Christian Cawley's Blog, page 96

NuWho 10th Anniversary: What Is Your Favourite Specials Story?

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.

This year, Doctor Who has been back on our screen ten whole years. It feels like yesterday that the TARDIS materialised once more; suitably, it also feels like forever.

So join us as we celebrate a decade with the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Doctors. Let’s find out which serials are our favourites, and shine a light on the underrated ones too. Watch us run.

And then vote on your favourites. At the end of the year, we’ll find out which serials showcase our beloved show at the height of its game.

A song is ending. The Doctor is struggling against the inevitable as he lands in Victorian London, gets on a bus that’s transported to a far-off desert planet, takes on time itself on Mars – and then meets his demise. He will knock four times…

Meredith Burdett: The End of Time

It’s like the ultimate piece of fan fiction isn’t it? Written for the fans, by a celebrity super fan. Sometimes, watching The End of Time can be a bit too much because there’s just so much going on that ticks all the over indulgent boxes that the re-launched Doctor Who had taken great lengths to avoid.

The Doctor and the Master duking it out on screen, the Master’s botched resurrection and the fabled utterance of ‘you will obey me!’ a catchphrase which finally makes a welcome return after 25 years. Along with that you have the Master’s grandest and most ambitious scheme yet, which he successfully carries out, and just at the end, when all is lost, the Time Lords return – the TIME LORDS! Governed by the one and only Timothy Dalton no less. James Bond is now and forever a Time Lord. What follows in Part Two is almost too exciting to bear, with quiet and subtle moments thrown in for good measure to really pluck at the old heart strings. And then, with Gallifrey in the sky, Rassilon in full psycho momentum and the Master finally fulfilling his destiny he was meant to by sacrificing himself to save the Doctor and the world (something he was meant to do way back in the Third Doctor’s era), we have the four knocks conundrum tied up, a heart-breaking speech by David Tennant (‘It’s my honour’ – don’t try not to well up at that line. It’s impossible) and one of the greatest regenerations/ new Doctor introductions in the history of Doctor Who’s long life.

The most wonderful aspect of this story is the sheer scale of it, the ambition and the finished product, all of which are a labour of intensive love both in front and behind the camera. In the early 1990s, a book was published which contained several synopsise and scripts for unmade Doctor Who movies; these seemed at the time like simple pipe dreams that would never see the light of day. The End of Time seems like one of those dream projects that we were lucky enough to see on screen. Seriously, read the synopsis and then consider the scale of what the production team was looking to make before it was filmed. It’s breath-taking and wonderful.

The 2009 specials offered bigger and bolder Doctor Who over the space of a year but The End of Time topped the bill as one of the biggest and most ambitious stories the series had ever seen and for all of these reasons and more it is simply the best of the final stories ever told by Russell T Davies.

Katie Gribble: The Waters of Mars

After several quiet months, The Waters of Mars flooded onto our television screens and washed away the cobwebs from our Doctor-deprived minds. Yet what makes the episode stand out is its indulgence and exploration of isolation. The sense of being alone and without help is what makes so many Doctor Who episodes scary and unnerving with episodes such as The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, 42, and Midnight all manipulating the fear of being alone.

The setting on Mars, so close to Earth but out of contact due to solar flare activity, makes the events of the episode all the more tragic. The main characters have to make terrible decisions alone and when the Doctor turns up, he only makes the situation worse. The nature of the fixed point radically changes this episode with the Doctor’s foreknowledge, how what happens on Mars must always happen, condemning the decisions of the rest of the characters every step of the way.

In this way, it can be said that the episode is almost without hope. There are faint glimmers in the episode, the growth of plants and vegetables on Mars and the moment when the crew learns that the water infection is something new meaning they can go home. There are short bursts of this kind of energy and optimism, as the Doctor watches them all scramble around the base packing the rocket for the trip home, but this episode soon deprives the characters of a positive outcome when the food packs are doused in the infected water.

