Heads up! Dr Who starts Saturday....

[Woofage]

I saw that the beeb was showing a preview in the form of The Eleventh Hour: The First Minute. I set my Myth box to record this not noticing it would be repeated constantly from 6am to 2pm. 8 hours of the same thing! Good job I had plenty of disk space...

[mattc]

For Whovian Hitch-hiker fans:

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - The Doctor and Douglas

Fri 11am R4

(Adams was the script editor for a while)

[Cunobelin]

Well is is at it even before he have started

'Doctor Who' star's airport troubles | TV Blog - Yahoo! TV UK

As someone who has on two separate occasions over the years had swiss army knives picked up on airport x-ray, I have some sympathy.

I have a sonic screwdriver at work, and it is a joke that works well whenever one of the Gamma Cameras goes down. Half the time the fix is simple and the driver is an embellishment, but is fun

[Rhys W]

Well I finally saw the two Christmas specials. I made a couple of DVDs from my brother-in-law's hard drive/DVD recorder but they turned out to be coasters. Not as spectacularly good as I was led to believe, but I'm looking forward to the new Doctor now.

I thought all the Star Wars references were a bit much though!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

This is the first time since it came back that I haven't been at all excited about a new series starting. 

[Martin]

you know you're getting old when you can't believe it was 5 years ago that the last one took over;

I missed both the Xmas specials, nice to see them. #2 son is gutted at the loss of DT

[mattc]

This is the first time since it came back that I haven't been at all excited about a new series starting. 

Russell T - OUT
Stephan Moffat - IN

as a result, I am the closest to excited that I have been since it came back!

[Bledlow]

If only Douglas Adams hadn't died, & had been tempted back.

[peliroja]

Our verdict: first half: rubbish; second half: thumbs up!

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I really really really liked that. Matt Smith might be a potato-faced Doctor, but I think he has captured the essential Doctorness very well. Yes, very good.

[tonycollinet]

Jury is still out for me. I probably need to give him a week or two.

[delthebike]

It took a bit of time to get going but it turned out fine in the end. 

Is Amy going to marry, tomorrow, Geoff, the nurse, or someone else?

[border-rider]

I though it was ace

Gone is David Tennant's gurning. Matt Smith is playing it like a duffer, but with a really dark subtext just peeping through the slapstick, and already building is a sense of unreliability and apparent big-headedness.  Quite clever, I felt.

The writing was good - much more subtle than I think it seems at first viewing.

[Rhys W]

I was looking for a dark subtext but didn't quite get it... hopefully it will return. The first few minutes looked as if it was aimed exclusively at a demographic personified by my 7-year old niece, but it improved from there on. I don't have any doubts that Matt Smith will be an excellent Doctor. My only criticism was the storyline of shapeshifting alien followed by spaceships hovering over the earth seems a bit tiresome by now.

The writing was excellent, apart from a couple of too-obvious gags.

[citoyen]

Brilliant! Proper scary as it should be. Matt Smith is great. Excellent script.

d.

[TimO]

I'm not yet sure about Matt Smith, although I'm not really a fan of his bow tie.

Amy Pond (aka Karen Gillan) is definitely a however!

Attractive Scottish redhead, what's not to like.

This episode was a bit of a light story, although not too bad.  I'm sure some of the later episodes will be better, this one had to create the new Doctors character a bit, put in place some of the back story, and set the scene for some future bits (like what's the "Silence will fall" stuff about?)

It's interesting that along with a new Doctor, we got a newly decorated Tardis, and even a slightly funked up Theme music.

I did like the way he kept on coming back much later than he was supposed to.  So much for being a "Time" Lord.

[Cunobelin]

Someone has eaten the Tardis.......


The new opening is awful, music butchered even more and the Tardis looks like it has been swallowed and is flowing through an intestine

[border-rider]

it's just change.  Don't be frightened

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Yes, I was very upset by the new music.

[Mike J]

Yes, I was very upset by the new music.

I dont like the new titles, but it could be worse.  I used to be well freaked out by the time vortex in the titles when I was little  .

[peliroja]

I wasn't too keen on the new theme tune, but I loved the funky film-style music at the end (which I ended up humming for about half an hour afterwards. Woolly can attest to this).

[citoyen]

The new music is awful.

d.

[Kathy]

Don't like the new credits, but I like the way the new doctor is written.

[Rhys W]

I have the Pertwee/Baker era music on my iTunes, and the Tennant version was a worthy interpretation of a classic. But I'm not keen on this new one, it seems to be diverging from the original melody too much.

And I think the Tardis has gone a bit too steampunk - that car windscreen washer tank stood out like a sore thumb.

[MattH]

Overall pretty good, but parts of the plot were too predictable (as soon as he said he'd be back in 5 minutes it was obvious he wouldn't be - like Girl in the Fireplace).

There was also subtle nod to the Russell Davies style of dressing the assistants; when Amy was explaining that she had the choice of either wearing the police uniform or a french maid's outfit - all of the other assistants since it came back on have been dressed as a maid at some point.

I'll reserve overall judgement until it has settled down a bit.