Christian Cawley's Blog, page 230

Which Doctor Who T-Shirt Will You Choose Today?

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.

It’s t-shirt time again, Doctor Who fans, and today TeeFury are giving you the chance to wear either – or both – of these stunning pieces of art on your chest.

Above on the left is “Doctor Rorschach” by Tony Centeno, which features in a TwoFury battle with “Gallifrey Argyle” by MJ, both available for just $11 plus shipping. At the time of writing “Doctor Rorschach” is racing ahead – a wise decision by other buyers, or utter madness?

You have the chance to decide by buying your favourite tee. Just head over to TeeFury now, where you will find these Doctor Who t-shirts in a selection of sizes for men, women and children.

This offer ends at midnight US time on Wednesday, June 11th 2014.

The post Which Doctor Who T-Shirt Will You Choose Today? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

PodKast: The Underwater Menace Of Sexism In Doctor Who

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.

It’s podKast time and we’re here this week with a selection of interesting chats about Series 8 casting, sexism in Doctor Who, the missing DVD release of The Underwater Menace and their collection of recommendations.

The podKast trio of Christian Cawley, James McLean and Brian A. Terranova are back and with no guest this week, we’ve got free rein to talk about pretty much whatever comes up, so listen out for some additional information such as James’ inability to realise that he should have invited a notable Doctor Who companion onto the podKast and Christian’s date confusion leading to the on air announcement of Brian’s brother’s impending nuptials rather than the Philadelphia Wizard World convention, which in fact takes place the following week.

We’ve also got time to chat about our weekly recommendations, so prepare for a nostalgic trip into the past with Robin of Sherwood and some Erik von Daniken-inspired thrills in Stargate SG-1.

Ready? Hit play!

Kasterborous PodKast Series 4 Episode 18 Shownotes

5th Norwich Sci-Fi FILM Convention
Christopher Fairbank among Doctor Who Series 8 guest cast
Phil Bates refutes suggestions of sexism in Doctor Who
Where’s The Underwater Menace DVD?!
Sue Malden, Saviour of Doctor Who
Doctor Who Nerd Block offer
Recommendations: Stargate SG-1 , Doctor Who: Legacy (again…!), Doctor Who Series 7b, Robin of Sherwood

The Kasterborous PodKast theme tune is arranged by Russell Hugo. Play it backwards for a message from the Master…

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”.)

What’s more, you can now listen and subscribe to the podKast via our Audioboo channel! Head to http://audioboo.fm/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 Audioboo:

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 PodKast: The Underwater Menace Of Sexism In Doctor Who appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

K Gill, Patriotic Jenna, Fanzines, Timewarp and Annuals

Danny_Weasel 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.

Well guys and gals, hold on tight cos its news blast time.

A Q & A With Karen Gillan

Everyone’s favourite red-headed companion had to pull out of an appearance at Denver Comic Con this week, but to make up for it she treated all her Twitter followers to a massive Q and A session with some insightful answers to burning questions such as her favourite animal is a meer cat, top colour is teal and her favourite actor that she has worked with in her career to date? Mr cool himself, “Matt Smith is my favourite actor that I have worked with”.

Other bombshells dropped include hazelnut dairy milk as top candy bar, portion sizes are the best thing about America and in the ultimate question roasted cheese, toasted cheese or cheese on toast?

@JB1888 Cheese on toast! ALWAYS!

— Karen Gillan (@KarenGillan2) June 9, 2014

But surely the most incredible fact to come out of this event is the knowledge that Karen Gillan refers to herself as “KGill”.

Jenna Coleman says ‘Doctor Who’ has made her feel more British.

In a recent interview with The List Jenna Coleman has said that being part of Doctor Who has made her more patriotic about her country thanks to the global promotional touring that has accompanied it.

“It’s been life-changing… I love that it’s so quintessentially British, yet so globally huge… The scene of me on the back of a motorbike with The Doctor, driving past Big Ben – I’ve never felt more British in my life!”

The highlight so far? Getting a world record. “We’re in the Guinness World Records 2014 for being simulcast in 94 countries at once. Who knew there were that many? But to be honest, the whole past 12 months have been a blast.”

