Cloister Bell

Sherlock plays the villain in Star Trek sequel

2012-01-05T15:46:00.000Z

Moffat’s Sherlock is as close as we may get to seeing the lauded detective through the artistic aperture of film director David Fincher (Se7eN)! A lofty comparison, but puzzles are their stock-in-trade.

So, Benedict Cumberbatch's (Sherlock) casting should delight genre fans everywhere. What villian will he play in JJ Abrams' first Star Trek sequel?

Missing Believed Wiped

2011-12-12T12:57:00.002Z

Christmas arrived early for Doctor Who fan's during yesterday's Missing Believed Wiped event at the BFI!

Episode 3 of the William Hartnell adventure "Galaxy 4" and Episode 2 of Patrick Troughton's "The Underwater Menace" were purchased by film collector Terry Burnett at a village fete near Southampton in the early 80s. He had been unaware that the canisters contained material missing from the BBC.

Host at the event was Doctor Who writer and actor Mark Gatiss who said: "Christmas has come early for Doctor Who fans everywhere. It's always wonderful when a missing episode turns up but it's been years since the last one so to have two is just brilliant. Add to that a proper bit of action from the legendary Chumblies (and the horrifying Rills!) plus the utterly mesmeric Patrick Troughton on great form. Well, what more could we all ask for?"

Over 100 episodes of Doctor Who from the 1960s still remain missing. The tapes were routinely wiped once the rights to repeat them had expired. It seems unfathomable to us today, but before the advent of DVDs and iPlayer, grainy black and white material was thought to no longer be of interest to the television audience. However, many film prints sold overseas have since been returned. These latest discoveries are the first complete episodes to have been located since 2004.

Thundercats Classic Lion-O at The Entertainer!

2011-11-30T21:19:00.001Z

This highly detailed figure features many points of movement and comes with an extending Sword of Omens to bring evil to justice! A great collector's item for Thundercats fans everywhere.

See the entire range of Thundercats toys available at The Entertainer in time for the holiday season!

What are your favourite Doctor Who stories?

2011-11-29T15:33:00.001Z

This post is inspired by a thread on the Facebook Group Whovians.

What are your favourite stories by Doctor? I'll start the ball rolling...

The Dead Planet, Invasion, Spearhead from Space, Pyramids of Mars, Earthshock, Revelation of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks, Dalek, The Girl in the Fireplace and The Girl Who Waited.

This list isn't definitive, it's just for fun.

Doctor Who is 48 today!

2011-11-23T12:19:00.001Z

Doctor Who started 48 years ago, with the broadcast of An Unearthly Child, today.

Thank you to everyone who has worked on the series past, present and future.

Many happy returns of the day, Doctor!

Doctor Who blockbuster!

2011-11-14T20:30:00.001Z

Doctor Who was last on the silver screen in the swinging Sixties

Who else is looking forward to the upcoming Doctor Who movie directed by David Yates (Harry Potter)?

Variety, the Hollywood trade paper, has announced that a new feature film will be made in the next three years, which will be separate to the television series. This rules out any possibility of either David Tennant or Matt Smith in a starring role.

This will be the third time that the world-famous Time Lord has graced the silver screen...

Doctor Who Convention

2011-11-11T16:26:00.001Z

BBC Worldwide has revealed plans for what is being dubbed the first official Doctor Who Convention since the series' reboot in 2005.

The event will take place on the 24 and 25 March 2012 at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, Wales. Tickets are priced at £99 and limited to 1500 for each of the days.

Matt Smith commented on the convention’s announcement: “It’s brilliant that the first official convention is being held in Cardiff, the home of Doctor Who. I’m really looking forward to seeing the fans there, and remember – bow ties are cool!”

Steven Moffat said: “A whole weekend dedicated to all things Doctor Who, brilliant! We’re going to be celebrating the whole team behind the show, people who bring to life the Doctor’s craziest adventures and letting fans into some of our trade secrets. If you want to get under the skin of Doctor Who this is an unmissable event!”

Given limited ticket availability, I can foresee a reprise of the 20th Anniversary Convention in Longleat (circa 1983). Somehow I can't see myself getting into this one.

Please visit Doctor Who Convention for further information.

Doctor Who Encyclopedia for iPad

2011-11-09T16:51:00.000Z

Doctor Who is no stranger to the App Store with digital comics and an applauded video game for iOS. Now iPad-owning Doctor Who fans can download the Encyclopedia, too.

In view of the iPad's capacious touchscreen. A glossy and image-laden book is ideal fodder. However, some fans may take exception to further in-app purchases if they wish to read all about the Doctor's incarnations, allies and enemies since the series returned to television screens in 2005.

Doctor Who Encyclopedia for iPad (iTunes)

A Dalek invades BBC Television Centre

2011-11-04T14:12:00.000Z

Dalek Jack-O-Lantern

2011-10-23T23:12:00.000+01:00

The 4th Doctor Is In: Peanuts meets Doctor Who

2011-10-18T15:33:00.000+01:00

Doctor Who meets Peanuts mashup by Adam Koford (Ape Lad). That is all.

His Dark Materials

2011-09-26T12:05:00.024+01:00

The second part of series six suffered a stuttering start with the risible Let's Kill Hitler! Had Doctor Who jumped the shark? The question was immediately answered by the triumvirate: Night Terrors, The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex. Each episode building on the central theme of the Doctor's impending death with humour and wit.

The sumptuous and teary-eyed The Girl Who Waited eclipsed Neil Gaiman's excellent The Doctor's Wife. Karen Gillan delivers an acting tour de force as the older Amy Pond and the Doctor takes a backseat (for the majority of the episode) as life aboard the TARDIS is deconstructed to cold, brutal, effect. Plaudits also to Arthur Darvill as the long suffering Rory Williams.

Closing Time brought brevity to proceedings and witnessed the return of the Cybermats in a Cyber story reminiscent of the Patrick Troughton era. Children will be asking for Cybermat toys this Christmas.

Series 6, more than any other from the current run, distills what I adore about Doctor Who; the alien, the wonder and inherent darkness of the unknown, and an ensemble worthy of the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan.

Harry Potter and the Vault of Doom!

2011-09-20T12:00:00.007+01:00

In a move that duplicates Disney's long-running strategy, Warner Bros will cease production of its Harry Potter film franchise on DVD and Blu-ray disc at the end of 2011!

The 8-part film franchise will be withdrawn, from sale, for an indefinite period, and returned to the vault.

I've owned the first three instalments on both DVD and Blu-ray disc, but decided to wait for news of an ultimate collection, which has been announced for this holiday season. It's worth noting that there's a confusing array of editions in the retail channel.

Doubtlessly, Warner Bros will release, at the company's discretion, further editions in the future. For now Harry Potter: 1-8 (Blu-ray disc) will be just fine...

Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow

2011-09-08T14:17:00.000+01:00

The Muppet Doctor Who

2011-09-03T12:04:00.001+01:00

The Muppets and Doctor Who! Two great tastes that taste great together.

Drawn by Amy Mebberson.

Harry Potter's last hurrah!

2011-08-08T14:02:00.007+01:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a fitting finale to the adventures of Harry, Hermione and Ron!

After the delightful The Philosopher's Stone and The Prisoner of Azkaban, the series' high watermark, it seemed that Harry's cinematic spell was broken. Then the darkness of The Half-Blood Prince infused the story with much-needed nuance and I cared, again.

Much has been written regarding the commercial decision to split The Deathly Hallows into two parts; maximising Warner Bros' investment. However, it's a rare treat of a finale and one that surpasses most. You'll be dwelling on the conclusion long after the credits have ended...

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit will have to be special to equal Harry Potter's finest moment.

Doctor Who teases at Comic-Con

2011-07-25T16:59:00.007+01:00

New teaser trailers, for the second half of S6, were premiered during the Doctor Who panel, at this year's San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC), where Matt Smith and Karen Gillan wooed thousands of fans assembled in Hall H.

"My time is running out..."

Nazis, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, the Silence, something that looks like the monster from Predator running up and down a hotel corridor: the Doctor's enemies are gathering in the new trailer for the second half of the 2011 series, coming to BBC1 later this year.

Matt Smith was meant to be Doctor Who
“It was the easiest casting decision out of any I’ve been involved in, because it was so bloody obvious from the moment he walked in to the room,” executive producer Piers Wenger said. “The day after we’d met Matt for the second time, [showrunner Steven Moffat] sent me an e-mail that just said, “It’s him. Let’s face this. It’s always been him.”

Doctor Who returns in Let's Kill Hitler on August 27th.

Watch Doctor Who on Facebook

2011-07-12T18:25:00.007+01:00

This morning I was greeted by a pop-up proclaiming that Doctor Who was now available to view on Facebook! BBC Worldwide is following Warner Bros. and offering rentals via the popular social network.

John Smith, Chief Executive at BBC Worldwide said, “As we have grown internationally, we’ve seen through our Facebook channel that fans who are loving the new series are asking for a guide into our rich Doctor Who back catalogue. Our approach to Facebook and other leading edge platforms is to be right there alongside them in fostering innovation. We see this service as a perfect way to give our fans what they want, as well as a great way for them to get their fix between now and the autumn when series six continues”.

“Millions of people engage with their favourite TV shows on Facebook every day and we’re now seeing broadcasters look at innovative ways to use Facebook tools to connect their fans with exclusive content,” said Christian Hernandez, Director, Platform Partnerships, Facebook. “Through its Facebook page, BBC Worldwide is giving Doctor Who fans a quick and easy way to access these iconic episodes.”

Selected stories, from each incarnation, are available at present with more to be added soon. This is an interesting move and pits Facebook directly against rivals such as LOVEFiLM and Netflix.

Will you be ditching your TV in favour of Facebook?

Transformers: Dark of the Moon hits the App Store!

2011-07-01T16:01:00.001+01:00

Transformers fans should get a kick out of this official tie-in even if Michael Bay's latest movie collapses into migraine-inducing nihilism! Read the review on Film4 here.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (iTunes)

Thundercats return this July on Cartoon Network!

2011-06-28T21:47:00.001+01:00

Thundercats return to television screens from July 29th on Cartoon Network! As you would expect, Bandai has created action figures and vehicles based on the character designs from the new Thundercats series.

The new "ThunderCats" will appeal to viewers who have loved the characters all their lives as well as young newcomers to the franchise. A sweeping tale combining swords and science and boasting ferocious battles with the highest of stakes, the grand origin story of Prince Lion-O's ascension to the throne - and of those who would thwart his destiny at any cost - takes on epic dimensions in this sharp new telling. As the forces of good and evil battle each other in the quest for the fabled Stones of Power, Lion-O and his champions learn valuable lessons of loyalty, honor and mortality in every episode.

Are you excited about the Thundercats reboot?

Source: Forces of Geek

Review: A Good Man Goes To War

2011-06-27T13:53:00.009+01:00

It appears that I wasn't the only fan who spotted not-so-subtle Star Wars references in the current series of Doctor Who. A Jedi Knight confronts Trade Federation battle droids during the mid-season finale...

Guest post by Andrew Lewin

Contains some oblique spoilers, sweetie.

And so the first half of this year's "double mini-series" season 6 of Doctor Who has come to an end, allowing us time to pause and reflect about the season overall. But before that - what about the final episode?

The previous episode's final cliffhanger in the Tardis with not-Amy certainly caught me by surprise - I didn't see that one coming! That shock ending led directly into "A Good Man Goes To War", and we're expecting greatness of epic proportions. For the first 20 minutes it royally delivers: the scale of the Doctor's preparations of assembling an army and tracking down Amy are truly astonishing, with the Tardis and Rory (the Lone Centurion) acting in the Doctor's place and the man himself appearing only briefly in (unconvincing) silhouette as befits a legend and a myth.

By this point we're prepared for something absolutely sensational: the Doctor's (uncharacteristically) casual destruction of a entire Cyber battle fleet to make a rhetorical point leads us to believe that this is the Time Lord Victorious pushed over the edge, driven to darker deeds by an incomparable fury. Except that neither the Doctor nor head writer Steven Moffat are ever that obvious or predictable. Instead, when the Doctor finally does pop up, he looks very much as normal and he outwits the army arrayed against him with typical light-hearted cunning (brilliantly plotted). The battle is defused, and while there is a subsequent trap to be sprung by Madame Kovarian this proves to be an even lower-key plot beat with just half a dozen or so on either side, and the action essentially taking place off-screen. (Judging how stodgy the pirate battle antics ended up looking in The Curse of the Black Spot", it may be just as well.)

It's Moffat's greatest strength that he confounds and defies our every expectation; but it can also be his greatest weakness. Having promised us that "the Doctor will climb higher than ever before", the way the episode unfurls simply doesn't deliver on this promise. The structure of the episode is oddly inverted, starting with epic and sweeping but then getting smaller and smaller until finally it comes down to a rather talky final scene between the regulars. It leaves an oddly awkward, unfulfilled feeling to it: having opened a Christmas present in huge extravagant wrappings, the end result is the perfectly fine but still rather-expected Doctor Who annual.

How you feel about the climax depends on how big a shock the final reveal about River Song's true identity is. I confess, I've thought that she is who she turned out to be ever since episode 1 of this season, when she and Rory were investigating underground and had a rather interesting conversation that only has genuine emotional resonance if River Song is one particular person. The line of dialogue in "The Doctor's Wife" that 'the only water in the forest is the river' sealed it for me, so this week's reveal was not in the end a big surprise, although Moffat certainly played around in the episode with a few red herrings to make it pleasingly in doubt until the very final moments.

A small genius of Moffat's writing is that despite having finally revealed River Song's true identity, it turns out that the answer gives rise to far more questions than the answer every addressed - the perfect sort of plotting. Instead of being an end to River's story, if anything it just throws up even more avenues that need exploring which are far more interesting. How exactly does River's story now intersect with the Impossible Astronaut, the little girl regenerating, and River's own ultimate fate seen back in "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead"? What's this going to mean to Rory and Amy? Where has the Doctor gone after learning this piece of information - how does it give him the location of the baby? Will the baby be lost to them for years, stuck in a Silents-infested orphanage for years to come? What's with the astronaut suit, anyway? And why doesn't River know?

Overall, the episode was extremely well done and great fun - just not the episode to end all episodes that we'd been led to hope for. It felt like a reprise of "The Pandorica Opens" in that it's all a trap to snare the Doctor and features alliances of various old foes; the difference being is that here the Doctor builds his own alliance to fight back. In the end, this felt more like Russell T Davies' era of the show (in particular his biggest shows, "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End") than anything Moffat himself has previously done: only that instead of gathering together a feel-good line-up of his old friends, allies and companions to help him as RTD gave us, here the Doctor seeks out more unlikely line-up of Silurians, Judoon and Sontarans who owe him.

