Remember the days when you could only compare CBS, NBC and ABC on the television set?

The quaint notion of just three channels – not to mention a TV where you actually had to stand up, walk over to the set and turn the dial – seems like it was so long ago.

Now, with the advent of the Internet and being able to watch TV from your desktop or laptop computer, or even your mobile phone, there are many more ways to watch your favorite shows and even shows and entertainment from other countries.
Whether you look across the Pacific to Asia and Japan for entertainment, or you scan the Atlantic and look at what Europe has to offer, there are so many different choices for television networks.

When people think of foreign television networks, the Univision or Telemundo names come to mind from Mexico or even CTV or the CBC in Canada.
With the United States’ growing Hispanic population, Univision has become a popular network in this country, with levels of viewership it did not have even five years ago. Univision’s “telenovelas”, or Spanish-language soap operas, have become so popular they even outrank NBC programming on some nights (or that of the CW, the former Paramount/WB network now owned by Viacom/CBS).

Univision’s prime market for international sales happens to be the United States, thanks in part to a 56 percent growth in the Hispanic population to 50 million residents. Univision’s research indicates the 18-49 market is growing thanks in large part to that Hispanic population. In the most recent upfront figures available, which reflect advertiser purchases for commercial time, Univision booked $1.8 billion in upfront ad sales in 2011.

CBC and CTV offer shows that can be seen here, but both networks offer original content exclusive to Canada but possibly syndicated to the USA later like the crime shows “Rookie Blue” and “Flashpoint”. Program sales internationally for CBC are handled through Content Television, while CTV’s program lineup consists of plenty of American fare like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “The Big Bang Theory”.

Head overseas to Europe and you may see the familiar logo of Thames Television, which became famous in this country through repeats of “The Benny Hill Show” in the 1970s and 1980s. It went out of business as a British network in 1992, but it still serves as a program producer through Fremantle Media. Or you may even see the true British Broadcasting Corporation on the air or its counterpart in this country, BBC America. BBC America syndicates the current version of “Doctor Who” to this country. BBC spends $3 billion per year on content, some of which is shown on BBC America and the rest can be seen on British TV stations.

With a tap of the computer keys, you can access other channels. Satellite TV services such as Hunan/Qinghai ($200 million in ad revenue in 2012) and Shenzhen in China offer original programming and knock-offs of such popular USA shows as “The Voice”. However, one of China’s shows, “Celebrity Splash”, was such a hit in that country that it was copied to the United States.

The possibilities are endless. Through “rundfunks”, or networks, you could watch German television programs.

Nippon Hoso Kyokai is a Japanese version of America’s Public Broadcasting Service, so you may be able to see serious programming in a nation loaded with satellite technology and escapist programs.

With Khalijia, you could watch Arabic movies or other live TV shows originating from Arab nations. Khalijia is part of the Rotana group of network channels, owned in part by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and mostly by Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Khalijia was founded in 1987 and operates one of the largest TV networks and ad sales operations in the region and owns the largest Arabic film library. It has also built the leading record label in the Middle East, managing many of the most popular artists in the region and controlling the biggest Arabic music catalog.

A look around the television world shows how much times have changed. We have gone from the Big Three to the Big Four in America (with the addition of Fox in 1986), cable channels have exploded from dozens to hundreds, and numerous worldwide satellite services have proliferated.

This easily means you could watch an Arabic network from your own American home and make yourself comfortable. Or you might tune in to an old movie from another country with subtitles.

The possibilities are endless in this new world of television. See for yourself just how much the global reach has affected us.

To be fair, they got better as they went along, with only the bloated disaster yarn, “Voyage of the Damned,” bucking that trend, although last year’s episode was barely even a Christmas tale, being the first half of “The End of Time” and all. More than anything else, though, what was most disappointing about Davies’ Christmas outings is how none of them ever became holiday traditions for me as a “Doctor Who” fan, which is pretty amazing since there were four to choose from. Indeed, the best Christmas tale the series had unveiled prior to this past Saturday night was Season One’s “The Unquiet Dead,” penned by Mark Gatiss, which of course wasn’t even a holiday special. As you’ll no doubt remember, “The Unquiet Dead” detailed the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and Rose (Billie Piper) meeting Charles Dickens (Simon Callow) right before Christmas in 1869 Cardiff, and here we are, well over five years later, returning to Dickens once again, and once again we discover that Dickens and “Doctor Who” make for a potent combination.

At its start, “A Christmas Carol” alarmingly resembles a Davies-era holiday adventure, with a giant spaceship plummeting through the atmosphere towards the ground below. Honestly, I was scared at this point – not over the potential fate of Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), but that I was being set up for “Voyage of the Damned II.” But the story quickly shifts gears into far more character driven territory, as we move onto the surface below and meet the cantankerous Kazran Sardick, played by the great Michael Gambon. Most people equate Gambon with Dumbledore these days, and with good reason, because it’s the role he’s been seen in more than any other. Myself? I first became acquainted with the man 20 years ago via Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover,” in which he played the thoroughly despicable Albert Spica alongside Helen Mirren. His performance in that film is so perfect, playing such an awful man, that to this day it’s the role I still associate him with the most, and it was cool to see him return to that shouting, obnoxious type of character. It’s interesting to note the decision to give neither Gambon nor the other high profile guest star, Katherine Jenkins, billing in the opening credits, while Gillan and Darvill – neither of whom have an enormous amount of screen time during the hour – are credited at the top.

By the time the Doctor (Matt Smith) made his entrance via a chimney, my interest was gaining, and the moment in which he realized exactly the route he needed to take to whip Sardick into shape and save the day (“A Christmas Carol!”), I was sold. And who better than the time travelling Doctor to take up the mantle of the Ghost of Christmas Past? So he plunders Sardick’s abusive childhood (in which Gambon plays Kazran’s father as well) and befriends the boy version (Laurence Belcher) of the man and together the two begin to explore the planet’s peculiar relationship to its fish. I’m not even going to get into the finer points of this, except to say that the whole fish thing (and then later, sharks) is a delightfully batty idea, which somehow brought an immense amount of magical holiday whimsy to the table.

