Christian Cawley's Blog, page 318

Reviewed: Doctor Who Figurine Collection – Part 1 The Eleventh Doctor

James Whittington 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.

So we begin.

Over the next 160 weeks or so I’ll be reviewing selected issues from the latest Doctor Who part work; the Doctor Who Figurine Collection. This smart-looking series is said to last around 80 issues celebrating the new and some of the classic characters from the world of the much-loved show. I’ll also be reviewing the much talked about special characters and objects that those who subscribe to the premium subscription will receive.

I would like to publicly thank all those at Eaglemoss, especially Emma Thackara for arranging all the review issues and images that will form this run of reviews.

Doctor Who Figurine Collection: Part 1 The Eleventh Doctor

If, like me, you feel you need to get everything that’s branded with the Doctor Who logo or name then your heart must have sunk when you heard of another collectable series being released. There are already a number of Doctor Who part works running now for collectors but the Doctor Who Figurine Collection offers fans a little bit something extra, namely a rather cool model that puts some figures to shame.

The magazine is split into sections so will look at each one for each issue individually:

The Figurine – This first issue starts by looking at the formation of the Eleventh Doctor’s guise and style, what influenced this look and the many hats he’s enjoyed wearing. It also explains why they chose to create the figurine in such a pose. A nice idea that looks at the logic of it all.
A Moment In Time – This first issue concentrates on The Pandorica Opens episode. This is a smartly written account of the episode’s creation quoting from Steven Moffat and Director Toby Haynes accompanied by some production shots I’d never seen before.
50 Years Of Doctor Who – A timeline about 1963 and the creation of Doctor Who serves as a handy who’s who of the inception of the series and the other goings on in the world at this time.
Doctor Who Universe – Another informative introduction this time the TARDIS takes centre stage. Breaking down each of its features e.g. explaining what the Cloister Bell is and breaks up the control area into six parts. Now, this only looks at the 10th/11th Doctor’s style (not the new 11th Doctor’s version) so hopefully they’ll return to the TARDIS and talk more about its abilities.
Myths And Mysteries – The section that dares ask the questions we wanted answering (or basically a page that looks at plot holes) is fun asking and answering things such as “Why didn’t the alliance just shoot the Doctor?”.
Who People – This quick look at with show runner Steven Moffat’s career up to and including new Who seems a bit of a last-minute decision and doesn’t really bring anything new to the table.

The figurine for this issue has the Doctor in a striking pose from his speech at Stonehenge. Nicely finished with some subtle detail, such as the silver clips on his braces and stripes on his shirt the resemblance is better than the recent 3.5 inch pieces. The Doctor’s coat appears to be flapping whilst his red bow-tie stands out. This heavy figurine has set quite a high standard.

So then, this is a strong and fun issue that is a perfect introduction to the series. There’s nothing new for hardcore fans except for the figurine but this is quite a finely detailed model that makes the £2.99 cover price very attractive. However, from here on issues are £7.99 or £8.99 if you go with the premium subscription.

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TV Movie’s Matthew Jacobs Pleased With McGann Doctor Who Return

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.

The Internet experienced a minor meltdown yesterday when the BBC released a brand new ’minisode’ for the Eighth Doctor.

Titled The Night of the Doctor, it featured the triumphant return of Paul McGann, who hadn’t played the Time Lord (on screen) since The Television Movie in 1996.

And yesterday, the film’s writer and co-producer Matthew Jacobs came out of the woodwork to write a heartfelt blog on the dramatic return of Doctor number eight:

I have always felt like the Cinderella of Doctor Who writers. But this year is the 50th anniversary of the Doctor and the gently witty character I gave voice to for McGann has developed a loving following. I was SO happy to see them bring him back to life today on the big screen, so proud of Paul, and happy that Moffat did this… It’s fantastic to see McGann’s Doctor again…

I think this sums up the feelings of Doctor Who fans far and wide; it was incredible to see the eighth incarnation in action once more!

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Torpa Celebrates 50 Years With Groovy Theme Tune

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Torpa Audio has released a rather nifty variation of the Doctor Who theme tune, performed by S. and P. Dandy as their very own celebration of the 50th anniversary.

It’s quite psychedelic and certainly ‘old-school,’ and reminds me of Big Finish’s theme for the Eighth Doctor Adventures. Torpa’s theme is accompanied on YouTube by a compilation of titles sequences from across eras, including the First Doctor, Seventh Doctor and the 1996 TV Movie.

You can download the theme tune for free for a limited time only over at bandcamp, as well as checking out their previous releases, including their debut 2012 tracks, King Neptune and Somewhere, Someplace. Counting Bob Dylan and David Bowie amongst their inspirations, Torpa’s Insect/ Hooked releases even reference the Second Doctor’s famous speech from The Moonbase: “There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought.”