And what delights there were in that alliance. For all the praise Moffat gets for his intricate plotting, it's easy to forget that his real strength is in giving us the most brilliant characters the show has ever seen: not just Amy, but Rory who has developed into one of the true stars of the show; then there's River Song, without whom it's almost impossible to think of modern Doctor Who, such a fabulous and vibrant part of the team she's become. And let's not forget that Moffat also gave us Captain Jack Harkness, the first character to sustain a successful Doctor Who spin-off series of his own.

This week, add to this line up the brilliant characters of Madame Vastra and her companion Jenny: is there any fan out there not dying to see a Victorian Era-set spin off featuring these two? Such a shame that blue-marketeer Dorium and Commander/Nurse Strax are also not available for future stories: Robert Holmes must be beaming down from on high with delight that someone has finally grasped his Sontaran creations and made them into richly textured, fully-rounded and even humorous personalities without betraying the underlying principle of the cloned warrior race. Even the odd minor character of Lorna Bucket with her memory of 30 seconds running through a forest with the Doctor (who doesn't know her) feels like someone with far more tale left to tell. Even if she is dead for now.

In the end, the episode is less of a season climax and a major cliffhanger than the episode that preceded it: instead it feels more like the end of Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back - everything has been thrown up in the air, the pieces are in play, and suddenly it all looks less like a happy fairytale than it did, and more like a dark and dangerous time. And like that brilliant film it leaves us sitting on the edge of our seats counting down the hours to part two of series six in the Autumn.

Just as long as Moffat doesn't try and add any sodding Ewoks to the Silurian/Judoon/Sontaran alliance, we should be in for a treat as the story continues to unfold.

Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, technical specialist (in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement.) Formerly employed by the UK's Central Office of Information (which provides marketing and communications services to other government departments), Andrew currently provides NASCAR, IndyCar and GP2 racing coverage for motorsports website crash.net, and blogs at andrewlewin.wordpress.com. His other interests include film and television, science fiction - and he never met an Apple product he didn't like!

Doctor Who and the Curse of the Fatal Timing

2011-06-23T14:34:00.007+01:00

As an addendum to yesterday's belated guest post (I've been otherwise preoccupied). Andrew addresses the media frenzy that followed Private Eye's suggestion that Doctor Who was about to go on indefinite hiatus; in a manner reminiscent of the mid 1980s, which culminated in the series' cancellation in 1989. Ironically, this storm in a teacup passed me by...

Guest post by Andrew Lewin

A couple of weeks ago we had the Great Day of Whovian Crisis, when an article in the June 10 edition of the satirical Private Eye magazine said that Doctor Who was about to be forced into its second year-long hiatus in just over three years in 2012 because of a series of behind-the-scenes problems, which had already led to two producers being dismissed and executive producer Piers Wenger quitting to go to Film4. The reported decision by BBC Wales had apparently "horrified" the BBC chiefs back in London who rely on the show for its Saturday evening scheduling.

The Private Eye article's credibility was somewhat undermined by its insistence that the split-structure of season 6 was down to "poor budget control and scheduling": considering how far in advance this split was announced and how much the structure of season 6's writing depended on this mid-point cliffhanger there's no way that the split suddenly appeared because of production problems. Hopefully that means the article's concerns about the second batch of season 6 being ready before Christmas are equally far off the mark.

But the BBC did little to help the situation on that day - Tuesday June 7, a day that will live in Who infamy. Considering they are one of the biggest media corporations in the world, it's amazing how poor the BBC can be at communications at times: everyone was apparently at meetings or (literally) out to lunch and not available for comment while the story roared around the Internet that day. Initially the BBC even said it wasn't about to make any announcement about it at all, but finally they were bounced into conceding - via Twitter of all things - that "#DoctorWho is returning. Fourteen new episodes have been commissioned with Matt Smith as The Doctor."

Hurrah, crisis over, we all thought. Except that instead of getting clearer over the intervening time, the situation seems to have actually been getting mirkier.

The main point seems to be concerning when those 14 episodes (a full 13-part series and a Christmas special) will air. The initial announcement was taken to imply that a full season would indeed air in 2012, refuting the Private Eye article's claims; then further word trickled out that only "most" would air next year. Then it became "a good chunk" and "a significant number". Then it was "some episodes" and then just "starting in 2012." And in the background you could still hear PR reps crossing their fingers and mouthing 'hopefully'. Far from confirming a 2012 season, we were starting to see it slide away without even the prospect of some specials to tide us over with, as happened in 2009. Even Steven Moffat himself told SFX magazine that "I don't know" when season 7 would air, although he went on to add in typically playful fashion: "If I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. When I do know, what I know will change, so I won’t really know then either. Then it will change again, so I still won’t really know. And if, secretly, I’d really known all along, I’d still be telling you I don’t know."

As it has gone on, it seems increasingly inconceivable that Doctor Who will return for season 7 at Easter in 2012. This time last year we were hearing about Moffat finishing the script for "A Christmas Carol" and filming getting underway; this year at the same time we're not hearing about any of that, but instead seeing news stories about Matt Smith looking at acting opportunities in Los Angeles and Arthur Darvill appearing at The Globe in Faustus and using the unfortunate language of being happy to be "moving on" from Doctor Who, suggesting he was fully done with the show.

The best we can hope for is that season 7 will be now shown in the Autumn, probably in two parts split over Christmas. And when I say "best we can hope for", I would actually describe an Autumn slot as precisely that, the best for the show. I'm no fan of the current scheduling trying to squeeze it in between Easter and mid-summer as we've seen since the show's return in 2005. The lighter, warmer evenings prove a considerable distraction to the viewing public and hence suppress the rating figures once we get into May and June. It's been made worse by the timing of the show on the evening - Doctor Who just can't be properly scary on a bright Saturday evening at 6pm. It should be shown on properly dark, spooky evenings with the rain lashing at the windows and the wind howling through the trees so that the family can huddle together and get properly frightened.

More troubling has been some of the rather public falling-out that has been going on surrounding the news. A week after the confused handling of the original announcement, BBC1 controller Danny Cohen told a media conference that it was all down to Steven Moffat, who "needs enough time to get that done and then start work on the next series of Doctor Who ... Steven Moffat is the creative driving force behind Doctor Who. He also, rather magically at the same time, created and got to air Sherlock. So we have to get that balance right." He went on to say that "There's only so many hours a day he can be awake," adding: "The man has to sleep and eat, and he's got a family."

These were meant to be light-hearted remarks to soothe over the situation, but in fact they just added fuel to the fire. Moffat was not amused by being fingered as the reason for the series' delays and icily tweeted that "The scheduling of Dr Who has got NOTHING to do with Sherlock." It may be reading too much into 140 character missives, but Moffat's tone since then in other tweets and interviews has been on a decidedly grumpy side: Moffat seemed particularly unhappy with the way that BBC News online covered the story, starting with the headline "Sherlock success will hit Doctor Who, says BBC One boss." When Neil Gaiman asked Moffat on Twitter, "Er... is it my imagination or are you being shafted by BBC online news?", Moffat's response was "It's not your imagination. Unbelievable, unacceptable."

Moffat is understandably worried about being left with the blame. In a way it's his own fault for being too insatiably industrious to ever be satisfied with just working on one series for an extended period: his creativity needs more diverse outlets than just 24/7 Time Lords. But we all know how working on Doctor Who consumed Russell T Davies' life for five whole years and nearly gave him a physical and mental breakdown at times (just have a read of the excellent The Writers Tale book for the details); so how can Moffat manage to step into RTD's shoes and on top of that create, develop and run another of the BBC's flagship shows at the same time and expect to be able to survive and get away with it with sanity intact?

But it's also curious that the BBC would see a new show consisting of just three feature episodes as somehow ranking alongside what's supposed to be one of the BBC's most important shows. Don't get me wrong: I've been a Holmes fan almost as long as a Who fan, and I absolutely adore what Moffat and Mark Gatiss have done reimagining the character for the 21st century. But for all its Baftas, that first season was both short and uneven: Moffat's opener was utterly stellar, but the middle story about Chinese Tongs was hokey and confused; the final episode was back on form but the portrayal of Moriarty and the final face-off between him and Holmes met with a mixed reception. (For the record: I loved them both.)

Nor can I see the show having a fraction of the staying power of Doctor Who: the second mini-season of Sherlock will apparently feature "Adler, Hounds and Reichenbach" which is pretty much all the remaining highlights of the Conan Doyle canon; a third season reviving Sherlock from his presumed demise at the Falls would doubtless follow, but after that the series has probably done all it can and come to a natural end. (And again for the record: I'm all for "short" television series which know when to leave the stage and not hang around just to churn out series after series. Not that I'd mention Last of the Summer Wine in a Cloister Bell blog guest post.)

So it seems strange that the BBC should put Sherlock ahead of its longest running success in such a cavalier fashion. The Corporation does indeed seem at risk of dropping the Doctor Who ball bigtime, just when the show seemed to be at its peak, merely because it has an in-bred snooty preference for 19th century literary classics over modern day science fiction. It happened before to the classic Who: history repeats itself, it seems. And the BBC's history with one of its most important signature properties has never been easy or straightforward at the best of times. In fact it seems eternally one step away from a mess and a crisis at any given time, and things are proving no different in the 21st century.

Let's not forget that we're coming up on a hugely significant year for Doctor Who: 2013 will be the 50th anniversary of the show's creation in 1963 and a marketing opportunity beyond compare in modern television. Surely they can't fumble that? And yet with over half of season 7 slipping over into 2013 already, where does that leave the plans for the shape of the rest of the show's golden jubilee year?

Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, technical specialist (in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement.) Formerly employed by the UK's Central Office of Information (which provides marketing and communications services to other government departments), Andrew currently provides NASCAR, IndyCar and GP2 racing coverage for motorsports website crash.net, and blogs at andrewlewin.wordpress.com. His other interests include film and television, science fiction - and he never met an Apple product he didn't like!

Doctor Who - What, and Where Next?

2011-06-22T13:04:00.007+01:00

While I may have waxed lyrically about Doctor Who's darker turn under the auspices of series showrunner Steven Moffat. Andrew's vexed prose (written a fortnight ago) presciently foreshadowed the recent furore surrounding the future of our most beloved TV series, which culminated in the BBC announcing that it would be renewed into 2014...

Guest post by Andrew Lewin

We've come to the end of the first half of Doctor Who season six, which makes it a good time to pause and reflect on the state of the Whovian nation.

As someone who has loved and admired Steven Moffat's work ever since the early days of the superb The Press Gang, this should be a no-brainer question and a short blog post declaring everything is just brilliant and wonderful. Should be ... But I'm afraid it isn't. There's something nagging away at me, something making me uneasy about the future of the show we love so much.

"This is the battle of demon's run, the Doctor's darkest hour, he'll rise higher than ever before, and then fall so much further."

It's hard not to agree that the Doctor has truly risen higher than he ever has before right now, at least as far as Doctor Who fans are concerned: we have the writer/producer we admire more than any other, who is at the top of his game and producing the most fabulous scripts, season arcs and characters. Matt Smith has made a genuinely brilliant Doctor; the threesome combination of the Tardis crew has given us something genuinely different and new after too many years of the Doctor/female companion formula - even before we add the fantastic recurring character of River Song who we just yearn to join full-time. The production team also seem to have managed to get over the funding squeeze that compromised key moments in season 5 with below-par CGI, because season 6 has all looked fabulous (well, save for one Flesh Jen monster CGI too far...) - even before the impressive jaunt to America that added to the sense of sheer scale and substance.

But I can't shake the feeling that this almighty high does indeed potentially come before the biggest fall and darkest hour, and that there are signs and portents that should worry all Who fans at least a little.

Some of these are external matters: the tabloids loved reporting that viewing figures for the early episodes were sharply down, and while this was not entirely accurate (the iPlayer/view on demand figures pretty much reversed that situation so it's more a sign of an error in the scheduling of the show at 6pm or so on warm, sunny May and June evenings that's a mistake of the network programmers rather than the show itself) it did lead the papers to gripe about how it's no longer a family show, that it's too dark, too scary, too bloody complicated for children now.

Actually the children are fine by all accounts, and follow it perfectly - as least as much as they need to. It's the adults who are feeling lost, puzzled, worried or horrified. But that's still a problem for the show, because this is the BBC's family tent-pole offering, and if the adults are scratching their heads and shrugging before going off to do something else - or deciding it's not suitable for the little'uns - then it's undermining a major element of the show's success and profile, both of which are vital to keeping the show mainstream and properly funded.

When Russell T Davies took on the tast of regenerating the show in 2005, he was commendably open about how this was the most commercial, market-tested, focus-grouped project he'd ever done. Every last bit of it had to be hand-crafted to make sure it hit the market properly, delivered the whole-family audience, spun off the merchandising and won the awards. It had to, if this wasn't to be a one-season flop. Artistic integrity be blowed: to make any expensive TV show, first you have to make the show a proven success to earn your right to experiment. It might sound cynical, but it's survival in the modern broadcast arena and RTD knew it better than anyone. I'm sure a little piece of him died everytime he had to subjugate his artistic inclinations in favour of ensuring the commercial success, but he pulled it off: he took a revival that no one gave much of a chance of really working and delivered to the BBC's their biggest international blockbuster property.

As a result, Steven Moffat doesn't have the same pressures: the show is a hit right now and he doesn't have to permanently look over his shoulder fearing cancelation. That security has given the show an undoubted confidence and swagger; and in any case, Moffat is not the kind of person to ever allow anything to override his artistic integrity. He will do the show his way no matter what, believing it's the best for the show: focus groups and market testing be damned.

It's admirable, and arguably is giving us a better, higher calibre show than we've ever seen before as least as far as hard-core fans are concerned. But it's also markedly different from the show that was reborn under RTD that we grew to know and love in its own right. Davies might have had his problems as head writer (and not really seeming to grasp what a science fiction story really was, and continually relying on cheap deus ex machina get-outs were definitely among them) but every episode was suffused with a sense of love of the show and with a huge feeling of fun that made it accessible and enjoyable by everyone of any age or level of interest.

