Christian Cawley's Blog, page 166

Doctor, No: Thoughts on Series 8

Nick May 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 final episode of Peter Capaldi’s first season as the Doctor has just finished and I have already had two texts asking me what I thought of both Death In Heaven, and the series as a whole. As the resident Who fan of our social circle, I often get asked what, to quote Eric Morecambe, I’ve thought of the show so far. Despite a more-than-generous text allowance as part of my monthly mobile plan, I’ve decided I’d rather like to share my thoughts with other fans first.

I’m going to say it: I have been distinctly underwhelmed. There.

All the ingredients were there, but the season hasn’t hung together as a cohesive end product. Capaldi was great, his portrayal of the Doctor has been a real sea change for the modern run: alien, distant, unpredictable, waspish, still… They’ve rebooted Clara away from all the ’impossible girl’ nonsense of the previous season, and Jenna Coleman has been fantastic. The trouble is that they haven’t really gelled – beyond the notion that there’s meant to be a distance between the new Doctor and Clara, that spark that defines all the great Doctor/companion relationships was missing. This impacted on a lot of the emotional punch points scattered through the series: the confrontation at the end of Kill the Moon, the make-up trip in Mummy on the Orient Express and the frankly extraneous showdown at the start of Dark Water.

Arguably, it’s the case that two great actors have been let down by some sub-par writing. After opening strongly with Deep Breath and Into the Dalek, the series lurched backwards into Matt Smith territory with the inconsequential Robot of Sherwood. Listen was yet another permutation of the ‘everyday menace’ story that Steven Moffat is so fond of (please stop before we get to a story about why some pre-packed sandwiches are a pain to open…). The Caretaker was just another sci-fi rom-com a la the writer’s own The Lodger, Time Heist was nothing-y at best and that’s before we even get started on Kill the Moon and In the Forest of the Night, where the real monsters were the parade of truly awful child actors we had to contend with.

The whole concept of an edgier Who seemed to have fallen by the wayside as the series has gone on. It started so well: dark, intelligent scripts, Ben Wheatley’s atmospheric direction and, of course, a Doctor unlike any other in the show’s recent history. That said, there have been highlights. Jamie Mathieson has been a real asset to the series – Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline were undeniably two of the standout scripts of the season. Mathieson really captured the remit of a morally ambivalent alien Doctor who was perfectly OK in Mummy with people dying as he gathered the evidence for his counter-measures. Compare that with the far more out-of-character refusal to help in Kill the Moon. The marauding 2D creatures in Flatline were an inspired idea, worthy of the first appearance of the Weeping Angels. Seeing them prowling the train tunnels of Bristol was more of a homage to the classic era than the slightly perfunctory appearance of the Cybermen at St Paul’s. More from him, please.

And so to the finale, and that big reveal: the jury’s still out here on the idea of the Master being a woman. After all, he’s been a husk, a small CGI snake and Eric Roberts in drag. The Master ‘died’ a long time ago, and several times since. The idea has been made more palatable by the casting of Michelle Gomez, who has taken her Sue White/Miss Pickwell and turned it up to eleven. The idea of turning the world’s dead into Cybermen was a wonderfully creepy one, given a touching pay-off by Kate Stewart being rescued by her mechanised late father.

The point of the emotional focus was, of course, meant to be Danny Pink’s death and conversion into a Cyberman. Sadly, though, the character hasn’t really worked, in no small part due to the weak portrayal by Samuel Anderson. The attempts to recreate the Amy/Rory dynamic have largely been one-sided, with Jenna Coleman shoring up the drama of losing a loved one, only to have them come back as a cybernetic killing machine.

To be fair, the whole character of Danny has been wrong. There have been times when the character has veered towards being possessive, which doesn’t sit right in a series like Who and certainly doesn’t create the kind of conundrum for Clara that the series wanted to create.

All told, there were some good bits – some excellent bits, in fact – but overall it’s a case of ‘must try harder’. Peter Capaldi, and the idea of a darker Doctor, deserve better material if the idea is to really soar. A less manic Doctor requires stories that will be driven by his less predictable reactions to situations than by the dashing about and piling on incident and the plot elements. Whoever follows Jenna Coleman has tough act to follow: she’s brought the character of Clara back from a pointless story arc, followed by a bit of foot finding while they decided what to do with her. She’s created a self-assured, witty, confident character. It was a pity that things didn’t really work out.

