Christian Cawley's Blog, page 327

Which One Of These Concept TARDIS Interiors Do You Like Best?

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

We all know it’s “Location Location Location” when choosing digs. Course, if you live in a TARDIS this is less of an issue and you can focus on INTERIOR DÉCOR! Buzzfeed has collected 15 fan-interpretations of what the control room –the show-room of any Type 40 TT capsule– could look like.

The first major overhaul in the TV series came in 1976’s Masque of Mandragora where the “secondary control room” was introduced with a wood-panelled fusion of Gothic and Art Deco. Since then, asides from minor changes to the walls and the stunning new key-pad console in 1983’s The Five Doctors, little changed.

Then in 1996 Paul McGann’s Doctor inherited the Seventh’s re-furbished control room with a Jules Verne-inspired console and walls so distant they were in shadow. Since the show’s return the interior of the TARDIS has taken on a new significance, seeming to be an extension of the Doctor’s personality. The current control room is New Who’s third permanent TARDIS set and, after Coral and Junk, heralded a return to the futurism of the very first control room.

But what would your ideal control room look like? The offerings compiled at Buzzfeed feature some intriguing ideas. Yawning chasms, stained glass windows, a surrounding aquarium and suspended consoles. Number 9 from victor1st.blogspot.com appears to be a riff on the unused design for the unmade season 27 when the classic series ended, by effects designer Mike Tucker art-for-hearts.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/mike-tucker.html and number 15 is the steampunk version taken from the 2003 animated webcast Scream of the Shalka, recently released on DVD.

Author Lawrence Miles made it clear in his Who novels that the inside appearance of the TARDIS is really an illusion that simpler creatures like humans and Timelords can perceive and interact with… A user-interface with a ‘desktop setting’ as New Who puts it. It could look like literally ANYTHING.

So, glistening floors or soaring buttresses, what do you think? Could the current control room be improved on? Should it look a certain way? If so tell us how…

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Who Do You Hear: Paul McGann or Peter Davison? [POLL]

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.

Now that we’ve all had time to dissect and pour over the interesting puzzle of a trailer for The Day Of The Doctor, there are still some lingering questions that many fans have. One of the biggest? Just who exactly are we hearing?

While we all can recognize Matt Smith’s lovely voice as the one speaking over all of the images presented to us, there are certain points in the trailer that there seem to be echoes or reverberations or some other audio source mirroring and intensifying what Smith is saying.

It’s hard to notice these echoes right off, mainly because you’re actively looking for all of the little details hidden throughout the clip. But some keen eared fans noticed that we’d been given some audio details along with all those wonderful little nods to the past 50 years, and the more one listens to the trailer, the more those words being echoed (“lives”, “years” and “Doctor”) stand out.

Many fans have said that they hear the either the voice of Fifth Doctor Peter Davison or the voice Eighth Doctor Paul McGann as the one mirroring what is being spoken by Matt Smith. Some of them might have a case:

Spent forty minutes this pm having to imitate Matt Smith's dramatic delivery in VO. You have been warned….

— Paul McGann (@pauljmcgann) October 3, 2013

The question here is are we hearing one or both of them because those audio clips are indeed voiced by either former Doctor or could it just be wishful thinking on the part of the fans?

Both men have recently mentioned that they’d done something Who related, namely McGann talking about how he spent some time trying to “imitate Matt Smith’s dramatic delivery in voiceover”  (though he later seemed to backtrack that this might have any significant importance) and Davison saying that he’d be “making an appearance somewhere”  during this big anniversary, though he declined to say what that exactly meant.

Kasterborous readers, who do you hear? Is it Peter Davison or Paul McGann? Click play above, enjoy the clip again, and then vote in our poll!

Take Our Poll

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The Last Centurion Now On BlueBoxTees!

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.

Isn’t this a stunning Doctor Who-themed t-shirt? “The Last Centurion” by Zerobriant is now available to order on BlueBoxTees for just $12 until next Wednesday (November 6th)!

