Christian Cawley's Blog, page 285

BBC Audio Drama Judges Comment on Dark Eyes – The Great War

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.

On Sunday, Big Finish Productions, the company that produces the audio adventures for the BBC, won the BBC Audio Drama award for Best Online or Non-Broadcast Drama for Doctor Who – Dark Eyes: The Great War.

Dark Eyes is an Eighth Doctor adventure, one where he finds himself on a mission to stop a plot to destroy the whole universe. A plot which seems to revolve around a nurse from the First World War, Molly O’Sullivan. Soon the two find themselves in dangerous and terrifying situations, with Daleks at their heels.

In their excitement, the people at Big Finish wanted to share what the judges of the category thought of The Great War.

People’s history, fantasy and high drama. The winning entry was outstanding in every respect: a complex, gripping narrative made visible through three-dimensional characters in believable relationships, some fine acting, and a superbly orchestrated soundscape which never overdoes the atmospherics or signposting of changes in time and place. Above all, it manages its historical and fantastical elements seamlessly and, for a brief period, time is suspended for the listener.

Dark Eyes 1, starring Paul McGann and Ruth Bradley, is currently available for purchase on either CDs or in a downloadable format. (The Great War is the first episode)

The next series, Dark Eyes 2, is available for pre-order.

The post BBC Audio Drama Judges Comment on Dark Eyes – The Great War appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Charlotte Pollard Goes Solo!

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.

Everyone’s favourite Edwardian Adventuress is back and this time she is in her own series!

Former Doctor Who audio companion, Charlotte Pollard, played by India Fisher, is the former companion to the Eighth and Sixth Doctors in Big Finish’s range of audio adventures who was most recently seen (or should that be heard?) in the frankly fantastic 50th anniversary adventure The Light at the End  and is now set to appear in her own spin-off series.

The set, which is available for pre-order now, is being co-written and directed by non other than the now award-winning Nick Briggs and is set to feature some special guests that Big Finish are “keeping up our sleeve for now”. The set will feature four stories and includes a bonus disc, most likely filled with interviews (which are always well worth a listen) and is released in May. Full details can be found at the Big Finish website.

Are you planning on pre-ordering, have you done so already and have set up a camp by your letter box in preparation for its arrival (just me then?) or maybe your new to Big Finish in which case does this news entice you to dip your toes into the world of audio adventures and see what all the fuss is about (you wont regret it if you do)?

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The Science of Doctor Who Live in Australia & New Zealand!

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.

The man or woman who DISCOVERS TIME TRAVEL will, according to my time-space visualiser app, be 1) an Australian or Kiwi and 2) probably around high school age and 3) in the audience of The Science of Doctor Who this Spring.

According to my calculations, the combination of explanations from expert Ozzie boffins and Who-based curiosity will convince our young hero to chose a career in temporal physics rather than train-driver and set in motion the events leading to their famous experiments in time travel!

“For anyone who has ever wondered whether time travel to other dimensions is really possible, The Science of Doctor Who is a live stage event created by RiAus in collaboration with BBC Worldwide Australia & New Zealand. Touring nationally from April, the show explores the scientific mysteries highlighted in the iconic BBC TV series.”

Starting in Perth on 26th April the live action show will tour Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and end in Melbourne this June. Hosted by comedian Rob Lloyd (see highlights from Rob Lloyd’s show, “Who, Me?”) the show promises to, “investigate the science of time travel and teleportation, ask if regeneration is possible, and explain how the TARDIS can be bigger on the inside.”

A group (a quantum? a nucleus? a collision??) of physicists and other experts will be on hand to provide the explanations for science mysteries that crop up in Doctor Who and aim to both entertain and inform. Clips from the show will feature as well as interactive segments for those with a smartphone. The show is a collaboration between BBC Worldwide Australia & New Zealand and RiAus (the Royal Institution of Australia) which seeks to make science relevant and accessible to the public.

Tickets are on sale from the riaus.org.au/DoctorWho/ website at 10am on 11thth February though RiAus members can purchase in a pre-sale period from 7th February. It looks as though the host, Rob Lloyd, has excellent credentials having performed his one-man show comedy show, “Who, Me?” If you have a budding scientist in the family with an insatiable curiosity for things timey-wimey… you know what to do!

 

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Colin Baker: I’ll Have Sex Change To Be First Female Doctor Who

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.

Gender is again on the agenda again after Colin Baker branded the BBC ‘too timid’ to cast a female Doctor.

Speaking at the Radio Times cover party, the Sixth Doctor quipped:

There should [be a female Doctor]. It won’t happen because they are too timid but there should be. First female Doctor? I will have a sex change and do it. I am in touch with my feminine side.

This isn’t the first time that apparent voices of dissent at the Beeb have been cited by someone involved in the show.

