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Doux News: March 18, 2012


This week: Doctor Who and the possible new companion -- Renewals and cancellations again -- Last week's poll and this week's classiest actor -- Other casting news -- John Carter again -- New at Doux and comment of the week

Doctor Who and the possible new companion

Unless you're a Doctor Who fan who has been living under a rock for the past few months, it's common knowledge that companions Amy and Rory are on their way out. (Will they die? Does it matter? Rory has died fifteen times already. I'd rather Amy didn't, but I hear Karen Gillan really wants Amy to bite the dust. Maybe she just wants to do a cool death scene.)

Speculation about the identity of the Doctor's new companion has been rocketing around the internet, and it may have just landed on one particular person: Sophia Myles, who was wonderful in one of my favorite vampire shows, Moonlight. She also guested in an exceptional Doctor Who episode with David Tennant called "The Girl in the Fireplace".

I am so on board if this turns out to be true. I've even sort of been hoping that they'd cast her as a love interest for Steve McGarrett on Hawaii Five-O because she and Alex O'Loughlin had undeniable romantic chemistry, but I was always aware that it was too much to hope for. There's no question that a run as the Doctor's companion would be even better.

Josie's reaction? "Feckin' awesome."

Paul Kelly, who reviews Doctor Who for us, had this reaction:
Rumours of Myles joining the cast have been circulating for months; ever since Moffat encouraged everyone to follow Myles on Twitter back in January. Then she lost her luggage (not a euphemism) over the weekend in Spain (which just so happens to be where the cast of Doctor Who are right now), and is scheduled to appear at the upcoming official Doctor Who convention. If the rumours are true, I think Josie summed it up nicely with 'feckin' awesome'.

It also follows the now lengthening tradition of casting actors who've been on the show before. Karen Gillan and Freema Agyeman both appeared as other characters before being given the gig, and Catherine Tate resurrected an already existing character just so she could give David Tennant a massive snog. So the precedent is there. Bringing back Reinette would probably cheapen her death, so I'd be hoping for a brand new character. Unless, of course, It turned out Reinette had been a Time Lord all along. Right, I'm pitching Moffat this story idea over Twitter. It's so marvellous, I want at least 50p for it. Maybe 20p. Okay, I'll take a shiny button.

But I'm so excited about seeing this happen (for purely hormonal reasons), that if The Doctor laid a massive blue egg, and had Rory and Amy sit on it until it hatched, revealing a dazed Sophia Myles, I'd hail it as the most awesome story idea every to come out of Steven Moffat's noggin, and dance a naked tango past the Houses of Parliament to the tune of "A companion came out of the Doctor's bottom, hey nonny nonny, Amy and Rory sat on her lovely head" (A song I intend to write especially for the occasion). That's how much I want to see this happen.

Personally, I think this news is what George Takei's happy dance was all about. Allegiance my arse!

Mark Greig, who reviews classic Doctor Who for us, said this:
Knowing Moffat, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was all some elaborate piece of misdirection to throw us all off the scent. Soon Myles will be spotted on set, Twitter and Tumblr will go into meltdown and then it will announced the next day that Una Stubbs is going to be the new companion. The screams of "MOFFAT!!!!" will be heard all the way to Alpha Centauri.

And that brings us to this week's poll (see the top right side of the blog). Are you on board with Sophia Myles as the Doctor's new companion?

Renewals and cancellations again

CBS renewed eighteen shows. When I saw the headline, I thought, gee, do I watch *anything* on CBS? But it turns out that I do: Person of Interest, Hawaii Five-O, and The Big Bang Theory. So yay!

Freshman fantasy Grimm just got renewed. I wanted to like Grimm, but the pilot turned me off so much that I have yet to watch a second episode. If you're watching Grimm, could you post a comment and tell me how it's doing? Should I put it on my summer viewing list?

Last week's poll and this week's classiest actor

The question for last week's poll was this: "If there was a fight between the Salvatore brothers and the Winchester brothers, who'd win?" I apologize to the Salvatores, who got creamed. We have a pretty strong Supernatural fan contingent here on the site, so it probably wasn't a fair poll question.

-- Salvatores 35%
-- Winchesters 58%
-- It'd be a tie 5%

(I don't know why that doesn't add up to 100%. Blame Blogger.)