When times like this occur, in any other episode the audience can turn to the Doctor to come and save the day. As he says, he can normally change a few things or save some people. Even the pretence of a plan is more reassuring than no plan at all. But this time even the Doctor is left at a disadvantage with the fixed point in time, 21st November 2059, keeping him from getting involved. When he eventually gives in to being a part of events, he can’t help alter what is happening except by overstepping his own boundaries and becoming the Time Lord Victorious. For some, myself included, a step too far for the normally lovable, approachable Tenth Doctor.

Along with this, there is a constant feeling of the futility of the crew’s actions throughout, emphasised at the end of the episode with the death of Adelaide showing that, despite the Doctor’s actions, everything turns out more or less as it would have been had the Doctor never intervened. It throws a shade over the Doctor showing that he cannot stop the inevitable which, in the preceding story to Tennant’s swansong, places so much more pressure and sadness on what the Tenth incarnation of the Doctor is heading towards. His death at this point is inevitable and the idea that he cannot stop what is coming to him begins in this story.

Alex Skerratt: The Waters of Mars

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that The Waters of Mars is not only my favourite of the Specials, but also my favourite NuWho episode of all time, and my favourite Who story ever (after City of Death!).

I was expecting so little from it… Being the ‘calm before the storm’ in the run-up to Tennant’s regeneration story, I was bracing myself for something lacklustre, following the trend of most Doctors’ penultimates: The Space Pirates, The Monster of Peladon and Planet of Fire immediately spring to mind! But – The Waters of Mars is, quite simply, sublime and awesome.

For me, the most impressive part is that I genuinely believe they are cooped-up on the Martian surface; the sense of isolation and claustrophobia contributes significantly to the rising tension, and the ‘location’ work with the Doctor wandering around on Mars is breath-taking. Simply put, I cannot fault this excellent story!

Drew Boynton: The Next Doctor

Ah, the 2009 specials. For me, choosing one of them as my “favourite” is like choosing what vegetables I’m going to have on my breakfast cereal in the morning. In their defence, each of them do have their moments: The “Time Lord Victorious!” of Waters of Mars was an exciting twist that went absolutely nowhere – I mean, what if the Tenth Doctor had gone insane with power and become a pseudo-villain that his former companions would have to defeat and/or save? THAT would have been amazing. The funky fly-inspired aliens of Planet of the Dead were interesting and cool, as was the jaw-dropping desert setting… but I remember almost nothing else. The End of Time gave Wilf (Bernard Cribbins) his own well-deserved companion status and the last ten minutes of Part Two, with its glimpses of past companions, was emotional… but the rest makes me cringe behind the sofa (and not in a good Dalek-ey way).

So, if I had to choose, I’m going with The Next Doctor. That’s right, The Next Doctor. It’s Christmassy, has David Morrissey, and features a Godzilla-sized Cyberman. It also has an intriguing mystery – could Jackson Lake really be a future Doctor?! – that, yes, is COMPLETELY wasted in the first half-hour. So much for suspense.

I still yearn for the heady days of Russell T. Davies and David Tennant, but the 2009 specials proved to be much less than special.

Philip Bates: The Waters of Mars

Uhm, why is there any question over the best 2009 Special? The Waters of Mars was incredible, while the rest were rather naff (with a few good moments).

Seriously, Waters is a masterpiece, in the same vein as The Impossible Planet/ The Satan Pit. I love these seemingly-hopeless situations, and this time, the Doctor had time working against him too. I like that his curiosity kept drawing him back in – that’s the basis of the Doctor, right? Ever since he saw Skaro, at least – but he was also helpless and resigned to their fates. Tennant shines, fully showing the grim consequences of being a Time Lord, having that responsibility and foreknowledge. Just watch his face when he can hear what’s going on over his com system, as he’s trudging away.

And he does what the Doctor always does: interfere. In the past, maybe the Time Lords would drag him back and put him on trial. But he’s here without a safety net. There’s nothing to stop him. Then he’s like a fury: yes, he can improvise, he can stop all this, and so easily too. We really see what the Doctor is capable of – the good and the bad.

