Be Excellent To Each Other

I decided not to watch the Christmas Who. I will watch it at some point when it's repeated, but this is the first time I've purposively missed an episode.

I've never watched a Christmas episode sober. I think that's the audience they write then for, and it would be churlish to think that they'd do deep and dark sci-fi on Christmas Day.

where do all these daleks keep coming from???

Heh. Thanks for this - I'm enjoying dipping in and out of it. Not really tempting me to watch any more old 'Who' though.

where do all these daleks keep coming from???

I saw the twist in the episode after a fashion.

Tonight they served as a vehicle to introduce the new companion. the question is, does The Doctor retrieve her code, essence, whatever and plonk it in a new body. Or have we, as with River Song, seen a new series stalwart die then spend following series filling in the back story? I think the latter is unlikely.

I didn't see the twist. She was very Doctor-ish; my mid-episode guess was that she could be his daughter, a regenerated, no-longer-blonde Jenny the Dalek Slayer.

Author Neil Gaiman won a Hugo Award for The Doctor's Wife last night - and revealed that he was working on another Doctor Who script.

His Series 6 story won in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category, beating four other nominations that included The Girl Who Waited, by Tom MacRae, and A Good Man Goes To War, by Steven Moffat.

During his acceptance speech, Gaiman said: "Only a fool or a mad man would try to do it again . . . so I'm on the third draft."

Just when this episode might air is, of course, open to speculation. The Doctor's Wife had originally been scheduled for Series 5 but was pushed back a year because of budget pressures.

The Doctor's Wife, which was directed by Richard Clark, also won the 2011 Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation in this year's Nebula Awards.

It is the sixth Hugo for Doctor Who since the series returned in 2005. Other winners this year included Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell, who was part of the team that won the Best Fancast award.

The Hugo Awards were presented at Chicon 7 - the 70th World Science Fiction Convention - held at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago.

THE ABC is sending Doctor Who back in time so that the sci-fi legend materialises online a week before new episodes air on TV.

In an Australian first, the new adventures of Amy, Rory and The Doctor will be available on the ABC's iView player from 5.10am AEST on Sunday September 2, just hours after the first episode airs in the UK.

The show will then reappear in the future, on ABC1at 7:30pm the following Saturday, September 8.

This is the first time a big blockbuster TV show will air in full on an Australian online player within hours of its official release elsewhere.

In 2010, the ABC screened the first episode of Doctor Who on iView before it aired on TV, but the episodes came two weeks after the BBC screened them in the UK.

ABC1 controller Brendan Dahill said the decision to air the show online before television was motivated by a desire to reduce piracy, as well as fulfill the needs of drooling Whovians, who have waited almost a year for the new series.

" Piracy is wrong, as you are denying someone their rights and income for their intellectual property," Mr Dahill said. "The fact that it is happening is indicative that as broadcasters we are not meeting demand for a segment of the population.

"So as broadcasters we need to find convenient ways of making programs available via legal means to discourage the need for piracy."

Mr Dahill said that the ABC's iView "is the most watched catch-up TV service in Australia". Almost one in two online Australians aged 16-plus having used iView.

"The new iView app for iPhones and iPod Touch, launched on June 26, has seen a phenomenal 434,000 downloads recorded to date, with 210,000 downloads recorded in its first week,"Mr Dahill said.

But he also acknowledged that the ABC did not have to compete for ratings like other channels, allowing it to make broadcasting decisions that provide convenience and choice for its audience.

The decision to air Doctor Who online came just a week after News Ltd CEO Kim Williams made an impassioned speech at the Australian International Movie Convention, where he called piracy "scumbag theft" by "copyright kleptomaniacs of the digital age".

MORE people downloaded the first episode of Doctor Who legally in 24 hours than the most popular illegally downloaded show over a whole month.

The ABC received the highest amount of daily plays on iView ever after airing the premiere episode of Doctor Who on Sunday - just hours after it aired in the UK.

In comparison, the most heavily downloaded television show in Australia - How I Met Your Mother - was pirated 37 458 over the month of February last year, according to marketing and metrics company, Jumpwire Media.

Asylum of the Daleks received 75,900 plays in less than 24 hours after it aired on Sunday at 5.10am, in Aunty’s novel attempt to stop users from pirating the episode illegally.

That number only makes up about 10 per cent of the show's potential TV audience, in its current Saturday 7.30pm timeslot, however the number is significant as it means that the ABC's bid appears to have been successful.

The episode aired online almost a week before it hits TV screens on ABC1.

News Ltd asked Channels 7, 9, and 10, along with Foxtel, whether the encouraging figures would prompt the content providers to prevent piracy by adopting a digital route, airing the latest TV shows online before broadcasting them on TV.

Foxtel told News Ltd it would continue to innovate, including providing content online.

"Foxtel, of course, supports lawful consumer access to content," the spokesperson said.

"It's important to make content available to our subscribers across multiple platforms.

"We already provide internet-based services including Foxtel on Xbox 360, Foxtel on Internet TV, Foxtel on T-Box, and Apps for mobiles and tablets.

The spokesperson said Foxtel was pleased with the response to its London2012 tablet app for the Olympics and that it would be launching a new app later this year on which it would deliver some of its "most popular channels and programs".

Channel Ten told News Ltd it had previously offered viewers the chance to watch full episodes of programs ahead of broadcast.

Users who "liked" the Puberty Blues Facebook page were offered the ability to watch the first episode in full online before it aired on TV.

"A similar offering was made to Offspring fans ahead of the beginning of series three (April this year)," the spokesperson said. "The full episode catch-up service on our website is very successful."

