Christian Cawley's Blog, page 92

Remembering Jon Pertwee on the Anniversary of his Birth with Wink Taylor

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.

On July 7th 1919, Jon Pertwee was born. Let’s celebrate the great man’s birthday with Wink Taylor’s interpretation of the Third Doctor!

We’ve featured Wink Taylor’s work on Kasterborous previously, but this is a particularly special piece of voice artistry, and well-timed for the anniversary of Jon Pertwee’s birthday. It can be no coincidence that Doctor Who attracts actors with fascinating pasts, but although weasel bending and the attempted murder of a mother-in-law (we’ll let you guess which Doctors are which…) are particularly compelling, Jon Pertwee simply stands head and shoulders above the rest (literally in most cases) with his exploits with British naval intelligence during the Second World War.

So we make a rare exception to our rule of not wishing happy birthday to deceased cast members and say, happy birthday, Jon Pertwee – we remember you.

The post Remembering Jon Pertwee on the Anniversary of his Birth with Wink Taylor appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Lego Dimensions to Hit San Diego Comic Con with Peter Capaldi!

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.

Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman and Steven Moffat will be at the San Diego Comic Con… Titan Comics will be at the SDCC… and now, it has been revealed, Lego Dimensions will also be at the solar system’s largest comic convention!

Peter Capaldi is reprising his role as the 12th Doctor in #LEGODimensions. Find out more July 8 at #SDCC pic.twitter.com/UzVV23n70J

— LEGO Dimensions (@LEGODimensions) July 6, 2015

Unfortunately we don’t have any more thank this to share, but it’s pretty exciting news anyway, don’t you think? Given the various panels and appearances that have been arranged and released so far, this weekend’s comic con looks like being Doctor Who’s biggest yet in terms of presence. That in itself is exciting.

The post Lego Dimensions to Hit San Diego Comic Con with Peter Capaldi! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Peter Capaldi Really Doesn’t Want to Jenna Coleman to Leave

Billy Garratt-John 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.

Jenna Coleman’s eventual exit from Doctor Who has been a big talking point for the last…well, two to three years! Since joining the show, Jenna has made a big impact on the show’s mythos and fan base, which seems to be (typically) split between those who love her and people that think otherwise.

One person firmly in the “I Love Clara” camp is current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, who recently spoke up about Jenna’s long rumoured departure from the programme. “I hope not”, Peter says, before going on to praise Coleman.

“Will these be her last shows? I hope not. Jenna continues to deliver a beautifully nuanced, complex, and funny performance that marks her out as one of the best companions ever.”

Jenna herself as been obviously very tight lipped on the whole question of her tenure. I think it’s undeniable the chemestry that exists between Capaldi and Coleman, and as a big fan of Miss Oswald I hope she doesn’t leave any time soon!

What do you guys think? Have you had your fill of Clara or would you like to see her stay a little while longer?

The post Peter Capaldi Really Doesn’t Want to Jenna Coleman to Leave appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Anthony Head Wants Doctor Who Return for Mr Finch

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.

Anthony Head, the winner of the incredibly trivial Radio Times online poll to find the best Doctor Who guest star (he beat – incredibly – Sir John Hurt!) has declared that he believes the time has come for a return to the show.

Could School Reunion‘s demonic headmaster Mr Finch have survived the modified chip fat explosion? Head certainly thinks so, stating “I don’t think the chip fat got him.” Worryingly, he goes on: “I know him personally and I think he’s keen to meet the Doctor again…”

Fair enough. After all, K9 survied, but then again, he’s a shooty dog thing.

“School Reunion was such a special episode in it’s own right,” says former Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star Anthony Stewart Head, who since played Uther Pendragon in BBC One’s Merlin, “re-introducing Sarah Jane and K9 – it was a joy to film, and Mr Finch such a blast to play, with the sublime Mr Tennant as my nemesis. I remember James Hawes, our director, pitching the confrontation between Finch and the Doctor being played across the divide of the school swimming pool – such a great scene.”

It certainly stands out as a memorable scene from one of Doctor Who Series 2’s better episodes, but would you prefer Finch to fly again or remain destroyed by his own augmented chip fat?

The post Anthony Head Wants Doctor Who Return for Mr Finch appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Former Doctor Who Star Edward Burnham Passes Away

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.

As it always is in times like these, it is with sadness that we report that actor Edward Burnham has passed away. The 98 year old actor passed away on Tuesday, 30th June 2015.