And here's a perfect segue. There is something delightful about a gorgeous male actor who plays a vicious vampire but in real life, cares deeply about kittens. Apparently, there are feral newborn kittens on the Vampire Diaries set, and Ian Somerhalder is going to take them home and place them. His Twitter photo is of himself with his cat. I love hot guys who love cats.



Other casting news

(If you're a casting spoiler phobe, skip right over this section.)

We're waiting and tapping our feet anxiously for the return of Misha Collins on Supernatural next week. And we just heard this week that Felicia Day is going to be in a Supernatural episode entitled, "The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo" on April 27.

Noooooooooooooooooooo! Vampire Diaries' Matt Davis, who plays the Alaric Saltzman we love so much, has been cast in the lead of a pilot called Cult. Yes, I'm thrilled he might be getting a big part. Yes, I'm also exceptionally bummed that we might be losing our Ric. Couldn't he make a deal where if the show doesn't work out, his character could come back to The Vampire Diaries? What will Elena do if she loses yet another parental unit?

John Carter again

I'm sad but not surprised to report that John Carter isn't doing all that well at the box office. It was stomped on by critics before it even opened, and although comments by science fiction lovers have been generally positive, it appears that it won't be making money for Disney. So much for my sequels.

I've always felt inadequate when it comes to explaining why Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars books captivated me so when I was eleven. It wasn't just the weird aliens and the action and adventure; the books also featured racial tolerance and an obvious condemnation of the evils of religious fanaticism. And there was the fact that all of the characters were freaking naked, which was remarkably progressive for 1912. There's an article on Salon this week that does a beautiful job of discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the Mars series. Although I must warn you that it mentions what happens at the end of the first Mars book, which might spoil the movie for you.

Bits and pieces

-- This week's mandatory Game of Thrones plug: check out this season's poster. (Although WARNING DANGER WILL ROBINSON it will spoil you if you haven't seen all of season one yet.)

Which reminds me of one of my favorite essays here on the site by Ben P. Duck: A dog skull on a stake: the manliest science fiction movies of all time. If you've never read it and you need a good laugh, check it out.

New at Doux and Comment of the Week

We love to review new shows premieres. But because we're in a too-many-shows-too-few-writers situation, we don't usually continue until we know a show is going to be worth our time. That's because we've gotten stuck reviewing something that just hasn't lived up to its initial promise. (Like the show against which we measure all other started-great-but-let-us-down failures, FlashForward.)

So -- about Awake. I reviewed the premiere, and Josie reviewed episodes two and three. The two of us have decided to keep co-reviewing the show. Only thirteen episodes of Awake have been produced, and it's way too soon to know if it will get a second season. But it's just too intriguing to stop.

Which brings us to the comment of the week. On Josie's review of this week's episode of Awake, entitled "Guilty", we got the following comment:
You guys are awesome! The writers appreciate you digging into the show...
and a comment from the same guy on Twitter:
Great review. The writers appreciate you watching and critiquing. Your reader comments are also pretty sharp...
These comments were posted by one of Awake's staff writers, Leonard Chang. Woo hoo!

Runner up comments this week include two definitions of the abbreviation UST, and a discussion about the taste of shoo-fly pie.

-- Mark Greig's classic Doctor Who episode review of "Death to the Daleks" gets the nod as "Caption of the Week."



That's it for this week. Opinions, raves, rants, questions? Post a comment!

30 comments:

  1. "I love hot guys who love cats."

    Billie, that should be our next website if this whole tv-reviewing thing ever gets boring. And now's a good time for me to link to this video, which is also linked on a True Blood review: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/2aee0e6312/hot-dudes-with-kittens?playlist=featured_videos

    Thanks for the FlashForward ShoutOut! That show will never lives down its own failure.

    I almost decided to make shoo-fly pie this weekend, but decided it just sounded too gross. Also, I think my molasses has expired.

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  2. Sophia Myles returning could be very, very interesting. Reinette is the sort of girl Smith's Doctor would be attracted to too: smart and elegant with a hint of doom to her.

    I guess they could do an episode where Reinette doesn't find out who the Doctor is which wouldn't cheapen the ending of The Girl in Fireplace (undoubtedly one of the best Nu-Who episodes).

