Christian Cawley's Blog, page 104

Peter Davison on Doctor Who’s Immortality

Jeremy Remy is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

In The War Games the Doctor claims his people can live “practically forever, barring accidents.” Even the regeneration limit can’t keep a good Time Lord down, as proved by The Time of the Doctor. So, the Doctor may be immortal, but how long will he continue to grace our screens? According to Peter Davison: forever.

In an interview with BANG Showbiz, Peter Davison said he thinks Doctor Who “…will go on fairly indefinitely.” He notes the fans are what keep the series alive, and now that the people heading up the program are fans, there’s no reason to believe the show is headed toward a repeat of the Wilderness years.

Davison is quick to point out, however, that the success of Doctor Who comes down to regular re-invention. “Although I was extremely disappointed when it was taken off air,” he said, “there’s no doubt it came back as a hugely prestigious program….” He sees the work of Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat as a clear effort toward continual re-invention, but he recognizes that the potential for future stagnation or a decline in quality could lead to the possibility of another hiatus:

“Although I was extremely disappointed when it was taken off air there’s no doubt that when it came back that it came back as a hugely prestigious programme which is something it probably wouldn’t have done if it had been on the air all that time.”

What do you think? Is Moffat re-inventing the show in a way that promotes its success? Is Doctor Who here to stay for the foreseeable future? What do you think needs re-inventing as Doctor Who moves into its second decade since returning to our screens?

The post Peter Davison on Doctor Who’s Immortality appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Colin Baker Guest Stars in Star Trek Continues

Jonathan Appleton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Sixth Doctor Colin Baker has made a special guest appearance in the latest episode of fan-created web series Star Trek Continues, and it’s available to view right now!

An unofficial continuation of the legendary original Star Trek, the series is a remarkably faithful recreation of the classic show, right down to every door-swish sound effect. The series may be produced on a non-profit basis by fans but it’s certainly no filmed-in-the-garage effort, and has attracted widespread praise for reproducing that Star Trek feel. Some notable sci-fi names have been involved in the four episodes filmed to date, including Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Original series writer and producer John DF Black has a script consultant credit on this latest episode.

Colin is the principal guest star in The White Iris, a psychological tale which sees Viv Mignogna’s Captain Kirk plagued by ghostly visions of some of the (many) women from his past. He plays the Minister from the planet Calsis, a world under threat from its neighbour which seeks Federation help to install new defences, and gets to wear one of those classic Star Trek robes that alien dignitaries always seemed to wear.

Old Sixie has a long pedigree when it comes to fan-produced films, going right back to 1992’s Summoned by Shadows, the first of BBV’s video productions which served up Doctor Who-related content at a time when fans were starved of their favourite programme. He starred then as the Stranger alongside Nicola Bryant’s ‘Miss Brown’ in adventures closely modelled on Doctor Who but sufficiently different to keep BBC lawyers at bay.

It’s always welcome to see Colin in action, of course, and Star Trek Continues is well worth a look to appreciate the care and effort that clearly goes in to the production, as well as offering a gripping story. Have any Doctor Who fan productions come this close to recreating the original? Let us know what you think!

(With thanks to Rick)

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Bob Baker’s Sky Adaptation Released in Hardback

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Bob Baker, co-creator of K9, has released a brand new novelisation of his hit TV series, Sky.

The 192-page book was published by Fantom earlier this year, and is based on the children’s TV show created by Baker and his frequent writing partner, Dave Martin.

“The Juganet is a circle. The circle is a machine. The machine is a cross-over point. The point is a paramagnetic intersection. That is where I must be. Not here…”

Eerie, unsettling and a benchmark production for children’s television in the 1970s, Sky was created by Doctor Who stalwarts Bob Baker and Dave Martin as one of the run of outstanding children’s dramas HTV produced in that decade.

Sky is a mixture of ecological fable, science fantasy and good, old-fashioned peril. An ethereal boy called Sky materialises on an Earth that is as unprepared for him as he is for it. He soon realises that he’s been brought to the wrong time and must seek out the Juganet to return to his correct place in reality. With the help of tearaway Arby Venner, his sister June and friend Roy he must race against time as Nature rejects Sky and the Earth’s immune system creates the evil Goodchild, who is out to stop him at all costs…

Building on the success of previous releases featuring tales from Children’s Television past, this is the first brand new novelisation from Fantom Publishing.

