The new series of Doctor Who (Sat 7.15pm BBC1) is well underway now – and what do you think? So far it has elicited a muted response from the only critic who counts; not a good start, although he does say that this Saturday's offering is "flipping great" and it's onwards and upwards for the rest of the series. Fair enough – but what did the incredibly dedicated, oh-so-devoted fans over on the Digital Spy Cult forum think? Oh, they're liking it so far, going by the meta DS poll scoring count compiled by one dedicated DSer/Whovian with too much time on his (at a guess) hands. Rather like the fans mentioned here (WARNING: clicking on link may lead to pop-up-related death, so we've gallantly cut/pasted the relevant bits):
Doctor Who fans have been turning up to secret filming locations in Cardiff after being tipped off about the crew’s whereabouts.And surprisingly the tips came from the BBC’s own website leaving bosses fearing for the cast’s safety. A Beeb source told the Daily Star: “Fans were turning up on set in Cardiff and we couldn’t work out how they knew where we were. “Eventually one person was quizzed about how he discovered our whereabouts and we were stunned when they told us it was our own website. “People were posting sightings of Billie (Piper) and David (Tennant), giving details of their locations within minutes.”
God love the internet. And the BBC website muppets who underestimated the fervent and fervid fandom of Who fans.
Dan Brown, still the favourite author of Tube-bound cubicle monkeys everywhere (honestly, we're amazed to see people reading That Book even now, a year after everyone else – are they exceptionally slow readers? Did they hold off until societal pressure became unbearable? Were they taken aside by the boss and told that their lack of team spirit and non-adherence to group norms was unacceptable?) should stop work on The Madonna Puzzle or The Lazarus Diet or Picture Of Some Columns On The Cover, People'll Think It's Intellectual, Mwah Ha Ha or whatever the DVC follow-up is to be called and get to work immediately on the Provenzano code, now thought to be something to do with the Bible. Yes, the Mafia boss who eluded justice for decades is one of those charming crims who will kill you soon as look at you then go off to Mass with a carefree heart, so that's all right then. You couldn't make it up, a fact amply proved by The Real Sopranos (Wed 11.05pm C4) and The Godfather And The Mob (Tue 11.05pm C4), a couple of fairly self-explanatory (one would hope) docs in a Mafia mini-series/Sopranos (series 5, every night, around midnight, C4) blow-out, cannily timed by Channel 4 – and a welcome sign that The Sopranos series 6 might be on the way sometime soon.
Property dilemma on Tuesday night: do you go for the superbly entertaining Ann Maurice, aka House Doctor (Tue 8pm Five), with her barely-concealed hatred for everything that is suburban, chintz, pleb, and not oatmeal? Or do you put down a deposit on Kirstie And Phil: Where Best To Invest (Tue 8pm C4), looking at places where your chances of falling into negative equity are slightly lower than elsewhere? Ann's exaggerated shock! horror! responses to the tweeness of the average British home are unfailingly amusing, but as good students of the mesmerically depressing world of property prices, like all good little Londoners, we should probably watch K'n'P (no, not them) for some hot tips. And to try and gauge whether Kirstie's hair is at a sufficient level of shine for her to use it as a mirror yet.
As an experiment, we started to go through Five's weekly output and work out what percentage was composed of cop shows and home makeover programmes, but no matter how we did the sums, we always arrived somehow at a proportion of well over 100%, thanks to the channel's spooky space-and-time-bending powers, and commitment to improving B&Q's share price while simultaneously educating wannabe murderers about how best to cover their tracks (Provenzano, take note). Imagine our surprise, gentle reader, to see a "dark comedy" about psychotic bourgeoise queen bees who could out-Bree Bree (Desperate Housewives Wed 10pm C4): yes, Suburban Shootout (Thur 11pm Five) is – like that giant squid that turned up recently – a quasi-mythical beast that has been found real, to everyone's surprise, namely an original Five comedy. What's more, it looks halfway watchable. Wow! Next they'll be telling us that Science and Vanessa are going out – but no, that's far too far-fetched. Isn't it?
