Doctor Who!

[Storm]

To the joys of 42.

I did really enjoy this, although it's a bit basic and it's easy to see where everything was dragged in from. Even the Radio Times feature cheerfully admitted in advance that this was essentially a rip-off of Alien, right down to the dreadfully wooden performance of the actress in the sweaty shirt. The Doctor's OTT screaming agony is almost a carbon copy of Cancer's death-cries in the Blake's 7 story Assassin. The living star is just a rather neat variant of the planetary-life-form idea used in countless Dr Who/Blake's 7 stories. Even cartoon series like The Transformers have done that one. The Captain-wrestling-with-her-own-authority routine is very familiar, and for some reason Michelle Collins reminded me of Beryl Reid in Earthshock, perhaps just because it was an equally-bad case of miscasting. The 'You can get free calls to your favourite time-zone with TARDIS Telecom Stop-The-Clock' routine is revisited from The End Of The World. And the opening ten minutes feel very much like a direct lift from The Impossible Planet.

It's fast and it's exciting, although the pace is not very even, and the early stages in particular feel hurried. Also, the real-time ingredient they were trying to sell the story on is a sham, and therefore it ceases to be 'groundbreaking' (assuming it would've been anyway); it is no more a real-time story than The Horror Of Fang Rock, or Countdown from B7.

The logic of bits of the story is weak, particularly the design of the ship (which for some reason looks like a Nebulon B frigate from Star Wars). All right, at least it means the Doctor has to work at a solution for a change, which was something positive, but why oh why were the control panels for the escape pods' electromagnetics built on the outer hull? I suppose the flight controls are in the maintenance ducts, and the cargo hold is the tabletop in the mess area?

But it was still good stuff, even if it's because it was too fast and dramatic for the audience to stop and think about it. DT puts on one of his better performances, screaming throes of agony aside, and it was a nice touch to see Martha being the one to save the day. And once more, it's good that the whackiness has been massively toned down.

Given that this was written by Chris Chibnall, who was responsible for some of the worst episodes of Torchwood, I was fearing far, far worse than this. I give it 7/10, if only because we didn't get another of those tedious interludes with the Doc sulking about Rose.

[Mirela]

The plot reminded me of something out of Farscape, I can imagine something like that happening to Moya and her crew. The sun-possession was really creepy too! I enjoyed this story, maybe not as much as some of the other episodes so far, but the thing that stood out for me the most was David's acting. I mean, he's an incredible actor anyway, one of the best I've ever seen (and I'm not just saying that because I'm in love with him, lol!) but I have to say in this episode it was WOW

[arcadia]

I liked it overall. I watched it twice and liked it a lot more the second time. The first time I was disappointed during the first half but thought that it got nicely tense towards the end. I couldn't help comparing to both The Impossible Planet and the film Sunshine though, and it wasn't as good as either of them. There was some dodgy science which Sunshine did much better, and I found it much harder to connect to the crew in 42 than the one in The Impossible Planet. Most of them were expendable and I thought that Michelle Collins was a bit unconvincing as the captain.

B+

[Storm]

Human Nature is easily the best episode of the current season. It's being argued in some quarters that it's the best since the revival. Nothing unusual in that of course; some fans seem to insist that every episode is the greatest ever, at least until the next one comes out. But this one is being venerated even by many fans who don't think much of the revived series at all.

For myself, I choose not to get too carried away with it, as it has its weaknesses, not least that it's a lot less original than people are suggesting. It rips off Superman II (a super-powered alien surrendering his powers to become a human), Batman Forever and Spider-Man (the hero having to choose between saving a lover and saving a friend). Invasion Of The Body-Snatchers is re-re-re-ripped off for about the millionth time. While the behaviour and powers of the family are almost indistinguishable from the nature of Slitheen. The 'public-school-prefects-are-all-slimy-pompous-b*st*rds' stereotype is a little cheap and overplayed, while the guy playing Baines with his dumb facial acting really got on my balls after a while. In fact, the general stern disapproval of the values of the ruling class of a century ago is laid on with all the subtlety of an elephant tusk up the bum. And it's sad that we still have to have more of the Doctor pining about you-know-who, even if it's from a subconscious outlet this time.

But I very much enjoyed the rest of the episode. It helped that the Doctor's 'back-up' personality was so mild-mannered, as it forced DT to keep his performance in check. Freema gives another positive display, although her routine sulks about living in Rose's shadow are in real danger of getting stale. Some of the guest-acting isn't so clever, but none of it's hideously bad.