As well as introducing the world to K9 in The Invisible Enemy, Baker and Martin wrote The Claws of Axos, The Mutants, The Sontaran Experiment, Underworld, and The Armageddon Factor – as well as being responsible for scripting Sarah Jane’s last regular appearance in The Hand of Fear, and the 10th anniversary special serial, The Three Doctors. Baker then went on to write Nightmare of Eden on his own.

Sky, based on the series starring Marc Harrison, Stuart Lock and Cherrald Butterfield, is available now from Fantom for £14.99, or from Amazon UK for £13.48.

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Retrospective: BBC Books’ Casualties of War

Simon Danes is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

I originally read the Eighth Doctor books on the train commute from Bedford to St Albans (isn’t that interesting?); they’re uneven, but this is one of the best.

Actually – and this is probably a heresy – I prefer the BBC’s original novels to the Virgin ones (NDWAs and the Missing Adventures). I know the Virgin books have a passionate following, especially the New Adventures. While there were exceptions, I didn’t wholly like them; the tone often seemed to veer too far from the TV series and they just didn’t feel like Doctor Who. Their tagline, ‘Stories too broad and too deep for the small screen’, was translated by SFX Magazine as ‘potty talk and shagging’: reductive, but not wholly untrue. They could also be more interested in the series’ continuity than in just telling good stories; generally, the BBC novels avoided this temptation.

Seems to me, anyway, that two comments shouldn’t be forgotten when writing Who in any medium: Barry Letts’ saying that ‘the Doctor is a highly moral man’, and RTD’s insistence that Doctor Who is an optimistic series. These two rules, if you can call them that, were often broken by the Virgin novels (and sometimes, though less often, by the BBC ones): the Doctor was allowed to behave in an unethical way, and the series’ optimistic and positive tone was simply drowned out by the level of violence. Of course, people do get hurt and they do get killed in the TV series, but the violence isn’t dwelt on; the emphasis is on the defeat of evil, not on the violence that evil inflicts. Some of the violence in the Virgin books was almost ghoulish; the cruelty was concentrated on to such an extent that it verged on the sadistic. (This is also why I don’t like Torchwood; its utilitarian ethic – that you can justify anything if you get a good outcome – wasn’t the Doctor’s morality at all, and the violence was sometimes no more than revolting, especially when it was directed against children.)

So, climbing off the hobby horse and relinquishing my prissy moral high ground, what about Casualties of War, first published in 2000?

It’s very well written.

Emmerson’s prose style is terse and to the point; lots of writers stick in stuff that’s so badly written it just jolts you out of the story. No such jolts in this book. The backdrop of the First World War is evoked well; it doesn’t deal with the fighting as such: the setting is a hospital for soldiers traumatised by shell-shock, and the local village. The depiction of severe mental illness (we’d probably call it PTSD today) is well handled; Emmerson’s clearly done his research thoroughly. As someone with mental health problems, I particularly appreciated the sensitivity of his approach. Mental illness isn’t a defect of character; it’s real, it’s ghastly, and Emmerson shows it to be just that.

But this is Doctor Who, so there are other nasty goings-on…

The dead are walking. Soldiers killed on the front are stalking through the countryside at night, semi-conscious, lashing out in their agony against the locals’ livestock, and then against the locals themselves. No-one knows what to make of it, until the Man from the Ministry arrives. And he calls himself – you’ve guessed it – the Doctor.

Emmerson perfectly captures McGann’s portrayal: the Doctor is quirky, vibrant, attractive, generous and kind. You can easily imagine Paul playing this story. The rest of the cast are well-realised, too. There aren’t a huge number of them: the village bobby, the tough farmer and his wife, and the villainous Dr Banham, whose experiments in new forms of therapy unleash things he hadn’t bargained for. Pity the Doctor’s going solo in this book; Fitz is away, which is a shame as he’s one of the best characters in the 8DAs. (If you haven’t read them, he’s a bit like Rory, but grungier).

All good stuff, then. A simple, straightforward narrative; a strong story; a disturbing concept that nevertheless stays true to the limits of horror for Doctor Who. I don’t want to give too much away because it’ll spoil your enjoyment when you read it. Casualties of War would work well on TV, though it couldn’t get the Human Nature treatment as there are too many (unintentional) similarities to that story: the Great War setting, and also the fact that we have another nurse who falls in love with the Doctor. (The non-romance is well drawn by Emmerson, too.) It’d be great if Big Finish could have a go at it, though.

