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| Bill Harris (left) joins me in scrumming a Dalek. Our work here is done |
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.–I was very disappointed with Doctor Who at Thursday night’s TCA press tour party in Los Angeles.
The actor playing the famed time traveler, Matt Smith, just didn’t seem to know his lines. He was there along with Jenna Coleman, who plays the Doctor’s companion. They were part of the entourage at BBC America’s press tour party high up over Sunset Blvd. at the tony L.A. SoHo House in West Hollywood.
The conversation was a bit awkward.
Bill Brioux: Who’s on first?
Matt Smith: Pardon? What?
Bill: What’s on second.
Smith: I don’t know what you mean…
Bill: I don’t know’s on third.
Smith: Who’s on third?
Bill: Who’s on first.
Smith: I’m asking you Who’s on first.
Bill: That’s the name of the guy on third base.
Smith: What’s that name?
Bill: No, What’s on second base.
Smith: I don’t know.
Bill: He’s on third.
Smith was otherwise very friendly and British, getting a big kick out of the costumes and other goodies on display in the night club as BBC America celebrated the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. The network had tricked the place up with other props. A blue British phone booth was our front outside, along with a Dalek robot thingy. There were other creepy looking aliens working the bar area of the SoHo, not that unusual, I;m told, for a Thursday night in West Hollywood.
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| If Rob Salem had been here, he would have tried to sneak out with some of these Doctor Who duds |
At one point in the evening, the lights went dim and the music went up and this guy with a squid face walked in, he looked like that guy from Futurama.
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| One of the alien thingies at the BBC America deal. Was shocked to learn later it was a former NBC programming executive under the rubber head. #workiswork |
Smith still has to shoot the Doctor Who Christmas special, which will get a Royal baby-like audience in The U.K. Then he will step aside and a new Doc will re-generate and a new actor will be cast. The producers insist they don’t know who that will be yet.
BBC America’s Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special will air Nov. 23 in the U.S. They’ve also got a TV-movie about the origins of the series called An Adventure in Space and Time. Set it in 1963, it stars David Bradley as William Hartnell, the first of ten actors to play Doctor Who.
Bradley was at the BBC party and is just as star struck as the rest of us, showing off a photo bomb he had snapped earlier that afternoon. It was of he and Larry David, also at TCA at the HBO sessions to promote his upcoming TV-movie Clear History.
Bradley doesn’t have to suck up to get work. He’s on every second show on BBC America, including Broadchurch, back Aug. 7.
