Christian Cawley's Blog, page 95

The Underwater Menace Cancellation Not End of Doctor Who DVD Range!

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.

It’s the End… But the Moment has Been Prepared For! Concerned that news of The Underwater Menace‘s DVD demise was the end of the BBC’s Doctor Who DVD range?

Think again! Today, BBC Worldwide issued the following, exciting-yet-mysterious tweet…

We're hoping to release more classic Doctor Who and we'll let you know when we have news.

— BBC Worldwide (@BBCWPress) June 26, 2015

Could it be a new vanilla range of DVDs? Perhaps entire seasons on Blu-ray? Could an animation house have come forward for The Underwater Menace’s reconstruction?

Or could there be more missing episodes being readied for release, giving relief to the omnirumour adherents?

We’ll just have to wait and see, but until then, what do you think it’s all about?

The post The Underwater Menace Cancellation Not End of Doctor Who DVD Range! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who San Diego Comic-Con Schedule Released

Connor Farley 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 have officially released the schedule for the first two days of the event, which kicks off on July 8th 2015. It was confirmed a few weeks ago that Doctor Who would be attending the event for the first time since the 50th anniversary year. It was also confirmed that Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Michelle Gomez and Steven Moffat would be travelling to San Diego to attend the event. It has since been confirmed as a result of the release of the schedule that new Doctor Who producer Brian Minchin would be joining the current main cast of the show on the panel next month.

Of course, in true Whovian style. The announcement that a Who panel would be taking place at Comic Con this year sparked many a speculation as to the content of the panel, with the possibility of a full length TV trailer, or even a small teaser trailer being the most speculated product of the panel come July 9th.

Doctor Who has a history of attending the famous event, where geeks all around the world come to the most famous hall in the history of geekology, Hall H to witness their favourite shows and movies cast and production team interact with the fans and share exclusives to the adoring crowd. Doctor Who has been no exception in this, with the past two Doctors, David Tennant and Matt Smith having attended the attend many times in the past along with head writers Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat and the various producers that have produced the show’s revival since 2005.

Many exclusives have also been shared at Comic Con over the years. Most notably there was a 50th anniversary trailer in 2013 which left a few fans a little irate….

However, this year the panel, which is to be the debut appearance of Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi, has been confirmed to take place on Thursday 9th July in Hall H, with the panel beginning at 2:15pm promptly.

This is no doubt going to be marked on many Whovians calenders for two weeks time, with the promise of any exclusive content shared to those in attendance of the panel being shared with the many more fans worldwide in double quick time.

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You Had Me at Dalek

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.

What to say about the Ninth Doctor? He was a man of few words, most of them fantastic.

As we turn our attention way back to 2005, celebrating the tenth anniversary of what had been a hotly anticipated first series for Doctor Who’s revival, I’m reminded of that special moment when my life as a Whovian began. ‘DOCTOR!?’ a voice had croaked from the shadows; Murray Gold’s Dalek theme pierced through the scene with a sharp tinny buzz.

A calm blue light had flickered on an eyestalk, partially obscured, as it turned with a screeching mechanical hum, both unique and unforgettable. How does it know that that’s the Doctor, I wondered? Why is it in chains? And what is a Dalek anyways?

2005’s Dalek made Whovians of many mere mortals, me included. It was a simple scene but an explosive start for what would become a deeply rewarding, personal obsession of mine. Dalek, written by Robert Shearman, tells the story of a lone Dalek’s unlikely escape from a rich megalomaniac’s (underground) museum and its fatal transformation via a botched human genetic transfer; the transformation leaves the Dalek questioning its life and its existence, while the Doctor prepares for a final confrontation with his old enemy.

Interestingly enough, I hadn’t watched Dalek in years since I first watched it, so to write this feature I sat down last weekend, sipping a hot tea and rewatched it. On one hand it felt so familiar upon a rewatch, yet on the other hand, parts of it felt new and invigorated…

Praise, first and foremost has to be reserved for Nick Briggs, Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston whose superlative performances made this episode. Honestly, parts of this episode were far rougher, even amateurish than I had remembered – Russell T Davies’ distinctively quick, truncated ‘back and forth’ dialogue feels too quick here with Corey Johnson (Henry Van Statten) and Anna-Louise Plowman (Diana Goddard) spitting out sharp, snappy exposition rapid-fire in a way that feels rehearsed not natural. The ‘Base Under Siege’ storyline proves to be a treasure trove of clichés, several ‘Oh My Gods’ and worse, ‘Release me if you want to live’ (we’ll get back to the Terminator in a second…). The worst offender, Nigel Whitmey (Simmons) who played a one dimensional goon who enjoyed torturing things was fortunately ‘suckered’ to death within the first twenty minutes before the ‘Do your worst, Simmons’ dialogue and Igor-esque chortling got any more unbearable.

