The trailer has been floating around for a while now in dodgy camera phone format, but now it's officially available for viewing online;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/d...1&nbwm=1&bbwm=1

The BBC really do make this show look excellent in the trails, apart from perhaps some slightly ropey CGI (that wasp doesn't quite look it has the right lighting, in particular).

Nice usage of the increasingly John Williams-esque score also.

I think it's a sign of the kind of impact Doctor Who has now. Imagine ITV putting together such a trailer for Primeval? People would laugh. What faff.

But Doctor Who is not only entertaining faff, it also has the commercial kudos of something big. I only hope the specials in 2009 are pushed in the same way.

Nice work on the trailer there but you know the series is going to be yet another seires (Guffaw!) of disappointments.

I can tolerate at least two thirds of the series being Just Entertaining If Disappointing, as long as the other third of the series is as fantastic as the likes of Blink and the Human Nature episodes last year.

What about when the Doctor is revitalized by the healing power of all his believers across Earth all chanting his name (after Martha has revealed her 'true purpose' is to tell everyone to follow him), and he transforms back from the little funny CGI puppet that the Master had turned him into whilst dancing to the Scissor Sisters?

Fuck's sake.

That counts as one of the worst Dr Who moments ever.

Mm, that was a mite irritating but not terrible*; I think Davies tends to write himself into a corner a bit and has to quickly find his way to a conclusion in the final five minutes and within his budget. He's not going to change and a lot of people clearly do enjoy that kind of thing, so I think after three series and three specials I'm just going to expect the finale to always be a tremendous spectacle that is ultimately a bit unsatisfying.

A bit Hollywood Effects Movie, in fact.

* It being a family show and written to entertain the kids, it was successful on that basis. Need to lay of the Christ analogies at this point though. Lonely God, fine. Jesus Christ? NO.

I hated the series finale last year.

Until I watched it back a few weeks back while cooking the tea, and realised that it's fairly entertaining. I mean, you can reduce any Sci-fi to the ridiculous if you write it in plain-as-day language CUS. Everything sounds daft when written like that. It'd be pretty boring Sci-fi if it didn't.

I'm looking forward to it. Also, Catherine Tate wasn't shouting or anything. As long as that remains the case throughout the series, we should be okay. Good to see the Ood back as well.

The trailer is really fab, hinting at some kind of conflict between the three women this Doctor has drawn into his life. And I'm totally with thr0b on this one - I don't mind a season that's two-thirds okay as long as it's one-third amazing. (And the whole of last season's three-part finale was pretty damn great until the last 10 minutes.)

They've been showing the trailer in cinemas for a couple of months now and it always puts a chill through me.

Of course, you have to sit through a hatefully unfunny advert for the Chris Moyles show beforehand, but hey ho.

Some of the premise for this series' stories look very good too. Gareth Roberts' Agatha Christie story will be amaze, I expect, and then Moffatt has a two parter this series doesn't he?

I believe so; the only worrying thing that has been said about the series was by RTD when he said it's going to be lighter than last year. But then he went and qualified it later by saying that it couldn't really get any darker than last year and still be the same family show.

Catherine Tate is my biggest reservation, if she's tolerable in the first episode then I'll be on board.

If the series continues on the same quality as the last half of last series, I'll be extremely happy. The first half had some good parts and was a little ho-hum in others (with the 2nd part of the Daleks story being on a par with some of the lesser Torchwood episodes), but the second half, with the staggeringly brilliant Human Nature two-parter (that I watched for the third time recently and *still* got choked up), the fabulously intricate Blink and the epic three-parter finale (which had so many good ideas and neat bits I forgave it for some of the clunkier parts), was a delight.

And that giant wasp is going to terrify me in my nightmares, poorly-rendered or not. I hate wasps.

I hate Catherine Tate as much as the next guy but I didn't even recognise her when she first appeared in Doctor Who. Strange as that may seem.

Fixed that for you.

Mm. The bit, for example, when the Doc realises the YANA-"You Are Not Alone" connection, was absolutely spine-tingling. I watched all three parts again last week, and apart from the truly dreadful "nobody died after all!" ending (and RTD's shoehorned-in Jesus stuff again) it's pretty much all tremendous.

Which was the Human Nature episode? The title doesn't ring a bell.

The one in which the Doctor became Human (literally in Nature) to hide from The Family Of Blood.

Ah, gotcha. That was indeed superb.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd_ZZfz9GAI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh4qdWNAE88
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0OJKhxxQnM

Please stop it with the Daleks now.

See, adults get bored of them but kids don't, and for that reason they're going to be in every series.

I have to admit, I'm not bored of them. I still get that 'tingle' every time they appear. And, despite some of its plot-smudges, I thought the way they were shot, handled and scripted in Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks was superb.

