Scheduled.

SCIFI.COM'a Schedulebot is now listing some of the upcoming showings in March of Doctor Who.

I think the main interesting point is that they're going to be repeating Rose immediately before they air The End of the World for the first time.

I imagine the late night (11:00 PM Eastern / 10:00 PM Central) Sunday repeat will be nice for many people as well -- and as I know that for some PBS markets Doctor Who was a late night Sunday experience, there's some opprotunity for scheduling nostalgia there.

I'l admit that I'm sadly checking http://www.scifi.com/doctorwho for the site to go up on a regular basis. I'm hoping we see that soon.

Classy Colin

Colin Baker has a glowing review of David Tennant and the Christmas Invasion.

Colin has been a champion for Doctor Who for years, even when he has no reason to be, and he's showing a lot of class in being so complementary towards the new series...

Yeah, you can tell that Who will be back in

It's the second reference in two weeks to Doctor Who in Sci Fi's weekly newsletter -- with a nice DVD review of the excellent DVD for City of Death.

(I think that's as many references as they've had in entire years sometimes!)

On Air

I think most American Doctor Who fans are anxiously awaiting any bit of publicity and promotion that our new friends at the Sci Fi channel will throw out for the series. So I'll admit that it's somewhat exciting to see Dr. Who (2005) listed on Sci Fi's On Air page, even if they don't have the inevitable Sci Fi pages set up yet and http://www.scifi.com/doctorwho is just going to a "File Not Found" page at the moment.

I'll even forgive them for abbreviating it as Dr. Who... though perhaps that'so old school from the William Hartnell era...

But soon....and we know where to look.

Casanova in America

If this story is any indication, Masterpiece Theater is going to be showing Russell T Davies' Casanova later this year. Of course, besides sharing a writer with Doctor Who, it also stars tenth Doctor David Tennant.

It's very fair to say that Casanova is basically David's audition piece for the part of Doctor Who.

It's not on the Masterpiece Theater's website quite yet, so there's no additional confirmation, but they don't list anything upcoming beside the current production on their site at the moment...

Torchwood Update

Outpost Gallifrey is reporting that there's a little bit of a delay on the start of filming on Torchwood, and that as such James Hawes has had to bow out of production. I hope that this doesn't mean that James is completely leaving the Doctor Who orbit.

As far as I'm concerned this is much more interesting because it's all part of the crazy world of being under the Doctor Who microscope than anything else.

Doctor Who fans, in my experience have been far more interested in the production of the series than most other television series, for reasons I could only speculate on, after all.

Despite this blog being on torchwood.org, I really don't see this as being a Torchwood specific blog, but more covering the worlds of Doctor Who in general. If there's going to be any focus, it's going to be related to my perspective on the series.

Though one of my hopes is that when Doctor Who hopefully proves itself successful on the Sci Fi Channel later this year, that they consider Torchwood to be more episodes to purchase above and beyond the second and third series of Doctor Who.

And it begins...

One of the ways that you can tell that yes, Doctor Who is going to be broadcast on a major cable station nationwide is that Sci Fi's weekly newsletter names the great Outpost Gallifrey as Sci-Fi Site of the Week.

I suspect we'll be seeing more of this sort of thing in the next two months as we approach the airdate of Doctor Who in America on the the Sci Fi channel.

Doctor Who Podcast (revisited)

I know from my logs that people are looking for Doctor Who Podcasts, and besides the multinational Podshock at the Gallifreyan Embassy, which has a delightful multinational feel, and managed to have an interesting interview with one of the extras from the upcoming Rise of the Cybermen a couple weeks ago, there's also my fellow Minnesotan doing Podcast Who, and then Whomix, which gives original music interpretations inspired by Doctor Who.

More US Doctor Who Links

The Mirror
Yahoo
ABC
icWales
Indianapolis Star
Red Orbit
The Great Link

Oh, and Billie Piper is hoping that Doctor Who coming to the US gets her noticed. At the very least, she's got an in for a cameo appearance on an episode of Stargate, after all, that's where all sorts of other Sci Fi actors make cameos after they're done with their main show...

