This is what happens when I take a break from work: I make silly things and put them online.
Into my head the other day pops the phrase “Three former Doctor Whos are we.” No idea where that morsel came from, but within 24 hours I’ve recorded a song. Then I remembered Jason’s great Doctor Who cartoons and within another day had made a video.
Non-fans will find the lyrics a bit obscure, I’m afraid, but here it is anyway for your viewing pleasure:
The dawning of the new financial year indicates that a much more important occasion is upon us: today, this blog is five years old. As has been the tradition over the last half-decade, this is the one day I do blog stats. So here they are. (Yikes – I see I used almost exactly the same introduction last year).
Previous three years’ figures are in brackets, last year’s first.
3 (2, 2, 2, 2): number of servers this site has been hosted on
2 (2, 2, 2, 2): number of blogging applications used
1,123 (977, 873, 588, 226): total number of posts
1,614 (1,518, 1,350, 774, 444): total number of comments
1.44 (1.55, 1.55, 1.32, 1.96): average number of comments per post
112,651 (70,993, 43,016, 6,322): total unique hits (counting since May 2004 – now switched to Google Analytics, which counted 6,000 fewer this last year than my old hit counter)
Top seven referring websites (excluding search engines):
6 (6): toby stephens (He just won’t go away. This is why. *shrug*)
5 (-): matt smith doctor who
4 (-): new doctor who
3 (-): geoffrey perkins
2 (1): clocks go forward (Knocked off the top spot by – as you may have guessed by now…)
1 (-): matt smith
Despite an otherwise fairly quiet year, this blog’s biggest day of traffic ever followed the announcement that TV’s Matt Smith would succeed TV’s David Tennant and TV’s Doctor Who, largely powered by some surprisingly high Google rankings, reflecting how little had been written about the new Doctor in the past.
Apparently added to YouTube from the BBC’s HD Preview – and helpfully labelled “DW PotD trailer 01” – a trailer for the first of the new Doctor Who specials, Planet of the Dead, is now online. And here it is:
A trailer (presumably this one, but maybe not) will be shown on BBC One tonight before The Apprentice.
And the episode itself will be aired at Easter, so not long to wait.
…which will prompt the question from many: who is Matt Smith? (Aside from the Eleventh Doctor.) Here’s a quick factfile to save your fingers and eyes from search engine fatigue.
At just 26 years old, Smith will be the youngest Doctor ever, beating Peter Davison, who was 29 when he was cast as the Fifth Doctor.
Brought up in Northampton and initially planning to become a professional footballer, Smith studied drama and creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Since then he has carved out a very respectable theatre career, his stage roles including Lockwood in The History Boys and Guy in Swimming with Sharks, opposite Christian Slater. He appeared in On the Shore of the Wide World, which won the 2006 Olivier Award for Best New Play.
His most notable TV role was a Labour researcher Danny Foster in BBC’s political drama Party Animals. He also appeared in The Ruby in the Smoke, its sequel The Shadow in the North and an episode of The Secret Diary of a Call Girl – all three of them opposite former Doctor Who companion Billie Piper.
Smith had a small role as the young Ralph Fiennes in In Bruges and will appear this year as one of the leads in Moses Jones, a new thriller for BBC Two, alongside Shaun Parkes (Zachary Cross Flane in The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit) and Tom Goodman-Hill (Reverend Golightly in The Unicorn and the Wasp).
Only recently mentioned in connection with the part, Matt Smith became a late favourite in the last few days, alongside Survivors‘ Paterson Joseph. Arguably Smith will be the Doctor least well known to TV audiences since Tom Baker. He’ll begin filming this year and should make his first appearance as the Doctor in 2010.
Update: I’m fairly optimistic about this choice, by the way. I’ve only seen Matt Smith in bits of Party Animals (a series I wasn’t a fan of), but he seems to have a good track record on stage and the production team were clearly impressed with him when he auditioned. A long time to go until we properly meet the new Doctor though…
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