Highly recommended – even though the ending doesn’t quite work.  And the 8DAs went up a blind alley with things constantly going pear-shaped with the Tardis; here, it’s a featureless blue box and is consequently about as interesting.

But it’s still a belter of a novel.

Coming soon: my review of the Colin Baker novel, Grave Matter. Bet you can’t wait!

PS:  Totally irrelevant, but I’m currently watching the 1983 BBC’s dramatization of Dombey and Son on YouTube, starring Julian Glover, Roger Milner, Emrys James and Jenny McCraken – so that’s Scaroth, Annica, Aukon and Clare Daly all in one show. The baddie is played by one Paul Darrow. The producer and script editor? Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks, of course. Do not miss!

The post Retrospective: BBC Books’ Casualties of War appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who New Adventures, Video Games and East of Heysham on the PodKast

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Wow. After last week’s “low-key” podKast with Christian Cawley and James McLean, this week we bring in Gareth Kavanagh and the conversation swings and turns from video games and New Adventures to other podcasts, past podKasts, and Philip Martin’s upcoming East of Heysham, which Gareth is producing.

All in all this is an eclectic podKast, which also includes an updated on Vworp Vworp! issue 3.

Kasterborous PodKast Series 5 Episode 17 Shownotes

Gareth on the Diddlydum podcast
The Doctor and the Dalek
Ka-Pow in Stockton with Sylvester McCoy, Terry Molloy and John Levene (also: Dean Wilkinson)
Kasterborous Magazine #2
Legacy by Gary Russell and Deceit by Peter Darvill-Evans
Emperor of the Daleks
Michael Biehn in Alien 5
The Art of Doctor Who
Last week’s podKast and comments

Mild-mannered Brian Terranova swearing on the podKast


Twelve most important Big Finish Doctor Who stories
Big Finish main range to continue to 2020
Big Finish claim entire category at Scribe Awards
East of Heysham
Recommendations: Doctor Who: Legacy , The Monster of Peladon, Christopher Eccleston writes about father’s dementia, One Foot in the Grave Season 6, Safe House starring Christopher Eccleston, Terror of the Autons , Are You Being Served/Allo Allo/Just Good Friends on BBC TV, John Nathan-Turner interviewed in Doctor Who Magazine #487, Drama and Delight: The Life of Verity Lambert, Game of Thrones Series 5 Episode 8.

PodKast theme tune by Russell Hugo.

Listen to the PodKast

There are several ways to listen. In addition to the usual player above, we’re pleased to announce that you can also stream the podKast using Stitcher, an award-winning, free mobile app available for Android and iPhone/iPad. This pretty much means that you can listen to us anywhere without downloading – pretty neat, we think you’ll agree! (Note that it can take a few hours after a new podKast is published to “catch up”.)

Stitcher

Audioboom

What’s more, you can now listen and subscribe to the podKast via our Audioboom channel (formerly Audioboo)! Head to https://audioboom.com/channel/doctorwhopodkast and click play to start listening. You can also comment and record your own boos in response to our discussions! Meanwhile you can use the player below to listen through Audioboom:

You haven’t clicked play yet?! What are you waiting for? As well as our new Stitcher and Audioboo presence you can also use one of these amazingly convenient ways to download and enjoy this week’s podKast.

Use the player in the top right of the Kasterborous home page, or visit the podKast menu link.
Listen with the “pop out” player above, which also allows you to download the podKast to your computer.
You can also take advantage of the RSS feed to subscribe to the podKast for your media player, and even find us on iTunes, where your reviews will help the show considerably.

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Doctor Who Festival Tickets Go On Sale Friday June 5th!

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Details have been announced of the official Doctor Who Festival, which will take place at ExCeL, London, on the 13th, 14th and 15th November 2015. The Doctor Who Festival will be attended by the current Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, and series show runner Steven Moffat and will offer fans an exclusive glimpse into how the inimitable world of Doctor Who is created.

Get inside the adventure; find out how to develop the latest hide-behind-the-sofa monster and explore the series 8 & 9 Doctor Who sets and props! Fans of all ages will be able to discover the inspiration behind the Doctor’s recent adversaries, the imagination required to create whole new worlds and the ingenuity that goes into designing and making the beautiful backdrops that give Doctor Who its unique look.

Visitors will be given access to the Festival which will include an exciting array of backstage areas including theatre shows where they can come up close and personal with key talent, Interactive Workshops where you can learn the television production process as well as the ultimate Doctor Who shopping village for the collectors merchandise and photo opportunities. This Festival is a must-attend event for die-hard Doctor Who fans, with many, many more exciting announcements to come!