Soon enough, the radiant opera singer Jenkins is released from her icy tomb, and Sardick’s life begins to be rewritten in a whole new way, as he and the Doctor spend one Christmas Eve after the next with the girl, never quite realizing what seems apparent to the viewer from early on – that the numeric countdown makes the case more of a casket than an icebox. By the time Sardick, and then later the Doctor, learn the truth, it’s too late – the Sardick in the future has been rewritten in an entirely different fashion. It seems that maybe the Doctor went too far with his plan. If only he’d just rewritten the childhood itself, perhaps the resolve wouldn’t have been so complicated, but therein lies much of the beauty of the story – just when you thought you’d figured it out, it took a left turn into even darker territory, and the situation became all the more complicated.

In the end, it took a sacrifice on Sardick’s behalf to fix the problem of the plummeting ship, and in turn a Christmas carol was needed to save the day, which gave the story its title. What I loved about “A Christmas Carol” was just how damn Christmassy it really was. Moffat had promised that it would be, and so did Matt Smith, but the proof needed to be on the screen, and it very much was. This is a “Doctor Who” Christmas special I can actually foresee myself pulling out every year and imbibing in. It was so good, and so full of holiday spirit, that the mind boggles as to what Moffat will whip up next Christmas. How can he possibly top this? But praise should not be heaped upon Moffat alone. Director Toby Haynes has quickly established himself as the ideal helmer for this series. With only three episodes under his belt (the others being the Season Five two-part finale), this guy has proven that he knows exactly the right tone to set for the material, his camera movement is positively cinematic, and the lighting of his episodes, which he must surely have some say in, is the bomb diggity. Over the past five years, few – if any – directors have made their mark on the series. Euros Lyn probably came the closest with several of his outings, but Haynes is the one to beat. It’s a shame he can’t direct every episode at this point.

BBC America also deserves some major kudos for not only seeing to it that here in the States we got the special mere hours after the Brits, but also for promoting the hell out of it, running a massive marathon that kicked off the midnight before the special, as well as making time for the “Doctor Who at the Proms” special on Christmas afternoon. BBC America is even currently running a competition exclusive to American viewers, in which you must build your own TARDIS. The winner will have a “Who” screening in their hometown that they can invite 50 people to, as well as a copy of every single “Doctor Who” story currently available on DVD. Find out more at WherestheTARDIS.com. These folks are treating “Doctor Who” with some major respect, and it appears to be paying off for them. One wonders how much bigger “Doctor Who” might currently be here in the States if Syfy had done the same throughout the Eccleston and Tennant years.

On a personal note, I’d also like to use this space to bitch about the fact that DIRECTV doesn’t offer BBC America in HD, as we recently bumped up the service to HD in our house, only to discover this sad fact. When I called to complain, the woman I talked to at DIRECTV asked me – and I’m not making this up – “What’s BBC?” Get with the times, folks at DIRECTV, and get me some BBC America in HD by this spring, or else…Oh yes, the sixth season of “Doctor Who” will be kicking off sometime this spring on BBC America, and there are rumblings at the moment which suggest that, like “A Christmas Carol,” we may just get the episodes on the same night they air in the U.K.

Bullz-Eye: When I first started watching “Survivors,” I saw you and I kept thinking, “I know this guy. I know I know this guy.”

Paterson Joseph: Oh, really? (Laughs)

BE: And then I suddenly realized, “It’s the Marquis!”

PJ: Ah, yes: the Marquis De Carabas! (Smiles) I loved “Neverwhere.” Absolutely loved it. And I wish…see, if the “Doctor Who” we have now had happened that same year, before we did “Neverwhere,” then “Neverwhere” would’ve worked like a dream, because it would’ve had all the money that it needed. Unfortunately, at that point, the only proper sci-fi that we had was “Blake’s 7,” which had not gone down well at all…and I suspect you know exactly what I mean by your expression.

BE: I don’t know what you’re talking about. (Laughs)

PJ: (Laughs) And, so, sci-fi was persona non grata until “Doctor Who,” but then “Doctor Who” happened, and…well, you know all this, but now fantasy drama, sci-fi, has got lots of money. It’s a damned shame. But Neil Gaiman, I think, is still trying to get a movie done here. He’s working on it.

BE: I’m ready for it. I’m ready for “Neverwhere,” “American Gods,” and anything else of his that they want to adapt.

PJ: Yeah, he’s great, man. Great.

BE: So what was your familiarity with the original version of “Survivors”?

PJ: I probably saw the opening sequence when I was about 10…and then was told to go to bed. (Laughs) So I had never really seen it, but I did remember the opening sequence when I saw it on YouTube. It’s quite striking. And then I watched the first three episodes when I got this job, and…I might as well have done in some ways, because it’s so vastly different.

BE: Yeah, Adrian (Hodges) was just saying about how he made a point of changing a key moment in the first episode, just to keep people on their toes.

PJ: That’s right!

BE: So how developed was the character of Greg Preston when you first came aboard? Did he evolve at all once you got into the role?

PJ: He was always…I mean, I described it in my interview when I read it as…he seems a bit like a guy who’s basically walking on water. Everything seems fine, he’s walking away, everything’s very serene. But underneath is a sea of shit. That’s how I described it to them in the interview, and I think that’s right. I think Adrian always had that in mind, that there was a world of pain under Greg’s easygoing persona. Even in his sort of dismissive “I don’t need people” persona, there was a world of pain and desperation, and you see that in…well, for you guys, it’s in Episode 7. It all comes out. Literally. You see everything.

BE: When he first appeared, my first thought was that he was kind of a survivalist.

PJ: Oh, definitely. The back story, really, would be of a guy who’s a systems analyst. A pretty boring job. An organizer, that’s what he is. But he decides that what he really wants to do is live off the land. He wants to find a way of living out there, so he gets kind of obsessed with it and does survival training and all of that stuff. And it sort of separates him a bit from his wife, because they’ve lived a very middle class kind of lifestyle. They’re doing very well, and here he is saying, “I want to downsize everything and make everything a bit more basic.” So it probably begins the rift he has with his wife. (Laughs) But, yeah, he’s ready. He’s emotionally ready, too, by the time the virus hits, because his life has gone to hell, anyway. So for him, it’s, “I’m going to be on my own, I don’t need people.”

