DW Confidential: What The Future Holds

12 Blogs of Christmas: #2

Doctor Who Confidential is a strange beast. When I first heard that the new series of Who was going to have its very own documentary show following each episode, my mind went back to when the BBC had the rights to show Fox’s “24″ series for its first two series because, for a while, there was a studio based discussion show that accompanied that series (bonus points if you can remember the name). The reason that I mention this is because I would really like Doctor Who Confidential to feature some independent reaction immediately following broadcast. How great would that be? A bunch of fans and C-list celebs dissecting the show that could be interspersed with the interviews and all the behind the scenes stuff…. okay, may just me then.

The point is that one hour of Doctor Who Confidential is just too much. Every scene gets analysed, every special effect explained but very few of the nuances or themes are talked about and almost no reference to the classic series is made. In its current format the “cut-down” versions that appear on DVD releases are much better – it’s almost like the DVD extras are shown on telly and detail-fuelled content heavy stuff that is the more traditional realm of the DVD extra gets the TV outing. Something to do with rights issues, I know, but still doesn’t stop it from feeling wrong.

Gripes aside, I shouldn’t really be complaining at all. The investment made in this old show is reason in itself to be cheerful. This latest Christmas installment was a good example of all that is good and bad about the programme, but, focusing on the good stuff, we were treated to plenty of Michael Gambon, Katherine Jenkins, Matt Smith, Steven Moffat and (director) Toby Haynes and there was some insightful information about the role of Murray Gold in creating the music on a Christmas Carol. In the history of DWC, the episode that is most fondly remembered by me and probably most other fans as well, is the David Tennant hosted special “Do You Remember The First Time?” in which the David got to interview a plethora of Doctor Who afficianados about the programme. Doing something different with the programme week to week would be so much more fun than the endless, self-congratulatory fodder we currently and begrudgingly enjoy. More originality please!

 

Who's Greatest Hits

The Sky Is The Limit

So, BBC3′s strangely scheduled, three-part series, Doctor Who’s Greatest Moments came to a conclusion last week. Having studiously and unfortunately stuck to the Doctor Who Confidential manifesto that dictates Doctor Who began in 2005, the series presented a montage of clips from the last 4 years or so interspersed with some brand new talking head shots from all and sundry, and narration from well know Who fan, Jo Whiley. Each of the three installments was given a theme, The Doctor, The Companions, and The Enemies, which I must confess got a little bit better as they went along. By far the most interesting element was the opinions of the contributers like Tracey Ann Oberman, Sarah Parrish, Lesley Sharp and

 

Speaking Confidentially

Russell T Davies explains time-travel.

Managed to catch a re-run of Doctor Who on BBC3 last night, followed by the Doctor Who Confidential (Cut-Down) episode that followed. The episode was Father’s Day in which the Doctor makes the strange decision (well, he is alien!) to take Rose back to see her father being run down by a car. For me, this revival has been the highlight of this, and may be many other, year’s output from the BBC and I’m sure I’ll spend more time talking about it soon. The Confidential show that follows each episode really shows what care and attention goes into production, and how much fun they all seem to have. Also a big crowd pleaser for the Beeb’s third channel. Last night, RTD made an interesting point about time-travel storylines in sci-fi. They all seem to have had a go, all the way back from from the City on The Edge of Forever back in the days of original Star Trek and through pretty much every TV show in the genre. The good Doctor, however, never seemed to feel the need to explore this until Father’s Day (some hardcore fan is sure to prove me wrong on this), and that’s where the episode seemed to stumble a little – it was a bit too sci-fi, given the story it was trying to tell.