Awards in the Whoniverse:
The good news:
Steven Moffat has tonight been awarded the British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) for Best Writer, for the script of his 2007 Doctor Who episode "Blink". The Award was presented at the annual BAFTA Craft Awards ceremony, which honours those who work behind-the-scenes in the industry. Moffat won the award ahead of Jimmy McGovern (for "The Street"), Tony Marchant (for "The Mark of Cain") and Heidi Thomas (for "Cranford"). Full details can be found on the BAFTA website.
One of the highest accolades available to a British scriptwriter, it is Moffat's second BAFTA Award in recent weeks, having also won the BAFTA Cymru (Welsh BAFTAs) scriptwriting category, again for "Blink".
"Blink" has been winning awards all over the place, and deservedly so. A
Doctor Who tale where the action does
not follow the Doctor, it has an interesting set of villians, a different kind of heroine, and lots of fun with "easter eggs." On the DVD, there's even an easter egg about the "easter egg."
Now, however, for the bad news:
An investigation by the British broadcasting industry regulator OfCom has found that Doctor Who star Catherine Tate was unfairly denied the People's Choice Award at the 2005 British Comedy Awards, screened on the ITV network. The recipient of the award was to have been decided by a telephone vote from viewers.
BBC News reports that even though Tate won the most votes in the category, the prize was given to presenting duo Ant and Dec. This was done because pop star Robbie Williams had agreed to attend the ceremony and present a prize, but would only do so if it could be for Ant and Dec. As they had not won any of the jury-decided categories, it was decided that they should win the audience award to ensure Williams's attendance.
The Times quotes a spokesman for Tate as saying that the actress was an "innocent bystander" in the matter, and had no desire to comment. Ant and Dec have said that they will return their award, which will presumably now be given to Tate.
Our esteemed BK will, of course, find nothing unsurprising about this turn of events. Personally, I would understand if the award had been given to Ant and Ben, but who the honk are Ant and Dec? For that matter, who the honk is Robbie Williams? And is he so big in England, or anywhere, that the British Comedy Awards would risk their credibility so he could honk them over? I am boggled.
And that is the end of our news from the Whoniverse.