Christian Cawley's Blog, page 39

First Look at Christmas Special: Where in River’s Time Line Does it Take Place?

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.

Sometimes they are married, sometimes they don’t recognise each other – it’s a minefield of time travelling faux pas when the Doctor and River get together – syncing their diaries once again, the pair will reunite this Christmas and, thanks to the Radio Times, we know, roughly when that meeting will take place.

“It doesn’t really matter, but for those who care,” said Steven Moffat. “It’s immediately after The Angels Take Manhattan. River’s just seen Matt Smith’s Doctor lose Amy and Rory, and obviously before The Name of the Doctor because she’s dead in that.”

Speaking of the departed, this year’s Christmas Special could have been Moffat’s last episode.

“We’ve just lost Clara, so I didn’t want to go straight into a new companion,” he went on. “I’ll be honest, I brought River Song back in because I thought there was a possibility I’d never write it again so that’d be my goodbye.”

Which depending on your view of Moffat and River, it’s either the most typical/infuriating goodbye he could have come up with.

Speaking of strange unions; just how do does the pairing with Twelve work?

“It’s strange because they’re now, in our human terms, the perfect couple. They’re both sexy older people. It’s always been slightly strange before with Matt Smith. Now, yeah, they could actually be married. It works.”

He also added:

“If you’re a long term fan of the show you might be interested because there’s been a lot of talk about the Doctor and River’s glory years but we’ve never seen them. Here at last we see them as Mr and Mrs Who at the height of their powers. It’s great fun.”

Additional casting includes Greg Davies as King Hydroflax and Matt Lucas as Nardole.

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How Are You Celebrating Doctor Who’s 52nd Anniversary?

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.

52 years ago, at 5:16pm, Doctor Who premiered on BBC1. The Doctor and the TARDIS; the theme tune; the Vworp! Vworp! dematerialisation; the otherworldiness; the questions about time and space: they were all there, right away.

This morning, I fired up the DVD player and stuck in An Unearthly Child. Over the next day or two, I’ll watch the full four-part serial, but for today, I’m content with viewing one of the boldest, most imaginative, and beautifully-realised first episodes in television history. Verity Lambert, Waris Hussein, and co. pulled out all the stops and created something truly memorable and wonderful.

The thing that astounds you, even to this day, even after countless rewatches, is how fleshed out the Whoniverse was, right from the off. It’s a remarkable piece of work. Doctor Who, while endlessly changing and adapting and evolving, is exactly the same show as it was in 1963.

That’s how I’ve celebrated Doctor Who‘s 52nd anniversary. But how are you celebrating? Maybe by cramming in as many episodes as possible? Watching a favourite tale? Starting a marathon? Reading Doctor Who: The Complete History? Listening to a Big Finish? Or have you attended the pro-BBC gathering, attended by Peter Davison, Sophie Aldred, Katy Manning, and many more?

Let us know below.

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Did You Spot the Torchwood Nod in Face the Raven?

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.

We’re unlikely to see Captain Jack’s Torchwood team back on our screens anytime soon – there’s the odd audio drama to keep the Torchwood flame burning bright – but that doesn’t mean we can’t get the odd cheeky reference to Doctor Who’s more adult spin-off.

In Face the Raven, Rigsy (Jovian Wade), was enticed down a hidden street and drugged, losing his entire memory of the incident. The drug that was used? Retcon – also known as Compound B67 or the amnesia pill – a favourite of the Torchwood Three for wiping the minds of anyone who stumbles across their operation.

And boy did they need it; it’s been used in no less than seven TV episodes and two of the spin-off novels.

Ostensibly a nod to televisions own process of ‘retconning’ where previous narratives are changed to suit the present story – say, the Twelfth Doctor’s  new frowny face – and its own tendency to rely on this most convenient of deus ex machina; it does raise the question: Just where did Ashildr (Maisie Williams) get it from?

