New Dr Who logo revealed!!!

So here it is. Revealed officially online this morning at 8am (and I forgot to take a look at it until about 2pm!!) here's the all new, all shiny and fresh logo for the soon-come fifth series of Dr Who, starring Matt Smith and Karen Gillen. This is the logo which will be adorning Dr Who merchandise for the next few years, replacing the familiar eliptical logo the show has used since its return in 2005.



The Dr Who fan community often gets in a right old tizz about things like this - too much lens flare, too flat, too big, too tall, too squat - but to Stuff it looks like...well, a logo. I don't tend to get worked up about things like this; it's some words in a shape, after all. But it looks cool, modern, new and it does its job well. Here's to it.

What do you think of the new Dr Who logo? Over-react or under-react as much as you like...leave a comment and let me know what you think!!

Dr Who location filming clips - October 5th 2009!!

After a relatively quiet period in the production of the fifth series of Dr Who (or first as the production team are apparently calling it!), this time starring Matt Smith as the all-new eleventh Doctor, the crew have been out and about at locations all over South Wales in the last couple of weeks filming sequences for the new episodes. This week they're on Stuff's doorstep - more or less - filming for four days in and around the picturesque Llandaff Green area, in the shadow of the impressive Llandaff Cathedral. The episode currently being filmed is the first in the new series (episodes three, four and five at least already 'in the can' - see how comfortable Stuff is with these technical terms!) and with Smith and his new companion Karen Gillen (playing Amy Pond) presumably comfortable in their new character skins, it's time to tackle that all-important first episode. Title and plot are pretty much a mystery but photos taken in the last day or so (they'll be all over the net by now) see Smith in a distressed version of his predecessor's familiar pin-stripes and his companion in an eye-catching Police woman uniform complete with mini-skirt!! Yikes! They don't dress like that in The Bill! Rumour has it Amy's off on a (fancy dress) hen night when she meets the newly-regenerated Time Lord... Stuff missed most of the big scenes being filmed today (curse you, work!) but pitched up on location at around 5.30pm, trusty little video camera at the ready, and managed to capture a few videoclips of the action. As usual, apologies that these aren't exactly broadcast quality but hopefully they'll give you a bit of the flavour and atmosphere of what's been going on this evening and won't be too spoilerific for those of you averse to knowing what's coming up... First up, there's something in the sky, it's transfixed the locals and they're gazing at it through their camera-phones? Who's Marcello? What's Bosley the dog got to do with anything?



Next up it's TV's Matt Smith appearing back on set. It's 6pm, the light's threatening to fade and Matt's ready to film. That's him in the middle pacing about in a Big Coat to keep out the Cardiff chill. Wuss.



And finally after a few moody close-ups, Matt is joined by Karen. The natural light is boosted by a big illuminated white screen and the pair rehearse and record a dialogue scene with Smith crouching on his haunches and finally getting up to look along the green and make a disparaging remark about humanity. Quite right too. It's a wrap and the pair are bundled off into their swanky car and whisked away into the night, Smith pausing to hurriedly sign a few autographs. What a nice man. David who???



Check out Stuff again later this week for more filming reports. Also don't forget that the new Doctor Who TV logo is due to be unveiled on the official BBC Dr Who website (whatever that is) at 8am tomorrow. It's all happening!!

UK TV Chart - w/e 20th September 2009

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 20th September 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)...........................10.97 *
2) Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1)...................8.68 *
3) EastEnders (BBC1)..............................8.63 *
4) Coronation Street (ITV1).......................8.57 *
5) Doc Martin (ITV1)..............................8.30
6) Waking The Dead (BBC1).........................7.36 *
7) Emmerdale (ITV1)...............................6.53 *
8) National Lottery Saturday Draws (BBC1).........6.29
9) Casualty (BBC1)................................5.91
10) Merlin (BBC1)..................................5.77
11) All-Star Family Fortunes (ITV1)................5.74
12) Antiques Roadshow (BBC1).......................5.59
13) New Tricks (BBC1)..............................5.44 (rpt)
14) Holby City (BBC1)..............................5.43
15) (Countryfile (BBC1).............................4.83
15) (Blue Murder (ITV1).............................4.83
15) (The Cube (ITV1)................................4.83
18) Film: Casino Royale (ITV1).....................4.82
19) Football: UEUFA Champions League (ITV1, Weds)..4.12
20) The One Show (BBC1)............................4.08 *