Oxford Uni’s Doctor Who Fanzine Archives Hit the web

Oxford University’s Doctor Who society has been around for 25 years now, an impressive milestone and one that is being celebrated by putting its history online in the form of a downloadable collection of its in-house fanzine ‘The Tides of Time’.The latest issues added were published between 1990 and 1994 and cover everything from the McCoy era in the late 1980s to enthusing about the massive influx of available old stories, however legitimate the source of the video tapes, right through to the New Adventures novels published by Virgin.

Two Day Timewarp Con Coming to South West

In news that has me jumping for joy (yay for the south west) Weston Super-Mare will be hosting a two day Doctor Who convention at the Playhouse theatre on 5th and 6th of July and boasting a frankly massive list of guests headlined by Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant and loaded with the likes of Andrew Cartmel, Dee Sadler, Derek Martin, Damaris Hayman, Richard Franklin, Will Thorp, Deborah Watling, Sarah Sutton, Wendy Padbury, Mark Strickson, Terry Molloy, Louise Jameson and Katy Manning.

Ticket prices are ADULTS£26for one day, £41for both days. UNDER 14s £16 one day, £26 both days, (under 6 years olds are FREE with full paying Adult). Head to crea8if.com for more information.

Paul Magrs Celebrates The Annual Years

The Doctor Who annuals have had an odd history to say the least with some of the 80′s editions being particularly off the wall with not only their tales (and swathes of space facts) but their unusual art choices. Thankfully these books have now been given deserved authoritative treatment from Doctor Who writer Paul Magrs in this new book that covers the history of what one review called a big brother to TV Comic and second cousin to Doctor Who Discovers. This tome goes through the annuals in detail covering everything you could ever ask, and probably more.

The hardback edition of the 270-plus page book, priced £16.85, is strictly limited to 100 copies, with a paperback edition to follow after that.

The post K Gill, Patriotic Jenna, Fanzines, Timewarp and Annuals appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Confidential: Cutting Lines

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.

A minute-long clip from Doctor Who Confidential circa 2006′s Series 2 has shown up on YouTube, and it has a very interesting subject: dialogue that was cut from episodes or scripts. Lines can be cut (or changed) for any number of reasons, including time or budget constraints, actors not being comfortable with their delivery, changes to the storyline or story arc, or the ever-popular “It just doesn’t feel right…”.

In the Confidential clip, a few very familiar faces try to explain how and/or why certain lines end up being cut from the show. The familiar talking heads are former showrunner Russell T. (“The Davies”) Davies, future former showrunner Steven Moffat, rumored future showrunner Mark Gatiss, other rumored future showrunner Toby Whithouse, and former Doctor David Tennant. Shockingly, Gatiss is very bald in the clip and Tennant is very hairy.  Someone needed to tell each of them to do a better job editing their hair.

What if Jon Pertwee had improvised something far goofier or even more awesome than “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!”?

The subject of deleted dialogue opens up a whole omniverse of possibilities, as past and present spoken lines–especially rumored ones that were cut–can be dredged up and endlessly debated. You’ve heard of A Game of Thrones?  Let’s play  A Game of “What Ifs…”!  So… What if the Eighth Doctor had never said, “I’m half-human… on my mother’s side.”? What if rumored lines explaining that the Doctor and the Master were, in actuality, brothers who had grown up as good and evil were never cut from the Seventh Doctor’s final adventure, Survival?

And what about the quick scene in the Death of the Doctor episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures when the Eleventh Doctor tells Clyde that he can regenerate “507″ times? (Surely that should have been cut… or was it a joke?  Darn you, The Davies!) What if Jon Pertwee had improvised something far goofier or even more awesome than “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!”?  And how do we count alternate takes, such as The Day of the Doctor dialogue glimpsed in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, wherein the Eleventh Doctor tastes the statue dust and says “I’m a bit peckish.” instead of “In 1200 years I’ve never stepped in anything that wasn’t (important).”