If next year really is Steven Moffat’s swansong as showrunner, I’d love to see him go out on a high. Moffat has provided many of the highpoints of the modern Who, both as writer and, at least to begin with, at the controls. I would love to see the new direction he has evidently been very proud of creating really bed in, but to do that, he needs to have the courage of his convictions, not go for the ‘quick win’ runaround episodes. They’ve got a later timeslot – let’s use it to its full effect. They can do it on Sherlock, they can do it on the show they love so much.

Oh, and please, ditch the stage school kids.

The post Doctor, No: Thoughts on Series 8 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

How The Kasterborous Team Enjoyed Doctor Who Series 8

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.

Simon Mills

Loved Capaldi. Loved Into the Dalek. Really loved Mummy on The Orient Express. Just didn’t buy into the whole Clara-Danny love affair and got sick of it mid series as it was a distraction that seemed to sideline The Doctor as a sideshow to their soap opera. Robot of Sherwood was a low point, far too silly and really needed Matt Smith’s gurning clown. Flatline and Listen were both interesting and fairly creepy.

I’m left wanting more of Peter Capaldi and Michelle Gomez, though. Which is a good thing… even though I was disappointed by the finale being a mess.

Jonathan Appleton

Peter Capaldi has been an excellent choice; Listen; Jamie Mathieson; some good direction throughout the run; and good to have a big cliffhanger in episode 11 that got everyone talking… On the debit side: a shame that Clara, in being given a greater role, became rather unlikeable; stories that felt like reruns of previous episodes (Into the Dalek, The Caretaker…); is it just me or are budget pressures starting to bite? Some very small guest casts this year; plot resolutions that, even for this show, stretched credibility too far; and as for Father bloody Christmas…

Rebecca Crockett

First and foremost, Capaldi has proved he IS the Doctor. Any doubts that were had before the series began should have been more than squelched. Unfortunately the stories he was given for his first series were not all as great. Most were forgettable, some even felt as if they were written for his predecessor. Highlights like Mummy, Forest of the Night, and Dark Water were the rare gems in this uneven series. The Doctor/companion relationship felt too strained, and yet Danny Pink felt very under used, a missed opportunity. All of it has left me wondering if new blood in the TARDIS (new companions) and new blood behind the scenes might not be a bad idea for the future.

Thomas W Spychalski

Capaldi was great in his first outing, nice to see an older Doctor back in the mix, although not sure about the outfit. This series gave us some of the best Who in years in the forms of Mummy and Flatline but also gave us another companion love affair/triangle that has become a bit stale in my opinion.

Clara’s exit was well conceived with the lies on both sides but as Clara was also the ‘Impossible Girl’ in the last full series arc feel that she was made too important and the change from Clara Oswald to “Clara Who” was a bit hard to fathom.

Looking forward to a fresh companion created with Capaldi’s Doctor in mind and hoping that some of the quality shown in some stories this year continues when production resumes.

Scott Varnham

The series was disappointing, In The Forest Of The Night was absolutely awful. And did Clara not recognise Missy from the shop? And while I feel a lot of sympathy for Moffat (must be hard to have thousands of people clamouring for your resignation), I’m starting to side with that opinion.

Drew Boynton

Series 8 just feels strangely forgettable. I did enjoy most of the episodes, but had to keep reminding myself of things like, “Was the chalkboard in that one? Or how did that graffiti episode end again?” My favorites were Sherwood and Listen. I can’t shake the feeling that Capaldi is an actor playing the Doctor and just doesn’t feel like THE DOCTOR. Coleman is beautiful but I have heard complaints that Clara doesn’t have much personality, which I can’t disagree with. Danny Pink was probably underwritten and possibly underplayed. Overall, I would place Series 8 squarely in the middle between Series 6 (didn’t like) and Series 7 (liked).

James Lomond

Capaldi has totally won my heart as the Doctor – it’s as though everything between now and 1989 can be forgotten! While Coleman has been stunningly good throughout, the dynamic with Clara has been a too uncomfortable for me though this was turned around in a moment with the Dark Water betrayal scene. The hits saw the Doctor being a brilliant scientist again and the misses forgot that you need to explain otherwise ludicrous events to keep the audience on side. So far I’m not convinced by the Missy-Clara reveal and am ready for a new companion custom built for number Twelve.

How do you feel about Series 8? Was it everything you wished for? Perhaps there’s a story no longer like, or one you’ve a new respect for. Let us know!