BE: It was brought up during the panel that you already had an existing onscreen chemistry with one of your co-stars.

PJ: (Laughs) Yeah, that’s right: me and Julie (Graham). Although in some ways, you know, the character I played, being her ex-husband and such a pig, the chemistry was all me trying to cling on to her, and her sort of pushing me away, whereas in this case, I think it’s a meeting of equals. They both know the cost of life, they both had families, and…they’re sort of equals, really, and they have the same sort of mindset. It could be beautiful. I mean, I think Adrian’s got stuff in mind for the future for the two of them.

BE: I loved the moment of…I guess you’d call it a release, really, when she makes the comment to him after their accident about trading insurance information.

PJ: Yeah, I mean, because who’s laughed? Nobody’s laughed for weeks. This has been the hardest, horriblest thing that’s happened to anybody, and it’s great to have somebody just sort of prick his bubble, which I think is what almost first endears her to him, apart from the fact that she’s a beautiful woman, the fact that she’s willing to laugh at him. He can then look at himself. He needs that, as we all do. Isolation breeds a kind of insanity, and I think Greg’s determination to be on his own would’ve led him to be insane eventually, as anybody would, so he needs Abby.

BE: I don’t want you to spoil it any more than I want it to be spoiled for me, but…are you in it for the long haul? Or, at least, as long as they’ll have you?

PJ: Yeah, I mean, as long as he survives. Very traumatic things happen to Greg during the series, and whether he survives them is in the balance at some point.

(At this point, a waitress comes over to our table and sets down a plate containing olives and nuts.)

PJ: Did you order these?

BE: I did not.

PJ: Well, they’re here, so let’s eat! (Laughs)

BE: Fair enough!

PJ: So, anyway, yeah, as an actor, I want to fulfill everything that Greg has in potential, because I think that his story arc is very interesting, as sort of a reluctant leader. The reluctant part of the group at some point becoming a de facto leader…but extremely reluctantly…and then finding a way to deal with his relationship with the people in the group, some of whom he has a moral and ideological major difference with.

BE: You mentioned “Doctor Who” a minute ago. How much truth was there to the rumor that you were under consideration to play the Doctor?

PJ: (Hesitates for a very long time) Uh…a lot.

BE: Really? I wasn’t sure, because you never know about these things.

PJ: Yeah, a lot. But I can say no more.

BE: (Laughs) Oh, yeah?

PJ: (Laughs) No, seriously! You know what it’s like. I did the last two episodes of the first new incarnation, with Christopher Eccleston. They’re called the “Bad Wolf” episodes, and, y’know, we were up there on the space station. And I have to say, I’ve never been involved in anything so secret! I mean, scripts coming to me with my name embossed on every page…which, of course, I kept, because it’s amazing. But if you lose that in a taxi, they know who you are and they know where you live. (Laughs) So everything is very hush-hush, so I wouldn’t dream of giving away any of the “Doctor Who” secrets. I can only say that, yes, there was some truth in the rumor.

BE: I’m sure that would’ve thrilled you to no end.

PJ: I…I mean, I can’t think of any actor in the world who wouldn’t be completely flattered by that. Well, maybe not in the world, but certainly any British actor, because we know what “Doctor Who” means for us.

BE: One of the series that you’ve done that I wish had gotten more love in the States was “Jekyll.”

PJ: Oh, yeah!

BE: I loved it…in fact, I was here at the TCA tour when they pushed it…but it kind of flew under the radar.

PJ: Yeah, I thought it was very good. How they would’ve done a second series, I don’t know. It was such a complete story in some ways. But Jimmy Nesbitt was terrific…James Nesbitt, who played Jekyll, was fantastic. And it was very operatic in some ways. It was a massive theme, wasn’t it? I mean, what is within us all? As it was in the original Stevenson novel. And I think that we did a really good job on it. I think Steven Moffat, quite rightly, was given the “Doctor Who” mantle because of his work on that.

BE: I spoke with Nick Frost a few months ago, and we were talking about “Hyperdrive.” I haven’t seen it, but I’d heard about it, so I asked him how he thought it worked as a series, and he said that the big battle was writing vs. improvisation.

PJ: Hmmm. Interesting.

BE: I can’t recall his exact quote, but he more or less said that they’d been told they could improvise, but whenever they did it, it seemed to be frowned upon.

PJ: Right, because the writing staff…they wrote very tightly, and they’d been known as a very tightknit writing partnership. It’s like with “Peepshow,” which I’m sure you know, too. You seem pretty knowledgeable. (Laughs)

BE: Heard of it, but never seen it.

PJ: You’d love it. (Laughs) But it’s a writing duo, and it seems, when you see the guys doing their stuff, that they’re just improvising. But they’re not improvising. This is tightly scripted stuff. And it’s the same with the writers of “Hyperdrive”: they wanted it to be tightly scripted. But Nick’s skill, and the skill of a lot of the actors who were working on it, is improv. So I would agree with him that they were characters that were perfect for improvisation, because they’re a group that’s dysfunctional. There are moments where they don’t know what to say to each other…but if someone decides to play Tiddlywinks on the controls, and then the ship plunges? It would be a fantastic moment, but you could only do it if you rehearsed it for a long time, and I don’t think it was set up that way. It was set up as more of a straight sitcom. But I loved my character in it. I’d go in for a day, and I’d do all of my episodes. It was great fun.

BE: Do you have a favorite project that you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

PJ: Yeah, I think “Neverwhere,” as you mentioned.

BE: It’s funny now that I have it on DVD, but when I first heard about it, the only way I could see it was via someone’s PAL-to-VHS transfer. Not the most legitimate copy, but…

PJ: (Laughs) In terms of quality, it wasn’t shot on film. I think it was shot on video, and as I say, they didn’t spend a heck of a lot of money on special effects. But the actual story of the underground of London being people…the Blackfriars, the seven sisters, stations describing the people on them. (Sighs) It’s a shame. It’s a real shame. I don’t know how you’d ever do it in an American scenario. I don’t think your stations have the same ring to them.

