Neil Gaiman made his Doctor Who debut this evening with an episode called “The Doctor’s Wife.”

It had plenty of Neil Gaiman hallmarks, but it also had the great distinction of being one of the better episodes of Doctor Who since its relaunch.  At least in my humble opinion.  When the Doctor and his companions, Amy and Rory, intercept a distress call from what could be a living Timelord, they go to investigate at top speed.  It doesn’t matter that the distress call came from outside the known universe.

They land in a junkyard, the stopping drain of the galaxy, where an unknown entity has sucked the soul out of the TARDIS and put it inside the body of a woman.

Perhaps some of the best interactions in this entire episode, maybe even the season so far, are between The Doctor and the human female form of the TARDIS (who is named Sexy, apparently.)  They are so revealing of the Doctor and his past (not just his recent past, but his origins from the beginning) that I was a little shocked to hear what I was hearing.  Gaiman and Moffat managed to reveal new dimensions to the Doctor’s origin that I didn’t think were possible.  It really makes you wonder.  He also talked at length about his killing of the Timelords and his desire to seek out any of those that were potentially living that might be on the side of good.

This episode also lays to rest once and for all (until something else catches our eye) the idea that Paul McGann will be returning as the Eighth Doctor this season.  I really loved the theory that our own Shaz-Bot came up with, and I would love to see something with the most recent incarnations of the Doctor coming together, but sadly I doubt it.  Seriously though, could you imagine a team up between Doctor’s 8 through 11?  That would be a crisis of epic proportions that would need to be solved.

This episode also gave us a couple of tantalizing teases into the future of the show, the most notable being the reference to a River in the forest (River Song?  Most likely, but would they give us something so obvious?)

It was also really great to see an Ood back on the show.  I’ve missed them and this one was no less or more creepy than the others featured in the series to date.  And am I the only one who thinks that since the transition to Matt Smith the references to the past seasons have been less and less?  In any case, I’m glad to see an Ood back.

What it all boils down to is that Neil Gaiman should be writing more episodes, Moffat is a very capable showrunner for Doctor Who, and something tells me that I’m going to be extremely pissed during the mid-season break after the cliffhanger we’re going to be left with.

And you all really need to be telling your friends to be watching this show.  This is some of the best science fiction on television, not just now, but some of the best that I’ve ever seen.

The third episode of season six finds the Doctor and his companions aboard a pirate ship plagued with a siren abducting each member of the crew who becomes wounded.

Knowing there is more afoot here than a simple curse, The Doctor works to solve the mystery in his classic, breathless fashion.

Some might say this episode isn’t as strong as other episodes in the Matt Smith era, but I find it to be a throwback to the single episode, swashbuckling adventures of Doctors past that I felt was sort of missing in Matt Smith’s run. Sometimes it’s nice to take a step back and remember that this show is a pleasurable romp.

And is it just me, or was Amy Pond just absolutely adorable dressed up as a pirate?

But that doesn’t mean this episode wasn’t without its share of dour connecting material to the overarching story in this season. We caught another glimpse of the sliding peephole and the one-eyed woman from the first story, checking in on Amy and a flashback of the Doctor’s death. It serves as an excellent reminder, but I don’t get the feeling we’re being offered substantive clues, just a pat on the head to wait for what’s to come. And the more they string us along like this, the more epic and gut-wrenching I expect the mid-season finale to be.

Perhaps my favorite part of this episode is that there is now a group of raucous pirates in possession of a spaceship, making a better life for themselves. I want to see more of them, that seems like a formula for some incredibly fun science fiction. 1700s pirates thrust into space? Bloody brilliant.

I think the other thing this episode accomplished was to illustrate how much Matt Smith has really come into his own as the Doctor. He has a swagger and a humour completely his own and he looks as though the fate of the galaxy rests upon his shoulders. I’m not looking forward to seeing him move on into a 12th regeneration. And if the episodes we’re watching are any indication, it will be heart-rending to see. But that’s what I love so much about Doctor Who: if you can buy into the mythology and care for the characters, the show will take you on an emotional roller coaster of entertainment. It will make you laugh and care and cry. It’s a tremendous piece of science fiction entertainment and there is nothing out there that can compare to it.

So until next week, here is the trailer of the next episode (written by Neil Gaiman!):

And two preview clips:

I really can’t wait until next week….

