[  Mood: Cool ]
Okay, here’s what we know so far (all information from The Sun):

1) There are going to be four specials next year while Tennant is off doing Hamlet as a break from playing a Time Lord. That’s a British actor for you, doing Shakespear to relax.

2) Two of the specials will be set in Amercia, and the Doctor will have an American as a companion, like in the Fox Doctor Who tv movie.

3) Speaking of that flick, Paul McGann return as the Eighth Doctor, which I have mixed feelings about. I really didn’t care for the Doctor Who movie he was in, but I can’t really blame him for that. The radio dramas supposedly redeem him, but I’ve not listened to them. What really interests me, though, is that he will be appearing in flashbacks about The Time War. Anything that shows me exactly what happened there has my attention. My main hope, though, is that RTD explains away that stupid "Half-Human" thing from the American Doctor Who movie as a joke or something.

4) One of the specials will have the return of Donna Noble. I hated Donna when she first appeared in The Runaway Bride, but I came to really like her over the course of the last season, so I’m happy about this. Bernard Cribbins will also be back as her grandfather, which also pleases me.

5) Another special will feature the return of John Simm as The Master. Did anyone really think he was dead? The Master is, well, a master of mind control, and that slack look on his companion’s face as she shot him just screamed to me that his being "killed" was The Master’s escape plan.

5a) It would be very cool to see the Master special as a sort of "Reverse Doctor" story, since what’s they kind of made him in the Saxon arc. He shows up somewhere in a TARDIS, finds peaceful people, and brings about some kind of horrible crisis that ruins everything until The Doctor shows up in a cameo and saves everyone.

6) There are plans for a Doctor Who movie, and Tennant wants the role. I personally think it would be stupid for them to cast someone else, unless they were able to woo Christopher Eccleston back in some kind of "Two Doctors" storyline. And RTD wants Catherine Zeta Jones as the companion for the flick. I’m not sure if she’d do that, but I think she’d rock as a companion.

While I’ll miss having a full season of The Doctor next year, I’m really looking foward to these specials. And since each one is two hours long, we’ll only be about four or six hours shy of a regular season anyway. I can live with that.

I am a very happy geek right now. There’s this movie that was supposed to have come out on DVD two years ago, but it got pulled from release for some unknown reason. Probably just to frustrate me. Now it’s being released on November 11th, just in time for my birthday. The flick is Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh , starring Patrick McGoohan.

This was a three-part story on Disney’s TV series back in the 60’s, and the episodes got mashed together to make a theatrical release. This DVD set will have the episodes along with the movie (which is the only way I’ve seen it, so it will be great to finally see the unedited whole story.)

The show is excellent, and here’s the skinny: Dr. Syn is a former pirate turned parson, but when the greedy King of England levies overbearing taxes against the people, Dr. Syn helps them by becoming The Scarecrow, a blend of Batman and Robin Hood to smuggle in food and other needed goods. Over the three episodes he outwits General Pugh of the British army, smuggler double-crossers, and more.

Here’s why the show rocks. First up, it’s a great swashbuckling/action yarn in the style of the old Zorro/Robin Hood mold, where good men of courage become outlaws to combat a corrupt government. Sure, it’s a Disney work, but it’s old-school original Pirates of the Carribean Disney, where there’s actually a sense of danger along with the fun.

The main reason it rocks, though, is Patrick Filkin’ McGoohan. He’s simply one of the best actors to grace the screen. Doubt me? Watch Ice Station Zebra, where he’s a bad-ass British spy. Watch Danger Man/Secret Agent Man, a series where he out-Bonds James Bond. He’s so bad-ass as a spy that he was asked before Connery to be Bond, and he turned them down. He then pointed them at Connery for the role. When Connery quit, they asked him again, and once more he said no, directing them to Lazenby.

Or you can look at his performance in Bravehart as the utter bastard Longshanks, where he plays a cruel British King as only a Scotsman can.

Then there’s The Prisoner, simply one of the best shows to be on TV, ever. He was the star, head writer and director of this mind-bending masterpiece, and very little has ever topped it.

So McGoohan’s perfect as this former pirate turned priest who dons a scary costume to outwit evil oppressors. When he’s in the Scarecrow persona, he’s got this great gruff voice, and his laugh is truely demonic. McGoohan is the man, and he owns this show.

In short, it’s a fun ride, and I’ll be glad to finally have a copy on DVD to replace my VHS copy from when the Disney Channel ran it a while back. And you should own it too.