BE: Yeah, I mean, maybe in New York, but…

PJ: I mean, for Knightsbridge, having a knight, and you have to cross this bridge to get through to the other side…? It’s just fantastic, creating a mythology with the underground map. And then the idea of the people who fall through the cracks in society, and once they’re there, that’s it, they never get to climb out of it, but they get to live this amazing underground life.

BE: It’s pretty mindblowing.

PJ: Yeah. And being a 200-year-old Marquis was pretty cool as well. (Laughs)

BE: When my wife and I went to London on our honeymoon, she was all but gasping at every stop. “That one’s from ‘Neverwhere,’ and that one’s from ‘Neverwhere,’ and…”

PJ: Yeah, I mean, conceptually, it’s unique, and it’s a damned shame that they didn’t pump more money into it and promote it a lot better.

BE: It would be nice to see that as a feature-length film.

PJ: Yeah. Unfortunately, I probably won’t be in it, so I’ll be bitterly jealous when Jamie Foxx takes on the mantle of the Marquis. (Laughs) But there you go. He’s a movie star, and I’m not.

BE: Well, appropriately, since I noticed it on your IMDb page, I just wanted to close by asking you about “In the Name of the Father.”

PJ: My first film, yeah!

BE: What do you remember about that experience?

PJ: I remember being in awe of Daniel (Day-Lewis). One of the greatest actors, certainly, of my generation, and a real craftsman. I loved the way he was on set, I loved the fact that he was aware of what was happened technically and around him but was still deeply immersed in his own craft. I’ve taken that lesson from him. He was very cool yet very centered. Yeah, I remember it fondly. I met my wife on it.

BE: Well, there you go.

PJ: And we’re still together! It’s a major episode in my life.

BE: Anything else going on for you at the moment, aside from “Survivors”?

PJ: Well, there are a couple of things I may do in the future. One of them’s a theatre thing, but the other is…they’re about to show it, but it’s about the Nigerian oil industry, with Naomi Harris, called “Blood and Oil.” I don’t know if it’s coming to BBC America, but it’s about us all and how implicated we are in it. So it’s not a comedy. It’s a deep and hard-hitting drama.

BE: Well, it’s been a pleasure talking to you, Paterson.

PJ: Thank you. Now go see your daughter! (Laughs)

Adrian Hodges: Wow, look at your recorder. I used to do a bit of journalism when I first started out, but my tape recorder was… (Holds his hands several inches apart, then laughs) That’s technology for you!

Bullz-Eye: Hey, mine’s shrunk by two or three times in size just in the past few years! (Laughs) Well, first off, I just want to say that I’m a big “Primeval” fan.

AH: Thank you! Cool!

BE: I was not familiar with the original 1970s version of “Survivors,” but I take it that you were at least somewhat of a fan of it.

AH: Yeah, I was, in that kind of general way we are when we’re kids and we watch TV. I was maybe 15 or 16, something like that, and I remember very clearly the impact of the first episode. If I’m honest, I’m hazy about some of the other, later episodes, but I do remember the extraordinary shock of the imagery of a husband dying, of things that were stand-out images in my head, and you carry that through the years. It was something I remembered very well, so it was really kind of great to be asked to have another look at it, you know?

BE: So they pitched it to you, then?

AH: They did. What happened was that I’d done “Primeval,” as you know, and I was very actively looking for a genre show that I could do in a slightly…well, in Britain, it’s in a later timeslot. Something that was a bit more…I don’t want to say more adult, because I think that “Primeval” is adult, but not a family show in the same way. However you define “family.” (Laughs) So “Survivors” was perfect. BBC had had this great success with reviving “Doctor Who,” so they were looking at some of their old shows and saying, “Well, that one wouldn’t work, but maybe this one would.” And “Survivors” was one they thought might work again, so they basically came to me and said, “What do you think?” And I thought it was great, not so much because of the set-up, not just because of the post-apocalyptic thing, which is fascinating, but it’s kind of not the point. The point is what happens afterwards, and that’s the fun of it for me as a writer, ‘cause you don’t often get a chance to write about people in the most extreme situation. So that’s why I wanted to do it.

BE: What was the profile of the original show? Was it semi-high? I ask because I’m a kind of an Anglophile, so I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of it.

AH: I don’t think it was, really. In terms of being a success at the time, it was, but it wasn’t, like, a thing like with “Doctor Who,” where you carry that memory with you, and so that when it was revived, there was this huge desire to like it. It was one of those shows where…people didn’t want to not like “Doctor Who.” They wanted to like it. It was a nice thing to happen, and it doesn’t often happen. There aren’t many shows that people are so fond of that they can go with that attitude to them. Usually, as you know, when you remake or re-imagine a show, you get the opposite reaction, which is that people don’t really want you to do it, because they liked it the first time. And, now, there’s been such an acceleration of remaking of formats. It’s a very dangerous area. I thought “Survivors” was a good one because it was a success at the time, which proved that it was a strong idea, but it wasn’t so well known that it would be something that everybody would be saying, “Oh, but you didn’t do that scene, you didn’t do it like this, you didn’t do that.” The truth is, it was the best part of 40 years ago, and it’s not a classic. It’s a very good show. The first episode of the original is a model of brilliant series set-up writing, and, indeed, much of the rest of it. But it is fundamentally a show which was well-liked but probably not as well-remembered as some. Not everything can be a classic, you know. That’s the way it is. I couldn’t believe that “Edge of Darkness” was being remade. It’s amazing, after all these years, to suddenly see it. So stuff comes around.

BE: So did you revisit that first episode of “Survivors” before you made this new version, or did you just kind of go from memory and dive into the new version?