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  3. From someone who is still watching Grimm. It manages to be entertaining if you don’t look to closely. Has potential but refuses to do anything about it. (but hey lots of great shows were terrible the first year) still too much a procedural for me to love it. Mostly I just watch it for Sasha Roiz and mope about how Caprica was cancelled. Verdict: honestly it depends on how bored you are on Saturday nights (or Friday if you don’t watch Supernatural)

    About Matt Davis. Are you absolutely sure it’s not someone with the same name or maybe an evil twin or a good twin or a TV report from a parallel universe?

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  4. Sophia Myles, awesome. "Girl in The Fireplace" was one of my favorite episodes too.
    I just watched the first 3 episodes of Awake this weekend and am really intrigued. What I like is that the show takes its time with the dialogue, which has been really good.
    I was wondering about Grimm too, it'll be interesting to hear what folks say.
    Am I the only one having real difficulty figuring out the new squiggly words?

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  5. Sooze, you are definitely not the only one. They're driving me crazy. The setting isn't our choice: blogger switched to the new format without telling us, and I'm afraid it's the price we pay for living spam-free.

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  6. Billie -- another fabulous entry. I actually look forward to Sunday night now so that I can see what you have to say.

    Was surprised (no, that's the wrong word) interested to see that you watch H50. I LOVED it last year, watching every episode as soon as I could and buying the DVDs the day they came out. Because I live on the other side of the pond, I had to wait until January for season two. I couldn't believe the change. I felt that they took everything that was unique and wonderful about this show (the bromance with the carguments that I lived for, the relationships between the characters, the cases) and changed it. Why, oh why, did they bring in the horror that was Lori Weston (the character, not the actress)? Were they trying to create a direct competition to 'Castle' with the UST? (Sorry, couldn't resist!) I hated the first three episodes and stopped watching. Does it get better?

    I never voted on the poll this week, although every time I came onto the site (which was a lot), I swore I would. Just too difficult to choose between the two characters I love the most right now. So, well done Dean for winning the poll and well done Damon for saving the kittens. They're still a tie in my book.

    I laughed out loud when I got to your post about Matt Davis. In her review of TVD this week, Josie asked us not to comment about it. Because I had been staying off the other fan sites, I didn't know what she was talking about. However, being the curious person I am, I had to know so I went on to another site that gave me the news. I guess I should have just waited until Sunday... LOL

    Congrats on the kudos from Leonard Chang. You guys deserve all the good press you can get!

    Sooze -- thought it was just me and my old eyes when it came to the new words. I always breathe a sigh of relief when my comments post. Can't tell you how often it is a guess...

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  7. Oh, I wasn't blaming you guys! My old eyes just have a hard time with the new format ;-)

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  8. Oh, Sooze, I didn't feel like we were being blamed. I'm just really irked we can't fix it. And my eyes aren't even that old. :-)

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  9. Those catchpa words are a bear. I often have to refresh three or four times before I get some I can actually read!

    Chris B, re: Hawaii Five-0 --- it felt to me like they really toned down the attraction between Lori and Steve after a few weeks. It kind of receded into the background and only came up randomly from time to time. Once they shifted the focus, I think they the writers did a good job integrating Lori into the team and getting back to the overall fun team dynamic from S1. After about a month and a half, I started really liking what Lori was bringing to the team, and thought it was nice to have more than one female team member.

    And overall, I've been enjoying this season. Fun character dynamics with some good overarching mythology stuff, too. It doesn't really feel like they are doing a great job integrating personal stories for anyone other than Steve (and occasionally Danny), but when we finally sit down to watch it in my house, we usually enjoy the hour.

    Other Five-O watchers with a different take?

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  10. I really liked Sophia Myles in Moonlight, and I actually saw the Doctor Who episode she was in.

    As for Grimm, I think it's best described as uneven. I don't think they've really figured out how they want to do things yet. Some of the episodes have been really good They've introduced some decent questions/mysteries that I'd like to get answers to.

    I think Grimm's main problem right now is that I have about 0 investment in the actual Grimm (Nick) and his aunt/girlfriend/family. Same sort of thing with Alcatraz, the main group of characters aren't nearly as interesting as the weekly characters. Grimm's Monroe is the most interesting. They should do that for Nick, Hank, Marie, and Juliette. I can tell they've tried to do a bit of that, but they really haven't succeeded in making me care yet.

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  11. Are you sure letting Ian Somerhalder take kittens home is a good idea? What if this happens?

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  12. The world cannot handle that much adorability.

