Since the BBC airs the Series 4 finale of Doctor Who today, this is the perfect opportunity to watch this live performance by Orbital of their version of the Doctor Who theme (pay special attention to who goes crowd-surfing at the end):

Orbital was a British electronica band, and this was their final live show. It was at the annual festival in Glastonbury, England in 2004. The crowd, I think it’s safe to say, seems to have appreciated it. The theme itself was composed in 1963 by Ron Grainer.

It’s a tribute to both the elegant simplicity of the piece and the BBC’s awareness of the nostalgia-mindedness of the show’s fanbase that the theme has remained essentially unchanged over the equivalent of 30 seasons. When I recently watched the first episode, “An Unearthly Child”, which aired for the first time on 23 November 1963, it was fun to see how the visual and audio cues that set the mood and set the story in motion are the same.

I’m fairly excited to see tonight how the faux(?)-regeneration thing will work itself out. I have heard rumors that we may find out that Donna is more than who she seems to be.

Tags: Doctor Who, Music Post-off