Tag: Doctor Who (31-40 of 48)

Jul 11 2010 11:49 AM ET

'Doctor Who' recap: Upstairs, downstairs results in downward spiral

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doctor_whoImage Credit: BBCIn a season of Doctor Who that’s been undeniably uneven, last night’s slight, derivative “The Lodger” represented an unfortunate dip in quality. From the cliched “roommates who can’t admit their romantic love” subplot to a main story arc that felt like it had been cobbled together from a half-dozen superior Who episodes, the hour proved to be a less-than-scintillating run-up to the season finale (part one of which airs next week). Worst of all, it wasted the copious charms of guest star James Corden (Gavin and Stacey’s uproarious “Smithy”).

Things started off rather peculiarly, with the TARDIS taking off without The Doctor, leaving only Amy on board. READ FULL STORY »

Jul 2 2010 06:00 PM ET

Johnny Depp won't be playing 'Doctor Who' on the big screen: Good or bad news?

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doctor-who-johnny-deppImage Credit: BBC; Solarpix/PR PhotosFor the last few days, there has been much chatter in the blogosphere — and in the area-around-my-office-o-sphere — that Johnny Depp might star in a big screen version of the cult BBC show Doctor Who. Well, according to i09, that ain’t going to happen. The sci fi website quoted a BBC rep as saying there are “no plans” for a Doctor Who movie, and that any talk is “pure speculation.” (BBC did not respond to EW’s calls for comment.)

I have mixed feelings about this news. On the one hand, the show only recently installed a new Doctor in the TARDIS in the bow tie-sporting, and rather good, shape of Matt Smith. On the other, you can’t help but wonder what Depp would have done with this most eccentric of characters. Just one scene which featured him and K-9 would be worth the price of admission alone.

What do you think? Would you like to see Johnny Depp play the lead role in a big screen Doctor Who? Let us know!

Read more:
‘Doctor Who’: Is David Tennant the best doctor ever?
‘Doctor Who’ recap: van Gogh-ing, going, gone
‘Doctor Who’ is bang on entertainment this season

Jun 30 2010 05:50 PM ET

'Doctor Who' is bang on entertainment this season

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doctor-whoImage Credit: BBCIs it me, or is Doctor Who becoming especially watchable lately? Last weekend’s episode? With the Time Lord traveling to the 19th Century to help Vincent Van Gogh kill a space monster that looks like a giant parrot? Cracking entertainment! Turned out it was written by Richard Curtis, co-creator of the classic 1980s British sitcom Blackadder and, nowadays, the most successful screenwriter in the English Empire (he wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love, Actually, and a slew of others). Getting Curtis to write for Doctor Who was a huge coup for the BBC show. In American terms, it’d be a little like Woody Allen going back to his TV roots by writing for SNL. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 27 2010 10:48 AM ET

'Doctor Who' recap: van Gogh-ing, going, gone

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Vincent-and-the-DoctorImage Credit: BBCIt’s not every sci-fi series that deftly tackles themes of suicide, isolation, and artistic genius. So while Doctor Who‘s latest episode, “Vincent and the Doctor,” got a little heavy-handed in places, overall, you’ve got to give ‘em points for ambition.

Goofily enough, this week’s proceedings kicked off with The Doctor and Amy pressing pause on their planet-hopping activities and paying a visit to the Musee d’Orsay and its van Gogh exhibit. The sudden and unexpected sight of “not a nice face at all” in a church window of one of the famed impressionist’s works prompted a trip back in time to 1890. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 20 2010 01:00 AM ET

'Doctor Who' recap: There will be 'Cold Blood'

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Doctor-Who-Cold_320.jpg Image Credit: BBCFor a Doctor Who episode that left me feeling cold throughout most of its one-hour running time, the last five minutes sure did sting. I probably should’ve seen it coming, considering the telecast foreshadowed the “terrible losses” our Time Lord protagonist was about to suffer, but alas, that wasn’t the case.

Of course, I’m not alone on this one. [SPOILERS ahead, so don't say you weren't warned!] READ FULL STORY »

Jun 13 2010 12:38 PM ET

'Doctor Who' recap: Do you come from a land down under?

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dr-whoImage Credit: BBCImagine my dismay when I realized that this week’s episode of Doctor Who, titled “The Hungry Earth,” started rather similarly to a dreadful SyFy original film I reviewed last month called Mongolian Death Worm. Thankfully, Who‘s version of the “scary creatures awakened by deep-below-the-surface drilling” plot-line featured vastly superior writing, acting, and direction to MDW, but on the flip-side, this opening half of its two-part story arc doesn’t exactly rank as a high point in series history, either.

Like last week’s “Amy’s Choice,” our opening shot focused in on pastoral British countryside — Cwmtaff, South Wales in 2020 A.D., to be specific. I got a hearty laugh at the Doctor declaring “Behold, Rio!” as the realization dawned on Amy and Rory that they hadn’t exactly arrived at a tropical paradise.