Did John Barrowman’s Captain Jack finally ‘get around’ to her as promised/threatened by the Doctor in The Woman Who Lived? And just how creepy is that?

Anyway, it’s nice to have a few nods to the much-maligned spin-off; if only to keep any chance of its return alive.

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Reviewed: Doctor Who – The Complete History Issue 4

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.

Here’s something very few people know about me: nearly a decade ago, I was working on a project to catalogue all the behind-the-scenes details of each story, plus subsequent broadcast and merchandising information. The idea was to create a definitive guide to the series, from 1963 to the present. Where did I start? The very beginning, of course.

I only had to wait about 8 years and someone else would do it for me.

My project was for myself: this was before writing became a proper career, so the idea was just for my own use, to learn as much about this silly, wonderful little show as I could. Mine was full of clunky facts and timings and all that nitty-gritty stuff, so much so that I quickly became bogged down in it. It was put on hiatus until I had time to do it justice. One day, I might finish it – yes, one day.

But for now, The Complete History will more than suffice. Issue four covers the first two serials – An Unearthly Child and The Daleks – and thus, too, the creation of Doctor Who. It’s an oft-regaled story that remains fascinating.

As I said, I’d researched a lot of this for my own project… and then again in 2013 when compiling the feature mini-series, Introducing: An Unearthly Child (and I remain very proud of parts one, two, and three). And then there was An Adventure in Space and Time, an immense joy to watch.

So what would The Complete History be like, retreading ground best explored during Doctor Who‘s 50th anniversary year?

Well, to put it plainly, it’s extensive, enlightening, and entertaining.

Issue 4 is a thick volume that any fan of Doctor Who should own because it covers, in one swift step, how Doctor Who was created and how it became a success – in just two serials.

That seems incredible now, and it must’ve seemed incredible back then too. We have the benefit of hindsight: yes, of course the Daleks would be loved – and feared – by millions. It might come as a surprise to many, then, when you see the phrase “We thought the Daleks were hysterically funny” as you flick through the book.

Another thing occurs to you when dotting between pages: the show would be big because it looked like nothing else on television. That’s as true today as it was in the 1960s. Sure, we’ve had Primeval, Merlin, and Atlantis, but a Sixties audience would’ve experienced A For Andromeda, Pathfinders, and Quatermass. Those sci-fi adventures are detailed as part-inspiration, part-trailblazers in a 12-page ‘Origins’ feature that proceeds the section devoted entirely to the first ever Who.

I hope it encourages people to search for clips and DVDs of those early pioneering sci-fi shows. They’ll sadly find The Quatermass Experiment is also a victim of the BBC’s policy of scrapping film. Still, the second and third series both exist and there are more Nigel Kneale stories to discover.

It’s also great to see photos of the people who made Doctor Who: if you’ve never seen pictures of Verity Lambert, Rex Tucker, and Mervyn Pinfield before, it’s a wonderful experience. You’ll know them by name, but here they are, as they were in the 1960s. It brings them alive, and brings the text alive too.

Of course, if you have seen them before, you can still appreciate what a varied bunch of fantastic folk forced our favourite show into reality. Plus, you can marvel at the casting for An Adventure in Space and Time – Jessica Raine as Verity Lambert was great, but Sacha Dhawan as Waris Hussein is utterly perfect!

A face few will be familiar with is Anthony Coburn, writer of An Unearthly Child and whose profile concludes the entry for that particular story. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be surprised at his life. Coburn has only that sole credit to his name when it comes to Doctor Who, but he was far more prolific than most realise. He wasn’t just a screenwriter: he also held roles including script editor, producer, and journalist (and dabbled as a salesman and delivery driver).

In contrast, the majority of Whovians will know the man whose profile appears at the book’s conclusion: Terry Nation, creator of the Daleks.

If you’ve not read any biographies of the late writer, much of the details will come as a nice surprise, notably that he didn’t really care for Doctor Who when he had first contributed. It really was just another job, one which he initially ignored. Then he had an argument with Tony Hancock, resulting in Nation grabbing the chance to work on this questionable new sci-fi show.