But the Time Lord Victorious isn’t why The Waters of Mars is so great. It’s everything. I love base-under-siege tales and the Flood are such sinister, chilling threats. They’re so impossible to defeat. It’s water. I mean, how do you defeat water? Water, as the Doctor says, just waits. It sits in the air and climbs down our windows. It’s everywhere, even inside us, and so it’s the perfect enemy.

Then there’s the utterly brilliant crew – and no, I’m not just saying that because I think Gemma Chan is all kinds of great. They’re real: they’ve all got these secrets and lives and families, miles away. They’re all so desperate and fragile.

The Waters of Mars sits alongside Midnight as the best things Russell T Davies has ever written, and I’m so pleased we got to drown in their brilliance before the showrunner moved on. And Waters gives David Tennant another chance to shine and prove once and for all what an exceptional Doctor he is.

James Lomond: The End of Time

This is tough given that the Specials were, for me, one of the low points of NuWho. So I’m going with the one thing that I am absolutely certain of: The Cribbins.

The End of Time had everything that I don’t really enjoy in Doctor Who – monochrome day-glow aliens with spikes on their faces (why? how does looking like a parody of sci-fi add anything?), evil schemes where the camp drowns out the sinister and all for the sake of a one-liner (“the Master race”) and a mad prophet that we know is a mad prophet because they say the same thing over and over again. Over and over again.

But then there is Wilf. Wilf and the “knock-four-times” arc which RTD carried off with such wonderful warmth, pathos and realism it literally soared over everything and anything that hadn’t hit the mark for me. It acknowledged the Tenth Doctor’s narcissism (sorta) but re-affirmed that he was the Doctor and that he would do anything for the people he cared about. (So long as he got to monologue a bit.) It also easily matches any of the misdirection we’ve had from Moffat with the Master’s four drum beats…

I’m not sure whether Wilf was supposed to be how the “Time Lord Victorious” thread was resolved – that he reminded the Doctor about what was important – but by Jove he was more than enough of a resolution. RTD + The Cribbins = Awesome. End of Time: wins!

Those are a few of our favourites from the 2009 Specials. Now it’s your turn! Vote below for your favourite, and we’ll find out the overall winner later this year…

Take Our Poll

The post NuWho 10th Anniversary: What Is Your Favourite Specials Story? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Doctor’s Dumb Luck vs Ingenious Solutions

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 know when the Doctor does something immensely clever to solve a problem? It’s one of the highlights of the series. But what about when things are a little more… lucky? Do you get the same satisfaction from Liz Shaw unplugging and plugging something in to save the Doctor from the Nestene Consciousness, or the Doctor finding that the monstrous-but-susceptible-to-sonics Professor Lazarus has hidden in a cathedral that just happens to have some very loud bells in it?

James McLean and Brian A Terranova discuss this and more…

Kasterborous PodKast Series 5 Episode 20 Shownotes

Spearhead from Space
The Lazarus Experiment
Space: 1999
Rose

PodKast theme tune is by Russell Hugo.

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What’s more, you can now listen and subscribe to the podKast via our Audioboom channel (formerly Audioboo)! Head to https://audioboom.com/channel/doctorwhopodkast and click play to start listening. You can also comment and record your own boos in response to our discussions! Meanwhile you can use the player below to listen through Audioboom:

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The post The Doctor’s Dumb Luck vs Ingenious Solutions appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Pyramid of Mars Found by Curiosity Rover?

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 a godawful small affair for the Osirian with the jackal’s head. Sent into the time vortex from his erstwhile Martian prison back in 1911, the death bringer would be aggrieved to know that those he sought dominion over are now looking at his pyramid cell, from the comfort of their breakfast tables – and have noticed that it’s a little bit small.

Could it be that Sutekh was, in fact, a bit of a weeny with a Napoleon complex?

Photos from NASA’s Curiosity Rover on Mars have sent back snaps of a rock formation, at the top of which appears to be a pyramid. While it is apparently the size of a car, it has been suggested by so-called “conspiracy theorists” (also known in such cases as “the open minded”) that the pyramid might be the tip of a larger structure.

