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I'll confess that as much as I love the medium since discovering it as a child I've never really been any great student of it's history prior to that time. So the name of Watkins was not someone I was at all familiar with before Trouts strafing run on Twitter last night.

That said, there really is some beautiful stuff in those galleries and they have definitely served to pique my interest in seeing more.

Sadly I'm not active enough online (basically just here and twitter and barely any followers on there) to do much to help spread the word because it would be a crying shame if this stuff doesn't reach the audience it deserves.

Smith and Tennant would be enough to carry the day, I'm sure. Imagine the looks on teh childrenz faces!

Yeah, maybe I am coming from it the wrong way. Smith/Tennant for me is nothing special but to the average little sprog it could well give them their first ever nerdgasm.

I watch the show often with my nephew and he still prefers my Tennant DVDs to the new series, just because Tennant is the only Doctor he's ever known. I feel really old, I can tell you, when I realise that there's a generation of fans too young to remember Ecclestone.

And why not stick a Doctor in there thats never been seen before!

I like this. I reckon it should be saved for Smiths last season though.

Have a mysterious stranger crop up in a few episodes over the course of the series, helping out the companion but never meeting the Doctor. Then in the finale, Tennant and Smith meet. Then they get seperated and Tennant hooks up with the mysterious stranger. Tennant knows this guy is a fture incarnation (am I right that they can always recognise themselves on instinct?), but not which incarnation.

As the Smith and Tennant storylines are about to converge again at the end, the stranger leaves, sayinh he can't be around for whatt happens next. Tennant/Smith reunite + beat the big bad buyt Smith dies in the process, becoming mysterious stranger man.

If they stick to the Davies template, 2013 would be about the right time for Moffat to be winding down as well, so it would be the ultimate time travel thing for him to bow out on.

I've changed my mind, bring on the multi Doctors.

[Should]

Right, this may be old news to those of you who scour 100+ sites a day for the slightest tidbit. On the other hand I may have dreamed it because I can't remember where I got the idea. Anyway, I'm sure I've heard some vague rumors that the beeb are contemplating a possible multi Doctor story to celebrate the 50th anniversary during the 2013 season. If true it's heartening to see them confident of the shows longevity, if nothing else.

Even if it's total bollocks though, it got me to thinking.

I've been going over it and I don't know how I feel about a traditional multi Doctor story. All I'm seeing are problems. All of the originals have aging and/or being dead problems hampering their suitability (except McGann who isn't really 'iconic' enough I wouldn't have thought) and also have the added disadvantage of the newer audience probably not caring about them in the slightest.

If we discount them though, we are left with Ecclestone and Tennant. I'm assuming that Smith will still be current. Given Ecclestones ambivalence  I'd be surprised if he was up for it so we're left with Tennant. Smith/Tennant in a Two Doctors situation is hardly an earthshattering concept to me I'm afraid.

What do you think? Will they do a multi Doctor? Should they? If not, what would be the best way to celebrate?

Can I just say, for some reason, typing 2013 in a near contemporary context felt weird. Sounded weird when I read it back too. Still seems like that should be the far future. Maybe it's just me.

Is Brit Cit Babes not any god then? I buy my Megs based on how essential the floppies are, so I got the Monsters and Mean Machine ones but I don't really have any idea about this one.

It's Dreddworld and it's Wagner so you'd expect it to be good but ...

I'd definitely buy for the rest of Strontium Dogs though and as noted, the timing will never be better.

Keep It Simple! Dont reievent something that still does the job from an aesthetic viewpoint.

I'll be honest, this has been my only problem really with this new series. No doubting Moffat as a writer but some of the aesthetic decisions are a little off. The Daleks in particular seem a bit 'change for changes sake' but the titles are a mess as well. I was hoping that they would grow on me but they were just as annoying by the finale.

That said, I can forgive that stuff if the scripts are right. It's fun to quibble over but it doesn't really effect my enjoyment of the show.

Ha Ha. 'fraid so.

All points to yes then. i'll probably stick a tape in though and watch it later on so I can avoid the ads to an extent. What a faff, I realy miss Sky+.

One of my favourite films but I've no idea what you'd make of it.

It's very old-fashioned and extremely odd, (neither of which things I would consider bad).

Another reason for the tape. I wouldn't consider either of those to be bad things either but I'm staying with a bunch of people who most definitely would and they're due home abut halfway through the runtime of this. I doubt I'd be allowed to watch in peace.

Don't judge me, but I've never actually seen this. I know it's regarded as something of a classic by critics and film student types but what do the peeps on here think?

I ask cos it's on this afternoon and I can't decide whether to give it a go. It's on Film4 which means adverts, which always pisses me off with films and I have other stuff that I shouldbe getting on with but...

Anyway, is it as good as the hype?