The scarecrows... hmm, think there may be a Worzel Gummidge-style tribute to the Third Doctor in that. They certainly weren't as feeble as I feared they'd be.

The overall plot idea about hiding from the family feels a mite contrived - the threat they pose the Doctor would be almost imperceptible were it not for DT's sheer conviction.

Nothing excruciatingly bad on offer, and there's plenty of decent or great stuff in it. Good first half of a two-parter yet again, now can we have a part two that delivers on the promise for once?

I give it 8/10.

[arcadia]

I thought Human Nature was pretty good - one of my favourites of the current series. I liked that instead of telling the story in a linear fashion the explanation for what was going on wasn't given until later, which made me confused and intrigued enough to keep me engaged in the story.

I thought that DT played John Smith really well and it was good to see him playing another character. Baines was nicely creepy (and I wouldn't have recognised him as Will Scarlett from Robin Hood if I hadn't known) and the scarecrows were sufficiently evil. I loved the Journal of Impossible Things and the drawings of previous Doctors and monsters, that was a nice touch.

B+. Now lets hope the second part is just as good.

[Seren y Gogledd]

WOW. Anyone else cry at the last scene, by the war memorial?

I think Thomas Sangster really did well in this one, he definitely wasn't like the annoying kid in "Love Actually"!

What do you think about the rumours about Freema Agyeman leaving/being axed at the end of the season? I think it's a bit too soon to judge, there hasn't been much development of her character - if people don't like Martha, it's more to do with the writers than her acting.

I'm already trying to figure out how I'll explain to Leonie if she does go, she still hasn't got her head around Rose's departure and expects to see her again!

[Mirela]

Freema Agyeman isn't being sacked, that rumour is completely false - it started in The Sun, circled round and has been completely rubbished by the BBC. Basically, that rumour is completely made up - tabloids making up stories as usual. I read online that she and David aren't contracted past Series 4 so far, but she's not going anywhere for now (and neither's David - yipee! ;D ).

I didn't cry out loud at the end, but I definately felt tearful during that moment and also when the John Smith-that-could've-been died in that vision. I'd like to read the novel of "Human Nature" if I could only get hold of it!

[arcadia]

I thought The Family Of Blood was pretty good in the end, though I was a bit disappointed by the first half. The last 15 minutes or so rocked though, and yes, I did cry!

DT played it really well and I relly felt for John Smith having to make the decision to basically kill himself. I loved the darkness of the Doctor's punishments for the Family as well.

Overall a B+ and it didn't disappoint after the first half of the story last week.

[arcadia]

Blink

I loved it. Favourite of the series so far. Creepy and funny and clever.

I loved the idea of the quantum locked statues and communicating through DVD extras, I loved the humour in the dialogue (which I've really been missing this series - that's why I haven't given episodes like Human Nature/Family of Blood top grades even though they are very well done) and I thought the guest cast were great and more than made up for the lack of the Doctor and Martha.

Grade A. Bring on next week (squee!)

[Storm]

The Family Of Blood.

Sigh. Yet again, part two doesn't come close to the heights of part one. Much of the eipsode is just a frantic runaround, the anti-war/anti-racism messages are again laid on far too thick, as is the unashamed sentimentalism. The solution is equally unashamed technobabble, and seeing the Doctor defeats the family so easily, it immediately leaves you wondering why he bothered going to the lengths of becoming human to avoid them in the first place. In fact, on reflection of all this, the Doctor's behaviour for much of the story seems quite cowardly.

I quite liked aspects of the ending, including the ruthless punishment the Doctor inflicts on the family; the old 'immortality-is-a-curse-not-a-gift' moral is recycled from The Five Doctors but at least it's demonstrated rather than just announced this time. Martha is good again, although her moping about the Doctor not loving her is now really getting on my nerves.

6/10.
---
Blink

Of all the new series writers, Steve Moffat definitely has that 'something' doesn't he? He writes with good ideas. He writes characters with feeling, but without laying it on nearly so thick or unnaturally as most of the others. He's able to write bland monsters and imagery and make it seem like the scariest stuff imaginable. He's the only Who writer who hardly ever breaks the show-don't'-tell law. His dialogue is smooth, generally realisitic, and not crass or unsubtle.

