h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Was this an intentional nod to DNA, or just a freaky accident, and what's with Saxon?

A new Master/Treams in the wings.

Anglo-Saxon - Angleland - England?

Being in Spain I don't get to watch Dr Who so I can't answer the first two. But the name England does derive from the Angles. Though the Scots still call us Saxons (Sassenachs).

Noggin

I assumed it was a deliberate nod, however, the programme occupies a 45 minute slot, take away the credits etc, would that give you roughly 42 minutes? Perhaps they wanted to play out the programme in real time?

Traveller in Time watching the clock
"Than they have a terrible inaccurate clock, sometimes it was ahead and sometimes it was behind on the real play time.

< F79498?thread=612257&latest=1 > 'Doctor Who' on the Doctor Who group "

Did anyone think that the plot sounded like a bit of a rip-off from the recent film, Sunshine? From what I heard about the film they sounded very similar, although I suppose the episode was probably written before the film came out.

Good episode though!

I thought that from the summary, but it turned out to be only a superficial similarity.
It wasn't a bad episode, and gave David Tennant lots of opportunities to be manic and shouty. He seems to enjoy that.

A definite nod to Douglas Adams, who was after all a Doctor Who script-writer. There are two DNA references: 42, the title of the episode, and a crew trapped on a space-ship which is going to crash into the sun. Admittedly it wasn't a black ship, but it is near enough.

The Angles and the Saxons are different groups, who both ended up in England in large numbers. Saxony is a bit of north Germany next to Denmark. Why its the name of the baddy this series, well I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Actually, scratch that, the Saxons' ancestral homeland is northern Germany, but modern Saxony is in a different place .

i'm sorry...wasn't Angle Land the name given to that little island off the north coast of fr*nce by the Romans because it was so....
..well...angular ?

eg: East Anglia, Anglesey

alec.

Nah, the Angles are another lot of Germans who made the trip here.

'Tonight Matthew, I am going to be Jack Bauer.'

A nod of the head to Adams, I'm sure, but also to the filming in real time. Which they cheated badly on but basically still fun.

And somebody has already pointed out that in true RTD fashion 'Mister Saxon' is a pretty unsubtle anagram.

It's a tad subtler than the Logopolis anagram! Though not much.

Arg! Keeper of Traken anagram, not Logopolis.

Yes, I've seen it stated that Mister Saxon is an anagram of Master No Sax, which means that we will see the return of The Master, the Doctor's ancient nemesis, but this time without the saxophone.

Ouch, that won't work, because where's the I gone?

Well, try Master no Six and it works as an anagram...

Which is weird, cos I can only get as far as four previous ones.

Were there five other masters? I seem to remember that in the Curse of the Fatal Death, the master was killed a number of times. Or was it just condemned to a century in the sludge pools a number of times?

Well, lets see;

Roger Delgado
Whoever played the charred and walking corpse after Delgado died
Anthony Ainley
Eric Stolz

And I suppose Jonathon Price in order to make the pun work. Though I doubt RTD is about to claim 'Curse...' as canon.