Whatever the case, sometimes dialogue that goes too far–or doesn’t go far enough–can have the unintended effect of making the show even more fun and lively for the fans. Doctor Who has lived for five long decades, and in that time, there can’t help but be some debatable choices dialogue-wise. What may have seemed correct, funny, or just plain cool to a showrunner in a certain era may have fallen out of favor.  Or maybe, just maybe, in 50 years of episodes, one little line accidentally left in an episode by an editor under an extreme time crunch no longer fits the overall continuity of the show.

Then it becomes up to us as fans to decide whether to debate that odd line of dialogue, or to simply delete-delete-delete it from our memory banks altogether.

To paraphrase the Fourth Doctor, “Have we that right?” Yes, we do!

The post Doctor Who Confidential: Cutting Lines appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who’s Series 8 Global Publicity Tour!

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.

BBC Worldwide has announced a global publicity tour to launch Doctor Who Series 8 and introduce Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor!

Doctor Who: The World Tour will begin in the UK on August 7th and finish in Brazil on August 19th. The trip will see Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi, on-screen companion Jenna Coleman, and the show’s Lead Writer and Executive Producer Steven Moffat (subject to work commitments), visit 7 cities across 5 continents in 12 days to take part in a series of media and fan engagements to publicise the show’s forthcoming Series 8 to a global audience.

This tour will be the largest ever promotional undertaking in Doctor Who’s 50+ years and will kick off in Cardiff, Wales before heading to London and then off to Seoul (South Korea), Sydney (Australia), New York (US), Mexico City (Mexico) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). More details of the itinerary will be available soon at www.doctorwho.tv/worldtour as well as reports from the tour as it happens, which fans everywhere will be able to enjoy across social and digital platforms.

BBC Worldwide’s ambition for the brand has grown considerably since the global success of the 50th Anniversary which saw the special episode The Day of the Doctor broadcast simultaneously in 98 countries and in over 1500 cinemas across the world, setting a new record for event cinema in its first 3 days on general release.

Says new Doctor Peter Capaldi:

It’s fantastic that so many people across the world love Doctor Who. After 8 months solid filming deep in the world of monsters, Jenna and I are thrilled to be heading for the Planet of Fans.

Executive Producer and Lead Writer Steven Moffat adds:

I’ve always thought we’d all be a lot safer if the Doctor conquered the world, instead of the Daleks. Now with Jenna and Peter leading the charge, it looks like it’s going to happen. I’ll be bringing up the rear to handle the exposition scenes, and maybe carry some bags.

Amanda Hill is the Chief Brands Officer at BBC Worldwide.

We were so bowled over by the global reaction to the 50th episode last year that we thought what better way to introduce the new Doctor than to take the team around the globe. Doctor Who encompasses British creativity at its best and we’re passionate about it being on the world stage. This tour is something normally reserved for Hollywood blockbusters but with Doctor Who it appears you can do anything you dream of and continue to challenge what’s perceived as the norm in TV.

Doctor Who Series 8 is due to TX in the UK in August, with BBC America broadcasting the same day. Currently, Doctor Who is distributed by BBC Worldwide to over 200 territories.

The post Doctor Who’s Series 8 Global Publicity Tour! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Big Finish & Bernice: Scott Handcock Interviewed!

Doug Isaac 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.

Back in 1992, when the world was miserable and had no Doctor Who on the telly, fans of the errant time-botherer flocked to bookstores for their fix. Virgin Publishing had picked up the baton with their series of New Adventures, original novels featuring stories that were ‘too broad and deep for the television screen’.

An early star writer of the range was Paul Cornell, who, in his second novel for the range, created a brand new companion for the Doctor. Bernice Summerfield, an archeologist from the 26th century. Benny was a regular fixture of the range for another five years eventually getting a series of her own when the company lost the license to publish Doctor Who books.

In 1998, audio production company Big Finish debuted with audio adventures featuring the character. Played by Lisa Bowerman, Bernice found a whole new audience and Benny’s world grew broad and deep indeed.

Several times over the last sixteen years, and sixteen series, of audio adventures, Big Finish have given Benny’s world a shuffle, allowing new listeners onboard and keeping her adventures fresh and innovative. This month, they have done so again, albeit in a way that hearkens back to her past. Once again, the Doctor and Ace have entered Benny’s life and brought with them new challenges and opportunities for adventure.