Rose Tyler does something incredible, perhaps never done before on Doctor Who – she generates sympathy for a Dalek. Every scene with Rose and the Dalek is a show-stealer.

The strength of Dalek is… not surprisingly, the Dalek. Every scene with this story’s centerpiece is magic, pure magic. Nick Briggs delivers his dialogue here with a slow, calculated precision and when the Dalek is in pain, you can hear the pain in its voice; when the Dalek feels fear, you can hear that fear in its voice. I couldn’t scarcely imagine what it would feel like to suddenly and overwhelmingly feel emotions for the first time before Dalek, yet Nick Briggs’s performance and his character gives us a great insight into the mind of a lonely, pain-ridden Dalek. Viewers soon learn: emotions can be a prison of an individual’s own making. The Dalek seeks freedom – bathing in the sunlight whose beauty he can for the first time admire – only to realise that he will never live free from suffering for so long as he can feel as humans do. He can escape from Van Statten’s vault, but he can never escape from his humanity.

When the Dalek is making its way to freedom, exterminating soldiers along the way, I’m reminded of The Terminator and how its original 1984 film was marketed as ‘No pain. No fear. Something unstoppable.’ I was terrified of the Terminator as a kid, just as Dalek had sent some shivers down my spine on my first watch. What made both of those titular baddies effective is that they were relentless; every counterattack is just a minor setback to be overcome which makes it all the more scary because their pursuit feels inevitable, uncontrollable – like you can’t ever stop them from reaching their goal. Suffering isn’t pain per se, suffering is uncontrollable pain with no end in sight – it’s all in terms of how the story presents its enemies psychologically; that is, whether they seem vulnerable or undeterrable.

Throughout the story it’s also immensely fun and entertaining too to see how the Dalek pushes the Doctor’s ‘buttons’ and challenges him intellectually; when the Doctor realises the Dalek is disarmed in his first encounter with him, he practically begins to bully and taunt him – this is the Doctor fresh from the Last Great Time War, not yet ready to retire the soldier inside of him. On numerous occasions in Dalek, the Doctor is prepared to torture and kill the Dalek without hesitation, all culminating to one brilliant line: ‘You would make a good Dalek’. The greatest insult anyone could ever speak to the Doctor – especially when he has tried for so much of his life to be different, to be better than the Daleks.

Meanwhile, Rose Tyler does something incredible, perhaps never done before on Doctor Who – she generates sympathy for a Dalek. Every scene with Rose and the Dalek is a show-stealer as Rose innocently speaks and confronts the tortured Dalek; not knowing its true pathology, she reaches out to it as the Doctor would, that is: if the victim hadn’t been a Dalek. The final moments of the episode are nothing short of a smashing tour de force – a three-person play in and of itself – the mutated Dalek begging Rose Tyler for her to order his destruction, Rose spitting out ‘Do it!’ while she holds back her tears, all the while, the Doctor enters from afar, cowardly pointing a gun to them both. As I rewatched this episode, I couldn’t help but see this scene with the War Doctor standing there beside Chris – perhaps an indulgence of my own – but I’d like to think he was there in the Ninth Doctor’s mind, speaking to him as he had in The Day of the Doctor, ‘Soldier, I’m going to need your gun,’ encouraging him to drop his weapon as a final resolution to his character. The final ‘dismissed’ for Gallifrey’s last soldier. This new insight I had into Dalek after watching The Day of the Doctor changed how I saw Dalek, but I think the change of perspective made it feel like a new story with a more personal tragedy at its centre. The tragedy centered not around the death of two mighty civilisations, but the mistaken loneliness of two characters whose own sense of identity has been shattered.

While the idea of comparing and contrasting the Daleks with the Doctor and exploring the idea of humanity felt novel and fresh with 2005’s Dalek; unfortunately future Dalek stories have repeatedly explored these themes, including Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks, Victory of the Daleks and Asylum of the Daleks, so much so even that by the time Into the Dalek came around in 2014, these themes were more or less a cliché – and Into the Dalek stands, in my view, as not much more than a tired rehash of Dalek – recycling old concepts from Dalek and Let’s Kill Hitler (e.g., miniaturisation, antibodies). Upon rewatch, I must admit while Dalek is a wonderful story, I do wonder if its success has cursed it to being butchered and retold in so many different forms that it might be best for us to simply admire it from afar – enjoy it as a defining moment and a cracking good episode, but leaving it at that: instead, expect new things and a new kind of adventure for the Daleks in the future.

