The Ood Cast

The First Doctor

Old grandfather time,

Doddering through then and now.

No regrets, no tears.

Season One.

An Unearthly Child

Strange girl from blue box,

Nosey teachers go Stone Age.

Tribe of Gum get fire.

The Daleks

War-ravaged planet,

Condiment-shaped robots rule,

Pacifists kill them.

The Edge of Destruction

TARDIS malfunctions,

Doctor suspects sabotage

(he just missed a switch).

Marco Polo

Clueless explorer

Gives TARDIS to Kublai Khan,

Pointless swordfight end.

The Keys of Marinus

Four keys must be found,

The foe has already won,

But blows himself up.

The Aztecs

Barbara worshipped,

Ian duels while Doctor flirts,

No one re-writes time.

The Sensorites

Natives are dying,

Doctor finds the needed cure.

Was mad humans’ fault.

The Reign of Terror

Caught up in spy’s web

Doctor blags his freedom twice,

Then escapes revolt.

Surely the greatest of all the Doctor’s foes.  Best-known horrors in the universe.   The first villainous creature from Who to get itself snapped by Lord Snowdon for a postage stamp, get its own movie deal, get voted as better than both Godzilla and Gollum in the same poll and to have a small, wheeled library stool named after it.  Also, of course, the first Doctor Who characters to find a regular position both on a condiments tray and in a plumber’s van.

Created by Davros to be the final and greatest weapon of the brutal Skaro civil war, the Daleks soon grew a little too big for their shiny metallic boots and disobeyed their creator.  Essentially weapon-wielding toddlers in over-sized walking frames constantly throwing paddies, they are mutated Kaleds (one of the humanoid native races of Skaro), which – depending on which particular part of the mythos you catch – are a sort of green-ish gooey blob with several legs, a kind of glass vial with something crammed into it or even an one-eyed leggy octopus in a sheltered motorised scooter.

But these tin squid cases have been an all-conquering, ruthless force in interplanetary warfare for more generations than you’ve had cups of tea (which, incidentally, they’re pretty nifty at serving to military leaders).  Devoid of emotions other than hatred, Daleks are efficient, authoritarian and determined to achieve complete conformity – by wiping out every non-dalek lifeform, race and species.    But occasionally they show some fear – and although that used to be when they came across a spiral staircase, later it happened when they were confronted by an angry, gun-toting female.

Over the millennia, Dalek life has been beset and divided by civil wars – initially between the Thal and Kaleds (or was that the Dals and the Thals), Imperial Daleks and Renegade Daleks, and later on with the Dalek version of Scientology – the Cult of Skaro…  But most recently we saw a new generation being created when Dalek DNA was accidently mixed with a packet of Smarties.

They have been defeated by the Doctor on numerous occasions, using various methods – including turning pacifist Thals into genocidal bludlusting Dalek killers, but much more commonly, using something to blow them up… volcanic explosions, self-destruct devices, straightforward bombs and the Hand of Omega have all been used the destroy dalek ships, and on at least one occasion, the building they were in was blown up to stop their attempts at conquest.

There’s little to distinguish between Daleks – they share speech patterns, tones and voices as well as thought processes and instincts… and not one has thought to embellish the catchphrase they first uttered on screen in 1963: “Exterminate”.  That’s a little lazy, right?

—-

Essentials:

First appearance: “The Daleks” [AKA “The Mutants”/ “The Survivors”] (1963)

Best story: Genesis of the Daleks (1976).  Or maybe “The Daleks” (1963)

Most inexplicable appearance: The Five Doctors (1983)

Favourite invention: Escalators

Weaknesses: Eyes on rather easy to snap off/cover up stalks.  Other than that, a bomb clearly seems to do the trick.

So, where was I…?  Oh yeah – somewhere, the 8th Doctor regenerated – as I said before, possibly during (or as a consequence of) the events of the Time War. But as we have no proof, however vague, let’s assume he was just bored to death by the advent of Big Brother in his absence from the screen and had to regenerate. Perhaps a foolish mistake for an experienced Time Traveller, but maybe a small gesture towards the dungheap of Reality TV… We’ll never know for sure. But just when Star Trek fans had started to think they could claim the longest-running series title… here’s the Oodcast Guide to what happened next: Doctors 9, 10 and 11.

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Ninth Doctor

Emerging from the swirling mists of time and onto a North London housing estate to pick up a cockney sparra and whisk her off around the universe, the Ninth incarnation of the Doctor looked for all the world like he’d just wandered out of the bookies after he backed a winner at 100/1 odds. His northern accent did nothing to move away from the stereotype. He was also hairless – a new image for the TARDIS’ designated driver.

In terms of companion, there was the cockney shop-girl, the unemployed Coronation Street actor/dull milksop character… oh, and the omnisexual, immortal cabaret performer.

But this ninth chap was energetic, fun-loving and naturally rather nosey – and although intelligent, quick-witted and very knowledgeable when it came to technological workings, he preferred to stick with the sonic screwdriver and a well-chosen pun in the face of danger. A little like the fourth Doctor, he was often jolly and cheerful when in company or confronting trouble, but melancholy and serious when alone.

