The airing of “The Next Doctor” by SPACE marked the end of CBC Television’s involvement in Doctor Who.

CBC’s treatment of the property is a story in extremes.  It started off well – an April 5, 2005 debut, strong publicity, co-production credit and a generally enjoyable set of stories starring Christopher Eccleston.  The 2004-05 NHL lockout destroyed a dependable revenue stream, so CBC had to hype something.

By the end of season four, CBC was mangling the hell out of season finale “Journey’s End.”  Prior to this, CBC had shunted second-season Christmas special “The Runaway Bride” to a midnight time slot the night of the third-season premiere.

Granted, Doctor Who’s fourth season had good stories counteracted by an annoying companion in Donna Noble (Catherine Tate.)  You still had a great Doctor in David Tennant, whose run winds down with “Planet of the Dead” (SPACE: July 25, 9:00 PM ET), the first of four 2009 specials.

I look at “Planet of the Dead” like I do “Stones of Blood.”  ”Planet of the Dead” is familiar enough to be enjoyable, but it’s second-rate.  Alien variants of Earth animals (flies, stingrays) are appropriated as aliens.  UNIT plies its trade, mostly shooting at things and acting militant.

Lady Christina de Souza (Michelle Ryan) is this episode’s companion, a cat burglar and walking archetype.  UNIT scientist Malcolm Taylor (a very annoying Lee Evans) literally screams Doctor fanboy, a Whizz Kid for the new generation.  Carmen (Ellen Thomas), a black woman with psychic powers, acts portentous as she furthers the plot along.  The use of Dubai as a backdrop reminds me of the eighteen thousand times a quarry stood in for an “alien world.”

David Tennant looks like he’s going through his usual frenzied motions.  Michelle Ryan is watchable as a companion, which means very little as she’s the one-shot guest star of the moment.  Not one moment of “Planet of the Dead” is new or clever, the first 2009 special acting as filler.  The heavy stuff will be saved for Christmas, what with The Doctor dying and all.

Don’t get me wrong, “Planet of the Dead” is fun.  If there’s one thing to say about Russell T. Davies, his episodes can be as fun as Terrance Dicks’.  Sadly, Davies has fallen into the Futurama trap of choosing an underwhelming story at a time when the specials should feel, well, special. Time will tell if upcoming special “Waters of Mars” becomes the Doctor Who equivalent of Beast with a Billion Backs.

If new Doctor Who half-asses its ersatz fifth season by spinning its wheels and heavily referencing itself, then the best-ever case will have been made for giving Steven Moffat the show at the end of 2009.  There’s no excuse for “Planet of the Dead” to be Doctor Who at its laziest.

The Gemini Award^®-winning (it pains me to write that) Chop Socky Chooks debuts on DVD October 6, 2009.  It’s a volume set, since kids’ shows are released that way.

The show’s minor Aardman at best, and it isn’t very funny or engaging.  It won a Gemini Award^®, though.  A show about martial-arts film archetypes in vaguely avian form?  I’m sure Chop Socky Chooks was better than Total Drama Island in 2008.  I also think a weak season of This Hour Has 22 Minutes outranked Kenny vs. Spenny.  The Gemini Award jurors just know quality.

---

Monster Warriors: War of the Water World out August 25, 2009 through Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada.  Monster Warriors vs. Creepy Crawlers came out June 30, 2009.  Ah, the volume set, every kids’ show loves that format.

The show’s premise – 1950s movie monsters come to life via mad scientist – sounds fun.  Sadly, the show is poorly realized and Seán Cullen plays the mad scientist.  Cullen doesn’t go into stream-of-consciousness rants about his penis on Monster Warriors, but that’s hardly a small mercy.

---

Show Me Yours: The Complete Series out November 10, 2009 through E1 Entertainment.

This is one of the more esoteric announcements I’ve seen in some time, as Show Me Yours is a sex-oriented Showcase dramedy from five years ago.  It’s nice to see more Showcase product out there, but where are Billable Hours and Testees‘ sets?  I haven’t seen Show Me Yours, but I’m sure it’s better than Monster Warriors.

---

The rest of Heartland’s first season out November 10, 2009 through E1 Entertainment.  That’s a speedy turnover in sets.  It makes me wonder why E1 bothered to split the first season.  Not that it matters, since I’m sure the two volume sets will be bundled a year from now.

---

Flashpoint first-season box art.  The Flashpoint release is American-only, not that parallel releases are illegal to own in Canada.

At this point I’m supposed to point out Flashpoint star Amy Jo Johnson’s role on Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.  The Pink Ranger is her most notable role, after all.