Available in different sixes for men and women (note that larger sizes have additional fees), this shirt is offered on Red, Charcoal, and Light Gray

Red is particularly striking:

Order yours now from BlueBoxTees.com!

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Blue Peter Sonic Clue to Doctor Who Series 8?

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.

Blue Peter’s latest competition will give viewers the chance to see their design realised on screen in next year’s series of Doctor Who.

Two live Blue Peter specials timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary celebrations will see the launch of a contest to ‘design new sonic devices for Sontaran Commander Strax, Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint.’

Viewers aged between six and 15 will be able to enter (I know, I fancied having a go at that myself…) and lucky winners will see their design become a prop on set in production of Series 8.

Blue Peter has a long-standing association with Doctor Who with earlier competitions seeing the Abzorbaloff from Love and Monsters and the Junkyard TARDIS from The Doctor’s Wife winning out. Going further back, designs for The Hypnotron, Aquamen, and Steel Octopus in the Troughton era sadly never made it into the series.

The Blue Peter specials will air on Thursday 21 November and Saturday 23 November on CBBC.

Come on then: what would you like to see in a sonic for Strax, Madame Vastra or Jenny?

(Via io9.com.)

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Doctor Who Coin Set in Silver Announced

jtbelliott 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.

New Zealand Mint celebrates Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary with 11 Silver Doctors!

Credits! Defaults! Gideons! Grotzits!* The man who never carries currency is now legal tender, thanks to New Zealand Mint and this spectacular, limited edition coin set.

New Zealand Mint has struck the ultimate collectors set in in ½ ounce 999 Fine Silver coins that carry a coloured image of all 11 Doctors to have played the role since the series’ creation in 1963.

Produced in collaboration with BBC Worldwide Australia & New Zealand, the limited edition coin set comes packed in a 3D replica of the Doctor’s fob watch.

The coins are legal tender for $1 in the South Pacific Island nation of Niue, making them an ideal item for Doctor Who fans around the world.

There are not many television shows which boast a 50 year history.  To be able to celebrate that evolution in such a unique way, as this silver coin set does, is something Doctor Who fans will love.

…NZ Mint chief executive Simon Harding says.

Adds Rachael Hammond, BBC Worldwide ANZ’s Senior Licensing Executive, Consumer Products:

To celebrate 50 years is a remarkable achievement for a television show and these 11 silver coins provide a worthy memento of Doctor Who’s enduring popularity.

Only 3,000 sets will be issued for sale worldwide, with a further 1,000 coins offered for individual sale of each of the 11 Doctor coins.

The 50th Anniversary Doctor Who set will be available for purchase from the New Zealand Mint website www.nzmint.com for $NZ699.00 while the individual Doctor coins are priced at $NZ80.00 each.

*Name the first appearances of all these Whoniverse currencies to win ten million Opeks!

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Win This TARDIS Bathrobe!

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.

In partnership with Internet Gift Store, Kasterborous would like to offer you, our reader, the chance to win this TARDIS bathrobe worth £44.99!

This Official Doctor Who merchandise is hooded, made from 100% Cotton Terry Cloth and comes in Navy Blue with White Trim. There is a single one-size-fits-all design for adults.

Described on the site as “the perfect chill out garment after a whole day of battling Daleks or Silurians or Autons or … This cozy bathrobe features stunningly detailed graphics of the TARDIS, the Doctor’s cleverly disguised spacecraft.”

One is available to a lucky reader of Kasterborous – all you need to do is leave a comment!

To enter, take a look at Internet Gift Store’s Doctor Who page and tell us – in the comments below – what item on that page is your favourite, and why.

We’ll be closing the competition at midnight on Saturday, November 30th, so get your answers down as quickly as possible. A winner will then be chosen at random and their prize forwarded.

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Murray Gold: Musical Doctor Who Would Be “Fun”

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.

Murray Gold has revealed that he’d be up for doing a musical episode of Doctor Who.

In an interview with CultBox, the long-standing composer admitted that an entirely music-based story, (in the style of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Once More with Feeling”), would be “fun” to do.

