Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Same Man, New Clothes

The Doctor fingered the elegant garments sadly for a moment and frowned. They looked as if they’d fit all right, but, he didn’t like them. What sort of a chap would go around dressed up like that? Still, it didn’t matter. He had lots more clothes in the TARDIS. In his old body, he’d never bothered about clothes, but now garments that would complement his regenerated appearance seemed rather important to him.

"Holy shit, he's wearing the Nick Briggs' Doctor's outfit."
- Miles Reid-Lobatto, Man of Awesome

And you were worried about the Valeyard...

As you can imagine, getting an email with that message about Matt Smith was far from cheering news. Of course, as outfits go, Briggy's General Frontbottom Doctor didn't do too bad out of the deal, but it caused the same sort of "Oh no" reaction we would have had if DT had turned up in a long scarf, floppy hat and offering people jelly babies. The Dave Segal Factor, mayhaps it should be called?

After all the effort of rebuilding the TARDIS following her destruction, the Doctor realizes too late he's still forgotten to get the windows the right size...

But, bar the bowtie, Matty less resembles the Briggs Alt-Sixth Doctor but the Robert Hardy Alt-Eighth Doctor from Bullseye Books. Or maybe just John Smith from Human Nature if you're not sad. (Mind you, Hardy's Doctor DID start out as an amnesiac human schoolteacher ignorant of his Time Lordiness... no, never mind.)

"I got to beat Sylvester McCoy's head in with a spanner so he'd regenerate into me, you know! Can you tell that the author has a few issues with the JNT era?"

I have to say I'm not exactly overjoyed. I liked his understated black number for his initial photoshops (not least because that's how I drew him in my magnum opus), and with his hair seemingly undercontrol he looks like, well, a total geek than the anarchist punk rocker who seemed to have had too much coffee in The Eleventh Doctor special. What was wrong with that, I ask you? And, seriously though, those boots and trousers unnervingly remind me of Vyvyan from The Young Ones. Indeed, looking at him, it's easier to see Matt Smith playing Ford Prefect than the Doctor.

But hell, what do I know?

Wait, I know what I know. The new companion's name is rubbish. While I get down on my knees and worship the Moff for NOT bowing to peer pressure and deciding to make her Jamie's descendant (there is only one person over the last three hundred years worthy of being a companion from Scotland?), her name...

"Amy Pond"?

"Pond"?

I can't think of a worse name! Pond scum! Pond life! Bottom of the Pond! Slough of desPond! See if she is a witch by throwing her in a Pond! I mean, haven't we suffered enough with a retarded hiccup "River Song" - two randon nouns nailed together like dissidents to a crucifix - and now we get a similar damp squib. Pond? River? No doubt there's a female villain in the works known as Tanya Puddle.

But then again, maybe, just maybe, her stupid name is a point. People DO have stupid names. Look at mine. Is it that Amy and the Doctor get on so well because he doesn't take the piss out of her moniker? Even without the aquatic ecosystem implications, it's an ugly sounding name. There was a reason she was called Martha Jones rather than Martha Plop. There's no cellar door linguistic beauty there.

In Other News That I May Or May Not Have Made Up...

The Eleventh Doctor's first story features the return of the Silurians and Sea Devils!

Hah! You're going to die horribly and spend the rest of eternity in an artificial afterlife fit only for Stepford Wives, you insufferable Benny Summerfield wannabe!!

Prufessah Reevah Songh is back!
Worse, she's STILL played by Alex Kingston!
In a two-parter!
Which is the very first story Matt Smith will be recording!

The Doctor is as pleased as I am with the return of River Song...
And yes, that is what she looks like out of her space suit.

The story arc will be subtle and NOT end with a surprise appearance by the Daleks!

Amy Pond (?!) will NOT leave in episode thirteen.

Captain Jack will pop up with his usual embarrassing tendency and introduce new Doctor to new companion.

Lawrence Miles is NOT writing an episode for the series.

Tom Wallace will finally appear on TV!

Nightshade will be adapted for television starting Tom Baker as Professor Bernard Oh Wait We Can't Do That Let's Call Him Nightshade Instead I Love Quatermass Don't You Oh The Nostalgia I Could Just Bathe In It. By Mark Gattiss.

Steven Moffat fears getting arrested as a pedophile in 1969 when he attempts to brag to his six-year-old self that he gets the job of his dreams and this is taken entirely the wrong way by passers-by.

The Doctor, a cute redhead, a police box and a quarry. The more things change...

The pics you see are from an epic midseason two-parter from the Fifth Series. An alien spacecraft called the Byzantium has crashed upon a certain beach in Norway, and near the wreckage the TARDIS arrives carrying the Eleventh Doctor and Amy. But they are confronted by none other than Professor River Song Archaelogist, who has been waiting for them in her own sartorial nightmare. Yes, it's the Crash of the Byzantium as mentioned in Silence of the Library (providing the first major continuity cockup of the new era as it was described there as being a Tenth Doctor adventure, not an Eleventh one - goes to show how much attention Moff's paying nowadays). But who are the armed troopers after River Song's blood, and why do their uniforms have the symbol for "Omega" sewn into them?!

Handcuffs? No thanks! I'm not into that kinky stuff in this body either...

Anyway, back to the outfit.

Amy tries not to react to the New Doctor's impressively large sonic screwdriver - which, remember, Moffat himself established as having three settings long ago...

Could have been worse...

"The difference between you and me is I make this look good!"

Amy Pond banishes all memory of... Rose something? I forget...

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