There, I’ve made the reference.  Let me never speak of it again.

---

Blood Ties “second”-season box art.  I could have knocked that “art” out in an hour via Photoshop.  It won’t stop the fans from buying this set, but everything about Blood Ties‘ “second” season screams quickie release.

---

No Stargate news this week?  Good.

I go into Torchwood: Children of Earth (SPACE: July 20-24, 10:00 PM ET) not being a Torchwood fan.  This is due to the first-series episodes I watched, which I felt were terrible.  The show struck me then as trying to be Doctor Who The Alien Slayer, failing miserably in the process.  Torchwood allegedly improved in its second series, not that I watched to find out.

Torchwood: Children of Earth has done exceedingly well for BBC One.  Viewers think it’s just awesome, enough that Torchwood: Children of Earth grabbed viewing figures of almost 6 million and held on to them by week’s end.  The New York Times thinks Torchwood: Children of Earth is silly, not that the Times gives a damn about proper arts criticism.

The question remains: do I like Torchwood now, as it gains its best-ever standing?  Emphatically, yes.  This is the first episode of Torchwood I’ve seen that feels properly adult as opposed to “here’s an alien, I’m gay, you’re gay, let’s have an orgy.”

I’m not going overboard with praise for Torchwood: Children of Earth.  The children-presage-alien-invasion angle takes its cue from John Wyndham’s “The Midwich Cuckoos,” running it through a Quatermass II filter.  It’s bluntly obvious the ideas aren’t new.  Being derivative is one of Russell T. Davies’ main faults, so no big surprise there.

What makes Torchwood: Children of Earth promising is the fact that, even though it’s derivative apocalyptic storytelling, it’s damn good apocalyptic storytelling.  The alien menace, at least in the first episode, is abstract.  There is proper setup for the episodes to come.  Main protagonist Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) even keeps the man-kissing to a minimum.

While the soap opera elements aren’t removed from Torchwood, the human reaction to an alien invasion comes first.  Torchwood: Children of Earth finds the balance between science fiction and its brand of human drama, adding a layer of government conspiracy in the process.  Even the sight of children standing and screaming doesn’t hurt proceedings.

Russell T. Davies’ work on Doctor Who and Torchwood has been all over the map.  His Doctor Who specials and episodes are normally heavy on spectacle, light on coherent plot.  With Torchwood: Children of Earth, he delivers the whole package.  Perhaps it’s due to two characters dying at the end of the second series, but Torchwood: Children of Earth is not afraid to blow itself up at this point.  It’s event programming that actually delivers on its promises.

Torchwood: Children of Earth is off to a great start.  Either the show is wrapping up or rebooting itself, but Torchwood has definitely improved from its debut.  Past history be damned, Torchwood: Children of Earth is great television.

Aside: why do people refer to this series as Torchwood: Children of Men?  I’ve made mistakes like this before.  I only recently realized Martha Jones’ actor was Freema Agyeman, not Agyema Freeman.  Children of Men, though?!  I’ve seen professionals make this mistake.

Ah, well.  Stay tuned this week as I review Doctor House: Planet of the Dead.  It’ll be excoriating!

As of July 16, 2009, I’ve overhauled the two Blogger blogs.  Both are now on a generic Blogger template, as the old template (i.e., add this to your Kinja Digest et al.) was ridiculously out of date.  The comments ran on an ancient script that no one uses anymore due to Blogger implementing comments.  Essentially, I decided that it wasn’t worth it to keep the Blogger blogs in their previous state, open function.fopen links and all.

Frankly, everything before 2005 is embarrassing as shit for me.  I might not keep the Blogger blogs active for much longer.  If you’re wondering why they changed, that’s why.  I’m sure you’re just champing at the bit to read five-year-old articles about me begging for PayPal donations and see crappy pixel drawings of Guilmon with hockey hair.  What was I thinking five years ago?!  Come to think of it, what the hell am I thinking now?

As this year’s CBC pilots go, nothing will be as bad to me as The Good Germany.  Then again, Throwing Stones (CBC: Original Pictures, 2009) is a show about amateur women curlers.  Co-creator/director Mario Azzopardi recently directed ZOS: Zone of Separation, so he and daughter Lara Azzopardi bring their experiences to the table.  The premise still sounds horrible, not to mention stereotypically Canadian.

Thankfully, Throwing Stones is leagues beyond The Good Germany.  The show actually makes the premise of a housewife curling team interesting, if only due to the show’s strong writing and storyline buildup.  The pilot goes through a few motions, feeling forced in parts, but Throwing Stones goes all out in transcending its shitty high concept.