Or, of course, a trick of the light, just like everything that interplanetary scientists and maverick Manchester detectives can’t explain.

This isn’t the only unusual photo to be sent back from Curiosity Rover, however. Early in 2015 pictures reportedly showing a mushroom cloud and – bizarrely – the shadow of an engineer on the Red Planet were released by NASA.

Do you think this is a pyramid? Is there life on Mars? Are you ‘aving ‘oops? Tell us in the comments.

(With thanks to Peter)

The post The Pyramid of Mars Found by Curiosity Rover? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Doctor Who and Sherlock Hit Empire Magazine Poll Top 10

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.

The Doctor and Sherlock have made it into the top ten greatest television characters of all time, according to a poll for film magazine Empire.

Doctor Who came in fourth behind Walter White of Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones hero Tyrion Lannister, played by Peter Dinklage, and The Simpsons’ Homer Simpson. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock came in sixth place.

Other characters to make the list include: The Soprano’s Tony Soprano, Buffy the Vampire Slayer from, well Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 24’s torture enthusiast Jack Bauer, The Wire’s Omar ‘Omar be comin’ Little, and House of Cards‘ Frank Underwood.

The poll – voted for by more than 10,000 people at Empire’s site – also named the top ten greatest movie characters with Indiana Jones pummelling James Bond into submission for the top spot.

Speaking of Sherlock, there’s one character in the show that’s perhaps more integral to Sherlock’s personality than, say, Dr Watson and Moriarty and that’s London. And there’s nothing more integral to that bustling metropolis than Bristol.

Seriously, Bristol has been a filming location for more than 60 years, and hit shows shot in the area range from Sherlock and Doctor Who to The Young Ones and Only Fools and Horses.

And to help you get closer to the streets your favourite characters call home, an interactive Google Map has been created by the Bristol Film Office; all you have to do is click on a pin and read the description and find out which scene takes place in that very spot. There are also a number of YouTube videos to watch on the map, to remind you of the clip in question.

There’s never been a better excuse to head out and explore the locations behind some of your favourite television shows.

Natalie Moore, of Bristol Film Office, explained to Bristol Post: “We hope that this interactive and fun tool will make it easier for screen enthusiasts to explore Bristol’s famous film and TV locations up close.”

Other dramas and films shot in Bristol include The Casual Vacancy, Wolf Hall, Being Human, Casualty, Starter for Ten, The Inbetweeners 2, The Duchess and many more.

The post Doctor Who and Sherlock Hit Empire Magazine Poll Top 10 appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Stop-Start: Doctor Who’s New Beginnings and False Dawns

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

In the run-up to the new season, rumours are circulating that there are going to some tweaks ‘tonally’ to the series, possibly around the way the Twelfth Doctor is written. This would be a shame: Peter Capaldi’s caustic new Doctor has been a welcome contrast to the energy and ‘bounce’ of the last two incarnations. In terms of the series’ development, it’s not long since Clara was ‘rebooted’ between series, losing the southern accent and the ‘Impossible Girl’ nonsense but left temporarily adrift, character-wise, in the process. Too many volte-faces could be construed as a lack of planning. The plus side is there’s now a strong team in the TARDIS and hopefully any changes will be made with that in mind.

Experimentalism, both in front of and behind the camera, has long been an intrinsic part of the series’ development. Below are just some of the ideas that were picked up and dropped in order to drive things forward, as well as some that looked good on paper, or just looked good, but never went any further…

Season Four

Crucially, a change that wasn’t actually picked up by the Radio Times on the 5th November 1966 was that though, as the cover rightly said, the Daleks were indeed back on BBC1, the RT failed to mention that even the most lackadaisical viewer at the time would notice when tuning in that the lead actor was completely different.

Power of the Daleks is a classic and Patrick Troughton nails it from the off- it’s the stories that follow where things go awry. The Highlanders and The Underwater Menace feel like leftover Hartnell, saddled with the irritating device of having the Doctor dress up and do silly voices (save it for The Enemy of the World, Pat). The Moonbase offers the first glimpse of the ‘real’ Troughton era, but it’s The Faceless Ones where it properly gets going with the Doctor and Jamie double act and use of contemporary settings. Victoria arrives a story later and the set-up is complete.

