A whole feast of family fun...

Well of course. If it's a contest between watching Him...


Him...

Or Him (sorry Lisa)...

naturally the good Doctor won. As I mentioned on my previous post about Primeval/Robin Hood, thanks to Doctor Who Saturday nights in our house have become all about a family viewing experience, but I hadn't realised how much I'd been missing the instigator of it all, till I had the choice of watching David or Dougie. As we were at my mum's we were a little stymied on the sitting in front of the TV with a takeaway, which is normally part of the Saturday night Family Experience, so we videoed Primeval, and tried not to gobble the wonderful meal with which my mother presented us with too indecent haste. She kindly soon departed to church, it being Easter Saturday, so we could indulge our strange Sci Fi habits without her (inexplicably, my mother doesn't get: Doctor Who, Primeval, Terry Pratchett and any number of other fantasy/sf experiences which I love. I sometimes wonder if she's really my mother...)

S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

So we sat down to remind ourselves what we've been missing and oh boy, it made me long for Series 5 of Doctor Who to be coming really really soon. But this was tempered with the knowledge, that Series 5 means goodbye to David, and I'm still not sure I'm ready. Particularly, as Dougie copped it in Primeval. I mean, how rotten is that. THREE weeks in and the sexiest best character in Primeval goes to join metrosexual Stephen in the great Primiverse in the sky. I feel utterly cheated. But I know it is only a pale shadow of what I am going to feel when David dies... Oh dear. 2009 to be the season for heroes dying doesn't it, given that Jonas will be off at the end of series 3 (only I don't care AT ALL about him, so that's ok.)

I cannot possibly do as witty a review of Planet of the Dead as Marie did here, but oh, I did love this episode. From the minute Michelle Ryan went into cat burglar mode and stole a cup from underneath the noses of the four dim but beefy security guards who were conveniently facing the wrong way (doesn't it ever occur to anyone in these films that they should have one guard facing inwards, just in case a cat burglar sneaks down from above, like, er, they always do?), I knew I was going to enjoy myself. This was a romp pure and simple. A very silly, funny, romp in the great tradition of Doctor Who. It even had aliens with fly heads for fuck's sake, you can't get sillier then that (well ok, you can. You can lassoo the world and get the Tardis and fly it home, but I liked that too). I did feel sorry for the fly aliens though, as it was immediately apparent they were totally dispensable as bringing them through the wormhole would cause no end of bother, which is pretty much what RTD said on Doctor Who Confidential...

I also really liked the sting ray things which flew round and round and gobbled things up and made the wormhole bigger and bigger and bigger.... And all the ridiculous OTT psychic stuff was also good.

I didn't really rate the Christmas Special all that highly, and I've come to the conclusion it's because the Doctor does need a female to spar with, even though I don't really want him to shag anyone in the Tardis, there does need to be some sexual tension, and the two Davids couldn't muster it. But David and Michelle did brilliantly. I loved the way she outwitted him, and took charge, and ignored him when he said don't go down there and she promptly did.

But I didn't love her nearly as much as Malcolm. Ah, Malcolm. Please, please let us have more of Malcolm. Lee Evans was brilliant as the mad genius (and brave - I loved the scene where he defied the robotic idiotic saluting when you're on the phone Unit General, though I DO wish they wouldn't keep making Unit out to be so dense and morally dubious. Bring back the Brig or a modern version of him, say I.), and we were all in pieces at the end when he told the Doctor he loved him. We do too, Malcolm, but we love you just as much...

The ending was suitably preposterous with Michelle Ryan flying off in her big red bus (oh I'd love to see that come back!), but also had a nicely chilling forecast about the end of this particular Doctor's song, and someone coming knocking four times, who has got to be the Master, simply because there's unfinished business there (and I'd have thought that even without all the internet spoilers to that effect). But oh dear god, I am sadly still not sure I want to go there. How will I survive without David Tennant saying things like, I'm going to get you home, in THAT voice...

As a child Tom Baker was always my doctor (Spouse's funnily enough is Jon Pertwee), once he left, I never really liked Doctor Who as much, and I never thought anyone could make the Doctor so real for me again. And here I am in my mid forties, and David Tennant has utterly erased any childhood memory I have of Tom Baker and made himself my doctor instead. I'm not sure how on earth Matt Smith will be able to match up to that. I do hope he can, because watching Planet of the Dead made me realise how brilliant the rejuvenated Doctor Who has been all over again, and I'd love to see it keep on and on and on....

Particularly as we went straight onto watching Robin Hood which was even sillier then normal and without the redeeming presence of Richard Armitage. Joanne Froggatt's character, Kate, has to be THE most annoying character in it now, replacing even Much as the stupidest person on the planet (they are so made for each other). The most enjoyable thing is Keith Allen's comedy villain Sheriff who becomes more ridiculous by the week, and this week managed to dupe all the stupid villagers into believing that Robin and co were heretics and had to be burnt at the stake. Yeah, right...

Moving swiftly onto Primeval, which is heaps more fun and also in the main very very silly, I realised that it was a mistake to watch this the same week as an episode of Doctor Who, because it just isnt' nearly as good. On the other hand, this was a humdinger of an episode, with Mrs Mad (Dougie's ex wife who jumps about through time anomalies cocking things up generally), on top form, having cloned Dougie to break into the Arc where the Primeval team spend all their days trying to work out wtf is going on. I had had warning from Lisa that Dougie was about to buy it, but it was still a bit of shock, as I can't really envisage the show without him. There was also a very touching scene before he died when he helped someone give birth while locked in a room with several baby dinosaur type creatures(I told you Primeval was silly) - there is something about hunky men holding new born babies that makes me go weak at the knees, and another one when he persuaded the clone who was acting under Mrs Mad's orders, that he did have a mind of his own, but I actually found the most moving bit was after Connor brought his body out and there's James Lester, the stuck up boss who hates Cutter, flapping and demanding an ambulance when everyone else can see he's dead...

Can't see how they're going to carry on without him, but then, I still can't see Doctor Who without David Tennant either... sigh.