The Buffy episode in question featured a demon who compelled the series’ regulars to burst randomly into song, forcing them to reveal hidden truths. Despite being twelve years old, the story is fondly remembered for its originality and innovation, and has become a cult classic.

But whether David Banks’ Cyber Leader would ever be vulnerable to such satanic seduction is anyone’s guess. That said, Doctor Who is a show that is flexible enough to accommodate the quirkiest of plot devices, and a musical Twelfth Doctor outing would certainly be entertaining.

Get to it, Murray!

Read the full interview at CultBox.

The post Murray Gold: Musical Doctor Who Would Be “Fun” appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Decorate Your Webpage With These Eleventh Doctor GIFs

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.

Matt Smith, that impossibly brilliant Eleventh Doctor, turns 31 today! And to celebrate, Zap2It’s Chris E. Hayner wants you to see Matt move…

By presenting 11 GIFs, he wants you to post your favourite Moving Matt image onto your website or compatible social, and show the world how cool he really is – as well as bow ties, fezzes and glasses!

The GIFs (which means Graphical Interchange Format ie. pictures that move - just like in Harry Potter, kids) are taken from numerous episodes from his 2010-13 era, including The Pandorica Opens, Vampires of Venice, The Girl Who Waited and The Power of Three. It also features the Doctor doing an impression of a pregnant Amy Pond.

For fans of Karen Gillan, there’s even one from last Christmas, with her, Matt and a Cyberman having a little dance. Surprisingly, none of the Drunk Giraffe, however…

So pick your favourite and plaster it on your profile. This is where MySpace excelled itself, y’know. The only way it excelled itself, actually.

The post Decorate Your Webpage With These Eleventh Doctor GIFs appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Trailer 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 BBC has announced details of the 2013 Children In Need campaign – and Doctor Who gets a mention. But just what will the Doctor be doing for Pudsey (or is it Madame Kovarian)?

Taking place on 15 November – 8 days before The Day of the Doctor – there are hopes that rather than have the TARDIS land and any number of past, current, new or future Doctors step out, the BBC might run a trailer or a scene from the highly anticipated 50th anniversary episode.

It might even be the oft-rumoured prequel episode which may or may not feature Paul McGann (although we’re not holding out on that one…).

Either way, the Doctor’s involvement will certainly prove a draw for many fans. What do you think the Doctor will be doing on November 15th?

(With thanks to Richard | Via BBC News)

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James Goss on The Doctor: His Lives and Times

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.

Released last month, The Doctor: His Lives and Times tells the definitive story of 50 years of Doctor Who. Stunningly designed and brilliantly extensive, the book explores each Doctor and each story with fictional ads, diary entries, letters, blog posts, book covers – and so much more! Sections conclude with an in-depth tour through every serial, guided by those who made them as an ‘oral history.’

Kasterborous spoke to co-author, James Goss, about the remarkable tome…

 Where did the idea for The Doctor: His Lives and Times first come from?  

Shamefully neither Steve nor I can claim any credit. Albert DePetrillo, the Commissioning Editor at BBC Books said “would you like to do this?” And we did.

 We have Susan’s diary; Mickey’s blog; the Brigadier’s memoir: how did you decide who should be the main narrator for each Doctor?  

It was just so nice to be doing it again. You get paid to sit on a sofa for a couple of months pretending to be Sarah Jane Smith!

I always hate it when people say, “we talked it over at the pub quaffing many pints of the special ale”. [Sighs] We talked it over at the pub. A big pile of paper, some fun ideas, some “oh, wait, could we do….?” There was an initial suggestion from somewhere, “Can it all be the Doctor’s 500 Year Diary?” We immediately ran away from it and ended up roughly where we wanted to be.

The thing is, though, there are so many different paths through – we could write the book another dozen times. Perhaps from Ann Travers’ point-of-view of the Second Doctor, or Jo Grant’s view of the Third, or Barbara Wright’s view of the First…

 After the success of A History of the Universe in 100 Objects, were you at all intimidated about creating another original idea?  

