Christian Cawley's Blog, page 98

Matt Smith WILL Play Prince Philip in Netflix’s The Crown!

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.

Great news for the millions of Eleventh Doctor fans: it’s been confirmed that Matt Smith will play Prince Philip in a ten-part drama, The Crown!

Matt will play the Duke of Edinburgh opposite Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II and (in pleasantly-surprising casting) John Lithgow as Winston Churchill!

The series is based on Peter Morgan’s play, The Audience, which became quite high-profile when Helen Mirren won the Best Actress Olivier award for playing the Queen (again), but also won other awards and received very positive reviews when it debuted in February 2013. Earlier this year, Morgan, who also wrote The Damned United (starring David Tennant), slightly altered the script to reflect the result of the General Election. He’s also written the scripts for The Crown:

“The Crown tells the inside story of two of the most famous addresses in the world – Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street – and the intrigues, love lives and machinations behind the great events that shaped the second half of the 20th century.”

If successful, the show will expand to cover the Queen’s reign until present day, totaling 60 episodes – probably six series of 10 episodes – and will recast roles for their later lives.

The series begins filming this month, and Den of Geek reckons broadcaster Netflix (fresh from the recent success of Daredevil) has spent around $100 million to bring it to screen. So yes, another big budget production with Matt attached. Our boy’s done good, ladies and gentlemen. But then again, who really doubted him?! (Rhetorical, not an invitation to trolls. Frankly, I don’t even bother with the Matt-bashing comments. He’s amazing.)

The Crown begins next year on Netflix.

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Which of These Ninth Doctor Monsters Should Return?

Jonathan Appleton 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.

Can it really be ten years since Series 1 ended? A full decade since the Tenth Doctor breathed his last, his gallant effort to save his companion causing his demise?

As regular readers will have noted, Kasterborous has been marking this anniversary with a series of articles examining how the programme was revived in 2005.

Today it’s the turn of the monsters – always a key ingredient in Doctor Who, and that first run saw no shortage of new creations. But which if this batch of beasts should return? Read our view and then give us yours!

Autons/Nestene Consciousness

Russell T Davies has since explained that he brought back the race of plastic fantastics as he needed a monster in Rose that could plausibly be dismissed as human, and that once he’d made that decision the Autons fit the bill as well as anything new he could have thought up himself. There was something of a twist at the episode’s climax with the Doctor voicing his guilt that he ‘couldn’t save’ their world, giving a new slant on the Nestene Consciousness as a race of homeless refugees.

It would perhaps be hard to imagine the BBC, facing a difficult charter renewal and with no lack of critics in the media, signing off any script featuring troll dolls or faceless policemen, but another appearance would surely be welcomed by long-term fans.

Aliens from Platform One

The episode that was intended to introduce viewers to the weirdness and variety of inter-galactic travel, The End of the World featured a colourful array of blue-skinned beings, living trees and other assorted visitors who’d come together to witness the planet’s demise. In truth, most of these feel like they belong in another era of the show now. Monsters in the Davies era tended to be of the bold, vivid type (cat nurses, rhino policemen, a great big head…) than the rather darker creations we’ve seen in his successor’s time in charge.

Mind you, a couple cropped up again in The Rings of Akhaten…

The Gelth

A nice idea for a monster that never really had sufficient time to develop much in the way of a back-story, the ghostly Gelth turned out to be a race of gaseous beings whose planet had also fallen victim to the unearthly savagery of the Time War. The fact they turned out to be a deceitful bunch of body-stealers was a somewhat predictable twist, but perhaps there would be mileage in a return visit? To see the Gelth operating in another setting away from the very Earth-bound locations of Series 1? Just remember not to light a match…

Writer of The Unquiet Dead, Mark Gatiss did bring the monsters back to great effect in a previous Doctor Who Storybook – whatever happened to those?! – so he’s  sure to have further ideas.

Slitheen

The kids may have loved them but many other viewers weren’t so sure. The Slitheen were victims of a clunky costume design, an awkward mix of real SFX and CGI and some over-the-top comic acting, and as a result many would surely be unlikely to welcome them back. Arguably they found their natural home in The Sarah-Jane Adventures, where the fart gags and OTT realisation of the monsters didn’t tend to jar.

A point in their favour was their motivation as enemies on the make, a race of galactic chancers and profiteers – somehow fitting in the age of the crisis in global finance.