The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield is a box set of four linked adventures, written by Nev Fountain, Una McCormack, Guy Adams and James Goss (who also acted as the set’s producer). It takes Benny from high, comedic adventure, through haunted dead worlds, culminating in a face-to-eyestalk confrontation with the Daleks.

It’s director, Scott Handcock, was only too happy to answer a few questions about his work across the four stories.

KASTERBOROUS: So Scott, this set feels as if it’s very much designed to be a jumping-on point for new listeners; is this a new start for Bernice Summerfield?

SCOTT HANDCOCK: It is. Previous ‘fresh starts’ for Benny have generally meant wiping the slate clean and setting her up with a band of new supporting characters, and giving her a brand-new world to get to grips with. This time round, James Goss has rather cleverly circumnavigated all of that by reuniting Benny with the Doctor and Ace, so everything feels reassuringly familiar, whilst at the same time being predictably unpredictable (in the way only travelling with the Doctor can ever be)!

K: Twenty years and counting, what is it about the character that has made her so popular and allowed her to endure?

SH: I think part of it stems from the fact she was the first original character to be spawned since the show went off the air, so there’s a great deal of nostalgia and fondness attached to her. Those kids who were reading the New Adventures as teenagers are now avid Big Finish listeners! But also, she was a fully-rounded character when she first appeared. She had a life of her own, she had a job… She didn’t actually need the Doctor to be exciting. Which is what made her such a perfect companion but also a standalone character in her own right. That’s why she became a perfect figurehead for Big Finish before they acquired the Doctor Who licence, and why (coupled with Lisa Bowerman’s brilliant portrayal) she’s naturally been able to develop and grow up over the sixteen years we’ve been doing the audio dramas.

K: As director, what are your first steps on reading the scripts?

SH: I always like to go in fresh when I read a script. Often, I’ve been responsible for commissioning them as the producer so I already know the storyline, but with this latest batch of Benny, plus the New Adventures adaptations, it was quite refreshing going in with absolutely no idea what to expect. All I knew with these was that it was going to be Ace with the Doctor and Benny. I didn’t even realise the Daleks were going to be in it! So I received the scripts out of order, read them one-by-one, then pieced them all together for a second reading… then began forming ideas about how to schedule and physically record the entire set! It’s a big, ambitious storyline, which entailed a lot more flitting around and cross-recording than we usually do. But that’s all part of the challenge and the fun of it!

DI: You’ve certainly gathered an extraordinary cast.

SH: We’re always lucky at Big Finish that people enjoy recording with us, which makes getting your dream cast just that little bit easier. And with this, everybody really rises to the challenge of the material. Obviously Lisa, Sylvester and Sophie have been doing this for ages, but even they managed to bring something new to proceedings, and the guest cast were all a joy!

Alex Jordan, who appears in episode one, is a fantastic up-and-coming actor who I’d just worked with on our forthcoming production of Frankenstein with Arthur Darvill, and can do an astonishing array of voices. Miles Jupp is every bit the arch villain you could hope for, and Matthew Woodcock provides a wonderfully dry set of robot accomplices. Cabin Pressure’s John Finnemore described the second episode as a proper chamber piece, and it really is! It’s pretty much just him, Lisa and the delightful Sheila Reid in a really tight, atmospheric, and sometimes unexpectedly emotional setting. Our guest cast for episodes three and four then include Colin McFarlane (the voice of ITV’s The Cube!), Amber Revah and the brilliant Matt Gravelle, who radio listeners may recognise from a wealth of BBC Wales’ drama productions, which is where I first got to work with him, and I’m thrilled he joined us for this one. We even have a cheeky little cameo from Nicola Bryant, who popped in on our final day. So definitely something for everyone!

K: Describe the studio process a little; what is your approach when wanting to get the best from your actors?

SH: The studio process is fairly intensive and slick in how we operate – everybody’s on separate channels in separate booths, which makes picking up material an ease.

