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GoogleMaps does not endorse unauthorized use of the TARDIS, but even if you're not Doctor Who you can still explore it with StreetView. Just head for the police box.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.492145,-0.192978,3a,75y,275.73h,86.38t/data=!3m5!1e1!3m3!1s9SNlG6n9D5kAAAQIt-IsBw!2e0!3e2?hl=en%20http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/google-maps-doctor-who-tardis-easter-egg/
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Whoa!

   

OK, who saw the season premier of Doctor Who last night? What did you all think of Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor so far?

   

It usually takes a bit to adapt to a new Doctor. I liked the ep. I think I like the new title sequence. Always liked Clara. Starting to like that trio they run into off and on in turn of the century London. Liked the way old eps were tied in with the new. Madame Pompadour n all.

I may be the only one, but I was getting tired of Matt Smith. To be honest I have been for some time. I'm ready for a more classic Doctor.

I stopped watching for a while, then got caught up from DVDs I found at the library. I'll start watching again. Looks interesting.

And those Google maps...yeah, I don't know. Is that the new Tardis? Looked more souped up in the final scene of the episode.

   

I loved the new episode. Full of great British eccentricity and humour.

A good bit is when the newly-regenerated and confused Doctor is surprised to find he has a Scottish accent and there begins some playful Scottish/English teasing (the writer, Steven Moffat, is a Scot).

It was also good to see that heroic trio of Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint and their hilarious Sontaran butler, Strax, who all first appeared in the 2011 episode "A Good Man Goes to War", and they pop up every now and then to help the Doctor.

The only thing that annoys me is writer Steven Moffat's obsession with homosexuality. He seems to use Doctor Who as a vehicle for promoting homosexuality, and it's not something he should. The previous Doctor, Matt Smith, was always making gay references and kissing men, and now we have the bizarre situation in which a human (Jenny Flint) is having an INTERSPECIES lesbian relationship with the lizard-like Silurian Madama Vastra. It's the weird times we live in, I suppose.

But it was a great episode, and I'm looking forward to the return of the Daleks next week.

7.3 million people in Britain watched it last night, a large number in this multi-channel age, and it was also shown in cinemas across the country.

The First Breath (the 801st episode in total)

When the Doctor arrives in Victorian London he finds a dinosaur rampant in the Thames and a spate of deadly spontaneous combustions.

Who is the new Doctor and will Clara's friendship with him survive as they embark on a terrifying mission into the heart of an alien conspiracy?

The Doctor has changed. It's time you knew him.

If you haven't seen it, wach it here on BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0 ... eep-breath

In Britain, after each new episode of Doctor Who, there is a show called Doctor Who Extra which shows you behind the scenes of that episode. Here's the Doctor Who extra for last night's episode:

A new series, a new costume and a new Doctor! Take a Deep Breath and go behind the scenes on the first episode starring Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p025475q/doctor-who-extra-deep-breath

Click here for a Deep Breath factfile: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/article ... eep-breath

   

It's the new Tardis.

Over the last 51 years, Doctor Who has become so much a part of British popular culture that not only has the shape of the police box become more immediately associated with the TARDIS than with its real-world inspiration, the term "TARDIS-like" has been used to describe anything that seems to be bigger on the inside than on the outside.

The name TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) is a registered trademark of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The new Tardis interior (premiered last night on Deep Breath)



There may have been some changes, but if it all looks a bit familiar, that’s because you’ve seen it before. The main layout is the same control room Matt Smith has used since the beginning of series 7, with the central console surrounded by an elevated metal gangway. It’s smaller and colder than previous control rooms we have seen, especially the 11th Doctor’s copper coloured first home (below).



Bookcases

It seems this Twelfth Doctor is a bit of a reader, despite some bad experiences he has had in libraries. The most obvious addition is the series of bookcases that now line the gangway and eaves of the Tardis, each stuffed with leather bound volumes. A nice touch that may not show up on TV: the crown of every bookcase has a light-up emblem in the Spirograph-like language of the Time Lords. Presumably it’s their version of the Dewey Decimal System.


Blackboards

Completing the professorial, Henry Higgins vibe are four or five blackboards dotted around the place. As seen in Deep Breath, this Doctor likes to work out especially knotty problems with a piece of chalk. While he was forced to use the floor in the premiere, he’s now free to draft and erase and drag his nails wherever he wants.

When we visited (during the filming of episode nine) one had “5 Days to Go” scratched across it. We thought this was very significant to the plot and started speculating wildly. Consulting our hand-written notes, the words “fish people?” seem to be underlined beside this observation. Not only were we wrong (the words were from a teaser trailer) we’re beginning to worry there was a gas leak on board the Tardis. Fish people?



Ludditism

[Minor spoiler for episode 9. As in, not really a spoiler, but if you want to keep yourself as pure and unspoiled as fresh fallen snow, don’t read on. Also, don’t read the Internet.]

