"Eee By By Gum"

Let's skip the whole "I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while" thing and skip to the important stuff. Namely Doctor Who.


Now, anyone who has read my blogs and is at least vaguely observant will have noticed that I love Doctor Who. It has this wonderful way of brining together a story that uses intellect and amazingly clever plots without a huge shooting fest to defeat the monsters because those monsters are made up of fears much greater, deeper set in our instincts than a big monster with fangs that can be defeated with a couple of blows or bullets to the head. As one man said (well sung) it's "the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism." You have vashta nerada encompassing our fear of the dark, clockwork monsters hiding under our bed, stone angels making us even more afraid of those things that might be moving about behind our backs and episodes that make you realise just how terrible we can be as a human race.


Of course, all this means that I am terribly excited for the new series at Easter and I think the full length trailer is one of the best trailers I've seen. (Not that trailers are generally particularly memorable once you've seen the actual thing but my watching of it three times in a row must say something about it.) They've got an amazing balance between avoiding major spoilers and giving out just enough information to make us want more, to make us speculate on what the series will hold, what the characters will do, and makes us want to watch the series now! (I mean, do they really expect us to wait another... meh, do they expect us to wait at all?!)


One of the best bits of TV series is always the disscussions about it with your equally obsessed friends afterwards. Arguing with your friends whether they prefer 9,10 or 11, whether they like Martha or not, who is their favourite character, whether Love and Monsters should be allowed to call itself an episode, is the brown suit better than the blue suit, you name it, my friends and I have most likely discussed it. The thing is, there are only so many times you can agree to disagree about whether Stephen Moffat has created too many confusing time loops, only so many ways you can present your disdain of "Love and Monsters" and only so many times you can establish that you all undoubtedly love Doctor Who. This is why trailers are so awesome. They give you that extra fuel and excitement for the new series to start discussing the possible outcomes all over again. To give you new topics, new areas of agreement and disagreement and, of course, new reasons to fangirl over the series. (Or fanboy I guess.)


So, here's the trailer in it's full 60 seconds of glory. Inhale it, absorb it, close your eyes and listen to the audio only, turn off the audio and take in all the frames one by one, re-watch it so many times you have the trailer seeping out of every orifice in your body, and then look at the things that I'm picking out.





As convention dictates, let us start at the beginning....

A beard.... and chains. Has the Doctor been captured? What's happened to Amy and Rory? Is this something to do with River killing "the greatest man I ever knew"? How has the Doctor become so helpless? Although, my guess it's something some idiot human has caused, Torchwood style. See that soldier in the background? He looks pretty human....

Scary eyes... There is something so sinister about eyes that hold so much emotion in one glance. Is that hatred? Revenge? Helplessness? Is this a monster the Doctor will be fighting or is it not actually a monster? Is it a creature that the Doctor will help? Either way, scary eyes...

This.... thing.... keeps popping up throughout the trailer. Does this mean that it's important? It looks like it will either be really really scary - there's something of the witch-like creatures in "The Shakespeare Code" about them - or they could be an absolute disaster. There's something quite risky about creating a monster that looks like something made from Papier-mâché with some ginger hair added ontop. Oooh, that's a point... is the ginger something to do with Amy? Again, the eyes scare me. In some ways, hollow eyes are even scarier that the knowing look of intelligent eyes.

The over-used astronaut. Is s/he important or is this just the over-used figure that they think is OK to leak more because it's in the first episode. Is this River, like the first introduction in the library? Or is it another, just as important character that hasn't be revealed to even the most diligent of fans? Or maybe, it is the Doctor? So many possibilities, so much mystery.

I don't know what bugs me most about this: The fact that it has audio of River saying "The day he finds out who I am" playing over the top, feeding into that much too obvious idea that maybe they are (however unconventionally) married; or the fact that just at the end you see the Doctor's hand running up her arm in a way that sort of suggests affection, also feeding into this idea which I so hope isn't true. I really hope Moffat isn't double bluffing us.... Am I reading (or watching) too much into this??

