Another busy night of couch potatoary last night. Doctor Who with the England vs. USA match on ITV straight after. I'll post my initial musings on the World Cup after the Germany vs. Australia match tonight but, first of all, there is the matter of this week's outing with the chap in the blue box.
Last night's episode saw The Doctor trying to pass himself of as human whilst investigating the shenanigans going on upstairs at James Corden's flat. This leads to various comic capers, in stark contrast to the dark and somewhat melancholy episodes that we have seen in current weeks. Overall, it's a very slight and light episode but provides a nice set up for the series finale at the end whilst raising a few smiles on the way.
I wasn't entirely sure about James Corden being the guest star. I enjoyed Gavin and Stacey which Corden both wrote and stared in but I find he is becoming somewhat ubiquitous - he was also on ITV after the football - and he seems to keep playing the same character which, I am guessing, is largely himself. He even manages a blokey game of football with The Doctor. Now, James Corden makes me look like Lionel Messi on the fitness front, but the Doctor turns out to be pretty good at the footy - apparently, Matt Smith was on the books at Nottingham Forest before turning to this acting lark so there wasn't even much in the way of CGI trickery. There was very little of Amy this week as she was stuck on the TARDIS but as a bonus we had Daisy Haggard as Corden's pal/would-be-girlfriend. She has been in all sorts of comedy roles like Man Stroke Woman and Psychoville so it was nice to see her in a straight-ish acting role for a change.
I'm curious to see how the ratings for this episode turn out. With the England match on the other side straight afterwards and the increasing advent of PVRs I suspect that many will watch the show at a later time. Certainly, this is something we have had to do given that the starting time is often right when we are trying to get the little two off to bed. The overnight ratings were 4.6 million (i.e. that many watched it whilst it was on). The series average is between 7-8 million so it will be interesting to see how many will watch it recorded. Sky+ and Freeview PVR sales have been huge and I'm intrigued to see just what impact this is having on viewing habits. Maybe, in a couple of years time, major sporting events will be the only thing watched live.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
We always watch it later on our Freeview PVR.
ReplyDeleteA very funny episode - the only dodgy bit was the romance - I suppose it was necessary for the plot but it seemed very contrived - those two would have got it together ages ago.
My eldest son declared this week that he thought Matt Smith was better than David Tennant. I think I agree with him although I honestly don't know if it's more a case that Steven Moffat is better than RTD. That's taking nothing away form Tennant/RTD because they did a fantastic job - Smith/Moffat have simply raised the bar even higher.