The post How The Kasterborous Team Enjoyed Doctor Who Series 8 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Incredibly Versatile Peter Capaldi

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.

You, dear reader, like us, seem pretty impressed by the Twelfth incarnation of our favourite Time Lord. Peter Capaldi was well known to audiences as the venom-spewing Scots Spin-Doctor in The Thick of It before taking control of the TARDIS. But other than his turn as Caecilius in Fires of Pompeii and his appearance in Torchwood: Children of Earth, you’re probably less familiar with his earlier work and quite what a versatile actor he is.

Journey with us on a whistle-stop tour of his previous roles and see if you can see hints of the Twelfth Doctor emerging. From Angels to jealous husbands he’s a versatile chap and has a wealth of comic experience behind him having appeared with some of the biggest names in British comedy. But first some drama…

To kick off, take a look at Capaldi as a pretty convincing George Harrison from the 1985 chronicle of the Beatles break-up and John Lennon’s relationship with Yoko up to his assassination, John & Yoko: A Love Story. Here’s a sequence of Capaldi’s scenes where you can see an equally fine performance by Paul McGann’s brother, Mark as John Lennon. Moody moustaches and fits of pique!…

Next is his appearance as the benevolent (yet slightly sinister?) Angel Islington in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. It’s an adventure set in a fantastical world beneath London and usual invisible to the native human inhabitants and populated by characters named after various London landmarks and underground stations (or vice versa). This is an arch performance as an ethereal being composed of pausing and pacing though delivered with complete conviction – Neverwhere is classic magical Gaiman, well worth a watch (or read)…

A quick detour into another medium – here’s Peter Capaldi exploring his home countries relationship with art in A Portrait of Scotland where he starts with a visit to his alma mater, the Glasgow School of Art – it starts out with a glimpse at his really remarkable drawing ability, capturing faces of London Underground commuters. I can confidently say without being overblown that this man is an artist – take a dip in a sea of “denim, long hair and Afghan coats”…

Here he is, in all his venom-spitting glory, a selection of his spin-doctor creation, Malcolm Tucker from In the Loop – the film spin-off from The Thick of It political comedy. Parental advisory – there is vitriolic rudeness of every shape and size. And swearing…

From “Powerline”, a 1986 episode of C.A.T.S. Eyes – an ITV series about a covert government detective agency – a 28 year-old Peter Capaldi stars as Captain Harry Caldicott – a soldier a little more forward than the UNIT regulars. It’s all shoulder pads, perms and pregnant pauses in this slice of 80s crime drama…

Here Doctor Twelve tries to tame the titular serpent form bonkers fantasy horror, The Lair of the White Worm. The scene climaxes with a violent death-by-bagpipes…

This clip from 1983’s Local Hero features Capaldi as the local representative of an American Oil company trying to buy out a small Scottish village. The comedy stars Burt Lancaster and won a BAFTA for the Best Director…

More comedy from a decade later with Peter Capaldi starring as a jealous husband alongside Jennifer Saunders, Robbie Coltrane and Miranda Richardson in an episode of Comic Strip. This anthology show involved a core of well-known British talent and featured guest actors including Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne and Elvis Costello (no, really).

We close with another comedy drama, this time from 1987 and co-starring Lesley Sharp (Midnight) and the wonderful Sheila Hancock (The Happiness Patrol). This charts the emergence of an edgier, artier side to an anxious clerk (Capaldi) reclaiming the fire of his r0ck-star parents that he never knew. If you’d wondered what he looked like with Egyptian styled eyeliner, look no further!

Any Peter Capaldi morsels we’ve missed? And do any of these appearances hold glimpses of the current incarnation of our Doctor? Tell us below…

The post The Incredibly Versatile Peter Capaldi appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Mask of Tragedy Reviewed!

Meredith Burdett 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.

Thus, with Mask of Tragedy, we find ourselves as errant listeners in the middle of a very important trilogy for the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex, or Hector as he’s become known of late.

After the sheer thrill of their previous adventure, Revenge of the Swarm, curiosity struck as to what the tone of their second story would be like. Would there be light-hearted humour before the big finale? Would the narrative continue into darkness or would a combination be struck to keep the levels safe?

The answer to this is ‘yes’ – for all three but whether this works in the story’s favour is not an easy answer.