Made me feel like a kid again. Whooooooosh. "You taught us to imagine. We imagined your irrelevance!"

Mixed feelings here. I love Doctor Who and count it amongst my list of favourite current TV shows, but it's horribly mixed in terms of quality. The end of the last episode of series 3 in particular must count as the single most godawful, cringeworthy piece of TV I've ever seen.

I could just about have accepted it if the people's chanting had just reversed the Doctor's Gollum condition and allowed him the time to stop the Master in a rather more sensible manner. Except that fucking RTD had to go even fucking further, and not only reverse what the Master did to the Doctor, but also turn him into glowing-invincible-space-Jesus, with no explanation offered whatsoever. DO FUCK OFF.

I'd have felt insulted by that scene if I'd been six fucking years old.

Honestly, it would have been better if Martha had convinced the entire population of Earth to hum the Brown Note at the same time, thus causing the Master to cack his pants.

Also, I wish RTD would stop it with the "HUMANS are so WONDERFUL!" stuff. I really like David Tennant, but listening to the Doctor talk sometimes is frankly embarrasing. I much prefered the moody, misanthropic "stupid apes" atitude of Eccleston.

Other than that, though, Doctor Who can still be ace, but I suspect that the sheer awfulness of the last season's final episode has robbed me of the ability to suspend my disbelief and just enjoy the ride.

That's quite sad if that's the case. Are you suggesting that if you go back and watch some of the series' better episodes - Blink, Human Nature and alike - they're forever blighted for you by the way the series ends?

If that's the case, I suggest a rewatch of those final three episodes. Because I, like you, hated the last 20 minutes utterly. But, for some reason, on second watch just a few weeks ago, it all suddenly fitted into place and I actually enjoyed them.

But that might just be me.

I still think the series one finale in the best of the three so far, mind.

All series finales have been overblown tripe. Rose absorbing the Tardis's power and making the Daleks just disappear?
Then vanishing "IRREVERSIBLY AND FOREVER"- amid many tears and lamentations - into a Parallell universe - from which Mickey returns about 5 minutes later in the silly Daleks vs Cybermen episode.
Unless they're very, very clever then bringing back Rose will stop anyone ever caring about a character again, since anyone can easily be brought back by "Stuff".
I want to see the Doctor exploring dark, mysterious and weird corners of the universe, not saving fucking London every episode.
The "one-off specials" in the pipeline do not bode well; they'll probably be more of the "Doctor turns into Superman at the last minute to save the universe" type. In fact that last finale was nearly as silly as Superman spinning the World backwards to reverse time.

One storyline I'd really like to see is this:
The Doc spends all his time repairing "breaches" in space time because - he caused them all in the first place by fucking about with time travel. Solve one anomaly and he creates two more somewhere else...
They travel back to Galifrey and meet his cynical, layabout son who spills the beans on why Dad really calls himself "The Doctor"...

Christ.

I hope you're being 'jovial' there. I'm fucking depressed now, myself.

:(

If the rumours are to be believed, the way it happens is actually rather clever. I have no worries. It's not like she died and they are bringing her back Farscape style.

I find it a bit odd that the Rev likes the final three parter. I liked Utopia but I found the Master just incredibly irritating and rubbish. I THOUGHT YOU HAD MORE SENSE YOU FOOL. That's it I'm cancelling my subscription!!!! (etc)

'Cos he's the master of self-medicating?

Essentially, yes. He goes round healing the shit HE caused by faffing around with FORBIDDEN TIMEY-WIMEY STUFF.

Or, more cynically, he DELIBERATELY causes shit so he can pose as a superman.

Over on Torchwood, however, Captain Jack merely poses as a sodomite.

Point of order: At the end of Superman, he doesn't reverse time by flying around the planet - he sends himself back in time by flying real fast somehow.

The effect is the same, surely?

No, damnit, I won't have that.

I'm absolutely sure he spins the World backwards and everything moves backwards in time to where it was. HE doesn't move in time at all.

Haven't seen it for 20 years, but I'd have sworn to this.

That's what it looks like, but apparently wasn't the intention. It was supposed to look like
he was travelling back in time. I'll find where i read it.

I read that fairly recently also; possibly in Deathray. Or even Retro Gamer.

In fact, I am fairly convinced it was Retro Gamer.

Well I am fairly convinced I read about it in Deathray. I think it's in the latest issue with Lost on the front and is in the section at the back where they talk about old Sci-fi stuff.

That would also make sense, as I read that issue at roughly the same time as Retro Gamer.

Also, final episode of Doctor Who this year is called "Journey's End". Discuss. Or don't. Your choice.