Friday 22 June 2007

The Doctor Faces His Deadliest Foe: Celebrity Cameos

First, let me apologise for using that "faces his deadliest foe" joke. It's been used before in newspapers when Doctor Who has been aired against ITV1 pantomimes, or when an episode is postponed because of football. The joke's been done to death. I couldn't think of a decent title for this entry though.

This Saturday marks the 12th episode of the newest series of Doctor Who. It left us on a tense cliffhanger last week, revealing the true identity of DI Sam Tyler, and left us waiting for more. But why aren't I excited? I'll tell you for nothing that I'm excited about Episode Thirteen, because the newest Doctor Who series has yet to have a poor series finalé. But that's not for another nine days. Before the final episode, we have to endure episode Twelve. But I hate the "episode twelves" of Doctor Who. Why?

Attack of the Celebrity Cameo.

It first arrived two years ago, as Christopher Eccleston, Mrs. Chris Evans and John "Would He Get As Much Work On TV If He Was Straight?" Barrowman were all stuck on Planet Endemol or whatever the crap it was. Oh, the amount of B-List celebrities that were hiding around every corner! Anne Robinson, Davina McCall, Trinny & Susannah.. they were everywhere! And it appeared to lack a plot; only to redeem itself five minutes before the end credits when it revealed that Daleks were circling the skies. Lovely.

Then last year's Episode Twelve was a similar reject. Ghosts were roaming the Earth! But so are cameos! Barbara Windsor? Derek Accorah? Trisha? Alistair Appleton? Not only this, but in a rehash of the previous Episode Twelve, we had Daleks flying about in the final few seconds.

I was hoping this new series would be different. I was hoping that, due to last week's amazing cliffhanger, that Episode Twelve of Series Three would be utterly fantastic, plot-driven and tense. But, what does the Radio Times tell me? Look at the cast list!

Sharon Osbourne! McFly! Ann Widdecombe!

I'm just hoping the bloody Daleks don't appear in the final couple of minutes. If they do, a new phrase will be coined. "Episode Twelve", meaning "of following the same plot structure and cramming celebrities in where we can". This can be used to describe all the newer episodes of The Simpsons.

2 comments:

Paul Varley said...

There is something oddly annoyance attracting about Episode Twelves, isn't there?

From the look of the trailer, it's going to be one of those episodes where the Doctor isn't in it much.

Still, it'll be interesting to see how the Master goes about being a magnificent bastard.

Mark Taylor said...

Retrospectively, I thought the celebrity cameos were remarkably inoffensive in this one.

Filling your drama with inoffensive but pointless things, of course, isn't terribly constructive.