AH: I watched the whole of the first series before I started writing, and I don’t usually do that with things where there’s existing material. I mean, in a completely different genre, I’ve just done a new version of a film called “The Go Between.” I’ve adapted the L.P. Hartley novel, and I didn’t look at the film of that, because I deliberately didn’t want to be influenced by it. I’ve only looked at it relatively recently, and it’s interesting to see what they did and what I did, and that’s fine. But with “Survivors,” I thought that it was…well, because I was basing some of my material on that original material, it seemed respectful and sensible to look at the way they’d done it, and also to remind myself what they’d done well and maybe what they hadn’t done quite so well, just to see how it would go. I always knew I was going to move away from that version quite quickly, but I wanted to make sure that whatever was good…I mean, I’m not crazy: if it’s good, I’m going to do it again. (Laughs)

BE: How did you go about selecting your cast? Was it a case of finding folks you’d worked with in the past, or was it more of a standard audition process?

AH: There’s a little bit of that. I mean, because of the way television works, as you know, there’s a certain pressure to use a certain profile of actor in certain roles. We knew we needed a leading lady that meant something to the British audience, and that’s, in truth, not that big a pool of people. It’s tough to find exactly the right person, particularly a woman who’s grown up, a woman with children who’s believable as an ordinary woman. So Julie (Graham) was actually pretty straightforward, because she was one of only one or two who really fit the bill…and, luckily, she wanted to do it! So at that point, we closed that. That was done. The other guys…it’s an interest process. Paterson (Joseph), funnily enough, was a very early choice, and then we went ‘round the houses looking at other people and then came all the way back to Paterson. And that sometimes happens, ‘cause it’s a bit like when you get something right first time, and you think, “Have I really got it right?” And you go and try prove it sixteen other different ways, but you still come back to the right answer, so that was Paterson. The others…it’s just a question of trying to find the right faces for the roles, the right talent and the right look, and that’s hopefully what we did.

(SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched the first episode of “Survivors” yet, then you’ll want to head off for a bit and pop back ‘round after you’ve had a chance to see it.)

BE: Freema Agyeman, I would think, would be considered high profile, especially here, given her time on “Doctor Who.”

AH: Well, Freema was…you’ve seen the first episode?

BE: I have, yes.

AH: As you know, we do something with Freema where…I was very keen that we make it clear to people that nobody was safe, and that was the thinking behind that. The decision to actually approach Freema wasn’t mine. That was the BBC who thought that would be a cool thing to do. I wanted to do something both to the original fan base and to the people watching the show now, and…the character that Freema plays – Jenny – was one of the ones who did survive in the original. I wanted to make sure that people didn’t think they knew where it was all going. In the original, Jenny goes to see the doctor, and the next morning, the doctor’s dead and Jenny goes off to London. But in this, the doctor survives and Jenny dies. So, y’know, it’s kind of funny, that. (Smiles)

BE: Speaking of that aspect, where nobody is safe, one of the things I liked best about the first episode is that with Julie’s character, Abby, you constantly believe that her son could very well be dead. That made it extremely gripping.

AH: I hope so.

BE: Obviously, that’s a thread that continues throughout the series…

AH: And he may well be dead. We’ll just have to see! It’s very important that you believe it, I think. And I think the thing there that I find so moving is tha,t if you knew he was dead, you could either commit suicide or begin living again. If you don’t know, you’re in a state of suspended animation. You are forced to hope. As I say more than once in the show, and it’s a phrase that other people have used, it’s not despair that kills you, it’s hope.

BE: You mentioned during the panel that you have high hopes for a third series of “Survivors.” Do you have an end game in mind? Not necessarily how long you’d want it to run, but whenever it does end, do you know how you’d like it to end?

AH: Yes, pretty much, I do. I have a very clear idea of where I want the characters to be…if I keep the same group of characters. And some of that depends on actors wanting to do it. I really would like to get three years of the show, so if I could do that, I would think that it’s up to me to give a satisfying ending. If we then found that people wanted more, then we’d regenerate it and keep doing different things. There’s plenty of options. It’s just that I think, for this group of characters, three years would be about right. At that point, you’d probably begin to see where they were going. And you want to settle them. I don’t like stories where you’re left in mid-air at the end of a season.

BE: If you can answer this without giving anything away for people who haven’t seen the show yet, which character would you say will surprise viewers the most insofar as how they change from the beginning to the end?

AH: I think that’s an easy one, in some ways. I think that Tom Price, played by Max Beasley, is a constant source of surprise even to himself.

BE: Now, he’s also someone who was pretty high profile…at least from my point of view, anyway, as I was a big “Hotel Babylon” fan. He seems like a pretty decent “get.”

AH: He was great, and he was the only actor we approached for that role. I should’ve mentioned that at the beginning. He was literally the only one that we saw, and he liked it, so that was easy.

BE: He’s certainly a complex character, at least based on the first episode, where you’re thinking, “Surely he’s going to change, given the current circumstances.” But, uh, no. Not really. (Laughs)

AH: No, not really. (Laughs) And he’s…I was kind of anxious to avoid the word “redemption,” but…there is a journey to go on, but it’s a complicated one, and it’s certainly one towards levels of feeling that he didn’t know he had. But whether that makes him a good man, I kind of doubt.

BE: Did any of the characters develop as a result of the people you cast in the roles? In other words, were they originally going a different way, but you realized it was easier to play to the actor a bit more?

AH: Yeah, there is a process that goes on there. I think one of the things about writing a series that’s such a wonderful challenge all the time is that you keep on developing the series right up to the point where you shoot a scene. There was a quality, for example, about Philip Rhys as Aal that I found…there’s a kind of sweetness about him, a softness, a gentleness, that’s very appealing, and as soon as he was in that role, Aal’s character became clearer and clearer to me. I mean, I had a starting point for Aal, but writing is sometimes a bit of a mystery. You don’t always know why you go somewhere with a character. It just seems like a good idea. And I think that the interaction between Philip and Aal was just so interesting that…with another actor, it might’ve gone in a different way, but Philip’s a really masculine man who, at the same time, seems soft and gentle as well. He found something in himself that I really liked. So Aal’s journey towards a kind of uneasy but paternal relationship with Najid is very touching, I think. That could’ve gone in a different way, but as soon as I saw Phil, it began to make sense.

BE: Are there any other series that you’d consider tackling a reboot of?