Shortly after Peter Capaldi was announced as the Twelfth Doctor, Steven Moffat, who bore the brunt of most of the criticism for not breaking with the white British male monopoly on the role, commented that:

It didn’t feel right to me, right now. I didn’t feel enough people wanted it [...] Oddly enough most people who said they were dead against it – and I know I’ll get into trouble for saying this – were women [...] [They were] saying, ‘No, no, don’t make him a woman!’

Ignoring the gender of those dissenters, the suggestion here is that despite quite a vocal presence in both the media and online urging those that be to break with that tradition; there were still those in the BBC – after all who’s opinions would Moffat value more – that were firmly against the idea.

The problem being is that as Moffat himself argued at the time, you don’t cast a man, you cast a particular man; it’s all about the qualities the performer brings to the role not the particular gender or race of that person.

While tradition would dictate that the person would be a man – with the unique caveat that unlike a James Bond or a Sherlock Holmes, where, like the Doctor the role was specifically written to be a man, the Doctor does possess the ability to regenerate as a woman, the reluctance of the Beeb does at least admonish Moffat from some of more barbed criticism he received at the time.

Although, if we are to believe Moffat, who said that Capaldi was the only choice for the role; does this mean that there are no actresses on either the BBC’s or Moffat’s radar that could be the Doctor?

Do you think we’ll ever see a Female Doctor? Do you think the Beeb got cold feet over casting an actress in the role, or was it genuinely not on the cards?

The post Colin Baker: I’ll Have Sex Change To Be First Female Doctor Who appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Enjoy A Pinch Of Salt With Your Popcorn [May Contain Actual Spoilers][Unlikely Though]

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.

First it was speculation about the new face, then the new threads and now finally, new episodes – albeit with not so much a pinch of salt, more a giant flaming comet of salt hurtling towards us through the dark recesses of space direct from the planet Spurious.

Quoting the oft misunderstood work of the ‘insider source’ who’s knowledge and wisdom are match only by his total transparency, Comic Book Movie have what appears to be a (very) provisional and quite possibly spoilery rundown of potential episodes  taken from the Doctor Who Anniversary Zone site.

The list, which contains a number of titles and one line synopsis, is as follows:

Seriously, these are real?!

8.1 ‘The Twelfth Keeper’

The  Doctor Battles the clockwork droids in Victorian England whilst also  uncovering the truth behind ‘Jack the Ripper’. Whilst Clara meets a very  familiar face.

8.2 ‘Across the Stars’

On a scientific way  station in the year 3056 Clara and the Doctor uncover a DNA experiment that’s  about to go very wrong.

8.3 (Unknown)

8.4 ‘TBA’

Said to  revolve around the assassination of JFK

8.5 ‘The Cult of Ra’

An  Egyptian set episode

8.6 (Unknown)

8.7 (Unknown)

8.8  (Unknown)

8.9 ‘TBA’

Said to be set on a forest world. Maybe  the River song episode

8.10 ‘The  Ghosts of Pompeii’

The Doctor and Clara travel to Pompeii to try and solve the mystery of his latest  incarnation. The episode sees the return of the Pyrovile and fan favourite who  appears in a cameo.

8.11 ‘TBA’

The Doctors quest to find Gallifrey is over.

8.12  ‘Master and Commander (rumoured)’

The return of the Master and consequently the Time Lords. Its believed the Master is now the president and will be played by esteemed British actor Charles Dance.

The problem with the list – apart from its lack of confirmation – is that it’s a little too neat; with ideas assembled entire on premises that sound like other Doctor Who episodes or old Moffat tropes that seemed unlikely to make a return, such as: River Song and a forest, Clockwork droids, a base under siege, and a mystery involving Egypt (oh for a Holmes/Hinchcliffe gothic horror episode with Capaldi the Conjuror).

Even the structure, in this the series that promises to tear up the rulebook and stomp on it with its shiny Doc Martens, recalls those of Russell T Davies – a much looser, less arch-heavy narrative with the penultimate episode leading directly into the events of the last without being a concluding part to that story.

Also, although Moffat supposedly addresses the issue of just why the Twelfth Doctor resembles Lucius Caecilius Iucundus from The Fires of Pompeii, it seems unlikely that a whole episode would be devoted to that strand; unless, and this is utter speculation on my part, the Time Lords life-giving regeneration of the Doctor somehow drew on the cataclysmic events of Pompeii – as if all those potential lives lost were some sort of deficit that only the Time Lords (yes, even perhaps a dastardly scheme by the Master, again up to his body snatching ways) could draw on.

Regardless of the validity of these episodes, there is certainly a lot to think about here – and as set photos have revealed there is at least one guest villain list above whose appearance has been confirmed – so what do we make of this list?

Is it Comic Book Movie just serving us up some heavily salted popcorn or like a bag of over-priced Minstrels, do we now know exactly what we are getting?

The post Enjoy A Pinch Of Salt With Your Popcorn [May Contain Actual Spoilers][Unlikely Though] appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

PodKast: Hey, Where’s Episode 3 Of Doctor Who: The Web Of Fear, BBC?

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.