I must start this off with a warning, this review does have quite a number of spoilers so if you haven’t watched the episode yet, turn back now.

Those that know my TV tastes know that even before I started watching Doctor Who, I thought Steven Moffat was a genius. Now that I’ve been through Doctor Who I think he’s a super genius and any episode written by him I make sure I have no distractions. Also for anyone who didn’t read the review on the first episode you can find it here.

Three months after the events of the last episode we find Canton Delaware The Third pursuing each of the members of the Doctor’s Team. (Cool trivia moment: Did you know that the two people who played Delaware Are W. Morgan Sheppard and Mark Sheppard, Father and Son playing the same role, just the different ages.) Each of them are all marked up with numbers, written by themselves anytime they witness the silence.

They’re each taken back to Area 51 (tee hee hee) where the Doctor is being held (and he has a beard!). Turns out is was all a plan though as when they’re locked up in an alien box they’re able to go out and figure out what to do with the Silence.

We find Amy and Delaware heading out to one of the spookiest houses ever created. Can I just say the creepy horror of that place was perfect. An orphanage only manned by one man, messages written all over the walls and no one else in sight. Having them click their hands with a recorder was an added bonus because you could every once in a while see their hand glowing and I know I got excited. But the big spoilery detail of this spawning ground for Silence was in the possibility of who the little girl was. Do you have any ideas? Because it seemed pretty likely that somehow Amy Pond’s daughter was living there. What do you think of the pregnancy issue? The Doctor at the end of the episode scanned her and had one of the coolest moments where we found that she was simultaneously pregnant and not. No one’s ever been pregnant on the TARDIS before, at least not to my recollection so perhaps that’s what could cause this? And in my personal favorite moment of the episode the final sequence where we might possibly have Amy Pond’s daughter being a Time Lord? Oh man I was in chills.

But what of the Silence? An alien race that has seemingly taken over the entire earth? I had been thinking all week of how you beat a race of aliens you can’t see. Even during the episode I was thinking, should I be carrying a pen around with me and see if I encounter any of them standing around? Well the Doctor is just more clever then I am and in a stroke of genius they set up a connection with the moon landing, the one piece of video which is most commonly held to be the most watched piece of television ever, and splice into it a message of one of the silence ordering each of us to kill them. Oh the chills were back, now we’re all secretly fighting a war we have no idea is happening. Maybe this is why people are struck by lightning? I dunno, just a thought.

But there’s one more thing, the most bittersweet moment of the episode. I have been loving River Song’s entire story line, but we’re all experiencing he story through the Doctor and not the other way around. She had talked about how for her it’s all going backwards, each time she meets the Doctor he’s encountered less and less, and the end of the episode really sealed the deal, it was an exciting moment because for us it was The Doctor’s first kiss. I loved his reaction, flopping around like a fish, but yet for her it was officially her last kiss with the Doctor. It was one of those perfect moments for me, which means we’re going to get them flirting a lot more from now on and she’s going to be a lot happier, but now I want to go back and watch the rest of her episodes, she knows she has lost him as far as a partner goes. Did you experience the same thing I did?

What did you all think of the episode? I thought it set up some amazing things for the season and if done right this could be one of those seasons that people will be talking about for years. I think it could possibly end up with as good an ending as season 3’s Last of the Time Lords. Maybe I’m just overly optimistic but I’m really happy with this episode and with what possibly could be coming up.

So what do you think? Excited for what’s coming up? Have any unanswered questions that you want to mill about?

Doctor Who is back on the air with the simultaneous UK and US broadcast of the show today. I wouldn’t read this review if you haven’t watched the show. There really isn’t much of a way to review it beyond vague generalities without getting into spoiler territory. Fair warning.

The episode begins with a bit fun, the Doctor is carousing about time on his own causing mischief. Then we’re met with a domestic scene, Amy and Rory, the Doctor’s erstwhile companions, have received a mysterious letter with a time and a place written down. It’s been quite a while since they’ve seen the Doctor and they just know it’s him.

They leave for the appointed time and place and find themselves in the middle of Monument Valley. The Doctor is there, wearing a stetson because stetsons are cool and they are off to solve a murder.

Who’s murder? Well that’s where things get complicated. Right off the back we’re showed the final and horrible death of this Doctor.