AH: I’d consider it, but…is there any one thing in particular? No. That’s tricky. There are books that I’d like to do that I don’t think I’ll ever get the chance to do. There’s a book called “The Magus,” by John Fowles, which is a massive obsession of mine, but the rights are held by United Artists or something, and it’s impossible to get them. Um…are there any other series? Let me think about that. (Considers the question) In this genre, possibly not, because there aren’t that many that have the ability to be of their time and also timeless, which I think is the appeal of “Survivors.” “Blake’s 7” is the other one that people often talk about redoing, and I know that somebody’s trying to do that. That seems to me to be…in a way, other shows have come along and done the same thing and done it well, and in a way, what would you be adding if you went back to “Blake’s 7”? You have to see where the changes are that make it interesting. So off the top of my head, no. But that isn’t to say that I wouldn’t if the right thing came along.

BE: I’ve never actually seen it, but there’s a British series I’ve read about on Wikipedia that sounds like it’s ripe for revival. Have you ever heard of “Timeslip”?

AH: Hmmm. Okay, I’m trying to place that one…

BE: It was a kid’s show, I believe.

AH: It’s funny, somebody mentioned another show to me today, and I’m struggling to remember that one as well. When I was kid, time travel was absolutely my #1 fun thing, and I still love it. There’s no time travel in “Survivors,” obviously, but there’s lot of it in “Primeval”…and even more of it in the next series! (Laughs) It’s just something so endlessly appealing about the notion of time and history being rearranged, you know? It’s just very attractive.

BE: Speaking of “Primeval,” I wanted to ask you a few questions about that series as well.

AH: Sure!

BE: I was actually here when you guys kickstarted the series at the TCA tour.

AH: Two years ago, yeah.

BE: It’s a great concept and great use of special effects.

AH: Oh, thank you.

BE: Now if I remember correctly…and I may not…the person who helped to design the show’s creatures actually based them in some way on scientific fact or, at least, scientific speculation.

AH: Well, what happened was…Tim (Haines) is really a scientist, anyway. That’s his background. He comes from a science background and a journalism background. Before he was a drama guy, he was a documentary guy, so the expertise that he brings to the show, apart from his storytelling ability, is in that area. And because he did “Walking with Dinosaurs,” he really made himself an expert in the special effects area. I think Tim is probably ahead of anybody in England in terms of appreciation of what special effects and CGI can do. I mean, he knows about animatronics, too, but those are slightly out of fashion because of cost, and CGI is obviously in, and Tim is brilliant with CGI. I’ll be the first to admit that that’s his thing…and it’s not mine! (Laughs) So we…yeah, obviously, we kind of muck about with the creatures and things, but their starting premise is always more or less true.

BE: To talk again about the whole nobody-is-safe thing, man, Douglas Henshall’s departure from the series…? Talk about startling!

AH: Yeah, well, it was meant to be! (Laughs) One of the things that can happen with a show like “Primeval” is that, because you’re dancing with death every week and being saved by the skin of your teeth, the audience begins to get lazy about thinking that there’s no real danger, that it won’t actually be real. And it was particularly kind of shocking to me that he would die at the end of a gun, because…it’s not a dinosaur in the end, it’s his crazy ex-wife with a gun. And that worked. That was always the ending I imagined for him. I always knew that Helen would be the end of him. It was not intended to be so early in that season, however, but unfortunately that was how it worked out with Douglas, because he wanted to go on and do different things, so we brought it in early in the series.

BE: How thrilled was he about his demise?

AH: He was great about it. He wanted the character to die. He didn’t want to just step through the anomaly and maybe reappear one day. He wanted it, so he was fully behind it and was okay with that. When he told us that he was going to move on, it was a big shock, because I thought that he was going to do the whole series, and it was very late in the day and we’d done a lot of storylining at that point, so we had to really reconsider everything pretty sharpish. But he was cool, and I said, “Look, you know, I think Cutter’s going to have to die, because it’s better from a storytelling point of view. I’ve got to give him that, because I can use that legacy in the drama for the rest of the series.” And he was absolutely on the side of that. He was cool about it.

BE: So what’s the status of the series? Is there going to be another series? And is there going to be a movie? Because I know there’s been talk about it for awhile.

AH: I hope there’ll be both! There will be another series, yeah. There’s going to be 13 more episodes, which we start shooting in March, so I’m right in the middle of that when I get home. We’ll start…I imagine they’ll start transmitting in the UK early next year, so it’s probably right about the same in America. It’s a longer gap than I would’ve wanted, but unfortunately there was a problem with ITV, and it took us awhile to get it sorted out. The film, I’m afraid, is just endless. It’s… (Sighs) Man, you know, my whole life is ticking by during these negotiations! (Laughs) There is still every intention of doing it, but we are still not completely finished with the deal with Warner Brothers, and the guy who’s writing it…oh, now it’s gone out of my head for a second, but…oh, Akiva Goldsman! He’s absolutely cool, he wants to do it, he’s very, very keen. We talk to him on a fairly regular basis. But it has been a living nightmare trying to get a deal sorted out. But I think we’re nearly there.

BE: When you do that, is that going to be moving on from the series, or will it be a different tale altogether?

AH: Yeah, it will be a different tale, but that’s going to be an interesting question, because what we have to do with Akiva when the deal is finally signed is sort out the parameters of where he can go with it and where we can’t let him go because it would ruin the franchise. So, clearly, we don’t expect him to follow the storyline of the TV show particularly, but we do expect him to make it possible for us to come back to the TV show intact. He can’t do something with the big-screen version that would make ours completely wrong, you know? So we have a three-month option with him at the outset whereby he comes to us with his story ideas, and Tim and I have the right to say “no” if that doesn’t fit with what we want to do with the show. I mean, I hope we won’t have to say “no,” but Akiva understands that, and he’s known that from the beginning, so it would be pretty silly if he came and said, “Oh, we’re going to do it completely differently.”

BE: A minute ago, you talked about a book you’d like to adapt. You actually adapted “Metroland” a few years ago.

AH: I did, yeah!

BE: How did that come about? Was it something you’d wanted to do?