Mask of Tragedy finds the TARDIS crew in ancient Athens. The Doctor begins to once again work with playwright Aristophanes, Hector finds himself trying to be a better man and Ace is right in her element as she joins the Spartan army. All good ingredients for this particular line up of regulars.

But where Mask of Tragedy fails to ignite the juices as its predecessor did is that it seems not quite sure what it wants to produce in terms of tone.

There are several dark moments to enjoy with war and death and especially the Seventh Doctor questioning himself. But then there are lighter moments of comedy and flippancy for the listener to crack a smile at as well. Whilst that has never been a problem in Doctor Who (see, for example, The Aztecs or most of the Tom Baker or Matt Smith eras of the show), in Mask of Tragedy it only serves to slightly confuse the listener as to what they are getting into. The light moments are followed too quickly by the dark and vice versa, resulting in a story that never quite manages to hit home with its punctuation marks exactly.

But where the tone of the story jolts up and down, one thing can be certain: Hector’s story continues to build to a well paced crescendo for the season finale. Hector here has more power than he should and that only fuels his deductions regarding the Doctor and Ace whom he does not really know. Having seen his own future previously, venturing into his past proves somewhat trickier for a character trying to discover who he is. In fact at the end of the tale, he’s far more wary of the Doctor and Ace than he’s ever been. Their (in his opinion) callous view towards interference and outcomes when it comes to time travel prove too much for the lost Liverpudlian and he angrily declares that he wants to go home, just in time for this trilogy’s finale.

Mask of Tragedy is by no means bad: there are plenty of pleasing moments to feast upon and as part of a larger whole, and it sits nicely where it should. As a standalone adventure however, it perhaps tries to offer a bit too much and can lead to one not feeling as engaged as they could. Purchase this as part of the whole trilogy as a final send off for Hex.

Mask of Tragedy is available now on CD or via download from Big Finish.

The post Mask of Tragedy Reviewed! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

9 Questions We Still Need Answers To After Death In Heaven

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.

A good show should give you a reason to keep watching, whether that’s because you become invested in the lives of the characters or because the stories it tells are ones that have meaning for you or are so good you don’t want to miss any. Very frequently Doctor Who draws you in with good stories that leave you full of questions about why or how things happened, such that you’ll want to continue to turn in to get the answers you seek. Some times those questions are ones about huge plot points, other times they are some picky little details that just keep bugging us well after they should. But what happens when you don’t get those answers? When you seem to be left with even more questions?

That’s when the fandom starts speculating, and articles like this are born!

If you’ve not seen Death In Heaven, why are you even reading this?? There be many a spoiler ahead so turn back now! If you’re still here, join us in scratching our heads and wracking our brains while we wait for the Christmas Special, not that we’ll get an answers then either! Your personal questions that are still lingering may have different mileage. These are just some of those that have been wandering around in my head since then!

What exactly happened to the Master after the events of The End Of Time? 

This is really a question loaded with still more questions. Assuming you’ve seen The End Of Time, you’ll remember that the Master was last seen attacking Rassilon as the Lord President and Gallifrey were being sucked back into their Timelock. The Master was not the least bit happy that the entire time he’d been planning and scheming on Earth, he’d only been a pawn of Rassilon in an attempt at breaking out of the Timelock to basically destroy the universe. *Taps out a four beat rhythm*

So what happened between then and now – and why and when did the Master become the Mistress? It’s now been established that Time Lords can switch genders, but after all this time as a male, why switch genders now? This all also begs the questions of is this really the Master’s true current form or did he steal a body? Or do any of the other things he’s done to come back to life?

How is the Mistress back on Earth?

Whatever way the Master came to be the Mistress, how did she manage to get back to Earth? Does she have a TARDIS? Did she come through the “Gallifrey Falls No More” painting from The Day of the Doctor?

This shot of woman’s hand on the edge of the painting, a hand that is not even possibly Clara’s, has raised that suspicion in some parts. But you’d think that if the Mistress came through that portal to Earth, then those at UNIT would already know about it.

If she is on Earth because she has her own TARDIS, then where is it? There have been a number of speculations floating about but there are only two that seem make sense to me – her TARDIS is either a red telephone box or St. Paul’s Cathedral. The actual telephone boxes have been popping up on set this year it seems a little more frequently than normal, though that may be due to episodes on Earth being set around the London area…or an overambitious set decorator trying a little too hard to make Cardiff look like London. If the Mistress’s TARDIS is St Paul’s, then that’s a pretty big TARDIS! You’d think people might notice it disappearing and reappearing, however.

