SJA Checklist-- "Secrets of the Stars" part II.

Crowds of people walking through London under alien influence: Check, check, check.
Tie-in with Doctor Who story: Non-check, though Alan said, "they might as well just have said 'Mandragora Helix' and have done with it."
Girl protagonist's mum is annoying: Almost a non-check, but her folksy twinkle over Dad's cooking at the end just did it for me.
Mobile phone as plot device: Semi-check, as Clyde's remarks about not having a mobile meaning a loss of identity ties in with Luke's worries about his lack of birthday meaning a loss of identity.
Luke says something so daft that you have to wonder how he gets through life without being mercilessly bullied: Non-check; the idea that there was a universe before this one where astrology worked is total bollocks, but as it's part of the premise of the story it doesn't count.
Sonic lipstick: Non-check.
Wristwatch scanner: Non-check.
One or more of Sarah's companions falling under alien influence: Check, though I was expecting they'd get Sarah too.

Just one comment about the American election

OK, I've been resisting the temptation to join the overwhelming throng commenting on the US election, but, as a scientist, this really makes me furious. Just read it and you'll see why.

SJA Checklist backlog

THE LAST SONTARAN

Crowds of people walking through London under alien influence: No.
Tie-in with Doctor Who story: Check. Direct sequel to "The Sontaran Strategem"/"The Poisoned Sky."
Girl protagonist's mum is annoying: Check, though less so than usual, and she does do something nicely ballsy too.
Mobile phone as plot device: Check.
Luke says something so daft that you have to wonder how he gets through life without being mercilessly bullied: Can't remember, so I'll give it a non-check benefit of the doubt.
Sonic lipstick: Check.
Wristwatch scanner: Check.
One or more of Sarah's companions falling under alien influence: Semi-check: it's not the companion but the guest star.

DAY OF THE CLOWN

Crowds of people walking through London under alien influence: Huge great check.
Tie-in with Doctor Who story: Semi-check, in that there are continued in-joke references to "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" (and one to "The Celestial Toymaker").
Girl protagonist's mum is annoying: Check, and looking set to check that box for many episodes to come.
Mobile phone as plot device: Sigh... check.
Luke says something so daft that you have to wonder how he gets through life without being mercilessly bullied: Check.
Sonic lipstick: Check.
Wristwatch scanner: Check.
One or more of Sarah's companions falling under alien influence: Check, or perhaps two half-checks: Rani and Clive are not influenced by the clown, but targeted by it, and Luke isn't mentally influenced by the clown, but is kidnapped by it.

The Sarah Jane Adventures Checklist

This week's was slightly better in that Gareth Roberts' scripts always make me laugh out loud and feel good about the universe. But really, I'm starting to consider setting up a kind of Sarah Jane Adventures version of Recyclingwatch:

THE SJA CHECKLIST

Crowds of people walking through London under alien influence: Big old check.
Tie-in with Doctor Who story: Semi-check. Nothing specific, but we do get a School Reunion flashback sequence.
Girl protagonist's mum is annoying: Check.
Mobile phone as plot device: Non-check, and a nice subversion of the way mobiles seem to be constantly used to break alien influence, in that this week a conveniently-timed mobile call to Clive fails to break his hypnosis.
Luke says something so daft that you have to wonder how he gets through life without being mercilessly bullied: Check. "She's a plant!" "You mean she's a vegetable lifeform?" (a fourteen-year-old boy who's never read or watched a spy story?)
Sonic lipstick: Non-check.
Wristwatch scanner: Check.
One or more of Sarah's companions falling under alien influence: Check.

Sarah Jane versus the Shark

So I've been watching The Sarah Jane Adventures for two full stories now, and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. Whereas last year's series was a delightful surprise, this year, I'm wondering if it isn't a victim of its own success-- i.e., the production team, finding themselves with a surprise hit on their hands, go all conservative and start doing formulaic, predictable stories as opposed to the excitingly unexpected ones that they did last year. Last year we had stories with themes like the difficulties of coming to terms with aging and mortality; this year we get "moving away is hard" and "everyone has something to contribute, even the class clown," both of which are seen over and over again in children's media. It's early days yet so I'm hoping for improvement, but, remembering what happened to Doctor Who between Seasons 1 and 2, I'm worried.

Headline of the Week

MOD DATA STOLEN

...Rockers being questioned in connection with the inquiry.

