Christian Cawley's Blog, page 124

Trolling Tabloids, Free Classic Episodes & Tom Baker Live!

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.

It’s another Kasterborous News Blast. Free computer giveaway! Free classic episodes! Tom Baker making a live appearance – it’s all here. Well, down there…

Mirror Trolls Doctor Who Fans

You may have noticed a fair bit of coverage of new-Doctor Who’s tenth anniversary lately – hell, even Kasterborous has got in on the act with our articles exploring lists of favourite and most-underrated stories from each series, but the Mirror is trying something different with its list of what it claims are the worst stories of all time. No doubt many will be outraged by this, but I think someone is having a bit of a laugh. Take a look at the list for yourself, which includes many of the most highly regarded episodes in the show’s long history (Pyramids of Mars, City of Death and Blink among them). It’s clearly written by someone who knows the programme rather well and seems to be a skit on a certain type of over-earnest, politically aware fan. It didn’t quite hit home for me, but perhaps the biggest surprise is that The Mirror has a sense of irony…

Nick talks The Prisoner

Big Finish are seriously thrilled to have secured the rights to do an audio version of sixties classic genre drama The Prisoner, and executive producer and writer Nick Briggs has given an interview to The Unmutual site outlining his early plans for the series. No news on the all-important casting of Number 6 yet, but  the voice of the Daleks is clear that he’s not looking for a Patrick McGoohan impersonation: “I want the actor I cast to boil down exactly what McGoohan’s approach and style was and then for them to do that their way. Patrick McGoohan’s performance is an extraordinary landmark in TV history. He was utterly brilliant and unique. I don’t want to copy him, but I want us to do our best to tread boldly in his incredible footsteps.”

Doctor Who on The Horror Channel!

Great news for viewers in the UK with the launch of The Horror Channel on Freeview. Formerly only available with a Sky or Virgin Media subscription, the channel is home to an extensive backlist of Doctor Who episodes featuring the first seven Doctors. The move apparently opens up classic episodes (not forgetting episodes of The Incredible Hulk and various dodgy sci-fi movies) to a potential 19 million viewers.

Catch it on Freeview channel 70.

Free Computers to Get Kids Coding

The BBC is extending its project to encourage children to learn coding skills by announcing a bumper giveaway of 1 million Micro Bit computers to 11- and 12-year-old schoolchildren. BBC Make it Digital has already had a hit with free downloadable game The Doctor and the Dalek which enables users to develop their IT skills whilst solving a unique adventure. The new device, currently in development, is intended as a springboard for more advanced pieces such as the Raspberry Pi.

Tom To Visit Folkestone

If you’re in that part of the UK and you’ve never been lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet the Fourth Doctor in person you’ll want to know that Tom Baker will be making an appearance at Geek Fest at the Folkestone Academy on Saturday 9th May for a signing and Q&A event. Still in good shape and into his 80s now, Tom is always good value at this kind of thing so get yourself along there if you can!

The post Trolling Tabloids, Free Classic Episodes & Tom Baker Live! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

nuWho’s 10th Anniversary: Remembering Doctor Who Series 1, Part 1

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.

Yay, it’s podKast time! This week, Christian Cawley and Brian A Terranova open the anniversary discussion, remembering Doctor Who Series 1 and mulling over the first 7 episodes, from Rose through to The Long Game. During the discussion, we recall the Rose leak, an event which had the potential to undermine the return of the show but instead had the fortunate effect of building interest!

Time to hit play.

Kasterborous PodKast Series 5 Episode 6 Shownotes

Rose leaked on P2P networks
Ultimate Regeneration: The Incredible Resurrection of Doctor Who on Amazon
Doctor Who Series 1 on DVD
‘A Kind Of Magic’ by Queen

PodKast introduction by John Guilor. 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.

 

The post nuWho’s 10th Anniversary: Remembering Doctor Who Series 1, Part 1 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

052 – Doctor Who and the Silurians

Alasdair Shaw 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.