If the name sounds familiar to you it’s because he played two prominent roles in two classic Doctor Who serials, the first being Professor Watkins in the Troughton era story, The Invasion, and the second being Professor Kettlewell in Tom Baker’s first serial, Robot.

Burnham had a long and extensive 60 year career in acting. Most of his work was on television but he also had small roles in the films 10 Rillington Place, Young Winston and The Hiding Place. His television work also included The Citadel, Z Cars, The Plane Makers, To Sir, with Love, The Pallisers, The Search for the Nile, Churchill’s People, The Marvellous History of St. Bernard and The Swiss Family Robinson.

We here at K-Towers offer our most sincere condolences to his family and friends. So dear readers, raise a glass to Edward Burnham and take time to revisit Robot and The Invasion as both stories were richer for his performance.

(Via DoctorWhoNews)

The post Former Doctor Who Star Edward Burnham Passes Away appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Series 9 Speculation: Where Has the TARDIS Landed?

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’s official Doctor Who Twitter feed has gone into second gear this weekend with the release of new photos of the Twelfth Doctor and the TARDIS on a strange landscape.

Strange… but could it just be a different part of something we’ve seen before?

A sneak peek from the new series! What’s the Doctor up to? And get the latest on the finale at http://t.co/B5sAkiMGmR pic.twitter.com/i2NK8MJFTN

— Doctor Who Official (@bbcdoctorwho) July 5, 2015

Here’s a closer look:

Speculation among fans has seen rumours of a return to Skaro in Davros’ pre-accident days, a scenario that recalls the excellent I, Davros from Big Finish. After all, the Fourth Doctor landed on Skaro in similar quarry-esque, misty conditions back in 1975’s Genesis of the Daleks. But there is also a striking similarity to the Death Zone, as seen in The Five Doctors (1983).

But what do you think? Let your Doctor Who Series 9 speculation begin below, but keep it spoiler free!

The post Doctor Who Series 9 Speculation: Where Has the TARDIS Landed? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Frazer Hines Visits the TARDIS Set

Jeremy Remy 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.

Former companion Frazer Hines recently took some time out of his busy schedule as Sir Fletcher Gordon in Outlander and as Jamie McCrimmon and the voice of the Second Doctor for Big Finish Productions, to visit the current TARDIS set. A picture from his visit with Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi, can be found on his Twitter account, @WhoFrazer.

This isn’t the first time a past companion has taken a trip with the Twelfth Doctor. Just last September, Katy Manning’s Twitter (@ManningOfficial) revealed her and Capaldi posing together on the TARDIS.

Action shot!! pic.twitter.com/uFJuXRqENS

— Frazer Hines (@WhoFrazer) July 3, 2015

Within the extended Whoniverse, Jamie has now had adventures with both the Second and Sixth Doctors, while Jo has been companion to the Third, Second, Eleventh, and soon the Seventh Doctors. Seeing these companions visit the set certainly makes the imagination wander. Would you like to see a past companion travel with the Twelfth Doctor? If so, which companion do you feel would best fit the current feel of Doctor Who? Is there a story you’d like to see that can only be told with a past companions return?

The post Frazer Hines Visits the TARDIS Set appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

BBC Three Moves Online While Licence Fee Payers Cut the Cloth

Richard Forbes 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 Trust has approved Lord Hall’s plan to cancel BBC Three and move its current service online as a part of a greater move on the part of the BBC to reduce costs. With the BBC Trust’s approval for the decision, the move will now in all likelihood become a reality – a decision also applauded by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in its report on the ‘Future of the BBC’ earlier this year. BBC1 and BBC2 will be encouraged to take on some kinds of programming that may have previously aired on BBC Three, while a transition period is also expected to run the online content before the BBC Three is taken off the airwaves.

The BBC Trust suggests that there is ‘a clear long-term potential in a new online service,’ arguing that the elusive 16-34 age group is most likely to view content online. Danny Cohen, Director of Television for the BBC has argued that the 16-34 age group, the core target audience for BBC Three, is less likely to view content on a traditional television set. However, the BBC Trust does admit that the move online will cut into the BBC Three’s current viewership – but by how much?

An astonishing 80% of current BBC Three viewers will not watch its content online after this move to digitalize content, according to the Trust’s prediction – which begs to question where the value is in this move with regards to it as a public service for British consumers? BBC Three, an institution in and of itself, provides some 11.2 million viewers a week with ‘innovative’ programmes intended for youth audiences for which it has been the birthplace for many of British television’s stars and hit shows – not to mention a home at one time for Doctor Who Confidential, Torchwood and regular reruns of Doctor Who.