Season Seven

Not wishing to call foul on possibly the most uniformly excellent series in the show’s history, but Spearhead from Space set an aesthetic standard that the other stories cannot hold a candle to. Owing to industrial unrest at the BBC, Jon Pertwee’s debut was shot entirely on film, on location. In an era where the show’s principal competition came from Gerry Anderson’s TV21 Productions and ITC’s stable of adventure series- all of which were made on film- Spearhead saw the series enter the colour era and a new decade in considerable style.

Behind the scenes, though, arbitration won out and it was back to the studio for the rest of the season. Great as the other stories are, it’s impossible not to wonder, in particular, what an all-location Inferno shot on film would have been like.

Season Eighteen

Again, it’s a new decade, a new regime and a new look. Season opener The Leisure Hive is fast-paced, visually interesting and has all the tricks the synth-heavy, high-tech Eighties can chuck at it. It’s also a rather fun story, with unrequited love, a murder mystery, clone armies and cuddly alien gangsters.

It couldn’t last: suddenly and terribly (to quote an earlier Fourth Doctor outing), the rest of Season Eighteen came along, and the series’ most bohemian, witty era ground slowly to a halt in a sluggishly-paced, talky morass of heavy maths. And Adric. While it’s not in dispute that the series couldn’t carry on under Graham Williams, Douglas Adams and a seemingly out-of-control lead actor, the Tom Baker years deserved a more fitting end than this.

Season Twenty-One

Flash forward to 1983, The Five Doctors and a long-overdue lightbulb moment in the production office. The realisation has finally dawned that people don’t want high-concept yawn-fests after a day at work. They want monsters and quarries. The best companions aren’t the wooden maths boy or the dull science girl; people like the mouthy Aussie and the one that keeps trying to kill the Doctor! You can almost imagine the thought processes kicking in: monsters… action… interesting TARDIS crew… let’s do it!

Warriors of the Deep aside, Season 21 was easily the most successful run of the Fifth Doctor years – just in time for Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson to leave the show. The rediscovered emphasis on action, along with the experiment in fifty-minute episodes forced on the series by the 1984 Olympics would shape (and possibly find its extreme) in the season that followed.

Season Twenty-Five

The McCoy era, with its much-vaunted ‘Cartmel Masterplan’, represents one of the more ‘Marmite’ periods in Who history but, love it or loathe it, it needed doing. The series, post-hiatus, was in a parlous state, helmed by a producer who’d rather have been elsewhere by this time (and allegedly was during licensed hours).

It was therefore good that someone cared enough to actually have a masterplan for the show. Season 24 was made up of ‘quirky’ (read ‘not very good’) stories populated by ‘eclectic’ guest stars (read ‘Ken Dodd’). By contrast, the seasons that follow are made of more challenging stuff, topped off by Sylvester McCoy’s darker portrayal of the Doctor. They still cast Hale and Pace in Survival, though.

Perhaps Andrew Cartmel’s lasting legacy was that the themes of the McCoy era and his unused ideas begat Virgin’s line of (equally Marmite) New Adventures novels which helped many fans to keep the faith during the Who-less Nineties.

There it is: a potted history of the series’ forays into, and out of, uncharted waters so far. Continuing the maritime metaphors, will it be plain sailing for the new season or are our expectations to be dashed upon the rocks? Not long now ‘til we find out…

The post Stop-Start: Doctor Who’s New Beginnings and False Dawns appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Coming Soon from Big Finish: Wave of Destruction Starring Tom Baker

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.

Big Finish have announced the first story in the fifth series of their Fourth Doctor Adventures range. Wave of Destruction is penned by Doctor Who stalwart Justin Richards and is due for release in January 2016.

Starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana, the audio concerns the strange goings on on-board a pirate radio station. Set in the 1960s, the story’s setting seems to be an allusion to the pirate radio stations of the era, most notably Radio Caroline which rose to prominence on many a young teen’s radio during the 60s and 70s. Expect references galore!

The cast is rounded off by John Leeson reprising his role as K9 and Karl Theobald, best known to television audiences as Dr. Martin Dear in Channel 4’s Green Wing and more recently for appearing in Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. Justin Richard’s latest writing assignment was on the much praised The Triumph of Sutekh. 

The audio is available for pre-order at Big Finish’s website.

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Is £165 Too Much for Doctor Who Festival Family Tickets?

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.

The recent announcement of the Doctor Who Festival that will commence on the weekend of the 13th November 2015 has brought much excitement to the Whovian community across the globe. However, it has also brought a mass of backlash, almost as equal to the excitement. And what for? Yes, ticket prices.

Doctor Who is a mainstay in British culture for the last 52 years, and it has amassed a fanbase since that could fill one or two United Kingdoms altogether, if not more. So with the announcement of an exclusive festival that takes fans of the show behind the scenes like has never been seen before, the interest in the event is likely to be off the charts. That is until fans look at the ticket prices for the event at the ExCel arena in London. For a family ticket to the event, it will cost £165. Yes, 165 smackaroonies, hardly a bargain for the average fan of the beloved television series.

On top of that, for a more luxurious package to the event, which will see Peter Capaldi and Steven Moffat in attendance. It will burn holes in Whovians’ pockets to pay the £285 bill on the deluxe family package.

Already fans have voiced their anger at the inflated prices, with most claiming that the BBC are charging ‘tourist prices’ for the event, which is set to last three days in total. Many have also taken to social media and even exclusive Doctor Who fan sites to complain, with one saying: “Was going to take my two young nephews to see the Tardis, but think I’ll pass on the £210 cost.”

Even MP for North West Leicestershire, Andrew Bridgen, who has had trouble with the BBC in the past, previously accusing them of ‘retribution over licence fee campaign’ and making false allegations about his family business has chipped into the argument and sided with the fans.

All in all it has caused a huge outcry in the fandom, and personally I feel that the pricing of the event is scandalous and the BBC should make more of an effort to make the festival more affordable to people in order to give back to the people who have followed the show throughout its entire run.

What do you think of the pricing? Is it too much? Will you attend? Get involved in the poll down below and voice your opinions in the comments, we look forward to reading them.

Take Our Poll

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Doctor Who Lego Set Trailer Released

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.

Forget half-hearted Doctor Who Series 9 teaser trailers – this is the sneak peak you’ve really been waiting for, the Doctor Who Lego set!

As you may recall, this set was designed by a fan and submitted through the Lego Ideas initiative. When the winning set was chosen, Marcus Arthur, MD of BBC Worldwide UK said, “Both Doctor Who and LEGO enjoy a particularly close relationship with their fans and I can’t wait to see what LEGO produce.”

And of course, Doctor Who will be appearing as part of the Lego Dimensions range, making all of this even more exciting, as the Time Lord enters the real brick-based toy world rather than a slightly cheap knock-off.

Will you be buying the Lego Doctor Who set? Or are you more interested by Lego Dimensions?

 

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Gatiss, Jacobi & Reid on New Who Do You Think You Are?

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.

Who Do You Think You Are? returns to BBCOne soon and we’ve got some familiar faces in store.

For one, there’s Mark Gatiss, who many will recognise as Mycroft Holmes in Sherlock, or even from his League of Gentlemen and Game of Thrones work, but Whovians will know him for his extensive writing credentials on our favourite show. His first on-screen Who credit was The Unquiet Dead, but since that 2005 episode, he’s scripted serials including The Idiot’s Lantern, Cold War, and The Crimson Horror, as well as appearing as the titular character in 2007’s The Lazarus Experiment and as Gantok in 2011’s The Wedding of River Song.

Derek Jacobi, aka Professor Yana, aka the Master, will also be featured in the ten-part series – a journey that takes him to the court of King Louis XIV of France – alongside his Last Tango in Halifax co-star, Anne Reid (the Plasmavore in 2007’s Smith and Jones). And yes, a fourth series of Last Tango is also in the works, due to screen late this year/early 2016.