Alan and I do some marketing

The mission: to come up with an honest marketing slogan for Torchwood.

The winners:

General

Torchwood: At least it's not Bonekickers.

Torchwood: Better than rabies.

Torchwood: Better than a repeat of Ready, Steady, Cook.

Torchwood: Makes Tittybangbang look sophisticated.

Torchwood: It has a bigger audience share than a load of other minority-channel programmes.

Torchwood: Help pay John Barrowman's dog's vet bills.

Torchwood: Because Russell T. Davies can never have enough royalty money.

Torchwood: A few people in America said they liked it.

Season II

Torchwood Season II: Takes out a pickaxe and keeps on digging.

Torchwood Season II: Keeping the careers of ageing cult stars going since 2006.

Season III

Torchwood Season III: Half the length of original Torchwood!

Torchwood Season III: We've cut the story length, got rid of Chibnall, killed off the single most annoying character and got it all out in a single week; surely it can't suck this time?

Torchwood Season III: Now with 100% less Freema!


Contributions can be sent to the e-mail address on the sidebar.

Am I mad, in the Atlantic, or back in time?

"Lost in Austen", about a modern female Jane Austen fan who goes through a magic portal into the middle of Pride and Prejudice, is currently being touted as a costume-drama twist on "Life on Mars". Since that series then spawned a sequel featuring a protagonist of the opposite gender and a later setting, can we look forward next year to "Lost in Melville," where a modern computer technician with a Victorian adventure-novel fetish finds himself suddenly on board the Pequod, searching for Moby-Dick?

Reasons to hate (OK, be mildly irritated at) Michael Grade?

This week, an ITV production company are in my workplace, filming a series called "Trinity" (well, that's what the propsman who I asked said). The main immediate results are that a) the back quad is always full of actors, technicians and equipment, and b) they've taken over the staff carpark too, meaning we're all parking in the overspill car park, which is unsecured, full of potholes, and a stiff walk up a steep hill away from the main building.

If anyone wants to see where I work, look out for "Trinity" (although I'm not sure how much of the building will be visible in it).

Monkey!

The BBC's brilliant trailer for the Olympic coverage:



Seriously, the BBC need to commission those guys to do a Monkey cartoon series, in just that style. Get the guy who wrote the 1980s live-action series to do the scripts, and it would be just the best thing ever.

Another brilliant thing is Hamfatter:



Go download their single, like, NOW.

Music for the Masses

Following Lawrence Miles' recent assertion in his blog that you can come up with lyrics for all of the Murray Gold instrumentals, Alan and I watched "The Stolen Earth/Journey's End" yesterday trying to do just that. The winner was, to the tune of the triumphal towing-the-Earth theme at the climax of the story, "A buuuunch of stupid grinning twiiiiits... staaaanding... around a coooonsoooole... around a consoooole..." And then I noticed that the music for that theme is exactly the same as Kristy MacColl's "He's on the Beach," just slowed down and with a slightly different rythm, and that was that.

Survival Recyclingwatch

Is this the template for Nu-Who? Consider:

-Urban London contemporary setting
-Pointless celebrity cameo
-Return of old villain/monster who's mainly of interest to the fans
-Gay agenda (the sergeant and Chris)
-Gratuitous soap about companion's friends and family
-Monsters that look like humans in animal masks (are the Cheetah People that far removed from the cat-nuns or Judoon?)
-Lots of explosions and makeup to distract from the general lack of effort on the resolution front...

I'll think about this some more.

Strange things happen

I met somebody named Ianto the other day.

I thought they only existed in fiction.

Recyclingwatch's End

...no, not really. Expect me back for every single special next year, and, Stephen Moffat Team, I'm watching you.

Anyway. Fittingly for the final hurrah of the Recycler-in-Chief, this was the ultimate in recycling; in fact, many of the tropes have been repeated so many times that I'm officially reformatting Recyclingwatch, as follows:

Something disastrous happens to the Earth, with pundit commentary and cutaways of people first hanging around looking apprehensive, then celebrating: Aliens of London/World War Three, The Christmas Invasion, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, Voyage of the Damned, The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky.

Dalek armies menacing the Earth: The Parting of the Ways, Doomsday, Daleks in Manhattan, blah, blah blah.

Captain Jack's not-dying abilities coming in handy: The Parting of the Ways, Utopia, Last of the Time Lords, several episodes of Torchwood.