Again, he then seemed to abandon the series once another exciting project came up in Sweden, working alongside Eric Sykes.

He, too, was a prolific writer, and that’s certainly to be admired. Terry seemed not only a clever guy, but also a genuinely nice one. The five-page tribute to him is littered with lovely photos; nonetheless, I hope Raymond Cusick is given suitable attention in an upcoming volume.

Now, then, is the time to evaluate just how much I learned from this simple 178-page HC. The answer is, a lot. Just a few notes:

Due to the pressures of filming-as-live, some actors of the time – not necessarily on Doctor Who – would say “f***” if they weren’t happy with a take;
Susan, at one point, was to be called Findooclare by the Doctor – and she was just posing as his granddaughter: she was, in fact, an alien princess, hiding from a race called the Paladin, who had enslaved her people. The Doctor had saved her when she was just a baby. No, really;
Anthony Coburn died of a heart attack in April 1977, aged just 49, shortly after commencing work on the second series of the original Poldark;
In rehearsals, the Daleks were differentiated by numbers attached to their domes and reels of coloured tape between the aluminium neck bands;
Terry Nation split the royalties for Dalek merchandise 50/50 with the BBC, so just 18 months after The Daleks, he’d earned the equivalent of £4.5million in today’s money.

Talking of colour, many photos included in this issue are, indeed, in colour. That’s a great new perspective on the serial. I don’t think they’ve been coloured after the event; I trust they’re just rarer images. Nonetheless, the pictures and designs throughout are stunning.

There’s also a solid sense of joy in those early days. They had to work against so many restrictions – budget, a tiny studio, personnel new to television – but the cast and crew seemed to hit it off rather well anyway. It makes reading the book a real pleasure.

Oh, but there’s one thing that’s annoyed me. Those first two serials are referred to as 100,000BC and The Mutants. It just seems unnecessary, and pointless. They’re generally accepted as An Unearthly Child and The Daleks (for one, it differentiates between this serial and 1972’s The Mutants), so why not just go with those titles?!

It’s such a small point, but does remain a niggle. At least The Daleks isn’t called The Dead Planet, I suppose.

Still, this remains an incredible work. For me, it’s been about 8 years coming, but I reckon it was worth that wait.

NEXT: DINOSAURS ON A SPACESHIP, A TOWN CALLED MERCY, AND THE POWER OF THREE.

Want to subscribe? Head over to  the Doctor Who: The Complete History site  – and don’t forget about  the premium subscription offer too!

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Playthings of Sutekh: What’s the Point of Doctor Who Toys that Stay in their Boxes?

James Baldock 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.

Since the summer of 1997, I’ve developed a peculiar habit. Every time I come across an upturned soft toy, planted with its head towards the floor, I’ll turn it upright. If I’m not in a hurry, I’ll even put it on a shelf or a bed where it belongs. Basically, I want it to be comfortable.

This is the sort of statement that usually lands you in psychiatric care, so let me elaborate: it’s all to do with Toy Story (but you’d probably guessed that) and the notion that toys are sentient beings that think and feel and that desire, above all else, to be used. The notion of toys that are not played with haunts the entire trilogy – pervading, in particular, the second part, in which Woody the cowboy starts to face up to the inevitability that one day, Andy will stop playing with him. The alternative – gift-wrapped by Kelsey Grammar’s sinister (but understandably disgruntled) Pete the Prospector – is life in a museum as a collector’s item. It’s left to Buzz Lightyear to bring Woody back to his senses. “Watch kids from behind glass and never be loved again?” he snorts. “Some life.”

It’s a metaphor for… something. I don’t really know what, even after all these years. But taken purely at face value it sums up something very important about my ethos when it comes to toys and collector’s items: I don’t see the point of them if they’re never opened or used.