Peter Capaldi says, “If having the world’s favourite Time Lord back on screen every week isn’t enough for you (and it’s not for me) then The Doctor Who Festival in London is the place to be. I’ll be heading there in November to join the fun and if it’s anything like the 50th anniversary event, then prepare yourself for total Time Lord mania.”

Steven Moffat added, “I can’t believe we’re going to give away our secrets! This is the closest you could possibly get to finding out what happens on set and how this magical show is put together.”

 

DAY TICKET PRICES

Standard ticket: £65
Standard child ticket: £30
Standard family ticket: £165
TARDIS ticket: £110
TARDIS child ticket: £50
TARDIS family ticket: £285

 

Ø THEATRE SHOWS – exclusive access to the writers and cast from the series as they talk about how to make an idea become reality on a series as big and bold as Doctor Who.

Ø ON SET PHOTO–photo opportunities on one of the current filming sets.

Ø WARDROBE DEPARTMENT – an exhibition of costumes and props from the series.

Ø COSPLAYERS SHOWCASE – where fans can showcase their impressive Doctor Who-themed outfits.

Ø THE FAN CHALLENGE! –Fans young and old can battle it out in the ultimate test of Doctor Who knowledge in order to be crowned the ultimate fan.

Ø DRAMA SCHOOL – the techniques and secrets that the cast learn when filming Doctor Who.

Ø OFFICIAL MERCHANDISE – the ultimate fan shopping experience.

Ø PRODUCTION VILLAGE – a chance for fans to explore a day in the life of the production team and crew.

Ø PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES – an opportunity for fans to purchase an individual photograph with the current cast members appearing.

The ticket price includes day entry to the Festival, access to three theatre shows, lanyard, floor planner and all of the above. TARDIS tickets to include the above plus brochure, lounge access, front block theatre show seats and a Doctor Who goody bag! Tickets, further information and monthly newsletters are available from www.doctorwhofestival.com

The post Doctor Who Festival Tickets Go On Sale Friday June 5th! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Starfury Adds Guests to The Time of the Doctor Convention

Josh Maxton is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

“Look, it’s perfectly understandable. I go zooming around space and time, saving planets, fighting monsters and being well, let’s be honest, pretty sort of marvelous, so naturally now and then people notice me. Start up their little groups.”

-The Fifth Doctor, from Time Crash (2007 Children in Need Special)

We all love Doctor Who. Why else would this page exist? The best bit is when fans of the show rally together to binge watch their favorite series and seasons, create something Who-related, or, on the bigger scale, even host a Whovian convention. Starfury Conventions is one of those kind of radically awesome groups. They will be hosting The Time of the Doctor convention from July 3 to July 5 at the Birmingham Hilton Hotel in Birmingham, UK. Fans will get to see the fabulous Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald), Hermione Norris (Lundvik in Kill the Moon), Jonathan Bailey (Psi in Time Heist), Ellis George (Courtney in Series 8), and Anamaria Marinca (Darla in Asylum of the Daleks).

Q&A sessions, free or cheap autographs, nightly parties, and other activities will be available to ticket holders (though some activities are reserved for Gold ticket holders). As Gus from Mummy on the Orient Expresswould say… “Isn’t this exciting?” It sure is… However, the even more exciting bit is that additional guests will also be there! For more details, and announcements of additional guests (as they come), visit www.starfury.co.uk or follow Starfury Conventions on Twitter (@StarfuryEvents).

The post Starfury Adds Guests to The Time of the Doctor Convention appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Big Finish Confirms Main Range Continues to 2020!

Katie Gribble is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

With the granting of a new license by the BBC back in March 2015, the Big Finish Doctor Who range is looking to expand, filling your creaking shelves and hard drives with a plethora of thrilling audios which would even make a Dalek salivate.

The potential for the Doctor’s audio adventures continues to grow, revealing all sorts of spin off ranges such as UNIT – The New Series and the Torchwood series being among the few that have been confirmed to date. The long-running main range of Doctor Who stories will not suffer for these new additions to the audio-verse, however. Indeed, this series will continue with each Big Finish Doctor being given their own range so that fans can find and listen to their favourites more easily.

The new license has extended Big Finish’s Doctor Who range through to March 2020 and with this announcement fans can look forward to many more adventures with our favourite Time Lord. What’s more, Big Finish has announces a special new subscription, priced at £350 for CD, £325 for Download, which runs for 42 stories – right into 2020! This offer ends on July 1st, however, so act quickly!