During his time, he beat back a fresh invasion attempt by shop window dummies, discovered and then half-defeated the last remaining Dalek, Victorian ghosts, Rose’s should-be-dead dad and a Reaper who wants to make him dead again, children in gas masks, the bloke from Spaced and his hungry ceiling, and (if you were in any doubt as to whether it had anything for the kids) the green aliens distinguishable from other green aliens because they make that funny farting noise a lot… the Slitheen…

A brave and loyal friend, particularly to Rose, he regenerated having kissed her – not as a punishment, but because in doing so, he inhaled the Time Vortex’s energy – and re-emerged younger, skinnier, and in his Sunday best…

—-

Tenth Doctor

The Doctor’s ninth regeneration was a traumatic one, with the poor lamb needing a sleep once it was complete. And while he slept, the world nearly fell to an invasion by the family from the children’s classic Funny Bones. Happily, he woke up in time to beat the Big Skeleton using just a sword and a Satsuma.

And so began the era of the heartthrob Doctor. Good looking, eccentrically suave, sometimes cheeky and with a good mopey face when required, this Doctor was a sort of mixture of the third and fifth incarnations – with the former’s all-action style and enthusiasm for running about; and the youthful wisdom, naivety and touch of sadness like the latter.

Persuading companions to join him was simple (if they were female), and he travelled with the cockney shop girl, a cockney Doctor, and just for a change, a cockney temp… But he also encountered old friends in Sarah and the little tin doggy, was reunited with the Cabaret star and kept a civil face on for the shop-girl’s family and friends.

As for adventures, there were plenty… From cat nurses, werewolves and spiky queens to clockwork Frenchmen, deadly stone angels, interplanetary witches, small girls who could teach animators a thing or two about bringing things to life, northern comedians, robot Santas with Tuba guns, literally huge demons, face-stealing televisions, scarecrows, hungry shadows, fish people (who are all halfway through eating a glass), Aliens hidden under Roman volcanoes, walking diet pills, giant wasps, antsy headmasters and some older foes in a returning Davros, Cybermen, Daleks, Sontarans, Macra and the Master.

He should, of course, be best remembered for meeting the Ood. Without whom we would not have a podcast…

This Doctor’s end was long, drawn out, and I’m not really sure what did for him in the end. Perhaps it was the numbing inevitability. Nope, I remember. He regenerated having absorbed far more radiation than he should have) in order to save Bernard Cribbins so he could carry on with his plan to narrate a new series of the Wombles – at least, that’s what Bernard should be doing. A noble deed either way.

His reluctant firework display over, he went back to his childhood… Isn’t 903 too old for a mid-life crisis?

—-

Eleventh Doctor

Whether you see him as an old head on young shoulders, or simply a bent shoe coincidentally on the same coat hanger as a tweed jacket, the Eleventh incarnation is an exhilarating bundle of energy and floppy fringes. The Time Lord equivalent of Hugh Grant crossed with a Rugrat.

Old school in many ways, he is quick-tempered yet compassionate and bears more than a passing resemblance in manner to the second doctor. He’s the first to deploy sweeping the hair out of his eyes as a method of charming enemies, the second to pull off the bowtie and braces combination (it’s a classy man who can pull off the “Bobby Ball”), and the third to raid a hospital changing room for clothes.

Just a few months in, he’s already faced the threats of Daleks, Silurians, even deadlier deadly stone angels, a space snake with huge teeth, Star Whales, Smilers and gun-toting monarchs, vampirical fish women, a Dream Lord, a pilotless spaceship, a small stone prison and a paradox… Oh, and of course he faced an alien turkey in the crypt of a French church while visiting Vincent Van Gogh.

He also appears to be quite good at football, but I don’t think we need to go into that.

So, after a holiday and everything that surrounds a small Time Lord starting school (he’s doing fine, by the way), The Ood Cast Guide returns with the second of three instalments on our intrepid hero…

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Fifth Doctor

The Fifth incarnation came into being with rather a lot of difficulty, having to be carried around in what remained of the Zero Room to help his recovery from Post-regeneration trauma. No other Doctor suffered from this as badly (unless you count the 10th Doctor’s insistence that he needed bed rest…). And on top of this, he was also a few inches shorter and looked daft in such a big scarf.

Despite being dressed as an Edwardian cricketing gent, this Doctor was younger. While noble and wise with a strong compassionate streak, he was youthful in his wonder, enthusiasm and bravery, but also in his naivety and clumsiness.

He is particularly memorable for rarely being seen with less than three companions at any one time, and being the only Doctor to watch one of them die. His time also saw the destruction of the Sonic Screwdriver, and consequently the adoption of a sort of MacGuyver approach to Time Lord-ing…

In the 3 years he spent stumbling from battle to battle, he faced the threats of Daleks, Terileptils, the Master, Silurians and Sea Devils (along with their – ahem – glistening Myrka), demonic faces in the walls of 17th Century churches, Cybermen, a plot by the Black Guardian to kill him using a companion, the Mara and a deformed explorer who liked dressing up for parties.

His end came about in typically noble fashion, giving his companion all the vaccine for Spectrox Toximia while he regenerated into a bubble-permed bit part actor…

——-

Sixth Doctor

Nostalgia is not often kind to this incarnation. Tempestuous at the best of times, the sixth doctor was a rampaging torrent of blonde curly fury one moment, and a slightly shouty BFG the next – and in the rest of the time a little bit petulant and egotistical… starting from his first moments crammed into the cricketing blazer, when he tried to strangle Peri before recovering his senses (although let’s be honest, if you only heard the voice…).