Is the Mistress really dead?

Well, as the Master, he didn’t seem to stay dead for very long, although it has been quite some time since the character was on the show. My guess is that while it looked like she was hit with a blast from a Cyberman in Death in Heaven, (the CyberBrig to be exact) she’s not gone for good.

Why didn’t Clara recognise Missy as the “woman in the shop”?

If Missy was “the woman in the shop” then why didn’t Clara recognize her as the person that gave her the phone number to the TARDIS back in The Bells Of St John?  And if this was all Missy’s doing, including the messages in the newspaper in Deep Breath, then what about all of what happened in series 7, all of those other Claras? Is Missy then responsible for sending Clara to the Doctor and ultimately responsible for saving the Doctor from the Great Intelligence?

Was that really Osgood or was it the Zygon double – and is she really dead?

In the 50th anniversary, the Doctors made it so that for a time, the humans and their Zygon doubles wouldn’t know exactly which was which. We did, however, get a sneaky look at the Osgoods and one of them required an inhaler – presumably the one that was actually human. But they seemed to have made a quiet agreement as not to tell anyone else they knew who was who. So what happened to the Zygon doubles after the events of the 50th?

Much to fans’ dismay, the Mistress shot Osgood with her laser device thingy when she escaped. This after the Doctor hinted that he might take her on a run in the TARDIS after everything was over with. Did the Mistress really kill her or just upload her to the ‘Sphere? And was the person that seemed to die the real Osgood?

How was CyberBrig able to quickly come to his senses and save Kate yet his counterparts were stumbling aimlessly?

No matter what side you fall on (loving the tribute or thinking it sacrilege) there are still lingering questions about the Cyberman that was insinuated to be the Brigadier. How was he, unlike his counterparts, freshly created Cybermen digging their way out of the grave and stumbling, able to pull himself together and save his daughter from her fall from the airplane?  If both he and Danny (his more likely due to not pressing Delete on the iPad) were able to partially overcome their Cybertransformations, then how many others did the same?

Was it all just another part of Clara’s dreaming? Maybe a way to manage her grief about Danny’s death was to make it more heroic?

Was any of this actually real? We know Clara tried using the “sleep” patch on the Doctor but that he turn it around on her, yet still let her have her moment of “threatening” him with tossing the TARDIS keys into the lava. But what if all of this was really just a dream, a way for Clara to make Danny’s death something more than an accident, a way for her to be able to overcome her grief at his death? This sounds a bit far-fetched to me, given that the story felt like it was part of their real world, but then, stranger things have happened. This all also could’ve been taken place inside the data slice, given that the Gallifreyan Matrix could create virtual realities. This could all be still part of Missy’s plan and the Doctor is trapped in it.

Is Clara pregnant?

Ah, the elephant in the room…

Given we’ve met Orson Pink, who looks very much like Danny, and who says that time travel, what he was attempting to do, was in his family history, and that the Doctor, while hesitant to say much of anything about just what connection Clara and Orson had to each other, did hint that they could be related, just how exactly does his existence happen if Danny Pink is dead? Does that mean that Clara is already pregnant with his child?

There have been a number of things along the way that have possibly hinted that this might be the case – namely Clara’s agony at having to make the decision to destroy or not destroy the moon-come-egg in Kill The Moon (you know, aside from all of the agony that one might normally have if they had to make the decision to blow up the moon) and that one little note on a Post-It that could have the potential to mean something very important about her. Also the Doctor did at one point scan her and said she was “a mess of chemicals” – hormones gone wacky due to pregnancy perhaps?

Personally, this question sounds a bit like some bad fan fiction. The character has to leave because she is pregnant and oh yeah the father of the child, the love of her life, has died horribly. I’d rather it turn out that Clara will go on to raise the little boy that Danny accidentally killed who he sent back to Earth via that nifty control bracelet of Missy’s. It’s been some time since the boy’s death and his parents may not so easily be found. I’d like to think that even though he originally caused his death, that the boy eventually thinks of Clara and Danny as his family. Though this wouldn’t explain why Orson Pink looks so much like Danny…

So, readers, what questions are still burning in your mind? Have I given you more to chew on? Is there a theory here that you didn’t think of and has blown you away? Let me know in the comments!