It’s very easy to dismiss a lot of Classic Who as being of its time. Certainly I’ve been guilty of it over the years, especially regarding the Pertwee era. But nearly forty years on I’ve found that The Silurians (I just can’t bring myself to call it Doctor Who and the Silurians, I just can’t) may have aged, but nothing like four decades’ worth.

The pacing is the first thing that strikes you; we’re pretty much at the half way mark before we actually see a Silurian, but their presence is felt long before that with glimpses of claws and a Silurian eye view of the world that actually makes you feel a bit of empathy for what tradition dictates is the ‘monster’. When finally they emerge from the shadows of their caves, it’s as fully developed characters with fully formed histories and relationships. The decision to humanise their faces for New Who begins to lose some of its strength when you find yourself recognising the individual Silurians despite the fact they all look the same.

To humanise them further, they’re not even the true villains of the piece – well, not all of them – the chief Silurian genuinely wants to befriend the humans that have accidentally awoken them. A desire made all the more noble by the fact that these Silurians have a pretty solid case for wanting to inhabit Earth: these aren’t alien invaders; these are mankind’s predecessors and the earth is their home as much as it is ours. Sadly as the last couple of episodes unfold they begin to indulge in biological warfare and lose some of the moral high ground they had been occupying… although they scarcely deserve their final fate, but we’ll address that in a few paragraphs’ time.

I hear people talk all the time about how the new series has empowered the Doctor’s female companions and modernised them. It never ceases to amaze me as all the qualities they talk about are present in abundance with Liz. She’s strong willed, independent and skilled in her own right.

The sets are pretty atmospheric as well. We move with some regularity between the bright and sterile laboratories of the human world to the dark and claustrophobic Silurian caves and each change serves the story and works as a better indicator of mood than the music.

Ah yes, the music.

This is what has really aged these episodes. For the most part the lack of music helps to heighten the tensions that are bubbling just beneath the surface, but for some reason it kicks into full gear when we visit the caves. Now I’m not by any stretch of anyone’s imagination a musician, but I found the Silurian theme jarring and completely out of place. It actually killed a lot of the atmosphere that the pacing and the acting had built up. In fact after a few scenes I found myself rewinding them and watching them muted. The change was startling and sent some shivers up my spine.

But the music was the only problem I had with The Silurians.

Well, actually no. That’s not true. Liz Shaw bothered me.

Not the good Doctor herself, just the way she was treated. Maybe it’s because I come from a science background, but I found everyone’s insistence of calling her ‘Miss Shaw’ to be fairly insulting when the woman has earned her doctorate. Indeed at points she’s treated as little more than a glorified secretary, a role that ill suits her. I hear people talk all the time about how the new series has empowered the Doctor’s female companions and modernised them. It never ceases to amaze me as all the qualities they talk about are present in abundance with Liz. She’s strong willed, independent and skilled in her own right. She copes amazingly well without the Doctor for long stretches of this serial and stands up to the Brigadier when his behaviour veers towards being condescending and sexist.

Ah yes; the Brigadier.

This is not the Brig that you all remember. This isn’t the the Eleventh Doctor’s old drinking buddy or the Seventh Doctor’s comrade in arms or even the likeable boss we see by the end of the Pertwee era. No, this Brigadier is a bit of a bastard. He borderline bullies the scientists he’s been sent to help, he employs a ‘shoot first and think about asking questions later’ attitude, is downright sexist in his treatment of Liz, and quite happily lies to the Doctor before blowing up the remnants of an ancient civilisation.

Say it with me now; the Brig commits genocide.

It’s a genuinely shocking end to the whole affair. The Silurians have gone into hibernation and won’t be bothering anyone for a long time and the Doctor has managed to render their biological weapons useless. There is absolutely no need to take any military action at all, let alone the whole scale massacre that the Brig orders. It’s hard to see in hindsight just how the Doctor and Brig’s friendship not only survived this incident, but went on to become one of the warmest in the Who universe.