River Song, Amy and Rory all received invitations to meet with the Doctor in Utah, and it seems as though they’ve been invited to witness his death. A mysterious Apollo astronaut arrives out the water, the Doctor goes out to meet him, and is killed. Horribly. But this isn’t the Doctor we know and love. This Doctor claims to be some 1100 years old, and the last time Amy and Rory had met him he was merely 903.

While in mourning, they discover that two other envelopes were sent out. The first was to an old friend that Amy and Rory hadn’t met yet, a former FBI agent whose younger self is played by Mark Sheppard (Baltar’s lawyer in BSG), and the other was to…well… The Doctor. A Doctor aged 909 years old.

This is the team the 1100 year old Doctor has assembled to solve his murder. Or prevent it. Or avenge it.

Well, no one really knows.

All of the clues lead them to the Oval Office, where Richard Nixon is dealing with an Alien threat he doesn’t know he has.

Steven Moffat is really working with time in a way Russel T. Davies didn’t, and he’s getting into a place where it almost makes my head hurt, but in a good way. River and the Doctor clearly have a past and they’ve been struggling with the fact that they’re moving in opposite directions in time. They older she gets, the younger a doctor she keeps running in to. He’s her past and she’s his future. It’s a very hard place to be in. And it’s almost enough to make your head spin. And the biggest problem with dealing with time in stories is allowing the audience to be able to wrap their heads around it. It’s working to a point, but they’re going to have to be incredibly careful moving forward.

And what was that? Starting the season with the Death of the Doctor? Can he get out of this? Last season Moffat started the season with the cracks int the wall (and time) and we didn’t really get closure on it until the end of the season. Are we going to see them resolve this death and solve this murder to its completion in next week’s episode? Or is this going to stretch the whole season?

I must say though, it was a little too intense for my daughter. She loves the Doctor, but the new alien threat they’re dealing with were just a little too much for her. Having said that, I loved them. They were atmospheric and creepy and I can’t wait to see what they pull out for the next episode.

The preview for it gives a very good impression of what these aliens are all about:

And seriously, after you’ve watched those two clips, watch this one. This is everything that is right and holy about really well written television.

Wowsers. I really, really can’t wait to see next week’s episode. But maybe the best thing about this episode is that it reminded me that I need to buy a fez. Fezzes are cool.

If you need to catch up on Season 5, you can find it on Amazon here.

It’s with a very heavy heart that I report that Elisabeth Sladen, best known for portraying on of The Doctor’s best known companions, Sarah Jane Smith, has passed on. The details are a bit sketchy, as breaking news sadly is sometimes. It’s thought that Ms. Sladen died due to complications from her ongoing fight with cancer. Her passing was confirmed by the Official Doctor Who Magazine’s twitter.

With great sadness, DWM must report the loss of our beloved SarahJane, actress Elisabeth Sladen. The best of best friends. Too, too sad.

Elisabeth Sladen first appeared as Sarah Jane Smith, as a companion of the Third Doctor, in 1973 and stayed on until 1976, during the tenure of the Fourth Doctor. Her character’s popularity was so large that it made national news in the UK when she left the series. Ms. Sladen returned as Sarah Jane in the K-9 & Company pilot, and various audio plays over the years. With the advent of the newer Doctor Who series, Sarah Jane returned, and has enjoyed newfound popularity, resulting in the long running Sarah Jane Adventures series for CBBC.

We here at BSR will certainly miss her, when you watch the new series of Doctor Who this weekend, raise a glass in her honor.

UPDATE: The BBC news service has confirmed this. They don’t have additional details, but cancer is again mentioned. A sad day, indeed.

Here are two more clips from the season premier of Doctor Who. The episode, which is titled “The Impossible Astronaut,” premiers on BBC America and BBC One on April 23rd, which is just over a week away!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz_sMJHO9VI

I spend a lot of money on TeeFury. Easily more than I should. My closet is overflowing with cool T-Shirts that I can’t even fit in more clothes. But there’s something about this new shirt (and so many of their shirts) that makes me just need buy it. I can’t control myself.

For one, they’re cheap. Shirts are less than $10 and shipping is only $2. Secondly, they’re awesome and rare. They sell T-shirts for one 24 hour period. That’s it. If you don’t buy it then, you’re not getting it. Which sucks, because the one shirt I would have bought without a second thought was there and gone before I’d even heard of them. (It was this shirt for those keeping score.)

