Christian Cawley's Blog, page 130

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #8 Preview Art 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.

Next Wednesday (March 4) sees the release of Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor issue #8 by Robbie Morrison (2000AD) with artwork by Daniel Indro!

Trapped in a tunnel beneath No Man’s Land, the Doctor and the surviving soldiers under his protection fight for their lives – with open eyes! With the TARDIS lost, the Weeping Angels on one side and the might of the German front lines on the other, how much will the Doctor sacrifice to keep Gabby safe? And in the endless dark, struggling not to blink, sparks are fanned between Gabby and Jamie Colquhoun… Is he just one more doomed soldier?

To get a taste of what’s in store, Titan Comics have shared the following images…

Frankly, we think that’s a preview too far; it really does look stunning, don’t you think? You’ll be able to pick up Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #8 from Wednesday in comic stores in the USA and the UK, but if you’re having difficulty you could order online from Forbidden Planet or wait a few months for the Doctor Who Comic to reach this storyline.

The post Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #8 Preview Art Released appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who’s Hollywood News Blast

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.

Hey there K readers! Lots of things happening between the Whoniverse and the showbiz world of Hollywood lately, so much that we’re treating you to an all Hollywood edition of the News Blast! We’ve got all the info on the CBS network plans to break a certain Guinness World Record, a curious 1980s incident involving Doctor Who, news on Who actor Russell Tovey, some interesting Doctor Who cross-overs, and some reference to DW you might have missed in a recent Oscar winning movie…

CBS To Attempt To Take Guinness Record From DW

Ok, this takes real guts. Apparently the powers-that-be at the CBS network here in the US have thrown down the gauntlet in the battle to own the Guinness World Record for the “Largest Ever TV Drama Simulcast“, which, as all Whovians know, is currently held by our beloved Doctor Who for broadcasting the 50th anniversary special, The Day Of The Doctor,  in 94 different countries back in 2013. CBS has declared this coming Wednesday, 4th March, “World CSI Day” and plans to broadcast the episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation titled Kitty in 150 countries across the globe at the same time, in an effort to boost the new spin-off show CSI: Cyber which has it’s premiere later that same night.

All this for the mere 15th anniversary of the original CSI show! Cyber will be the third spin-off to come out of the premise of the original show and stars newly crowned Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette. The simulcast episode will be broadcast at 4pm EST . (So do the math for your time zone if you want to watch)

Personally, I think this is a desperate attempt for ratings for a franchise that is showing it’s age. For our dear Doctor Who, on the other hand, the simulcast was a global fandom moment and the perfect climax of 50 years of television history. Mr. Moffat. you need to do something even bigger now to celebrate the 10 years of the rebooted show. We can’t let these upstarts outshine Who!

1980s, Max Headroom, and Doctor Who?

We’re gonna need DeLoreans for this news item kids. (The TARDIS can’t land there – too many paradoxes.) Seems that back in 1987, during the late night airing of the Horror Of Fang Rock serial on a local Chicago station, WTTW, the television station’s broadcast was temporarily disrupted by someone disguised as the “first computer generated tv host” Max Headroom. For those of you not old enough to remember Max, he was the supposed “computer generated” tv host that was part of a dystopian future set tv program. Of course, no such computer tech existed back then – it was actually actor  Matt Frewer in prosthetics and makeup in front of a handmade background.

Anyways, someone who seemingly had a grudge against the station, or another local tv station, interrupted the Who episode with a very bizarre 90 second long rant about a local sports broadcaster, various nonsensical ramblings, and some… odd behavior with a fly swatter. Needless to say, the interruption apparently freaked a lot of people out. Thing is, no one was ever held responsible for the incident and such a thing has never happened since. Weirdest of all? The incident occured on 22nd November, 1987. The 24th anniversary of Doctor Who. Guess Max was a Whovian!

Check out the article on Fansided or this older one on Damned Interesting for more about the strange incident.

Russell Tovey In Banished

Russell Tovey, known to many Whovians as Midshipman Alonso Frame, who helped the Tenth Doctor save the world from the crash of the spaceship Titanic, is currently staring in the dramedy Looking on HBO. However he’s been busy with another project of late – BBC Two’s Australian based series Banished. Set in 1788 when the British first set up penal colonies in Australia, Tovey plays on of the convicts banished to the far off continent, where a new world means new rules. The seven part series is set to being airing 5th March. Check out the recently released trailer.