Watching The Silurians felt as though I was watching a period episode that was set in the ’70s rather than one that was made in the ’70s. There are some very solid ideas, great locations, subtle acting and morally ambiguous monsters. Rather than being of its time, it actually seems to be timeless.

The post 052 – Doctor Who and the Silurians appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Three Cons Thrill Doctor Who Fans In One Weekend!

Andrew Reynolds 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.

Last weekend, David Tennant attended his first Wizard World con in Raleigh, and the jovial, fan friendly Doctor was on fine form; answering all manner of questions including putting to rest the nature of Ten/Rose’s relationship, chairing the odd proposal and looking ahead to his first venture into the Marvel universe with A.K.A Jessica Jones.

First, David Tennant put one thing to rest…The Tenth Doctor and Rose were an item. The Radio Times reports that when asked: which goodbye was the most difficult: Rose or Donna? David thoughtfully answered: “Rose was a girlfriend, even if they didn’t say it.”

And then Twitter went into meltdown…

"Rose was a girlfriend… even if they didn't say it." – David Tennant

PLEASE PUT THIS ON MY GRAVE

— aries (@seventhdemigod) March 15, 2015

"Rose was a girlfriend… even if they didn't say it." – David Tennant 14/03/15

most popular tattoo of 2015

— matt smith (@aIec_hardy) March 14, 2015

David Tennant saying rose was the doctors girlfriend is the best thing to ever happen

— marta • david af (@tenthallonsy) March 14, 2015

Etcetera…

It’s a contentious issue but whether or not you agree with the Doctor falling for a companion, him embracing the idea of being able to love again following the Time War or you just punched the air; the fact remains then that this is how David chose to play their relationship. On the matter of relationships, here’s David discussing his/the Doctor’s relationship with John Barrowman/Captain Jack…

From one perfect match to another; Tennant, the lifelong Marvel fan, shared his excitement about the currently in-production Netflix show, Marvel’s A.K.A. Jessica Jones: “My eight-year-old self doesn’t know what do with himself!

“[Jessica Jones] is another thing I grew up with. It’s the Marvel universe, it’s insane!” he added, just days after taking a break from working on his role as baddie Kilgrave to visit Marvel’s HQ.

However fulfilling all these lifelong ambitions has meant his perceptions of each series has changed: “I grew up as a fan of Doctor Who. It used to be the show I waited for every Saturday night with bated breath, it was very exciting. To then be in it, it’s weird. In some ways it changes how you are, you can never be a fan in the same way again because of course you’re looking at your own ugly mug, it’s quite hard to be entirely enjoying it – and, of course, I knew what was coming as I’d read the script.

“Now, of course, I can watch it and not know what’s coming up, so now I get to be a fan again, which is great.”

And now, five more reasons why David Tennant is awesome:

She got a fake proposal from David Tennant. *-* pic.twitter.com/gNW23DNBwi

— I ship (@TenRoseAsFuck) March 15, 2015

Never has a dude looked so happy to meet fans. I will adore him forever #DavidTennant pic.twitter.com/USV1TAbikF

— Emma ⚡️ (@killermuse_em) March 15, 2015

Thank you @WizardWorld.
#ComicRelief #DavidTennant pic.twitter.com/vHGtdAG0Hw

— Kristi S. (@littlemissKris_) March 15, 2015

my new life goal is to meet David Tennant in a flower crown LOOK HOW CUTe pic.twitter.com/m0YLv8s08d

— abby*⚛.˚ (@abbioli) March 15, 2015

And who could forget this?!

Yahoo News may be preaching to the choir but it’s worth repeating that, no matter how much you paid, David Tennant gives his all: from being the perfect wingman to being kind enough not to tell a child he looks nothing like the Tenth Doctor (“I’m you, even though I have the wrong screwdriver.”), he certainly doesn’t skimp out when it comes to fan requests.