Instead, it turned out that our space travelers had arrived at Cwmtaff just as a mining operation had hit the 21 kilometer mark, and one of its night-shift workers had been sucked beneath the earth’s surface by creatures unseen. READ FULL STORY »

Jun 6 2010 01:52 PM ET

'Doctor Who' recap: The dream sequence always rings twice

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doctor-whoImage Credit: BBCThe bucolic scenes that kicked off this week’s Doctor Who episode were deceiving on many levels. “Amy’s Choice” found the Doctor, Amy, and Rory alternating between two distinct “realities” — a quaint English village in which a pregnant Amy and Rory had settled down among a pack of alien-infested elderly folks, and a broken-down TARDIS careening toward a deadly Cold Star. Yikes!

Real or not, I loved the way Amy immediately understood that the Doctor hadn’t scheduled his visit (“You came here by mistake, didn’t you?”) and how she faked a contraction to prove that her Earth-bound life was anything but boring. Even funnier was the way the duo simultaneously finished his dangling question: “What do you do around here to stave off the…” (Amy: “Boredom?” The Doctor: “Self-harm?”) But really, while Amy ultimately held the power to decide which reality was real reality — die in the dream, and you’re okay; die in reality, and you’re dead (or so they were told) — the crux of this episode boiled down to the conflicted conscience deep within the last remaining Time Lord. READ FULL STORY »

May 23 2010 06:47 PM ET

'Doctor Who' recap: Not-so-true blood in 1580s Venice

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doctor-whoImage Credit: BBCFirst things first: My apologies for the tardiness of this recap! I was out of town this weekend without access to BBC America, but first thing I did when I got home was fire up the DVR and watch last night’s zippy, action-packed “The Vampires of Venice” telecast. This was one of those Doctor Who episodes with ambiguously evil baddies. As Lady Rosanna herself pointed out, you couldn’t exactly damn her for wanting to trade the population of Venice in 1580 to spare her entire race. Or could you? That final shot of Rosanna disguised as a human and feeding herself to her sons contained a minor chord of sadness that was made all the more poignant by her parting shot to the Doctor: “Can your conscience carry the weight of another dead race? Remember us. Dream of us.” The eerie silence that fell over Venice afterward — and the repetition of Rosanna’s remarks — was a brief and chilling nod to the overarching “Crack in Time” through-line of the ongoing fifth season. “There were cracks. Through some we saw silence and the end of all things.”

Chilling stuff for an episode that contained plenty of light moments, especially via the reconnecting of Amy Pond and her righteously goofy groom-to-be, Rory. In the latter role, Arthur Darvill resembles an extra-befuddled Adrien Brody, and his attempt to use a broom to battle Francesco the sea creature was particularly amusing. Other good things: I particularly liked how the aliens resembled vampires only because their potential victims’ brains overrode the image-altering technology to view the part of the alien anatomy that posed the greatest threat. And I’m stoked that Amy-Rory appears to have quickly and succinctly quashed Amy-The Doctor as the running romance of this Who season. Will the postponed-through-time-travel wedding happen soon? As Rory himself noted, “I have a right to know! I’m getting married in 430 years!”

The episode’s other great quote came from The Doctor, responding to Rosanna’s come-on: “I’m a Time Lord. You’re a big fish. Think of the children.” What did you make of the episode? How are you feeling about the Matt Smith-Karen Gillan partnership? And did you have any sympathy for the water-bound aliens? Sound off in the comments, and follow me on Twitter @EWMichaelSlezak.

May 16 2010 12:43 PM ET

'Doctor Who' recap: All in all it's just another crack in the wall

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I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t slightly underwhelmed by “Flesh and Stone,” last night’s conclusion to the superior (and scarier) “The Time of Angels.” As is often the case with Doctor Who, I preferred the intimate storyline of last week’s episode — which focused more narrowly on the pure stone-faced terror of the Weeping Angels — to the Big Mythological Sweep (TM) of the conclusion, in which said Angels became secondary players to the overarching “crack in time” arc being plotted this season by Steven Moffat. To put it another way, something’s not quite working when you’ve got the Angels fleeing en masse from an eerie light source, but I’m not feeling remotely scared.

Things kicked off with the Doctor temporarily fending off the Angels with a little shift in gravity, until, of course, that tense standoff in a narrow passageway where he had to (gulp) turn off the lights in order to release the airlock and get back into the main deck of the crashed spacecraft. READ FULL STORY »

May 9 2010 12:03 PM ET

'Doctor Who' recap: Weeping angels are scary as hell!

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doctor-who_320.jpg Image Credit: BBCAfter last week’s disappointing Winston Churchill installment — sorry about the lack of recap! Loved those colorful Daleks, though! — Doctor Who got back on track last night in a major way, combining one of the show’s most terrifying baddies (the Weeping Angels) and one of its jauntiest space travelers (Alex Kingston’s River Song). I loved the episode intro, with “Professor” Song communicating over a 12,000 year time gap using a spacecraft “home box” and a surveillance camera. Watching her float out the airlock, into outer space, and onto the TARDIS was an absolute hoot. The lady knows how to make an entrance! Also genius: Song’s explanation for the TARDIS’ wheezy takeoff and landing sounds. “It’s not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on!” Who knew?

Of course, with the Weeping Angels on the scene, you knew the tone wouldn’t/couldn’t stay light for long. READ FULL STORY »

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