No word yet on if the show will air here in the US.

A Who/Trek Crossover?

With two of pop cultures biggest sci-fi influences hitting their 50th year of existence, it’s no surprise the number of times that fans of both Doctor Who and Star Trek have considered what a cross-over of the two properties might look and feel like. Given that they both espouse themes of peace, inclusion, and helping others, the two shows have ample ways that their respective worlds might  conceivably intertwine. (Of course, we have an IDW comic strip already.)

YouTuber Theta Sigma Productions has imagined a new such merger. this time one that seems to pit Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan from Star Trek: Into Darkness as someone akin to the Master vs the Doctor, his companions, and the crew of the Enterprise in “The Battle For Gallifrey” The results look pretty good too. Like good enough that it sounds like an awesome plot line for an actual movie! Check out the trailer below.

The Doctor Gets…Taken??

In a world where the same man stars in every movie about getting revenge…

There is a man…

A man who has a telephone box…

A man who’s telephone box never rings…

Until it does.

Somehow I don’t think that any version of the characters seeking revenge that Liam Neeson has played would ever have reason to want to hunt down the Doctor but, then again, the Doc has gotten himself into some pretty bad situations upon occasion. Here’s what one YouTuber thought one of those ominous phone calls might look like…

Stephen Hawking A Whovian?

More than a few  jokes have been made suggesting that famed scientist Stephen Hawking looks a lot like the Dalek’s creator Davros, with his mobility issues, use of a motorized wheelchair, and beyond genius abilities. But is it possible that this great man of science is also a Whovian? According to the movie The Theory Of Everything, (which just won it’s star Eddie Redmayne an Academy Award) he might just be! (Hey, we all know Brian Cox, also a super scientist, is a fan, so why not Hawking?)

In one scene, Redmayne can be seen in the motorized wheelchair with a paper bag helmet of sorts on his head while the electronic voice yells EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

We all know that Hawking isn’t beyond making fun of himself or making a joke and this sounds like something he would really do – at least the part about using his electronic voice to scare someone with cries of EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!

Check our the post by the Official Doctor Who Tumblr for a .gif of that as well as another possible DW reference in the film.

That’s all the Hollyweird… err Hollywood news for today readers! Thanks for stopping by and see you next time!

The post Doctor Who’s Hollywood News Blast appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

David Tennant Will Star In Broadchurch Series 3

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.

Following the slightly rushed conclusion to Series 2 of Broadchurch, ITV has revealed that a third series will follow, again starring David Tennant as DI Alec Hardy and Olivia Colman (The Eleventh Hour) as police officer of confused rank Ellie Miller.

Also starring the Whoniverse’s Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) and Eve Myles (Torchwood‘s Gwen Cooper), directed (among others) by James Strong and written and created by Chris Chibnall, Broadchurch Series 2 proved to be a slightly baffling affair, taking considerable liberties with legal procedure and continuity. Apparently pitched as a trilogy, the story of the third series is of course a secret known only to a select few, but we do wonder if a third series is warranted, as there doesn’t really seem to be anywhere for it to go without retreading themes already dealt with in Series 1 and 2…

ITV’s Director of Drama Steve November and Controller of Drama Victoria Fea have commissioned the new series which will be written by Chris Chibnall once again. Steve November said: “Chris Chibnall knows exactly how to keep viewers guessing and I’m delighted that he is going to take the story onto the next stage.”

Creator and writer Chris Chibnall said: “We’ve been overwhelmed that nine million people every week have continued to join us on the twists and turns of Broadchurch. This third chapter has been a glint in my eye for a long time and I’m thrilled to be writing these characters once again.”

What to you think? Where can Broadchurch go now? Be aware that there may be spoilers in the comments.

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News Blast: Merchandise Edition (Get Those Wallets Ready!)

Barry Rice 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.

