Details of Doctor Who Season 5 premier in Cardiff

Can the Doctor really pilot that thing?

The press was treated to a sneak preview of the opener for the fifth season of the new Doctor Who.

Den of Geek’s review:
It’s probably best that we get one thing out of the way up front. And it’s this: if you’re looking for a major tonal shift from the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who, you’re not getting it with The Eleventh Hour.

For arguably the biggest difference with this Doctor Who is it feels younger. That’s perhaps an inevitable observation given the age of the two leads, but there’s a feeling here that Moffat is playing on the fearlessness of youth as well in his writing. We’re not going down that path in detail because this is most certainly a spoiler-free write up. Yet even the way the show is directed by Adam Smith has a very modern urgency at times. However you look at it, there are certainly little evolutions to be found here.

Is The Eleventh Hour vintage Doctor Who? It was never really going to be. Is it a good, enjoyable episode with some terrific moments, that does a very good job of starting the show’s engines back up? Absolutely. And given the trailer of treats that we were shown at the end, the next few months look like being terrific fun.

Via Androzani.net

Throughout this series Amy and the Doctor go on some truly extraordinary adventures including travelling to 16th-century Venice, exploring France during the 1890s and visiting the United Kingdom in the far future, now an entire nation floating in space.

“I loved filming the vampire stuff in Croatia which doubled up for Venice,” reveals Matt.

“I had to climb a huge bell tower with a rain machine pummelling water at me. It was freezing cold but I absolutely loved it! I also enjoyed filming part of episode 10 when I was yanked through the air on a harness after being hit by an invisible monster. However, my favourite scene to film was in episode one when I ate fish fingers and custard with Amelia. Luckily they were actually breaded cakes so it wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds. I had to eat a lot of them but it was an enchanting scene so it was worth it.”

However, the Doctor’s enemies are never far behind him, including old nemeses the Daleks and Weeping Angels, plus new monsters such as alien vampires, humanoid reptiles and a silent menace that follows the Doctor and Amy wherever they go.

And Karen [Gillan] feels Matt Smith, as the youngest actor ever to play the Doctor, has risen to the challenge admirably.

“I think Steven said it perfectly; Matt manages to be old and young at the same time,” explains Karen.

“That’s the great thing about the Doctor; he has the energy and mischief of a young child as well as the wisdom, age and intelligence of someone a lot older. Also, with Matt’s performance in particular, he’s so believable that he isn’t human. He has all these things that he does that make you really believe he is an alien or a Time Lord and you’re drawn in by that.”

TimesOnline focuses on Doctor No. 11, Matt Smith:
Matt Smith is a Time Lord for the Twitter generation, but he still has his monsters, as revealed in a special preview of his first episode.

What is clever about Moffat’s script as well as Smith’s interpretation is that it allows the new Doctor to grow within his first hour’s outing. He starts as a raggedy-clothed, tatty-shirted doctor, a tie barely secured around his neck. His actions are jerky, almost like a newborn’s. He is a forehead-slapping, apple- munching, fishfinger-and-custard- chewing adolescent, still finding his place in his new body. By the end the Doctor is almost debonair in a tweedy jacket and tightly wrapped bow-tie. “They’re cool,” he says of the neckware and my bet is that by Christmas they will be, too, even in necktie-free Britain.

Smith is undoubtedly aristocratic, a prince rather than a lord of space and time, but one in no doubt of his lineage — briefly referred to last night in the briefest of romps through the previous ten Doctors. But what he does bring to the part is indeed his youth. He is comfortable with Google and Twitter, and is not going to run short of breath amid all the rushing around that the modern Doctor Who plots require.

Details from the MailOnline:
Viewers will see a new Tardis unveiled – billed as the biggest in the show’s history. Executive producer Steven Moffat said the machine regenerated after an explosion in David Tennant’s last episode on New Year’s Day. The latest incarnation has rooms extending out of the main control centre and includes a variety of bizarre gadgets such as hot and cold bath taps, a typewriter and a morse code machine.

Smith’s previous credits include BBC2 political drama Party Animals. He is the eleventh Time Lord taking over from David Tennant who spent four years in the role.

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan

There is also a return of 1970s baddie The Silurians, which have been given a new look for 2010. There are new monsters for the Doctor to battle such as the sinister Smilers, whose expressions give a hint of their evil intentions, that are sure to send children rushing to hide behind the sofa again.

