I am all for teaser campaigns.
Especially for my favourite TV shows.
They build interest in the upcoming season, are a treat for long time fans wanting a window into what lies ahead for their favourite character/s, and can be a whole world of fun in themselves.
If they’re done properly of course.
Alas not all of them are.
Some campaigns, as with so many things in life, are better than others, and this is true of Dr Who season 7’s attempts to engender excitement and hype about the first seven episodes which start tonight UK time, and on September 8 in Australia (although the ABC will have the episodes on iView within minutes of the credits rolling on the BBC).
For instance this prequel to the first episode is gripping, sparsely but elegantly scripted, and stylishly realised, and makes me want to watch the first episode even more than I already do.
However these five 1 1/2 minute mini-episodes (see below), cutely titled “Pond Life”, which are supposed to reacquaint us with Dr Who (Matt Smith is, I have to admit, in fine form at least) and his current companions, Amy and Rory Pond, go nowhere fast.
I think the writer is trying to instill a sense of building crisis, of lives spiraling out of control which only the Doctor naturally can restore to balance.
But it is only in episode five that the mini-series sheds belatedly sheds its almost comic airs and brings into play something approaching drama.
It is though too little, too poorly realised, too late and a stands, for me at least, as a failed attempt to draw me back into a world I am happy to inhabit anyway.
Better luck next time hey chaps?