Offspring received a weekly viewing average of 400,000 views online, and Puberty Blues racked up 520,000 online views over week one, two and three, the spokesperson told News Ltd.

Channel 10 did not say whether it would be following the ABC's lead by offering complete series in full online before they air on TV.

Channel Seven and Nine both declined to comment.

ABC1 controller Brendan Dahill told News Ltd that airing Doctor Who online had been a "stunning success" and suggested that audiences would watch content legally if they were offered options that were convenient and simple to use.

The ABC is still trying to find out how many people illegally downloaded the episode last night so they can properly measure the success of its online venture.

Commercial TV's current business models still rely on television to sell advertising, but Mr Dahill said it shouldn't be important what platform viewers watch their favourite programs on.

"It's about great content, delivered in ways that are convenient and accessible to our viewers," he said.

However, the ABC1 controller acknowledged that it was precisely because the ABC did not have to rely on ratings and advertising that it was able to experiment with new transmission options.

As for whether other broadcasters will take up the challenge, Mr Dahill said that was for each and every broadcaster to judge for themselves "alongside their business model".

"However, we are seeing tightening of release windows around the world, not just for TV but also for movies," he said.

"The rise of social media has meant an increased risk of spoilers if shows are delayed."

Last night, robots shut down the live broadcast of one of science fiction's most prestigious award ceremonies. No, you're not reading a science fiction story. In the middle of the annual Hugo Awards event at Worldcon, which thousands of people tuned into via video streaming service Ustream, the feed cut off — just as Neil Gaiman was giving an acceptance speech for his Doctor Who script, "The Doctor's Wife." Where Gaiman's face had been were the words, "Worldcon banned due to copyright infringement." What the hell?

Jumping onto Twitter, people who had been watching the livestream began asking what was going on. How could an award ceremony have anything to do with copyright infringement?

Bestselling science fiction author Tobias Buckell tweeted:

tobiasbuckell @tobiasbuckell

Oh, FFS. Ustream just shut down live worldcon feed for copyright infringement.
3 Sep 12

And then it began to dawn on people what happened. Gaiman had just gotten an award for his Doctor Who script. Before he took the stage, the Hugo Awards showed clips from his winning episode, along with clips from some other Doctor Who episodes that had been nominated, as well as a Community episode.

Wrote Macworld editorial director Jason Snell:

Jason Snell @jsnell
Ustream just shut down the #Hugos live stream because they showed clips of the TV nominees. Automated copyright patrols ruin more things.

This was, of course, absurd. First of all, the clips had been provided by the studios to be shown during the award ceremony. The Hugo Awards had explicit permission to broadcast them. But even if they hadn't, it is absolutely fair use to broadcast clips of copyrighted material during an award ceremony. Unfortunately, the digital restriction management (DRM) robots on Ustream had not been programmed with these basic contours of copyright law.

And then, it got worse. Amid more cries of dismay on Twitter, Reddit, and elsewhere, the official Worldcon Twitter announced:

We are sorry to report that #Ustream will not resume the video feed. #chicon7 #hugos #worldcon

And with that, the broadcast was officially cut off. Dumb robots, programmed to kill any broadcast containing copyrighted material, had destroyed the only live broadcast of the Hugo Awards. Sure, we could read what was happening on Twitter, or get the official winner announcement on the Hugo website, but that is hardly the same. We wanted to see our heroes and friends on that stage, and share the event with them. In the world of science fiction writing, the Hugo Awards are kind of like the Academy Awards. Careers are made; people get dressed up and give speeches; and celebrities rub shoulders with (admittedly geeky) paparazzi. You want to see and hear it if you can.

But Ustream's incorrectly programmed copyright enforcement squad had destroyed our only accesss. It was like a Cory Doctorow story crossed with RoboCop 2, with DRM robots going crazy and shooting indiscriminately into a crowd of perfectly innocent broadcasts.

And who did we have recourse to? We couldn't file a legal complaint in time to see io9's Charlie Jane Anders accept the Hugo for best novelette. And Ustream was completely unresponsive. As of today, September 3, people who posted queries on UStream's site have yet to be answered.

The point is, our ability to broadcast was entirely dependent on poorly-programmed bots. And once those bots had made their incorrect decision, there was absolutely nothing we could do to restart the signal, as it were. In case anyone still believes that copyright rules can't stop free speech or snuff out a community, the automated censorship of the Hugo Awards is a case in point.

Robots killed our legitimate broadcast. Welcome to the present.

New phone case.

I think he'll bump into him in a cafe in the south of france, because we all forgot about the autopilot

Bit surprised to see El Doctor apparently kill someone though! Wonder if there will be repercussions for that.

Lord Sugar will see you now, Doctor Who. Yes, look out for The Apprentice boss as himself in the popular BBC1 sci-fi series.

In the episode entitled The Power of Three, due to be broadcast on 22 September, the Time Lord (Matt Smith) and the Ponds (Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill) face an unlikely invasion of Earth when millions of sinister black cubes arrive overnight. The Doctor and his companions must investigate.

However, what's calamitous for the planet is merely another task in The Apprentice as Lord Sugar pounces on the opportunity, tasking his candidates with selling as many of the cubes as they can.

The clip also features Nick Hewer and Karren Brady, Lord Sugar's eyes and ears on the business-based reality show. The Apprentice trio are the latest to put in a cameo, joining a list that includes: Ann Widdecombe, Paul O' Grady, Sharon Osbourne, Barbara Windsor and Davina McCall.

I fully expect Lord Sugar ("I don't give a stuff about yer blaaahdy Tardis, mate. Make me some money!") to steal every scene from Matt Smith.