And even with the temporal-boundary-defying (and headache inducing) fashion sense he displayed, this Doctor had to deal with far more earth politics than other doctors, as well as a full enough roster of aliens: from giant money-obsessed grubs, daleks and Gastropods (no, not a new range of poncey pubs) to Sontarans, a Gallifreyan take on the Femme Fatale, Audrey from the Little Shop of Horrors and in a slightly incomprehensible instance, the Cybermen…

All of which he coped with using his trademark mixture of grumpiness and annoyance, with the help of the vocal stylings of two female companions – a barely clothed American girl and the annoying little girl from Just William who “thcweamed and thwceamed until the wath thick” whenever something looked remotely threatening.

Understandably, he then went mental and let himself be tried on Gallifrey by a possible future incarnation of himself who wanted to steal his remaining lives.

Not sure how the end came about for this doctor, but I’m sure it was dignified.

What? What’s wrong with that?!

—–

Seventh Doctor

After a regeneration which had no bad side effects other than the appearance of an appalling wig and the deduction of several inches from his height, the seventh incarnation begun life as a sort of comical time-travelling gnome who seemed to choose a manic toothy grin as the best way to ignore the high-pitched wailing of his inherited companion.

However, despite the dodgy first steps, this was a doctor who went on much more of a progressive journey than many of his previous selves, and his next companion, Ace, would be the making of him – revealing both a darker, more determined and mysterious side to him.

A staunch pacifist, abhorring any kind of violence, he had a curious side as wide as the berth the production team ought to have given to that question mark tank-top, and his nosiness eventually outweighed the whimsical one. This Doctor was a skilful manipulator… his natural showmanship and ability to play the buffoon convincingly become the only weapon he liked using. It frequently meant he could slip in and out of places without being detected (although Lord knows how with that punctuation rash).

During his time in the TARDIS, he battled a number of familiar faces and some worrying new ones in strange places… such as space bounty hunters in Welsh holiday camps, Arthurian planet-wasting monsters next to a UNIT nuclear transport convoy, evils from the dawn of time in a Second World War military base, Daleks in 1960s London, an evolution-manipulating alien intent on assassinating a monarch in a Victorian Manor house, and cat-people (and the Master) in Perivale. Oh, and that’s not even mentioning the Cybermen, Nazis and Elizabethan strangers on the building site that became the Millennium Dome.

The end came when the Doctor was asked to transport the Master’s remains to Gallifrey after he was executed by the Daleks on Skaro. The Master managed to take control of the TARDIS and make it land in San Francisco. On emerging from the doors, he was predictably shot. Perhaps the most depressing of all Time Lord endings?

—-

Eighth Doctor

The briefest of all incarnations, this Doctor was a romantic soul who had no clue what was going on for most of the time. Half human and probably coping with the trauma of coming round in a body-store in a San Francisco morgue, he eventually showed himself to be a remarkable, enthusiastic and energetic incarnation with a fascination for people and the world around him.

His one outing contained a perilous (and seemingly endless) battle with the Master, some far too exciting car chases and the discovery that this doctor could walk through glass windows without breaking them first…

He dressed like a romantic poet, and enjoyed freaking people out by giving them small visions of their own future to encourage them to make good decisions.

It is thought that this doctor was the one involved in the Time War, regenerating into the 9th Doctor not long before he returned to the screens in 2005, but there’s nothing firm about this, and we still wait to find out how this incarnation regenerated… So hop to it, Mr Moffatt!

The “Whoniverse” is a complicated place.  Ever aware of this, and the confusions that can arise, your friendly Oodcasters present the beginning of the end of your confusions…  The Oodcast Guide.  Each entry in this weighty online tome will be compiled using the very best of what remains of the Oodcast’s collective memory, and therefore absolutely and thoroughly under-researched.

So, let’s get cracking.  First up, we’ll take you through the most important part of the series…  The Doctor.

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The First Doctor __

The Doyen of doctors, the original was a crotchety old man who insisted on surrounding himself with young people and wearing a hat the shape of a fur-lined cone (which, combined with his white hair gave him the appearance of a time travelling Mr Whippy…)  He also chose the TARDIS with the broken chameleon circuit, presumably, so we can’t assume his judgement in travelling methods was any less flawless than his fashion sense.

He travelled with teachers, space pilots, resistance fighters, rescued spaceship passengers, secretaries and sailors before collapsing and regenerating for the first time.

Tremendously knowledgeable on scientific matters, but curiously awful at flying his own time machine, was the first to encounter Daleks and Cybermen, as well as taking jollies to Mexico, Ancient Greece, China and revolutionary France, met cowboys, cavemen and the Celestial Toymaker.

Oh yes, and he had a library card (see Vampires of Venice).  Eventually, old age took its toll and he regenerated for the first time, into a time-travelling bad-hair-day.

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The Second Doctor __

Slightly shambolic and unpredictable, the second doctor had the appearance of a tramp that wandered into Mr Benn’s favourite costume shop: with a shaggy pudding-bowl haircut, the occasional massive fur coat and Rupert Bear’s favourite trousers.