Where would you like the next five years of adventures take the audio Doctors?

The post Big Finish Confirms Main Range Continues to 2020! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Back Philip Martin’s ‘East of Heysham’ on Crowdfunder

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Have you ever fancied owing your own tin of Marsh Minnows? A new Crowdfunder from Lass Productions has these and other slices of Doctor Who history for you to own!

In anticipation of June’s production of East of Heysham, a premiere from Vengeance on Varos and Mindwarp writer PHILIP MARTIN, Lass Productions has created a Crowdfunder to help raise funds for this, and future productions.

Manchester-based Lass Productions has an extensive track record of bring genre pieces to the stage. Past performances include Robots of Death (“A talented company”, The Public Reviews), Storm Mine, The Ballad of Halo Jones (“Exceeded all expectations”, Starburst) and Russell T Davies’ Midnight (“Slick and technically ambitious”, SFX). Aside from the stage, they are also the producers of Vworp Vworp!, the acclaimed fanzine that celebrates Doctor Who in comic strip form and thirty years of Doctor Who Magazine.

EAST OF HEYSHAM is a brand new play from one of the television masters of the Seventies and debuts at Manchester’s Three Minute Theatre (June 17-19) before moving to Salford Arts Theatre (June 24-25). Lost youth, unrequited love, lies, bravado and James Dean. It’s all in there.

This Crowdfunder has some truly unique and exclusive rewards including:

– LIMITED EDITION MARSH MINNOWS TIN, designed by Colin Brockhurst and SIGNED BY PHILIP MARTIN AND NABIL SHABAN. Yes, it’s Sil’s favorite Marsh Minnows, harvested from the swamps of Delta Magnus and imported from Thoros Beta (possibly).

– A reproduction of the 1986 DOCTOR WHO MINDWARP CAMERA SCRIPT, signed by writer PHILIP MARTIN, plus guest stars NABIL SHABAN (Sil) and ALIBE PARSONS (Matrona).

– You and a friend are invited to join PHILIP MARTIN and the Production Team for COFFEE AND CAKE. Your chance to chat about Gangsters, Doctor Who or anything you fancy over a cuppa.

– DELUXE PHILIP MARTIN DOCTOR WHO GOODIES PACKAGE, containing Philip’s own Varos paperback, a *mint* Varos hardback book (highly sought after), a Vengeance on Varos DVD, a Copy of the East of Heysham script plus Philip’s original PRODUCTION USED COPY of the Mindwarp camera script for Part 7 which will be signed by Philip Martin, plus guest stars Alibe Parsons and Nabil Shaban.

Aside from all these goodies, there are other rewards available designed by Vworp Vworp! designer Colin Brockhurst.

Full details of the Crowdfunder are at: http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/east-of-heysham/. Tickets (including earlybird prices) are available from www.wegottickets.com/lassproductions. Follow @21stcenturylass for the latest updates on East of Heysham.

Look out for this week’s podKast in which Gareth Kavanagh tells us a little bit more about this.

The post Back Philip Martin’s ‘East of Heysham’ on Crowdfunder appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Should Steven Moffat Have Reversed the Outcome of the Time War?

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Steven Moffat did something brilliant in The Day of the Doctor: he saved Gallifrey. Well, the Doctor did. But more than that, he made it so the Doctor never actually destroyed his home planet at all.

And Moffat, as revealed in the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, feels guilty about it:

“The Day of the Doctor was a success. Record ratings, awards, rave reviews. By any measure, it did alright. But two years later, I’m still haunted by the guilt.

“I know some of you, including friends of mine, were upset that we reversed the outcome of the Time War. My defence, however feeble, is that given the chance, the Doctor would do exactly that. And it was his birthday, how could I deny him that chance? What could define him more? This man who always finds another way? And there he is, at every moment of his life, proving to himself – literally – that there is always a better path.

“Ah, well. My heart was in the right place, at least. But in this job you always need two!”

But should he feel guilt?

Naturally, everyone is different, yet the majority of fans seem pretty happy with the decision. Sure, there was a place for the Doctor’s brooding, but it was the 50th anniversary. We needed something upbeat and hopeful. We needed something true to the character. And he’s right, isn’t it? The Doctor is a killer, but he always has good intentions, and genocide (effectively) isn’t a prospect the Doctor would revel in – particularly not that of his own people.