Two independent producers, Jimmy Mulville and Jon Thoday have entered into the debate, offering to buy BBC Three for £100m and pressing John Whittingdale, cultural secretary, to intervene and scrutinise the BBC’s decision to axe BBC Three .

‘They are going to wipe out a £1bn investment and the government really needs to step in,’ says Mulville. ‘This has to be part of a larger conversation in the talk about charter renewal. We’ve got to get John Whittingdale involved, it is too important.’

Thoday adds, ‘It is such a disastrous thing to pull back from programming for young people, diverse audiences and new talent.’ He also argues that moving BBC Three online may have more to do with politics than it does good business sense – rolling back the 24-hour news cycle would save the cash-strapped corporation more and make better sense from a programming perspective as viewers increasingly abandon linear, news channel broadcasts, but would be a harder change to implement as it’d be more ‘politically difficult’, he argues.

As it stands, license fees for the BBC have been frozen at £145.50 and a decline in the number of viewers using television sets in Britain has hit the BBC’s revenue hard: a £150 million loss in revenue which has forced the BBC to announce that it will be cutting 1,000 jobs, alongside its move to push BBC Three online, to help offset the emerging budgetary gap. By moving the BBC Three online, however, the BBC intends to save £30m a year and divert some of that money into the drama budget for BBC1 where programs like Doctor Who may benefit.

Nevertheless, there still remains a looming question with regards to the BBC’s licensing and finances altogether as the corporation is set to negotiate with the government over license fees among other issues with the BBC Charter’s review next year.

The post BBC Three Moves Online While Licence Fee Payers Cut the Cloth appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who: The Fan Show Prepares for SDCC

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.

San Diego Comic Con is almost upon us, and as such Doctor Who: The Fan Show is on the look out for autograph hunters or fantastic cosplayers. Rather than just have a chat with them, however, they’ve gone for the Springwatch approach, quite reasonably labelled “Fanwatch.”

Presented by Michaela Traken, Chris Akhaten and Nigel Voord-Karabaxos (Christel Dee, Thomas Rees Kaye and Billy Treacy), DW:TFS’ “Fanwatch” edition is a lighthearted, affectionate dig at fans cosplaying and merchandise buying – basically, any identifiable convention behaviours have been included and satirised.

Click play above to watch!

The post Doctor Who: The Fan Show Prepares for SDCC appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

A Brief History of Doctor Who in America

Richard Forbes 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.

Happy Independence Day, America! Looking back on Doctor Who’s history with the Land of Opportunity, some particular milestones and great moments happen to stand out above the rest.

David Letterman once asked John Cleese how he had celebrated the recent Fourth of July, to which the City of Death cameo guest drolly remarked, ‘no, we don’t celebrate Independence Day in England.’ Jokes aside, I think Cleese’s musings underscores just how odd it might have seemed in the past for fans of Doctor Who, a British television of all things, to reflect on the impact it’s had on America on this lovely Fourth of July. But times have changed and so has the international reach of Doctor Who – having broadened its sights across the pond to the Big Apple and beyond – capturing the hearts, minds and devoted loyalty of many American Whovians, young, old and older. Today’s as good a day as any to take a moment and look back on the Doctor’s special relationship with America … and no, I don’t mean the two founding fathers who supposedly ‘fancied’ the Eleventh Doctor. Get your mind out of the gutter, people!

Atop the Empire State Building, Doctor Who’s fascination with America began – a brief stop to New York City in the TARDIS by the First Doctor during the third episode of The Chase marked the beginning of what has become a whole series of stories set in Manhattan. Why New York City of all places in America? Perhaps it’s just because it’s a gorgeous place. A cosmopolitan one, too. A capital city, even. I’d argue it’s because New York City easily suits itself as a backdrop for a story because it’s not simply a setting; it brings its own clear sense of what it is and what it stands for to any story ‘worth its salt’ that’s set in its city.

Writer, Helen Raynor used this legacy of New York City as a city of opportunity to its full potential in Series 3’s Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks, emphasising the industriousness of its characters like Tallulah, Laszlo, and Mr Diagoras as they strove to ‘make something of themselves,’ while also focusing on Hooverville as a site of human compassion and cooperation, facing abject poverty and hardship together despite their differences in race and class. Right from the opening moments as the episode pans across (a digitally composed matte transplanting a Cardiff-bound cast into) stock footage of the Statue of Liberty, Daleks in Manhattan shows that, despite its very dodgy attempts at a Yankee accent, the story has a better understanding of the ideals and the heart of New York City and America better than it lets on and that serves the story well as the Cult of Skaro reflect on humanity’s values and their merit and potential for the Dalek race.