Reapers

Some of the CGI in the early series may look less than perfect now, but these dinosaur-like creatures who feasted on elements which upset the balance of time were one of the more convincing early efforts. The notion of them sterilising the cause of any imbalance by devouring whatever got in the way was nicely chilling, and they were an effective threat in their one appearance. We never did get to find out why they only ever turned up this one time to sort out temporal disruptions when the Doctor has spent a lifetime going around mucking about with time… but perhaps it was simply because two lots of the Doctoe and Rose being there at one time weakened the time stream in a way other adventures.

The Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe

The realisation of this ceiling hugging blob may not have been great but the idea was neatly prescient, given what’s happened since with phone-hacking revelations and ever-more dominant media corporations. The Jagrafess (to give it its shortened name) was more of a plot-serving device than a monster with the potential to return.

Now if they could get Simon Pegg to come back that would be another matter…

So what do you think? Do any of these Series 1 monsters deserve a return appearance? Share your thoughts below!

The post Which of These Ninth Doctor Monsters Should Return? appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

The Tenth Doctor: Year Two Launches in September!

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.

Yesterday, we announced news of an exciting new creative team on Titan Comics’ The Eleventh Doctor. But what’s happening with the Tenth Doctor?!

We’re very pleased to announce that Nick Abadzis will continue to write the title once it relaunches in September as The Tenth Doctor: Year Two. This takes place after the summer event that sees Doctors Ten, Eleven, and Twelve teaming up for the first time.

Alternating artists Elena Casagrande and Eleonora Carlini will also return to give life to the adventures of the Tenth Doctor and Gabby, and this second year of stories opens with The Singer Not The Song:

Fresh from the Event, the Tenth Doctor and Gabriella Gonzalez are plunged into a harmonious alien world of musical life-forms…But the Doctor and Gabby are walking straight into a war!

The Tenth Doctor series from Titan Comics has been a joy so far; in our review of #4, we said:

“I’m making no secret of this: I’m really enjoying Titan Comics’ Tenth Doctor series. It’s fresh, and fun, and smart. Fortunately, this fourth issue keeps up the sterling start, and perhaps – dare I say it? – even exceeds my expectations.

“From the off, The Tenth Doctor #4 is different. A wonderful playfulness and energy imbues every page; this is a tale excelling in its own creativity and freedom.”

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor: Year Two #1 hits stores on 16th September 2015, and comes with five covers to collect: an art cover by Alex Ronald ; a photo cover; a Rachel Smith variant; a Jake variant; and a blank sketch variant.

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Out Now: The Essential Doctor Who – Monsters

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

The Essential Doctor Who, following on from a similar celebratory series of bookazines in 2013, has been a popular line for Panini, focusing on important elements of the show, including the Cybermen, Alien Worlds, and the Master.

But what else is an important part of Doctor Who? Monsters, of course!

That’s what the latest release is all about…

Horror has been Doctor Who’s most consistent genre since the Daleks first threatened viewers in 1963. The metal-cased mutants are still notorious, but the programme’s shadows are occupied by many equally grotesque and disturbing creatures.

This is a comprehensive guide to the monsters that have been haunting our nightmares for more than 50 years. Everything from the Abzorbaloff to Zygons is covered in a richly illustrated, encyclopaedic format.

“When I was a kid I wished for a book that included all the Doctor Who monsters,” says editor Marcus Hearn. “Now I’m a grown-up my ambitions haven’t really changed. It’s been a labour of love for all of us to channel the spirit of Terrance Dicks’ Doctor Who Monster Book, and a treat to add so many aliens from the show’s now greatly expanded universe.”

And yes, there’s a Weeping Angel on the cover, but don’t worry: it’s only an image! Now, what was that saying, “that which holds the image of an Angel becomes…” Oh, I’m sure it’s not important.

The Essential Doctor Who: Monsters is on sale now at WHSmith and all good newsagents, price £9.99.

The post Out Now: The Essential Doctor Who – Monsters appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Five (Mostly) Beloved Robots of Doctor Who

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.

Beep, Boop. Everyone loves robots! Except when they try and enslave us all. But really would mulching 99% of the population really be that bad? Sure, our species won’t last but you’d be able to get a seat on the train… before they blow it up.