Perhaps the only way an audience could accept the Doctor killing the Time Lords and the Daleks with them was to be largely unaware of the circumstances. That’s how Doctor Who played out from 2005 to late 2009. And then, in The End of Time, Gallifrey briefly returned, and we learnt the Time Lords’ terrible plan. That was only the plan of the High Council, and those shouldn’t doom an entire planet and its people.

For the character, it works. But what about for the audience?

Part of the problem is that, one day, someone was bound to bring Gallifrey back anyway. It became inevitable when the Doctor first announced that there was a war and his people lost. Neil Gaiman previously joined a number of writers who said they, too, would’ve wiped Gallifrey off the table if they had been responsible for bringing the show back – and we’re not saying it was a wrong decision. It was perfect. But I’m one of many fans, I’m sure, who had concocted their own way the Doctor’s home could return.

Fans had been hankering for a glimpse at the Time War, and when that happened, arguably the bit we were most interested in was how it ended. What the Doctor did. It was an obvious choice for the 50th special. Nothing wrong with obvious, by the way. But seeing the Doctor actually destroy everything would’ve been a mistake. It would’ve been too far, too grim, too awful for the series to show.

There’s still place for brooding. When revealing River Song’s true identity in A Good Man Goes To War (2011), Steven said that an answer to a question, in a narrative sense anyway, should only ask more questions, and that’s what The Day of the Doctor did. Because the Doctor saved Gallifrey. Now what?

And that’s where we come to questioning whether the decision worked for Doctor Who‘s narrative as a whole. These questions are important: these questions open up more possibilities. As we say, Doctor Who has done brooding over being a mass murderer – there’s only so much it can do before it gets seriously depressing and hampers the show. Already it was becoming very melodramatic – in particular, I’m thinking of The Doctor’s Daughter, in which the Doctor tells Jenny that being a Time Lord is a “shared suffering.” Crikey. Really?! Okay…

So now what?

Gallifrey is back – somewhere. When is the right time for it to return? How should it return? The Time Lords asked the Doctor his real name on Trenzalore before Clara persuaded them they were asking the wrong question: what will they try next? And maybe the biggest question of all…

How could Gallifrey come back without igniting the Time War again?

That’s huge. I mean, there was half a universe surrounding Trenzalore, desperate for Gallifrey not to return – because the Daleks would once more threaten everything. I wonder if this has been foreshadowed a little in Asylum of the Daleks (2012) in which Oswin hacked into the Pathweb and erased all memories of the Doc. Might this not be dramatic enough?

Missy also threw in the idea that saving Gallifrey saved him/her too, and this is the crux of the matter: if Gallifrey can return, what else is coming back?

I’m not sounding the trumpet for the return of the Rani or Romana or whatever (that would be just fan pleasing for the sake of it – depends how it’s handled); I’m merely suggesting that saving Gallifrey opens up a lot more opportunities than leaving it in ashes.

This gives the overall narrative a new drive. It’s exciting. As to how a writer would handle such a monumental task, I’m clueless. Doctor Who should be Doctor Who. The Doctor needs to be a mystery in general. That’s how Andrew Cartmel made the Seventh Doctor era so memorable (oh, go on – tear me to pieces in the comments! I’m prepared for it!). And each time the TARDIS makes a return trip to Gallifrey, that mystery is chipped away, just a little. The War Games made the Time Lords awesome and terrifying, and since then, they’ve not really helped the show much. There are exceptions, of course – hello, The Deadly Assassin – but overall, they seem to be bumbling idiots.

Okay, so that’s the future. Ah, but what about the past? Does bringing back Gallifrey undermine the Ninth, Tenth, and the majority of the Eleventh Doctor’s adventures?

Well, no. Not really. It makes it all the more tragic. That Doctor is still utterly convinced he’s a monster, and that’s that.

That we know differently doesn’t take away from the drama of The Waters of Mars or The End of the World, Father’s Day or The Doctor’s Wife. Just because a character is unaware of something doesn’t make any ill feeling redundant. If anything, it highlights it, and makes that character even more sympathetic. Rewatching those stories, knowing something the Doctor doesn’t, adds more gravitas to the situation, makes these tales more interesting and somehow fresher. Try it. I have been.

But what do you think? Should Mr Moff feel guilty? Or was it absolutely the right move to make, at precisely the right time?

The post Should Steven Moffat Have Reversed the Outcome of the Time War? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.