Here in the states, when I first became aware of Doctor Who in the late nineties, the idea of finding Doctor Who merchandise anywhere was inconceivable. Most people had never heard of the show, let alone bothered to sell anything related to it. If you were lucky, you’d find some old Doctor Who Magazines at the local comic book shop and a smattering of imported Eighth Doctor books at Borders (sidenote: RIP Borders, I knew thee well). Now days, Doctor Who is everywhere. Even people who don’t know watch the show know what it is. And that’s not a bad thing — it’s just weird when I look back less than 20 years ago.

Anyway, that’s enough of my trip down memory lane. Today we bring you a plethora of new and upcoming Doctor Who merchandise ready to help you part ways with your hard-earned money. The News Blast is locked and loaded, and ready to fire; now, as the man once said, “Five Rounds Rapid!”

TARDIS vs. Dalek Cream & Sugar Set

It may not travel through time and space, but this TARDIS does, well…it does hold four ounces of sugar! And who among us has’t dreamed of pouring cream from a Dalek? No? Well, at any rate this rather charming ceramic set is available at the BBC Doctor Who Shop to help with your next cuppa.

Doctor Who TARDIS Bling Ring

This beautiful diamond and sapphire ring from Etsy seller Dtekdesigns has been making the rounds online this past week. Originally available in silver (£715/$1,100), gold (£1,235/$1,900), or platinum (£1,950/$3,000), the TARDIS-inspired ring is sadly unavailable at this time (most likely all the press attention caused it sell out). Dtekdesigns does have lots of other fine jewelry available, though, including some cool pieces inspired by Star Wars and Firefly. And keep your eyes peeled, as I’m sure they’ll re-list those TARDIS rings at some point.

Doctor Who Ingot Collection

Available now from Danbury Mint is this collection of Doctor Who ingots, featuring all twelve Doctors (what, no War Doctor?), and a specially-designed wooden display frame. I’m not gonna lie — I had to Google “ingot” because I had no idea what it meant. Apparently an ingot is “a block of steel, gold, silver, or other metal, typically oblong in shape.” So that’s what these are: each measuring five centimetres tall, with portraits of the Doctors on one side and the Doctor Who logo on the reverse, against a mirrored finish. The display case is a whopping 95 centimetres across, so it’s quite a show piece.

Snap-Fit Custom Dalek

If you prefer your merchandise to be more of the “do-it-yourself” variety, then this Dalek model is sure to be to your liking. You’ll need access to a 3D printer in order to get started, but once you overcome that hurdle, you can download the 3D model files from Makerbots’ Thingiverse site for free! It’s printed in separate pieces, hence the “snap-fit” name. It’s a nice looking model, but I’d have to slap a coat of paint on it.; can’t have a naked Dalek running around, can we?

Tenth Doctor One-Piece Pajamas

How creepy does that mannequin look in those pajamas, with the hood over his head like that? Maybe he’s an Auton, maybe he’s not, but either way –he’s creepy. Anyway, I’m sure these David Tennant-inspired pajamas look a lot better on an actual human being (or maybe not, does anyone really look good in one-piece jim-jams?)  If you fancy bringing a little timey-wimey action to your bedroom, you can pick these up on Amazon.

Ice Warrior Varga Figurine

From Robert Harrop Designs comes this 1:12 scale statue of Varga, the Ice Warrior leader from the classic Second Doctor serial, The Ice Warriors. These are hand-painted and limited to a run of only 500 figures; a certificate of authenticity is included along with the edition number. They’re available for pre-order now, so get after it before they’re all gone!

Doctor Who Pop! Vinyls

As mentioned in our last merchandise News Blast, toymaker Funko revealed at the 2015 New York Toy Fair that they would FINALLY be adding Doctor Who to their popular Pop! Vinyls line. We now have closer looks at all eight figures, including the Fourth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors (as seen at the top of this article), as well as an Adipose, a Weeping Angel, a Cyberman, a Dalek, and a six-inch TARDIS. Pre-orders were available this week for a short time on both Entertainment Earth and Forbidden Planet, but it appears they’ve sold out, as all of the listings have been removed. If you’re desperate to be among the first to own them, my advice would be to keep checking both sites on a daily basis for additional pre-orders.

What’s the verdict, Kasterborites? Will you have a Dalek join you for your morning coffee while you snuggle up in your Tenth Doctor jammies?