It’s a bit blasphemous of me, but since 2005’s superb Dalek, my favourite appearance from the psychotic pepper-pots were their simple, nostalgic cameos in the 2013 Specials explicitly because nobody was trying to do anything particularly clever with them – they blew things up, they shrieked, they were the big bad – after ten years of seeing other writers try to rewrite Dalek, that was perhaps more fun and refreshing than it should have been but it was, simply because it was different.

However, I think it should be said that Dalek didn’t just make me a Whovian. In many ways, I think Dalek made Christopher Eccleston, the Doctor, in many peoples’ minds. It’s a testament to the genius of Daleks as a concept and as a design that when I began watching Doctor Who, I knew what a Dalek looked like before I knew what a TARDIS was, or who the Doctor was – just as the success of the Daleks (and the so called Dalekmania of the 60s that followed) perhaps outpaced Doctor Who at one time. Steven Moffat often says he likes the Doctor to face the Daleks early after a regeneration because the Doctor doesn’t ‘feel’ quite like the Doctor until he’s faced off against the Daleks – it’s no coincidence then that the Doctor faced off against them rather earlier in both Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi’s era. The Daleks, just as they did with the Ninth Doctor, test the Doctor in a way that no villain really can – sure, anyone can challenge the Doctor, but not with the same kind of shared history and rivalry that the Daleks and the Doctor have.

Victory of the Daleks does this neat thing in that it uses the Doctor’s hate for a Dalek as an identification of its legitimacy as a Dalek, but we as audiences do the same thing with the Daleks to the Doctor: we’re not always sure about a new Doctor, yet inexplicably, a Dalek never fails to recognise him for us. Just as the Daleks never questioned the Second Doctor in the Power of the Daleks, when the Ninth Doctor walks into that fateful torture chamber in Dalek and that familiar screeching voice barks ‘DOCTOR!?’, you’re inclined to believe it – if you had any doubts about the Ninth Doctor, the Daleks removes them – because after all…. a Dalek is honest.

The post You Had Me at Dalek appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who Festival Goes to Tour to Australia!

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.

Following the announcement of a Doctor Who Festival in London this autumn, BBC Worldwide Australia & New Zealand has confirmed the first ever official Doctor Who Festival in Australia, which will take place in Sydney at the Royal Hall of Industries & the Hordern Pavilion on Saturday 21st & Sunday 22nd November 2015!

The Doctor Who Festival will be attended by the Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi and lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat with more talent announced in due course. Fans of all ages will be able to celebrate the heritage and magic of the show with exclusive access to props, costumes and talent from both in-front-of and behind the camera.

A week after the Doctor Who Festival in London, Australian fans will have the chance to hear from key cast members in a series of onstage talent Q&A’s, with limited photo and autograph opportunities available. A series of interactive workshops with Doctor Who’s resident creative team will give visitors the chance to learn about the television production process and what it takes to be a Doctor Who monster.  Fans can also test their knowledge for the chance to win some great prizes in the ultimate Doctor Who Quiz, and get some exclusive Doctor Whomerchandise.

This festival is a must-attend for Doctor Who fans, with more exciting announcements to come!

And in a first for New Zealand fans, Peter Capaldi will then head to Auckland, New Zealand on the 24th November for an intimate evening with fans. Details for this event will be released later.

Peter Capaldi says:

“Being unveiled as Doctor Who in Sydney at last year’s world tour, and meeting the fantastic Australian fans was such a cosmic, life changing experience that I’m thrilled to be coming back for a full weekend of Time Lord mania.”

The Festival includes:

Q&As -see the writers and cast from the series as they talk about how to make an idea become reality on a series as big and bold as Doctor Who.
PHOTO AND AUTOGRAPH OPPORTUNITIES – A limited number of opportunities for photos and autographs with selected talent.
WARDROBE DEPARTMENT – a fantastic exhibition of costumes and props.
DOCTOR WHO QUIZ –Hosted in a traditional themed setting, fans will have the chance to test their knowledge for the chance to win some great prizes.