BBC: 11 ITV: 9

Chart commentary: Another victory for the BBC with 11 entries over ITV's 9 (two of which were a film and a football match). Ighnoring the tedious slugfest between the two tiresome reality/talent behemoths at the top of the chart it's reassuring to see a stroing drama presence in the chart. ITV's Doc Martin kicks off its fourth run with a solid 8m plus and BBC1 will be relieved to see that their second series of Merlin hasn't been swamped by the reality show war and logs in a commendable figure which settles it nicely in the Top 10. Figures have remained constant for the second and third episodes too - the third actually up a bit - so the series clearly has its established audience and will occupy a nice mid-chart slot throughout its run (unless it starts to haemmorage viewers as Robin Hood did earlier this year) and further series seem guaranteed. Elsewhere warhorses Casualty and Holby City plod on and even a repeat of New Tricks manages the sorts of numbers ailing ITV dramas like The Fixer and The Bill can only dream of.

Coming soon: A look at a raft of new genre dramas dotted around the non-terrestrial schedule, reviews of some new comedy shows, film reviews and hopefully some footage and photos from the latest round of Dr Who location filming taking place on Stuff's proverbial doorstep and much more...

My Pod: New music track reviews...

Stuff lends an ear to some soon-to-be-released new music tracks...

Bodies – Robbie Williams

He’s back!! When his ‘Rudebox’ album tanked a few years back the Robster very sensibly slunk off to lick his wounds, consider his position and...well, just live a life for a while. In his absence his old bandmates Take That reformed, released two albums and pretty much took up where they left off, cementing the place in the nation’s hearts with their slightly sickly, syrupy and largely anodyne brand of Grandma-friendly balladry. What place is there in the world now for Robbie, trundling into his mid-thirties and with a lot to prove? The signs are good as ‘Bodies’, the lead single from his soon-come new album, ‘Reality Killed the Video Star’, is as good a slice of pop perfection as Robbie’s released since...well, probably ‘Rock DJ’ in all honesty. Produced by former Buggle Trevor Horn (hence the album title) the new single is a muscular, burbling, crunching thing with at least two choruses to its name. It takes two or three listens for this one to lodge itself into your brain but its heady mix of Robbie’s usual lyrical arrogance – “Jesus didn’t die for you, what are you on?...All we ever wanted was to look good naked” – and Horn’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink production are pretty much irresistible and a couple of plays are really all it takes for this one to work its magic. There’s room in the music world for Robbie’s more upfront, laddish pop and Take That’s safe soft rock – but I know which one I’ll be happier to see back atop the charts. The boy’s albums tend to be a bit hit-and-miss, a collection of good hit singles and some stodgy filler – all he needs now is to follow ‘Bodies’ with a real powerful album and he’ll find himself on top again. Welcome back, Robbie.

Want – Natalie Imbruglia

The music gig never really worked out all that well for Natalie after her storming international hit ‘Torn’ in 1997. Follow-up singles under-achieved and her perversely-uncommercial second album was pretty much career suicide. There’s been the odd flash since then – ‘Shiver’ was a decent single a few years back – but when her ‘best of’ selection died a death a couple of years ago, it looked as if the former Neighbours star was drifting back towards supporting roles in other people’ s movies and TV shows (hello, Holly Valance!). But maybe not yet... ‘Want’ is the lead track from Natalie’s latest album and it’s a corker. Written by charismatic Coldplay front-man Chris Martin this is a powerful, slightly-bleak pop tune powered by a pulsating rhythm and Natalie’s yearning, slightly resentful lyrical delivery. Urgent and strident, it’s a great song, well-produced and performed with style and should serve to thrust Natalie back into the UK pop consciousness.

