Time Lord-ing it up

The fourth series press launch of Doctor Who was held last night, so don't read on if you don't want to know some titbits from what happens in the first couple of episodes. The evening started with some pretty fundamentalist worship of the Doctor Who cast and production team from BBC execs, followed by a curious question and answer session after the screening. Executive producer Russell T Davies avoided questions from journalists, instead encouraging the Woodward and Bernsteins among the children present to give it their best shot. Particularly badly treated was the Sun's Jen Blackburn, who wanted to know if Catherine Tate would be in next year's specials. "Nice try love, next!" said Davies, managing to be a mite patronising and sexist at the same time. And Monkey thought he was quite PC. But luckily the first two episodes of the new series were vintage Who and Catherine Tate proved a good companion. Monkey loved Tate's reaction to the newly updated Who baddies the Sontarans, dressed in heavy body armour and played by five-foot-high actors. Tate thought the Sontarans were animatronic and didn't realise actors were inside. "It was a whole weekend before I realised," she said. "I don't like to question things."