Colony in Space

I thought I'd seen all of the Pertwee era stories but again this is a story I have no memory of.

The Third Doctor's trip off Earth since his exile and it's a disappointment (guess what - it's another bloody quarry!). I realise Malcolm Hulke was trying to address some serious issues, but it's best described as worthy but bland.

Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular

BEST! CONCERT! EVER!

On Saturday night I (along with thousands of other fans) had the great delight of being in Melbourne for the Doctor Who Symphony Spectacular; the first time such a concert had been performed out of the U.K. and the first time music from series 6 had been performed live. Now, I would have gone just for the music, which is brilliant anyway and  was performed superbly by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under the assured direction of Ben Foster (along with the Concordis Chamber Choir and soloists Antoinette Halloran and Tobias Cole), but also Cybermen, Silurians, Judoon, Ood, Silence and DALEKS roaming the hall. Honestly, my girlfriend reckons she's never seen me happier!

The best bits? The Madman with a Box, I am The Doctor, Abigal's Song, The Majestic Tale of a Madman in a Box,This is Gallifrey/Vale Decem, Song of Freedom and (naturally) the Doctor Who Theme which closed the show (with every title sequence since 1963 on the big screen)

There was a camera crew there so I'm hoping it was filmed for later broadcast or DVD realise but there's (not surprisingly) amateur footage of YouTube. And here's a couple of photo's I took on the night.

Nearly showtime

Matt Smith sends greetings from the UK

The Silurians invade the stage

Cybermen!

Antionette Halloran sings the haunting Abigail's Song

Daleks!!!

The Silence

The conclusion of Vale Decem

The Doctor Who theme

The Complete Series 5

"Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, run."

And with those words I fell in love with Matt Smith's Doctor and Steven Moffat's vision for Doctor Who.

Things to love about series 5 (apart from the above).

• Karen Gillan
• More River Song
• The move to filming in HD. The series has never looked better
• The St. John's Ambulance sticker on the TARDIS door
• Rory Williams. He does grow on you
• The Lodger: the Doctor attempting to act as a normal person
• The new arrangement of the theme. Okay, it takes some getting used to. But it does grow on you
• Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Well, what else would you call the TARDIS?
• Murray Gold's music: less strident than years past (though nothings come close to Doomsday for sheer tear-jerking brilliance)
• "I'm the bloody queen mate!"
• The Winders (I swear one day I'll put one on my desk so people know if I'm in a good mood or not)
• The new look Daleks
• The Pandorica Opens... and it's Doctor Who's Woodstock
• The Dalek begging River for mercy
• The Doctor always leaving the handbrake on (TARDIS' have handbrakes???)
• The first happy ending to the series since the rebirth
• Amy's Choice: killer OAPs and the new series Valeyard

Any many more.

The End of Time

Things to like about The End of Time:

• David Tennant, Bernard Cribbins and John Simm. Honestly, you could spend hours watching these guys.
• The last twenty minutes with the most emotional (and explosive) regeneration ever.
• The last time we'll ever see Sarah-Jane in Doctor Who (though, of course, no one was expecting that at the time.
• "This song is ending. But the story never ends." RTD's nod to the audience.
• The revelation of who will knock four times (I wasn't expecting who it was either)
• The Time Lord's brief return (though I would have loved to have seen more of the Time War. And what exactly was The Nightmare Child and all the rest of it?)

Otherwise it's a bit of a disappointment. An entertaining one certainly, but still disappointing. It feels like an average end of season episode and not an epic last stand for the Tenth Doctor.

The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe

I know I'm always saying Steven Moffat is the Robert Holmes of the current generation of Doctor Who writers. Aside from writing brilliant stories (though he was upstaged this year by Neil Gaiman's effort) he also has a habit of plundering literary sources for ideas as the last two Christmas specials attest (oh, and I loved the Androzani Major reference too).

Anyway, onto to this years festive effort. It was okay but  not in the same league of some of this years episodes. Matt was as enjoyable as ever and Claire Skinner made a good stand in companion (and it was nice to see Amy and Rory at the end. But would the Doctor really wait two years before seeing them again since the events of The Wedding of River Song?). One thing I did miss was the "Coming Soon" trailer at the end so we could look forward to next years goodies. But that's a minor quibble about what was an enjoyable episode.

"Christmas Day on BBC1..."

... and Boxing Day on ABC1!

Doctor Who Lego!!!

Need it say more?