But there was more to him than fashion statements.  He was mercurial and fascinatingly clever, while clumsy and caring towards those in distress.  He also established the formidable team with Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, and was the first to openly (and shamelessly) use a sonic screwdriver on screen.

Surrounded by frightened Victorian teenagers, certain UNIT officers, hot-headed Scottish warriors and stupidly intelligent young women, he took on the cybermen and daleks again with nothing but his intelligence and a recorder, is still the only Doctor to take on the Ice Warriors as enemies, guided his friends through an attempted mind robbery, faced creatures from the deep and Yetis in the London Underground before being forced to become Worzel Gummidge by the Time Lords.

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The Third Doctor

Geriatric jujitsu exponents everywhere raised a cheer – for this was their doctor…

Beginning as a victim of friendly fire, and then becoming a confused clothing and vehicle thief as well as saviour of mankind in a plastics factory was something of a rollercoaster of a first day.  If it was possible for a Time Lord to have a mid-life crisis, this was it: fast machines, short-skirted female companions and more action than is seemly for someone of advancing years, this doctor was a kind of Budget Bond.  With his own Blofeld too: enter… the Master.

During the course of his careering about, he encountered the daleks again, the Master, daemons in Bronze age barrows, the Master, giant green poisonous maggots, the Master, fascist versions of reality, the Master, two sets of underwater cousins (who’s idea of “self-defence” is creeping aboard sea forts and murdering people), the Master, mind control machines, the Master, lost aliens, the Master, potato-headed warrior Sontarans, the Master, and the giant spiders which would ultimately be his end.  And the Master.

Did remarkably little travelling around his immediate environs for someone with itchy interstellar feet confined to just the one planet.  He did, however, reverse the polarity of more things than any other doctor.

Radiation brought his dashing about to an abrupt halt, and he regenerated soon after into that one-legged sailor in Blackadder II that drank his own wee and wanted to marry Nursey.

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The Fourth Doctor

Described as looking like a “Space vagrant”, the fourth incarnation was eccentric both in action and dress sense (although not quite as much as the previous doctors, it has to be said).  He pioneered the use of scarves as weaponry (see Hand of Fear), the use of confectionary to calm agitated beings, and the construction of jacket pockets from Mary Poppins’ old carpet bags.

Superbly intelligent, witty and fond of jelly babies, this doctor would stick around longer than any other and inspire thousands of children to beg mothers everywhere to get knitting.

In the TARDIS, which gained a glorious oak-panelled look for a time, he entertained journalists, (oddly clumsy but very likeable) UNIT medical officers, savage warriors, Time Ladies, robotic dogs, one rather annoying stowaway boy genius, an aristocratic brainbox and, just before his end, a loudmouth air hostess.

His battles though, were many and varied – taking on all manner of robots (giant ones, servile mining ones, mummified ones, half-human pirate captain ones and reproduction human ones), ancient alien powers, criminal time lords, Sontarans again, female radioactive creatures conveniently buried for centuries under a quarry, disturbing scary mannequins, amphibious lifeforms hiding in lighthouses, art-dealing monsters and – perhaps most famously – the daleks.

His end came when he met the Master again, and fell from a radar dish.  Thus becoming the chap off of All Creatures Great and Small.

Next time…  Doctors 5 – 8…

Here’s a question. Whose were those faces in the mind-bending battle in The Brain of Morbius? Were they the Doctor’s, Morbius’, or some red herring thingy that either the Doctor or Morbius or both were introducing into that battle of Time Lorderyness?*

Anyway… I really like the Beginnings boxset** and felt like writing a blog about it. Just because I love it so. I think it’s a treasure trove of truly awesome telly, and that everyone should see it.   

But first a bit of background. I was always of the school of thought that suggests black & white Doctor Who is not all that rewarding to watch. It’s black and white for goodness sake. And doesn’t have a stereo option. There’re no effects beyond wibbly split-screen or positive-negative gun-rays. The music was played in live and, when a scene ends, often stops wherever it’s got to. Time itself sloooowwwws down meaning that each twenty five minute episode actually takes a day or so to sit through. Spaceships clearly started life as Fairy liquid bottles*** and the sink plungers really were sink plungers. But what do I know? I used to assume that Masque of Mandragora was dull and tedious, and Carnival of Monsters was a daft run-around. Having found myself to be quite wrong about both of these I decided to have a go at watching the Beginning boxset. At the time I had just finished some studying that had eaten up loads of my spare time and left me wanting to chill out with some decent telly for a weekend. Hmmm, reading back this paragraph makes me wonder quite why I bought the boxset. I think it’s because there was nothing else that I wanted in HMV that day, and … it was on offer at a frankly staggering knockdown price. I think I just thought, yeh, let’s just try…

So what did I make of it all…? Well, my preconceptions were dashed.

I’d seen An Unearthly Child before but, blow me down with a feather, it’s good. It’s actually bullet proof in all regards, and still achieves the staggering feat of shifting without effort from a tale that could have been something like Cathy Come Home into something utterly extraordinary. Ordinary folk finding themselves hurtling through the space-time vortex with aliens in a police box! The suddenness and panic in the TARDIS scene and the first dematerialisation will always be an utterly breathtaking sequence. The only comparison I can think of is the equally wonderful opening episode of Life on Mars.