AH: No, that was a weird one. It’s a long time ago now, so I’ll have to stop and think about it… (Laughs) …but the guy who produced it, Andrew Bendel, absolutely was crazy about the book. I think he really identified with it – he was kind of from that part of London – and he just kept showing it to me and kept saying, “Look, we should do this.” And I hadn’t been writing very long at that point, and I wasn’t sure of it, because it was a pretty hard book to adapt. It was in three separate parts, and it’s very hard to make that work in a movie. But he kept on saying, “Come on, come on, come on, there’s something good in it, we can do it,” so in the end, I did. And I’m glad I did.

BE: What’s the project you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love you thought it deserved?

AH: (Laughs) From the critics? Or from the audience?

BE: All of the above. Whichever one you think just deserved more appreciation.

AH: Let me think about that for just a minute. I’ve been very lucky, to tell you the truth. Things find their own level. But let me think about my CV for just a minute. (Considers the question) I did a two-part thriller a couple of years…no, more than that, more like seven or eight years ago…called “Heaven on Earth,” which probably hasn’t been seen here, but it’s about a young couple who end up in a religious community because she came from one of those communities. It’s not exactly Amish, but that kind of community, of which there are more in England than people realize. That was sort of a thriller, because basically the guy’s crazy when he goes in, and he takes it over. It did okay, but it never quite clicked, you know? And I kind of wish something had clicked for that show. I don’t know why it didn’t. So that’s one that I kind of regret not doing better. In America…not in Britain, where it won the BAFTA…I did a show called “Charles II: The Power and the Passion,” which was called “The Last King” over here for reasons that I still don’t know. That didn’t really click over here particularly, and that is a real shame. The reason that A&E showed was much shorter than the one that I wrote and the one that was seen here. It was an hour shorter than the one that was shown in the UK, and that was a horrible thing to do to it. They wanted to show it as one three-hour show, and…that was the worst of both worlds, because it was too long at three hours for anyone in their right mind to watch in one go, but it was too short for the story to make any sense, because it had lost an hour! That was a source of great upset to me, and to this day, I won’t watch the three-hour version. It’s…it’s crazy. So in this country, that would be a source of real regret, because it’s a show I’m hugely proud of. It was Joe Wright’s first big television series, and he went on to do “Pride and Predjudice” afterwards. And it’s brilliantly directed. So I remain very passionate about “Charles II” and I kind of regret that no one in America has seen the proper version.

BE: You should check with Acorn Media. They’re putting out a lot of the BBC material that Warner Brothers isn’t putting out.

AH: Oh, really? I’d like to think that they’d do it. I think that A&E obviously still owns the DVD rights, but it would be nice to think that it could be seen properly.

BE: Last question, just to bring it back to “Survivors.” I don’t know how American television you watch, but is there a point of comparison at all to one of our programs? Because to me, it certainly reminded me of “Jericho.”

AH: Yes, I did watch “Jericho,” and to me, that’s a compliment, because I think “Jericho” is a very good show, particularly in its first season. I was aware of “Jericho,” as I say, but…it’s not so much a similarity to that show in particular, although the premise is obviously not all that different. But there’s been such a kind of confident upsurge in really good American sci-fi, fantasy, or whatever you want to call it shows in the last few years. It was more a general appreciation on my part of the incredible surge of creativity in that area in recent years. There is no point of comparison between “Survivors” and “Battlestar Galactica,” but I was very inspired by “Battlestar” because it showed what you can do when you look at an older series in a fresh way. Just like “Primeval” is in no way like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” but was very inspired by it. So it’s that kind of thing. The great work that’s being done in America, the really good stuff, is very inspiring.

BE: Excellent. Well, I think that’ll do it, Adrian. Thank you very much for your time!

AH: It’s been a pleasure.

The Doctor (David Tennant), still traveling alone, lands on Mars in the year 2059. He trudges across the desolate, red landscape and bumps into a robot, called Gadget, that takes him to its leader on Bowie Base One, which is a clever enough joke – although one that’s a bit old hat for anyone who’s basked in the wonder that is “Life on Mars,” which coincidentally (or not) starred John Simm, who we’ll be seeing more of next week. Inside the base, the Time Lord meets the crew, led by Captain Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan), and quickly realizes who they are, and is as awestruck as any fanboy we’ve ever seen. Bowie Base One holds humanity’s first group of colonists on Mars, only the Doctor knows they all mysteriously died on the 21st of November, 2059. Guess what the date is? He quickly realizes that he should go, as this is an instance where he shouldn’t meddle with time. He sees it as a fixed point in the universe, and, as he explains later in the episode, “What happens here must always happen.” But events conspire to prevent his exit, and before long the crew begins succumbing to what ends up being a virus – it transforms them into hideous, zombie-type creatures, with cracked faces and the ability to use water as a deadly weapon. Only “Doctor Who” can find an inventive, frightening way to use water as a killer, and its ideas such as this that make the show the unique concept it is.

The episode efficiently speeds along: More people die, as more zombies are created. It’s in the water, you see, and even one drop has the power to affect mutation. The Doctor becomes closer to Adelaide, and he finds it increasingly difficult to leave the dire situation to the hands of fate. In one moment, after he’s nebulously explained to her the severity of the goings-on, she tells him a story from her childhood. The story takes place during the events of the Season Four two-part finale, when the Daleks had not only invaded Earth, but shifted it halfway across the universe as well. Adelaide was but a child, and her father told her to stay in her room, and then he left and she never saw either of her parents again. A Dalek appears in her window, hovering in the air like a ghostly harbinger of doom (because, after all, harbingers never seem to bring good news). The Dalek floats there, stares deep into the girl, and then simply goes away. She’s lived her whole life with the memory and believes that it was an indication that she was meant for something greater. The Doctor sees the story as further proof of his fixed point theory. She was indeed meant for something greater, and it’s her death on Mars that spurs on her granddaughter to carry on Adelaide’s vision, which in turn is of huge benefit to the human race. If Adelaide doesn’t die, none of this will happen. Finally, at about the 40-minute mark, in the midst of all hell breaking loose, the Doctor decides to take leave.