While that’s one justification for why Manhattan works so well as a setting for this story, the showrunner, Russell T Davies also provided an in-story explanation, one which takes us all the way back to The Chase: the Daleks had recorded the Empire State Building in their memory banks from the previous excursion.

When the Doctor returned to Central Park once more in The Angels Take Manhattan, the showrunner’s justification for the return this time was a tad more aesthetic: the city itself is crawling with angel statues, making it the perfect backdrop for a Weeping Angels story. Visiting the Bethesda Fountain on holiday, Steven Moffat, current showrunner, first observed the city’s angels upfront and made the connection then. The show’s popularity in America, having taken off sky-high by that point, however, made filming Angels Take Manhattan difficult for the cast and crew – several very intimate moments like the Doctor reading Amy’s farewell letter were watched by scores of curious onlookers and fans circling Matt Smith, only barely out of frame as he gave his performance.

Nowadays, New York City seems more like an enormous theme park for the Whovian in their ‘natural’ environment – having travelled there recently, I couldn’t help but visit the Bethesda Terrace and think ‘this was where Rory disappeared’ or walked down the boardwalks in Central Park and think ‘this is where the Doctor ran after Amy’s letter’ and Battery Park? ‘Note to self: beware Winter Quay, beware the Statue of Liberty and… wait, Battery Park, hah, that’s quite clever dammit. Battery Park. Hah!’ Central Park has been used as a location for filming hundreds of times, but it’ll always been remembered by this Whovian for its starring role (alongside the Weeping Angels themselves) in The Angels Take Manhattan.

New York City hasn’t been the only American TARDIS destination, however. The first time that Doctor Who focused an entire story in America was actually another First Doctor story, The Gunfighters. In search of a dentist, the Doctor emerges in Tombstone, Arizona with a severe toothache; unfortunately, the seemingly never-ending performance of ‘Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon’ left many viewers thinking a toothache didn’t seem so bad after the four episodes they endured. It most certainly didn’t help the show’s ratings: The Gunfighters received one of the show’s lowest viewership and audience appreciation scores (although the scoring system itself changed and is not comparable with the ’70s/’80s or beyond). It should come as no surprise then that when Toby Whithouse was asked, over four decades later, to write a western for the revived series, Whithouse was advised against watching The Gunfighters. Toby Whithouse’s story, The Town Called Mercy brought the Eleventh Doctor to Nevada for a modern take on the western genre complete with a part-Sheriff, part-Alien Cyborg – Robocop meets Clint Eastwood, really. Fitting squarely in Series 7’s blockbuster format, The Town Called Mercy ticked off just about every western cliché from standoffs to mob justice to horse chases and persistent undertakers.

The Eleventh Doctor had already visited Nevada once before in the series previous; Series 6’s opener, The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon was really the first episode to embrace Doctor Who’s presence in America fully with actual location shooting in America for the first time with the full cast and crew.

Whereas 2005’s Dalek showed little more of Utah than the inside of an underground vault, this ambitious two-parter itself was, in a way, a tour of America, not only of Utah’s canyons, but a tour which encompasses Nevada’s Area 51, Florida’s Cape Canaveral and, of course, Washington D.C and the White House – taking residence in the White House was none other than President Richard Nixon, who, now synonymous with corruption, was certainly a brave choice of central character for the story. Not the first President to appear in Doctor Who, by any means, Nixon certainly escaped the sheer public embarrassment that his successors endured in The Sound of Drums and The End of Time at the hands of the Master; in fact, the Impossible Astronaut presents Nixon more sympathetically and stately than contemporary film and television often does. Day of the Moon also embraces Americana, indulging itself in nostalgia for the space race and American space hero, Neil Armstrong with the Apollo 11 mission reaching the moon near the end of the episode – a moment in human history that we’ve all watched as Moffat notes slyly, as it plays a centre and important role in Day of the Moon.