Then we go to the meet the cave folks, and while it might drag here and there it’s still a striking, memorable adventure. Politics, battle of wills,  survival, fear and hope. It’s memorable rather than dull. Here’s one thing I definitely picked up – it doesn’t feel safe. Doctor Who’s opening adventures each exude a sense of ‘maybe they won’t get out of this alive – the scenario is so far removed from everyday life that it actually wouldn’t surprise me. The Doctor can’t be trusted – look, he nearly killed a caveman. There is no safety net here. Yikes.’

Amazing. Next! Now before you all say ‘what do you mean you’d never seen The Daleks before??’ let me just say I’m actually glad I hadn’t seen The Daleks before. It was a revelation to my now rather set-in-my-ways view of telly. It’s very long, but it’s never dull. It’s a superb piece of writing, production and acting. Oh, and a shout out for Tristram Carey’s music – it’s incredibly evocative, and it sounds like he used some bits from the Torchwood theme. No. Hold on. That’ll be other way round won’t it. The alien planet scenes are superb, it just seems so… alien. And I had to remind myself that nothing like this had been seen on Saturday teatime telly before. Epic, scary, and pretty thought provoking. I’m not really a fan of the daleks, but in this one they are totally dalek-y.

Edge of Destruction is the first of Who’s occasional ‘woah, what’s going on?’ stories. It’s unsettling and weird, and leaves you thinking it through – and the revelation at the end takes the viewer even further into the realm of wondering ‘who are these strange alien people, what is their ship capable of, and are our heroes (Ian and Barbara) ever going to be safe with them?’

All through these adventures I got reminded of the initial coldness of the ninth Doctor as the first Doctor mellows in the companionship of Ian and Barbara. I wonder if he and Susan used to get into such scrapes before An Unearthly Child and had the Doctor always been such a selfish maverick up till then? We meet him on the run, a scared man ‘cut off from his own people’ and terrified of losing Susan, which makes me wonder how much truth there is in his later protestations that he ran away from Gallifrey because he was bored. Fascinating questions, which the series has never explored.

Doctor Who began with such fearlessness in its story lines and characterisations and in the sheer scope of what it set out to achieve that this was a golden era of ‘Anywhere in time and space, where d’ya wanna start’? I wish we could see Marco Polo…

Awesome.

*Answering ‘Members of the production team’ doesn’t count.

**Note to self: work on one’s links.

***Other detergents were available. Actually, I don’t know if there were other detergent brands in the 1960s?

Ever since we recorded the review of The Big Bang, slightly influenced by fermented grape juice, I’ve been thinking about the finale. Not in an obsessive way, you understand… I do have a job, and a small dependant-type person. But it sort of comes with the territory that as my friends know me as a fan, I get into conversations with people who can watch the show with other people talking throughout, or while they nip in and out of the room being busy with real life things.

The thing is, I can’t do that. It annoys me intensely if someone talks through something I’ve been waiting to see, and when Doctor Who is on, the only thing I do is watch it. There isn’t much that can’t wait 45 minutes, after all.

But neither do I sit there and drink in every detail and process every misplaced shoelace or wrongly-positioned object. I get caught up in the story and I’m far from ashamed to admit that.

So when it comes to a Steven Moffatt finale… I got lost in it. I don’t mean that I didn’t understand it, just that I went into the world and didn’t come out again until the end theme music started. Having watched it again, yes, I think it was a bit over-complex and could possibly have been stretched over 3 episodes to make the little arc work (let’s face it, amusing as it was, I’d not miss “The Lodger”). But, frankly, I don’t care.

There were holes in the plot – I know. I see them too. But the Doctor is a Timelord. They’re as real as Daleks… it really doesn’t matter that there’s a couple of confusing paradoxes in there.

There are things unresolved – I know. Have you never watched a Steven Moffatt story before? That’s par for the course… Unresolved probably means it will be part of the next season. This is, after all, the chap who brought us River Song 2 YEARS AGO and we still don’t know who the chuffing whatsit she is.

Inconsistencies and contradictions? Hmm. I don’t know. The Moff seems to write scripts where you’re left thinking these are inconsistent or blatant contradictions, but a while down the line, we’re shown the significance. I don’t really see that grumbling about them is of any use. But then, I grew up in the 80s, so this is Doctor Who’s Golden Age of Hollywood compared with some of my childhood memories of bubble perms and talking green slugs. When things contradicted then, it was because they cut the episode together wrong – like that time when the 3rd, 4th, 5th 6th and 7th Doctors all appeared in Albert Square…

What do you mean, that wasn’t a continuity error?   Well, it was definitely some kind of error…

All in all, I don’t care about the problems. I don’t even care that Amy is a character that seems unnaturally cold and unemotional and that nothing has made me really like her except that she’s funny.

I think the sketch we did in Episood 16 (“Childish Things”) highlighted the one that actually bothered me – that the Pandorica plan hatched by the Big Book of Doctor Who Baddies was absolutely rubbish. But then, so is every evil plan hatched by balding master criminals in every James Bond film, and it’s still very easy to enjoy them without worrying about it. Which is exactly what I did.

