Gibson on the box
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You know Who
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I NEED to see a doctor. The same one I saw last week, please. You know, the tall, lanky one with the geeky specs, cool suit and massive overcoat? Says "run" a lot.
In Saturday's deliriously good penultimate episode of Doctor Who (The Stolen Earth, BBC1, 6.40pm), David Tennant - the best doctor since Tom Baker, perhaps ever - began to regenerate before the disbelieving eyes of legions of fans.
Nooooooooo!
Surely this couldn't possibly be a TV first, in that a show's producers have actually managed to keep the biggest secret imaginable from the prying eyes of hard-core, fact-obsessed fans, and, even more unlikely, the press?
No way, if the doc was really going to morph into a whole new actor we would have known about it ages ago. Wouldn't we?
Course we would. The red tops would have somehow found out if Tennant was about to hang up his cosmic screwdriver and would be full of speculation as to who his likely successor would be.
That said, there are already rumours.
The best one so far, Robert Carlyle.
The worst one by very far - James Nesbitt.
But these are merely gossip and DT looks set to remain at the helm of the TARDIS for at least the new fifth series, mainly because:
A) He's been seen filming parts of it (thanks to my fellow geek for that one)
B) The doctor always regenerates in the last episode, which would normally be tomorrow night - if not for the fact that it's a two-parter. Gotcha!
C) There were loads of plot devices that could be used to bring about transformation failure, such as that bit where the universe shifted by a second, and the intense focus on the doctor's hand, oh and Rose's great big gun.
While all the heroes of the past series turned up to help, including Captain Jack and the Prime Minister (no not Gordon, I said heroes), it was Rose AKA Cockney Sparra Croft, and her amazing performing overbite who almost stole the show.
If it hadn't been for that dastardly Davros.
Looking like the love child of Yoda and the Queen Mum (gawd bless er) after a particularly vicious fight with a picket-line brazier he was more menacing than ever - you could almost hear the rush of children all over the land diving for the cover of the back of the sofa when he kicked off - and his crazed despot speech about destroying the whole of civilisation had an almost Shakespearean might to it.
As I mentioned last week, the internet is heaving with theories about this whole regeneration cliff-hanger, yet however hard you search, there's not the merest whiff of what is about to be unleashed on the universe tomorrow night (BBC1, 6.40pm).
Oh, apart from a sneak clip on the BBC's website in which legions of Daleks are herding terrified humans into what looks like some sort of death chamber and in the crowd you can spot Micky (Rose's old flame, she now prefers flame-throwers) and, and...
Maybe I don't need a doctor, maybe I just need to get out more!
Perhaps a spot of shopping would do the trick.
Rumplestiltskinz, that sounds like just the sort of out-of-town place you could expect to find some classy couture, doesn't it?
This was the ludicrous name of a shop in Balham featured in this week's Mary Queen of Shops (Tuesday, BBC2), a sort of Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares with dresses instead of dressings, hems instead of hams.
The titular Mary is a fashion retail know-it-all who, dressed as Anna Wintour's poorer sister, visits rubbish clothes outlets to transform them into busy boutiques.
Just like the shops themselves, there's very little variety here.
Each week the shop in question is a gloomy hole, filled with gear that looks like leftovers from the stalls in Albert Square market.
Who needs Mary? Even I could tell them that rails full of polyester leopard-print ra-ra skirts, ripped tops bearing the legend Divalicious spelt out in rhinestones and a selection of gold bags with chains does not a Donald Trump make.
But the show must go on, and on, and on.
So the place gets a lick of paint, a few labels we all know and love and some local sorts come and have a glass of wine to celebrate the re-launch.
But the best part of this particular regeneration was when it was revealed that Rumpletiltskinz had been renamed Balham-boo.
Now that's class!
4:09pm Friday 4th July 2008
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