"I've just taken on some dangerous energy and now I'm going to expel it in some fantastic way": The Parting of the Ways, The Christmas Invasion, Smith and Jones.

The Daleks are back and they've brought some freaky weird saviours with them: The Parting of the Ways, Doomsday, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks.

Big reunion, hooray! With everyone cheering and bonding together, hooray! (gag): School Reunion, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday [Mickey and alt-Pete's return], The Sontaran Stratagem, Martha's Torchwood episodes.

One or more Daleks has an epiphany that they're all evil and thus need to be either exterminated or utterly transformed: Dalek, Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks.

Setup of great big much-trumpeted villain/group of villains, who is/are then promptly killed off, but with a vague exit clause so they can bring him/them back when they start running out of ideas: Aliens of London/World War III; Dalek, The Parting of the Ways, Doomsday, The Age of Steel, The Sound of Drums.

Doctor as Messiah: Gridlock, Last of the Time Lords/The Sound of Drums

Martha with a lethal weapon, and/or lethal weapon as distracting McGuffin: Last of the Time Lords

Slow bullets: Dalek, The Parting of the Ways.

Pounding on a glass door mouthing words: 42, Partners in Crime.

Monsters herding queues of people off to a horrible fate: The Age of Steel.

Mickey leaves his current universe with a mopey line about Rose not loving him: The Age of Steel.

Rose loses somebody she loves, then gets a too-perfect substitute handed to her on a platter, but she's still not happy about it: Doomsday.

Human Doctor: Human Nature/The Family of Blood.

Companion takes something more powerful than herself into her mind and has to have it purged by the Doctor, resulting in memory loss: The Parting of the Ways.

Main characters prepared to commit suicide/destroy the Earth rather than let the bad guys take it over: The Parting of the Ways.

Stopping a moment of pathos to clear up an irrelevant continuity point from earlier in the series' run: Torchwood-- Exit Wounds.

Doctor taking on someone else's personality: New Earth.

Jokes about Clom: Love and Monsters.

Good gravy, now they're even recycling within *this* season: A Doctorless Donna, "Turn Left". The Doctor being a hypocrite in condemning violence but then letting his companions do it, "The Doctor's Daughter." Same story also provides a handy clone from the Doctor. "Ordinary people are special! Really they are! But if the Doctor's not around, we're all hopelessly screwed!"-- Turn Left. See above for all the recycling of "The Sontaran Strategem/The Poisoned Sky", etc.

Catchphrasewatch: "A temp from Chiswick." "I'm so sorry." "Ohyesss!" "No, no no no." "Oi, spaceman." "Molto bene." "Brilliant." Babbling out explanations far too fast. Somebody please explain to Murray Gold that smaller is better, and that giving every character a leitmotif which you play to death every time they open their mouth is only excusable in Wagnerian opera (I have a suspicion he got it off "Attack of the Cybermen," though at least there they had the wit to vary the style and instrumentation of the Lytton Theme every time they whacked it out).

Old Skool Who: Doctor having flashback montages: Logopolis, The Caves of Androzani. Daleks herding queues of people off for some unknown but hideous fate: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Destiny of the Daleks. The Virgin books used to milk the whole "Doctor turning companions into human gun platforms" bit for all it was worth until they got rid of Ace. Davros thinks destroying the universe is a damn fine idea and doesn't think through the implications for himself: Genesis of the Daleks. The Daleks keeping Davros around, but not because they like him, because they think of him as some kind of vaguely useful abberation: Resurrection of the Daleks, plus vague implications in Destiny of the Daleks. Pushing a powerless Dalek away with one's foot: The Daleks, plus the AARU film thereof. Trapping the Doctor and one companion in the Dalek control centre: The Daleks. Companion being left on earth with a new boyfriend: The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Testing an ultimate weapon on a convenient stooge: The Daleks' Master Plan. A parallel Earth that's a little bit ahead in time: Inferno. Any book by Ben Aaronovitch (the Daleks call the Doctor "Destroyer of Worlds." Companion being left with no memory of her time with the Doctor: The War Games. Tardis as towing service: The Horns of Nimon. Someone being thrown into a furnace and coming out of it OK: The Armageddon Factor.