My point being that is doesn’t really matter in any significant way…  I know we on the Ood Cast are usually ridiculously enthusiastic about the show, and it doesn’t matter whether the episodes are top-notch or middling rubbish – we still love it.  But being a bit more level-headed about it here – the episodes that people will undoubtedly judge the Moff’s first season on – it did what everyone wanted: it surprised, entertained, scared (the stone dalek was brilliant – finally there seems to be an end to the ridiculous flying swarms of them) and tied a few things up.  Not everything, but that’s a reason to keep watching rather than whine about it, surely?

And apart from anything else…  Egyptian godesses?  Orient Express?  In Space?  Anyone fancy opening a book on whether we’re about to see “Pyramids of Mars II: Mastaba and Commander”?! (*FULL credit and huge thanks to Mr Ian Smith for that title*)

As long as the time tunnels in this one aren’t London Underground tunnels, sounds like it’ll be great!

Oh, and did we mention I predicted the Fez….?  OK, OK, I’ll stop now.

Saturday was supposed to be a momentous day for Doctor Who – it was RTD’s big finale, in effect. An episode where he pulled together as many loose strings from the last four years as he could fit into an hour and tried to tie them all together once and for all.

We finally saw the door slammed on the ridiculous Doctor-and-Rose-sitting-in-a-tree… “tension”. Mickey finally moved on (to Torchwood?). Martha finally seems to have joined Torchwood permanently. Donna is back with her family – having got better and better as the series rolled on. And we got that answer to the regeneration question.

But did it all come off?

I think so, yes – but to be honest, I’m not all that sure.

It was fantastic to watch – a real visual feast. But it was a disappointing way to close off such a massive story… There was so much to go on, so much promise, and we got a bit of a cop-out and a lot of confusion…

Personally I didn’t mind the cheesy family-stuff with the Doctor and his “children of time” as Davros put it. Actually, the way he said it made it all pretty chilling. I loved the delightfully-mad Dalek Kaan, his false prophecies and ultimate betrayal – and that the Doctor even offered to save Davros’ life at the end.

But I didn’t really understand why all the companions were needed – excepting maybe as a distraction for the Doctor. A particular highlight for me was Davros. The scenes involving him were magnificent – and particularly when he thought he was in total control. Ahough they could have and should have done a lot more with him than they did.

The two-way meta-crisis: interesting idea, although its back to RTD’s “imaginative” science… I really enjoyed the consequences – the Doctor who talked like Donna, and finally an explanation to the Ood’s mysterious Doctordonna… But for me, it was more Star Trek than Doctor Who, and I have never been a huge fan of Star Trek…

I thought what they did with Donna’s “death” was excellent – and she was finally properly likeable – proper human emotions in trying to deal with a situation so far removed from being “just a temp. From Essex.” The extra Doctor was borderline for me. I sort of saw it coming, but hoped that it would be something else. I think it was handled well until the Bad Wolf Bay bit, and then it got nauseating, but at least it got the romance element out of everything (every cloud and all that).

The ending in particular, with Wilf, was lovely. Very sad, and I am particularly sad to see Bernard Cribbins’ place in the series go with Donna. But it was a good ending to a very good year in Doctor Who.

Three things though – C, G and I.

The Daleks, for me, had their appeal in being an endless force – no matter how many were destroyed or disabled, more and more came after it. Part of the secret was that you couldn’t see or know just how many there were. Genesis, Revelation or Planet of the Daleks wouldn’t have been as tense or dramatic or good if you could seen thousands of them flitting around on their way to battle stations, coffee breaks etc…

But when the Doctor walks out into a massive space, filled with flying Daleks, I lose interest. It looks like a hoard of fruit flies bustling around a discarded apple core. Its not threatening, or scary. It’s preposterous.

The other bit that bothered me was the whole “towing the earth back home” bit. As a concept and a plot point, its fine – it’s a very Doctor thing to do. But why oh why oh why did they have to show it? It looked cheap and silly. We didn’t need to see it.

I could see it working with say, Tom Baker – but it would certainly not be shown… It would have been one of those little asides… You know, like this:

Sarah: But Doctor, what about the Earth?
Doctor: What about it?
Sarah: For goodness sake, its still stranded miles from where it should be!
Doctor: Oh that. I towed it back into position using the TARDIS. (Teeth fill the screen) Come on, let’s go and find a cup of tea…

And that scene where they’re all flying the TARDIS… it was the first time in a long, long time that I’ve wanted to go and make a cup of tea in the middle of Doctor Who (for the record, the last time was while I was watching a video at uni… and my VCR was a fancy model with a pause button and everything…)

All in all, it was brilliant – if self-referential and a bit messy- a real climax to the first four seasons, and despite its flaws, I’m glad it was so big and bold. What a fantastic way of clearing the decks for the Vast Toffee* to step in.

And then there was the trailer (or should I say “spoiler”) for the Christmas special. What was it again?

Oh yes:”Coming this Christmas… The return of the Cybermen.”

Well. Thanks.

That’s the surprise taken out of that one then. Where are your spoilers now, River Song?!

Still, I suppose that stopped The Sun leaking it later on.

*Vast Toffee MN (Master of Nightmares) – Steven Moffat – brilliant anagram courtesy of Staggering Stories…

I had three beginnings.

Of course I didn’t but wouldn’t it have been ever so elegant if I had? In actual fact I had five beginnings, one after the other in the space of an hour. Yes, my first experience of Dr Who was Terrence Dick’s “The Five Doctors” which is by any measure a crazy ass episode for anyone to enter the Whoniverse.