Unlike traditional radio drama production, we also do all our effects in post-production, which means we can focus purely on getting the vocal performance from the actors, without having to spend time choreographing movements and the like. In that sense, as a director, the job is to analyse the script, and know in your head everything else that will be going on in a scene so you can clearly instruct the actors how they should sound: will they be pitching up, breathless, running, etc. It takes some getting used to, but everyone takes to it remarkably quickly. As with any project, however, it’s all a matter of collaboration. You listen to how the actors tackle the scene, and sometimes tweak or cut lines to match their performance and rhythm. Flexibility is key to making it all sound real and naturalistic, particularly where science-fiction is concerned.

K: These four stories cover a wide range of tone, so how difficult is it to flip from high comedy to fractured narratives, emotional soul-searching to Daleks?

SH: Most of my work for Big Finish has, I think it’s fair to say, focussed on dark, tense, horror-based material, so you cannot imagine my joy at being presented with a script as wonderfully bonkers and joy-filled as Nev Fountain’s opener, The Revolution. Hopefully, people will realise I’m not just a curmudgeonly sod who deals in misery! But yes, it was a hoot to work on something comedic – particularly with Sylvester’s Doctor – and a whole host of larger than life characters. Again, it’s all a matter of keeping it truthful, but also allowing moments to be exaggerated for comic effect where appropriate. It’s a lovely opener!

In terms of the descent into darkness that follows, it’s all quite gradual and stems naturally from the stories, so it wasn’t too difficult. With the exception of Lisa, Sylv and Sophie, the guest actors are only really in for their own episodes, so they help set the tone too. We’ve been very lucky that, whichever play we’ve been recording, everybody’s been very much on the same page.

K: Once you have the cast recorded you’re still only half-way there. What are the challenges of editing and sound design?

SH: When you have someone like Steve Foxon across sound design, you know you’re in very safe hands. He knows Doctor Who and he knows Bernice Summerfield, so he was very good at getting the tone of each of the plays, and building a consistent world. But again, it’s collaborative. Generally, you trust a sound designer to deliver the best possible sound. Sometimes, specific effects or cues won’t sound as you’d imagined, so it then becomes a lovely game of trying to find audio clips that sort of describe the sound you’re after, or recording yourself doing an impression of what you think it should sound like! But Steve’s been brilliant and accommodating, and episode three, in particular, proved a real challenge due to its broken narrative.

The biggest, thrill, however, comes with episode four, where Steve faithfully recreates various iterations of Skaro throughout the ages. It’s a giddy fanboy joy to hear it come to life the way it does, and Nick Briggs shines as Daleks from every conceivable era!

K: What are the particular advantages of audio as a medium?

SH: The joy of audio is that everybody imagines something different. No two people will ever picture the exact same thing, so people can temper the visuals to their own tastes – they can be as scary or as dramatic as they want them to be, without overstepping the mark.

The other joy of audio is that it’s far more intimate as a medium. People tend to listen to it in isolation – it’s not something a crowd of people would do in the cinema, or sitting round someone’s house – so you can tell very different kinds of stories. You can mix the pace up a little and really delve into emotions the way you sometimes can’t in TV drama. Plus, of course, you have the advantage that people literally cannot see the twists coming – so there are some visual shocks or revelations that can remain a shock until the moment you need them.

K: You also masterminded The Confessions of Dorian Gray from Big Finish, can you tell us a little bit about that as a project?

SH: Ah, The Confessions of Dorian Gray stemmed from me wanting to do an original horror series, developing the character of Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde’s notorious novel: the conceit being that Wilde knew a real man named Dorian Gray, who had been inflicted with the same enchantment, allowing him to live through the 20th Century as a hedonistic immortal. It allowed us to tell stories in a variety of different time periods, without relying on science-fiction, and build a series around a true anti-hero. Because Dorian isn’t a man who does things for the good of other people: he’s selfish, and self-obsessed, and sometimes openly cruel and manipulative. He’s someone you love if he’s on your side, until you got to know him, at which point you’d realise he’s a monster. It’s great to have a character who can turn on a sixpence, and be just as horrifying as the evils he comes up against.