Canton Everett Delaware III, the ex-FBI agent from The Impossible Astronaut / The Day of the Moon charmed his way into many Whovians’ hearts as the Doctor’s ally; his dependability and trigger-happy attitude helped save the TARDIS team on a number of occasions. Canton reminded me of yet another American character, Bill Filer from the Pertwee era story, The Claws of Axos – Bill Filer was an American agent from UNIT (or the FBI, or the CIA… it’s never actually said) who was determined to catch the Master (Good luck buddy) – although the comparison between Filer and Canton stops at them being men of action, American agents, and allies of the Doctor. Filer is, in the show’s fifty years of broadcast, unique in just how poorly his character was portrayed, given his awful Elvis-esque performance, the hammy acting and the near inexhaustible amount of information he could convey while unconscious. Perhaps some of the issue with Paul Grist’s performance as Bill Filer was that he wasn’t American, but in fact Welsh – usual practice for Doctor Who. Canton, after all, was played by Mark Sheppard, an English-born actor.

The only American companion during a series run, Peri ‘Perpugilliam’ Brown was also played by a British actress, Nicola Bryant – the, then showrunner, John Nathan-Turner had sought out an American or Canadian to play the role but ‘as the story goes’ Bryant had fooled the crew during the auditions into believing she was American. Admittedly, I don’t see how – personally I always found her accent seemed to slip throughout her performance. Nevertheless, John Nathan-Turner encouraged Bryant to maintain the pretense that she was American in public appearances at least for some time and Peri Brown, an American college botany student would become one of the longest serving companions and an ’80s sex symbol.

However, if you think back to The Gunfighters for a second, there is another story to tell. A young Matthew Jacobs visited his father on the set of The Gunfighters – that young boy would, nonetheless, go on to write the 90s’ Doctor Who: The Movie, a made-for-television movie from Fox (among other financiers) introducing Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor.

Doctor Who: The Movie sees an amnesiac Doctor spar against the Master with San Francisco, California as its backdrop. Fans often criticise the telemovie for being an ‘American’ take on Doctor Who – this is a bit of a myth given its British lead actor, the British writer, the British producers, the British director etc. The movie wasn’t even shot in America! It was shot principally in Vancouver and is still to this day, the only Doctor Who episode filmed in Canada.

Why then is the telemovie lambasted for being ‘American’? The cynic in me says ‘because it wasn’t good’. Some might point to the story’s linear storytelling, its simplistic themes of good versus evil, depictions of violence or the Eighth Doctor’s romantic lead as signs of a more ‘Americanised’ Doctor Who. But there is always a bit of a tension with regards to America and Doctor Who – a bit of a cultural resistance, perhaps because the show itself is regarded as British through and through – a national treasure, even.

Making the occasional joke on the show at the expense of Americans has become a regular pastime for Doctor Who writers. Take, for example, the running gag on American gun culture: River Song screaming ‘They’re Americans!’ in a testosterone-fueled scene in the Oval Office, Canton’s ‘Welcome to America’ as he fires his gun at a Silence, or Isaac’s ‘Everyone who isn’t an American, drop your gun’. A chorus of laughter had erupted in The Day of the Doctor showing I attended when Kate Stewart had made a sneaky jab at Americans and ‘their movies’. The Classic series also got in on the action too with the Seventh Doctor in Revelation of the Daleks musing that ‘America doesn’t have the monopoly on bad taste.’

By no means too has the ‘courting’ of American viewers gone without some controversy among other fans; often it’s been questioned whether the race to woo American viewers has left British viewers neglected despite their prominent role in financing Doctor Who through the BBC Licencing Fees and Doctor Who’s long and storied history as a quintessentially British program – it was only two summers ago, for example, when some British Whovians expressed their disappointment that a sneak preview for The Day of the Doctor was released exclusively at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.

Adding insult to the injury: this was only a few weeks after Netflix UK had surprised its users, pulling Classic Doctor Who entirely from Netflix UK, while Netflix US still offered eighteen classic stories for its users. Given Netflix is a private company navigated the murky waters of international broadcasting rights and restrictions and exclusives at Comic-Con are a rite of passage, admittedly I had a hard time seeing these issues as they emerged as not much more than some nationalist hysteria, misplaced and incendiary. However, firebrand or not, with this upcoming visit to Comic-Con, Doctor Who executives have promised any exclusive content aired at Comic-Con will be made available publicly outside of Comic-Con.

A lesson learnt, perhaps? Only four more days to go for the big day in San Diego.

In the meantime, however, I think it should be said that whether British, American, Canadian or Gallifreyan, we all share this little show together and despite some rockier moments (I’m look at you, Bill Filer) and regional differences, the Doctor’s interactions with America have always been a refreshing new take on his adventures here on Earth.

The post A Brief History of Doctor Who in America appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.