Everything Else: The Matrix, and every single action movie since (slow bullets), Marvel and DC comics and their continued incessant team-up stories, Buffy and Angel, ditto (particularly involving spinoff series). Hellraiser II-VI (taking something that was pretty good and then repeat it until it's a pale copy of itself). The Wizard of Oz ("I'm going to miss you, Scarecrow/Jackie, most of all"). Red Dwarf (character stuck on a single word; character gaining superintelligence at a cost). Blake's 7: Terminal ("Maximum Power!"). The Terminator ("Come with me if you want to live," which of course also got used in "The Fires of Pompeii"). Star Trek: The Cage (the benign aliens create a duplicate Captain Pike as a consolation prize for the girl who can't leave the planet). Oh, sod it-- I can't think of anything else that's this ridiculous.

Incidentally, German for "exterminate" is "Ausrotten."

The Stolen Recyclingwatch

Aliens of London/WW3: Not just Harriet Jones still clinging psychotically to her ID-card routine, but slightly unbelievable antics using the Internet.

Dalek: Crazy Dalek in chains, plus one of the traditionally cited defenses against Daleks (running upstairs there, covering the eyestalk here) scotched by new Dalek technology.

The Parting of the Ways: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are at war!" Plus the obvious stuff about Daleks invading Earth, shots of flying Dalek armies descending, Dalek creators generating whole Dalek armies out of nothing. etc. Woman firing machine-gun at Dalek while screaming.

Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel: Robot creatures that are herding humans together for some purpose. Plus the wheelchair-bound mad genius thing comes full circle. Secret sending of mobile numbers.

Army of Ghosts: Aliens land and start going into the streets of Cardiff kidnapping nuclear families.

Doomsday: Daleks led by a lateral-thinking leader; barriers between universes breaking down.

Smith and Jones: Not just the Judoon and the disappearance of a seemingly unmovable object, but the return of the "no blow fo ro mo'fo" dialogue.

Daleks in Manhattan: More invasions by lateral-thinking Daleks, and Daleks getting a hate-on for one of their own that's a bit different. Plus some Daleks in Manhattan (what do you want to bet the Empire State Building got blown up first?)

The Sound of Drums: Lots of crazy mobile-phone antics, and teleport-device escape routes, plus ex-companion guest stars.

Last of the Time Lords: Not every single person thinking "Doctor" at the same moment, but every mobile phone on Earth ringing him at the same moment.

Torchwood: Creative use of time rifts.

Catchphrasewatch: "Harriet Jones [flips ID card]-- former Prime Minister." An awful lot of "Don't, just don't," and technical explanations given at breakneck speed.

Old Skool Who: The Dalek Invasion of Earth (and the film, Daleks Invasion Earth 2150 AD-- what do you want to bet that RTD had a bet on that he could make Bernard Cribbins' involvement in a Dalek invasion canonical?) for too many reasons to cite; just watch it again already. Faction Paradox (a "Shadow Proclamation" full of weird-looking Goths? Wonder where they got that idea from). The Daleks, in reverse (human hitting on the idea of covering a Dalek's eyestick with a viscous substance, but it doesn't work here). Remembrance of the Daleks (where the Special Weapons Dalek was thought of as "the abomination" by the others). Logopolis (a planet full of pale humanoids who regulate the universe). Trial of a Time Lord, part 13 (the Earth being moved across the galaxy for some reason). Destiny of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks (return of Davros after he was thought dead). Battlefield *again* (a multicultural UNIT which seems to follow UN administrative systems more than the original did). Logopolis, and RTD's Virgin novel Damaged Goods (hiding something by placing it a second ahead in time). The Tenth Planet (something sending an Earth-related planet off into space, plus a faintly unhinged American general running things). The Pirate Planet (stealing a load of planets which, when properly aligned with each other, create some kind of powerful field; one of them's even named Calufrax).

Everything Else: The Hitch-Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy series (Earth animal turns out to be an alien species and flees the planet at the first sign of trouble). The Omega Man (a race of black-clad albinos with Afro hair). Minority Report via Battlestar Galactica (ship run by crazy twitching creature which occasionally has prophetic flashes). Any comedy that does a parody slo-mo-running-towards-each-other and has it end abruptly. Terminator III (teleporting blonde girls with big weaponry). The Wizard of Oz (magical device that takes you home).