For one thing it follows none of the rules of the series as a whole, imagine watching that thing if you had no idea about the history of the show. Right, so this guy’s the Doctor and he travels to different planets in a blue box. Wait a minute, that guy’s also a Doctor, I wonder what his deal is? Oh, it’s exactly the same as the first guy’s, they haven’t even bothered to invent another back story. More questions followed: Why do those two seem to be acting in an entirely different show? Why does she keep spraining her ankle? Couldn’t she have just walked up that slope?

And yet … and yet … I was enthralled. Which meant that when in 1989 Dr Who burst (then limped) back into regular programming, I was beside myself. No behind the sofa for me, I had my face pressed up against the screen. It was ‘Ace give me one of those Nitro-9s you’re not carrying’ BOOM! and I was in love.

Favourite Doctor:

Will always be Sylvester McCoy. Not because he was all I knew, not because I didn’t know any better. He was just MY Doctor – dark, strange, clownish and complex. His Doctor was like nothing else on TV, not just the good guy but multi-faceted, a master-manipulator, so alien, so other when he wanted to be. I think I just instinctively knew that I wasn’t being pandered to with this one – 9 years old and something was speaking to me in all the glorious greys and half-tones of the real world. So yes, I firmly believe Dr Who had it’s own little renaissance at the fag-end of the century with stories like Remembrance, Ghostlight, and Fenric earning their place as really top-flight Who. Then came the New Adventures which went that one step further into territory I’d certainly never been before. I still remember the gist of the blurb on the back cover of one of the first novels (Timewyrm? Cat’s Cradle?) ‘Only the Doctor can save them. But the Doctor was destroyed years ago. Before time began …’ I couldn’t keep it in my head, couldn’t contain the worlds conjured up to dance before me, the ideas, the scale, the complexity of the continuum and through it all the rich seam of the McCoy Doctor – impish and strange, clever and comical – the grinning, winking tip of a cold, alien intelligence that spread out like a glacier beneath the surface.

Of course, all that said, David Tennant is beyond fantastic and the only other Doctor that convinces me the guy is operating on a completely different level to everyone else. The Doctor is not human, lest me forget, he’s not just really, really ridiculously clever – he perceives things differently to us, he can see time in the same way we can see length, width, height, volume – all that possibility, all those choices slowly solidifying around him, fixing future history in place just by his presence (and brilliantly realised and articulated in ‘Fires of Pompeii’ might I say [YES - first mention of Series 4 - and all because my colleagues have been gracious enough to wait for me to catch up, what a rotter!]). Tennant sells the hell out of the character and it is his obvious, joyous, infectious love for the role that ultimately lifts the current iteration of the show to a level that precious few programmes can match.

The last word should be left to Sylvester though in probably my favourite Dr Who quote of all time – ‘I can’t stand burnt toast. I loathe bus stations – terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls. And then there’s unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty. We all have a world of our own terrors to face.’

Perfect.

Favourite story:

I have loads. Apart from the McCoy classics mentioned above I would also like to give massive shout outs to City of Death, The Time Meddler, Caves of Androzani, The Green Death, Genesis of the Daleks, The Empty Child, Girl in the Fireplace and most of the latter half of Season 3. It really is a stellar time to be a Dr Who fan, isn’t it?

Oh and Dimensions in Time.

Kidding.

Monster/ enemy:

Not to be the contrarian of the group (which I am unfortunately) but I love the Daleks. They work and it’s crazy because it’s like Terry Nation just threw a load of concepts at a wall (like they were spaghetti that he wasn’t sure was quite done) and the bits that stuck he went with. The stupid wheeled design, the one eye, the plunger, the spots, the car grill, the weedy laser, the voice – it’s like the worse designed monster ever both in practicality and menace and yet when you put it together it’s a dalek and it’s ultimately cool. I was bouncing off the walls in the Ecelston episode – when the eyes flashed in the darkness. Awesome.

Also the Raston Assassin Robot thing. Take that you rubbish Cybermen idiots. You don’t like that cold steel up you, do you? Thought you were only vulnerable to gold? Well prepare to be retconned you motherf***ers coz it looks like you’ll also go down like a bitch when faced with the might of normal metal arrows. Hahahahahaha!

Which companion did you either want to be or fancy:

Peri … in the regeneration scene. No one was looking at you, Peter.

No one.

What are you looking forward to?:

I’m going to be honest here – absolutely everything. I can’t wait. But especially Moffet shenanigans.

Dreading:

Catherine Tate. She’s alright but I’m not a fan and she doesn’t make my heart go pitter patter like Rose did.

I should now go on and talk about episode 1 and 2 but I think I’ll leave the honour of commencing the geekathon to one of my esteemed colleagues that deserve it oh so very much more than me.

Go for your life, guys.

One of my very first memories is a recurring nightmare about a scary green man with tentacles running into a hut in the snow. The hut blows up and I wake up terrified. Years and years later a friend lent me the video (remember them?) of The Seeds of Doom and there was my nightmare, on screen at the end of part two. Yikes. That was quite a surprise. It seems therefore that I have been watching Doctor Who since before I can remember, but perhaps that is how it should be. Kids love a good story and that is what Doctor Who is.