Leaving Wizard World behind, over at Planet Comicon, Kansas City last weekend, fans flocked to Bartle Hall to see the likes of Karen Gillan and Caitlin Blackwood, as the now decade-old con drew attention from Fox News. Eager to get inside what makes a cosplayer adopt the clothing from shows like Doctor Who; fan James Porrello said: “It’s awesome because you can express yourself any way you want and it’s like-minded people who enjoy the same things you do.”

And finally across the Atlantic this weekend, the More than one hundred stalls packed Capital FM Arena, Nottingham for the annual East Midlands Sci-Fi and Fantasy Convention – enticing thousands of costume clad fans.

Featuring appearances by Colin Baker, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, Nicola Bryant and Jemma Redgrave to name a few; The Nottingham Evening Post reports, the con was also home to some of the best venders of rare comic finds including the likes of Nottingham store Twisted Playground.

Friends and fellow comic book fans Kelly Ruston, Hayley Davies and Aaron Clark were excited at the prospect of meeting their acting idols. Kelly said: “This is my second comic book convention. It’s great to come here and meet other people and to get some autographs.”

Em-Con crew member Chris Harding said that the event had attracted around 5,000 comic book lovers, and that the larger venue had been the perfect choice for this year’s attraction: “We had over 130 deal tables this year and over 30 actors and actresses signing autographs, as well as seven Q and A sessions.

“I was surprised by how many people came in costume. People have really gone to town which is something we encourage. I saw someone in a Thor costume shout out across the room a phrase from the film to another person dressed from the same film.”

The post Three Cons Thrill Doctor Who Fans In One Weekend! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

New Trailer + McCoy Talks Damaged Goods!

Nick Kitchen 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.

Big Finish has just released a brand new trailer for their upcoming adaptation of Russell T. Davies’ Seventh Doctor novel, Damaged Goods, but before we get to that there’s a little bonus video action that we want to share with you that you may have missed previously. And just what might that be, dear readers? How about Sylvester McCoy talking about the project?

Now that you’ve heard the man himself on the project, you can click here to check out the freshly released trailer for the audio adaptation. In case you’re not familiar with the novel or what to expect when the release drops in May, here’s a look at the synopsis:

“The year is 1987 and there’s a deadly new narcotic on the streets of London. As part of their investigations the Doctor and his companions Chris and Roz move into the Quadrant, a rundown housing estate. An ancient alien menace has been unleashed, a menace somehow linked to a local gang leader known as The Capper, a charmed young boy called Gabriel and his mother Winnie, the enigmatic Frei Foundation, and Eva Jericho, a woman driven to the brink of madness. As London descends into an apocalyptic nightmare, the Doctor must uncover the truth about the residents of the Quadrant and a desperate bargain made one dark Christmas Eve. Based on the original 1996 New Adventures novel by Doctor Who writer and executive producer Russell T Davies.”

While I’ve only been watching Doctor Who since midway through 2012, I am genuinely excited to check this audio out and subsequently read RTD’s novel as well. I take a genuine interest in where ideas are born and how they develop. As it has suggesed that Damaged Goods was a brief foretaste of the then-to-come 2005 revival series, I am looking forward to will be some “new to me” RTD Doctor Who. 

Doctor Who – Damaged Goods is available for preorder now. Will you be partaking of this release with me, fellow Kasterborites?

The post New Trailer + McCoy Talks Damaged Goods! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Mark Gatiss Confirms Doctor Who Series 9 Script

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.

Mark Gatiss has finally confirmed the expected: he’ll be contributing a script to Series 9 of Doctor Who!

It’ll be his second for Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor, his first being last year’s Robot of Sherwood, and he says that this year’s is much scarier than his typical Who serials. But he’s actually taken time out of writing it for an interview with The Telegraph!