The post News Blast: Merchandise Edition (Get Those Wallets Ready!) appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

049 – The Space Pirates

Steven Businovski 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 is the one; the one that most people don’t really like.

In strict chronological terms – at the time of writing, at least – The Space Pirates is the last Doctor Who serial ever to suffer from having some or all of its episodes missing, lost in time.  It’s actually a rarity in Season 6, in fact, with only two of eight episodes of The Invasion plus five from this serial taking away from an otherwise intact final year of Patrick Troughton’s tenure.

Of the six episodes of The Space Pirates, all bar Part Two are lost.  This relatively minor tragedy may or may not have been avoidable.  Indeed, much of the recent understanding seems to suggest that the BBC simply didn’t archive transmitted material in the way that they do now (and not because they smartened up their business of general housekeeping, but because the potential for massive financial gain to be had from the advent of home video made them rethink their widespread programme of purging and burning), and so it’s a moot exercise to wish that they had (even though we may all make that wish when we look at that long list of things we may never, ever see again).

But here’s the plus side to the junking of large swathes of the show’s early history:  There will always be episodes of Doctor Who yet to watch; there is always something else to be seen; there’s an adventure waiting for us to discover and see for yourself.  Think of that next time you’re bored watching The Web Planet for the third time, for there are hidden corners of the mythos that still sing out to us with the golden promises of El Dorado, and they may turn up anywhere, at any time – or not…  All of which rather skirts around the issue:  Is The Space Pirates actually any good?  Well, let’s try to look at the positives, shall we?

The one episode that we do have is in remarkably clean condition.  1969 seems to me as long ago now as the astronauts of Apollo 11 landing on the moon did to a younger version of me who watched the scratchy footage of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin bounce around the lunar surface, fluffing their own lines in a ‘one take only’ scene, and yet this recovered tape is as good as anything broadcast in much more recent times.  I’m not so sure that the restoration team get the credit that they deserve in converting the contents of film canisters on sale for 10p at village fair jumble stalls (in church halls after being found sitting in the vicar’s loft after thirty years’ benign neglect) into the high quality sound and vision we get in examples such as this, but I sure hope they do.

Deserving particular praise on this evidence is director Michael Hart for his handling of the beautiful Gerry Anderson-inspired model spaceship sequences peppered throughout this one episode, and one would assume, throughout the rest of the story.  The accompanying (space) operatic theme by good old Dudley Simpson complements these clips well, and the overriding impression is of the grandeur and desolation of space at a time when all the watching world probably still thought it would be quite a wheeze to be flung into the airless dark above.

There’s also a good bit of model work around the very Doctor Who science-y bit about Beacon Alpha Four being assembled from eight separate modules held together by the force of electromagnetism before being blown apart by the space pirates at the end of the first episode.  In one of these, we find the TARDIS triumvirate discussing the possibility of reintegrating the whole structure, one by one, by essentially re-magnetising them all back together.

The terrible difficulties experienced by the production team of the time meant that this was a story that never should have happened – but did.

In a perfectly Patrick moment, the Doctor hands Jamie a pair of magnets and a bit of string with which to understand through play the theory behind their chat, while he answers Zoe’s question of how he hopes to achieve this reunification by saying with triumph and hope in equal measure that he has a screwdriver and a little understanding about electromagnetics.  The improvising amateur is central to the character of the Doctor, as inherited from an older archetype that inhabits British science fiction and fantasy literature, and it shines again here through Troughton, albeit much too briefly.

Something else to watch out for is Gordon Gostelow’s costume as Milo Clancy, clearly modelled on the grizzled western gold prospectors of the western genre.  Modelled, that is to say, from the waist up, complete with Wild Bill Hickok moustache, but who, with his trousers and boots, seems to have heralded the coming of the New Romantics by some ten years.  In fact, I’m certain I’ve seen John Taylor in the same-styled pants on the cover of one of the singles from the first Duran Duran album.

It’s a rather lovely little touch in combining a pastiche of the known as well as a hint of the yet to come on the part of the designer, Ian Watson, who must also have been responsible for the model spaceships, so kudos to him on all counts (well, most counts), not least for the flashing lights and retro ‘60s futuristic industrial chic of the sets, which are nonetheless rumoured to be already-fabricated left-overs on a story that never was.