Laroux – I’m Not Your Toy

Reasons to like Laroux. They make plinky-plonky synth pop songs which sound like Depeche Mode demos from 1981. Lead singer Ellie Jackson (she’s the daughter of June Ackland, ex-The Bill, you know) looks scary, has weird sticky-up hair, never smiles much and is a throwback to the days when all girls looked like Bananarama and not Beyonce. But with her musical partner BenLangmaid she crafts charming little pop ditties which wouldn’t be out of place on a ‘Hit Machine 1982’ K-Tel compilation album (on vinyl, natch). ‘I’m Not Your Toy’ is the third single from the impressive, if disposable, debut album and it’s the usual mix of cheap synthetisers, Ellie’s slightly wonky vocals and a tune so daft and sprightly it’s almost ridiculous. Great fun – just a shame Laroux are getting a bit up themselves with Ellie promising the next album may take some time. That’s not what pop’s about; good pop is fast and throwaway, it doesn’t need to be agonised over, it just is.

Cheryl Cole – Fight For This Love

Shopgirl-turned-pop-star-turned-talent-show-judge Cheryl Cole off Girls Aloud chooses – gasp – the middle of the new X Factor series to launch her solo career. Who’d have thought it? It’s almost as if...her record company were capitalising on her sudden new media profile. But surely the pop world doesn’t work like that...does it? Of course we all know that Girls Aloud make great records despite the girls themselves and not because of them (the hard work’s done by production team Xenomania who have managed to make silk purses out of these cows’ ears) – a work colleague of mine recently saw the “band” live supporting Coldplay and her verdict was pretty much that “they couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket” - so go figure. La Cole’s debut single, then,clumsy title notwithstanding, is business as usual. This is a sinewy r’n’b lite number, a bit slower-tempo than the Girls usual offerings but it’s slick to the point of soulless and catchy despite itself. Cole’s voice, as we know, is nothing to sing about (arf! arf!) and it’s hard not to see this as the first-from-last track on a Girl Aloud album and wonder why, money-grabbing apart, Cole needs a solo career at all if she’s got nothing to say and no new musical direction she wants to travel in. Pleasant but pointless.

And finally...

12 Stone Toddler - Under the Weather

I know nothing - nothing I tell you - about the group 12 Stone Toddler apart from the fact that they have the best band name ever and they've just released their second album. They came to my attention when Mark Radcliff and Stuart Maconie played this, their latest single, on their Radio 2 eveneing show a couple of weeks back. It's been in my head ever since because it's barking mad, British musical eccentricity for the 21st century in a three minute pop song. Here's the promo video....why not download this instead of Cheryl Cole? Just a thought...

UK TV Chart - w/e 13th September 2009

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 13th September 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)...................11.31
2) Coronation Street (ITV1)...............8.80 *
3) EastEnders (BBC1)......................8.18 *
4) Football World Cup Qualifier (ITV1)....8.08
5) Waking The Dead (BBC1).................7.18 *
6) Emmerdale (ITV1).......................6.23 *
7) Casualty (BBC1)........................5.85 *
8) Holby City (BBC1)......................5.60
9) Blue Murder (ITV1).....................5.42
10) New Tricks (BBC1)......................5.29 (rpt)
11) Countryfile (BBC1).....................5.15
12) The Cube (ITV1)........................5.06
13) Agatha Christie's Marple (ITV1)........4.86
14) Derren Brown: The Event (C4)...........4.82
15) Watchdog (BBC1)........................4.54
16) Last Night of the Proms (BBC1).........4.48
17) Rebus (ITV1)...........................4.43 (rpt)
18) Lost Land of the Volcano (BBC1)........4.38
19) The Bill (ITV1)........................4.18
20) The Fixer (ITv1).......................3.88

BBC: 9 ITV: 10 C4: 1

She's back...The Sarah Jane Adventures series three airs in the UK!

