My second issue concerns the James Bond theme. I mean I love the idea. There's no show on television better suited to genre cosplay than Doctor Who. And the set-up raises some interesting questions around the role of intelligence services, and the dangers of data hoovers like Facebook and Google. Spy stories and privacy/info issues should work well together. It just feels like they didn't really use it beyond a bit of dress-up - put a couple of companions on the snoop, have a scene at a casino and sub in MI6 for UNIT. Like Barton said, the aliens were too blatant to be proper spies. When the Doctor confronted Barton, she gave away more info than she got out of him. (Plus, they should really have had that convo over a game of Baccarat.) I'm a bit more optimistic that part 2 might improve here, but we'll see.

Incidentally! This isn't the first time that Doctor Who has done James Bond, not by a long shot. In 1967 there was The Enemy of the World, where the Second Doctor turns out to be the dead ringer for a Bond-style villain called Salamander. His companions Jamie and Victoria go undercover, there's a secret underground base, there are helicopter chases, a bonkers scheme to take over the world, a final showdown in the TARDIS, it's really quite good. One of the more novel Second Doctor adventures.

A nice touch there: the plot very largely hinges on a point of morality (which means it not only dresses up as James Bond, but critiques it at the same time). The Doctor gets pulled into the plot by one Giles Kent, who tells him Salamander is eeevil and wants the DoppelDoctor to help assassinate him. The Doctor says Kent's word isn't a good enough reason to commit murder and demands proof. It feels a bit simplistic, but by the end of the story it turns out the Doctor's real suspicion was about Kent's motives, because he's too ready to resort to murder. Rightly so, as it turns out Kent and Salamander used to be in cahoots until Salamander betrayed him. He doesn't want to save the world, he wants revenge and to take Salamander's place. (This, by the way, is how you can use a pacifist Doctor in a spy thriller.)

The Enemy of the World and Spyfall share one other thing in common, and here we go back to my previous post. As I mentioned, Spyfall is one of only two Doctor Who adventures that did proper scenes set in Australia. The other one was The Enemy of the World. Ironically, the source material for both adventures - the James Bond films - have never had any Australian scenes.

Back on Doctor Who, Australia did at least cop the occasional mention. The villain in The Talons of Weng Chiang, Magnus Greel, was known as the Butcher of Brisbane. Later on, John Nathan-Turner was actually interested in filming in Australia sometime, knowing Doctor Who was very popular here. He created an Australian companion, Tegan Jovanka, who was a flight attendant. Apparently the hope was that Qantas would think this was great PR and offer them free flights to Australia. (It never happened.) In Tegan's third adventure, Four to Doomsday, there was an Aboriginal group on a spaceship that had been abducted by the alien villain. (Also Greeks, Chinese and Mayans.) Naturally, the Aboriginal leader was played by a Nigerian.

Spyfall Part 2 was a big improvement over Part 1. Bring on the mytharc!

(The resolution of the actual A-plot was, I guess, fine. But I'll always forgive an unsatisfying one-shot if it comes with a dollop of long-term mythos. See also: cut my fannish teeth on X-Files.)

Semi-serious question - do Time Lords canonically have some way of sensing where they are in relation to each others' timeline? Because a question like "when did you last go home" seems like it would be REALLY hard to answer without a much longer conversation establishing when "when" is in the first place.

Hence my deep and abiding love for the wibbly wobbly timey whiney! Have not seen Part 2 yet, but I am looking forward to a nice Doctor Who escape later today.

Jessica, I recall that Gallifrey used to have something in effect (the Transduction Barrier?) that prevented Time Lords from visiting it prior to their last visit, which generally kept their interactions with each other linear, if not with even passage of years. Of course, with the Doctor and the Master zig-zagging through time frequently they probably cross each other's timelines a lot.

avoiding Who spoilers...

CW has already renewed almost its entire slate, including Roswell, which hasn't aired its S2 yet.

[link]

Meanwhile, if you would like to know more about Roswell? Ask me about Roswell.

I never got into Roswell but I'm glad to see some of the continuing shows. But I'm a bit ... confused? ... about remakes of Walker: Texas Ranger and Kung Fu. Maybe because a broadcast channel (Charge!) is running about four hours of the original Walker series every evening.

I loved the new Roswell! It was my favorite of all the new things. I thing the brand new stuff in general is way better than any of the reunions. The only reunion I really enjoyed was Deadwood, but I don't know that it was as good as the original seasons.

And now, have watched the new eps of Who. Really irritated that I spoiled myself by looking up the adorable secret agent on IMDB halfway through the first ep.