The post 9 Questions We Still Need Answers To After Death In Heaven appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Big Finish Recasts Third Doctor, New Adventures Coming!

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.

The Third Doctor will return to Big Finish in two brand new stories featuring The Light at the End’s Tim Treloar in the title role.

Treloar will once again recreate Jon Pertwee’s incarnation of the Doctor from the 50th anniversary story for both Prisoners of the Lake by Justin Richards and The Havoc of Empires by Andy Lane.

Starring alongside Treloar will be Katy Manning and Richard Franklin with direction for both tales provided by Nicholas Briggs.

Speaking to Sci-Fi Bulletin, Producer David Richardson revealed that: “Prisoners of the Lake is an action-packed Earth-based adventure, in which the Doctor, Jo and Yates are called in to investigate a mystery concerning an unusual structure on the bed of a lake. And in Havoc of Empires, the trio head off into outer space – and become embroiled in events that could threaten the security of whole galaxies…”

You can pre-order The Third Doctor Adventures (Volume 1) from Big Finish now, which comes with a disc of extras, now for release in October 2015 for £25 for the CD and £20 for the Digital edition.

How do you feel about the decision to cast a new actor as a former incarnation of the Doctor?

The post Big Finish Recasts Third Doctor, New Adventures Coming! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

BBC Releases Doctor Who Christmas Clip For Children in Need!

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.

The annual linkup between Doctor Who and Children in Need – which goes all the way back to 1983′s The Five Doctors - has this evening resulted in the broadcast and release online of a new clip for the 2014 Christmas special, which has also been given a trailer…

We have little else to add, other than to remind you that we recently looked at everything we know so far about the as-yet untitled episode.

Also, this year’s seasonal special guest stars Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, etc.) as Santa Claus (known in the UK almost exclusively as “Father Christmas” until 20 years ago) and Natalie Gumede (Coronation Street).

One thing we do know: the Doctor Who Christmas special airs on Christmas Day!

The post BBC Releases Doctor Who Christmas Clip For Children in Need! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Man Who Could (Possibly) Be King (Maybe): Howard Overman

Nick May 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.

Continuing the theme of the title, my king-making choice (a man to take over from Steven Moffat as showrunner of the good ship TARDIS) is a bit like the guy who in 1714 suggested putting George I on the throne of England: “Yeah – Hanover. Never been here, doesn’t speak English- worth a punt?”

Howard Overman, ladies and gentlemen. Creator of the wonderfully wrong Misfits for E4, and soon starting a second series of the far-more-family-friendly Atlantis in the BBC1 slot vacated by – wait for it – Doctor Who. Chuck in Merlin and Vexed and you have quite a CV of popular TV of the last decade. True, he also wrote Dirk Gently for BBC4 but let’s not hold that against him.

Seriously though, Overman could be a worthy contender – granted, he hasn’t actually penned any Who, though he has expressed his admiration for the series in interviews in GQ and The Guardian. What he has got is pedigree. He has created two polar opposite fantasy series and found success with both. Maybe it’s time to look outside the proverbial tent for the next showrunner: after all, if the series had only looked at the usual BBC types in the ’70s, we’d never have had young buck producer Philip Hinchcliffe or an idiosyncratic script editor by the name of Douglas Adams…

Like Adams, Overman has imagination. One episode of Misfits featured a bloke who has learned to control dairy products. What sort of fevered imagination dreamt that up? A regular character who turns out to be someone’s imaginary childhood friend. A prophetic knitted jumper. Accidentally getting yourself pregnant by means I won’t go into on a family website. All these things were the products of Overman’s imagination over five series.

He can ‘do’ strong characters, too. The big strength of Merlin was its relationships: Merlin and the young Arthur and his mentor Gaius. Misfits, for all its coarseness, sex and drug-taking, had some quite touching moments: the abortive tryst between Nathan and Kelly in the first series, the doomed affair between Alicia and the future Simon, and the dynamic between Rudy and, well, himself all showed a writer who knew his characters inside out, made us care for them and, in the case of – SPOILERS! – Alicia’s death, could wring every last drop of dramatic potential out of them. If there’s a series that really needs some convincing central relationships at the moment, it’s Doctor Who.

