during the off season

TV Saturday night's have lately been shot through with a mix of dislocation and aimlessness, and general feeling of something gone astray. For the past few weeks, I've reached the end of the working day and wondered what I'd be doing with the evening, nothing planned and not much to get me motivated. It wasn't until last Saturday at about four o'clock I realised what was missing.

Doctor Who isn't on this year. Just as you'll often wake up at the right time even though you forgot to set your alarm clock and especially when you'd promised yourself a good lie in, I've become so accustomed to the show being on each Saturday in this portion of the year that I can feel its absence emotionally. It wasn't just the programme you see, there was the making of, the commentary, and the writing of the review.

This is madness and a bit sad (a bit?), though when I explained as much to a suitably disturbed looking co-worker, she pointed out that the symptoms weren't unlike a football supporter during the off season, which I like. Having gotten used to a particular leisure routine everything's been blown asunder. Which makes Torchwood the equivalent of a mid-week game, I suppose, and the upcoming five parter, the World Cup.

Which means you have to get your fix where you can. Football fans have the Italian League and we have the audios, Doctor Who Magazine and as it turns out Dickenson's Real Deal which this afternoon featured as a contestant Scotland's Anne-Marie, who's a dead ringer for Billie Piper. Let's give her some of Rose's dialogue and see what happens:


"You're all the same. Give a man a plastic hand... "



"Blimey, you can smell the testosterone."



"You told me nothing could get through those doors."

It's uncanny.