It was just so nice to be doing it again. You get paid to sit on a sofa for a couple of months pretending to be Sarah Jane Smith!

 You told Doctor Who Magazine that the ‘oral history’ document, which concludes each Doctor’s section, comes to over a quarter-of-a-million words, so naturally had to be edited down – a lot. Do you have any favourite interviews or quotes? And were there many gems you loved but were forced to edit out?  

The oral history was a labour of love. We got so much in – we genuinely had a team working on it, with Andrew Pixley finding rare gems, and Tim Leng typing up old fanzines and Tom Wicker and Darren Scott interviewing people; so many wonderful things came in.

It was a joy re-reading Malcolm Hulke’s book about Writing For Television and finding a lovely interview with Dennis Spooner (none of which made the book), or Bonnie Langford’s recollections of being chased by Killer Bees. Just so many brilliant and lovely things. But we prepared each oral history long, very long, and then Steve Tribe came in and pared it down – from 30,000 words to 3,000. Hopefully the full things will some day be printed.

 What Doctor Who reference books did you grow up with, and have you revisited them for inspiration?  

Everyone mentions A Celebration, and rightly so. There’s a tribute to it in the margins of every page.

 How difficult was it to actually collaborate with Steve Tribe, designer, Paul Lang and illustrator, Matthew Savage?  

It was about lists. Paul assembled a brilliant team of designers who grabbed a section each. Richard Atkinson is a true hero because he delivered his pages first and they were so delightful that we suddenly knew exactly how the book was going to look. It was also a joy working with Matt Savage, because he’s just such a lovely man and has a real sense of humour. We’d say, “can you just do X?” and he’d provide X, Y and Z.

 How do you tackle writing such a mammoth book? It’s not a book with straight prose, but instead made up of ads and newspaper cuttings and poems, so I imagine the copy was full of notes to Lang and Savage!  

Pretty much. I can’t speak for Steve’s sections, but I wrote a lot of my first drafts on train journeys, just darting through bits and then going, “oh, it’d be fun to do this, and then that, and…” – Basically getting distracted. Heaps of it all went off to Steve, who then combed through it and tidied it up and added Actual Facts and Brilliant Bits and then it went off to a designer. Who would then make it all look very pretty.

 I remember Russell T. Davies being annoyed at himself for throwing away his ‘Sycorax Phrasebook’, but I see the Sycorax- English vocab in the Tenth Doctor section; did either you or Steve literally watch The Christmas Invasion over and over and transcribe what you could?  

The simple answer is that Russell compiled it for the Doctor Who website in 2006. We were doing a game that required a Sycorax translator, and I pulled a list of words from the script then, and sent it off to Russell with a list of other words that we could do with the Sycorax for, which he duly supplied. It’s one of those things that seemed a nice thing to fit into the book, especially as the Sycorax translator is no longer online.

 I’m also enjoying playing Spot The Clara. Do you know how many Claras have made it into the Classic Who section… and have you found them all?  

I can’t remember the total number. Michael Dinsdale did such a brilliant job of hiding them in some quite unexpected places. Even now they make me smile.

 What’s your next project for the BBC?  

I’m currently working on the follow-up to The Doctors Revisited documentaries. But they’re about a completely different programme, so this answer may not make any sense.

 Thanks, James! 

The book boasts contributions from all eleven Doctors; Steven Moffat; Waris Hussein; Donald Tosh; Tom MacRae; Patrick Troughton’s grandson, Harry Melling; Marc Platt; Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet… and then some! There’s even a look at the 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, with Matt Smith describing his pairing with David Tennant as “having Stan Laurel and Stan Laurel, and not having Hardy anywhere.”

With an RRP of £20, The Doctor: His Lives and Times is available now from all good booksellers – or you can get it for just £12.00 from Amazon UK.

Also, don’t miss James Goss’ exclusive short story, The Book

The post James Goss on The Doctor: His Lives and Times appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.