A week or so ago a friend sent me a link to an article written by a collector. There is one paragraph that caught my eye: “It’s made worse when you’re in the company of that one friend who smugly informs you that they still have all theirs, in their original boxes. Mine were in their boxes too.” Forgive me, Mr Anonymous BBC Magazine Writer. I’m still unpacking this (excuse pun). Did you retain the boxes just to keep your collection safe, taking the ‘PLEASE RETAIN ALL PACKAGING’ warnings literally? Or did you buy them with the intention of leaving them in there?

Even if you didn’t, there are plenty who do. Perhaps I’m slow, but I genuinely don’t understand the mindset. It feels utterly pointless. I’d warrant that many people reading this will have shelves of DVDs they seldom watch, but what about shelves of DVDs that are never opened on principle, purely so that they can be kept immaculate? No, thought not. “But there’s a fundamental difference in intended purpose!”, you’ll reply. Well, yes. And no. DVDs are designed to be played. Toys – however you want to look at it – are designed to be played with. Except for the ones that specifically aren’t – the fragile ones, the ones you get in collect-the-set mail order deals, and they’re a whole other country that I don’t really want to visit. They’re the North Korea of collectibles; I’m not touching them with a barge pole.

It’s not just Doctor Who, of course – that’s the extent of my expertise, but Star Wars, Transformers and any number of other merchandise opportunities get similar treatment. There’s an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Leonard – in an ultimately futile attempt to get rid of his collection  – manages to gain safe passage by threatening to open an unvisored Geordi LaForge action figure unless the others get out of his way. We laugh at this, just as we laugh at Sheldon’s reaction to Brent Spiner when he does exactly the same thing, partly because the behaviour of both is so uproarious, but partly because we recognise something of ourselves in what we see.

It works the other way too. I remember experiencing a sense of glee when I saw James May – in a BBC2 series he did on the history of toys – attending a Hornby auction, buying a suitably expensive model railway engine, and then ripping open the packet to examine the model, much to the horror of many of the other collectors. It’s the sort of moment that makes you want to cheer, because it encapsulates an entire concept in one swift physical action, in the same way that something fundamental about the Doctor is expressed at the end of Forest of the Dead, the moment he snaps his fingers.

Is this a parenting thing? I’d be naïve to think it wasn’t a factor. But it’s more than that. I’ve known people without children who feel the same way. It feels as if the notion of unused toys gathering dust actively contradicts everything a toy is supposed to be. We don’t even call them dolls or action figures; we call them figurines. It seems somehow ridiculous to suggest that the value of something is determined by whether or not the sellotape is unbroken and whether or not those irritating plastic wire things that take ages to untangle are still in place. It feels dry, humourless, a life made of things for the sake of things. “A bomb,” explains Dennis Hopper to Keanu Reeves at the end of Speed, “is made to explode. That is its meaning. Its purpose. Your life is empty because you spend it trying to stop the bomb from becoming.”

On the other hand, I can recall with vivid clarity the afternoon I came home and found that one of my children – the one with high-functioning autism – had, in the space of a single day, made the leap from obsessively lining up our figure collection in chronological order to actively playing with them, acting out little skits, doing voices. It sounds so inconsequential written down, but it was one of those heart-in-mouth moments. It’s Tony Curran embracing Bill Nighy. It’s Rory cutting off his pony tail. It probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d left that eleven Doctors figure set inside its fold-out TARDIS box. I would, of course, still have the First Doctor’s cane. But at what cost?

So our Doctor Who toys come out of the boxes as soon as they arrive in the house. They get played with. They get lost, and found again, and then lost again. They’re used in ridiculous photo gags, and, a few years back, a full-blown (well, three and a half minutes) recreation of The Wizard of Oz. All this comes at a price. I can’t find the Seventh Doctor’s umbrella, which really screws up a crucial scene in Dragonfire. Morbius’s leg has never really been quite right, and the ‘raggedy’ Eleventh Doctor is missing his left arm (which is fine, he’s still in the first few hours of regeneration; he can grow a new one). “Children,” rants Prospector Pete, “destroy toys”. Usually they don’t mean to. Sometimes they do, and I have to go and put myself in time out to calm down.