You don't get that with Moffat's seasons. I have no doubt that he loves the show every bit as much as RTD or you and I do, but he never allows that passion to override his story judgement - or to show through in the episodes themselves. Instead they're far more coolly cerebral, intricate and complex, always eschewing the obvious even when it might end up frustrating the viewer. He is not writing for the casual fan who may dip in and out, miss a week or read a paper at the same time: this is a show for people who watch. And rewatch. And sit and think and talk about it for a week afterwards. And even if you do all that, it's still likely to have scrambled your brain and leave you with a headache (as the end of "Day of the Moon" did for me, I confessed at the time.)

It's asking a lot of viewers to submit themselves to this mental overload; casual fans will depart, and even die hard fans have been struggling to sustain the level of absolute concentration the show now demands. Instead of the fun, easy, family viewing under RTD, the show just got worryingly difficult, fan-ish and closed-up by comparison.

For those fans who push through and keep watching, it's worth every minute. It comes together like the most wonderful puzzle box, and not only can you appreciate how perfectly it all comes together but you can also see how all the clues were left in plain sight all along and it only seemed complicated but actually you really did understand it all along after all, giving a lovely frisson of feeling like you've cracked it and are worthy of being one of the Whovian nation - and that your brain isn't as broken as you thought after all.

But then we hit another snag: where does the show go from here? After being raised to such eye-popping heights, what's next?

It's hard to imagine the show going back to the nice, fun "adventure of the week" format. Indeed it tried that with "The Curse of the Black Spot" and how poor that episode felt, even though in previous RTD seasons that would have been a perfectly fine albeit average episode (no offence intended to RTD.) Not every episode can be a Silents/Flesh/Gaiman/Demons Run blockbuster every single week, but these episodes have raised the bar so high in season 6 that a merely ordinary episode is now a deep disappointment. You pity anyone who is tasked to take over from Moffat, because no one can reach the sort of heights he's been delivering this season - and anything less is going to be the Doctor's darkest hour and his furthest fall (and potentially at worst, his latest cancelation.)

This problem is echoed in a development in the Doctor's character in the show itself: he's become so big, so epic, so unbeatable that the loveable old eccentric "mad man in a box" has never seemed so far away. These days he can wipe out entire Cyber battle fleets as a rhetorical flourish in a pre-credits teaser, or reboot the universe, or send aliens running away in fright just by reading them his CV. This started back in RTD/David Tennant's era with "The Christmas Invasion", was echoed in "The Eleventh Hour" at the start of the Moffat/Matt Smith era, but has now becoming a recurring problem with both "The Pandorica Opens" and "A Good Man Goes to War" both essentially focusing on it.

Quite simply, there is no one left who is more powerful than the Doctor. He is a God. Even the Daleks - who were revamped so successfully in season 1 as the ultimate nemesis of the Time Lords and the only race able to defeat them in the Time War - are now so "reliably beatable" that Moffat himself has concluded that they have no credibility left and have to be rested from the show. But if not the Daleks - who can threaten the Doctor anymore? It's rather like the 'scope creep' that infected the character of Superman, in which a character who could initially simply jump high and run fast suddenly became invincible and as a result lost both empathy with the readership and also potential plots. How could Superman bear to spend his time dealing with muggings with all his powers?

So to it is with the Doctor. He's now so powerful that nothing really seems to threaten him anymore. Some lovely dialogue in "A Good Man Goes To War" stressed how he is now more myth than regular person: how "Doctor" is becoming a galaxy-wide synonym for "great man of learning" or "warrior" depending on your point of view (apparently an idea Moffat had in 1995 according to some links on the Internet pointing to 'proof', but we'll take these with a pinch of salt for now.) Did you spot the sublime way that Rory is made to realise this is happening to him, too: as he consoled Commander Strax, he realised he was talking to a warrior who had become a nurse, while he himself was a nurse who was now a centurion warrior? An uncomfortable realisation for both.

The stakes have been raised too high too many times: the show has seemingly killed off the Doctor, Amy or Rory too often as a result just so that we feel something bad really did/could happen, but it's backfired and now they've all died and restored in too many ways that so we just role our eyes, say "oh, not again" and wait for the plot to unravel and restore everyone to life.

Moffat seems acutely aware of this "Godhood" problem with the Doctor now, and it's why the trope has been returned to in "A Good Man Goes To War" with dialogue specifically riffing this (which in turn is an echo of dialogue that RTD's Davros used on Tennant's Doctor in "Journey's End".) I suspect Moffat's overall intentions for the current convoluted plot arc are to do something about this "all-powerful" Doctor and restore him back to something like his old original self, the eccentric traveller.

The trouble is that the genie is out of the box, and we can't go home again: would we be remotely satisfied with a show of a group of friends amiably poking around investigating a deserted city or scrapping with some cavemen?

Steven Moffat's a sharp guy with far greater writing and creative skills than I possess - maybe he's figured all this out and has an answer for us, and that's what we're heading to. We should certainly hope so, for the sake of the future survival of the show hinges upon it. Far more than the side questions of identity of River Song or whether the Doctor will retrieve Rory and Amy's baby, this is the most important and pressing question facing the Whovian Nation this morning as we head into the summer recess.

Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, technical specialist (in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement.) Formerly employed by the UK's Central Office of Information (which provides marketing and communications services to other government departments), Andrew currently provides NASCAR, IndyCar and GP2 racing coverage for motorsports website crash.net, and blogs at andrewlewin.wordpress.com. His other interests include film and television, science fiction - and he never met an Apple product he didn't like!

Evangeline Lilly cast in The Hobbit

2011-06-20T15:15:00.008+01:00

Evangeline Lilly, best known to genre fans as Kate in Lost and celebrity face of L'Oreal, will be playing a woodland elf named Tauriel whose name translates to ‘daughter of Mirkwood’ in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit.

“Beyond that, we must leave you guessing! (no, there is no romantic connection to Legolas),” said Jackson, adding: “What is not a secret is how talented and compelling an actress Evangeline is; we are thrilled and excited she will be the one to bring our first true Sylvan Elf to life.”

Lilly bears a striking resemblance to Liv Tyler who played Arwen in The Lord of the Rings. She'll be joining Sir Ian McKellen, Andy Serkis, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom. Ian Holm is believed to be in negotiations to play the older Bilbo Baggins, too.

Warner Bros is purportedly funding the $500 million production, which will be split over two movies and filmed back-to-back in New Zealand.

“There's no way you can pace yourself for shoots like these,” Jackson revealed. “When we were going through the schedule for The Hobbit, I felt a terrible drop in my stomach when I saw that we'd be shooting for 254 days. We're only 12 days short of The Lord Of The Rings even though we're only doing two movies.”

An Unexpected Journey will be released next December and There And Back Again following on in December 2014.

Source: On The Box

Darkly sexy adventures in time and space

2011-06-05T20:25:00.023+01:00

On Saturday we reached the midway point in the current series of Doctor Who with the revelatory A Good Man Goes To War. A series first in the form of a mid-season finale. So what have you made of it so far?

This series was launched with a fanfare reserved for a Hollywood blockbuster! One of the leads was going to die in the opening episode and much was made of BBC America ramping up the series' success across the Atlantic.

Unsurprisingly, but no less audacious, it would be the Doctor, himself, who would die. The funeral pyre poignantly evoked Darth Vader's at the end of Return of the Jedi and the Star Wars homages didn't end there. How will programme showrunner Steven Moffat explain this timey-wimey twist without being trite?

Moffat and his creative team have consolidated series 5's Grimm fairytale aesthetic and cemented a preference for episodic storytelling that some viewers may take issue with. Personally, I'd be delighted if Moffat's masterplan is predicated on a single story arc, which he began during Russell T Davies era with Silence in the Library.

Unlike previous series, which were punctuated by sparse brilliance, the current series is much more consistent despite a spectacular misstep, following the opening two-parter, with the prophetically entitled The Curse of the Black Spot. It didn't plummet to the depths of the risible Fear Her from series 2, but series 5 raised the bar.

Amy Pond's pregnancy, masked by a Flesh avatar (spectacularly revealed @PureHokum's directorial debut The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People), and River Song's secret was deftly handled, and I haven't even touched on Neil Gaiman's majestic The Doctor's Wife. The TARDIS given corporeal form replete with some of the most moving scenes in the long-running series' history and there were TARDIS corridors for the win. Yes, I cried during the 'goodbye'...

If we're to assume, the risky notion, that Matt Smith's tenure will last for at least three series, then this is the second act where it all goes to hell.

I, for one, am gleefully following Matt's rise as the Doctor and, if River Song is to be believed, fall. The Autumn can't come soon enough and with it cold, long, nights...

Buy Doctor Who merchandise from Forbidden Planet International.

Optimus and Megatron United!

2011-05-25T18:25:00.003+01:00

Takara Tomy has released repaints, from Transformers: War for Cybertron, inspired by the upcoming movie Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

How cool are these?

Buy Transformers: Dark of the Moon merchandise from The Entertainer.

Torchwood: Miracle Day

2011-05-24T17:33:00.000+01:00

Torchwood: Miracle Day introduces Mekhi Phifer (ER, Lie To Me) as CIA operative Rex Matheson, Bill Pullman (Independence Day) as convicted child killer Oswald Danes, Alexa Havins as CIA employee Esther Drummond and Arlene Tur as surgeon Dr Vera Juarez, while John Barrowman and Eve Myles return to their roles as Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper respectively.

Torchwood: Miracle Day Trailer by radionovadj

Torchwood: Miracle Day begins on BBC One in July.

The Four Doors of Perception

2011-05-17T13:18:00.001+01:00

"My wife was not too happy about the choice of wallpaper!"

Guest post by Stuart Witts

Now those that know me will be well aware of my almost fanatical love of toys of all kinds. Plush. Vinyl. Die-cast. But up to this point I’ve been able to resist that drug like addiction to collecting.

Sure I was bitten by the LEGO minifigures bug and found myself ordering the few I couldn’t get, by normal means, through online dealers on eBay. But I’d always considered myself a selective purchaser. However, that was all to change when during an innocent Google image search for the Mad Max Police Interceptors (which, incidentally are amongst my most favourite movie cars) I came across a picture of a Hot Wheels Ford Falcon XB in Yellow (my favourite colour).

I must have it, I thought to myself. It was only a few pounds, what harm could it do? If only I had known.

As soon as I had pressed the buy button my mind started to wander off into thoughts of other movie cars that I had loved, what other delights awaited me on eBay. Before the day was over I had discovered (and purchased) ECTO-1 from Ghostbusters, the original Batmobile from the 60’s tv show and a 1957 Plymouth Fury more commonly known as ‘Christine’. But this was merely a taster compared to the large shipments that were soon to be winging their way to these shores.

You see the Ford Falcon is not just a movie car, but a representation of the classic muscle cars of the past. Charger. Mustang. Camaro. These are all names that send shivers down the spine of any red blooded male and if I couldn’t have them full size I was damn well going to own them in 1:64th scale.

And so it went on. Every car that turned up, every eBay search, every shipping confirmation email shot little sparks of ecstasy into my mind and sent me off on different paths of illicit discovery. Aston Martin. Porsche. All of the four wheeled pleasures I had ever dreamed of could be mine with the click of a mouse. It got so bad that when we would enter a shop and I spotted the shiny glint of that plastic garage containing another hit I would do what my partner described as my ‘Hot Wheels dance’.

Things finally came to a head when, after a particularly intense period of debit card abuse, a delay in the local postal service led to ten little boxes turning up on our doorstep at once. It was clear to everyone that I had a problem.

I’m feeling much better these days and have been clean for over two weeks. Sure I’ve had the odd slip, car boot sales are especially difficult, but the withdrawal symptoms are lessening and my kids have stopped whinging about how THEY never get any parcels...

DING DONG

Oh, you’ll have to excuse me. I think that’s the postman...

Stuart Witts began his career in digital marketing back when the term social media referred to the act of writing ones name on the side of the railway lines. This was a time before Dreamweaver, when the humble Notepad was the only HTML editor of choice.

During his time online Stuart has worked with a variety of clients from both the B2C and B2B sectors, starred in a Sun Microsystems commercial , produced a range of designer toys, branded a sandwich shop and sold over 200 t-shirts. When not designing, Stuart tweets as @stuartwitts and blogs about anything and everything. He is convinced that social media is the saviour of mankind.

The Silence join Doctor Who Experience

2011-05-16T11:15:00.001+01:00

To promote The Silence debut at the Doctor Who Experience, the monster, which appeared in The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon, went for a tour of London...

The Silence remind me of The Gentlemen from Buffy! What say you dear reader?

Tickets on sale at http://www.doctorwhoexperience.com/

Doctor Who: Character Building The Time of Angels

2011-05-07T15:52:00.001+01:00

The Weeping Angels are back! Recreate scenes from Series 5 Episode 4 with this Time of Angels playset... the Doctor and Amy along with River Song went hunting for a solitary Angel but discovered an army of angels waiting for them! Highly detailed construction playset including a fully articulated Weeping Angel micro-figure!

Buy The Time of Angels playset today.

Doctor Who: Season 22: Reassurance and Bravery

2011-04-27T17:47:00.000+01:00

Guest post by John Rivers

I was inspired to write this post firstly because I realised that season 22 was still being maligned by fans, but also because when asking fans about their DVD purchases one of the most common lines I hear is “I still don’t have all the Colin Baker ones”. I also wondered what these opinions would do for fans of the new series, wanting to learn more about the old.

Colin Baker’s first season as the Doctor is held up as a nadir of the show by some, highlighting what was wrong with JNT-era Doctor Who and supposedly causing the 1985 hiatus that resulted in the Trial of a Time Lord season (in which characters in Doctor Who watch ‘Doctor Who’ and determine whether he should live or die. As Nev Fountain put it - “A show trial”). But before the madness of Mel Bush and spurious morality there was a season that attempted to a) do something different with the Doctor and b) still reassure us that we’re watching the same show. This is a trick that’s still being pulled-off today.

At first glance it looks like the Production Team’s tried to cram as much from the past into this season to remind us that it’s still Doctor Who. The gang’s all here in season 22: Cybermen and Daleks bookend the season with the Master, another Doctor and the Sontarans all thrown in for good measure. In fact only one story - ‘Vengeance on Varos’ - makes no reference to the Doctor’s past (unless you count the TARDIS failing), but creates in Sil a villian so memorable he returns in the next season. Viewed this way you could say season 22 is more of a celebration than season 20 was - what would you rather have in an anniversary season - ‘Terminus’ or ‘The Two Doctors’? Actually, don’t answer that question. The point is that in order to keep the audience still aware that this is Doctor Who they’re watching, albeit in new 45 minute chunks, the production team seems to think that multiple elements from the past are a great idea and to give them their credit they at least try something different with these elements.