Doctor Who Series One Boxed Set - R1 images

Steve Manfred has posted some pictures of the Doctor Who Series One boxed set on his video release FAQ. Looks really good -- and it'll look even better now that it'll have a shiny "as seen on the Sci Fi channel" sticker when it's released in July in the US.

(It's still going to be available in February in Canada, if you need your region one DVD as soon as possible.)

Fantastic!

Twenty Years

I'm recognizing that this month is my twentieth anniversary with Doctor Who fandom. And it's nice to celebrate that anniversary with a new series of Doctor Who appearing on a new home in only two months. And actually, it's even better -- this isn't one of those times where I'd be spending my days worrying if the new series is any good, because I already know it is.

I wrote about my first experiences with the series about ten years ago, many of those thoughts are still true. It's still my favorite series, and it's great that even the new version may be new and shiny, but it's also the same old show that grabbed me as a child.

(Obviously, there's some nervousness on whether enough of the general Sci-Fi channel audience sticks around for it, but I've seen how the new series plays with the people that aren't as hardcore a Doctor Who fan as I am, and most of them love it as well.)

I can trace so many of the best things in my life to Doctor Who in some fashion. My friends, my girlfriend, my career, and so many things -- so no, it's not "just another television programme" to me. I hope that there is another group of people that will discover that same thing in a few months...just like there have been in the UK...

By now I know that Doctor Who will be there for the rest of my life.

---

I'm so thrilled that Doctor Who is now a stablemate with that other excellent Sci Fi revival, Battlestar Galactica. I'd say it's just like 1979, but this is even better. And Sci Fi Friday has a great tradition; great series like the two Stargates, Farscape, and a recent home for the beloved Firefly.

The Doctor Is In

As you possibily are already aware, the Sci Fi Channel will be airing the first series of the new Doctor Who starting in March of 2006. This will be the first airing of the new series in the USA.

Among the places listing the news of Doctor Who finally making it to the US:

1. BBC Doctor Who Website


2. BBC News


3. TV Shows on DVD


4. Sci Fi Channel News Wire


5. Slashdot


6. Outpost Gallifrey


7. scifi.about.com
   

They have purchased the 2005 series with the option to purchase the upcoming series -- so (not that we needed one) there is an incentive for all American fans to turn in and watch the Sci-Fi airing, even if they'd seen the series by other means.

Obviously, there will be more to come on this -- and we can all plan our launch parties now for March 2006...just a year behind the UK...

mndw : Information about Minneapolis/St Paul area Doctor Who related events and activities.

I haven't plugged this recently, but there is a yahoo group with Information about Minneapolis/St Paul area Doctor Who related events and activities. It's pretty low traffic (a couple of message per month, generally).

Psychic Search

According to the Sun some Doctor Who fans are consulting a psychic to find missing episodes. I think this is hysterical -- once again, I imagine that it's far more likely someone was making a joke about consulting one, especially as there's runored to be a well-known British psychic making a cameo appearance in the next series.

I think it is very, very funny. And really, any press coverage -- especially about something like missing episodes -- is good. (Even though the article is factually wrong -- a missing episode was found only a couple of years ago.)

New Series R1 DVD Release Delayed?

According to Shaun Lyon on the Outpost Gallifrey forums, they've still not officially scheduled the R1 DVD Release for the new series of Doctor Who. Sci Fi's newservice reported last year that a February 14th release was scheduled, but there's been no sign of life anywhere as far as any pre-orders go.

It's basically the status quo as far as the on going fiasco with regards to the new series in this country...

Signs of Life

It's nice to see that the upcoming DVD release of the 2005 Doctor Who series is getting some mainstream press coverage. I'll be interested to see if there's any other mentions of it in the coming weeks. Especially since it hasn't yet appeared for pre-order.

My suspicion we're not really going to see much publicity for it, as it's certainly being released this quickly more for the existing American fanbase instead of any theoretical new fan base.