So yes, it took a while to get off the ground, but I think it’s gone on to become one of the most critically-acclaimed of all Big Finish’s ranges, which is a joy! It’s just something very different, which all of our writers, actors and post-production people have committed to – not least the astounding Alexander Vlahos, who brings Dorian to life with such relish. He’s so enthusiastic and passionate about the range – to an extent you wouldn’t get with most actors.

K: What are you working on next?

SH: I have Frankenstein coming out from Big Finish in September (starring the wonderful Arthur Darvill as Victor) and an adaptation of The Highest Science [a Virgin New Adventures novel written by Gareth Roberts who went on to script a number of Doctor Who and Sarah Jane Adventures episodes] starring Sylvester and Lisa out in December. I’ve then got about five other projects currently on the go with Big Finish, all at various stages of production, some likely to be announced soon – and some people won’t be expecting. So that’s all fun! Otherwise, I’ve been busy beavering away on a few TV scripts for an animation with a few familiar faces (it really is a small world), and there are a few other plates spinning…

In short, there’s a lot to look forward to!

The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield is out this month; pre-order a good ol’ physical copy for £35.00 or a Digital edition for £30.00 from Big Finish!

The post Big Finish & Bernice: Scott Handcock Interviewed! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Petitions, Homage, Legacy, Location & Culture

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.

Grease-up your eyes, tape your eyebrows down and adopt the brace position. It’s time for today’s Doctor Who NEWSBLAST, in which we talk petitions, hidden tributes, updates, tours and life and death…

McGann Signs Own Petition

“The minute I put the kit on I felt like the Doctor.”

Eight Doctor, Paul McGann is reported to have said that after the Night of the Doctor minisode where he regenerates into the War Doctor, he is more than ready to get back on the saddle as the most Byronic incarnation of the Timelord. At the Comicpalooza panel he said he even signed the petition for an Eighth Doctor spin-off!

When asked McGann stated “of course” he would do it and talked about the experience of getting back infront of the camera after years behind the microphone,

“The thing is, I’m warmed up now. I could do it now. When we got to shoot the Night of the Doctor I was so glad for the audience. I got to keep my hand in, so to speak, because I felt like I knew what I was doing.”

Hidden Homage to Ninth Doctor

Doctor Who Online have made an uber-geek discovery while leafing through some light, tech-based reading. The reference guide for Apple’s new developer code, “Swift”, cunningly named, “The Swift Programming Language” contains a wee nugget of Series One…

Page 347 details the code for matching enumeration values with a switch statement… and how many of us come a cropper there! (Yes I haven’t the foggiest what it means – be grateful for a little Enlightenment if anyone can help me out?) Several essentially random phrases are used in examples including the Ninth Doctor’s line, “lots of planets have a North”.

Are we surprised that clever techy people are showing a bit of Who-love in their work? No. No we’re not

Before 2005 we were DESPERATE for quality actors to don something a bit Edwardian and scarper about saying technobabble in space, dodging tentacles – now quality actors are clamouring to be the Doctor!

Legacy Beginners’ Guide Online

STOP PANICKING! Those of you who’re new, have plateaued or having a hard time managing even that on the mobile game, Doctor Who: Legacy need flounder in despair no longer…

The lovely chaps at tinyrebelgames.com have published a New Player Guide that outlines how to get started and work your way up. Head over for the low-down on levelling up, tanks, Damage Dealers, Healers and Hybrids. There’s also a link to the new Perks System and a fan-run forum for more specific queries and sticking points. Enjoy!

Fans of Doctor Who: Legacy might be interested in our interview with the developers, which forms part of our Doctor Who videogames special edition of Kasterborous Magazine.

Location Tours Return This Summer

For those of you longing to get closer to the making of Doctor Who, and in need of some full-on Welshness, head over to the Doctor Who Experience website and book on to this Summer’s Doctor Who Cardiff Walking Tour for a trip round the locations of over 30 episodes.

