Via Paul Cornell comes news that Doctor Who’s second series has gathered three nominations in the Hugo Awards, which celebrate the best in science fiction and fantasy, in the ‘dramatic presentation (short form)’ (i.e., television) category.
The episodes that have been nominated are:
- School Reunion by Toby Whithouse, which saw former companion Sarah Jane Smith reunited with the Doctor, causing Rose to question whether her time travelling would one day come to an end;
- The Girl in the Fireplace by Steven Moffatt, with the Doctor chasing a cadre of clockwork robots through various time zones in pre-revolutionary France in order to save Madame de Pompadour from having her brain cut out and inserted into the central computer of a stricken spaceship; and
- the season finale double-bill of Army of Ghosts and Doomsday by Russell T Davies, with alternate universe Cybermen taking over the Earth, hordes of Daleks in the skies above Canary Wharf, and leaving Rose and her family stranded in a parallel world with no chance of ever returning.
The episodes are up against an episode of Battlestar Galactica, Downloaded, and one from Stargate SG-1, 200.
Of the three British nominees in this category, I’ll personally be rooting for The Girl in the Fireplace, as I think it’s by far the most imaginative of last series’ episodes. If it does, it’ll be two years on the trot not only for Who, but for Moffatt as a writer: last year, he won for the World War II double-parter, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, beating both Paul Cornell’s Father’s Day and Robert Shearman’s Dalek.
The awards will be announced as part of WorldCon 2007, to be held in Japan later this year.