So there we are: the case for Howard Overman, a man with no previous Who connections. However, if the powers that be were prepared to give him a chance, I think the gamble could pay off. Hands up who remembers seeing Matt Smith’s unveiling and thinking ‘Eh?’ Look how that worked out…

The post The Man Who Could (Possibly) Be King (Maybe): Howard Overman appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

New Trailer for Big Finish’s Dark Eyes 3!

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.

It’s no secret that the Master is back and dominating a lot of Who related news and media. With Michelle Gomez’s terrific, if not controversial, turn as the calculating Time Lord/Lady it isn’t hard to imagine why. However, her incarnation isn’t the only one making splashes this month.

That’s right, dear reader, Alex Maqueen’s Master is set to face off against Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor in Big Finish’s Doctor Who: Dark Eyes 3 and they’ve released an exciting trailer for the audio adventure which you can see in the box above.

In this third installment of the award winning series, stakes have never been higher for the Doctor’s friend, Molly O’Sullivan:

In his quest for universal domination, the Master plans to exploit the terrifying Infinite Warriors of the mysterious Eminence. The Doctor’s friend, Molly, is key to that plan’s execution, and now, aided by corrupted genius Sally Armstrong, the Master is close to success.

Paranoid and perplexed after his recent experience, the Doctor skirts the fringes of the fifty-year conflict between humanity and the Infinite Armies. Wary of changing the course of history, he fears that to fight the Eminence would be to do the Daleks’ bidding. But when Time Lord CIA agent Narvin provides the impetus for the Doctor to act, Liv Chenka joins him in a desperate race to save their friend and stop the Master.

As the Doctor goes head to head with his oldest and deadliest rival, this war is about to get very personal indeed…

The audio story is set to release later this month, but it’s available for preorder now. Be on the lookout for our own review of Dark Eyes 3, which is also coming soon.

Are you excited for more of the Eighth Doctor and Macqueen’s Master? Sound off below!

The post New Trailer for Big Finish’s Dark Eyes 3! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Steven Moffat Talks Master’s Return, Doctor Who Ratings

Drew Boynton 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.

That slightly grumpy man with a Scottish accent and dark suit coat has answered some of the universe’s greatest mysteries once again. No, not the Twelfth Doctor, silly! Doctor Who‘s showrunner extraordinaire, Steven Moffat. On 11 November, Moffat spoke at the Royal Television Society’s event Doctor Who: Anatomy of a Hit (nice title!).

The talk covered a variety of topics and questions, but two of the biggest concerned the revelation behind the Mistress of the Nethersphere’s true identity and the healthfulness–or perceived lack thereof–of the show’s Series 8 ratings.

As for the return of the Doctor’s best enemy, Mr. Moffat said that he had always been a fan of the Master (he specifically mentioned Roger Delgado and John Simm) and simply wanted a chance to write the character: “I wanted a go at the Master and I thought, ‘It’ll be a woman!’ and I then got lost for several months, thinking… It’s exactly the kind of gimmick I’m always saying you shouldn’t do – I’ve always said that you cast a person, you cast an individual, you don’t cast a gender… and I found a list [of actors] for another part and Michelle Gomez was on the list, and I thought, ‘My God – that’d be brilliant. Michelle is the person. I can write it now, I know what she’s going to be like!’”

In today’s changing and evolving TV market, it’s also no secret that there’s a perceived Doctor Who ratings drop, which Moffat basically called errant nonsense and simply said, “There is no drop-off in the ratings.” And according to the BBC, the showrunner is probably quite correct about Series 8′s Doctor Who ratings: “Figures from ratings agency Barb bear out his assertion. Once catch-up services [such as iPlayer] are included, consolidated viewing figures show an average increase of 39% on the overnight ratings. As a result, the first 11 episodes of recent series averaged 7.35 million viewers. That compares with 7.45 million for the previous series and 6.98 million for the one before that… [Overnight] Ratings did slide over the course of Capaldi’s first season in the Tardis – but the show faced scheduling changes on BBC One…”

And as a person who buys each week’s new episode on Amazon Streaming here in the US, this writer would have to agree with Steven Moffat as well.  There’s no word on whether the clever showrunner has planned to use the Missy’s hypnotizing powers to make the ratings rise even further… However, Ms Gomez has also been on the defensive this week, discussing the tone of the episodes she appeared in on BBC Radio.

Kasterborites, how do you watch each new episode of Doctor Who?  And would you be able to concentrate on the screen if the Master were sitting next to you?

 

The post Steven Moffat Talks Master’s Return, Doctor Who Ratings appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.