Prices are as follows:

General $195.00
TARDIS $365.00
Concession General $99.00
Concession  TARDIS $265.00

*all tickets are subject to a processing fee of 1.95% + transaction fee*

The general ticket includes one day entry to the festival, access to three separate theatre shows to see the cast and writers, festival lanyard, show planner and all of the above. TARDIS tickets will have all inclusions of a general ticket plus best seats in house for theatre sessions,  exclusive access to TARDIS lounge with two free drinks and a Doctor Who goodie bag with merchandise to the value of $110.00.

Find out more and sign up for pre-sale tickets at www.doctorwho.tv. Tickets can also be purchased at Ticketek.

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DWM Confirms Cancellation of The Underwater Menace DVD

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.

You’ve probably noticed that Doctor Who Magazine #488 is out now, but if you haven’t read it yet you won’t have seen this unfortunate news. After months of speculation, the planned DVD release of The Underwater Menace, which was intended to have animated missing episodes, has been cancelled.

It was back in March that problems were highlighted with the release when Anneke Wills queried on Twitter about the release date for the DVD.

But even in August 2014, Planet 55 – the company responsible for previous animated reconstructions – were forced to issue a statement denying their involvement with the project. And a few weeks before that, Restoration Team’s Steve Roberts suspected that the Doctor Who DVD range was dead, noting

“[W]e’re the team that remasters the episodes for DVD release and even we don’t have a clue what’s going on with TUM now. From where we’re standing, it’s looking like the range is dead.”

Following the discovery of the second episode of the serial, it seemed likely that a DVD release would feature the two remaining installments, and the BBC certainly confirmed this at the time. So what has gone wrong?

Someone who has been able to shed some light on this is Doctor Who Magazine editor Tom Spilsbury. Chatting with fans on Gallifrey Base, he indicated that the problem with the release was to do with finding an animation partner.

For what it’s worth, the overriding reason The Underwater Menace DVD hasn’t seen release is because BBC Worldwide has been unable to find a company that considers it financially viable to animate the two missing episodes. The previous animators either made a big loss on their previous Who projects, or have gone out of business altogether (partly because of making a big loss on such projects). As a result, BBC Worldwide has the two middle episodes of The Underwater Menace sitting on its shelves, with no realistic way to bridge the missing material. There’s a reluctance to just use telesnap recons or soundtracks, so the whole release has been cancelled. It’s a shame.

And while it seems likely that this is the end for the release (until such a time as it makes economical sense for a partner to get involved or the BBC decides to throw all of Season 4 onto a Blu-ray compilation disc) there remains some light at the end of the (time) tunnel. Spilsbury continues…

Funnily enough, Panini had a visit from someone at BBC Worldwide the other week, telling us a bit about the BBC Store, and asking if DWM could help promote it. They also asked my advise, wondering if there was any ‘unreleased’ Doctor Who that they could possibly utilise for the Store? I told them that the only existing episode not yet put out on DVD was The Underwater Menace Episode 2. I also said that in addition to UWM2, there are the two documentaries created for the abandoned DVD release, plus various other oddities (eg 2003’s The Story of Doctor Who, the full-length Confidentials etc). Anyway, they seemed very interested, and noted all this down, so you never know. Fingers crossed!

So, that seems like all but the end for The Underwater Menace‘s DVD release. And, perhaps, the end of the Omnirumour… until this changes, it’s worth noting that The Underwater Menace is available as an audiobook.

(With thanks to Rick)

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David Warner Recalls Doctor Who Unbound in DWM 488!

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.

Movie and TV star David Warner – known to Doctor Who fans as Professor Grisenko in Cold War as well as the Doctor himself in Big Finish’s Doctor Who Unbound series – is among the interview subjects in Doctor Who Magazine 488…

Also in this issue is Ingrid Oliver, who tells DWM about her joy at Osgood’s unexpected return.

“When I died, I was like ‘Oh. That’s a shame. That is a shame.” I really didn’t think I would return,” Ingrid tells DWM, revealing that she was shocked at the response to the UNIT operative’s demise. “I can’t watch myself on TV, so I deliberately made the decision to go out. And then I got a text from my agent saying, ‘Oh my God, you’re trending on Twitter!’ It was absolute insanity to me.”

ALSO INSIDE ISSUE 488…

DANNY HARGREAVES’ BIG BANG!

Doctor Who’s resident special effects supervisor Danny Hargreaves reveals the science behind blowing stuff up – but don’t try this at home!
DAVID WARNER WAS THE DOCTOR?

Cold War’s Professor Grisenko ­– movie and TV star David Warner – chats about his brief era as the Doctor, and shares some fascinating stories from a career spanning six decades.
A NEW FORMAT – AT LAST!

