Christian Cawley's Blog, page 335

Ben Wheatley To Direct Doctor Who Series 8 Openers

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.

Acclaimed Brit Director Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers, A Field in England) has signed on to direct the first two episodes of Peter Capaldi’s reign as the Doctor.

The filmmaker, known for his pitch black, genre-bending, cine-literate storytelling, is a bold choice to usher in both the new series and a new Doctor but with that melting pot of the macabre, gallows humour and the odd tab of psychedelia he’s also an inspired one.

The director told Screendaily:

I am very excited and honoured to be asked to direct the first two episodes of the new series of Doctor Who. I’ve been a fan since childhood (Tom Baker is my Doctor if you are asking), I’ve been watching the current run of Doctor Who with my son and have discovered it all over again.

The work that has been done is amazing. I’m really looking forward to working with Peter Capaldi and finding out where Steven Moffat is planning to take the new Doctor.

Of course, part of that plan is Wheatley himself, whose appointment certainly offers some tantalising suggestions of what lies ahead.

Could his appointment set a precedent for other acclaimed directors to work with the Doctor? This would be much like the examples set in the states, where filmmakers such as Rian Johnston and Neil Marshall have already dabbled in shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones respectively.

While the posters for Series 7 were certainly cinematic in scope sometimes the visual didn’t match that ambition; could this hiring hint at more cine-literate filmmakers plundering from increasingly esoteric genres?

Perhaps most exciting of all is that this could open the floodgates for other British filmmakers to one day take the helm; although he’s currently busy miniturising heroism with Ant-Man, who wouldn’t like to see Edgar Wright direct the Doctor?

(via TotalFilm.com | With thanks to Richard)

The post Ben Wheatley To Direct Doctor Who Series 8 Openers appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Nick Briggs’ Doctor Who Missing Episodes Reaction

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.

Notably absent with online comments following last week’s Doctor Who missing episodes shebang was Nick Briggs, Voice of the Daleks and Big Finish honcho.

Fortunately some fans were about to grab him at the  New York Comic Con last weekend to gauge his excitement at being able to see long lost episodes from The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear at long last…

(Via The Doctor Who Knights)

The post Nick Briggs’ Doctor Who Missing Episodes Reaction appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Joanna Page Recalls The Day of the Doctor Shoot

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.

Joanna Page was recently a guest on ITV’s Loose Women. Among the topics discussed was her role in the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode, The Day of the Doctor.

Page spoke about wanting to take the year off from acting after giving birth to her daughter, Eva.

You don’t expect three weeks after giving birth for them to phone and say ‘Will you play Elizabeth I?’ I said ‘Yes, OK, but [my daughter]’s coming with me, and I think they knew not to mess with me, I was like a lioness. I was ‘I’m feeding, this is when she gets fed, she’s coming on set, she’s coming everywhere with me’, and that’s what happened. But everyone was just great.

Joanna also mentioned what it was like during filming of the episode, set to air in a worldwide simulcast on 23rd November.

One day I was about to get on the back of a horse with David Tennant and James, my husband, drove in in the car with Eva, said ‘She needs feeding’ so I got off the horse, got in the back of the car, ripped open the bodice and Elizabeth I was breast feeding! That’s a working mum for you.

Joanna Page is currently starring in ITV’s Breathless. You can catch this edition of Loose Women on the  ITV Player.

(Via TennantNews)

The post Joanna Page Recalls The Day of the Doctor Shoot appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Trial of a Time Lord: Vol. 2 Audiobook Now Available!

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.

The final volume of the adaptation of the classic Doctor Who story is now available! As read by former actors Bonnie Langford (companion Mel Bush) and Michael Jayston (The Valeyard), the collection features the novelisations of the final two parts of the Sixth Doctor story arc, The Trial of a Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids and The Ultimate Foe. 

From the description:

Terror of the Vervoids: On trial for his life, the Doctor defends himself by telling of an adventure set on board the Hyperion III space liner in his future. Answering a distress call, the Doctor and Mel arrive on the liner just as a series of grisly murders begins. Who is behind the murders? Do the enigmatic Mogarians have anything to do with them? Who sent the distress call to the TARDIS? And what hideous menace lies waiting in the Hydroponic Centre?