Definitely a band to keep an eye on!

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Doctor Who: 50 Years of a TV Icon

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.

Digital Spy has posted this excellent new video examining the 50 year history of Doctor Who.

The feature includes a star-studded selection of faces from the Whoniverse, including Karen Gillan – minus her ginger locks! - David Tennant, Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman, and show-runner Steven Moffat, who provides an excellent summary of the show’s durability:

It’s like a predator that’s been super-evolved to survive in an environment.

This is the television show you pretty much can’t kill. You can replace absolutely everybody multiple times and the show won’t blink. That’s amazing, isn’t it?

Click play above to start enjoying it – whatever you might think about Digital Spy, this is a polished piece of work.

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Pre-Order Dalek’s Master Plan Graphic Novel 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.

Two years in the making, our Daleks’ Master Plan serialised comic strip proved incredibly popular during the summer months as a freebie 50th anniversary gift from us to you.

Editor and illustrator Rick Lundeen did a superb job of realising Terry Nation and Dennis Spooner’s long-lost (as far as we know!) epic serial in comic book form, and the reaction from the vast majority of readers who downloaded the PDFs of each episode was: “when can we get it in print?”

The answer, we hope, is very soon.

With the opportunity to raise over £2500 for Children In Need 2013, today we’re opening pre-orders for Rick Lundeen’s Daleks’ Master Plan comic strip adaptation, a retelling of the original serial in full colour.

The cover price of £19.99 (plus shipping) will deliver to your 168 pages of Dalek malevolence, Mavic Chen madness and the First Doctor at his very best.

So, how do you place your order?

You can start the ball rolling right now by ordering your copy through the Kasterborous Store!

The Daleks’ Master Plan Graphic Novel Charity Edition
£19.99

Note that this is a pre-order purchase, and that printing will not occur until a minimum number of orders have been confirmed. We hope that your support for this project will enable us all to raise a nice sum of money for Children In Need this year, following on from the successful Time Leech project last year.

Please share this news with friends, family and followers by email, Facebook and Twitter so we can meet the minimum order target as soon as possible!

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The Two Doctors Interviewed

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.

Doctors Ten and Eleven ‘quite like each other… on occasion’ according to a newly released interview with David Tennant and Matt Smith.

Summing up the dynamic between the Doctor’s most recent incarnations, Tennant goes for ‘slightly competitive’ whilst his successor compares them to ‘two brothers who are evenly matched, fencing a lot’.

Elsewhere in the interview, they are both keen not to give too much away about Billie Piper’s return – ‘Rose Tyler is around…’ is as much as Smith is willing to disclose.

We’re also promised a great entrance for the Tenth Doctor, whilst Tennant himself confesses to feeling jealous that Smith got to be suspended from the TARDIS above Trafalgar Square.

Interestingly, Tennant says he only had to lie about his involvement in the special once in the run up to filming as it was only confirmed relatively close to production starting.

As if you need reminding, The Day of the Doctor will air on 23 November.

(Via Den of Geek.)

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Win Unique Doctor Who Behind the Scenes Experience With Children in Need Auction!

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.

In support of the BBC Children in Need 2013 Auction, the team behind Doctor Who is offering a real treat for the winner of this auction item, especially if you fancy the opportunity to be on set for the filming of the Twelfth Doctor’s first adventure!

As part of the “Behind the Scenes” experience, the winner can expect the following spoils:

Watch filming for the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who!
See Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor before any other member of the public!
A conducted VIP tour of the set. Meeting the cast of the show. (Meeting the cast is dependent on schedules, specific requests unfortunately cannot be guaranteed).
Have a photo taken on the set.
A nice lunch with the crew.

The experience will take place on a TBD date in January, but promises to be an unforgettable and once in a life time opportunity. If you are interested, now is the time to get your bid on!

Don’t miss tonight’s televised fundraiser in which a special clip from The Day of the Doctor is expected to be revealed!

The auction ends on Sunday the 17th, so what are you waiting for – get your bids in today!

The post Win Unique Doctor Who Behind the Scenes Experience With Children in Need Auction! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Mark Gatiss Discusses William Hartnell

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.

It sounds as though Mark Gatiss’s fascination with–and admiration for–First Doctor William Hartnell has only grown thanks to An Adventure in Space and Time. Gatiss’s upcoming docudrama about the very beginnings of Doctor Who features the character of Hartnell (as played by David Bradley) in a key role.