Sure enough, Blink is the best episode of the third season so far - probably at all seeing RTD's written the three that remain - and easily the scariest; colourless monsters moving in stop-motion manage to be a thousand times scarier than the Daleks were on their sojourn to the 1920's. Beautifully-written, crafted and directed, the fact that you don't see them moving makes them all the more frightening, as you realise that their movements are completely imperceptible. I'll never play Grandma's Footsteps so casually again! And Sally Sparrow comes across as easily the most appealing and likeable guest character of the year so far.

The plot isn't quite as clever as it thinks it is, mind, as it's just yet another of those time paradoxes that has been done a hundred times before (including a few times in Dr Who itself; witness Day Of The Daleks). Detrimentally, the scene with Kathy's grandson and the letter is clearly ripped off from the end of Back To The Future Part II, and Martha has easily her most irritating and unconstructive outing so far, doing nothing but throw unhelpful interruptions into the Doctor's conversations with other people. Also, while Sally is an engaging character, it has to be said that some of the others are a bit 2D, especially the stereotype techno-nerd Kathy's brother proves to be.

But the structure of the story, its pace, and the way it plays on your mind and perceptions as it progresses more than compensate for these problems. As a mystery, it's not exactly difficult to figure out, but it helps that it doesn't tax your patience much waiting for Sally to catch up with you.

By the way, another excellent thing this episode does is conclusively underline the problems with Love And Monsters last year. As I insisted at the time, the absence of the regulars was not the problem with that episode; they hardly featured here either, and yet, where L & M was smug, lazy, puerile sh*t, Blink is class.

I award 9/10! And I don't give that mark easily.

[Seren y Gogledd]

A Steven Moffat script without the obligatory reference to "dancing"!

I don't know why Russell T Davies found it scary, but stuff on TV never scares me anymore - it was definitely the funniest so far. I think this will end up near the top of a few viewer polls, as Moffat's episodes often do.

I spotted BTTF2 in the letter as well although the doorbell rang before Kathy was zapped - just a little thing that stuck in my head (yes I know, thinking too much...)

I like the bit about the Angels being a species that kills you nicely, zapping you into the past and making you live to death - a nice touch, solves the problem of violence and how far you can take it.

So far, my favourite episode of the season - but let's not forget Jack is back next week!

[Mirela]

If John Barrowman, Sir Derek Jacobi and John Simm hadn't been in this episode then it wouldn't have been up to much. Despite David and Freema's great acting, that still wouldn't have saved it. But then, I guess it wouldn't have been created otherwise 'cause it was a big build up to the end of the episode...and what an ending it was!

I already suspected what would happen but that didn't spoil it for me, it left me breathless as a matter of fact! Sir Derek Jacobi was great as the Professor and the bit where he got his Time Lord DNA back from the watch and turned round with pure evil in his eyes was fantastic! He really scared me at that point and the Master hasn't actually scared me before, even though he's always been one of my favourite Who villians. And then the regeneration into John Simm was great too...what a great Master he's going to make! (And, from a girl's point of view, a really sexy Master too!)

I have to give this episode 10 out of 10, soley for the bits I've mentioned!

[Storm]

Oooooh boy.

It wasn't... ba-a-a-a-a-a-ad. In fact, for the sheer continuity excitement, the ending was as gripping as any episode of Dr Who I can think of.

But I do find myself sighing in hindsight again, because far too often the new series does depend on the 'dramatic revelation' as a substitute for a real plot. "Wahey, the Master's back! Now, to write a story for it... oh why bother? As long as the Master's back, everyone will be hooked anyway. A good story's wasted here, I'll write something rubbish." Trouble is, I actually don't think very much of the Master, I always found him a bit dull, and beyond the sheer nostalgia of it, there's not much appeal to seeing his return.

To be fair, Derek Jacobi was outstanding both as the amiable (if stereotype) elderly Professor Yana, and then as the reborn Master. His diction and timed delivery of the Master's lines were completely in keeping with Roger Delgado at his very best. Jacobi, for those fleeting moments, proved to be far better than the likes of Antony Ainley could ever have been in the role. It was also a lovely touch hearing sound clips of Delgado and Ainley to highlight Yana's repressed memories.

But then came the regeneration - more about that needs mentioning, and will be later - and John Simm turned him into a cross between David Tennant's Doctor and Richard E. Grant's send-up in The Curse Of Fatal Death. It's not right, dammit, the Master isn't a zany, fast-talking, shouty type, he isn't! (And nothing against John Simm, who's a decent actor, but it says something about how superficial and 'Cool Britannia' the modern series is that it casts aside a truly splendid leviathan of the modern theatre like Jacobi after less than one episode to replace him with a moderately-gifted TV performer with a receding hairline. Just because he's younger I suppose? Russell T. Davies showing all his usual depth and appreciation for real talent...)