Now, is this a crack that the TARDIS is flying out of? Are they extending the "cracks all across the universe" thing or is this something else entirely? It's certainly not the time vortex or is it? Is that the effect of the silence on the time vortex?


Also, just noticed that this clip, in the YouTube version, is not filling up the whole wide-screen in the same way the other clips do. Is this editing or something deeper?

As we know from the previous trailer, "I wear a Stetson now, Stetsons are cool." Is this clip in here to just remind us of that quote or is this episode more than just a "wow, we filmed in America!" sort of episode? Also, what's with the big backpacks?

Are these more astronauts? Are these futuristic astronauts? They look pretty human. Are they anything to do with that astronaut that popped up earlier?

A spinning River Song. I'm not quite sure what she's doing (besides spinning with some sort of sonic-like device) but I get the feeling that I'm not going to like whatever it is. It feels too much like she's the one in control, the one solving things instead of the Doctor as is her tendency.

When I saw this I almost simultaneously thought 'Waters of Mars' and 'Vampires of Venice'. Is this the monster to go with those scary eyes earlier? In the full shot it looks like there are lots of them (well, at least 3) and they look scary..

I'm not sure if this guy will be important but I get the feeling that he could be some important historical figure in a boat. Is it Ferdinand Magellan? The guy who would have been remembered as the first guy to sail around the world if he hadn't died part way round (some of his crew made it). Is the Doctor the reason he died? Maybe he is in fact totally insignificant...

Those funny... things pop up again!!!

A scared boy just after a bright blue light... Is this surprise at the Doctor turning up in his bedroom or is it something much deeper and darker than that?




And then below, the darkest bit of the whole trailer, pretty much slap bang in the middle. Is this the voice of  'the silence'? Does 'the silence' even have a voice? Is it some form of the Daleks? (Talking of which, don't actually feature in this trailer. I really hope they've given them a break this series but then again, they can't break a habit.) What is this sinister, deep voice? And is this a darker side of the 11th Doctor that we haven't seen much of yet?

Scary scary puppet head. It's those eyes again. Is it something controlled from outside or something more like the clockwork men in "The girl in the fireplace"?


(Also, a second or so after this, that funny ginger, Papier-mâché creatures pop up again. Top left hand corner.)

Is this a regeneration? Is this something happening to the Doctor or something that has got inside the TARDIS? It has the glow of a regeneration but it's not the right form plus would they reveal something like that in the trailer? Also, if Matt Smith were going, wouldn't we have heard something about it in the press by now? Also, note Rory and Amy in the bottom right corner. Are they the cause or innocent bystanders?

Now don't tell me that you don't think that clown is scary. Ever since possibly the scariest Sarah Jane episode which contained clowns, I haven't looked at clowns in quite the same way and to add a red balloon not dissimilar to the one held by 'sister of mine' from the family of blood is just not doing anything for my nerves. The episode better live up to my expectations of fear!

This reminds me of the gelf. Ghost-like and it looks like she's in a ship. Is this another poor creature trapped and troubled by the cracks and silence like the gelf were affected by the time war or something else?

I'm slightly worried about this creature. Is this going to be another "love and monsters" style monster or is it actually going to be some epic episode with a Minotaur-like creature, running the halls of some hotel... Ok, that also sounds a bit cheesy... I guess with this one we'll just have to wait and see. (And hope...)

 Is this Amy with a gun? The way it's cut suggests she shoots the Doctor but surely that can't be right? Also, has she learnt nothing from the Doctor's "no weapons" policy? What is so serious that it warrants a gun and I so hope it's not the Doctor or Rory she is shooting. (Unless it's their clone that has gone haywire or something... I hope not.)

And then, before we've even had enough time to absorb all that's happened in the last 50 seconds or so, the end-screen pops up, brandishing the oh so frustrating two words that are "coming soon". We're left with questions, confusion, bewilderment, hope, longing, and so many other words describing strong feelings.


Who are these ginger haired creatures? Who really is River? What happens to the Doctor? Who or what is the silence? And least importantly, does Amy wear anything else apart from that red checked shirt?


DFTBA