Let’s start with the biggest difference to the show - the Doctor himself. Bravely, Colin Baker’s performance as the Doctor ranges from the psychotic to the charming, with plenty of opportunities inbetween for standing against the injustices of the universe. The problem is that those ‘brave’ moments of the Doctor being angry, pedantic, borderline deranged are the ones we seem to take with us from the stories. Rather than tell us anything about Baker’s portrayal of the Doctor as a whole, these moments stick out painfully like sore thumbs. Witness the Doctor telling Peri “Don’t be afraid, I won’t hurt you,” in ‘Attack of the Cybermen’ and Nicola Bryant looking like she’s ready to run out of the TARDIS the minute it lands, taking the audience with her. Thankfully we can’t see the expression on her face while Colin is shouting “Unstable, unstable, UNSTABLE?!” at her.

Perhaps even more disturbing are this Doctor’s lapses into introspection and even depression. While Tom Baker’s Doctor did this usually for comic effect and David Tennant took self-reflective to new levels of glumness, Colin Baker has the sixth Doctor despairing at the finality of existence, see how morose he is at the TARDIS shutting down in ‘Vengeance on Varos’ and his supposition that he’s at the centre of a universal collapse in ‘The Two Doctors’, the hands goes in the pockets, the stare fixes off somewhere in the distance, he feels utterly alone.

The Doctor’s unstable personality could have been the perfect opportunity to reintroduce some mystery to the character, but perhaps what the audience wants is reassurance rather than mystery in a hero and even as way back as 1985 they needed it established quicker than one whole season. ‘The Twin Dilemma’ certainly hadn’t given the audience that feeling that Doctor Who was going to be a comfortable viewing experience and so it was probably a high-risk strategy to introduce the season with a complex, continuity-reliant story in ‘Attack of the Cybermen’.

The opening story aptly demonstrates those elements it thinks are brave: Colin’s still unstable Doctor, tinkering with the TARDIS shape, a baddie being a goodie in Lytton and a ‘harder-edged’ feel to the show (represented by Terry Molloy playing Serpico). The reassuring elements seem to be: the Doctor, the Cybermen and some confused mixture of the past’s references and continuity (‘The Tenth Planet’, ‘The Tomb of the Cybermen’, ‘The Web of Fear’, ‘The Invasion’). However this isn’t enough for audiences, those stories being referenced are about twenty years old and even the Target reading 13 year old won’t feel any direct connection with those touchpoints. In fact ‘disconnected’ seems to be a very good word to describe ‘Attack of the Cybermen’ it assumes you know things you might not, it asks you to care about people you might not and asks you to accept some concepts you might not (like mad time travel ideas).

If any of this is sounding familiar one might see similarities between this story and say ‘The Impossible Astronaut’. While this story’s points of reference may only have been from a season ago, it again pays no concession to the first-time or casual viewer, it has some crazy time travel plotting and the lead character is not just unstable, he’s dead. The difference is here that thanks to the current received wisdom in fandom ‘The Impossible Astronaut’ is a complex season opener for a show that knows its audience, it might therefore be applicable to say that the 1985 production team thought the same thing about their version of Doctor Who. Let’s examine the rest of the season.

Much has been written about the post-modern take on watching Doctor Who in ‘Vengeance on Varos’ (so I won’t dwell on it here, Google it). It’s cleverly done and as we’ve said was repeated as a method for framing the story in season 23. In Sil a villain is created who is so repulsive you wince watching him (and then wince at the S&M slave costumes his attendants are wearing) and Martin Jarvis plays a perfectly pitched character in the Governor, wanting a better world for his little planet and yet terrified for his own life too. All of these elements could be put in the brave category. Reassuringly the Doctor is still willing to champion rebellion over tyranny, especially when it comes to big business (or in fact taxation, see ‘The Sunmakers’ for similar), there’s lots of corridors to run down and yes, the Doctor is still prepared to fight to defend himself, Baker properly echoes Pertwee here and it works.

‘The Mark of the Rani’ is our pseudo-historical for this season with the sort-of ruthless Rani who wants our brain chemicals only for the Master and the Doctor to both interfere with her plans. I would class this story as the least brave out of this season as the team seem to be relying on Ainley’s Master to antagonise the Doctor without giving O’Mara and Baker the proper face-off both should have had. Reassuringly though, the Doctor’s willing to put a stop to mucking-about with earth history and of course it looks fantastic due to excellent design work by Paul Trerise and direction by Sarah Hellings at a great location.

In fact, what is the Master up to? According to his conversation with the Rani he has decided he can enslave humanity through interference with the Industrial Revolution. However he only seems to have formulated this plan after visiting the Rani’s abandoned planet of Miasimia Goria and then following her to Earth. Why then, for the love of Omega’s interstellar pants, does he choose to drag the one person he knows will completely stuff-up his plan into the scenario? He admits to the Rani his vendetta with the Doctor drives him, but that he has a ‘greater purpose’ in the ruling of Earth. He’s certainly demented, just not quite ‘Time-Flight’ demented.

At this point it’s probably pertinent to talk about ‘the tree’. By and large the special effects in season 22 are pretty good. With the exception of the Bandrils, the aliens look fascinating and repulsive - Sil, the Borad even the Cryons are effectively strange. Peri turning into a bird is, at least memorable as is the burning Android in ‘Timelash’. The model effects in the stories are all good - we see Sontaran ships ‘roll’ through space! It therefore seems a little odd that they dropped the ball with Luke turning into a tree in ‘Mark of the Rani’. He becomes an embarrassingly shaped black stump, that really just gives Peri a cuddle. Anyone who tuned in at that moment would have have reasoned that Doctor Who had indeed lost its way.

Robert Holmes’s contribution is of course ‘The Two Doctors’. Multi-Doctor stories had been done before, but this one doesn’t have any anniversary to hang its hat off (it later turned out to be the ‘100th DOCTOR WHO NOVEL! INTRODUCTION FROM JOHN NATHAN-TURNER!’) and brings us the Second Doctor on a Time Lord mission to prevent illegal time experiments and ends up being Floyd on Cannibalism, in Spain, with the Sontarans. The first six-parter (basically) since the unfinished ‘Shada’, ‘The Two Doctors’ operates with two incongruous settings - the space station Chimera, for the first two episodes and then the house in Seville, Spain, for the next four, which frankly you wouldn’t get in any other show, at least not on TV in 1985.* Not only does Patrick Troughton get equal opportunity to play light and shade, but also the comic antagonism that marked the couple of appearances he had with Jon Pertwee is echoed here in his performance with Colin Baker. Fraser Hines does well too, clearly enjoying the scenes he has with Troughton, less comfortable when trying to act like a traumatised battle survivor. However they’re both overshadowed by Jacqueline Pearce and John Stratton who Holmes clearly enjoys writing more than anyone else. Consequently the story seems unbalanced and the Sontarans come-off worst, playing second fiddle to the Androgums. You only have to watch ‘The Time Warrior’ and ‘The Sontaran Experiment’ to show how neutered they are here.

So, in theory, there is plenty that is reassuring here: a cosy old Doctor and companion, an old alien menace and Robert Holmes telling us something new about the Time Lords. On the brave side the show films abroad once more (but can’t find anything better to do with it rather than have an elongated chase sequence, see ‘Arc of Infinity’) and Shockeye is as repellent a new villain as Sil is, but that seems to be about it. It’s also twenty minutes too long, with everything after the restaurant scenes in Seville seemingly tacked-on. ‘The Two Doctors’ wants to be the ‘event’ story in Season 22, but it has at least two other stories competing for that title too, hence it will never be the classic the production team thought it would be.

Things didn’t look good for the season’s next story from the beginning. The Radio Times listed ‘Timelash’ as ‘On Karfel the Borad rules, but all is far from OK.’. The season’s penultimate story ‘Timelash’ probably has the worst reputation amongst fans probably because it borrows several motifs from very recent stories. The idea of a rebellion on an alien planet against a tyrannical dictatorship was prevalent in ‘Vengeance on Varos’, the idea of dangerous time experiments was in ‘The Two Doctors’ and a masked, disfigured scientist had been seen in ‘Caves of Androzani’, ‘Vengeance on Varos’ and for those with even longer memories ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’. Not only that, but Sharaz Jek, Quillam and the Borad all want to do things to Peri.

Poor Peri. She is woefully under-used in this story, chained up with a neck collar (not seen one of those since the kink-fest Secretary) and generally used as a bargaining object. Amazingly though this is all done in sensible clothing, rather than the shorts Nicola Bryant had been made to wear prior to this. She’s also menaced by the Morlox, a hideous creature that has the head and neck of a dinosaur and... well just that. However, that’s nothing compared to the Timelash.

Looking like the magic door on Stars in their Eyes the Timelash itself is a time-corridor to nowhere, used as an execution device (does that mean that those who fall into it suffer from Karfel Tunnel Syndrome?), which in itself is a neat idea. The colliding of the TARDIS with Vena who has been thrown into the tunnel causes her to arrive on Earth and into the arms of HG Wells.

Remember this: In the post-2005 series the Doctor has met: Charles Dickens, Queen Victoria, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth the First, Madame du Pompadour, Agatha Christie, Winston Churchill and Vincent van Gogh, this is a marked change from the original series where the meeting of famous people from history were a matter of anecdote rather than realisation onscreen. Having HG Wells in the story may seem like an obvious choice for a guest appearance, but at this point in Doctor Who it’s a pretty unique thing to happen. A brave move, then. The references to The Time Machine and The Invisible Man are at least pretty lightly handled compared to how Russell T Davies might have written them.

A light touch isn’t something that Paul Darrow understood, but his performance of Tekker isn’t as nearly as bad as fans seem to remember it or as bad as if Darrow had been allowed to perform it with the full-on Richard III hump. In fact he’s so oily and evil that you really do want the Doctor to chin him at the end of episode one - in fact that would have been so much better than the awkward elbow-push that he ends up giving the Borad into the Timelash.

The final story of the season is the best. Some may say this accolade should belong to ‘Vengeance on Varos’, but really this is the finest distillation of Eric Saward’s plan for the series and his obvious hero-worship of Robert Holmes. This adoration extends to blessing ‘Revelation of the Daleks’ not only with shades of Evelyn Waugh and Harry Harrison, but also three double-acts: Kara & Vogel, Orcini & Bostock and Lilt & Takis. It’s amazing the DJ is only the DJ and not Smashie & Nicie.

From the snow on the ground of Nekros to Tasembaker’s desperate whining and of course Davros’s opinions about ‘consumer resistance’ ‘Revelation of the Daleks’ is a dark, horrible joy to watch. It’s Saward’s opinion that the director Graeme Harper was the only one doing Doctor Who any credit in the mid 80s and while that may not be strictly true, his energy for the programme certainly comes across here. The corridors of Nekros are dark and hide numerous horrors, the Glass Dalek is a particular favourite. What seems reassuring here is the echoing of Hinchcliff era Gothic overtones tainted by capitalism (lots of season 22 is about the control of commodities, even ‘Mark of the Rani’) grotesque characters skulking in the shadows. The brave elements of the story seem to stem from the new levels of desperation that the characters find themselves in, whether it is feeding a galaxy or unrequited love - by contrast, the Doctor’s task of stopping the creation of a new Dalek army from humans seems relatively straightforward.

There’s another idea new viewers might recognise, the idea of using humans for Daleks occurs again in ‘Parting of the Ways’. By the time ‘Journey’s End’ comes around Davros is using his own tissue to create a Dalek army, which still turns on him and keeps him locked in a basement. One would hope that by now he’s given up creating Dalek armies from anything.

The series ends with the Doctor telling Peri “I’ll take you to B-” which was supposed to be ‘Blackpool’, though might as well now be ‘Brian Blessed’. However it was not to be, Doctor Who went on hiatus and was issued the ultimatum that resulted in season 23’s trial.

Season 22 may not be the fan’s favourite or fondly remembered, but nowadays there’s lots there to enjoy. Yes, Colin Baker’s shouting was a serious mis-step in characterisation (that he grew out of) and yes there’s some bad structuring with writers both new to the show and highly experienced struggling with the 45 minute format, but look at the recurring themes of commercialisation, capital punishment, violence and video culture - it’s very 80s, but its themes also have relevance today. To ignore season 22 is to miss an important part of Doctor Who’s history, a show aware of its past but trying new things and is perhaps closer to the post-2005 version of the programme than we would care to say.

*At least as far as I’m aware - we traditionally think of Doctor Who’s main competition as being The A-Team which had debuted in July 1983 and was firmly established by early 1985. Robin of Sherwood was being broadcast on ITV too. The big success story in 1985 was the BBC’s own Eastenders and arguably dictated the direction the BBC wanted to go in from the mid-80s onwards, alongside the classic Edge of Darkness which was broadcast in November 1985.

Doctor Who returns this Easter

2011-04-19T19:11:00.004+01:00

Last year was a rollercoaster: Matt Smith's amazing new Doctor came bursting out of the Tardis and tried every ride in the funfair - except one. It's time to step aboard the ghost train.

Amy’s Choices

2011-04-18T16:43:00.002+01:00

Karen Gillan gives her personal insight into Amy Pond, hinting at changes we’ll see in the forthcoming series.

Moffat's masterplan is unfolding...

Three seasons of the Fifth Doctor

2011-04-15T13:07:00.002+01:00

Guest post by Andrew Lewin

When Peter Davison took over the role of Doctor Who in 1981, he was following the tenure (reign might be a better word) of Tom Baker, who had starred in the series longer than anyone else before or since. By contrast, Davison stayed for just under three seasons (at a time when a season was half the length it was under William Hartnell or Patrick Troughton) and became one of the shortest tenants of the famous police box.

Davison made his decision to leave at the end of his second season, disenchanted with the quality of the scripts and increasingly at odds with the producer John Nathan-Turner (JNT to one and all.) But it's often reported that Davison took one look at the script and production of his final story, "The Caves of Androzani", and declared that if he'd had more stories of this calibre then he would have had no hesitation in signing up for a third season. That's understandable: "Androzani" was indeed one of the finest classic Doctor Who stories, not just of Davison's era but of all time. But in the Davison retrospective documentary "Come In Number Five" provided as an extra to the special edition DVD of Resurrection of the Daleks in the Revisitations 2 boxset, Davison goes further than this and suggests that as a whole, his second season was a muddled disappointment and his third season saw the show back in top form - and it was this overall trend that made him eventually disappointed to have opted to leave when he did.