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  13. I wouldn't mind Sophia coming back but more as another character rather than Reinette. They could use the same explanation they did with Gwyneth/Gwen to explain the resemblance. At this point, I just wish we knew who the new person was. I love Amy/Rory but I'm looking forward to some new blood on the show.

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  14. I've never been a cat person but I want a vampire kitty and I want one now!

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  15. general thought of the day :

    Hey guys ?! Haven't ya noticed that this post gets the MOST comments ? LOL


    (still crying in my little corner about both Flashforward AND the Event; they both had huge potential)

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  16. Re: the captchas

    If you open a google account, or if you have them, just log in and you won't have to solve them. I haven't written a captcha for this site in years.

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  17. Gus, it depends on your browser settings. I upped my privacy settings a couple of months ago, and now the blog rarely realizes that I'm me, so I have to do captchas all the time, even if I'm logged into Google and have just posted a review on the site. (That is the shrill tone of resentment you hear in my voice.)

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  18. Maybe the fact that I use google chrome makes google think of me as a friend.

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  19. I've enjoyed Grimm, but it isn't "must see TV" for me. Like Heather said, it has been uneven. I'd also agree that Monroe is the best character. In fact, he's the reason I come back for more.

    Overall, not a great show, but more interesting than Alcatraz (maybe because the bad guys aren't regular people?).

    Just my two cents.

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  20. Sophia Myles would be great, but we're not getting her. From what I've heard the next Who Companion is going to be Jenna-Louise Coleman. And apparently she's going to talk even faster than the Doctor.

    *facepalm*

    Oh, that's just what Doctor Who needs, more Medical Investigation/Daniel Jackson style hyperspeed dialogue. Ugh.

    Seriously, couldn't we have a guy as a companion? Rory worked so well that I actually ended up liking him more than Amy. Failing that, how about an alien for a nice change? Or a kid? The actress who played young Amy was great. Just something besides yet another young very-probably modern day woman. If she ends up crushing on the Doctor then I'm just going to give up on watching the show.

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  21. More bad news, re: John Carter, Billie. Apparently it is doing so appallingly at the box office that NPR felt compelled to do a short story on it this morning, calling it "poised to become the worst flop ever" (or something very close to that). Yikes!

    It's a shame to see a film that could have potentially done well with a wider audience go down largely because of what seems like an intensely bad marketing campaign. I've seen a lot of people saying, "It was so much better than the trailer made it look!" I've got to think the trailer kept a lot of people away. Not because it made the film look bad, but because it did an incredibly poor job of telling people what the film even was.

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  22. Hi, Jess -- yes, I heard, and I'm really bummed. People just didn't know what it was, so they didn't go. Disney should fire whoever they hired to market the movie.

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  23. I'm really enjoying Grimm, as are a couple of friends of mine, and we're really happy it got renewed for a second season. As with most shows in their freshman year, it's had highs and lows, but I expected that and it doesn't bother me. Most new shows take a while to find their real footing. I really like the Nick/Monroe relationship and want to keep seeing more of that.
    -Kathy

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  24. I didn't know where else to post this, but I forgot how mean the wannablessedbes were to Tara in HUSH.

    My heart broke as I was watching the episode this evening and I got a lump in my throat....

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  25. Here is fine, but you know we do have reviews of every single Buffy and Angel episode right here. :)

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  26. I've read each entry a few times. :) They're the best BUFFY/ANGEL analyses on the 'net.

    On the subject of BUFFY – I caved and I'm picking up the Season Nine comic.

    I didn't start reading them yet, though.

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  27. HBR, I've read the first arc and it was good. Joss is not trying to be epic anymore, and it works. I have hopes for it.

    Angel & Faith is really good, too. You can almost forget the bitter taste of Twilight. Almost.

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  28. By te way, HBR, I'm reading Garth Ennis's run on Hellblazer. Man, that guy is good!

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  29. Ennis’ run is brilliant. The things that happened in those stories – whew!!!

    Issues 59, 60 and 61 are my favorite issues from the series. That arc is the one that pulled me in. I just added issues 41 to 46 – DANGEROUS HABITS – to my digital list. I loved ROYAL BLOOD too. Those issues are all on my digital list.

    You might also want to check out Peter Milligan’s run, starting with #261 to the present. It’s effing great.

    I’m going to read BUFFY Season Nine this weekend. I already know the “big twist” at the end of the recent issue.

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