But that’s fine. Because the fact is I’d probably be doing this even if I were childless. I’ve given up pretending I bought new figures “for the kids” – no one believes me, particularly my other half, who was in any case the only person I was actually trying to convince. One day our Doctor Who collection will be gathering dust, and I will pass them on so that someone else can enjoy them. They’ll never make the final cut of an Antiques Roadshow, but any smugness I’d have felt at owning immaculate, unopened figures that go for a song on Ebay is usurped at the sense of smugness I feel that we’ve used them perhaps as Character Options intended – for entertainment and amusement, and not just something to be stuck on a shelf.

Of course, they don’t climb out of the crate and have adventures and stuff when we’re not looking. That would be silly. Even the idea is silly.

Isn’t it…?

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Celebrate Doctor Who’s 52nd Anniversary with Pro-BBC Protest

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.

Tomorrow is the 52nd anniversary of Doctor Who, and what better way to show your appreciation for a show that’s been entertaining the nation for over half a century, than by attending an hour-long protest in support of the BBC?

Guest speakers from Doctor Who‘s bright past will be in attendance to not only show support for the organisation but also to celebrate everyone’s favourite show.

The hour-long protest/flash mob will be staged on Monday 23 November outside BBC Broadcasting House, Langham Place, London W1A 1AA; crowds are asked to gather at 12:15 for a 12:20 start.

Peter Davison, aka the Fifth Doctor, will be there as a guest speaker, alongside Sophie Aldred (Ace), Bertie Carvel (who was in The Lazarus Experiment, but you’ll probably know him from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell), and Chris Jury (The Greatest Show in the Galaxy).

You can find out more from the event pdf.

The event comes as the BBC faces the biggest challenge of its history. The Corporation faces a new Charter Renewal period with the Conservative government hell-bent on making the BBC bear the cost of free licences for the over-75s. This £650m additional cost (currently met from the welfare budget) amounts to a 20% cut in funding and follows five years of standstill income due to a freeze in the licence fee effectively imposed by chancellor George Osborne in 2010.

Just last week, the BBC announced more cuts to services including the end of the Red Button and a further retreat from competing for sports rights in a bid to plug a £100m shortfall in income. The looming question is, where will the axe fall next? The protest is organised by Media and Entertainment Union, BECTU, whose national official, Sofie Mason, says:

“We’re inviting Doctor Who fans, and supporters of the BBC, to join us to celebrate the show’s 52nd birthday  and to demonstrate to policy makers just how much we value to the BBC. Come in costume if you like!”

BECTU goes on to point out:

The BBC, whilst far from perfect, is a standard bearer for quality broadcasting across news and entertainment; 96% of the UK population enjoys its output every single week at a cost of just 40p a day. The appreciation for the BBC worldwide is vast. And yet the Conservatives want to starve the Corporation of public funding to benefit commercial rivals.

For supporters who can’t join the protest in London, you can post a picture, or register your support, online on their campaign page on Facebook or by using the hashtags #doctorwho52 #drwho52 on twitter.

The event is part of the BBC Love It Or Lose It campaign mounted by the Federation of Entertainment Unions, the collective grouping for BECTU, Equity, NUJ, Musicians Union, PFA, Unite the Union and the Writers Guild of Great Britain.

Frankly, it’s about time the nation showed their support for a much-loved institution that’s a target for a government looking at others’ faults but never their own.

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The TV Trailer for Heaven Sent is Here

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.

We’re all still reeling from the events of Face the Raven, but Doctor Who doesn’t slow down: we’re hurtling towards the finale, and the  trailer for Heaven Sent is here.

Expect it to be screened on TV at every waking moment across the next week.

