Bank Holiday In The Telly Zone

I've never been comfortable with the English obsession for fresh air and walks but my English stepfather did a good enough job impressing these as ideals for the family weekend that I still feel guilty if we haven't put the time in on one such activity.

"I don't want to go for a walk," our little five year-old says. "I want to watch TV."
"You're not expected to enjoy it," we tell her, tersely. "It's just the rules. At weekends you have to go for a walk."

Rain, of course, is the big saviour in such a situation.

I looked at the sky hopefully this morning, for any sign of being rained in. But no. Then I thought, heck, why can't I watch TV all blessed day, if I want to? I'm grown-up now!

So I did. Ahh, bliss. Three episodes of Doctor Who season three - which I'd been saving up, and the final two episodes of Stargate SG1. Yes, that's how far behind I was on my TV viewing, on account of Cuba and writing and even reading.

I like the new Doctor Who assistant, Martha. I like that she's allowed to be smart and ask technical questions and actually understand the explanations. I loved "As far as I'm concerned you have to earn the title 'Doctor'" Too right, Martha; ask to see his MD/PhD certificate!

"Smith and Jones" was a good new-assistant introduction episode. Hospital teleported to the moon because it's beyond the Earth-bound jurisdiction - pretteh, pretteh good. Haven't seen that before.

"The Shakespeare Code"...hmmm. Liked the Harry Potter references and the witchy magick as another manifestation of alien power, but the ending... "You're dead clever, Shakespeare, you'll think of the right thing to say!" The problem is that it's a strategy that can only disappoint in execution. What would the writer of Shakespeare's plays say in such an event? We can never know...we can only guess and that just can't be good enough.

"Gridlock". Brilliantly original concept, or at least I've never come across its like. Stuck in traffic for years...the obvious solution would be to walk, but as we understand at the end, walking ain't an option. That Face of Boe...he's such a tease. "You are not alone..." Could that mean that the Master is still around? The Black Guardian? White Guardian? Rassilon? All of the above?

I don't get why the Doctor can't go to Gallifrey in the past. Maybe I'm missing out on some bit of DW lore here, not that the RTD version is necessarily sticking to old DW canon (and that's fine with me), but is there some reason why if Gallifrey is destroyed in the year, lets say, 1 billion, it can't exist in the past? Did the Time War erase Gallifrey from the space-time continuum for all time? If so how can the Daleks come to exist in the first place? The Doctor was present at the Genesis of the Daleks and if I remember correctly he was sent there by the Gallifreyans.

I'm painfully aware that all of the above will be discussed at length on some DW discussion board. But I'm not going to look. I'm NOT.

The Stargate-SG1 finale was inspired. Wow, Sam Carter has to take a realistic amount of time to work out a solution to a fiendishly difficult problem! What's wrong with you, woman? Ten seasons of performing scientific miracles, coming up with solutions of pure genius with nothing more than "Major Carter, we need that fix right now... ten seconds before the galaxy explodes..." to spur her on. But finally, finally, finally, she goes "Hmm...tricky one...gonna have to think about that." Fifty years later, she figures it out.

Yes, you see that IS how long scientific advancement actually takes.

Luckily, Rodney McKay of Stargate Atlantis can still be relied upon for the just-in-time Nobel-prize-worthy fix. Wait until he hears how long it took Carter to solve that problem. His ego will finally rest easy - he IS smarter than her! It may be all that's needed for him to finally be able to woo her - an excuse to drop all his insecure posturing when he's around her.

I can still get a couple of episodes of "Life on Mars" in before bed, to make today a day in which I've watched as much TV as in the last month.

I didn't do my chores. And we ate a whole bag of Thorntons peanut brittle.