This ... surprised me. Or to put it another way, I fundamentally disagree with his assessments of the relative strengths of his three seasons.

Let's start on reasonably safe ground: the 1982 season that started with "Castrovalva", Davison's first full story in the title role, was a very strong season, carrying on from what had proved to be an even stronger final season for Tom Baker the previous year. The show seemed to have a renewed sense of purpose and confidence, and was making efforts to take itself seriously again after several years of lampooning around ("Horns of Nimon") and dealing with sets so shoddily constructed that they collapsed underfoot ("Nightmare of Eden"). There were strong scripts with real science fiction (and science) ideas - where else could you find a show with an entire story constructed around the concept of entropy and the second law of thermodynamics and actually have it work?

Davison's first series started with a visit to the Big Bang and a cheeky appropriation of MC Escher's work for "Castrovalva", while at the same time Davison wowed us with his takes on all the Doctor's former personalities; then there was the somewhat average but solidly turned-out and enjoyable "Four to Doomsday" before one of the season's highlights in "Kinda" - not well understood or received at the time but now regarded as one of the finest serials the show ever did. This was followed by a crowd-pleasing historical adventure with "The Visitation" taking the crew back to 1666 Pudding Lane and some brilliantly constructed new alien monsters called Terileptils. The show's confidence showed through in the next story, a two-parter for the first time in nearly a decade and one that landed the Tardis crew back in 1925, doing away with any science fiction or alien monsters whatsoever. It proved to be the calm before the storm, before one of the show's most stylish and effective serials - "Earthshock". The shock return of the Cybermen and the death of a companion: anyone who was a fan of the show back then will have the final, music-less credit roll over a background picture of a crushed and broken gold star for mathematical excellence seared into their memories. It had been a fantastic run of episodes, and if the season finale "Time Flight" was a huge disappointment then it was a shame - but a one-off exception to the rule.

So was Davison's second season (more accurately, season 20 of the show) such a decline and disappointment, so bad that it resulted in Davison deciding to quit? It certainly had one major problem in hindsight - the fact that it was the twentieth anniversary of the show's launch in 1963, which led JNT to decide that every single story must have some sort of callback to the show's past.

It started with "Arc of Infinity" - not perhaps the greatest of stories, but far better than "Time Flight". Fans got excited about seeing renegade Time Lord Omega back again (he'd last been seen in the tenth anniversary special, "The Three Doctors"); the overseas location shooting in Amsterdam was a first and looked rather good, making even routine runaround chase scenes something special; and Peter Davison himself put in a fantastically haunting performance as a dying "fake" version of himself. Then there was "Snakedance", a sequel to "Kinda" and the source of all those clips of a young Martin Clunes in funny costumes that they like to embarrass him with on clip shows. It's not as strikingly original as "Kinda" but in many ways is a better fit for the Doctor Who universe, and better written. This was followed by "Mawdryn Undead", which certainly suffered from a director who didn't seem to know how to dim the studio floodlighting to create atmosphere, but on the other hand did feature the return of the wonderful Nicholas Courtney in his signature role of Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, and also the delicious Valentine Dyall as the most evil being in the universe (the Black Guardian, returning in a trilogy of connected stories.) It had a clever time-stream jumping script, and while it rather lost its way and fell into mediocrity it certainly had its moments. "Terminus" showed ambition both in story and in set design (finally, a dark and dirty set with an atmosphere); and, erm, the lovely Sarah Sutton suddenly wearing a very short skirt and low cut top, but that's not important right now. Next up there was "Enlightenment", a show of such strikingly original ideas (eternals and ephemerals) and visuals (classic cutters using the solar system planets as marker buoys in a grand sailing race!) and superb cast (Keith Barron, Tony Caunter, Lynda Baron - just don't mention Leee John) that the spirit of this serial seems to be making a comeback in the 2011 Matt Smith season with the third story "Curse of the Black Spot". The script may sometimes have exceeded the reach of achievable FX at the time but this was still a magical story of the type only Doctor Who could ever do.

The season once again stumbled at the end with "The King's Demons", and sadly lost the story that was meant to be the big finish (featuring the Daleks - more of which in a minute) due to a BBC strike, but then there was the official 20th anniversary celebration "The Five Doctors" which went ahead despite having to recast the first Doctor (Richard Hurndall surprisingly good standing in for the late Hartnell) and having to work around a sulky Tom Baker who refused to return and had to be replaced with archive footage from the abandoned season 17 story "Shada". ("Tom Baker, you should be ashamed of yourself!" says current series runner Steven Moffat in a recent interview about Baker's refusal to appear. ""Every day of your life, you should regret the decision you took that day!" Of course, Moffat has his own reasons for looking back - he's already planning the 50th anniversary special for 2013.)

Despite those compromises, and trying to fit in a galaxy of former Doctors and companions (most not able to be confirmed until the last minute) into a coherent plot was a small miracle of television production, and it's hard not to look back at that second Davison season as overall being a success, if admittedly not of the same order as the first year. Why Davison should look back upon this group of stories and conclude despairingly that it was time to move on is difficult to fathom.

Now, let's look at the third season, the one that Davison liked so much that it would have changed his mind about departing if it had come first.

It starts with "Warriors of the Deep". It's another show that badly needs some dark, moody, atmospheric direction to succeed - but instead gets some of the flattest floodlighting we've seen in the show. As a result, the show's 'monster moment' features the series' most derided creature, the Myrka. It looks like a two-man pantomime horse painted green and with some frills sown on: it's utterly derisible. The story angered dedicated fans by riding roughshod over established series mythologies pertaining to the Silurians and the Sea Devils, and to the casual viewer is just dull and boring. Then there's "The Awakening", which isn't bad and certainly looks good, allowing the BBC to play to its traditional strength of historical drama serials: but the story is rather confused, seemingly wanting to be some mishmash of Quatermass and Sapphire and Steel. It's not bad, but it's not particularly good either. After this the season moves on to "Frontios", which has some very striking ideas and visuals - the shattered Tardis remnants littered around the place are truly unsettling. It's let down somewhat by being very artificially studio-bound, and the story of the human colonists doesn't really gell, but this week's monsters - gravity slugs the Tractators - are remarkably effective and creepy. It's not a story that will appeal to everyone, but on the whole this is one of the season's hits, albeit flawed and "difficult".

The next story should be a slam-dunk success - it's the "Resurrection of the Daleks" delayed from the previous season, with added Davros. How could you screw this one up? Very easily it turns out. The direction and production design are all top-notch, but the writing for this story is appalling. The violence and body count is so high that at the end, when companion Tegan declares "It isn't fun anymore, Doctor" and leaves, you're with her every step of the way and feel like walking out with her. (A more detailed review of this story is available on the author's own blog.) Then there's "Planet of Fire", which benefits from being this year's "let's take the production crew on holiday" story - set in the other-worldly volcanic landscape of Lanzarote in the days before it became an overly familiar top tourist destination. It looks great, but someone forgot to pack a story in their luggage: the script has to write out two companions (Turlough and the best-forgotten Kamelion), introduce another (Peri) and have the Master return. It's overloaded by all this and implodes into indifference under the sun.

Then finally Peter Davison's time is over, and we're finishing up with "The Caves of Androzani" - a truly brilliant serial, one of the very best, no question. If Davison was still saying 'I'd have stayed if they were all like "Androzani"' then we'd have no absolutely argument. But 'if it had been like the third season' - really? The dreadful "Warriors", the confused "Awakening", the difficult "Frontios", the awful writing of "Resurrection", the damp squib of "Planet of Fire" make this for me the start of another major slump in Doctor Who's long history. Here the exception to the rule is "Androzani", the jewel in the season's crown, where before the exceptions have been the duds. The next season would see script writer Eric Saward get a Doctor more to his liking - the abrasive Sixth Doctor as played by Colin Baker - and we all know how disastrous that turned out to be.

I'll take the second Davison season over the third any day: it might not have been as good as the first, it might have been self-indulgent with all those love notes to the series' past, and it might have faltered and clung on by its fingertips at times, but it just about pulled it off and maintained the quality. By contrast, the third Davison season dropped the ball on multiple occasions (and Baker's first season couldn't even find the ball to start playing the game in the first place.)

It's to Davison's immense credit that despite being one of the shorter-serving actors in the title role - and at a time when the series was, to put it diplomatically, "struggling creatively" - both he and his portrayal of the Doctor are still very fondly regarded and seen as one of the best periods of the show. Indeed, in the DVD extra "Come In Number Five", when documentary presenter David Tennant (who knows a thing or two about being a popular Time Lord) reiterates that for him, Peter Davison "was my Doctor" - not only is it heartfelt, he speaks for many of us when he does.

And as accolades and tributes go, it doesn't get much better than that.

Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, technical specialist (in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement.) Formerly employed by the UK's Central Office of Information (which provides marketing and communications services to other government departments), Andrew currently provides NASCAR, IndyCar and GP2 racing coverage for motorsports website crash.net, and blogs at andrewlewin.wordpress.com. His other interests include film and television, science fiction - and he never met an Apple product he didn't like!

Transformers perform Michael Jackson's Thriller!

2011-04-10T18:04:00.000+01:00

This is too awesome not to share!

Cyber3PO & R2Dalek

2011-04-05T10:11:00.002+01:00

Doctor Who Star Wars mashup for the win.

Doctor Who: Mannequin Mania

2011-03-31T15:19:00.004+01:00

The Third Doctor must face terrifying plastic Autons and the evil Master in these two classic 1970’s adventures!

Spearhead from Space: Newly regenerated, the Doctor returns in the first colour tv adventure. Exiled by the Time Lords to Earth, he finds himself working with UNIT to investigate an apparent meteor shower connected to strange events at a local plastics factory. The factory is manufacturing mannequins with a sinister purpose..

Terror of the Autons: The Master arrives on Earth in his TARDIS, camouflaging it as a horse box in a Circus. He immediately contacts the Nestenes and assists them in mounting a second invasion of Earth. The Doctor and his new assistant, Jo Grant, have to tackle the Autons, the Master and a large number of deadly daffodils!

Special Features:

Spearhead from Space
Two Commentaries: One with actors Caroline John and Nicholas Courtney and another with producer Derrick Sherwin and script editor Terrance Dicks.
Down to Earth – Cast and crew look back at the making of this story and how a strike at the BBC studios inadvertently created the only classic series story to be made entirely on film. With actor Jon Pertwee, producers Derrick Sherwin and Barry Letts, script editor Terrance Dicks, costume designer Christine Rawlins and assistant script editor (and inadvertent Auton actor) Robin Squire. Narrated by Carl Kennedy.
Regenerations - From Black and White to Colour – ‘Spearhead from Space’ marked not only the arrival of a new Doctor but also the transition from black and white to colour. This documentary looks at the challenges faced by programme makers during this period.
UNIT Recruitment Film (dur. 4’ 48”) – a spoof army recruitment film put together for BBC transmission during Doctor Who’s 30th anniversary celebrations in 1993.
Trailers – two trailers for the 1999 BBC2 transmission of the story and for ‘Doctor Who Night’ from the same year.
Photo Gallery
Coming Soon trailers
Radio Times Listings in Adobe PDF format

Terror of the Autons
Commentary - With actors Katy Manning and Nicolas Courtney, producer Barry Letts.
Life on Earth – In this documentary, cast and crew look back at the making of the story and the differences in the way Doctor Who was made in the seventies compared to now.
The Doctor’s Moriarty– with the introduction of the Master, the Doctor now had his very own Moriarty, who would be the dark figure behind every story in season eight, and many more beyond that. This featurette discusses the enduring appeal of the character.
Plastic Fantastic – how did the writers of Doctor Who and other programmes take something as everyday as plastic and turn it against us?
Photo Gallery
Coming Soon trailer
Radio Times Listings and promotional material in Adobe PDF format

Pre-order Mannequin Mania now.

IDW Publishing launches Doctor Who Comics

2011-03-21T14:37:00.006Z

IDW Publishing has launched Doctor Who Comics, which encompasses contemporary and classic adventures; first published by Marvel UK; The Iron Legion, illustrated by Dave Gibbons, is available as a free in-app download.

"We're excited to bring out DOCTOR WHO comics on the PSP, as it's a perfect comic for the game audience," stated Jeff Webber, IDW's director of ePublishing. "For Apple devices, while all of the issues are also available in our IDW Comics app for our regular readers, there are many ravenous DOCTOR WHO fans that may not be familiar with the comics. So we created a stand-alone DOCTOR WHO Comics app that lets us feature the Doctor at the top level of the app store, offering users worldwide a completely focused experience." Ed Casey, Director of Licensing, BBC Worldwide America, who brokered the deal, said: "DOCTOR WHO fans are loyal and passionate and I'm sure they'll love the fact that they can now get their favorite Time Lord in this 21st century format." Prior to this digital launch, IDW's DOCTOR WHO comics were only available in print in North America. Available to international readers for the first time, DOCTOR WHO digital series presently includes over forty issues, with more added each month. The full catalog is available for iPads and iPhones as a custom branded app, and as individual issues on the PSP.

Added Webber, "Plus, it's just awesomely fun to build an app that keeps the look and feel of something that could be a part of the TARDIS itself. It's just possible that the app might start pulling in comics from the future that haven't even been created yet!"

Doctor Who returns to both BBC One and BBC AMERICA screens on Saturday, April 23.

Download Doctor Who Comics (iTunes)

Who created Davros the creator of the Daleks?

2011-03-20T17:31:00.002Z

That's the subject of a damages claim being brought by Mr Steven Clark, 51, against the BBC and its commercial arm BBC Worldwide for profits generated from the fictional character of Davros as seen in the hit television series Doctor Who!

Mr Clark, speaking to the Daily Mail, says he invented Davros for a competition run by the now defunct TV Action magazine in 1972.

Steven Clark with TV Action magazine

The character of Davros, the maniacal genius that created the dreaded Daleks, would not appear until Genesis of the Daleks in 1975. Three years after Mr Clark had submitted his original sketch and story idea to TV Action.

Steven Clark's sketch of the evil Davros

Allegedly the original broadcast was met with anger by Mr Clark! If so, why has it taken him almost four decades to pursue legal action?

Mr Clark said: "The money aspect of it is not my primary motivation. I am proud of the character I created and I just want my work to be recognised. It would be nice to be finally linked to the character after all this time."

BBC Worldwide said: "We have received a claim from Mr Clark relating to matters from the Seventies."

Read more on the story here.

