Doctor Who/Sherlock Crossover Happens, Dalek R2-D2, New DWA Editor Speaks and More!

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 time to catch up with the latest interesting but not urgent happenings in the world of Doctor Who with today’s News Blast, which features a Doctor Who/Sherlock crossover, R2-D2 in Dalek form, Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series and the Fifth Doctor getting a bit annoyed by the BBC’s treatment of its historical Birmingham studios, not to mention something of interest to Doctor Who Adventures readers…

Sherlock & Doctor Who Crossover Hits Newzoids

Viewers of Newzoids – the modern puppet-based satirical show on ITV, regularly trumpeted as a modern Spitting Image – last week featured the Twelfth Doctor and Sherlock in a spoof crossover, ‘The Writing Quality Falls’, with voices by Jon Culshaw.

You can watch the results above, as the lead characters of Steven Moffat’s two shows get unexpectedly annoyed with each other. As satire goes, it isn’t hilarious, but at least it’s still funnier than an episode of Newsjack.

Rivers of London Gets Comic Series

Ben Aaronovitch, writer of the superb 1988 Doctor Who serial Remembrance of the Daleks and 1989’s Battlefield, has been enjoying some success recently with Rivers of London, a series of books mashing the supernatural and police procedural genres, which launched in 2011. Now, as revealed by io9.com, the series – known as Midnight Riot in the USA – is to be adapted as a comic series.

And it’s got quite a roll call of Doctor Who-related talent, too. Along with Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel is involved as co-writer, with Lee Sullivan on board as illustrator. Here’s the cover:

Rivers of London: Body Work #1 is published by Titan Comics and will be available from June 15th in print and digital formats.

Doctor Who Adventures, Reimagined!

You probably already know about the reformatted Doctor Who Adventures, which has moved from Immediate Media to join Doctor Who Magazine at Panini, but to fill you in more DownTheTubes – edited by former DWM editor John Freeman – has chatted with DWA‘s new editor, Jason Quinn. We advise you read the full interview, but just in case you’re pressed for time, you might be interested to know a little more about how the new incarnation of the magazine that was first published in 2006 will be pitched…

“…we want youngsters to pick up the magazine but we don’t want to alienate older kids. My view is, if its exciting it will appeal to everyone. The TV series manages to do that. So should our magazine. Sure, people will have their favourite parts of the magazine and parts they aren’t so keen on. But really, when Doctor Who Weekly first came out back in 1979, the readers were kids and yet a lot of the content was pretty sophisticated. I’ve always thought that Doctor Who fans are pretty intelligent whatever their age, so they aren’t afraid of words.”

Birmingham “left out of [time] loop” Says Fifth Doctor

Peter Davison has let rip recently concerning the way in which BBC Birmingham has been bypassed by Cardiff and Manchester in recent years in the BBC’s sprint to build a presence in the provinces (except North Yorkshire and the North East, as obviously we have no talent or culture in these parts).

Davison – whose other popular role in All Creatures Great and Small saw the production regularly switch between the Yorkshire Dales location shoots and Birmingham’s Pebble Mill studios for the internal shots – said:

“Birmingham has been left out of the loop by the BBC and it’s not fair. More programmes should certainly be made in the city and more money invested in the region.

“The BBC has to have a proper base there which they don’t seem to have at the moment – certainly nothing like Pebble Mill, where some wonderful programmes were made. It sees odd that certain cities, like Cardiff and Manchester, have come up in terms of production while Birmingham gets left behind.”

Figures backing up a campaign by the Birmingham Post show that BBC spending in the city is pitiful. Apparently, the BBC re-invested just £12.40 for every licence fee-payer in the Midlands in 2014, which compares to £80 in the North (geographically the North West), £122 in Wales and £757 in London.

R2-D2 Converted into a Dalek!

And finally, here’s a fun curio: lovable astromech R2-D2 from the Star Wars series reimagined by artist Earl Ellis as a Dalek for the #R2ME2 exhibition at at the Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California.

Other reimagings on display include Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story) and Oscar the Grouch (Sesame Street).

(Via Radio Times)

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