But today’s shirt is one that I’m having a hard time keeping my paws off. I think I might be in the running for one of the world’s biggest Star Wars fans and have been for the duration of my life. And I’m a recent Doctor Who fan, and to be honest I can’t get enough of it. Mashing the two of them up together? Cybermen and See-Threepio? A Dalek and Artoo-Detoo?

I simply can’t resist.

And I can’t resist in a quick fashion because this shirt will no longer be on sale as soon as 12:00 EST hits…

And if you want to keep your money, don’t check TeeFury every day. They will take your money. Sure, you’ll be rewarded with awesome shirts, but it gets addicting.

Ok, take this with a grain of salt, as there is a lot of speculation and educated guesses involved, but it’s looking very likely that Paul McGann will be reprising his role as the 8th Doctor in the upcoming season of Doctor Who.  There has been no official announcement, but if you analyze certain bits of news that have come out over the last couple of days, it starts to paint quite an interesting picture.

First up, geektyrant reports that McGann’s recent appearance at a New Zeland convention unveiled a new costume for his incarnation of the Doctor. This is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. First, WETA Workshop, the renowned prop makers were commissioned to create a new Sonic Screwdriver, the Doctor’s signature gadget. WETA’s work does not come cheap, as it is said that the BBC gave it’s blessing for its creation. Second, the only media the 8th Doctor currently appears in is in the various audio productions by Big Finish. They are new stories, but for cover art, they always use production stills from the 1996 Fox Doctor Who TV Movie, as that is McGann’s only televised appearance as the Doctor.

Detail of WETA's new Sonic Screwdriver.

It could be a flight of fancy on McGann’s part, as it has been reported that he never liked the original garb of the 8th Doctor. We’re fans though, and fans like to dig for evidence. Today, the BBC released the trailer for Series 6 of Doctor Who, starring Matt Smith. It’s an overview for the whole upcoming season. Give it a watch, then I’ll share something with you.

Pretty cool, huh? Anyway, as pointed out to me by Talking About Games editor Addam Kearney if you look at the trailer at around the 37 second mark, you see the interior of the TARDIS in a bit of trouble, but it is not the 11th Doctor’s TARDIS.

Just in case you don't want to hunt for the screenshot

To the astute eye, you can see based on the architecture, this is the TARDIS of the 9th and 10th Doctors. When we met the 9th Doctor in 2005, he had just reached his 9th incarnation, so this TARDIS also belonged to the 8th Doctor. Couple that with the throwaway lines in the railer regarding the Doctor “killing all the Time Lords”, thoughts go back to the often talked about, but never shown Last Great Time War. The Last Great Time War was during the tail end of the 8th Doctor’s tenure. When you add all of these bits up, it paints a very interesting picture.

9th on the left, 11th on the right.

Like the headline says, this is just a rumor. We don’t know if it’s true or not, but it seems more likely than not. Tell us what you think in the comments, and we’ll keep you posted as this develops!

While not set to air until Easter, the BBC was kind enough to release a small preview of the first episode of the new season titled The Impossible Astronaut. I’ll save my comments until after you the video, so watch and enjoy.

While this snippet is just there to whet your appetite, it does raise some interesting historical questions. It’s obvious that the President depicted here is Richard Nixon, and he is recording the phone call. Could this be a famous 18½ minute interlude that subsequently had to be ‘lost’ and give Nixon a heap of trouble? Well, that’s just speculation on my part, but we’ll all find out when the episode airs on Easter! Let us know what you think in the comments!

It’s been revealed today that The 4th season of Torchwood (The Doctor Who spin off) is going to begin airing on Starz on Friday July 8th. For those that don’t know Torchwood has been going through weird changes and one of the biggest was Starz picking them up and putting in a good chunk of money into making a 4th season. It will likely air at the same time in the UK as well. TVLine has an interview up with Russell T. Davies the creator of the show which reveals the cool things that will happen this season.

What would happen if the entire human race became immortal? “Not a single person on Earth dies. The old stay old. It’s great news for some people, but globally it’s an instant population boom. Earth relies on people dying. Suddenly you’re affecting everyone on the planet. That’s where the Torchwood team comes in.”

The cast includes the main stays of Captain Jack and Gwen but also adds to that Mekhi Phifer (ER, Lie To Me) and Bill Pullman. Below is a bigger shot of the official posted behind the season. This is big news for Torchwood fans and it makes me incredibly excited.