Doctor Who: Time - Red Nose Day 2011

2011-03-18T21:45:00.003Z

This year's Doctor Who 2-part special for Comic Relief is a joy to behold! The BBC has officially released the story on its YouTube channel.

Download on iTunes.

There's still time to donate. Thank you.

Perfect Effect Reflector Scouting Force X

2011-03-16T20:41:00.002Z

Reflector, a Decepticon combiner, debuted early in Transformers G1. However, the toy was never released in stores and only offered as a mail-in exclusive by Hasbro in the US.

Perfect Effect have decided to release a custom figure based on the G1 animated series colour scheme with an awesome array of accessories.

What are your thoughts? Still consider it a knock off, boycotting as it's not licensed, or welcome it since we may never see Hasbro or Takara Tomy release a character like this?

War for Cybertron: Starscream action figure

2011-03-14T15:33:00.000Z

This UK exclusive Legends Class Starscream toy from Hasbro was given away for free to those who ordered Activision's Transformers War for Cybertron game from ShopTo.net.

Review: Mara Tales

2011-03-12T13:47:00.004Z

Guest post by Mark Cockram

This DVD boxset brings together two stories from Peter Davison's time in the lead role.

The first is Kinda, originally broadcast in 1982, which follows the exploits of the TARDIS crew on the planet Deva Loka, where a colonial exploration team is falling in to disarray as one by one the colonists go missing.

At this time in the programme's history the Doctor's companions were not particularly well served compared to the character arcs that we see unfold in the revived series. Janet Fielding, who plays the fifth Doctor's companion Tegan is given something different to do in this story which she obviously enjoys.

With Nyssa virtually absent from 5 minutes in and Tegan trapped in limbo by the creepy Mara (David Bowie's Ashes to Ashes Video anyone?) Matthew Waterhouse's Adric is left as the companion with most of the lines, despite his best efforts to act his little wooden socks off he fails miserably, thankfully the ensemble cast manage to hold it together in spite of this.

The guest actors are particularly good, they include 1950's big screen actor Richard Todd, a barnstorming performance from Simon Rouse (best known as Jack Meadows in The Bill), Mary Morris, and a decent turn from Nerys Hughes as scientific officer Todd.

The DVD extras for Kinda are very good, they include CGI effects which make a huge difference to the finale.

There is an amusing audio commentary from Davison, Fielding, Waterhouse and Hughes which includes Matthew Waterhouse being teased about the now infamous story of how he offered acting tips to the most experienced actor on the show! And Janet Fielding is very charming and self deprecating about her performance.

There is also a making of documentary, and a feature on Who Director Peter Grimwade and production notes.

The second story in this collection is Snakedance, First broadcast in 1983

Although this story possibly lacks the impact of Kinda, the plot is perhaps a little easier to follow.

The plot sees the TARDIS crew (now sans Adric) arrive on the planet Manussa, which just happens to be celebrating 500 years since the Mara was banished. Cue Tegan being taken over once more by the insidious Mara.

The guest cast is also very good in this story, including Martin Clunes, who is very assured in his first TV role, despite having to wear a ridiculous costume, Brian Miller as Dugdale and Jonathon Morris as Chela. Also worthy of mention is Colette O'Neil who plays the doting mother to Clunes' Lon.

Extras for Snakedance include a very entertaining commentary featuring Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton. A making of documentary, deleted scenes, an 'In studio' recording showing an effects sequence being shot, a clip from Saturday Superstore and more.

Overall, a good value set, and an interesting couple of stories for those of you new to 'Classic Who'.

You can buy Mara Tales on DVD now.

If you would like to submit a guest post, please use the contact form.

Death's Head was cool! Yes?

2011-03-10T17:21:00.000Z

Death's Head, created by Marvel UK's Simon Furman and Geoff Senior, made memorable appearances in the Transformers comic and Doctor Who magazine in the 1980s.

If only Hasbro had licensed an official action figure Transformers tie-in...

Review: The Doctor Who Experience

2011-03-08T16:34:00.007Z

Guest post by Michael Williams

Last week I had the unalloyed pleasure of visiting the Doctor Who Experience at London’s Olympia. As a life-long fan of the series (starting with Pertwee, but my memories begin with Tom Baker’s first season), I’ve been to a number of exhibitions in my time. The small, dark labyrinth of the old Longleat exhibition was a place of pilgrimage for me. That venue, enshrined by the 20th anniversary event in 1983 (where John Hood and I unknowingly first crossed paths..), was the first place where I could physically encounter the world of the Doctor, and the monsters that were otherwise safely contained in the TV (aside from their occasional forays into my nightmares..). Later, after Who went off the air, the exhibitions maintained their galleries of sometimes worse-for-wear artefacts of the past. I finally got to the exhibition at Blackpool and Dapol’s extensive ‘BBC Doctor Who Experience’ at Llangollen, in their final throes in the last decade. How things change. With new Who we’ve had exhibitions all over the country, as well as special Proms and the 2010 Doctor Who Live arena shows. Now in 2011, a new Doctor Who Experience promises us the chance to ‘Be Part of the Adventure’.

Evading the crowds gathering for Sky’s Got to Dance show, we found our way to Olympia on a Sunday morning for our 10:30 entry time. As the elevator doors open onto the second floor of Olympia Two, you are hit by Murray Gold’s rousing music and the keen air of anticipation. A small exhibition area features props and costumes from the past season, including those from ‘The Hungry Earth’ and ‘The Vampires of Venice’, and you are informed that photography is permitted everywhere but in the interactive walk-through part of the Experience. There are also codes to be downloaded for use in the shop, so do bring your Wi-Fi-enabled devices with you. A countdown alerts you to the approaching departure, and some small children were clearly fearful about what exactly awaited them inside. Our group of three theoretically more mature Whovians were equally full of anticipation, if rather unsure about what was ahead. It’s time, here we go...

I’ll draw a veil over some details of the walk-through part of the Experience, as you may wish to discover those for yourselves, but the first room presents a montage of season five highlights, which serves as a reminder of the most visually audacious moments of this season. An effective piece of stagecraft sweeps visitors through the crack in time and enter the Steven Moffat-scripted narrative which ensues. Matt Smith promptly takes charge, appearing on screens throughout in the quirky and animated manner you’d expect from the Eleventh Doctor, to welcome visitors as his honorary companions.

One can be cynical about the ubiquity of ‘Experience’ attractions these days (everything, it seems, can be branded into an ‘experience’), but walking through those TARDIS doors onto a replica of the current TARDIS set was genuinely thrilling. While the Doctor does his thing on the screens and encourages kids to fiddle with some knobs, I just looked around this substantial 360° set and let my imagination take flight. This is the closest thing I’ll ever get to being inside the TARDIS. No other exhibition has engendered this feeling so strongly, and I began to imagine what it would actually be like to travel in a ship like this, and to wonder which alien world those TARDIS doors would open onto next. But no time to linger - Geronimo! Off we go again. It is no surprise that the Doctor’s arch-nemesis, the Daleks feature strongly, and yes it is the controversial Paradigm we encounter. The walk-through is aimed at kids, but adults aren’t left out (it knows its fanbase), and can here contemplate the intriguing canonical implications of what unfolds.

The walk-through part of the Experience feels extensive and innovative, featuring real props, often with animatronics, a genuinely spooky (if fleeting) encounter with the Weeping Angels, and even 3D projection. Our group was of a manageable size (with a guide keeping things moving at the back), although we were a little squeezed at our end of the 3D room, reducing the effect somewhat, as did a too-bright screen on the left. The walk-through section was over all-too-soon at around 25 minutes, but it was fun. The advantage of the exhibition section is that you can spend as long as you like, so we did spend over two hours at the venue altogether.

The first part of the exhibition presents costumes for each Doctor, with Smith present as a waxwork standing proud next to his full-size TARDIS prop (no visitor missed this photo opportunity). Speaking of which, a studio was set up nearby where you can either buy the photo taken of you at arrival, or pose against green-screen to have yourself inserted either into the Pandoria or the TARDIS. Walking beyond a display of sonic screwdrivers, was something very special indeed, and my highlight of the Experience: the Tenth Doctor’s TARDIS set. This is the genuine article (see Doctor Who Magazine 431 for more info on the exhibits). The set is a little charred around the edges following its own regeneration with the death of David Tennant’s Doctor, scenes of which play on an adjacent screen to powerful effect. The set is impressive and substantial and, crucially, you can get up close to it and absorb the detail from different angles. You can really start to imagine Tennant leaping through those TARDIS doors and plunging us into a new adventure. Corny as it seems, just standing there amid surroundings so fantastic, and yet so familiar, was a strangely affecting experience.

Nearby is the classic TARDIS interior from ‘The Five Doctors’. Smaller and simpler than its modern counterpart, with somewhat plasticky hard-edges instead of the organic forms seen today. But it’s still special. And part of history, both of the series itself and, for those of us who grew up in the 70s or 80s, of our own childhoods too. Yikes, I recalled seeing this very console at the 1983 Longleat event. 28 years later (!), here I was again. And just look at what we have now, as the tour continues to celebrate the memories of a whole new generation of fans. Here, a display that would make Henry van Statten proud presents heads of every iteration of Cybermen, along with Davros and Daleks old and new. And there’s K9! The new series predominates, of course, but there are illustrious representatives of monsters past too: an original 1967 Ice Warrior, Sontarans, the impressive K1 ‘giant’ robot, and my favourite, a Zygon (who are surely deserving of a return to the series..). The Experience is brought up-to-date with props from ‘A Christmas Carol’, including Kazran’s beautiful cloud control machine. Doubtless, once Season Six airs, the Experience will continue to evolve.

As our visit was part of a birthday weekend, we indulged in the ‘Gold Ticket Package’, which is on the pricey side, but does come with a numbered limited edition print, brochure and laminate and lanyard set (plus 5% discount in the shop). If you would buy these souvenir items anyway, then the deal isn’t bad. However, it would be a better package if it included one of the green-screen photographs mentioned earlier, so I’d advise either getting the more streamlined Silver Package, or just the standard ticket. The latter is good value. The inevitable shop (where all such adventures end!) sold the standard array of Who goodies, including Experience t-shirts and brochures, but was a little disappointing in terms of exclusive merchandise. A few posters or art cards wouldn’t go amiss. Yet, it’s probably a good thing that it is the experience itself that counts at Olympia. In bringing out the child in you, in the best possible way, the Experience succeeds in making you feel part of the adventure that is Doctor Who. It will remind you why you love the series and that there’s nothing else quite like it. I can’t wait to go back...

The Doctor Who Experience is currently booking until 4th September 2011.

To view more of Michael's photos click here. *Contains spoilers*

If you would like to submit a guest post, please use the contact form.

Comic Relief!

2011-03-01T14:25:00.001Z

Doctor Who desktop by the Iconfactory

2011-02-27T20:07:00.002Z

No fan's computer (Mac or PC) would be complete without this awesome Cyberman desktop wallpaper by the Iconfactory.

Be sure to grab some Doctor Who icon goodness, too.

Doctor Who's 'The Brig' dies at 81

2011-02-23T13:04:00.004Z

Late last night I was on Twitter when @sizemore tweeted that Nicholas Courtney had died! Only a few weeks ago I was discussing his last appearance in The Sarah Jane Adventures with @seethree; hoping for an onscreen meeting with Matt Smith's Doctor, too.

Best known to generations of Doctor Who fans as Brigadier Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart AKA The Brig! A stoic character, battling alongside the Doctor (in various regenerations) against Yeti, Cybermen and Axons, whom you instinctually knew would make the heroic choice...

It goes without saying that Nicholas Courtney will be missed, and Doctor Who Magazine has confirmed that it's publishing a tribute issue, which was never in doubt. Although I only met him once at the Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Celebration, Longleat, it's forever preserved as a treasured childhood memory.

Among those to pay tribute today were actor and Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss who said he was "desperately sad" to hear of the death.

"A childhood hero and the sweetest of gentlemen. Splendid chap. All of him," he said.

Read the BBC obituary here.

Whovians on Facebook

2011-02-17T20:45:00.004Z

A few months ago Facebook introduced Groups. So, I decided to setup Whovians: an open group for fans of the eponymous Time Lord, associated spin-offs and more.

Please join and recommend to fellow fans, too.

The Sontaran Experiment action figure set

2011-02-06T16:18:00.002Z

The Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith and Harry Sullivan arrive on a desolate and apparently deserted Earth to discover that a group of shipwrecked astronauts from a human colony, GalSec, have been lured there by a fake distress call. One of their number, Roth, tells Sarah Jane of an alien conducting gruesome experiments on him and his crewmates. The alien turns out to be a Sontaran, Field-Major Styre, who is compiling a report on human physical and mental capabilities as a prelude to an invasion of Earth.

The Doctor challenges Styre to unarmed combat. The Sontaran agrees but is quickly weakened in Earth's unfamiliar gravity. Harry meanwhile enters Styre's ship and uses the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to remove the vital terullian diode bypass transformer, so that when the alien returns there to revitalise himself he is drained of all his energy and destroyed. The Doctor sends a message to the Sontaran fleet, warning them that without Styre's report they cannot invade.

In this great gift set is the Classic Sontaran: Field-Major Styre and his iconic Sontaran space ship along with the Fourth Doctor in duffle coat and hat.

Contents:
1 x Fourth Doctor in duffle coat and hat action figure with Sonic Screwdriver.
1 x Sontaran Field-Major Styre action figure with helmet and gun.
1 x Sontaran Ship.

Pre-order from Forbidden Planet International.

Doctor Who is Character Building!

2011-02-05T16:37:00.000Z

Ever since LEGO started licensing popular IPs such as Batman, Star Wars and Harry Potter, I've longed for LEGO Doctor Who (truth be told since I was a child, myself)! It would appear that the BBC has, too!

BBC Worldwide has announced the splendidly entitled Character Building in conjunction with licensee Character Options.

Fans will be able to build their own Doctor Who world with all their favourite characters including the Doctor and Amy Pond with their infamous foes the Daleks, Cybermen and Weeping Angels.

The minifigs are worth the admission price alone. However, is it churlish to suggest that I'd prefer a LEGO license; if only to play a video game tie-in on par with Batman and Harry Potter: Years 1-4?

Who's your Who?

2011-02-02T18:15:00.001Z

Guest post written by Andrew Lewin

For British males, there are two sure-fire ways of striking up a conversation: ask who is the best James Bond, or else who your favourite Doctor Who is? It never fails to get two strangers talking like old friends in the space of 30 seconds (or if it does fail, you probably won't have anything in common ever with that person, so best to find out right at the start.)