Still, robots are back in vogue following the first episode of Channel Four’s new drama Humans – a remake of the Swedish original purporting a world where leaps in artificial intelligence are used to build Au Pairs to make sure you have clean pants and who are totally not planning to murder you or your children in their sleep… honest.

Well, at least you don’t have to pay them a wage or maintain awkward conversation with them while they quietly resent you. Now, you know they resent you, you horrid subjecting slave master!

Murderous intent aside, Humans is just the latest television drama to use the medium to imagine a future where the line between man and machine becomes increasingly blurred. Its proper, grown up sci-fi for a prime time audience but robots didn’t always operate in such lofty airs.

It may shock you to learn, but some robots were used for comical, cute and commercial reasons as this medium we love advanced. Exploring this very theme, writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet, a familiar name to you all from his Doctor Who audio plays and short stories, as well as his appearances on several Doctor Who DVD documentaries, has been attempting to plug robots into the wider changes of the medium.

Namely, recycling the same props so wafer-thin telly budgets wouldn’t be vaporised by encasing some bloke called Alan in a silver painted box. He writes:

“Robby the Robot, the lumbering rubberised minion from the big-screen Fifties space opera Forbidden Planet, clicked and whirred its way through The Twilight Zone, Lost in Space, The Man from Uncle and Mork and Mindy, like a once-great star obliged to play smaller and smaller venues. A gang of matt-black robot revolutionaries constructed for the Sixties BBC Two series Out of the Unknown were painted white and sent to bother Patrick Troughton in Doctor Who.”

And it’s not like we can turn and scoff with cool modern detachment at such thrift penny ways. Doctor Who did it in 2012 with Dinosaurs on a Spaceship! That Mitchell and Webb look? Two lumbering mechanical guards nicked from a CBBC quiz show called Mission 2110.

This got us thinking about robots in Doctor Who. What are the stand out mechanoids from Doctor Who? Obviously, we don’t just mean the Mechanoids from The Chase. That would be silly. And when we say robot we don’t just mean the robot from Robot. There are other robots not called robot who didn’t appear in Robot. This is getting confusing…

What are the triumphs of design? The cool concept made real in impressive fashion? The allies and the enemies?

There are obvious candidates and, to help me wade through a few, I’ve enlisted the help of my old Doctor Who news gathering pal, Newsbot 4000! Sure he may look like an etch-a-sketch drawing of a rubix cube done by a man riding a unicycle down a cobbled street but, as sources of Doctor Who news go, he’s definitely one of them…

So Newsbot 4000, what’s the scoop?

…ERROR…

Great. I just need to reboot him, that’s all. He’ll be back to his old ways in no time. So, here we go just 8790 updates starting with the year 1827. 1827!

Kamelion
 

Sigh, anyway speaking of robots that don’t work, perhaps the most infamous robot in Doctor Who’s history is Kamelion. A product of great ambition meeting poor execution; when we were promised a robot companion for the Fifth Doctor, it sounded too good to be true. And it was.

In television, time is money and the time spent trying to get Kamelion to perform even the most basic of interactions with his human co-stars was a herculean task where no one came out any better for it. Struggling through two appearances in The King’s Demons and a cameo cut from The Awakening, Kamilion was given his marching orders in Planet of Fire.

So Newsbot 4000, got any interesting facts to share about Planet of Fire?

…The London Evening Standard is Launched…Today…

That’s a news story from 1827 isn’t it? Why do you have stories from 1827? That’s not even relevant to Doctor Who! Even if you are playing the theme music. And take that scarf off!

Raston Warrior Robot

Described by the Third Doctor as the perfect killing machine, the Raston Warrior Robot were sliver-clad assassins who staked the Death Zone – a product of a young Time Lord race experimenting with creating such weapons, Raston robots used atomic radiation to keep themselves perpetually charged, could operate without their heads and moved so quickly as to appear to be teleporting; all while killing a cyber-squadron in less than a minute.

In other words they were awesome. Even if they did leap into the air like a backing dancer from Fame.

The Robots of Death

Just look at their name! Although technically they were titled Super-Vocs, Vocs and Dums, this mechanical twist on Agatha Christie and Dune saw Professor Taren Capel attempt to lead a robot revolution, letting his mechanical brethren slip the bonds of human dross.