Viewers raised on Cosgrove Hall animations will also instantly recognise the voice if not face of Jack May, he of the low sonorous boom who here plays General Hermack but may be more familiar to some of us aw Count Duckula‘s Igor, the curmudgeonly old vulture butler.  Watching this episode, I found myself willing the pace on just so that we could have even the possibility of Igor sneakily offering Troughton’s Duckula a goblet of vintage blood while making snide asides about the size of Hines’ Nanny; alas knowing that neither the padded nature of this story or the fact that 1969 Doctor Who never did a crossover with Count Duckula from the late ‘80s denies me from ever seeing it happen.

And, well, that’s all I’ve got.  I’m sorry; there are no more positives that I can try and extract from this single 25 minutes of Second Doctor adventuring.  And it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, either.  The terrible difficulties experienced by the production team of the time meant that this was a story that never should have happened but did – very quickly – and it shows.  (Even if it nonetheless remains preferable to the originally-intended “Prison In Space”. Honestly, Google it.  Just wow…)

The Space Pirates isn’t perfect, but remains preferable to the originally-intended ‘Prison In Space’…

Aside from the title harkening back to B grade sci-fi films from the ‘50s complete with terrible American accents that cannot help but bring this down in the modern viewers’ debatably-more-discerning eyes, this is an adventure where Not Much happens – and a lot of it, too.  The Doctor’s first line comes a full eight minutes into the episode, rising from unconsciousness as he attempts to awaken his two young friends, who perhaps have fallen asleep from the whole situation.  It is a brief scene of just some few seconds, before we return to them for a second time after almost another five minutes of screen time elapse.

In their absence, we have lots of explanation from the crew of ‘the good guys’, who use lots of meaningless code words like V-41 and XX1 to further disengage the viewer, and who are dressed in the lowest-common-denominator conception of what people in the past thought people in the future would wear, not out of utility or comfort but due to how shiny and decorative it is.  They look like baroque versions of the Thunderbirds, and the existing scene involving the outrageously helmeted Madeleine Issigri, played by Lisa Daniely, and General Hermack, now played by Basil Exposition, on the wonderfully unimaginatively-named planet Ta, is unbeatable as well as unbearable in just how much information it dumps on the by-now entirely uninterested viewer.  Not even the pantomime nature of Issigri, telegraphing to anyone still conscious that she has Secret, Illegal Plans can help us to re-engage with proceedings.

But the lowest of all these lowlights?   Surely this occurs when we watch a man attempt to eat a hard-boiled egg for breakfast while suffering such mild inconveniences as burnt toast and an interruption due to a ringing phone, which is every bit as interesting as it dreadfully sounds.

I had never seen anything of The Space Pirates before writing this, and I desperately wanted to like it, even if it was in a way whereby I was able to simply sympathise with it as a cheap and mostly ho-hum episode of Doctor Who that nonetheless gave us an insight into what things were like on a Saturday tea time, long ago in an English spring.

Written by Robert Holmes, and with a recent history of positive revisions of opinions on lost stories that have been found and returned, I genuinely wanted to believe that there was enough here for me to mount an argument against those who would consistently place it in the bottom ten of every important Doctor Who series poll.  A few moments aside that are here previously outlined, I can’t say that I have walked away feeling like I have been enriched that little bit more by my exposure to what little remains to me of the valuable unviewed portion of a sprawling and largely-rich televised canon.

Perhaps the Doctor himself best sums matters up when he declares: “Oh dear, what a silly idiot I am!”, and the worst bit is that you can visibly see Troughton’s resignation at and disillusionment with a part in which he has positively glowed on most other occasions.

The post 049 – The Space Pirates appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Comedy Doctor Who Rowan Atkinson to star as French Detective Maigret

James Lomond 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.

We’ve heard this week that ITV will be making two TV movies featuring original/comedy Ninth Doctor Rowan Atkinson as Parisian Detective, or Commissaire, Jules Maigret.

