The budget was cut by 5% this year because all BBC budgets were cut this year due to a series of scandals. Of course, a fair chunk of that budget cut was probably negated by replacing Tennant and Catherine Tate. Smith and Gillian are definitely making a lot less than those two.

Seeing the future
Hey Keith - its pretty apparent that no one here cares about spoiling future episodes that have already been shown in the UK. So why don't you just AV Club the episodes as they run in Britain? I think probably most North Americans who would come to this forum are torrenting the episodes anyway. It…

The best thing to do, I reckon, is tune into BBC America and watch it. Here's what you need to know: a madman with a box travels through time and space with a cute girl. I'm sure you've already figured that part out. But there is absolutely no reason to start anywhere other than right now, because right now is a…

"Britons are a bunch of living Youtube comments roaming around on an island. "

From now on the baby sleeps in the crib!

I stand corrected - publicly funded. It's easy for the thinking on that to slip to government funded, particularly since the government sets and oversees the licence fee, as well as "advising" the crown as to who should sit on the Beebs board of governors.

Jason: surprisingly, it would be very little like NBC UK showing an ABC show. This is a little exaggerated and simplified, but it would be like PBS UK showing FOX shows.

River Song coming back is not a spoiler. Nothing has been "spoiled". Your enjoyment of the show is not compromised. A spoiler would be (and this is hypothetical) River Song comes back, learns the true meaning of Christmas through eating a Judoon, and then marries both the Doctor and Amy (or is even mentioning that the…

It only gets worse
Writing from the UK, my wife developed a perverse fascination with this series, so I have, more or less, seen all the episodes. And they just get worse. Every week became an adventure in failure, post-morteming the episode to figure out what new ways it was managing to fail at.

Is that it?
So did you guys just list every single comedy album released in the decade, or did you leave some out?

Conformist or not, he is exactly right about the movie. I saw it yesterday (it has already opened here in the UK) and he is spot on - bits are great but it never comes together the way that it should and it is somehow less than the sum of its parts.

But the big question for the Mail is how is Travolta's situation going to affect house prices?

A lot of writers need to draft and redraft and redraft; they need to get the process out, and into something tangible. Others can do it in their heads. Davies at least seems to agonise over the whole not-writing-and-keeping-in-their-head phase. His mind is certainly working, even if his typing fingers aren't.

'Children of Earth' *is* great. The first two seasons, not so much. The New No. 2 hit the nail on the head, it is what Torchwood always should have been, and as such is the most "adult" season of the show yet. The first two years were teenage years, full of swearing and sex, but 'Children of Earth' is grown-up science…

'Children of Earth' is almost perfect television. It is so tight it is unbelievable. For something five hours long, I don't think there is a single scene that isn't advancing the plot or the characters (though usually both). Everything that happens is there for a reason, and nothing happens without reason. The bleak…

It really is a great book, and *very* insightful into how shows are made and how writers write them. In his own case, it is one draft, but he seems to be redrafting it in his head for weeks and months before he has to force himself to sit in front of a keyboard and actually put it down.

great interview
It's nice to see Davies talking about the show rather than playing hype man, which is how he seems to handle (or needs to handle) most of his British press. His book on writing the last series of 'Doctor Who' is a fantastic read as well.

Forgive my ignorance. Intros are for suckers.

One follow-up question?
One of the most interesting and thoughtful writers in comics, and you ask him one follow-up question? I thought this was some terrible conducted by e-mail thing until there was that one follow-up where "It's interesting that you say that…". For a large part of the interview, the questions don't…

Talkingstove: re Meatloaf and the Neon Bible