It’s already hinted at by the bookcases and chalkboards and greying temples, but this Doctor likes to keep things old school. Also on board the Tardis was a carpenter’s workbench (paint flecks, wood vice, coffee stains) strewn with high tech circuit boards (well, bits of a broken Dell). It was a tad incongruous sat next to the retro-futuristic control panel of the Tardis, and seemed to sum up this iteration of the Doc: battered, utilitarian but gets the job done.

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-08- ... s-interior

   

Some members of the local Science Fiction club had planned to watch at a theatre. The episode was good, but I wouldn't pay what a first-run theatre charges these days.

Trailers and ads made a big deal of going "into darkness", and the new doctor not necessarily being a "good man". That had me concerned. Hollywood's obsession with darkness in recent years, which is really justifying evil, has been greatly disturbing. Doctor Who has been a beacon of good, and finding ways to resolve nasty situations without carrying a gun. But the episode itself was great!

Doctor Who has also followed the disturbing trend of not producing a full series; taken it to an extreme. The American SyFy network tried to carry Doctor Who, but instead of airing new episodes, they showed repeats. And they wondered why fans didn't watch. For the first two actors, they made 39-45 episodes per year. For the 3rd through 5th, 26 episodes per year (20-28). For the 6th & 7th, only 14 per year. The 8th Doctor was a one-off movie that re-booted the series. For the 9th-11th Doctors, only 13 per year, plus a Christmas special. But in 2012 only 5 episodes plus Christmas special. And in 2013 only 8 episodes, one anniversary special and one Christmas special. Yes, since the reboot episodes are one hour instead of half an hour, but today that means 39-42 minutes of program instead of 25-26 minutes for a "half hour" episode. So that's no excuse. How about a full season: 26 episodes.

According to Wikipedia, they scheduled 12 episodes with this new actor, including this premier, plus a Christmas special. Since it started half way through the year, Ok. Can they keep it up? Can they actually produce a series?

I want more Doctor; less vampires or werewolves or zombies or other things that justify mass murder as an acceptable lifestyle.

   

When it started off in 1963 it was all done on the cheap, with papier-mache monsters and wobbly sets. The BBC could afford to make loads of cheap episodes per year, then.

Now it's all expensive and hi-tech CGI wizadry, and probably costs a lot more, in today's money, to make an episode than it did back then, so they make less episodes in each series.

You also have to remember that, whereas American TV series may normally run to 30 to 40 episodes in each series, British TV series traditionally have only 12-13 episodes on average. This is the same for most British TV series. So a 12-episode series of Doctor Who is actually normal for a British television series.

Any series running to much more than 12 episodes could start to turn rubbish. A 12-13 episode series will lighten the load on the Doctor Who cast and crew who often struggle around the 12/13 episode production mark - it's how we ended up getting Doctor-lite stories way back at Series 2 (of the post-hiatus Doctor Who), simply to alleviate the load from the actors.

   

Remaining episodes of the series (warning: can be considered to be a slight spoiler)
















2 - Into the Dalek



3 - Robot of Sherwood



4 - Listen



5 - Time Heist



6 - The Caretaker



7 - Kill the Moon



8 - Mummy on the Orient Express



9 - Flatline



10 - In the Forest of the Night



11 - Dark Water


12 - Death in Heaven

   

Any businessman will tell you that selling more product means more revenue. Cutting the product they have to sell does not increase their revenue.

The series with the first two actors aired 39-45 episodes per year. Cutting to 26 is a major reduction. That's enough. This is supposed to be a weekly series.

And why would any actor claim that working 26 weeks per year is a "heavy load"? The rest of us work for a living. An entry level job gets 2 weeks per year vacation; that's 50 weeks per year. At 26 episodes per year, that's only half the year. What kind of whimp would consider that a heavly load?

   

You aren't. I liked the energy of Matt Smith, but John Hurt put it well as the 8th Doctor in the 50th anniversary special - [Matt Smith's Doctor] is 1200 years old; why can't he act like it and grow up?



Every Tardis is different for each Doctor ont he outside too. I remember Patrick Troughton's was a little ratty around the edges. Matt Smiths looked brand new, freshly stained oak. And it was the first with the St John's Ambulance Sticker on the door. Peter Capaldi's Tardis has a fresh coat of paint, but still has the sticker on the door. The 'Police Box' lettering and plaques all change too.

   

This is my favorite Doctor.

   

Allons y!

   

Yeah, he was good, but c'mon it's the scarf, always the scarf.



And Hell yeah, I'd like a jelly-baby.

   

He looks like a hipster dufuss!
Why can't the new Doctor be a woman? A sexy woman!

   

Or how about Tom Baker returns to play the Doctor again, and Liz is the new companion.

   

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