The main draw here is a 62-year-old Patty Duke.  She’s a throwback to the days when a washed-up American name would appear in a Canadian film.  Then again, she’s won an Academy Award, three Emmys and a Golden Globe, so the woman knows acting like the back of her hand.  Oddly enough, Duke plays a Canadian, a strange bit of casting I still can’t figure out.

Duke plays Patti Thom, the feisty leader of an amateur curling team.  Patti’s team is made up of Shirley Campbell (Barbara Radecki), Annette Roi (Caroline Néron) and Cindy Boshyk (Stephanie Anne Mills).  Patti hits a car owned by Marge Merrick (Lolita Davidovich), an American Republican.  I can just see anti-CBC assholes going into epileptic fits at the mere mention of Merrick.

Luckily, even Marge is played against type, in that she has some depth and isn’t a walking parody of right-wing assholes.  She has two sons in Iraq and hates living in Manitoba, but Throwing Stones avoids making easy anti-American jokes.  She’s just a snob with a patronizing husband.

There is one scene where team ditz Cindy is abused by husband Glen Boshyk (Dan Petronijevic), who makes up for his indiscretion with kitchen countertop sex.  The scene is quite false in its execution, as if viewers need to know Cindy has a fucked-up life this early in the series.  Throwing Stones tries to do too much in its first twenty-two minutes, which might explain why it wasn’t picked up for the 2009-10 fall season.

Patty Duke and Caroline Néron are the two best actresses on the show.  Duke effortlessly commands attention, although her character dies midway through the episode.  Néron reminds me of a French-Canadian Kirstie Alley back when Alley wasn’t a weight-fluctuating Jenny Craig shill.

Star! personality Husein Madhavji is surprisingly good as Yasminder ‘The Rock’ Ramhan, announcer for a live curling podcast.  The casting smacks of a need to be culturally sensitive, but Madhavji makes his character work by shilling the on-ice “action” in a blatantly heavy Indian accent.  He steals every scene he’s in.

Throwing Stones isn’t bad for a pilot, especially considering the show was originally pitched as an hour-long drama.  Much worse shows have been given CBC prime-time berths, like An American in Canada and Rideau Hall.

Although Throwing Stones‘ pilot has its faults, there’s no reason to stall this show in pilot stage.  It actually makes curling watchable, something Men with Brooms couldn’t do.  Maybe CBC will commission the show for 2010-11 if Ron James’ show and/or Canada’s Super Speller stiff, and I just know one of those shows is going to die a horrible, fiery death.

Flashpoint’s first season out October 13, 2009 through CBS DVD/Paramount Home Entertainment.  This comes on the heels of CBS’ not knowing what the hell to do with the “third season” of the show, but hey, Canadian television on a top-flight home video label.  I just know this will sell well.

---

Can’t I go through ONE Canadian TV-on-DVD Roundup without a Stargate update?  Damn, so close this time.

Anyway, MGM Home Entertainment confirms that its Stargate Atlantis: Fans’ Choice disc will be Stargate Atlantis‘ only Blu-ray release.  Boy, that’ll please the fans!  Watch MGM catch shit for this within a day.

---

Box art for Life with Derek’s second season and Inspector Gadget: The Go Go Gadget Collection.  Nothing to see here, let’s move on.

---

Brutal As Hell review of Forever Knight Volumes One through Three.  Oh wait, it’s Forever Knight: The Trilogy Parts 1 through 3, like naming the seasons that way matters.  Forever Knight gets a good review, though Sam Hawken is fairly harsh on the series.  I like that in a review.  I wonder how BAH feels about Blood Ties.

---

Vampire Wire has a Blood Ties “Season One” contest up.  It’s ongoing until July 15, 2009, so you still have a few days to enter.

The link also has news about Warehouse 13 and Dark Shadows, and I could give less than 1/50th of a shit about Dark Shadows.  If over-marketed supernatural soap operas are your thing, dive right in.

---

Jim Bawden talks The Starlost.  I didn’t like Jim Bawden’s Starweek articles back in the 1980s and 1990s, but damn do I miss him now.  That man wrote good, well-reasoned columns in his day.

His blog has a surprising number of typos considering his former profession, but he is still passionate about television and its potential.  I prefer him to reheated blog articles about video games and whatever gimmicks the Toronto Star uses to pretend it’s still relevant.  Malene Arpe the best thing in the whole paper?  I fear for the future of newspapers.