As it happens, I'm rewatching the Ecclestone series at the moment, an episode a day, with the commentaries, and today was actually Dalek. So for once I can actually contribute something of note to a discussion like this.

The reason for the forcefield was simply that the effects guys told them they couldn't have bullet pings every time the Dalek got shot so they gave it a forcefield so that it couldn't get shot. Simple.

I'm sure they could have found another fudge that didn't fuck up the character quite that badly, considering they managed quite nicely for nigh on 30 years last time round but what do I know.

I'm a little dissapointed with the rewatch actually, cos I'd had it in my head as the 'good' RTD series but this time round I'm noticing all Davies little tics that got so bad as he progressed. They were all there from the start, just slightly more restrained.

For example, Cassandra being a post op transexual. How the hell did I not notice that before? And there seem to be a lot of very complex actions capable of being initiated with the press of a single key on a standard keyboard. Sloppy.

Anyway, I voted for RTD era Daleks in the poll purely cos they look good.

I am a physical screw up who is also a complete coward and for an idea of my usefullness in a crisis check out Clive Dunn in Dads Army. So I'd probably have to say Accounts.

Except my maths is shit.

Chuck is The Awesome.
Ludicrously silly but just so damn fun.
Stephen Baldwin is brilliant.
Jeffster rock.
Scott Bakula, Chevy Chase...
Big Al from Die Hard's brother running the Buy More...
Subway.
Captain Awesome.
It's just a class show!
Roll on season 4!

I want to be really annoyingly pedantic here and pull you up on one of those - unless you were joking - but I've not seen Season 3 yet so I might be wrong. So I won't.

Anyway, did I spot Mila Kunis in a season 3 trailer? Blink and miss deal but I was pretty sure it was her.

Can't recomend anything new because I'm so far behind on my viewing it's not even funny. I'm still watching S6 of Lost but after that I have s4 of Dexter on my list and then s2 of Burn Notice.

I did see the first few episodes of SG:U and will add my name to the seemingly very small list of people who liked it. I will return to it in the future, after I finally get around to watching the end of Atlantis.

Heap/Spaced

You were doing alright 'til that one. You mental.

Yeah, I don't know what it is, I'ved seen him in other stuff and he's tolerable, even pretty good in Green Wing, but in Spaced I don't think I laughed once. I just switched off completely when he came on screen. Don't think I got a single laugh out of Brian in that whole show.

And that Lee Nelson thing is a fucking blight. Watched the first ep and couldn't quite process the awfulness. I like to gve shows at least 2 eps but managed about 3 mins of week 2 before giving up totally. Haven't reacted so badly to a comedy since Horne and Corden.

I've just finished The Gunpowder Plot, which was, as promised, a very accessible and eminently readable overview of the whole affair. I'm not widely enough read to comment on how this account may differ from others on the subject but it seemed, to this layman at least, to be pretty unbiased and evenhanded to the various factions involved.

I was surprised to reads that there is zero evidence that the plotters mined there way in to the cellars and that this is generally poo poo'd by historians as Government propoganda, because I remember it being taught as fact at my school. In fact, this book did bring back a lot of stuff from school and then poke holes in it.

I can understand simplifying the facts slightly to give kids an overview of a complicated subject but to teach a blatant lie seems slightly off to me.

Anyway, I enjoyed the book and it actually made me quite moved at the fates of some of the players as the inevitable body count started to rise. It made me realise how easily we forget, with the passage of time, that these names in a book were once real people. Not an original thought I'm sure but I can honestly (and slightly shamefully) say that I never really think about these things in any meaningful way.

In fact, I got to thinking when I finished this that I couldn't recall the last non fiction book I'd read that wasn't some kind of 'making of' a tv show or something like that. I am resolved to do better.

Not yet thugh cos I'm reading Droid Files 2. Which sadly is leaving me a little cold at the mo. I loved the first book but this one started with a footie story (I wouldn't get the gags if they were aimed at contemporary sports figures so I've no chance here) and then launched into a musical story which requires you to put the dialogue to music. Often to tunes I don't know. Very off putting and drags me out of the story. I'm hoping that the whole book isn't full of these gimmicky types of stories because I was really looking forward to more like book 1.

I really really like this show except for one little thing that always irks me. That being Jen (Parkinson?) having zero comic ability. She is a serious liability on a level with Tovey/Being Human, Schwimmer/Friends or Heap/Spaced.

Linehan is a genius though, especially the whole Countdown thing this week. Pure gold.
Did I read somewhere that he was planning to get a staff in for series 5? Slightly worrying if true.

My crappy laptop is playing up again so I'm relegated to an hour a day on the library machines for ther next few days. Again. Twice in a frigging month.

So  now I still can't watch Rennaisance. It's sitting there on my computer, taunting me.