The 75 novels by the prolific Georges Simnon were published from 1930 through to the early 70s and have been adapted into radio and television stories in numerous countries including Russia, Japan and various European countries including the UK. Beyond the 1999 Comic Relief skit by Steven Moffat, Curse of the Fatal Death, which starred Atkinson, this will be of particular interest to Doctor Who fans as the most famous British adaptation, Maigret, which ran from 1960 for four seasons, had a theme composed by Ron Grainer, the man responsible for the Doctor Who theme. Have a listen (1:39)…

And then there’s this…

The second version (which goes flat now and again as though a turn-table isn’t quite keeping up the speed) apparently got to No.20 in the UK charts in 1962 (!) Alongside Grainer’s other well known TV theme, Steptoe & Son, this perhaps helps make some sense of THIS which is allegedly a later arrangement of the Who theme where Grainer indicates how he had originally imagined it before Delia Derbyshire applied her electronic genius (thank goodness!)

An early 90s revival starred A Christmas Carol‘s Michael Gambon. Fans of the character will be reassured that, despite casting Atkinson who is known for internationally famed comic roles (Mr Bean, Jonny English and Blackadder in particular), the films are rumoured to involve the talents of Stewart Harcourt. Harcourt penned a number of Agatha Christie screenplays including Miss Marple and Poirot – DenofGeek notes this suggests a more serious tone than Atkinson’s more recent cinematic exploits and it’ll be interesting to see him in a non-comic role.

Atkison said “I have been a devourer of the Maigret novels for many years, and I’m very much looking forward to playing such an intriguing character, at work in Paris during a fascinating period in its history.”

Another potential shared history with Doctor Who might be that some episodes are reported as missing. Though other sources suggest all but the pilot episode are held within the BBC archives. If anyone can shed light on this I’d be grateful!

Any Maigret fans out there? What are your thoughts?…

The post Comedy Doctor Who Rowan Atkinson to star as French Detective Maigret appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

What’s All The Fuss About … ?

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.

Unbelievable as it may seem, there are still those out there that don’t get, don’t understand,our Doctor and the love we Whovians have for him. They can’t understand why we like a tv show that is so old, has “crappy” and “cheesey” special effects, and sometimes makes no sense. Wibbley wobbley timey what?

These naysayers and skeptics are of all ages and of all walks of life. And, chances are, that you know more than a few of them. Of course, if you’ve every been in more than one fandom, you know that there will always be people that just don’t get it.

Well now, you might just be able to help those non-believers come over to the Timey Wimey side. A new book is due out 5th March that will help your questioning friends better understand your Whovian love and give them a guide as to who you are talking about when you mention the Third Doctor or Colin Baker or Daleks.

What’s All The Fuss About…? An Introduction To Doctor Who, written by Will Hadcroft and Ian Wheeler, aims to give an overview of the era of each Doctor, as well a list of the essential episodes of each incarnation, and to condense 50 plus years of television history into one easy guide.

Who is the Doctor, what are the Daleks and why is the TARDIS a police box?

Here is a television programme that has been running for over fifty years and has seen twelve different actors play the title role, each a unique incarnation. 

Why are people so devoted to this phenomenon?

What is all the fuss about?

Will Hadcroft and Ian Wheeler present the basics, with an overview of each Doctor’s era and recommended stories to try, delivering the essential information that you need to know, your introduction to a television legend.

It is the perfect beginners’ guide for anyone wondering where to start, and equally suited to the die-hard fan who wants be reminded of and relive the very best bits all over again.

The book is currently available for pre-order from FBS FabulousBookS for £6.99 and all pre-orders will receive a signed copy!

Sounds like an interesting read! I wonder how much shipping to the States would cost…

(via DoctorWhoNews)

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Big Finish’s Doctor Who Short Trips Round-Up

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.

When I began reviewing the Companion Chronicles last year, I really had no reason to suspect I’d like the line so much. After all, and I noted often, most of the stories would have worked better as full cast audios (in my opinion, of course). However, my appreciation for the format increased and there has been a little bit of a hole in my life since the series came to an end.

Luckily for myself and other Whovians who may find themselves in the same situation, there is great way to fill that void and it’s the Doctor Who Short Trips range! Today, we’re rounding up some brand new details on the next set of download-only releases coming up through the next few months, including a couple of cover art reveals and new story details. Shall we begin?