My earliest memories of watching Doctor Who were with Jon Pertwee in the lead role. For me, he simply WAS the Doctor, no question. I loved the earth-bound stories, the UNIT family, everything about the show. I had no idea about the past of the series until I got a Radio Times special magazine celebrating the tenth anniversary, which printed an episode guide of all the stories to date. Oh, how I longed to see those serials - but of course, back in those days there were no videos or DVDs, and such shows were never repeated on the network. Thank goodness, then, for the Target novelisations of these stories, where I could immerse myself in the eras of William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton and find delights such as the Yeti and the Zarbi waiting for me. Truly, I owe my present literacy and love of books to the voracious reading of those adaptations. Such a shame that these days, children will just buy the DVDs and never turn a page of a book or need to engage their imaginations to bring the written word to life. They are truly missing out.

And then suddenly Pertwee was gone. The Doctor was dead! Oh, how I resented the Doctor who replaced him, this grinning buffoon with the stupid hair. I vowed I would never like him, and - after sticking with the show for the year of Robot/Ark in Space/Sontaran Experiment/Genesis of the Daleks/Revenge of the Cybermen - I duly stopped watching. Other more adult delights such as Space: 1999 and Blakes' Seven came along, and I put away childish things. When I did dip back into the show it was to the horrors of serials such as Horns of Nimon which only seemed to confirm how awful the show had become. But the following year a strange thing happened - the show was reinvented. It looked better and took things seriously, even started to have decent effects (for the age) and boasted interesting scripts. I finally started to concede that Tom Baker was actually rather wonderful in the role - when sure enough, suddenly he was gone too and it was Peter Davison's turn to took up residency in the Tardis. It turned out that I liked Davison immediately, him and his surrogate family of Adric, Nyssa and the mouthy Aussie air hostess Tegan. It was a second golden age of the show for me, without which I might have written off the show for all time and missed out on the show's triumphant 2005 reinvention.

Personally I see the 21st century version of Who as a completely new creature, totally distinct from the original and yet sharing its DNA. I love them both, in entirely different ways. I was not, I confess, a huge fan of Christopher Eccleston's Doctor: he was great as the dark, angst-ridden war survivor, but he always seemed to be straining when required to do the goofy, alien wackiness which is such an important aspect to the character of the Doctor. But without an actor of Eccleston's calibre redefining the job requirement of the role, we'd never have had David Tennant signing up to take on the role, and Tennant when all is said and done is the best actor bar none to have taken the role. Even a die hard Pertwee fan such as myself will now concede that David Tennant is the best Doctor of all time. It helped that he's had the biggest budget and the best, most consistent set of scripts as well. But perhaps most of all, Tennant is raised so high because he stands on the shoulders of the great performances of other wonderful actors - Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Baker (times two), Davison, McCoy, McGann and Eccleston. The Doctor is all of them, and now they are all in Doctor XI helping raise Matt Smith to new heights in 2010 and beyond.

Long may Who continue, so that many more generations of children can have the wonderful delight of arguing about who the best Doctor is.

Andrew Lewin works for COI, a central government department, as a web developer/project manager/social media advisor and technical consultant. He was creating e-zines before anyone started calling it "blogging", and was setting up Fantasy Formula 1 sites by twisting blogging software such as Movable Type and Wordpress into being content management systems before it became all the rage and standard operating procedure. Andrew can bore for England on all aspects of online accessibility, usability and interface design, and has worked in and around the media for twenty years since starting in production and IT support at the magazine publishers H Bauer. That started a lifelong love affair with Mac-products, with a proudly PC-free computer purchasing history that started with a Mac IIsi in the dark days of Apple without Steve Jobs. Andrew now lives in south west London with a thoroughly modern iFamily of Apple products - iMac, iPhone, iPod and of course iPad: all of whom get on very well together, keep Andrew in line and tell him what to do. Andrew blogs at "Let me think about that..." (where this post originally appeared) and at "motorsport.ind".

If you would like to submit a guest post, please use the contact form.

A Christmas Carol with a timey-wimey twist

2011-01-03T17:02:00.004Z

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol was the best special to date! Before you chastise me for being a self-confessed Matt Smith/Steven Moffat fanboy (won't be offended), please let me attempt to qualify the statement.

The previous Christmas specials weren't exactly Christmassy. An elfin Kylie, endlessly marching Cybermen and killer robot Santas; Christmas was incidental. Here, when Kazran Sardick (Sir Michael Gambon) emotes “It’s Chrisssssstmasssss!” you believe and feel it, too.

Moffat manages to deftly mashup Charles Dickens and Jules Verne folklore into a delicious fairytale with hints to his overarching masterplan. The establishing shot evoked the nautical cityscape of BioShock and its first sequel.

If the sumptuous gothic grandeur and nuanced soundtrack wasn't enough. Katherine Jenkins was a revelation. I was prepared to wince at her acting and, instead, shed a tear as Abigail Pettigrew's poignant narrative unfolded. Murray Gold's Abigail theme was his most haunting yet. Doctor Who is always at its best with the spectre of tragedy...

Did I miss the Doctor's companions during their perilous flight aboard the imperilled space liner? No, and I adore Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) for the record. Matt Smith could shoulder the series alone. He's in the ascendance and I sincerely hope that his tenure isn't over anytime soon. If someone asked me who my favourite Doctor was: Matt would be in the top three. Genius.

Did anyone else notice how distracted and moribund the Doctor was at the end? Halfway out of the dark, hmm.

Pre-order A Christmas Carol today.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2010-12-24T15:41:00.002Z

This is my final post of 2010! I would like to wish you all a fantastic festive period, whatever you may be doing, and wish you all the best for the New Year.

In my Box are such Delights...

2010-12-23T16:31:00.001Z

Guest post by Daren Thomas

‘Christmas Time, don’t let the Bells ring’ So sung Justin Hawkins, he of Freddie Mercury spangled jumpsuit fame and the once front man of ironic 70s rock influenced, XFM-loved, combo ‘The Darkness’ on their Xmas Offering. Ahh… The Christmas songs: the weird, the wonderful, the pure cheese and the novelty. Whether it’s Shaky in his woolly jumper in Lapland, George Michael mooning over girls in Switzerland (ooh the irony) or those vaguely suspect looking 70s kids trying to join in with Roy Wood and Wizzard. Yet in spite of attempts to record a new yuletide three and half minutes of ‘fun’ (yes Chris Martin I’m looking at you), its funny how the same ones are still rolled out year after year. Any such new ‘efforts’ only leave you wondering the same things: A) Who they hell is this? B) Why? No, really, I mean. Why? And C) When is some proper Crimble fest like ‘Walking In The Air’ coming on? And cue: some overweight snowman yanking a kid by just one arm (no, that’s not a euphemism) as they both fly, albeit improbably, in the sky towards the North Pole (or Toys R us if you are still living in the 1980s).

What’s the point of such musings you may ask? Well, apart from Christmas and apart from the very kindly Mr. Hood allowing me some space (the fool, the fool), it got me pondering about how nostalgia is so important at this time. Not just the times of our youth, the parents, family (and above all presents), but to a TV and fantasy geek like me, a time to revel in all that’s good and nerdy in the film and TV fantasy world. And I’ll go further to suggest it’s the same for all of us, not just the fans, but even the dyed in the wool ‘I don’t watch fantasy its for kids’ types. Give them Christmas and all of us are connecting with their inner child and recalling the past, Christmas full of magic and delights… In my case a whole Box of them.

So, as I sit down on Christmas Eve for the marathon viewing of The Box of Delights, I lament on leaving it so late every year (as a three hour session isn’t the ideal way to reveal this episodic yuletide heavy treat). Then again I never seem to watch it any other way. Why? It has Christmas magic and fantasy oozing from its very spools (alternatively insert a modern day DVD equivalent phrase here). With snow aplenty and a retro CS Lewis like Xmas setting (god, they knew how to do Christmas in those ‘olden days’). It also boasts an ex-Doctor Who, old school animation and wonderful clunky blue screen. What’s not to like? Its always great to see young plucky ‘jolly hockey sticks’ Kay Harker attempting to fight off the wolves with a magical box and going head to head with camp uber-villain Abner Brown and his talking rat. This is positively a tradition I can’t live without and one of the many shows I religiously watch every Christmas, without fail. It makes me wonder, am I alone in this? If not, what’s on your list of must watch?

I blame Dickens. Damn his perfect Christmas. Apparently, modern historian types seem to agree that his take is the reason we all long for a White Christmas (no doubt with every Christmas card we write). But who can blame us? A Christmas Carol sums up the very spirit of Christmas and yet gives us an emotional cracking yarn with a fantasy twist, complete with scary ghosts that hark back to the Victorian’s love of a good Christmas ghost story. But you can keep yer singing and Dancing Albert Finney or Jean Luc Picard’s worthy, almost Shakespearian Ebenezer. Only one man is Scrooge: Alistair Sim. His portrayal has never been bettered for me.

The comedy world has given us various takes on this familiar idea too. Most recently Catherine Tate’s Nan was joined by yet another ex Doctor (who took the turn like a camp Russell Brand). Bill Murray’s Scrooged transposes Ebenezer as the unfair miserly head of a TV network (I couldn’t possibly comment). But top of my list each year is the funny delight of Blackadder’s clever reversal of the story, it’s a present that can be used again and again and again (so sue me Richard Curtis).

Even the day job at TV’s most famous fake hospital doesn’t get let off so easily, it too has had its twist on Dickens, complete with genuine ghosts that took us back to the great 86 storm and forward to a hospital in L.A. This came the year after its homage to It’s a Wonderful Life, which had Richard Briers in the Clarence role, in a bizarre fourth-wall-smashing-format-breaking one off story. Well, its Xmas, anything is possible. Maybe.

The Dickens treatment has its long-overdue take up by this years Drew special… Whatever happened to that online fan idea of David Morrissey being a miserly alternate future Doctor who is visited by a Doctor of the past (McGann) and Doctor of the present (Tennant)? Ahh, you gotta love fans (but maybe not too much). But, as Drew is the fantasy family drama on TV right now, its place at Christmas is obvious and a seasonal must. So much so, its weird to think with its millions of viewers, its still a relatively new addition to the Christmas Day schedule. I even found myself nostalgically reaching for The Christmas Invasion to watch this year, like it was a long lost Christmas classic. Well, I suppose it sorta is. That said, if you were an old Who fan like me, as a kid, the show may have taken a Christmas break, but the toys and annuals always made it key in my celebrations.

Fantasy and Christmas have always been there and with obvious reason. That’s right, kids, I’m talking to you. The man with the beard who comes down to bring presents at Christmas time..? No. Not Noel Edmonds. Oh never mind. Anyway, there was only one must watch Christmas film for me as a kid: The Wizard of Oz in all its black and white to full hand painted Technicolor glory. Actually I lie. The great and glorious Oz didn’t come alone. Oh no. Christmas also needed Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. For my Sister, it was always Digby, the biggest Dog in the World (you know - the one with Doctor Nookie in it). Then we had occasional treats like Pufnstuff or Laurel and Hardy’s Babe’s in Toyland. All of which were inspiringly fantastical and magical over the holidays.

Naturally, Christmas films and TV don’t just stop with the fantasy led ones. Where would be without The Great Escape or The Italian Job or The Sound of Music? I hear you cry. Ah. That great melting pot of Xmas TV: The Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise and take your pick of Minder or Poirot on the Orient Express. But even the safest, most well-known of these would then seemingly dip their head into the bizarre and fantastical: In Only Fool’s and Horses, Rodney has a nightmarish flash forward and who could forget the bizarre edition of Two point Four Children which still haunts me to this day (that and the sit com So Haunt Me – but that’s a whole different story). In recent years one of the best examples came in Lark Rise To Candleford. Yes. You heard me correctly. A beautiful snowy festive tale with the sad story of a lost ghost, which turned out to be… Wait for it… A real ghost! Whoda thunk it?!? It was a real genuine treat. This year UK TV’s best drama Misfits had its own take on the proceedings and Howard Overman’s superb writing once again gave us a funny, endearing and fantasy drama with great comedic timing (just don’t watch it with Nan and Grandad after the Turkey).

So whether you are one of the ten odd million tuning in for Katherine Jenkins and Karen Gillan… Sorry, I mean Matt Smith and Michael Gambon (naturally) in this years Drew, or whether it’s the ghost story re-working of Whistle and I’ll Come for You, another Harry Potter, or even a re-showing of Sky’s Pratchett.. Planned or not. Just by being with others, especially children, siblings or friends, or just getting into the Xmas atmos, you will become that inner child once again. So, you won’t get away with the old ‘I don’t do fantasy’ adage. It doesn’t wash at Christmas. All bets are off. So, come on, embrace it (as you know you will). Don’t worry we won’t tell. Promise…

As Stevie Wonder sang

‘Everyone’s a geek at Christmas Time’

I think that’s what he sung. Didn’t he?

Daren Thomas is a budding writer, whose day job in television has been diverse, from Assistant Directing on ‘Eastenders’, to looking after roof-jumping free-runners on a French action movie ‘Les Fils Du Vent’ and pretending to be Michael Kitchen on ‘Foyle’s War’. He has worked for several years in the script/story department within the BBC’s continuing drama ‘Holby City’.

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

2010-12-03T19:21:00.015Z

Christmas is almost here and that means an annual Doctor Who Christmas special, too. This year's is a Dickens of a tale.

Lead Writer and Executive Producer, Steven Moffat, confirmed, "Oh, we’re going for broke with this one. It’s all your favorite Christmas movies at once, in an hour, with monsters. And the Doctor. And a honeymoon. And … oh, you’ll see. I’ve honestly never been so excited about writing anything!"

It’s Doctor Who all Christmas long with a marathon of favourites starting on December 24th at Midnight leading up to the special on BBC America. BBC America will also premiere the Doctor Who Prom on Christmas Day, a live concert featuring stars Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as hosts.

The Doctor Who Experience

2010-11-01T15:58:00.002Z

Doctor Who fans will get the chance to step inside the Tardis and defeat the Daleks in a new show dedicated to the long-running programme.

The Doctor Who Experience will include special effects and newly-filmed scenes with current Doctor Matt Smith recreating the Time Lord's adventures.

Tickets will go on sale this month for the show, which opens at London's Olympia on Sunday, February 20.

It includes an exhibition charting the history of the programme from its first series in 1963 to the latest episodes. Original costumes, a Tom Baker-era Tardis and Cybermen, Silurians and a Zygon will also be on display.