I'd like to know what all the *other* ex-companions still on Earth in this time were up to while all this was going on, though. "Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister... and you must be Jo Grant, Professor Shaw, Sir Alistair, Professor Chesterton, Mike Yates, John Benton, Victoria Waterfield, Dr Sullivan..." (and, since she's really from the early 2000s, what about Zoe?)

Recyclingwatch Left

This Recyclingwatch will leave out the obvious and deliberate references to the series' events since The Runaway Bride.

The Unquiet Dead: Ordinary person lifted to heroism through self-sacrifice.

Aliens of London/World War III: Mal Loup the American newsreader is back, and there's more BBC News 24 hijinx.

Father's Day: Companion causes time paradox which threatens the universe. This is resolved when someone steps in front of a moving vehicle.

School Reunion: Old and new companion action.

The Girl in the Fireplace: Time traveller who makes periodic visits over a long stretch of time to a single individual, though plainly little time has passed for the time traveller.

Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel: Fascist alternate universe.

Love and Monsters: Real life is banal, kids, and you need the Doctor to sort it all out.

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday: People leaping through from alternate universes which are supposed to be closed off.

Human Nature: Somebody getting the chance to experience a life they never had, but this was probably a bad thing.

Utopia: No stars.

Last of the Time Lords/The Sound of Drums: Earth turns into a horrible fascist state, with people crammed in several families to a terraced house, but don't worry, because that timeline's been erased thanks to heroic bravery on the part of the companion. Plus more Doctor-as-Messiah action.

The Sarah Jane Adventures: This story is basically a grown-up version of "Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane," just with the Doctor instead of Sarah.

Good gravy, now they're even recycling *within* the season: Once again Donna has a whole virtual "normal" life, without the Doctor.

Catchphrasewatch: Despite not being in it much, the Doctor gets in a "Brilliant". Otherwise it's left to the companions to make up the quota: Rose contributes a couple of "Brilliant"s, where Donna gets not only a "Brilliant," but a "Don't, just don't," a "No, no, no," and a "I'm tired, I'm so tired."

Old Skool Who: Battlefield *again* (UNIT has a black female leader with an African name, but who is quite clearly British). Faction Paradox (creatures which gain energy from changing the universe), and specifically the BBC Doctor/Faction novel "Alien Bodies" (Doctor's latest companion has too many coincidences surrounding her life). Evil of the Daleks (time travel with mirrors). Planet of the Spiders (woman with invisible insect/arachnid on her back). The American Telemovie (the Doctor is apparently dead).

Everything Else: "It's a Wonderful Life," "Sliding Doors," Marvel Comics' "What if...?" series, "Back to the Future" and pretty much any other "what if such-and-such trivial event happened and changed the universe?" type movie/TV show. "Quantum Leap" (Alt-Donna leaps back to the psychological moment to get history back on track, advised by Rose). "Terminator" (another leap-into-the-past-and-change-history story; Donna lands in Chiswick in a crouch which is a plain homage to the landing scenes in that movie). "La Vita e Bella" (Italian man, on his way to the concentration camps, lying and pretending he's going somewhere fun, so as not to cause people to worry). Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy (there's a darkness out there which threatens all the alternate universes, and a blonde girl leaps from universe to universe in an attempt to stop the entropy). Hellraiser (Chinese fortune teller kick-starts a chain of events which lead to death and destruction). Cloverfield (everyone is running away from the giant spider, but the protagonist runs towards it)

Boyz in da Hood

Recently caught Noel Clarke on breakfast television, promoting his new movie Adulthood, a sequel to Kidulthood and thus about working-class multiethnic teenagers in the Ladbroke Grove area coping with life's difficulties. Clarke was eager to emphasise his own origins in those area, and the fact that he's a black lad from a single-parent family who made good as a writer/actor/director. All very well and good, until he was asked how he managed to escape the sort of life he portrays in his movies. "I was studying media at univ--" he began, before he visibly realised the discrepancy in what he was saying with what he'd said before, and rapidly changed the subject.

Alan said later that he was slightly reminded of Guy Richie.

Midnight on the Recyclingwatch

Just before we start-- that Christina Rosetti quote was exactly what I was on about last two weeks. It's not so obscure that the audience will feel intimidated by it, but it's out of the mainstream enough that the bookish kids can feel a bit proud for recognising it, and hopefully some of the less bookish ones will go out and look it up.

This week (and probably next week and the week after) is going to be more of a work in progress than usual as the end of term/start of conference season workload catches up with me; check back as I find time to update and edit.