New Cover Art for Time Tunnel

That’s rather dashing, wouldn’t you agree, dear readers? Featuring Katy Manning as narrator, this is a brand new story featuring the Third Doctor, Jo, and the Brigadier (pre-Cyber Conversion, of course!):

“Reports are coming in to UNIT of trains emerging from a railway tunnel in Sussex, their passengers and drivers dead. The Doctor elects to drive a train through the tunnel himself, but when he emerges Jo sees to her horror that he is covered in ice. Something in the tunnel has driven him close to the point of death. What can it be?”

Doctor Who – Short Trips: Time Tunnel releases in March but the download is available for pre-order now.

Cover for The Ghost Trap Revealed!

If the Fourth Doctor is more your cup of tea, then you’ll definitely be interested in April’s release, Doctor Who – The Ghost Trap! Read by Louise Jameson, The Ghost Trap sees the Doctor and Leela facing down a ghost:

“Responding to a salvage team’s distress call, the Doctor and Leela arrive on a crippled space ship. Its owners, the Dihmokk, are a secretive race of space mariners whose navigation skills make them the envy of the galaxy. The salvage team are long dead, but their last log entries speak of a spectre stalking the ship’s halls, picking them off one by one. When the pair become separated, Leela must fight for survival whilst the Doctor seeks to understand the nature of the ghost…”

The audio releases in April, but you can get your pre-order in now.

Synopsis Released for May’s The King of the Dead

Finally, but certainly not the least, Big Finish has released the story details for the upcoming Fifth Doctor adventure, The King of the Dead:

“When the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan arrive in 1980s London, they find the current hot ticket is The King of the Dead, an interactive theatre experience they’ve inadvertently become part of. The Doctor settles into his usual role – trying to save the day after discovering an alien presence – but it’s Nyssa who finds herself dealing with someone who is working from a different script entirely…”

This forthcoming adventure is narrated by Sarah Sutton and Big Finish has also released a “behind the scenes” photo of the former companion in studio (right at the top of this very article). Doctor Who – The King of the Dead releases in May and its pre-order link is also live.

What do you think, dear readers? At £2.99 a pop, does the Short Trips range fit the bill and wallet for you? Are you excited about any of these upcoming releases? Let us know!

The post Big Finish’s Doctor Who Short Trips Round-Up appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Series 9 Filming Spoilers: New Alien Revealed?

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 Doctor Who crew are filming in Tenerife this week, and an interesting tweet from on-location work looks to reveal an alien from the opening Series 9 two-parter, The Magician’s Apprentice/ The Witch’s Familiar.

Actress, Gina Beck revealed her jealousy of her friend, Ben Freeman, accompanied by a photo of Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Freeman, and a mysterious charred fourth figure.

Very jealous that @BenFreeman20 was filming right next to Doctor Who yesterday!! Wahhhhhh!!!! pic.twitter.com/0MbLKYVcTD

— Gina Beck (@Gina_Beck) February 25, 2015

Pretty creepy, huh!

Okay, so let’s speculate, shall we? Rumours are rife that the Doctor might be returning to Karn – debuted in The Brain of Morbius – to find out how Missy changed gender. The last time we visited Karn in 2013’s The Night of the Doctor, the Sisterhood tempted the Doctor with a new regeneration: “The change doesn’t have to be random: fat or thin; young or old; man or woman?” Perhaps the Master got tempted too? That may ease a few people’s minds, that it wasn’t a straight-out regeneration.

Ben Freeman previously tweeted what seems to be a costume fitting for Doctor Who:

Feeling pretty hench on set today pic.twitter.com/XIBZTNu4T5

— Ben Freeman (@BenFreeman20) January 20, 2015

“Hench” isn’t making me warm to him, I’ll be honest, but I’ve faith that the upcoming serial, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Blink‘s Hettie MacDonald, will be great. Also, credit to Freeman for wearing such a warm-looking outfit in an already hot country!

Elsewhere, Michelle Gomez has been spotted on location with Jenna Coleman, having a nice little chat seemingly at a cafe. And it seems the Men In Black are out and about too: personally, I’d like a return of the Alliance of Shades from The Sarah Jane Adventures, but it’s more likely to be UNIT, already confirmed to return alongside Jemma Redgrave’s Kate Stewart.