Join Christian Cawley, Brian Terranova and James McLean as they disassemble Doctor Who and put it back together again – much like the TARDIS in The Mind Robber, or Frontios if you prefer.

This week, we mull the lack of a real part 3 in rediscovered serial The Web of Fear, the evolution of the Cybermen and how this was influenced by design teams before it became a running theme in the show, and our usual recommendations.

Oh, there’s also a mention of Patrick Troughton’s oil painting ability and some discussion about Life on Mars, the excellent BBC time travel (or was it…?) show that starred Master actor John Simm.

Kasterborous PodKast Series 3 Episode 51 Shownotes

Patrick Troughton’s oil painting
Life on Mars
Life on Mars‘ Russian adaptation: The Dark Side of the Moon
Life on Mars novels on Amazon: “Get Cartwright“
The Web of Fear DVD
Kasterborous Web of Fear DVD buying poll
Big Finish win BBC Audio Award for Dark Eyes
Mindrobber TARDIS comparisons
Recommendations: Ripper Street , Copper ,  Death to the Daleks , Death in Paradise Series 3, Cult Britannia – The Professionals DVD & Blu-ray Series 1 Remasters
Peter Cushing Facebook Page

(This week’s podKast closing theme is the Peter Howell arrangement from 1980-1984)

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!

Incidentally, if you are listening on iTunes, please take the time to leave a rating and review and help us to bring in new listeners to the podKast!

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Doctor Who: The Complete Eighth Series Already Available for Pre-Order!

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.

That certainly didn’t take long! Peter Capaldi’s debut series as the Doctor is currently in production and filming as we speak, but that hasn’t stopped the BBC from opening the pre-order flood gates a few months early!

Amazon has both the Blu-ray and DVD sets available for pre-order now, with placeholder graphics featuring a different take on the newly released image of the Twelfth Doctor’s new costume (final artwork to be confirmed at a later time):

Perhaps the best part, aside from the opportunity to go ahead and get your copy reserved, is that reviews for Series 8 are already popping up on the listings (27 at the time of writing) and some of them are rather smart!

No release date given at the moment, but smart money says that it will probably land in December or next January, depending upon whether or not the Christmas special is included in the set.

Will you be placing your order early? Or do you want to see the finished product first?

(Thanks to the 753 people who emailed and tweeted us about this!)

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Karen Gillan Joins the Wizard World Comic Con Tour!

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.

On the heels of announcing that they have secured Matt Smith to attend their New Orleans, Louisiana convention, Wizard World has announced that none other than Amy Pond herself will be attending a number their events this year!

Karen Gillan will be appearing at the Philadelphia, Chicago, and Austin Wizard World conventions!

Fresh off her turn as Amy Pond in the last three seasons of Doctor Who, Ms Gillan has quite a year ahead of her, with roles in a number of different upcoming movies including Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy that she so famously shaved her head for. So it is no surprise that she’ll be making the rounds of fan conventions this year. Along with these newly announced shows, she is already scheduled for a number of appearances in Australia.

Here’s hoping she adds more appearances to her schedule!

Wizard World Philadelphia is scheduled for 19-22 June, 2014. Wizard World Chicago is scheduled for 21-24 August, 2014. Wizard World Austin is scheduled for 2-4 October, 2014. For more information on tickets to the shows and for autographs and photo ops, check out the Wizard World website!

(This writer is super excited! This will be my second convention as a Who fan, and the second time I’ll get to meet one of the stars!)

The post Karen Gillan Joins the Wizard World Comic Con Tour! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Fifth Doctor Goes Down Under

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.

Assuming the TARDIS can get him to Heathrow on time, the Fifth Doctor will be going on a mini-tour of Australia in January and February this year. Peter Davison is currently scheduled for a series of appearances at a number of ABC shops ‘down under,’ where he will be doing meet-and-greets with the fans, as well as signing merchandise.

His first stop will be at Chadstone on 31st January, followed by Brisbane on 4th February, Sydney on 11th February, and Macquarie (North Ryde) on 12th February. The event organisers have warned that they are expecting a large turnout and, due to the 90 minute time restriction, visitors are asked to bring just one item to sign.

Photos with the Fifth Doctor will be permitted only if time allows, but, as we all know, time is in flux and can easily be rewritten, so “brave heart” Who fans – have those cameras at the ready! (Just in case…)

Find out more at ABC Shop Events.

(With thanks to Dallas)

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Doctor Who Location Footage, Complete With Spoilers [VIDEO]

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.

Don’t press play if you want to avoid spoilers. There are things in this Doctor Who Series 8 location shooting clip that you won’t want to see until later this year.

The clip features Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi – as well as a police box!

Caught on location by YouTube user Auton710 (great name!), you’ll get some interesting, spoilery hints about the upcoming Doctor Who Series 8. It remains, however, a good example of how location filming goes, so can also be looked at objectively by anyone who want to stand around for hours on street corners waiting for the cameras to start rolling for thirty seconds of footage…

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