DWM’s history of Doctor Who on home video reaches its final part, with the dawn of a new shiny new format. DVD took the series into remastered territory, and made it look better than it ever had before.
REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN!

The Fact of Fiction heads to Voga – the planet of gold – to reveal fascinating facts about the 1975 Fourth Doctor adventure Revenge of the Cybermen.
BLOOD AND ICE!

Will the Doctor and Clara defeat the macabre plans of Dr Audley, and has Winnie really betrayed them? The comic strip adventure Blood and Ice – written by Jacqueline Rayner and illustrated by Martin Geraghty – reaches its thrilling conclusion.
STEVEN MOFFAT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS!

Showrunner Steven Moffat answers readers’ questions and pays tribute to 1980s Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner.
COMING SOON…

DWM talks to Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford, novelist AL Kennedy and actor Jon Culshaw to preview upcoming books and audios from the worlds of Doctor Who.
PLUS! All the latest official news, reviews, Relative Dimensions, The Time Team, competitions and The DWM Crossword.

Doctor Who Magazine 488 is on sale from Thursday 25 June 2015, price ￡4.99.

The post David Warner Recalls Doctor Who Unbound in DWM 488! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Has Matt Smith Been Left on the Terminator Genisys Cutting Room Floor?

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.

A ton of Terminator Genisys photos have been released online, but just where is Matt Smith? Has the former Doctor Who star been cut from the movie?

We’ve had a few Terminator Genisys teasers, trailers and photo leaks so far, but other than the announcement photo of Matt Smith in costume for the film, there has been zero mention of the Eleventh Doctor actor being involved.

Worse still, this recently released collection of stills from the movie (80 in total) doesn’t include Smith once. Of course, Doctors being dropped from big movies is nothing new. We learned last December that Peter Capaldi was cut from the Angelina Jolie film Maleficent, following test screenings that saw the narrative reformed and extensive reshoots as a result.

But, Matt Smith’s role in the new Terminator movies was supposed to be quite considerable, was it not? According to the press release at the time of his announcement:

Smith will play a new character with a strong connection to John Connor…

Furthermore, Smith is supposed to be in all three films. So why can’t we see him in the gallery?

Meanwhile, a recently published interview sees Smith discussing the part, and while this is clearly intended to tie in with the press promotion of the film, the fact that the interview was recorded on the Terminator Genisys set (so clearly several months old) and Matt hasn’t been popping up on interviews alongside Schwarzenegger, Jai Courtney and Game of Thrones‘ Emilia Clarke (not even on the The Graham Norton Show).

However, there is something to hang onto. Matt may only have a small part in the first film, but a more developed role in the second and third installments. Additionally on the movie’s Wikipedia page, he’s listed as follows:

Matt Smith as the T-5000 / Alex (credited as Matthew Smith)

We’ll have to wait and see how this pans out…

(With thanks to Joe)

The post Has Matt Smith Been Left on the Terminator Genisys Cutting Room Floor? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Reviewed: The Beast of Babylon Audiobook

Josh Maxton 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.

Though I’m a bit late to the audiobook game (The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage being my first ever), I do quite enjoy them. While I wouldn’t favor listening to a novel over reading it (call me old-fashioned), I still have a love for audiobooks.

In 2013, Puffin Books released a series of 11 books for each of the (then) 11 Doctors (one book per month), each written by a famous name including Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl), Neil Gaiman (The Doctor’s Wife), and Patrick Ness (The Chaos Trilogy). A year later after the series originally ended, Puffin released Lights Out, to commemorate the Twelfth Doctor. Originally an ebook series, the initial series celebrated the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, and these short stories also got a print and audio-download treatment. The Beast of Babylon is the story for the Ninth Doctor. You’ll see rulers from the past, aliens from the present, and the wonders of the Doctor himself. It’s a really solid book. Let me tell you more about it!

Pain cripples the Doctor. Not too long ago, the Time War was still raging on. As far as he knows, he destroyed his planet, his race, everything. He has nothing left to live for. Alerted about a deep and terrible threat, the Doctor rushes to the planet Karkinos. After saving the planet, desperate to retrieve a mysterious silver orb, the Doctor is forced to take a girl called Ali with him to ancient Babylon, where more trouble awaits. When a man figures out who he is to the universe, a girl gets her deepest wishes granted, and a friendship that will last several lifetimes gets planted, the Starmen – the trouble makers of the universe – will return.