Only he didn’t bank on a quite grumpy Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker hated the scripts and made his feelings known) and a canister of helium…

Clockwork Droids

While robots of the past were clunky, boxy affairs, the Clockwork Droids were a thing of beauty: scary, unfeeling and driven to insanity, they were a wonderful one shot villain that perhaps outstayed their welcome when they returned to the show in Deep Breath – they get a pass for the haunting performance of Peter Ferdinando as the Half-Face Man.

K9

Everyone loves K9! Well not Tom Baker, but everyone else loves K9. Taking his orders literally and avoiding contractions at all cost, the Doctor’s loyal companion is charming, lovable and, if School Reunion is to go by, deadly too.

To hate him would be an… a – what is it Newsbot 4000? What would it be?

…ERROR…

So which robots do you love? Do you think Doctor Who stopped people sniggering behind robots’ backs? Let us know below!

The post Five (Mostly) Beloved Robots of Doctor Who appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Barcelona!

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.

10 years ago, the Tenth Doctor burst onto the scene. It was a joyous occasion, but we suffered a giant loss: Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor.

We had journeyed through time and space with this leather jacket-wearing Northerner and he went out saving Rose Tyler, the girl who helped him recover from his guilt after destroying Gallifrey and his people. Or at least that’s how he remembered it.

Series 1 meant a lot to a lot of people, and a new generation of fandom emerged. That could’ve ended in The Parting of the Ways. For a while, showrunner, Russell T Davies thought they’d only get one series. Fortunately, the nation took David Tennant to their hearts and here we are today, a decade later, and Doctor Who is a well-recognised and much-loved name worldwide.

So what better time to relive the first regeneration of the 21st Century!

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10 Years Ago Today: The Parting of the Ways

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.

It’s amazing to think that Doctor Who has been back on our TV screens for a decade now. It has changed the television landscape. It has changed people. It’s done some incredible things. For many – this writer included – Doctor Who has been a part of our lives for 10 years now and has changed the way we think, our aspirations, our futures. Speaking personally here, it made me rethink what I wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and I enjoyed writing scripts when I was too young to know that screenwriting was a proper career. Doctor Who came on TV, and I realised I didn’t just want to write books and comics: I wanted to tell stories through the likes of the BBC.

But 10 years ago, all that could’ve ended. The Doctor was regenerating, and the show may have irredeemably lost its way.

Of course, that didn’t happen. Doctor Who has gone from strength to strength, fortunately. It’s one of – if not the – biggest brands on the BBC. Christopher Eccleston played a huge part in this. He was the face of the show. And for a while, we knew he was going, to be replaced from a cheeky young upstart from that Other RTD Show, Casanova.

Trailers. Trailer whetted out appetites for full-on TARDIS-Dalek battle scenes. Released slowly across that week. Before, we got a tale about reality TV warping the minds of the human empire. But then that Dalek was reflected in the wall and things changed. That ferocity shown in Dalek would be back. The Time War was seemingly pointless. Bad Wolf is 10 year and 1 week old now, and back in 2005, editor Christian Cawley was full of hope and admiration for a wonderful series:

“Christopher Eccleston’s acting ability has never been in question. However, while some questioned his choice of roles in the past, many were baffled by his accepting the lead role in Doctor Who. He has been nothing short of brilliant as the series build momentum, and is the template for future Doctors. His impact on the role has been remarkable, and David Tennant truly has a job as large as Pat Troughton’s in 1966 in taking over the lead part. The Doctor’s reaction to the apparent death of Rose was the saddest moment on television this year…

“When next we meet the Ninth Doctor, it may be for the last time. I said some weeks ago how The Doctor Dances had to match The Empty Child and have a good resolution to the cliffhanger. The same goes here. I don’t think I’m going to be disappointed by The Parting of the Ways – just very sorry to see a wonderful series come to an end.”

And Christian pointed out a key component in Doctor Who‘s success: it’s continued relevance. Here, he notes, “Doctor Who embracing these reality formats is Doctor Who telling us that there are other things going on. Things that are hiding in shadows, always out of sight, pulling strings and shaping events. Reality television here is interpreted as a diversion, slight of hand, while the real power establishes itself.”

In other news, Rita Ora and Nick Grimshaw have joined The X Factor.