The next episode will star solely Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, up against a mysterious enemy played by Jami Reid-Quarrell (who we last saw in The Magician’s Apprentice/ The Witch’s Familiar as Colony Sarff) – The Veil. Here’s the ‘Next Time’ trailer from last night’s story too:

So where did the Doctor transmat to? Who is the Veil? And what does he have to go through in order to get back to a place he’s long dreamt of returning to? We’ll find out the answers on 28th November at 8:05pm in this 55-minute penultimate episode.

Heaven Sent/ Hell Bent are written by Steven Moffat and directed by Rachel Talalay.

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Out Now: Lethbridge-Stewart – Mutually Assured Domination

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.

The Dominators are back!

Lethbridge-Stewart: Mutually Assured Domination by Nick Walters, from Candy Jar Books, is the fourth book in the Lethbridge-Stewart range, and concludes the first ‘series’ which began earlier this year in Andy Frankham-Allen’s The Forgotten Son.

Released on 20th November, Mutually Assured Domination features the return of the Dominators and the Quarks. In 1969, Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln had hoped, with the Quarks, to create a Doctor Who monster to rival the Daleks in the affections of the public. But aside from a few appearances in comics, neither the Quarks nor the Dominators came back. Until now!

The Dominators was written as a metaphor for the then-current fear of nuclear war. With the Dominators themselves embodying the ultimate nuclear threat, and the docile Dulcians playing the part of the cautionary tale; a race so fearful of nuclear fallout that they took pacifism to the ultimate degree. In his foreword, Paul Finch says:

“In a twist that completely delighted me, (this book) is set in precisely that era: the late ’60s, with the protest movement still at full power and the anti-nuclear ticket a hot one. It even has its own desolate wilderness – Dartmoor. Though of course at the heart of this wasteland stands not the Doctor, but his unofficial deputy on Earth (at least, that’s always the way I used to think of him), and another fine creation of Messrs Haisman and Lincoln, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, better known as ‘the Brigadier’, though for our purposes today he’s still a colonel.”

Author Nick Walters added:

“I had a great time writing Mutually Assured Domination, taking as my inspiration the Cold War thrillers of John Le Carre and the 1985 BBC Drama Edge of Darkness. I have always loved the Dominators and their sinister robotic servants so it was great to be given the chance to make them live again! My favourite parts of The Dominators has always been the bickering between Rago and Toba and there’s some of that in this book, in fact there is great comedy potential in the characters. But I also hope I have presented them as a credible threat and a worthy foe for Lethbridge Stewart. I hope people find my book is to be a good old-fashioned romp – and a wham-bam ending for the first ‘season’ of Lethbridge-Stewart novels!”

The series charts the untold stories of Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, better known as the much-loved Brigadier, with the first book focusing on his continuing battle with the Great Intelligence, which first appeared in The Web of Fear (1968). Journalist, Harold Chorley, who we also last saw in Web, also crops up in Mutually Assured Domination; Head of Publishing at Candy Jar Books, Shaun Russell says:

“Ever since we secured the deal with the Haisman Estate, we’ve been planning to bring back Harold Chorley. He was such a pain in Lethbridge-Stewart’s side in The Web of Fear it was a forgone conclusion that he’d return to give the colonel more grief. His return has been set up throughout the last few books, with hints as to his situation following The Web of Fear. Now we finally get to play it out properly, and Nick has done a great job with him!”

Anyone who pre-ordered the book (or joins the subscribers’ list to receive news of the series) get a further 65-page PDF-only short story, The Dogs of War by Andy Frankham-Allen.

In 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks, Doctor Who fans were introduced to Group Captain Ian Gilmore and the Intrusion Counter Measures Group. Gilmore soon found his way into Doctor Who lore in the Wilderness Years (Part One) of 1990-1996 when it was revealed in two novels that Air Vice-Marshal Gilmore was partly responsible for the ultimate formation of UNIT.