In a lengthy article that was published this week in The Telegraph, long-time Who writer, actor, and superfan Gatiss revealed his deep interest in the man who would be First:

William Hartnell once said ‘If I live to be 90, a little of the magic of Doctor Who will still cling to me.’ …Hartnell was out of work when the call for Doctor Who came, and he wasn’t sure about doing it because it was a children’s programme. But once he got it, he grabbed it with both hands. It made him a hero to children.

And Gatiss also seems taken by the man himself–partly because Hartnell could be such a mystifying contradiction.

He was a very difficult man, but I don’t think he was a monster. There are some hair-raising stories about his prejudices, but they feel of a piece of his generation. …He was also immensely lovable, charming, and a very good actor. The tragedy is that he was used to film. The incredible treadmill of television production…and the fact that he was ill wore him out.

Gatiss also needed to delicately balance the true-behind-the-scenes-story of what happened in the early 1960s with making an entertaining movie for modern television:

The thing that I’ve really tried to use in An Adventure in Space and Time is the idea that the Doctor makes Hartnell better. That’s what doctors do. There’s something rather lovely about that.

In conclusion, Gatiss tells his aim for the program and his portrayal of William Hartnell in the 90-minute story:

I hope that you can watch it without knowing anything about Doctor Who. It’s just the story of how something comes together-and how a man who got everything he ever wanted had to give it all away.

An Adventure in Space and Time, written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Terry McDonough, will air on BBC Two at 9pm on November 21st.

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Colin Baker: Classic Doctors Are “Excess Baggage” (Except, Presumably, McGann)

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.

Well here we were all ready to talk about the controversy over comments made by Colin Baker over the exclusion of the past Doctors from the 50th anniversary celebrations. However, we now know that simply isn’t true…well for one former Doctor at least.

Speaking to Attractions Magazine the Sixth Doctor commented that the classic Doctors have been nothing but ‘surplus baggage’ and ‘deemed unworthy of inclusion’ in The Day of the Doctor.

Baker said:

I’m not in it. I can say that Peter isn’t because I’ve seen him recently. And I can tell you that Sylvester isn’t, and neither is Paul. None of us have been deemed worthy of inclusion in a programme that celebrates 50 years of a British television programme, of which I was in it for three.

We are surplus baggage.

So does the Doctor lie?

Is the Eighth Doctor’s return just a small taste of what is in store in the coming days? Were these comments simply Colin adding a little Sixth Doctor-esque dramatic flourish to his part in towing the line?

Was he upset about being ignored for the main episode – after all, his comments don’t rule out ancillary appearances like the Eighth Doctor’s.

As Doctor Who Archive comments:

Colin, Peter, Sylvester and Paul (the true fab four!) however have filmed some description of material as revealed by Sean Pertwee last month. It’s still not known what the material entails or whether it will be broadcast in some form over the 50th anniversary period.

Or, and this seems unlikely, have the other Doctors, who narratively speaking, don’t seem to be as relevant to the wider events of the Time War, been left out of the celebrations entirely?

It would seem slightly churlish to bemoan the lack of involvement in the episode itself as simply as a matter of being ‘surplus’ to the actual plot – with the wider implication being that the two men differ greatly in their opinion of whether or not you can tell a compelling, dramatic multi-Doctor story.

It isn’t something that Moffat has ever denied – his familiar response to questions about returning characters over his reign can be summed up in one single word; ‘story’ and it strikes me he isn’t a man who’ll sacrifice that need to spin a compelling yarn for the sake of celebration.

In fact, he said so himself in the the official BBC Media Pack for The Day of the Doctor:

I adored ‘The Three Doctors’, it was brilliant, an accidental piece of magic. I also loved ‘The Five Doctors’. I did think that was the one where possibly the desire to celebrate overwhelmed the desire to tell a story. But I can’t really begrudge it that!

So who is at fault? Is there any fault at all? Are multi-Doctor stories and engaging narratives mutually exclusive entities? And what do you think is really going on with Colin’s apparent dislike of the manner in which the classic Doctors have been treated?

(Via Doctor Who Archive | Thanks to Paul)

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BBC Releases An Adventure In Space and Time Trailer! [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.

Airing in seven days’ time, the BBC has released a trailer for the forthcoming genesis biopic of Doctor Who, An Adventure in Space and Time.

Written by Mark Gatiss and starring David Bradley as William Hartnell, the film – which airs on Thursday 21st November on BBC Two at 9pm – promises to tantilise fans of the classic era while telling a powerful story about the people involved…

This special one-off drama travels back in time to 1963 to see how Doctor Who was first brought to the screen.

Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles. Wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry’s glass ceiling. Both of them were to find unlikely hope and unexpected challenges in the form of a Saturday tea-time drama. Allied with a team of unusual but brilliant people, they went on to create the longest running science fiction series ever made.

We’ve been told that there are a few secrets in this show that you won’t want to miss!

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