"Hey Jodie..."



TV If nothing else, putting this teaser on during the World Cup half time meant that we all received an education in the intricacies of the handball rule from a bespecled Gary Linekar, the moment he placed the glasses on his nose surely a reference to similar moments for the fifth and tenth Doctors.  Clearly based on those rules it wasn't a penalty but since England aren't in the final I couldn't care either way.

First reaction?  Honestly?  "Is that it?"

On seeing it again, wow that's just the sort of integrated marketing of which the BBC should be rightly proud.  Rather than, as happened with the Bill reveal during Match of the Day, it was an alien thing dropped in amongst the football, this actually seemlessly fits in everything that surrounds it, including footage of a Garyscussion in which Sheerer and Ferdinand's words have a double meaning.

If it's a reflection of the ensuing series, we're returning to the urban series of the Davies era,with the look of the trailer strongly reminiscent of those British films set within big cities, Late Night Shopping, Wonderland or Dirty Pretty Things, companions in the mode of Rose, Martha or Donna rather than Amy or Rory. Bill was somewhere in the middle.

Why The Beano Summer Special from 1981?  It's the issue Eleventh is seen reading at the opening of The Rings of Arkanoid (or however they spelt it):



So it was whatever they had in the prop store. The Beano were so impressed with that cameo, they reprinted it as part of a Doctor Who special.

And there at the end, there she is:



For the past couple of days I've been in a bit of an anxiety bubble and what broke me out of it, apart from some buttered toast and the final two episodes of The Ark in Space was knowing that this glimpse would be coming. I was a bit harsh (a bit?) when Chris C was announced as the new showrunner, but the fact that he seems that got the casting of the key role so spectacularly right from what we've seen so far means I'm as excited about this new series now as I've ever been.

It's comin', oh it's a comin'.

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