So a lot was riding on the Ninth Doctor’s last regular appearance – and in the following review, Christian seemed rather pleased with how Russell T Davies scripted The Parting of the Ways, and how he brought the series back as a whole:

“Russell T Davies -and this is by no means to ignore the talents of other contributors to the series – succeeds in writing on two key levels. One is aimed at the populist, soap opera watching viewer tuning in for a glimpse of Billie Piper. The other is one that pulls mirrors out, points them at real life and the world at large, and demands that we question our position both in this world and the Universe. Davies succeeds in the same way that the much missed Robert Holmes succeeds.”

But what of our TARDIS team? When one transforms into the Bad Wolf, the other has to sacrifice everything to save her – proving once and for all that this is the same man who fought the Master in California, gave his life up for Peri on Androzani, and stole a police box and ran away:

“Rose’s transformation into sexy vortex-goddess was outstanding, and touching. The Doctor’s departure (he was so good he got to say goodbye twice!) was breathtaking. I was convinced regeneration could not be achieved on a higher quality than the seventh one that gave us Paul McGann. I had myself believing we wouldn’t see a change, that Rose would leave in the TARDIS and come back to find a man claiming to be the Doctor. I was totally and utterly gobsmacked – having stayed away from the Internet since Wednesday – to see the stunning transformation.”

And we haven’t really seen the Ninth Doctor since. Oh sure, there were flashbacks, and that “for my next trick” moment in The Day of the Doctor (taken from Parting), but he’s sadly eluded our TV screens. Lots of dodgy rumours have circulated about him, but Eccleston is an amazing man. We owe him a lot. And he’s proud of being the Doctor.

As such, I’m going to leave you with this message he sent to the BFI in 2013, the 50th anniversary of our beloved show:

“I love the Doctor and hope you enjoy this presentation. Joe Ahearne directed five of the 13 episodes of the first series. He understood the tone the show needed completely – strong, bold, pacy visuals coupled with wit, warmth and a twinkle in the performances, missus.

“If Joe agrees to direct the 100th anniversary special, I will bring my sonic and a stair-lift and – providing the Daleks don’t bring theirs – I, the Ninth Doctor, vow to save the universe and all you apes in it.”

What memories do you have of watching Series 1 in 2005? What do you think of the Ninth Doctor in retrospect? And do you think he’ll ever return to the role, however briefly? Let us know below…!

The post 10 Years Ago Today: The Parting of the Ways appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Confirmed – Si Spurrier Writing Eleventh Doctor: Year Two Comic For Titan!

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.

There has been rumblings around the Interwebs for a little over a month now that a major talent in the comic books industry may be joining the Doctor Who ranks at Titan Comics. But as rumours go, nothing’s official until it’s official, right, dear readers? Well, ladies and gents, Titan has made things official with a fresh press release: Si Spurrier has officially joined Titan Comics, beginning with Year Two of the Eleventh Doctor adventures!

Lets unpack this a little, shall we? First, let’s take a look at what we can expect with the second year of the incredible Eleventh Doctor Adventures:

“Charged with a crime he never committed (…or did he?), the Eleventh Doctor is on the run, with a galaxy-worth of nefarious bounty hunters pursuing him through time and space — in an attempt to scalp the last remaining Time Lord! Exhausted, haunted, and determined to clear his name, the Doctor is forced to turn to someone who knows all about busting out of prisons and staying one step ahead of those who’d prefer they were safely locked up…”

Taking the synopsis into consideration and looking over the cover art (for your enjoyment at the beginning of the article), it looks like we may a return of the War Doctor and potentially the Time War. While we know that the Doctor didn’t commit genocide, perhaps the rest of the universe isn’t privy to that fact? Interesting times ahead to be sure.

Now, back to the news at hand. Comic writer Si Spurrier is now officially adding Doctor Who to his already very impressive resume (Marvel’s Secret Wars, X-Men Legacy, and others). There was some speculation by the folks at Bleeding Cool back towards the beginning of May that as Spurrier may be doing a brand new Doctor Who title, and while that may still happen, he is slated to bring us the next round of adventures with the Eleventh Doctor. At least Rich and co were in the ball park with their scoop.