The End of the World: The future is into slightly misunderstood 20th-century kitsch as entertainment; use of pop song/video as atmosphere-building.

The Unquiet Dead: Alien invader that goes in for possession.

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit: Small crew, with a member who seems normal in some ways but is actually possessed and speaking with someone else's voice. The mechanic who dies is a trainee on their first trip.

Love and Monsters: A small group of people, initially trusting the Doctor, then turning on him because of the actions of another non-human.

Fear Her: The driver and mechanic as analogues for the nice council blokes. Alien "invader" who isn't actually invading, just doing its thing.

Gridlock: People trapped by transport media.

42: See TIP/TSP above, and add the possessed crewmember going in for repetition.

Voyage of the Damned: RTD does love his disaster movies, doesn't he?

Catchphrasewatch: "Allons-y," "Molto Bene", "No, don't do that," and another explanation that Donna's just a friend really.

Old Skool Who: "The Green Death," "Planet of the Spiders" and associated Pertwee-era stories (Doctor extolls virtues of paradise planet which turns out to contain some hostile lifeforms); "The Deadly Assassin" (companionless story). "The Horror of Fang Rock" (alien starts taking over members of small ensemble cast trapped in a perilous location, causing them to fight amongst themselves), though you could make a similar case for "The Image of the Fendahl," "Shakedown," etc. "Kinda" (possessed person who alternates between odd, animal-like movements and a kind of powerful sensual manner).

Everywhere else: Any disaster movie featuring a small group of slightly stereotypical individuals trapped in a small but imperilled environment, and/or any movie in which a mysterious entity possesses a vulnerable woman and wreaks havoc, and/or any of the recent spate of movies about emo teens whose parents don't get them (e.g. "Napoleon Dynamite"). Labyrinth ("Jared"). Poltergeist (the alien's ability to affect the electrical systems).

I've recently been reminded that David Troughton played Bob Buzzard in A Very Peculiar Practice. Skinny, championship-squash-playing, Olympic-swimming, full-head-of-hair Bob Buzzard. My word, hasn't he changed?

Recyclingwatch of the Dead

Further to last week's comment about mixed messages about reading in Doctor Who: if you want to encourage kids to read, isn't it a good idea not to tell them "libraries are scary and books can kill you"?

Usual two-parter deal: only new stuff or stuff I didn't think of last week.

New Earth: Endings with bewildered people standing around a lobby as a delighted protagonist hugs as many of them as he can.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: "Everybody lives!" again, plus compare the moment when the Doctor realises that Other Dave is just repeating catchphrases to the moment where the Doctor realises that the tape has run out a while ago. Microscopic organisms as this week's antagonist. Sonic screwdriver/squareness gun antics.

Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways: The Doctor announcing to the villains that he's going to win because that's what he always does.

The Girl in the Fireplace: The Doctor finds love, but she dies.

The Runaway Bride: Donna's wedding dress is recycled from that story, as is her falling for, and marrying, a fantasy man.

Gridlock: Doctor's antics involving dropping through doors and hanging from objects; the library really looks like New New (etc.) York, particularly in the ending bits.

Human Nature: Character experiences a virtual life, complete with spouse and children, which they enjoy but have to give up at the end.

Blink: "Mummy's not going to close her eyes," says Donna.

Voyage of the Damned: More people getting a virtual life, plus the Doctor doing another "I'm the Doctor and I'm going to win" metatextual type speech.

Catchphrasewatch: "No, no no no!" a lot, smacking about the technology while gibbering out an explanation at top volume.

Old Skool Who: Underworld (floating platforms, computers at the world's core). The Aztecs (River Song even says "...not one line"). The Robots of Death (two beings advancing on the Doctor from opposite sides, both spouting catchphrases, but the Doctor ducks between them). The Ark in Space (only three people on the teleport at any one time). Faction Paradox (creepy ladies in anachronistic Victorian dress). The Virgin NA Who Killed Kennedy (companion is sectioned and told her adventures with the Doctor were all a schizophrenic delusion, but still can't shake the idea that they were real). Battlefield, AGAIN-- look, people, it wasn't that good a story!

