The Waters of Mars: We ask the BIG questions that matter!

“Water always wins,” says the Doctor in the trailer for The Waters of Mars, but is he right? Does water always win? We put his claim to the ultimate test.

An exclusive Shouting Into A Well Investigation

The End of the World
Battle: the Earth’s oceans vs a red hot exploding sun.
Result: As the sun expands the Earth is destroyed, there are no signs of any water in the rubble. It was the sun wot won it.
Verdict: a disappointing early defeat for water.

New Earth
Battle: water vs all New Earth’s worst diseases.
Result: using the water in the disinfectant shower the Doctor cures all New Earth’s worst diseases.
Verdict: water wins (with some help from future outer-space medicine).

The Runaway Bride
Battle: the river Thames vs the Empress of Racnoss.
Result: having unwisely built her base under the river, the Empress of Racnoss is destroyed and all her children are drowned.
Verdict: water victorious.

Smith and Jones
Battle: rain vs the Royal Hope hospital.
Result: the Judoon lift the hospital all the way to the Moon with the power of their H2O Scoop.
Verdict: water wins again, taking the Royal Hope hospital to the Moon and back again.

The Shakepeare Code
Battle: water vs the Master of the Revels.
Result: the Carrionites know the best way to deal with anyone who meddles in their plans; drown them with magic.
Verdict: the Doctor may claim that the Master of the Revels died of an imbalance of the humours but we all know it was really another victory for the unstoppable force of water.

The Fires of Pompeii
Battle: water vs the Pyroviles.
Result: nothing can stop the firey Pyroviles, nothing except…. Water!
Verdict: water comes out on top in the ancient alchemical struggle of one element against another.

Planet of the Ood
Battle: on the ice planet Ood-Sphere water seems disinclined to take part in the struggle for freedom between the Ood and the evil slave drivers of the Ood Corporation.
Verdict: some people probably froze to death though
Result: water wins by default.

The Doctor’s Daughter
Battle: a swamp vs a Hath.
Result: when the fish-like Hath falls into a swamp even it is unable to resist the awesome power of water; it drowns; gills are over-rated.
Result: water beats fish aliens.

The Unicorn and the Wasp
Battle: a lake vs the Vespiform.
Result: Vespiform drowns
Verdict: water rules.

Turn Left
Battle: the river Thames vs the Doctor and the Empress of Racknoss (and all her children).
Result: just this once everybody dies!
Verdict:water wins again.

Planet of the Dead
Battle: water vs a swarm of metallic stingray aliens.
Result: San Helios had a thriving ecosystem before metallic alien stingrays turned everything into sand; even the water.
Verdict: the last battle and water loses. How will this affect the final score?

Final score
With 9 out of 11 victories we can see that the success rate of water is an awkward 81.81818%. We have proved the Doctor is wrong to claim that water always wins but it is clear that in the eternal battle between water and things drowning in it, or sometimes being cooled or lifted into space, it’s best to bet on H2O

Will water triumph in The Waters of Mars or can the Doctor pull an unexpected last minute victory out of his hat? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Number crunching
Most watery series: with 8 out of the 11 stories listed here, it’s series 4.
Most common water victory: drowning with 5/11 wins.
Most water obsessed writer: Gareth Roberts whose three episodes all feature in this article. By comparison Russell T Davies only has a water obsession rate of 19% and many writers are seemingly unconcerned with water at all.

Let me Take you by the Hand and Lead you Through the Streets of London

Thanks to the London Transport journey planner getting across the city has never been easier.

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Merry Easter

Thanks to www.richardwho.com/ for the Suchard Easter Egg picture

Over-analysing the Planet of the Dead trailer: so you don't have to

A London bus in a desert. There are three key facts to note about this image.
1)There are no deserts in London which suggests that Planet of the Dead takes place in Outer Space.
2)The front of every bus shows its number and destination. Here this information is hidden by the angle of the bus, possibly to conceal a spoiler.
3)Although we know this episode is called Planet of the Dead, there are no dead people to be seen. As an experienced television writer Russell T. Davis would know to avoid such a careless error. The dead are probably hiding under the sand or behind the bus.

The Doctor examines some sand. Note that the Doctor's shadow extends beyond his head. The sun rises in the east, to cast a shadow like this the Doctor must be facing south which suggests the wind blowing the sand is coming from the west. Unless it is the afternoon in which case he is facing north and the wind is blowing from the east.

An insect holding a gun. Doctor Who often uses animal-headed aliens as a metaphor. New Earth for example featured cat-headed nuns running a hospital as a metaphor for the way nurses like to play with their patients before killing and eating them. Alternatively the insect could have a gun to stop the dead from bothering London Transport users while they wait for a connecting bus back to Earth.

There appears to be at least three female passengers on the bus. Could this be a clue to the return of the notorious female Timelord, The Rani?

The Doctor and Michelle Ryan's character see something off camera. Possibly a dead person, or an insect-headed alien holding a gun, or maybe the Doctor has just said," look at the Rani over there!".

An experienced actor like David Tennant knows body language gives important information about the way a character feels. In this frame the David Tennant faces away from Michelle Ryan suggesting that the Doctor feels awkward and uncomfortable. He is probably missing Donna.

Don't know what this is.

Russell T. Davis knows that it is important for a trailer to tell the audience when a programme is being shown. Here we see that Planet of the Dead is being shown on Saturday 11th April on BBC1. Unfortunately someone has forgotten to include the time, an elementary mistake which should have been avoided.

In other news:

Wednesday April 1st, 2009. G20 leaders assemble in London for the first showing of the Planet of the Dead trailer.

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
Click here for more details.

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.