On the issue of the Master regenerating... how? His regeneration cycle ended long, long ago. The last two bodies we saw him 'wearing' - Tremas and some Los Angeles security guard - were both possessed, not even Time Lord bodies. Suddenly he seems to be able to regenerate again. For that matter, how come he's even alive? Last we saw, he fell into the Eye Of Harmony in the Paul McGann movie and was digested by the TARDIS. How did he survive, and how come he can regenerate? Did he draw rejuvenative power from the Doctor's severed hand? Did he possess another Time Lord between the end of the movie and the start of the Time War? Possible I suppose, but it would have been nice to get some kind of explanation, or at least a clue. Maybe that will follow.

Much of the rest of this episode was highly forgettable, and seemed like a lazy Mad Max rip-off, complete with generic punk rocker monsters with horrid teeth. The business of being a hundred trillion years in the future was just stupid, doubly so when we see that once again the human race has evolved not a jot even by the end of time. If we could even get that far, we'd be three hundred feet tall and probably have only one eye!

The idea of a journey to 'Utopia' had the makings of an interesting plot angle, except it depends on the audience misunderstanding what Utopia means. Most people misinterpret it as meaning 'the perfect society' or 'heaven', when in fact it just means 'nowhere'. Once you realise that, it becomes easy to calculate already that the rocket is heading down a blind alley that it will never return from, rather spoiling the dark surprise presumably in store ahead.

Captain Jack's return was a plus. He seems to work better with DT than he did with Eccleston; back in the first season, Eck with all his gravitas and depth was basically out-acting Barrowman off the screen most of the time. But DT and Barrowman are both lighter and less brooding, and they spark off each other quite well; perhaps the similarities make it easier for each of them to spot when they shouldn't go over-the-top. "Should I pull the crank here? Hang on, let's see what John's doing... Oh God, that's a bit wild, I'd better not be any more extreme than that!!"

Martha is very much doing the hanger-on role here, as she has been increasingly in recent episodes, while Chantho appears to be something bordering on a racist joke about Oriental submissiveness. As for the rest... meh, take it or leave it.

7/10. Five of which are for Jacobi's performance on its own.

[Storm]

Sound Of Drums and Last Of The Time Lords. What can I say?

Cue a very long sigh.

How about, "Bloody awful"? Really, I can't think of anything nicer to say about the story than that, they were that terrible.

Every typical cliche and lazy shortcut in Russell T. Davies' writing was there once more, and in spades; feeble, unsubtle and misplaced attempts at comedy (the Master miming to bad music while dragging the aged Doctor around his skybase), unnatural plot exposition (Martha announcing her activities over the last year to the Master for no apparent reason), incomprehensible technobabble and sorcery-babble to set up the plot (the TARDIS being turned into a 'Paradox Machine' allowing temporal anomalies to exist in the physical universe - yeah, right, how does it do that exactly?) and then again to resolve it (an awful lot of people in a telepathic network round the world saying the same name at the same time causes someone to suddenly grow two hundred years younger - again, deus ex city, HOW DOES IT HAPPEN?!?), a liberal splashing of stupid points to many of the supposedly-intelligent protagonists (if they could destroy the Paradox Machinery just by firing a few bullets into it, why didn't they just do that before the Toclafane arrived? Idiots!), and some more blatant and uninspired rip-offs of scenes from adventure movies (the Earth spinning in reverse to portray time running backwards, a la Superman, a dark enemy burned on a funeral pyre, a la Return Of The Jedi, and a ring lifted from the ashes of a corpse to the 'chilling' sound of disembodied laughter, a la Flash Gordon).

Add in glaring plot self-contradictions, such as the Toclafane clearly outnumbering the human remnant that went hunting for Utopia at least a thousand times over, yet supposedly being the same people, some lay-it-on-with-a-trowel political commentary about Bush and Blair (you know, I get the feeling that RTD may not altogether like the BB double-act, dunno where I get that impression from; maybe the fact that the US President remains dead at the end while everyone else comes back to life) and about domestic violence (wasn't Mrs Master's eventual betrayal of her husband almost as predictable as Hugh Quarshie's extermination in Evolution Of The Daleks?), some truly hideous over-the-top music from Murray Gold, and a dreadful feeling at the end of 'they've-hit-the-reset-button' (the entire year is just undone, just like that? Sheesh, that's not just a cop-out, that's cowardly writing of the lowest order...) and you have, quite possibly, the worst story since the revival.

