Doctor Who... in other lands

1. The nights in Iceland are six months long so when each episode of Doctor Who is broadcast it must be played at 1/360th normal speed in order to last the same amount of time as an episode broadcast in England. In addition, as there is only one night a year, Iceland television has only got as far as showing The Unquiet Dead despite buying the series in 2006!

2. In Japan you can watch the adventures of any of the first eight Doctors but, astonishingly, the exploits of the ninth and tenth incarnations of Doctor Who are banned! This is because Japan has the largest population of robots in the world. The new series, with its scenes of Daleks and Cybermen climbing stairs cannot be broadcast in case it gives the robots ideas! When it was discovered that the seventh Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks also showed a Dalek going up stairs, the robots in Japan all had to have their memories erased. Remembrance of the Daleks can now only be transmitted at a time when all of Japan's robots are asleep!

3. Latveria is officially the gloomiest country in the world and when Father's Day was first broadcast the scene of Roses' Dad being run over immediately became the nation's favourite comedy moment!

4. You might imagine that because Australia is on the bottom of the world Doctor Who would be transmitted upside down but this cliché is as silly as the idea that people in England watch the series while wearing bowler hats! In fact the Australian government has spent billions of dollars developing a machine which allows television pictures to be broadcast the right way up. So everyone in Australia sees Doctor Who on television the normal way up and then watches it standing on their heads! While eating Christmas Dinner on the beach! In summer!

5. Television signals also travel into space allowing Doctor Who to be watched on strange far away worlds. In space the viewers are already alien monsters so most of a story like The Satan Pit, with the Beast and the Ood, is regarded as an everyday soap opera while the one scene where the Doctor and Rose talk about mortgages is the most fantastic, imaginative, mind-blowing, science-fiction ever imagined!

Missed Opportunities in Doctor Who Title Sequences

The E-Space stories
When the fourth Doctor got lost in E-Space he found it was green, what a shame they didn't colour the opening titles to match.



Vengeance on Varos
At the end of this Colin Baker story two residents of Varos stare at their blank television set and wonder what to do. If only the production team had cut the closing credits in on the monitor just for a second.

The Unicorn and the Wasp
It's a story featuring Felicity Kendal and a giant wasp; cue The Good Life credits.

Utopia
Sadly when Captain Jack hitched a lift on the outside of the TARDIS there was no little CGI Jack added into the title sequence.


In Other News
Fans Protest Over Bessie Redesign
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Out of the TARDIS

All the best Doctor Who celebrity gossip revealed especially for you.

Outgoing Tenth Doctor David Tennant has built an enormous orbiting space station from which he intends to mount an ambitious scheme to poison humanity before reshaping the planet in his own image. “First there was a dream. Now there is reality. Here, in the untainted cradle of the heavens, will be created a new super-race. A race of perfect physical specimens”, he announced in a message broadcast globally. David's plans are not expected to delay shooting on the remaining Doctor Who specials.

Meanwhile, incoming Eleventh Doctor, Matt Smith joined the Blue Peter team to launch this year's appeal which aims to destroy all Kangaroos in Australia. “ These monstrous chimeras of nature repel me”, he told waiting reporters,” they are not proper mammals and together we can wipe them from the face of the Earth”.

Christopher Eccleston was spotted attempting to climb over the fence at Upper Boat. Looking tanned and relaxed as Police cut him down from razor wire, the ex-Ninth Doctor shouted, “tell Russell I've changed my mind!” before being restrained and dragged into a van.

“I eat my peas with honey,” Billie Piper revealed yesterday,” I've done so all my life. It makes the peas taste funny. But it keeps them on my knife”. The admission, made before a jury of her peers, caused amazement before the court was adjourned for the day.

Elize du Toit teased fans recently when asked if her character, Sinister Woman, would be returning to Doctor Who. “I don't think so,” she quipped.

A celebrity feud could be brewing when Doctor Who returns in 2010. Potential companion Hannah Murray does not share Matt Smith's Kangaroo opinion. " Kangaroos are part of nature's cycle," she explained today," instead of killing them we need to work with them." "I think they should just be excommunicated and given a chance to mend their ways," she added.

Catherine Tate's transatlantic tunnel now extends three miles out to sea. Tate, who began digging the tunnel as a way to relax during filming breaks on series four of Doctor Who, has not yet decided if the tunnel will go to Washington or New York. “People keep telling me it's a long way to America but I just ask them 'Am I bovvered?' ” she joked at a recent occasion.

Which ex-Doctor Who companion has a younger brother, Domenic, and older sister, Leila? Freema Agyeman that's who! This information was revealed to us yesterday by Freema's IMDB page while googling for information to fill a paragraph.

Russell T. Davis has lashed Matt Smith's anti-Kangaroo views. "Kangaroos are not the problem, that would be Wombats. Wombats are nocturnal grazers and live in burrows. How can people respect that? I couldn't work with anyone who feels differently. Still it's Steven Moffat's problem now." ...Looks like this one could run and run.

With thanks to Ash Stewart for additional Wombat wrangling.

How do you use an ancient Egyptian doorbell?*

Inside Horus' Pyramid of Mars. An exclusive map of the tomb of traps and terrors.



Key
1: Entrance to Pyramid of Mars
2: Concealed door
3: Relay switch concealing power conductor (electrification)
4: Relay switch concealing squirt fountain (embarrassing soaking)
5: Relay switch concealing power conductor (electrification amplified by soaking in previous chamber)
6: Puzzle designed to make explorers look good in front of their assistants by pretending to do complicated mathematics (actually Spot the Difference puzzle)
7: The Twin Guardians of Horus (one programmed to deceive, the other programmed to speak truly)
8: The Triple Guardians of Horus (Wilson, Kepple and Betty)
9: Riddle of the Sphinx
10: Riddle of the Sands (running time 102 min)
11: Farmer attempting to get chicken, fox and grain across river
12: Tomb of Horus' Mummy
13: Tomb of Horus' Aunt
14: Tomb of Horus' Second Cousin once removed
15: Chamber of Despair (at terrible old Egyptian Jokes)
16: Chamber of Endurance (2 miles of narrow, twisting passages, lined with obsidian blades and 'My Heart Will Go On' playing on a permanent loop).
17: Chamber of Secrets
18: Prisoner of Azkaban
19: Chamber of Sadism (dead end, necessitating lengthy trek back through Chamber of Endurance)
20: Sign saying 'Eye of Horus this way'.
21: One way door
22: Room containing giant 'Sucker!' sign
23: Secret passage leading to...
24: Eye of Horus
25: Cheap, money saving corridor
26: Starbucks
27: Quick, entrance to Eye of Horus






*Toot-and-come-in.

I am the Keymaster.

Ten bad places to leave the Osterhagen Key

1. On a piece of string behind the letterbox of the Osterhagen Key building.
2. Under a false rock.
3. In a big pile of identical fake Osterhagen Keys.
4. Plugged into the Oserhagen Key control panel with a sign saying “Osterhagen Key: please do not touch”.
5. Detroit.
6. Inside an indestructible box that cannot be opened.
7. In the hands of someone who really wants to destroy the Earth.
8. Behind a flowerpot.
9. A place that's difficult to get to quickly.
10. Anywhere marked on a map as “Secret location of Osterhagen Key”.