 

The Ultimate Foe: While the Doctor asserts that the evidence of the Matrix, the repository of all Time Lord knowledge, has been tampered with, the mysterious and vengeful prosecuting council, the Valeyard, is confident that the Doctor will be sentenced to death. In a dramatic intervention the Valeyard’s true identity is revealed but he escapes from the Courtroom into the Matrix, and it is into this nightmare world that the Doctor must follow – to face his ultimate foe…

If for no other reason than getting to hear the Valeyard and Mel narrate the story, this is a must have for fans of the Colin Baker story. The novels are by Pip and Jane Baker, who wrote the scripts for several classic Who episodes, including the televised versions of Terror of the Vervoids and The Ultimate Foe.

With an RRP of £18.35, the CD set is available for purchase from Amazon for just £9.80, a saving of 47%!

Anyone picking this up? If so, sound off below and let us know what you think of them!

The post Trial of a Time Lord: Vol. 2 Audiobook Now Available! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

How Do You Turn Your Kids Into Doctor Who Fans?

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.

Doctor Who fan Pete May was a lone voice in his house during the run of the classic series – in fact his dad thought it was rubbish! So when he had children of his own, he was intent on being “the Time Lord-loving father he never had.”

Writing in a recent edition of The Guardian, May reveals how he first got his kids hooked on the early VHS releases of the Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy adventures. And when the series returned in 2005, the obsession looked set to explode.

Rose was a positive role model for young girls, the farting Slitheen perhaps less so. Even my non-Whovian wife, Nicola, started watching, remarking that Eccleston was better looking than William Hartnell. After The Empty Child, where gas mask creatures menaced a second world war hospital, we spent a lot of time shouting up the stairs at my long-suffering wife, “Mummy, are you my mummy?”

May also reveals the pact he’d made with his then-fiancée – to marry her “in any year when Doctor Who returned, West Ham got promoted and England won the Ashes.” Quite a tricky combo! And yet that’s exactly what happened in 2005, the year that everything changed. There were, indeed, wedding bells for Pete May and his wife Nicola, but thankfully the day was free from time paradox and Reapers!

And now, in 2013, May has led his family through two regenerations, this year’s Doctor Who Prom and the unveiling of the Twelfth Doctor. Does he think he has fulfilled his duty as a Time Lord-loving patriarch?

Other dads affect gravitas or can put up shelves. But I have a whopping great Doctor Who DVD collection, a Zygon coaster and a Dalek mouse mat. I feel I’ve given my children a good start to life in the universe. And when my time comes to regenerate, perhaps they’ll think only this of me – he was a true Whovian Dad.

Head to The Guardian website to read the full story. Do you have children or young relatives? How have you introduced them to Doctor Who?

The post How Do You Turn Your Kids Into Doctor Who Fans? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Steven Moffat Discusses Hurt Doctor’s Genesis

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.

So, just who is the John Hurt Doctor? What is he, where does he come from and how does he impact that life of our favourite Time Lord? Since he appeared at the end of The Name of the Doctor, this hitherto unknown incarnation has set comment threads and web forums a-chatter.

Speaking to SFX issue 241 – out on Wednesday – Steven Moffat offered some of his thoughts into the background for this incarnation, where he comes from (in a purely creative sense, you understand).

Why not a mayfly Doctor, who exists for one show only? I’d often thought about that. Would it be weird in the run of the series to have the 45th Doctor turn up and be played by Johnny Depp or someone? Would that be a cool thing to do? There was also the idea that if you could bring one classic Doctor back, you’d actually, impossibly, want it to be William Hartnell. You wouldn’t want any of the others.

You’d want him to come and say ‘What in the name of God have I turned into?’ That’s the confrontation that you most want to see, to celebrate 50 years.

That sounds pretty interesting, doesn’t it?

Moffat then continues, referencing things that we think we know already thanks to The Name of the Doctor…

Going round and round in circles on it I just thought ‘What about a Doctor that he never talks about?’ And what if it is a Doctor who’s done something terrible, who’s much deadlier and more serious, who represents that thing that is the undertow in both David and Matt. You know there’s a terrible old man inside them.

Well, here he is, facing the children he becomes, as it were.

SFX 241 is a big Doctor Who 50th anniversary treat, and you shouldn’t miss it. It goes on sale Wednesday 16th October!

The post Steven Moffat Discusses Hurt Doctor’s Genesis appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Missing Episodes Selling Well on iTunes

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.

