since Doug was a scriptwriter on the show many moons ago that seems kind of fitting – and wasn’t it a pretty good job on the prosthetics for the alien leader?), an entire hospital stolen and planted on the moon and a blood-drinking nasty alien (complete with straw!). Very fast-paced, quite silly in places but also terrific fun; next week’s Easter Weekend episode sees the Doctor and Martha meet William Shakespeare and some witches who do more than say “bubble and trouble” (the episode was shot on the real reconstruction of the Globe theatre in London). The official Who site has a video podcast “Meet Martha Jones” available to watch or download now.
Mon, Apr 2, 2007
Film, TV and radio