Doctor Who challenged my imagination and the way I think about the world. It was a big influence for me. Tom Baker grinning at an adversary and offering them a jelly baby was such a unique way of dealing with trouble that you couldn’t help but love it. The series inspired me to become an actor, work in telly, the media, anything really that would get me making programmes like Who. If I may be deep for a moment it fed into my ideas of what is right and wrong and the challenges of the bits between the two.

Favourite Doctor:

Well this is so hard these days. A few years back that was such an easy question. The answer was Tom Baker. But these days how do you choose between Tom and David Tennant? Tennant has really got it nailed now. He’s angry, he’s lonely, he’s an old, old man in a young man’s body. He can be brilliantly funny too. Full of compassion, never allowing the end justify the means but making the means fit the end (is that an oo-er?). And, I’m told by countless women who watch it becasue he’s in it, rather hot… Doctor Who? Hot? Who’d have thought it.

I grew up with Tom’s Doctor so choosing David would be like disowning an uncle or something. Tom was sooo alien. Dangerous and surprising. Wildly funny;‘You know, you’re the classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain!’. Deadly serious; ‘When I say I’m afraid, Sarah, I’m not making jokes’. (Actually are there any really good quotes like that in the new series?) Amazing company, the best friend you could want and the worst enemy.

Hmmm, you can’t compare the two. But David may have the edge at the mo. Never before has there been a Doctor you can feel for, and that dimension is something the new series does really well. We felt his loss at the end of The Girl in the Fireplace and when the Master died. Goodness I had something in my eye on both occasions. Tennant is such a good actor that those big character pieces can really hit you between the eyes. But to be fair to Tom that happened in his time too. That bit in Logopolis where he spots the Watcher for the first time is surprisingly disarming and likewise when Sarah Jane leaves at the end of The Hand of Fear (my first Who memory). He draws his coat up around his shoulders and looks sooo alone.

Favourite Story:

That’s an impossible question! Come on this is Doctor Who! Oh, all right. If you must! Hmmmmm. No. Well. I guess. At a push, if I really must.

It would be City of Death. I suppose it has something to do with being on at the time when I was just getting into Doc Who, but it is brilliant. It’s all there really. An audacious and fascinating plot which is all to do with the Jagoroth wanting to survive (can’t blame him for that) but at the cost of humanity never having existed. A great monster/villain. Tom Baker at the height of his performance and one of the greatest Doctor / companion relationships with Romana (my first TV crush!). A sparkling script by Douglas Adams that gives Steven Moffat a run for his money. Some really scary bits (end of parts one and three – they were really scary to a kid). Julian Glover, Catherine Schell and Tom Chadbon amongst others. And John Cleese!! And Paris!!

Monster/enemy:

Well again there are so many. The Daleks though I have always found rather dull. Creepy yes and unquestionably a design classic. But they are just a bit slow. For me it is the Cybermen. When I was a boy you couldn’t put a scratch on them, not like today (what WAS Russell T Davies thinking of?). They were impassive, invulnerable, totally remorseless and really chilling. Somehow they are really tragic, but of course they’d not understand the word. Watch Earthshock, it still holds up!

But the monster that had the biggest impact on me was Kroll. Terrifying. Yeah, I know the story is dull, but this thing was a mile across. And that wasn’t including it’s tentacles. It could cut through marsh land like a hot knife through butter and pick off anyone at will. Watch those scenes where it attacks the refinery and you will see what I mean. I had nightmares for weeks and wouldn’t go anywhere near the deep end of a swimming pool. It was my one truly behind the sofa moment, and I found to my horror that it was too close to the wall. So I hung onto my dad for dear life.

Which companion did you either want to be or fancy:

Lalla Ward!! Yum!

If I’d been born a few years earlier I suspect it would have been Elisabeth Sladen or, indeed, Katy Manning. Then of course Nicola Bryant. How DID they get away with Planet of Fire part one?? Billie Piper too. I saw her play in the West End last year and got her autograph, she’s really nice

I sort of wanted to be Adric. Looking back he’s not the greatest of the bunch, but because he was a kid it was like wow, he’s getting to travel with the Doctor. His moral dilemmas made me think a bit and he was often getting it wrong and I identified with that – I just knew that I would mess things up in such extraordinary circumstances. Nothing prepared us for when he stays on the freighter to stop it hitting the Earth. Then the escape pod detaches, and the cyberleader blows up the console in the TARDIS, and the cyberman blows up the computer on the freighter, and it’s getting closer and closer to the Earth. Just stop a moment and consider how all that looked to a nine year old who had no idea whatsoever which way it was going to go. This was really, really jaw dropping. Then the muffled bang as the freighter blows up. I think there was a national stunned silence. Yeah it’s only a tv show but that was extraordinary. A needless death among so many made even more tragic by the fact that it was poor hapless Adric. We sat there and turned the volume up to full on the tv cos we couldn’t work out why there was no end music. Then it dawned on us. He was really dead. Goodness.

What are you looking forward to:

18.20, Saturday, BBC1. And Catherine Tate. I think she’s gonna be rather good.

Dreading:

I’m rather worried about episode six. I won’t spoil it if you don’t know the title… but as the Doc said in series one ‘I don’t do domestic’.