In terms of pure plot-progression, it's a mess. The first episode starts with a lame cop-out, with the previous week's cliffhanger hurriedly brushed aside by the most predictable resolution since someone asked, "This Saddam Hussein bloke; is he guilty or what?" Captain Jack's Timejump implant is broken, but we all just knew that the Doctor's magic screwdriver would fix it just like that. So, almost everything from Utopia is neatly tidied up within thirty seconds of the teaser. The start of the next episode suddenly leaps us forward a year out of nowhere. During this time Martha goes round the world and just... tells people a story, while the Doctor sits around on Skybase for the whole time and does basically nothing. And the Master decides to have a conversation with him about his new Timelord Empire fully a year after it could have sounded at all natural. Meanwhile, the phase of the plot where Martha is captured is completely meaningless. Martha clearly doesn't have to be present on Cloudbase for the chanting of the Doctor's name to work, so why is it she claims that she deliberately got caught? The only reason she appears to be on the Cloudbase at all is so she can explain the plot to the Master for the benefit of the viewers. In fact, if she really wanted to get captured, why did she bother hiding under that blanket while the Master was looking for her, why did she look so damn scared even when no one could see her face, and, above all, why didn't she run for it when the Master was about to shoot her instead? For that matter, why didn't the Master shoot her?

Other plot incongruities, non-explanations and contradictions abound; why does being aged nine hundred years make the Doctor’s skull shrink and his eyes get bigger? Why can 'permanently' fusing the TARDIS' navigational controls so that it can only visit two time zones stop a man from travelling freely, if it can't stop him completely rebuilding the TARDIS into a 'Paradox Machine'? If the fusing of the circuits is permanent, why is it that at the end of the episode the Doctor suggests a wide variety of destinations to Martha, none of which include twenty-first century Earth or the end of time? For the same reason, you have to ask how he winds up sinking the Titanic; did the Titanic not sink till 2007 or something? Or is the Titanic not due to sink until the year one hundred trillion, and all those people from 1912 really just died of mass-hallucinations? How come the Titanic managed to crash through the TARDIS wall at all, given that said TARDIS has fallen off cliffs before and survived completely unscathed? Why does the Master kill his Cabinet ministers immediately after his Election despite needing to maintain the illusion of his role as Prime Minister for some days afterwards? Surely it would be easier to do that if he didn’t have to conceal a stockpile of corpses in number 10. Why is the President still dead when time is reversed to the point before the Toclafane arrived? It was the Toclafane themselves that killed him. Are we seriously expected to believe that Martha was able to tell three billion-odd people the Gospel According to Doctor Who in the space of a year? And that she was able to convince all of them that this mythical demi-god was real so easily?

So many other details go unexplained, even completely unexplored. Who the hell was Lucy Saxon anyway, and why was she so eager to see the Master succeed? Why did the Master treat her as an equal when she's a human? (I mean, he married her! The Master married a human! Why would he marry into what he thinks of as an 'inferior' race?!?) What exactly was the 'sound of drums' supposed to represent? How did the Doctor know about the countdown so early? How did the whole world manage to synchronise every clock on the planet to the exact same second? Has RTD never heard of time zones? What happened to the Toclafane that had manifested before the invasion and the paradox? Why weren't they still there after the reset button was hit? Equally, what happened to the satellite network? Or the Cloudbase? Or the three hundred million seething Americans who would surely be baying for British blood after watching the Prime Minister effectively declare war on them by murdering their President live on global television? None of this is examined at any stage. Not one bit of it!

Characterisation is becoming a real b*gger in this series, especially the Doctor and the Master themselves. The Doctor is no longer a scientist and traveller, he's not even just a sorcerer. He really is being written as the new messiah. His TARDIS keys turning people near-invisible are more sorcery-babble, clearly derived from the Somebody-Else's-Problem Field in Life, The Universe And Everything. And the Doctor can be aged hundreds of years with the Master's own sonic magic wand. (Eh? Didn't the Doc say in School Reunion that he can't grow old, only regenerate?) Then he can be turned back by lots of people shouting his name. Awwwwww, how heart-warming. Meanwhile the Master is being portrayed as a schizophrenic, complete with stereotypical imaginary voices and noises in his head. This is a hopeless, jarring piece of retcon, as there was never the slightest indication of him having such a disorder in the past.