Guest stars for this series include Bill Nighy and James Corden.

The new series begins on April 3 on BBC1

The event was also covered in the news, where viewers got a glimpse of the new program.

Via DigitalSpy
Doctor Who will return for a sixth series in 2011, it has been confirmed.

Executive producer Piers Wenger also announced a Christmas special for this year, penned by showrunner Steven Moffat.

Matt Smith will be returning for his second full series as The Doctor.

Shooting on the special and the 13-episode sixth run will begin early July in Cardiff. Filming on the fifth series wraps this Saturday ahead of transmission on BBC One at Easter.

For those who have not seen it, here’s a picture of the new sonic screwdriver.

The Outer Limits – Architects of Fear

Is this the day? Is this the beginning of the end? There is no time to wonder. No time to ask why is it happening, why is it finally happening. There is time only for fear, for the piercing pain of panic. Do we pray? Or do we merely run now and pray later? Will there be a later? Or is this the day?

The Outer Limits: The Architects of Fear

Episode 3
September, 1963

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Veteran screenwriter (of Star Trek, the Invaders, Science Fiction Theatre and Mission Impossible) Meyer Dolinsky crafted a superbly gripping and suspenseful tale in The Architects of Fear. The episode opens with a meeting of men discussing the current plight of the planet. Rather than raising the culture of its people, all of the scientific advancement of modern Man has brought humanity to the brink of war. Seeking to find a way to save the world from its own primal urge toward self-destruction, they develop a threat so convincing that it will unite all of the warring power blocks into a single nation devoted to saving the human race from an alien threat.

Drawing lots from a hat, young Dr. Allen Leighton is chosen to undergo the rigorous experiments that will transform him from a kind man into a bizarre monstrosity. The method is excruciatingly clear as we see his fluids slowly replaced and his muscle tissue steadily mutated, but the basis for the operations is never really explained. Early on we see an odd screeching little thing in a cage that resembles Leighton’s final stage, but where it came from is never addressed.

A married man, Leighton and his wife had decided against starting a family due to his wife’s poor cardiovascular health. However, her doctor has just given her a clean bill of health, making her joyful of the future as Leighton desperately tries to keep his a secret from her. What follows is a mournful hour of experiments painfully removing every once of what made Leighton who he is as he becomes something other. To save her the agony of wondering where her husband is while he mutates further and is placed into isolation, his wife is told that he is dead. Frustrated, she refuses to believe this. She just knows that he is alive. A rocket is crafted that only he can pilot, everything has been thought out to the letter. He is to crash land outside of the United Nations building while it is in session, fire his ray gun and die. His very presence will convince the world leaders that there are more dangerous threats in the universe than each other.

Of course, it all goes horribly wrong.

Robert Culp (of I Spy fame) is just incredible here. He stars in several episodes including the classic Demon with a Glass Hand and in each one he knocks it out of the park. He captures that quintessential quality of the ‘average joe’ that makes his characters so easily relatable. This is a key trait because all of the Outer Limits stories are short tales with little time to develop character and a plot at the same time. Leighton’s descent into madness on the lab as he recites nursery rhymes and hurls beakers at the scientists is simply chilling while the moments where he quietly watches his wife dreamily stare at maternity clothes heartbreaking. They don’t make them like Culp anymore.

There aren’t many episodes of the Outer Limits that I don’t love, to be honest. There is something about the music, film quality and sound that just transports me to another world, that of 1960′s sci-fi. This adventure is no exception as it combines the fears of a people with the well-meaning solution of a group of devoted scientists. There have been many moments where most of us have looked around at the horrors of the modern world and wondered why no one does anything to help instead of building better iPhones. This episode addresses that.

In the end, the solution is too much of a trick, too much of a cheat. If we are to advance as a culture, it must be through baby steps rather than short cuts. As agonizing as this is to accept, it is the truth. Following the slow painful demise of Leighton in his distorted alien form, the camera watches him return to the lab where he was constructed only to die at the feet of his wife. The episode closes with its lamenting refrain of signature music and a fade to black.

“Scarecrows and magic and other fatal fears do not bring people closer together. There is no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect and mutual love. If we can learn this from the mistake these frightened men made, then their mistake will not have been merely grotesque, it would at least have been a lesson. A lesson, at last, to be learned.”

The Outer Limits Original Series Complete Box Set