I have it on good authority that in the grim darkness of the far future there is only timey wimeyness and fez hats. (Also war) #doctorwho

— Si Spurrier (@sispurrier) June 18, 2015

While you may have not read any of Spurrier’s prior work (which includes X-Men: Legacy, Judge Dredd, and X-Force), this excerpt from a blog he did for Forbidden Planet illustrates the work he puts into crafting a story:

“I’ve normalised a weekly routine round a basic unit of about 20-24 pages, or ‘one monthly episode’. On a normal week (which, hahaha, never happens) Mondays are spent dividing a plot into pages and sequences (cracking open the block of stone, if you’re still listening to the shrieks of that tormented analogy); Tuesdays are about dividing those sequences down into their constituent panels (still favouring the chisel over the brush at this point…); Wednesdays are all about applying dialogue to the panels (which I guess is actually jumping ahead to the end of the watercolour phase to do all the fiddly shadows and highlights); then Thursdays and Fridays are spent writing panel descriptions and making it look pretty (that is, splashing big diaphanous washes over the page).”

Hard work ethic plus talent almost always pays dividends, so I’m genuinely interested to see what Spurrier does with “my” Doctor. We’re looking at September 9th street date, but this news and what appears to be planned for this title this year makes this a must own for my personal collection.

What about you, dear readers? Are you excited to see what Spurrier has in store? Or would you rather have seen someone else tapped to take us into a new year with the Eleventh Doctor? Let us know!

The post Confirmed – Si Spurrier Writing Eleventh Doctor: Year Two Comic For Titan! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.

Isn’t It Time to Get Over the “When is Doctor Who coming back?” Thing?

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 podKast without a Cawley this week, as James McLean and Brian A Terranova take the reins and discuss the importance of knowing when the next series of Doctor Who will air. Has that particular item of hype been sold down the river now? Should we not just accept now that a new series will be along soon, let’s find something to do until it airs and not worry?

Click play to find out…

Kasterborous PodKast Series 5 Episode 19 Shownotes

The Secret World of Lego
Doctor Who likely to hit screens in September
Tenth Doctor on the Disney Channel
Steven Moffat’s OBE
Recommendations: Space Dandy, Lucifer: Genesis by Paul Darrow, Star Trek V: The Undiscovered Country, The Superior Spider-Man

PodKast theme tune is by Russell Hugo.

Listen to the PodKast

There are several ways to listen. In addition to the usual player above, we’re pleased to announce that you can also stream the podKast using Stitcher, an award-winning, free mobile app available for Android and iPhone/iPad. This pretty much means that you can listen to us anywhere without downloading – pretty neat, we think you’ll agree! (Note that it can take a few hours after a new podKast is published to “catch up”.)

Stitcher

Audioboom

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:

You haven’t clicked play yet?! What are you waiting for? As well as our new Stitcher and Audioboo presence you can also use one of these amazingly convenient ways to download and enjoy this week’s podKast.

Use the player in the top right of the Kasterborous home page, or visit the podKast menu link.
Listen with the “pop out” player above, which also allows you to download the podKast to your computer.
You can also take advantage of the RSS feed to subscribe to the podKast for your media player, and even find us on iTunes, where your reviews will help the show considerably.

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Eccleston Is A Great Actor, But He Never Felt Like The Doctor

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

I’ve loved Christopher Eccleston for years.

I loved him in Shallow Grave, where he played an unhinged Scot who drilled holes in the attic floor. I loved his brief, disconnected cameo in The Others, and his turn as sadistic Major Henry West in 28 Days Later. His performance in The Second Coming was a literal revelation. I even love him in Gone In Sixty Seconds, in which he makes the most of a dog’s breakfast as Raymond Calitri, a crime boss who gets to stick Nicholas Cage in a car crusher – which is something I think we’ve all wanted to do for years, or at least since 8MM. Calitri eventually falls to his death, but his best scene occurs earlier in the film, during an angry confrontation with Cage: “Am I an a***hole?” he asks directly. “Do I look like an a***hole?” (Cage’s response is a quiet “Yeah.”)

So let me repeat that disclaimer: I love Eccleston. He’s a talented actor and, if the rumours about his on-set conduct are to be believed, a man of great integrity. But I could never get used to him as the Doctor.