For the last few years, Gilmore has lead the way in a successful series of audio dramas produced by Big Finish called Counter Measures, which shows his activities following that particular Seventh Doctor tale, but still the historic meeting between Gilmore and Lethbridge-Stewart has never been fully dramatized… until now! Author Andy Frankham-Allen says:

“Since day one of this series I have been mindful that there are certain milestones in Lethbridge-Stewart’s life that need to be dealt with in these books in one way or another. His meeting with Gilmore is one of those. With the approval of Ben Aaronovitch, who created Gilmore back in ’88, and with thanks to Andrew Cartmel (Doctor Who script editor 1987-89), we are finally able to make that happen with our own spin. Hopefully we’ll offer fans a little bit more meet to their meeting. It’s been a real joy bringing these two iconic characters together and letting them play in each other’s sandpits – for one night only!”

The Dogs of War follows the event of last month’s Lethbridge-Stewart: Beast of Fang Rock and leads into the events of Mutually Assured Domination. (Although, as with all of Candy Jar’s free Lethbridge-Stewart stories, The Dogs of War is not essential when reading Mutually Assured Domination.)

Lethbridge-Stewart: Mutually Assured Domination by Nick Walters is out now from Candy Jar Books – normally £8.99, but if you head over there right now, you can pick it up for just £7.99.

The post Out Now: Lethbridge-Stewart – Mutually Assured Domination appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Tell Us What You Thought of Face The Raven!

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.

Wowsers! So that was Face the Raven then. And now only two episodes left of Series 9. Where does this leave the Doctor? We’re looking forward to finding out.

It’s easy to be overcome with excitement for the finale, but for now, let’s focus on Sarah Dollard’s first writing credit on Doctor Who.

Was it a welcome return for Joivan Wade’s Rigsy? What about Maisie Williams? And the Judoon! Let us know in the comments what you thought and we’ll collate some of our favourites together in a few weeks’ time.

But first! We’ve a poll ready just for you. So take yer pick…

What did you think of Face the Raven?

Voted? Thanks! Let us know your rationale for voting, any particularly great bits you enjoyed, or equally, any bits you felt jarred a bit.

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Mark Gatiss: “Doctor Who Shines A Beacon In Dark Times”

Simon Mills 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.

This is a subject that I, for one, am passionate about. In the face of adversity and in response to the recent and on-going terror attacks, we should keep on keeping on. We should go about our daily lives in as normal a manner as we can – as soon as we give in to our fears then the peddlers of terror and hate have won. It with this in mind that the Radio Times interviewed Mark Gatiss and asked him why carry on with Doctor Who when the real monsters are very much present in our real world? This interview took place at the Doctor Who Festival in London on Saturday – in the aftermath of those shocking events in Paris and Beirut…

His answer, of course, is that Doctor Who shows us the way to deal with these situations – to not let the monsters in, to stay positive. Doctor Who is all about healthy scares for children and about optimism, that everything will work out OK. Naturally, he cites the very recent Zygon story as an example of how Doctor Who holds a mirror up to the world with its very obvious parallels to ISIS and the refugee crisis and shows us that there’s always a way out of the direst of situations. I don’t think I need to remind you how powerful the Doctor’s anti-war speech was at the end, do I? Gatiss says:

“The world is in a terrible state. It’s always in a terrible state, but it’s in a particularly terrible state at the moment. If you let it all into your head, you would go crazy. You are actually benefitting everybody by trying to create something that will entertain them, distract them for a bit, take them out of themselves, and also to broaden their minds. It’s a way for people to cope. It’s lovely to see everybody here today, in such a mood of optimism, and that’s what the show has always done. They win if they terrorise us into stopping. They win if we cower.”

It’s the show’s ability to inform, educate, and entertain, as Gatiss points out, that kept me coming back as a child and an adult and the role model of the Doctor that helped to mold the person that I am today. I just wish that more people around the world watched this little show of ours and were similarly inspired.

It’s this positive, fun approach to sometimes dark subjects that leads Gatiss to utter this lovely quote, “Fundamentally this show is incredibly optimistic, and in incredibly dark times it shines a beacon.”

Hear! Hear!

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