With this Puffin 50th anniversary series, most of the stories are full of great ideas, but are slightly under cooked because they all qualify as “short stories.” The Beast of Babylon is certainly one of the better ones; in short, the book is not “crack in time/silence will fall” level of complex, but it’s got enough meat to make it interesting. Props to author, Charlie Higson (The Fast Show) for delivering such a good tale within such a limited word count.

Out of all the stories in this series, this one is the easiest to fit into Who canon. I don’t want to spoil where it fits in. But I’ll leave you with two teasers:

1. Think of how a few moments for us could be a whole new adventure for Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor.

2. The story takes place within an actual TV episode.

This story is very well done, and respect must go to Higson for bringing such a deliciously awesome tale to the table. In fact, I don’t have there’s much wrong with the story at all. However, Higson himself is right when he says that The Beast of Babylon would never ever work as an episode. Not only because the Starmen (the above mentioned “trouble makers of the universe) would take some serious CGI to look even half-decent, but also because there’s a revelation about who Ali is that happens about halfway through the book. Keeping it a secret wouldn’t be possible on the small screen. Excluding those two things, it’s easy to picture the tale onscreen. My complaints are few…

There’s a decent plot hole concerning the mysterious silver orb the Doctor’s keen to get his hands on (I can hear some people saying “of course”), or at the very least something unexplained, more than open to interpretation. But that issue isn’t restricted to off-screen adventures, is it?

Higson, meanwhile, nails the Ninth Doctor’s character for the most part – but not entirely. In some parts of the book, it seems you could replace the Ninth Doctor with the Tenth or Eleventh and still get away with it. Admittedly, those moments are rare.

In the end, The Beast of Babylon feels like Who, running to just over an hour as an audio. It has its issues, and not everything is explained in the story, but anything that isn’t is open to speculation. The book translates into audio very well, because the reader of the audio book (Higson himself) does a marvelous job. I would certainly recommend this, as well as the entire series from Puffin, to any Whovian.

The Beast of Babylon (download and print) is available on Amazon, as is the full 12 Doctors, 12 Stories set.

The post Reviewed: The Beast of Babylon Audiobook appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

K9’s Voice John Leeson Recalls Doctor Who

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.

Some thoughts and brave words from the voice of a very special former companion, if I do say so myself.

“K9 was a bit of an irritant as much as anything else,” says John Leeson of his beloved character. “He was a know-it-all. He’s always got the answer. And even if hasn’t got the answer, he’ll be a politician and make up an excuse as to not have an answer.”

John Leeson starred in Doctor Who alongside Tom Baker, of course, as the voice of everyone’s favourite positronic furball. Leeson, always a pleasure, spoke recently not only on the psychology of his most famous character, but also on the possibility of a female Doctor, Peter Capaldi as the Twelth Doctor, the secret of Doctor Who‘s success and his future with Big Finish Productions.

You can catch the full interview above.

Fans will be delighted to hear John Leeson is set to return as K9 in January 2016 with Big Finish’s Wave of Destruction – sounds ominous, indeed.

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Russell T Davies to Appear at Radio Times Festival

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.

Not only will Peter Capaldi be appearing at the Radio Times Festival with Steven Moffat, it seems that modern Doctor Who‘s original showrunner will also be attending the event, and discussing his career on the same “Doctor Who Day”, which also features Simon Guerrier and Dr Marek Kukala talking about their book, The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who.

Kicking off at 4pm after a 2.30pm chat with Steven Moffat and Peter Capaldi, Davies’ session is summarised here:

From busting social taboos with dramas such as Queer as Folk and Channel 4’s Cucumber to inspiring the reboot of Doctor Who, Russell T Davies is one of Britain’s most innovative screenwriters. Here he explains how he made the journey from Swansea schoolboy to leading creative voice.

Taking place at Hampton Court Palace on September 25th (the full Radio Times Festival closes on the 29th), you’ll have to pay £15 to see RTD (too much? Watch Guerrier and Kukala at the same time for just £12!). If you’re planning to watch both showrunners, Capaldi and Moffat, plus Brian Minchin, will set you back £20. And slap bang in the middle of September, there’s a good chance that the speakers will have plenty to (not) talk about in the shape of Doctor Who Series 9.

Doctor Who holds a unique place in British popular culture. Here, the Doctor himself, Peter Capaldi, is joined by creative chief Steven Moffat and executive producer Brian Minchin to talk Time Lords, Daleks and Cybermen. Together, they will reveal the inner workings of the Whoniverse.

Sounds like a great afternoon. Will you be going?

(With thanks to Ritchie)

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