“I’m in the midst of that right now – I broke off to come here today, in fact, but I’m hoping to finish the script tonight,” he says. “It has been a tough nut to crack, but I’m delighted with how scary it is. I can’t say any more than that.”

He’s trod a good line between horror and humour before with tales like The Unquiet Dead, Night Terrors, and The Crimson Horror, but hopefully we’ll get something more akin to his adaptation of The Tractate Middoth, a short story by M. R. James and screened late last year.

Of course, Gatiss is equally well known for his work on Sherlock, and fans have spotted the cast in decidedly Victorian attire, for reasons, he says, “which become apparent, so it was great fun to go back and un-invent the things we’d updated. Unbelievably, people have even asked me, ‘How can Sherlock exist in an age without iPhones?’ Well, there is some precedent here, there have been a few Victorian Sherlocks. But I guess that’s great because it means our version has worked so well, they can’t imagine it any other way.”

We’re yet to see him in the updated film version of Dad’s Army, in which he’s Captain Mainwaring’s colonel-in-chief (Mainwaring being played by Amy’s Choice star, Toby Jones), and a reunion of The League of Gentlemen, saying that “We want to do something for the 20th anniversary of the television show, which is four years off, but if we start planning now, we might actually do it.” But we’ll next see Gatiss on our TV screens in Channel 4’s Coalition, in which he plays PM, Peter Mandelson. The very name will no doubt make some want to gnaw their own faces off, but Gatiss seems to owe the so-called Prince of Darkness something of a debt.

“I’ve auditioned to play Mandelson before, in 2009 for the Mo Mowlam biopic that Julie Walters did [a role that finally went to Luther star, Steven Mackintosh]. Weirdly, that led to me playing Mycroft [in Sherlock],” he reveals. “I went straight from the audition to a Sherlock meeting, where we talked about how Mycroft is a Mandelsonian figure, a Machiavellian puppet-master who makes tough decisions and often ends up being the baddy because he’s about realpolitik. It just fell into place. Everyone said, ‘Well, you’d better play Mycroft, then.’ So I owe Mandelson an awful lot.”

Yes, we’re all shocked too.

Coalition is on Channel 4 on at 9pm, 26th March, while Doctor Who Series 9 feels like forever away (but is, in fact, edging closer, likely screening this Autumn). For more details about the forthcoming series, see our regularly updated Doctor Who Series 9 page.

The post Mark Gatiss Confirms Doctor Who Series 9 Script appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

David Tennant Unveiled at Marvel Studios

Rebecca Crockett 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.

This past week, the one and only David Tennant was at Marvel Comics headquarters in New York for a visit. If you aren’t up-to-date, Mr. Tennant is part of the cast of the currently in-production Netflix show, A.K.A. Jessica Jones, based on Marvel’s Jessica Jones character, a former superhero trying to rebuild her life.

Tennant is set to play the villain Dr. Zebediah Killgrave, also know as Purple Man, the name Killgrave takes after the event that gives him his powers also turns him purple. As in, literally a purple coloured man. Killgrave is a master manipulator, and is, of course, out to get Ms. Jones.

Will David Tennant be turned into a grape coloured human?

 

Tennant took a tour around the Marvel offices, getting to see how they create comics and all of the work that goes on behind the scenes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which includes A.K.A. Jessica Jones.

 

 

Something tells me the person who owns this desk is also a Whovian…

 

It’s well known that David is just as much of a fan of the MCU and other Marvel characters as well as Doctor Who, so I’m sure he had a blast getting to see where the magic happens!

Posing with Spiderwoman

 

With an image of the title hero Jessica Jones. And Wolverine. And The Thing.