Further scenes were filmed at the Teide National park in Tenerife. Absolutely stunning vistas!

Image Credits: Alejandro DG; Musphay Glez; and Joanne Waiting, via DWTV.

 

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The Forgotten Son: The New Adventures of Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart Reviewed

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.

Cards on the table: I loved the Virgin New Adventures and their BBC Books incarnation too, but when Doctor Who returned in 2005 the range suddenly became quite… childish, I suppose. So when I heard about the Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart series of books, and saw the roster of authors, I had high hopes. Lance Parkin, Nick Walters and David A McIntee all contributed Doctor Who stories to the Virgin and BBC ranges during the Great Hiatus, so how could this new run of books – approved by both Hannah Haisman, granddaughter of the Brigadier’s departed co-creator Mervyn, and his writing partner Henry Lincoln – possibly fail?

Well, it could be down to one simple thing: lack of awareness. This is why we’re heavily plugging the first book, The Forgotten Son, on Kasterborous, and have featured the writer, Andy Frankham-Allen, on the podKast (along with Hannah Haisman and boss man at publishers Candy Jar Books, Shaun Russell. Now, you might – quite reasonably – ask “why?” After all, when we started promoting the series, we had no idea how good or bad the first installment would be.

“This is an absolutely perfect representation of Lethbridge-Stewart in his younger days, coming to terms with the barmy events of the Great Intelligence’s Yeti attack…”

At the same time, however, we do know how good or bad various elements of “official” Doctor Who non-TV fiction have been over the past decade, and Big Finish aside, it has been a ropey old collection of tales that don’t do justice to the creative rich seam that was mined in the ’90s and noughties.

Fortunately for everyone involved, The Forgotten Son is a superb start to the Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart range, set following the events of The Web of Fear and before The Invasion. Keeping the focus tightly on the proto-Brigadier, we get an insight into the impact of the events in London, how the military manage the return of the evacuees, and we get a recognisable, powerful villain. There’s even a couple of mentions of some Doctor in there, too.

Now, the eagle eyed among you might have noticed that this is a Doctor Who book without the Doctor, stories set in the Doctor Who universe, but without any official approval. Well, you’re wrong: Ms Haisman and Mr Lincoln have given all of the approval necessary. The characters within The Web of Fear belong to the writers (just as Terry Nation owns the Daleks, Robert Holmes the Sontarans, etc.) and so Andy, Lance, Nick and David and anyone else who may come to write for this series are all able to refer back to that story and use the events within; the same goes for any other works by Haisman and Lincoln. We can only speculate as to what this might mean for popular characters created by other Doctor Who writers…

With a number of mysterious layers to intrigue and entice, the puzzle over the Colonel’s background and the disappearance of a dead soldier to keep you guessing, Forgotten Son is a superb opener to the series, mixing recognisable Who lore, suppositions by cast members, tear-jerking dedications, a foreword by the great Terrance Dicks, and the familiar smile of the man we came to know as the Brigadier. Because, really, this is his book, and his series, and had Andy failed to bring the old soldier to life then we probably wouldn’t be talking about these books for much longer.

Happily, the opposite is true. He may not be hijacking Liz Shaw’s research scientist career or bellowing “chap with wings: five rounds rapid!” but this is an absolutely perfect representation of Lethbridge-Stewart in his younger days, coming to terms with the barmy events of the Great Intelligence’s Yeti attack and discovering new facts about himself, just as we learn them with him.

I’m reluctant to issue empty epithets such as “a triumph” or “Andy Frankham-Allen’s best yet!” (especially as I haven’t read too much of Andy’s work) but The Forgotten Son is the series opener that we hoped for, and we hope to be able to bring news and reviews on this series for years to come. If you’re a fan of classic Doctor Who, of the Brig, or if you just want to enjoy a good sci-fi adventure within an established fictional world, then head to Candy Jar Books’ website, or Amazon, and order your copy forthwith!

The paperback edition of Lethbridge-Stewart: The Forgotten Son will soon be available on Amazon, while Lethbridge-Stewart: The Forgotten Son (Kindle edition) can be ordered now. You can also order direct from Candy Jar Books for £8.99 (plus shipping).

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