RTD has a real obsession with scale for its own sake, doesn't he? Things always have to be BIG with him, it makes you wonder if he has subconscious issues below the waistline. It's not enough for the story to be set in the future, it has to be in the year five billion, or maybe the year one hundred trillion. That'll be BIG, which means it's more intelligent and dramatic, right? It can't just be a deadly virus, it has to be a deadly virus that kills a whole world in seven minutes. It can't just be an alien invasion, it has to be an alien invasion that sees six billion torture droids from Star Wars tumble out of the sky and wipe out the population, leaving the handful of survivors to live in holes and slave camps.

In fact, I almost wouldn't mind that, except that RTD always seems to use ever-growing scale as a substitute for a new plot. Think about it. The end of each season of New Who has been effectively the same; a huge robotic army attempting to conquer the Earth. The only real distinction is that the number of invaders involved has gone up a scale.

Same with the far future stories. It's as though RTD thinks, "We've gone 5 billion years into the future a few times. So now we need a new story? Okay, we'll go a few trillion years into the future. That's different, right? So it's a new story, right?" No, Russell, all you're doing is altering the parameters, and making them sound increasingly ridiculous in the process. It's not a different story just because there are more Toclafane this year than Cybermen last year. How many Ice Warriors will there be at the end of next year? Two trillion?

And the performances... well, John Simm is just not the Master. In fact, his hamming performance suggests to me that he knows the story is rubbish and he's really taking the rise out of it at every opportunity. He's good at what he's doing, I guess, but it's just not the Master, it's a parody of David Tennant's Doctor. Freema Agyeman does well in patches on what proves to be her final outing, while DT himself is a rare redeeming feature of the story, with what is actually an impressively restrained and deep portrayal of the Doctor's torment. John Barrowman is largely in hanger-on mode for the two closing episodes; only really there to give the Doctor a method of time travel without the TARDIS, and to do some shooting when the Paradox Machine needs destroying.

Oh, and Jack's the Face Of Boe, is he? Is he? Is he really? Really? He is, is he? Well, in response to that, RTD, I have a request for you; will you please stuff your scripts and your 'dramatic revelations' up the hole you write out of? The two characters clearly have nothing whatsoever in common, so I ain't buying it, but in any case, so flipping what if they are the same person? I just don't care. The Face Of Boe is a head in a jar of water. Apart from making the odd cryptic remark here and there, he doesn't actually do anything. So why does the series always insist on making such a huge deal out of him? (The whole 'Jack-Is-Boe' revelation thing just feels like it was tacked on at the end to sound 'kewl'; RTD wouldn't do that of course, now would he?)

That bit at the end with the Titanic, by the way, and with the Doctor saying "What?" over and over... RTD, could you please stuff your own-joke-recycling machine up your writing hole as well?

Ah well, that's that for one more year then, and a terrible note to end on. Shame really, as season three was largely a big, big improvement on the drossy season two. Several good episodes early on, and some truly excellent material in the late-middle stages. But the abysmal conclusion has really left us with a badly-tarnished jewel.

RUSSELL T. DAVIES HAS GOT TO GO.

Well all right, I know he's leaving at the end of next season anyway. But I'd much prefer it if he just concentrated on producing the series and left the scripting to writers who actually know something about the genre!

Oh, must remember to give a score. I give the concluding two episodes a total mark of 2/10, which I guess means it was better than Love & Monsters. So I can correct myself; that's the nicest thing I can find to say about it.

[Storm]

Heartbreak time for you ladies. DT may be set to leave...

The Beeb have found the man to take over as Doctor Who from David Tennant - Cold Feet star James Nesbitt.

David, 36, is expected to quit at the end of the next series and insiders say Irishman James, 42, is a cert to get the Tardis key.

The Jekyll star is pals with Doctor Who writer Steven Moffat, tipped to replace show chief Russell T Davies when he also stands down at the end of the next series.

Our mole said: Moffat has worked with James on Jekyll and the talk in BBC Drama is that he's a shoo-in as the next Doctor.

First a Scottish Doctor - now we could have a Northern Irish one.

James is in the US filming a new BBC show.

The above was in the Sun, so heaven knows if it's true, but if it is, the Tenth Doctor is on the way out already. Hankies at the ready, ladies.