 

Dan Slott, who writes for the Amazing Spiderman and Silver Surfer stories tweeted this of David’s Marvel HQ visit –

My new Twitter banner, FB pic, &– if they let me– Passport photo…
…till the END OF TIME!!!
TENNANT WEB-FINGERS! pic.twitter.com/RIgFLM8MyT

— Dan Slott (@DanSlott) March 12, 2015

Tennant even mentioned the Marvel visit in his Q&A panel at Wizard World Raleigh this weekend –

Netflix is producing the Jessica Jones series in conjunction with shows about Daredevil and Luke Cage, all of which share the same part of the Marvel world.

Marvel’s Daredevil is set to premiere everywhere Netflix is available on 10th April. No release date for A.K.A. Jessica Jones, which also stars Krysten Ritter as the title character, has been set yet, but speculation is that it will premiere sometime in late 2015.

No word yet on if Mr. Tennant will completely purple coloured.

The post David Tennant Unveiled at Marvel Studios appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Karen Gillan Hints At Guardians of the Galaxy 2 Role

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.

The beautiful Karen Gillan sounds like she’s getting a little… well, attached to her hair as she eyes up a returning role in Guardians of the Galaxy.

You will, I’m sure, recall that Gillan revealed a completely shaved head at the San Diego Comic Con two years ago, something she did for her part as Nebula in the hit Marvel movie. And of course we want Karen back for a second time as the blue-skinned baddie! But she’s a bit reticent about losing her ginger locks again, as she recently explained:

“I have a physical and emotional attachment to this hair. We’ll have to see if I have to shave it. Maybe CGI will have developed further by the time we shoot it.”

It’s still not been confirmed that Nebula will be back for the sequel, but bearing in mind she did survive the first (I hope that’s not too much of a spoiler for you), this sounds like a substantial hint. “If people know the comic lore, Nebula has a lot of varying different roles to play over the course of a lot of different titles in the comics,” President of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige added. “We have somebody like Karen, and you have a look that is so weird and so great. I think that’s something we’d all like to see again.”

And as a Doctor Who fan, director James Gunn said last year: “I love Nebula. I fell in love with the design of Nebula. I cast the role around that design. I fell in love with Karen as a person, and I love the character of Nebula… She’s the one that you really dig because she’s the cool one that we need to get more of. I hope to God that we get a chance to see a lot more of Nebula in future Guardians films.”

Away from Marvel, Karen is best known as Amy Pond, accompanying Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor across time and space, so how has she taken to the Twelfth Doctor? “I really like Capaldi,” she enthused. “It was hard for me to accept a new man but I was like, ‘He’s really doing it’.”

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 premieres on 28th July 2017 – at least according to Marvel’s current schedule. Which has shifted somewhat since the exciting news that Spider-Man will join the MCU!

Excited? Want to see more of Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy 2? Or do you think she’d make a better Mary Jane Watson…? Let us know below.

The post Karen Gillan Hints At Guardians of the Galaxy 2 Role appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor #1 Trailer Released

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.

As part of their promotional campaign for the forthcoming mini-series, Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor, Titan Comics has released this motion comic trailer which gives a sneak peak at the new adventures of the Doctor, Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness.

Weapons of Past Destruction, with artwork from Blair Shedd, launches on Wednesday, 1st April ($3.99 US, £2.65 UK), and is the first comic series for the Ninth Doctor in several years. It is also timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Doctor Who‘s triumphant return in 2005, on March 26th.

Leaving World War II behind, The Ninth Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack discover that Time Lord technology, lost in the wake of the Time War, is being sold on the intergalactic black market! 

Now the threat of a NEW temporal war brews on the horizon. Can the Doctor stop history repeating itself?

We’ve had a look at the full issue and it looks like a welcome return for the most underrated of nuWho Doctors. For more information about this new five-part series, please see our recent preview feature with writer Cavan Scott, and to order check your local comic store for details. UK readers should hit the Forbidden Planet website to pre-order their copies.

The post Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor #1 Trailer Released appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

We Preview Titan’s Ninth Doctor Comic with Cavan Scott!

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.

