Doctor Who's upcoming season gets a release date, a new short trailer, and another pun...

BLOT: (23 Aug 2012 - 10:30:06 AM)

Doctor Who's upcoming season gets a release date, a new short trailer, and another pun...

The new season of Doctor Who starts in just a little over a week (a week and two days, as of this post), on September 1, and that's good news. It has been awhile. Since the last Who we got was a Christmas Special, then we are looking at nearly a year. There had been some discussion of Doctor Who skipping a season/series, and to a degree that's what happened. A pair of additional six-month gaps [the first between 5 and 6, to put the show on in the Spring, and then another "extra" one to put the show back on in the Fall] has essentially hidden a missing season's worth of potential stories, though stuff like "The TARDIS at Night" mini-sketches implied there was plenty of story going on, not to mention the two-hundred year stretch of stories hinted at at the beginning of "The Impossible Astronaut".

Well, alright, here's the the trailer:

"So, how much trouble are we in?" "Out of 10? 11!" PUN! If you are playing the "When anyone in the show makes a pun involving the current incarnation number, 'doctor', or 'Who', take a shot" game, then take a shot. Play it a few times through and take a few extra. Go ahead, I won't judge. Anyhow, ending-trailers-with-puns is the mark of the season, apparently, because here is the BBC version:

"Who killed all of the Daleks?" "Who do you think?" *SHOT!*

Besides punny trailers, there are a couple of other themes hinted at in the story. Amy seems to be putting on a brave frace while crying, a lot. Rory is mostly looking confused. I guess those things have been going a bit, and by Rassilon's Sash I will miss them when the Ponds go in a couple of months. The biggest theme seems to be a reversal of the lessons learned in the previous two seasons, that the Doctor is a force of destruction as much as good—for every race his saves, he often dashes another one based on such considerations as the one race has a slightly more regimented cloning facility, or something. The Doctor is pitching out some lines about maybe he should be more pro-active and Amy is trying to talk him down. Which, I think, is possibly leading up to the 50th Anniversary Special and/or the "Fall of Eleven" hinted at several times. The Lonely God story arc will probably not end there, of course. Started effectively in the time of Seven, somewhat danced around with Eight, mourned by the Ninth, and in full denial by the Tenth [excepting a few scenes when the Doctor would finally lose it or realize he had to go all out], it has been the most important storyline of the new-Who era and has been referenced many times every season. It is a natural fit for a show as storied as this one, but a more rapscallion Doctor might be a nice touch, as well, assuming they could ever go back.

An odd thing I notice is that the British trailer is a little bit more whimsical and actiony, while the American one is a lot more "TO THE DOOM!". Wonder what that says about Who's respective audiences across the Atlantic?

Doctor Who

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: August 2012