Once he does, the events on Bowie Base One shift into serious overdrive, and it all becomes a sort of mini-apocalypse, cross-cutting with the Doctor’s trek across the Martian landscape through the empty night. The further he moves, the darker the thoughts in his head become. Words he has spoken in the past come back to haunt him – stuff about the Time Lords and how he is the last one of his race. The words at one time had a sense of finality, but faced with an improbable predicament, and mixed with knowledge that the end is coming for the Tenth Doctor, he begins seeing them in a completely different light. He heads back to Bowie Base One to save the day.

The Doctor: “There are laws – there are laws of time. And once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves? Me! It’s taken me all these years to realize the laws of time are mine, and they will obey me!”

Oh, man. There’s no way to accurately describe the way I felt while hearing Tennant deliver that speech for the first time. It was chilling, exciting, scary, hopeful, and dark all at the same moment. He’s become so accustomed to being the hero that he cannot let it, or his life, go. The Doctor (or rather Russell T. Davies and Phil Ford) rewrites everything he thought he knew in an instant. He has gone over the bend, and all has become madness. The show has most certainly flirted with his darker sides in the past, but he’s most always kept himself morally in check. Not so here. He’s playing God, and it’s not going to end well.

And it doesn’t. The Doctor uses the remote controlled Gadget to enter the TARDIS, and materialize it in the base. It’s something of a grand maneuver, because all too often when we watch “Doctor Who” we wish he’d just grab everyone, stick them in the TARDIS and go, and here he grants our wish by doing just that. Bowie Base One explodes behind them. The TARDIS materializes on Earth on the same day and time, in front of Adelaide’s home. She is aghast, as she had, in a very short amount of time, latched on to the idea that her death was imminent, and that she was dying for something greater, but now she’s very much alive and the threat is gone, and maybe the future as well. The Doctor beams. He’s gone against everything he believed in, and it seemingly worked. Adelaide is a smart woman, and even she realizes that what’s happened in just plain wrong. He doesn’t care. The timeline, in his mind, will work itself out regardless, and her granddaughter will find inspiration in another way. He says he’s thought of himself as a survivor (of the Time War) for all these years, but now he realizes that he was the victor, the “Time Lord Victorious.” The Tenth Doctor is often pompous, but there’s something about this particular casual disregard that’s more than a little unsettling. He wasn’t trying to save her life as much as he was trying to prove he could stave off his own death. Adelaide views him with disgust. She walks away, enters her home, and, right after the soundtrack subtly knocks four times, the sound of her gun goes off. She sacrifices herself for the greater good, which is something he’ll likely have to do shortly. The timeline is probably restored, but he still fucked things up royally, and maybe, with her blood on his hands, he realizes it. In the final moments, a vision of an Ood appears to him.

The Doctor: “I’ve gone too far. Is this it? My death? Is it time?”

The vision fades. He goes into the TARDIS, stands in front of the console as the Cloister Bell – another harbinger of doom – rings. He pulls the dematerialization lever and faintly says, “No.”

There’s so much to love about “The Waters of Mars.” It’s a deceptive piece, because for so much of the running time it feels like business as usual. We’ve seen this before, in fare such as “The Impossible Planet” and “42,” right? But the rug is so thoroughly pulled out from under in the last 20 minutes, as well as the definition of what Russell T. Davies’ vision of this series is about, that it becomes breathtaking, and future viewings of it will alleviate any kind of “been there, done that” vibe that may have been present on the first viewing. The implications of the third act inform everything that came before, and make the entire thing feel truly “special” (since this is a “special”). Lindsay Duncan fills the companion role with great ease and strength, and gives us something we’ve never seen before, which is the suicide of the Doctor’s closest confidant. That’s just freakin’ groundbreaking for this show.

The design of the hour is gorgeous, and it echoes “Silent Running,” which is punctuated by Gadget, who’s clearly a nod to Huey, Dewey and/or Louie, and, for the record, didn’t bother me in the slightest; in fact, I quite enjoyed the gimmick and the various ways it was used throughout. The monsters are completely effective, as are the various transformations throughout, each of which is given a different spin, which is no small triumph for a piece like this. The moment with the Dalek is a thing of beauty, and goes to show how powerful a concept the Daleks can be, when used in precisely the right way. They’ve never been used quite like this before, and probably never will be again – enjoy it while it’s there.

But the hour mostly belongs to Tennant. As the central character, he’s grasping at life, but it almost feels like, as an actor, he doesn’t want to let the role go. He is taking the Doctor into territories that the Doctor, onscreen, has never been taken over the course of 30 seasons! With any luck, this is just the tip of the iceberg, and I hope I’m back here next week with an equally enthusiastic review for “The End of Time: Part One.”

Lastly, allow me to talk about myself for a few sentences. I’ve been blogging the new series diligently since it first started. I rather haphazardly covered Season One at my own blog, The Rued Morgue. Then I covered the next three seasons far more thoroughly at The House Next Door, which is a fantastic blog, and I can only hope they’ll miss me the same way I’ll miss them (although I believe my position has already been filled), because this show is my TV passion. I decided to move my reviews over here to Premium Hollywood, because I do most of my writing here and at Bullz-Eye these days, so it seemed the sensible thing to do. Hopefully, if you’ve read this far, you’ll continue reading my “Who” breakdowns, which for the time being will only last three weeks. But come this spring, we’re going to get a whole new Doctor, and maybe even a whole new spin on “Who.” I’ll be here – hopefully you will, too.
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NEXT WEEK: “The End of Time: Part One.” At the time of writing, I only know that there will be Ood and there will be the Master. There’ll probably be Bernard Cribbins’ Wilf and Catherine Tate’s Donna as well. Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.

Classic Who DVD Recommendation of the Week: Well, with all the anticipation surrounding the imminent departure of Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, it seems unlikely that anyone will care about checking out some old “Who” at the present. Nevertheless, this is a staple of my “Who” reviews, so I’m recommending “The Deadly Assassin,” starring Tom Baker. It may just come in handy in the coming weeks.

(Thanks, as always, to Sonic Biro for the screencaps.)