While the recovered Doctor Who episodes have only been available since Thursday, they’re going gangbusters on iTunes.

According to SeenIt, the newly released Troughton era stories are already best sellers on the Apple owned media store. While it is fantastic news, it’s not entirely surprising as iTunes is the only current release outlet for the recovered episodes. I can also confirm that, at the time of writing, the episodes are also sitting in the top ten of the US iTunes Seasons chart as well.

Regardless of whether or not iTunes was the right method for release, this can only be described as a success for both Apple and the BBC. Combined with the upcoming DVD sales, it should be quite a haul for the BBC. So, did you get your classic Who fix via iTunes this weekend or are you waiting on the DVDs?

Or maybe holding out for another digital store release?

Our recent poll (which has now ended) revealed that 51.77% of respondents were waiting for the DVD releases, while a further 40.28% would be downloading from iTunes and then buying the DVDs when they are released.

Finally, just 6.01% planned to purchase the episodes from iTunes, with 2% declaring no interest in watching the episodes. 566 votes were cast.

The post Doctor Who Missing Episodes Selling Well on iTunes appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Moffat in Regeneration Teaser!

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.

What’s that, Steven Moffat? You say we’ve miscounted the Doctor’s regenerations?

Speaking at a Radio Times-sponsored event at the Cheltenham Literature Festival today, Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat revealed his thinking behind the Doctor’s current regeneration situation – a state of affairs that is nearing crisis levels.

While confirming that the Doctor has a limit on his regenerations (12, if you didn’t know, thereby giving him 13 bodies in total) the wily Scot – who has cast another wily Scot (Peter Capaldi) to replace Matt Smith when his Doctor shuffles off the grid at Christmas – indicated that while we think the Eleventh Doctor is the Eleventh Doctor, he actually isn’t.

He can only regenerate 12 times.

I think you should go back to your DVDs and count correctly this time… there’s something you’ve all missed.

So, what is the wiry-haired, wily Scotsman on about? Could he be suggesting that the restoration of the regenerating Tenth Doctor in Journey’s End should count as a regeneration? Perhaps the problem is with the lack of any regeneration sequence for the Eighth Doctor, or indeed the placement of the “new” Hurt Doctor.

What do you think? How could Doctor Who fans have miscounted?

The post Moffat in Regeneration Teaser! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Tennant’s Tribute to Troughton!

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.

There are a lot of Patrick Troughton fans out there – and rightly so. To celebrate the discovery of The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear, I watched The Krotons, an underrated story in which the whole TARDIS crew are brilliant. Patrick is particularly astonishing.

It comes as no surprise that Tenth Doctor actor, David Tennant, is a fan of the Second Doctor.

In The Doctors Revisited: The Second Doctor, shown earlier today on Watch, he said:

William Hartnell created something that was unique and brilliant, but actually the Doctor that we recognise today is much more Patrick Troughton’s Doctor. We’ve all sort of done our version – kind of – of what Patrick Troughton did.

The half-an-hour show, which premiered on BBC America, was bookended by repeats of yesterday’s specials, Doctor Who: The Companions and Doctor Who Explained, and an omnibus edition of the superb Tomb of the Cybermen (the music of which has been going around in my head since about 3pm).

Matt Smith famously watched Tomb and was influenced by the Second Doctor – just look at the bow tie!

It’s so amazing that we’re getting new old Who so long after they were wiped from the BBC Archives.

You can watch the brief ‘talking heads’ interview with David above, and don’t forget to tune into Watch every weekend to celebrate all eleven Doctors!

The post Tennant’s Tribute to Troughton! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Mild The Day Of The Doctor Photo Spoilers

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.

Mild The Day Of The Doctor Photo Spoilers

Some photos from The Day of the Doctor have appeared online, featuring the three Doctors David Tennant, Matt Smith and John Hurt. While not hugely spoilerific, they do at least feature one interesting development and come from the next issue of SFX, out on Wednesday 16th October.

The Day of the Doctor in SFX

Images were uploaded to the web courtesy of Digital Spy forum member cylob49, and feature the cover of the next issue, an image of the three stars and – perhaps most interestingly – a sonic screwdriver… or something else?

sfx-tdotd31
sfx-tdotd21
sfx-tdotd11

[image error]

[image error]

[image error]

Please note that the comments section below may contain spoilers.

(Via io9.com)

The post Mild The Day Of The Doctor Photo Spoilers appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.