You’ve probably heard that Titan Comics are releasing a Ninth Doctor 5-part mini-series, written by Cavan Scott (Who-ology) and illustrated by artist Blair Shedd (Legends of Oz, Ghostbusters), with Rose and Captain Jack travelling in the TARDIS.

We’ve got a special preview of the comic for you below, as well as a chat with the writer. Cavan Scott was working with Titan on their children’s series Adventure Time when he heard that they had won the Doctor Who comics licence and pitched. This is the result, a comic series that expands on Series 1, which as you’ll know is 10 years old this month. So what does Cavan feel about the brief era of the Ninth Doctor?

“It’s so confident. This was a series that most people had written off in the 1990s. Indeed, as I found out talking to Jane Tranter, the new series was almost closed down before Christopher Eccleston was cast. And yet it exploded on our screens and took the world by storm. There’s no apology in the 2005 series. It sets its stall very early and gets on with the job.

“And, of course, Series 1 is brilliant because it features Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. He’s brilliant. Funny and yet furious, daft and yet driven. I love his Doctor.”

While there is no sign of Mickey, this series is notable for the presence of Captain Jack Harkness, whose brief travels with the Doctor and Rose lead to his accidental immortality. Of course, as any fans know, there are two Jack Harknesses, the dashing, exciting hero and the dour, serious leader of Torchwood. “They’re two sides of the same man,” points out Cavan. “Early Jack is fun, because he’s all about daring do and flirting. Lots of flirting. Later, Jack feels the weight of immortality and has to make a lot of tough decisions. I like the character a lot. I just wish we’d seen more of the Doctor, Rose and Jack together – and now we can!”

This have changed for fandom, as far as the Ninth Doctor is concerned. Does The Day of the Doctor change our perception of stories set after/in the shadow of the Time War? Are things tougher for the Ninth Doctor now we know something he doesn’t? Cavan doesn’t think so. “We know what really happened, but he doesn’t. When planning this story, we had to one-hundred per cent approach it from what the Ninth Doctor knows. He is the last of the Time Lords. The only survivor of the Time War. Gallifreyan has fallen and the Daleks are gone. I think that’s pretty tough for him already.

“Of course, that’s not to say that artist Blair Shedd and I haven’t discussed little ways of slipping the odd easter egg in there, every now and then…”

Sadly the three Doctor Titan Comics crossover later this year will not feature the Ninth Doctor, but Cavan is positive that we will be seeing number nine again.

This isn’t Scott’s first brush with a ninth incarnation of the Doctor. He previous wrote for the original version, created by Paul Cornell for the BBC’s then-official Scream of the Shalka in 2003, in a follow-up, vampire-themed story on the late lamented BBC Cult, titled The Feast of the Stone.  “I loved writing that story with Mark [Wright] and it was very exciting to be a part of the BBCi Doctor, even though we knew at that point that a new Ninth Doctor was on his way. I think Shalka was a great experiment and am really very fond of the world that Paul built around ‘his’ Ninth Doctor.”

Cavan referred there to his occasional writing partner, Mark Wright, and is enthusiastic about the idea of such a partnership. “It means you’re not staring at a blank screen alone. One of the best things about working with Mark was batting ideas back and forth, getting stuck on a plot point and picking up the phone or firing up Skype to yell help. To be honest, we still do it today, talking through each other’s projects whenever we can. Both of us are enjoying working on our own things at the moment, but who knows when we’ll get the band together again. Plus, there’s at least one Scott/Wright script that has yet to be announced.”

In the meantime, you can grab Cavan Scott’s much-anticipated Ninth Doctor mini-series when it launches on Wednesday, 1st April (UK fans can pick it up at Forbidden Planet, although be aware that there are a number of variant covers) and Cavan will be signing copies of issue one at the Bristol branch of Forbidden Planet on the day.

The post We Preview Titan’s Ninth Doctor Comic with Cavan Scott! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.