Tours run every Friday, Saturday and Sunday from June 14th to July 20th and focus on the Cardiff Bay area. The tour is written by former Big Finish producer, novelist and director of the animated adventure The Infinite Quest, Gary Russell. The ticket includes the 1.5 mile tour and entry to the Doctor Who Experience exhibition and promenade mini-adventure. Tickets are on sale from this Wednesday 11th June…

Doctor Who & Culture This Wednesday

Finally, Bournemouth University’s Festival of Learning, running until 15th June, covers topics ranging from biodiversity, technology, culture, entrepreneurship to health and tourism… this year it includes an event entitled “Life and death in Doctor Who.”

The talk looks at why Doctor Who and particularly NuWho has become such a cultural phenomenon. It takes place at the Talbot Campus this Wednesday 11th June at 19:00 for an hour. The event is FREE but you do need to register for a ticket online and booking closes 48 hours before the event so QUICK! If you’re too late you can email or call to see if there might be left over tickets: fol@bournemouth.ac.uk or telephone on 01202 962362.

Book tickets at: microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/festival-of-learning/events/life-and-death-in-doctor-who/

And that’s your Newsblast for today Kasterborites! Comments? Views? Can anyone explain enumeration values and switch statements? (You can make something up if you like). Get typing below…

The post Doctor Who Petitions, Homage, Legacy, Location & Culture appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Did YOU Know These 18 Doctor Who Facts?!

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.

Test your brain power with this short but fact packed YouTube video! Writer Cavan Scott takes us on a whistle stop tour of Doctor Who’s first half century in 50 Years of Doctor Who – In Numbers!

As co-author of the recent Doctor Who: Who-ology, Cavan is well-placed to know this stuff given he and his writing partner Mark Wright will surely have had to spend a rear-end numbing amount of time delving into our fave show’s back catalogue. But it was all in the name of research and theirs was a noble sacrifice – guys, we salute you.

Watch the clip (go on, it’s only two minutes!) and have fun seeing how much of it you can retain afterwards, Generation Game-style!

It’s interesting to reflect on which facts come as a surprise and which ones don’t. Tallest and shortest ever Doctors are fairly easy to guess at, I would have said (it’s a tie for first place – exciting!). Similarly, the Doctors with the fewest number of stories to their name will be known by those with a decent grasp of the show – and if you’re on here, that probably includes you!

But the figure for how long it would take to watch all of Doctor Who ever, in order, from the start, came as a bit of a sock to me. It turns out that sitting down to a mega box set of every story from An Unearthly Child to the end of the last series would take just over a fortnight, not allowing for toilet or pizza breaks. Somehow, that doesn’t seem very long for this programme which occupies us all so much.

Similarly, how many times would you say the Daleks have said their signature line? And how many on-screen deaths have the been responsible for? I’m being purely subjective here but again, I reckon the answers are surprisingly low for a bunch of dastardly fiends who’ve been up to no good since 1963.

Any set of statistics will generate as many lively discussions as the Doctor has had jelly babies, of course, and this one is no exception. It’s recent companions who top the charts for ‘most stories appeared in’, for example, which I can’t help feeling is a bit unfair on the likes of Jamie and Sarah-Jane who served valiantly in the days when stories ran over a number of weeks rather than being wrapped up in under an hour.

And it’s entertaining to see that those commenting on the piece haven’t been slow to point out what they see as grounds for appeal against Cavan’s findings. Why aren’t Big Finish audios included ? Do you count Rose as being in The Day of the Doctor? If you count The Night of the Doctor why not count The Sarah-Jane Adventures?

Facts and figures are great fun but not half as much as the debates they lead to! Do you have a favourite Who fact? Tell us below!

The post Did YOU Know These 18 Doctor Who Facts?! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

New Doctor Who Electro House Mix from Frontload!

Alex Skerratt 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.

There’s certainly no shortage of Doctor Who theme tune remixes on the Internet, and now we have one more: an ‘Electro House’ version from Frontload! With its fast-tempo ‘discotheque’ vibe, it has (faint) echoes of Big Finish’s Paul McGann variation, and is sure to liven up any Doctor Who-related party you might be having, (or any other party for that matter. In-laws’ golden anniversary celebrations at the local golf club? Perfect!)