This will be the genealogy’s 12th series, and also features choirmaster, Gareth Malone; Great British Bake Off star, Paul Hollywood; Live and Let Die‘s Jane Seymour; Harry Potter actress, Frances de la Tour; presenter, Anita Rani; reporter, Frank Gardner; and model, Jerry Hall. Executive producer, Colette Flight, says:

“Who Do You Think You Are? is back with another fantastic lineup of much-loved faces, uncovering hidden history by bringing our celebrities’ ancestors to life. Following our best-known stars on their personal journey into their family trees reveals extraordinary stories, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always compelling.”

The series promises trips to Tunisia, Tasmania, India and America, supported by ever-emotional stories about the Holocaust, treason in Tudor times, convicts being sent to Australia, sisters separated by the Holocaust, and, believe it or not, vampires!

Catch Who Do You Think You Are? this Summer on BBCOne.

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Could You Make a Real-Life Sonic Screwdriver…?

Katie Gribble 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.

Ever been bored? Ever had a lot of cabinets to put up? The perfect tool for the job in the mind of every Doctor Who fan is the Swiss Army knife of sci-fi, the sonic screwdriver. But can this handy little device ever really exist?

The sonic screwdriver first appeared in the Patrick Troughton story Fury from the Deep and since then it’s been helping the Time Lord unlock doors, conduct medical scans, reseal barbed wire, and even light candles and bunsen burners. Soon however it started to become an issue with producers such as Barry Letts not wanting the Doctor to become reliant on the device. So its use from the Pertwee era onwards was continually restricted until it was finally destroyed during the Peter Davison story, The Visitation, where it was blown up by the Terileptils. Its subsequent return to the series during the TV Movie and its inclusion from the beginning of the 2005 series demonstrates its popularity and how it has become recognised as a compulsory part of the Doctor’s tool kit.

Over the years, we fans have been equipped with our very own versions of the sonic with toy replicas and more recently the sonic screwdriver remote controls for our televisions, which I can guarantee we have all used when opening doors and cupboards at some point. But can a real life sonic screwdriver ever leap from the Doctor’s hands and into our own? According to some, yes it certainly can.

In his ‘Because Science’ series, Kyle Hill has explored the possibility of making a real life Sonic Screwdriver and has found that the technology already exists.

Hill takes the function of a sonic screwdriver to be the manipulation of objects from a distance with sound. Now sound is made up of pressure waves that hit your ear and it is through influencing these pressure waves that the manipulation can be achieved.

This can be seen on a very small scale in the technique of acoustic levitation, which has been used to suspend droplets of fluid on sound waves enabling them to float in mid air. If you direct sound waves in the right direction at the right distance, you can get a particle to pinball between the areas of high pressure, the sound waves themselves, which forces the particles to inhabit the area of low pressure between the waves. Furthermore, at the University of Tokyo, there is a mid-air acoustic levitation device which can manipulate the low pressure sites in real time and in three dimensions.

However, to be able to rotate screws and locks like a sonic screwdriver, the sound waves would need to twist in a helix-like shape to create rotational momentum instead of linear as seen in the acoustic levitation described above. This helical rotation is being experimented with at the University of Bristol under the supervision of Professor Bruce Drinkwater. His team have been conducting experiments causing flower particles to spin through the use of ultrasonics. This is all on a very small scale, but these experiments have led him and his team to conclude that it would now be possible, with the technology available, to make a ‘watch makers’ sonic screwdriver’ which would be able to rotate the tiniest of screws. Very apt for we wannabe Time Lords.

With this news, we are moving increasingly closer to the point where the larger scale of sonic manipulation of objects from a distance isn’t too far away. However, these continual advancements in sonic potential must come with a warning. The sonic screwdrivers of our future will still be unable to do wood.

(Via Laughing Squid.)

The post Could You Make a Real-Life Sonic Screwdriver…? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.