Thursday October 15th is now finalised as the launch date of the first episode of the much-antipated third series of the children's Dr Who spin-off 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' starring Elisabeth Sladen as the classic Dr Who series companion in the third run of her own adventure series. This year the show's transmission format has changed a bit with CBBC screening two episodes across two afternoons - Thursdays and Fridays - in a slot yet to be confirmed but likely to be around 4.35pm. This means that the whole twelve-episode series will be done and dusted across six weeks. After the slightly-disappointing second series it's to be hoped that the show's mojo will be back in this new run, again executive-prduced by Russell T Davies and with scripts by Phil Ford, Joseph Lidster, Gareth Roberts and Rupert Laight. The signs are good as there's a lot to look forward to this year. SJ is again joined by her own Scooby gang - her adopted alien construct son Luke, his schoolfriend Clyde and their neighbour Rani. The series starts with the two-part story 'Prisoner of the Judoon' which sees one of Dr Who's interplanetary rhino Police coming to Earth in search of a reptilian alien renegade called the Veil. But all eyes are on the third story, 'The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith' in which our heroine apparently gets hitched to a smooth charmer played by Nigel Havers. But is the new man in SJ's life all he's cracked up to be? And will the old man in SJ's life - a certain skinny Time Lord - show up to celebrate the nuptuals? I don't think it's a huge secret that David Tennant crops up in a substantial role in these two episodes, a nice bonus for fans still dreading Christmas and the last salute for the tenth Doctor. SJ's faithful black-hole protecting robot dog K9 joins in the fun this year too, appearing intermittently across the series. Here are the series three episode titles in full:

Prisoner of the Judoon (two episodes)
The Man Woman in the Attic (two episodes)
The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith (2 episodes)
The Eternity Trap (2 episodes ) guest starring Floella Benjamin who has appeared in two previous Sarah Jane yarns
Mona Lisa's Revenge (2 episodes) - guest starring Suranne Jones, Jeff Rawle
The Gift (2 episodes) - guest starring the voices of Simon Callow and Miriam Margoyles

A fourth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures is expected to go into production next year and series two is released on DVD in the UK for reappraisal on 17th November (see cover above)

UK TV Chart - w/e 6th September 2009

Here's the rundown of the Top 20 most popular UK TV programmes or series for the week ending Sunday 6th September 2009 collated from information compiled and presented by BARB. Note that figures for multi-episode TV broadcasts (ie soaps or other shows with more than one episode per week) are rounded up into an average figure for the series and are denoted in the chart by * News broadcasts are excluded from the figures. 'Rpt' denotes repeated broadcast or film.

1) The X Factor (ITV1)...................12.84
2) Coronation Street (ITV1)...............8.39 *
3) New Tricks (BBC1)......................8.33
4) EastEnders (BBC1)......................7.59 *
5) Waking The Dead (BBC1).................6.86
6) Emmerdale (ITV1).......................6.36 *
7) (Football: Spain v England (ITV1).......5.50
7) (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(ITV1).............5.50 rpt
9) Agatha Christie's Marple (ITV1)........5.39
10) (Holby City (BBC1)......................5.26
10) (The Cube (ITV1)........................5.26
12) Framed (BBC1)..........................5.02
13) Countryfile (BBC1).....................5.01
14) Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the
Black Pearl (BBC1)......4.83 rpt
15) Rebus (ITV1)...........................4.35 rpt
16) Edinburgh Military Tattoo (BBC1).......4.26
17) Wuthering Heights (ITV1)...............4.25
18) The One Show (BBC1)....................4.24
19) The Fixer (ITV1).......................4.33
20) (Crimewatch (BBC1)......................4.13
20) (Joanna Lumley: Catwoman (ITV1)........4.13

BBC: 10 ITV: 11

Commentary: A rare victory for ITV this week as they edge ahead of the BBC with 11 entries in the chart. But look closer at the chart and the titles they've done it with hardly shows the Network covering itself in glory with a schedule including a football match and a film, a couple of poorly-rating dramas (including Marple which shows how ITV have lost the big grip they once had on the Sunday night drama slot), a quiz which manages to lose an astonishing 7 million X Factor audience inheritance, their two 'big' soaps which are losing momentum and a pointless documentary about cats. Hardly a dream schedule. The BBC's entries are the usualy mix of popular drama - good figures for the charming Bank Holiday one-off Framed, a good solid rating for the first in the new series of Waking The Dead and a knockout number for the New Tricks series finale. Interesting weeks ahead with the BBC launching the new Saturday night series of Merlin in a slot which shoulds guarantee it a regular 6 million audience and nice to see the Corporation showing some guts and pitting Strictly Come Dancing against X Factor. Both shows may suffer lower figures than they might get if not clashing but it'll be nice to see the smile wiped off flathead C*w*ll's face when his talent karaoke circus starts to wilt. Happy days ahead, we hope!