These things are always going to be relatively subjective. Everyone has their own ideas of what the Doctor ought to be, and what he isn’t, and what he… never won’t be… sort of thing. And I suppose that my Doctor is always going to be BBC English (all right David, I’ll settle for Estuary), with fashion sense that dallies between elegant and eccentric. Eccleston’s minimalist look is (purposely) as stripped back as his Doctor, and similarly direct. And it seems strange to me that I should find it as foreign as the idea of Shaggy wearing a business suit. All this is accompanied by remarks about “beans on toast” (a line I cannot hear in the mouths of any other Doctor, except perhaps the Sixth, in the same manner that he delivers the words “carrot juice?!?”). It all seems – and forgive me for this dreadful snobbery – it all seems a bit too working class. I know that’s the point, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

It’s not the accent. I don’t think accent in itself is the problem, because I have no issue with Capaldi’s Glaswegian twang, even if I occasionally have to turn on the subtitles to make out what he’s saying above Murray Gold’s frankly intrusive score. It’s no problem having a Doctor who’s not from around here, although I think I was probably one of many people who was hoping that the Twelfth Doctor would use the words “Lots of planets have a Scotland” at some point in Deep Breath. (As it stands, we had the encounter in the alley, arguably more famous for being the first example of eyebrow fetish – and that regrettable scene with Vastra, in which Capaldi almost appears to be acting in a docudrama about Alzheimer’s.)

I watched Rose again recently with my six-year-old, and it’s sometimes tempting to wonder whether we’ve been more forgiving of that opening episode – of the series in general – than we would have been if it was in the middle of a Doctor’s run. How many of the shortcomings went unnoticed simply because it was Doctor Who, and it was back? Does it matter? I’d suggest it probably doesn’t, except when you line up all the Doctors in a row, whereupon Eccleston is the one that always sticks out like a sore thumb.

A friend of mine describes Vincent and the Doctor as “a good episode of something”, and in many ways he’s right: part of its charm lies in the fact that it’s relatively atypical. Similarly, Davies rewrote the rulebook in 2005 when he resurrected the show by effectively rebooting it. But it’s a trend that he and his successor spent the next ten years gradually undoing, and what we have now is a show that glorifies in its past, revisiting and rewriting it on a whim. And I wonder if the fact that the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors take obvious cues from previous Doctors – in a way that the first casting did not – has skewed my appraisal of the Ninth. In other words, to what extent is a failure to accept Eccleston a reflection of what’s come since, as much as what came before?

But there’s more to it than that. Not long before the 50th anniversary episode, I created (purely as a lark) a series of tables that charted the average effectiveness of each New Who Doctor when it came to dealing with the end-of-episode threats that he faced, at least when compared to any companions or supporting characters who wound up doing most of the work for him. In many ways the data is flawed, because he gets only one series in which to prove himself, but it should be no great surprise that the Ninth Doctor sits at the bottom of the list. He’s rubbish.

It is his incompetence, indeed, which forms much of that first arc. That first batch of episodes is to all intents and purposes about the Doctor learning to be the Doctor again. The central concept was that of empowering the companions so that they are no longer screaming girls, and it is the Time Lord himself who is forced to diminish in order for this to happen. (When Rose admonishes the Doctor after their encounter with the Nestene in the series opener, proclaiming that he was “useless in there”, it more or less sets the tone.)

A brief analysis of that first series reveals a game of two halves. It’s all building up to Dalek – a good story, although the Big Finish drama upon which it is based is better. The finale of Dalek has the Doctor actively confront the monstrosity from Skaro, wielding the sort of gun you’d normally expect to handled by the likes of Jack (you almost expect Tennant to pop his head round the corner, raise an eyebrow and remark “Compensating for something?”). It’s a powerful moment, although anyone who seriously thinks it’s dramatically out of character clearly wasn’t watching the programme in the ’80s.

After Dalek – which I’ve always described as the Emperor’s Throne Room moment, given that it’s the point at which the central character comes close to losing the plot – Eccleston’s touch noticeably lightens. There is less brooding. At the end of The Doctor Dances he is boogieing around the TARDIS to the strains of Glenn Miller. But he still seems off somehow. The finale to that episode sees the Doctor fix the zombified patients simply by waving his hands. There’s excessive arm-folding. The ‘ape’ jokes are borderline offensive. It’s partly the scripts, but he feels like someone playing the part in a pantomime.

Then there’s a moment in Parting of the Ways where it clicks. It’s a small scene, in which the Doctor is on the floor of Satellite 5, assembling things out of cables and bits of circuits and chatting quietly with Rose. I like it because all of a sudden it feels right. I like it because, for just about the first and only time that series, Eccleston ceases to be the actor trying to play the Doctor, and actually becomes the Doctor.

And then a few minutes later, he regenerates.

Seriously. What an a***hole.

The post Eccleston Is A Great Actor, But He Never Felt Like The Doctor appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.