Living under a musical rock as I do, (I’ve yet to progress past Procol Harum), Frontload is a new name to me. So, my first act was to consult the great Google oracle in search of further information, only to be informed that front-loading is a verb, as in to distribute and allocate unevenly. (This was followed by many websites about washing machines.) Undeterred by this setback, I curled my silver hand into a fist and persisted in my cyber-search, and it wasn’t long before I found my way on to the band’s Facebook page. “Excellent…!”

Apparently, Frontload is a new name to lots of people…

“Frontload may be a new name to you but not for long; three ambitious guys from Vienna who notch up experience in both the recording studio as well as in club consoles on an international level.

“…Managed by Elaine Karlsson and Luciano Ingrosso, there is a fast growing buzz about this outfit in all the right places. The various influences of the three members have found a mutual meeting point and the results… speak for themselves and their fan-base is growing by the day. In the first few months of 2014 they released a single on Wormland Records entitled ‘Rebels’, a remix for the StadiumX Beatport no 1 track ‘Howl At The Moon’ on Protocol… [and] a remix for Mando Diao’s latest single ‘Black Saturday’ (Universal) that is currently climbing charts everywhere in Europe.

 

“We think that actions speak much louder than words and with an upcoming release schedule like this as well as numerous gigs coming in rapidly Frontload are ‘the whole package’!!!

 

“Remember the name – you will be hearing it a lot very soon.”

I certainly hope so. Their penchant for funky electronica, (and of course, Doctor Who), is quite infectious, and I could certainly picture myself grooving to their Electro House tones in the future as I bash out articles for Kasterborous, front-loaded with bizarre anecdotes about washing machines and Procol Harum.

If you’re in the mood for more, you might want to have a listen to their aforementioned ‘Rebels’ track, which I located thanks to the power of YouTube. Or, if you’d rather soak up some Gallifreyan goodness, there are a couple of Doctor Who remixes which are a Must for any hardcore fan. There’s 1988′s ‘Doctorin’ the TARDIS’ by The Timelords, (a sort of Bon Jovi-esque power anthem, with Daleks), or there’s Jon Pertwee’s ‘I am the Doctor’ from the 1970s, or even ‘Pandemonium’ by the Pet Shop Boys.

Then again, you might be in the mood for something else entirely…

(via Tipoff: Dr Who Electro House release with Ultra Records)

The post New Doctor Who Electro House Mix from Frontload! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

40 Years Ago Today: Tom Baker’s First Doctor Who Appearance

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 may – or may not – have noticed, but we’re not exactly sticklers for anniversaries around here. We can take or leave birthdays, especially if the subject has been dead for quite some time (after all, they’re not going to be doing any celebrating, are they?). However, momentous, defining moments are another matter.

(Although before we proceed, a very happy birthday today to Colin Baker…)

Such a moment occurred 40 years ago today, when Jon Pertwee made his final appearance as the Third Doctor (at least, as the show’s star) to be replaced by the incomparable Tom Baker, whose run in Doctor Who would go on to define the role for the best part of the show’s 50 years. Above, you can see the clip from Planet of the Spiders in which the Brigadier and Sarah Jane Smith witness the Doctor’s return from Metebelis 3, his body ravaged with radiation after getting lost in the time vortex (retconned in Paul Cornell’s novel Love and War to reveal that he had been trying to get home for ten years!).

No one in their right mind could possibly have known what would happen next in the show. Rather than carry on as it had, with a change in the lead every few years (although Pertwee had been in the TARDIS for five years, the longest running Doctor at that point) Doctor Who‘s new star became so admired and loved that he felt it was impossible to hang up his scarf until 1981 – seven years later!

While you won’t hear any dialogue from 1974′s new incarnation of the Doctor above, you will enjoy the memorable last words of the Third Doctor, and relive the assistance he needed to make the transition. Amazingly, viewers had to wait over six months, until Robot kicked off on 28th December 1974, to see Tom Baker in action.

So, take a few moments to enjoy it. Quite simply, this is one of Doctor Who‘s greatest moments. One you won’t find in a BBC Three clips show…

Do you remember this great moment from its first broadcast, or are you watching this for the first time? Whatever you want to say, let us know your thoughts!

The post 40 Years Ago Today: Tom Baker’s First Doctor Who Appearance appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.