Everything Else: The Time Traveller's Wife, again (meeting someone who's special to you, after you've known them a while but it's the first time they've met you). Neil Gaiman's "A Doll's House" (people trapped in a virtual universe made up by a little girl). The idea of dead people downloading their consciousness into the Internet has been a staple of cyberpunk fiction since Neuromancer (although this story most closely resembles the denouement of Mona Lisa Overdrive). The Matrix, again. The early books of Piers Anthony's Xanth series (lady who alternates between ugly and smart, and ditzy but beautiful). Star Trek: Generations (the one where Picard falls into an anomaly where time has no meaning, and he imagines/creates for himself a family life with perfect spouse, kids and Christmas).

Recyclingwatch in the Library

According to this week's Confidential, Doctor Who is all about reading, encouraging kids to read and emphasising the power of the written word. OK, but why is it that, aside from Shakespeare and Dickens (who are the only two "quality" writers your average chav can name, if only because they've seen the BBC TV adaption), the only writers that get namechecked are the likes of J.K. Rowling, Jeffrey Archer, Helen Fielding, Agatha Christie etc.? It's like the writers are on the one hand saying "reading is cool, kids! Don't listen to what the bullies say!" and, on the other, saying "oh, but don't actually read anything with words of more than two syllables in it, that does actually make you a nerd." Personally I suspect that Doctor Who is actually about little shops, particularly given the merchandising glut out there.


The End of the World: Announcement systems giving amusing/peculiar futuristic instructions. The idea of the future as having a massive nostalgia industry. Companion freaked out by practices which are normal in this future society.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: Creepy undead thing repeating a fairly mundane catchphrase in a sinister way. Captain Jack's device for putting square holes in things makes a reappearance.

New Earth: Mysterious summons for the Doctor via psychic paper, and the presence or absence of little shops as an indicator of the health of an institution.

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit: Multiethnic, wisecracking group of future adventurers, one of whom is suddenly possessed by something that one would generally assume is a myth or articulation of a primal fear.

Love and Monsters: Stones with talking human faces embedded in them.

Fear Her: Small girl who draws pictures which turn out to be real.

42: In media res with a futuristic group of multiethnic adventurers with their own in-jokes, who unleash an evil force which possesses one of them, and he goes after the others.

Blink: Abandoned buildings, with something fairly mundane hiding a creepy alien secret. "Stay out of the shadows" as this year's "don't blink."

Human Nature: A diary about the Doctor's adventures, only he doesn't know about them. A child with some kind of supernatural power or ability.

The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords: That security camera with the consciousness of a child looks suspiciously like a Toclafane.

Voyage of the Damned: An impression of someone's mind being left inside a piece of technology, resulting in a creepy ghost that doesn't know where it is.

Good gravy, now they're even recycling *within* the season: Last week's Agatha Christie title-referencing competition spills over into this week, when we learn that there is No Body in the Library. Oh, and how many future companions/ex-companions/potential companions are we going to have to endure this year?

Catchphrasewatch: It's like Moffat had a bet on with someone as to how many times he could get Tennant to say "I'm so sorry."

Old Skool Who: River Song is basically Bernice Summerfield with curly hair-- archaeologist and Doctor's companion, full of one-liners and quips about unusual dating habits. Big intergalactic libraries seem to have been a staple of the Virgin and Big Finish eras-- even Moffat himself apparently had an earlier go at one-- but I'm thinking particularly of Daniel O'Mahony's "Timeless Passages," a story featuring Bernice Summerfield in a library with a creepy girl. Plus the entire Faction Paradox series focuses around shadows and their presence/absence/difference in form from their ostensible owner. That aside: Battlefield (the Doctor coming across a piece of his own future history), The Keeper of Traken (hiding a secret to protect the family pride, even at the cost of others' lives), Remembrance of the Daleks (creepy possessed little girls). The Horns of Nimon (the companion has their own sonic screwdriver). The Tomb of the Cybermen (archaeological expedition on a hiding to disaster, and it looks like their financial backer, who is accompanying them, is up to no good).

Other Stuff: The Omega Factor, episode one (protagonist flees along a street as the streetlamps go out ominously behind him); Space 1999 has a similar sequence in which a possessed crewmember drains the power from everything he passes; The Matrix (what seems to be twenty-first-century Earth is in fact an illusion, and the information-based nightmare is real, according to a bald black man with spectacles; also check out the Matrix homage in the Library's data displays). Any and all SF stories with giant future libraries. The Box of Delights (more issues about the presence or absence of shadows).