Executive producer Steven Moffat said: "The Doctor Who Experience is a fan's dream come true - a fully interactive adventure that will allow viewers of the show to get as close as possible to some of the scariest monsters from the series.

"It will also be the first time that Doctor Who artefacts from all the show's 47-year history - classic and new - will be on display together, many of them being seen for the first time. And never mind that, this is the day the Doctor teaches you how to fly the Tardis through time and space, and takes you into battle with all his deadliest enemies in a brand new adventure.

"So steady your nerves and bring your own sofa - the Doctor needs you."

The Doctor Who Experience will eventually be given a long-term home in Cardiff in 2012.

Tickets for the show go on sale through www.doctorwhoexperience.com on November 18.

Doctor Who S5 soundtrack CD

2010-10-19T12:34:00.003+01:00

The pre-Christmas release of the Doctor Who soundtrack album is fast becoming a tradition and Silva Screen has been inundated with enquiries about Series 5.

Here's the full track listing.

DISC ONE

1. Doctor Who XI

THE ELEVENTH HOUR

2. Down To Earth

3. Little Amy

4. Fish Custard

5. Can I Come With You?

6. Little Amy: The Apple

7. The Sun's Gone Wibbly

8. Zero

9. I Am The Doctor

10. The Mad Man With A Box

11. Amy In The TARDIS

THE BEAST BELOW

12. The Beast Below

13. Amy's Theme

14. A Lonely Decision

VICTORY OF THE DALEKS

15. A Tyrannical Menace

16. Victory Of The Daleks

17. Battle In The Sky

THE TIME OF ANGELS / FLESH AND STONE

18. River's Path

19. The Time Of Angels

THE VAMPIRES OF VENICE

20. I Offer You My Daughter

21. Chicken Casanova

22. Signora Rosanna Calvierri

23. Cab For Amy Pond

24. The Vampires Of Venice

AMY'S CHOICE

25. Wedded Bliss

26. The Dream

THE HUNGRY EARTH / COLD BLOOD

27. Rio de Cwmtaff

28. The Silurians

DISC TWO

VINCENT AND THE DOCTOR

1. Paint

2. Vincent

3. Hidden Treasures

4. A Troubled Man

5. With Love, Vincent

THE LODGER

6. Adrift In The TARDIS

7. Friends And Neighbours

8. Doctor Gastronomy

9. You Must Like It Here

10. A Useful Striker

11. A Painful Exchange

12. Kiss The Girl

13. Thank You Craig

THE PANDORICA OPENS / THE BIG BANG

14. River Runs Through It

15. Away On Horseback

16. Beneath Stonehenge

17. Who Else Is Coming

18. Amy And Rory

19. The Pandorica

20. Words Win Wars

21. The Life And Death Of Amy Pond

22. Amy's Starless Life

23. Into The Museum

24. This Is Where It Gets Complicated

25. Roman Paradox

26. The Patient Centurion

27. The Same Sonic

28. Honey I'm Home

29. The Perfect Prison

30. A River Of Tears

31. The Sad Man With A Box

32. You And Me, Amy

33. The Big Day

34. I remember You

35. Onwards!

Doctor Who is on tour in October and November: Oct 8-10 - Wembley Arena, Oct 12-13 - Sheffield Arena, Oct 14-17 - Glasgow SECC, Oct 18-20 - Birmingham NIA, Oct 22-24 - Manchester MEN Arena, Oct 25-26 - Notts Trent FM Arena, Oct 28-31 - Cardiff Int Arena, Nov 2-3 - Liverpool Echo Arena, Nov 6-7 - Belfast Odyssey Arena.

Pre-order the album from Amazon.co.uk. S5 is released on Blu-ray disc and DVD this November.

BBC TV blog: Phil Ford on The Sarah Jane Adventures

2010-10-11T16:12:00.003+01:00

Set your sonic lipsticks to thrill. Phil Ford, writer of The Waters Of Mars (Doctor Who), has posted an article over on the BBC TV Blog, which chronicles his work on The Sarah Jane Adventures. Here's an extract:

"Now I've written four series of adventures for her. I am the biggest kid in the playpen and I'm playing with my favourite toys. Being a writer who gets to write for his childhood heroes is the best of the best."

The Sarah Jane Adventures returns to CBBC, today. Personally, the series' is a gem for fans of Doctor Who of any age.

HYPER JAPAN London 2010

2010-09-30T12:51:00.005+01:00

HYPER JAPAN LONDON 2010 is a brand new event, presented by the EAT-JAPAN brand, showcasing the very best of contemporary Japanese culture and cuisine. Held over three days in the iconic Old Truman Brewery, London, HYPER JAPAN will feature anime, manga, sushi, sake, street fashion, snacks, technology, exclusive branded goods and more.

The event, which runs from Oct 1st-3rd, has been conceived to make modern Japan accessible to a young and trend-conscious audience in London.

Further details on stage entertainment, demonstrations, food, drink, workshops and seminars are available on the website. Day tickets are on sale now via the Hyper Japan website, for £8 per ticket. A special discount is available for groups: buy two or more tickets for just £5 per ticket. Kids under five go free. Tickets are limited so visitors are encouraged to buy in advance.

Follow Hyper Japan on Twitter.

Remembrance of the Daleks collectors set

2010-09-13T17:37:00.006+01:00

Remembrance of the Daleks rounded off the 1980s Dalek trilogy with aplomb; introducing the iconic Special Weapons Dalek (variants are underexploited in the series' mythos).

The TARDIS arrives in London in 1963, where the Doctor and Ace discover that two rival factions of Daleks - one loyal to the Dalek Emperor and one to the Dalek Supreme - are seeking the Hand of Omega, a powerful Time Lord device that the first Doctor hid there during an earlier sojourn on Earth.

Incidentally, this is the only Sylvester McCoy-era Doctor Who story that I own on DVD! Alas, McCoy's tenure is anathema to this Whovian.

This great set includes four figures - Special Weapons Dalek, White Imperial Dalek, Renegade Dalek and Supreme Dalek.

The Emperor/Davros is conspicuous by its absence from the set.

Pre-order from Forbidden Planet International today.

Ridley Scott talks Alien origin story

2010-09-09T11:01:00.000+01:00

Fox is about to unleash the Alien Anthology on Blu-ray disc this Autumn/Fall. Therefore it's no surprise to read Ridley Scott making waves about his proposed two-part prequel, which will be shot entirely in 3D! Hang on, isn't that James Cameron's territory? Scott's obviously out to prove himself against the director who helmed the first, and best, sequel to Alien. Aliens.

Set 30 years before the events seen in the award-winning 1979 original, the prequels will explore the origins of the alien species. The director told the Independent newspaper "The film will be really tough, really nasty," "It's the dark side of the moon. We are talking about gods and engineers. Engineers of space. And were the aliens designed as a form of biological warfare? Or biology that would go in and clean up a planet?"

Hardly revelatory is it? The notion of a H.R. Giger designed Dyson made me smile! Seriously, though. I was discussing the concept of 'alien-as-weapon' with art school friends years ago. Fuelled in no small part by reading Dark Horse Comics and religiously watching Alien and Aliens on VHS.

Ridley Scott isn't the director he might think he once was! Shades of George Lucas' hubris. At this stage I'm much more interested in seeing JJ Abrams' Super 8: an alleged prequel to the captivating Cloverfield (2008).

My question is why bother? Keep the mystery; there's no need to explain everything away. Alien will have to be retitled in the ultimate display of revisionary filmmaking. But, what to call it?

Brian Froud signing at Forbidden Planet

2010-08-20T17:04:00.000+01:00

Brian Froud will be signing the Deluxe Collector’s Edition of FAERIES at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR on Saturday 2nd October 1 - 2pm

A quarter of a century after its initial publication, and with more than a million copies in print worldwide, FAERIES is a fantasy classic. Now, Froud returns to his most enduring and beloved work in this deluxe anniversary edition. This ultimate collector’s book features eight new pieces of art by Brian Froud and Alan Lee with the original pencil drawings and watercolors. More than just a reissue, this deluxe revised and updated edition contains essays from both Froud and Lee on the continuing influence of Faeries. There is also a foreword by bestselling author Jane Yolen.

For over thirty years, Brian Froud has been regarded as the pre-eminent faerie artist in the world. His numerous international best-selling books are considered modern classics. He has worked with Jim Henson as conceptual designer on the feature films The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth as well as other Henson projects.

Forbidden Planet is the largest store of its kind in the world. Some of the biggest names in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comics and Cult Entertainment have come to our London Megastore for signing events, including: Jonathan Ross, Kevin Smith, Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro, Terry Gilliam, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, William Gibson, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Stephen King.

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Sherlock: The Adventure of the Texting Men

2010-08-10T11:51:00.000+01:00

Guest post written by John Rivers

Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files once commented that his show was made possible by the creation of the mobile phone. His two protagonists could be split up, yet still maintain contact throughout, thus removing the need for constant explanation or, at the very least, the removal of lines like “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

The natural progression seems to be the texting. In the BBC’s Sherlock our two heroes are rarely out of textual communication, missives that are then repeated for the benefit of the audience as printed text on the screen, so they can at least stay on top of the game at the same speed the characters do.

It’s a useful device, sometimes alerting us to the speed-of-light thinking of Holmes himself as he examines a dead body, sometimes to keep the characters (and audience) informed of the details of a complex plot (such as Mycroft’s persistent messages to Watson over the Bruce Partington missile plans). Overall though, the effect is one that is fun rather than disruption of serious drama. Holmes was never supposed to be naturalistic storytelling, it is after all not a police procedural but an adventure story - most of Holmes’s stories do begin with ‘The Adventure of...’.

The onscreen text isn’t the only thing that makes Sherlock unique. Incredible crime solvers are ten-a-penny on TV. Most are dysfunctional, some are George Gently, but seeing a sociopathic, drug-taking yet brilliant detective is certainly nothing new. Thankfully Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss didn’t decide to stick their Sherlock in a deerstalker just to make him ‘eccentric’ instead they settled on an individual with almost no social awareness.

Luckily for viewers, Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance wasn’t a sort of comically inept Larry David when presented with company, he’s in fact down right rude, never considering the implications of his insights and utterances until it’s too late. It’s an interesting take, Holmes is usually polite after all, Brett’s manners in the role were impeccable. Instead Cumberbatch’s Holmes seems to exhibit some ennui with twenty-first century life - he doesn’t care what you have to say, he doesn’t want to talk about it, but he will post something on his website later.

It’s this shut-off, impolite aspect to Sherlock that differentiates him from not one, but two Doctors.

Doctor John Watson is ably performed by Martin Freeman whose characterisation is, at its best, compelling, human and vulnerable. At its worst Freeman’s head jerks about the screen like a coked-up Blue Tit. Hopefully with time Freeman will give his performance more of Watson’s much-loved resolve in the face of danger and his maverick colleague. Together the two are a delight. Often listless, flirting with homosexuality, two men in their thirties still living like students. It’s very Withnail and I. They clearly hold a growing love and respect for each other and yet often can’t bare to be cooped up in the same flat together. And of course, Watson fulfils the important role of allowing the mischievous Holmes to show-off when making his deductions.

The other Doctor that Sherlock had to distance itself from was Doctor Who. Both Moffat and Gattiss have much experience writing Who and so were always going to bring TARDIS-shaped baggage to the show. However they cleverly took the good bits that have made Who a success - namely the pace and the humour. They were careful not to make their lead too Doctor like, as Russell T Davies explained the Doctor should be your best friend - resourceful, crazy and loads of fun to be with. Sherlock Holmes should be, and is, darker as a character - the high-functioning sociopath who you enjoy reading about, but wouldn’t necessarily want to go for a pint with.

It would be trite, however to describe Sherlock as ‘Doctor Who for adults’. Neither is it a wacky version of Waking the Dead or Spooks. Rather it seems to be closer to earlier telefantasy - a reined-in version of The Avengers. You only had to watch the fantastically manic sequence of Holmes and Watson being attacked by a nine-foot tall killer called the Golem in a planetarium lit by psychedelic strobe lights where Holst’s Planets Suite was cut-up and rewound as backing music to realise that the sixties and seventies inventiveness of fantastic television was something Moffat and Gatiss were keen to capture.

Finally, every great hero needs a great villain. It was a little puzzling to see Moriarty therefore portrayed as a camp Irish goblin in a suit. Supposedly threatening it suddenly seemed Andrew Scott’s voice was reliving some adolescent trauma. He was giggling and ridiculous. For me this was the only real let-down to these three excellent films, which succeeded in bring Holmes up to date. Despite ending on a cliffhanger, the look that Sherlock gives Watson in those final crucial moments, gave you hope that these two were going to be back - it was written across the screen for all to see.

John Rivers is an award-winning digital marketing bod who lives in North London with his cat. A long time movie and TV fan, he writes a rather 'Angry' blog about Doctor Who, while also moderating on Gallifrey Base, the net's biggest Doctor Who forum. In a monster smackdown, he'd be on Gamera's side.

If you would like to submit a guest post, please use the contact form.

Doctor Who: The Complete S5 on Blu-ray disc

2010-08-01T16:54:00.005+01:00

The recent tabloid speculation surrounding Doctor Who's future, or more specifically Matt Smith's tenure in the titular role, has me in disbelief! Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch might be an excellent Doctor, but wouldn't be far removed from Matt's portrayal. However, here's some good news...

Special Features
*Additional scenes: Meanwhile in the TARDIS - additional scenes, written by Steven Moffat and featuring Matt Smith (Doctor Who) & Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), telling the story of what happens between episodes. Why was Amy floating in Space above Starship UK, and what happened after 'that' kiss between the Doctor and Amy? - Exclusive to DVD and Blu-ray disc.

*Monster Files - The Monster Files will get under the skin and inside the minds of the latest Doctor's most challenging opponents. With previously unseen footage and exclusive comments from cast and crew, the Monster Files take fans old and new even further behind enemy lines.

*Outtakes
*In-vision commentaries
*Video Diary
*Confidential Cut Downs
*BBC Trails and Promos to New Series 5

Doctor Who - The Complete S5 (Blu-ray disc) is available for pre-order from Amazon.co.uk.

William Gibson signing at Forbidden Planet

2010-07-26T12:51:00.000+01:00

Forbidden Planet is pleased to announce a signing by William Gibson. He will be signing his new novel ZERO HISTORY at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR, on Saturday 9th October from 1 – 2pm.

Former rock singer Hollis Henry has lost a lot of money in the crash, which means she can't turn down the offer of a job from Hubertus Bigend, sinister Belgian proprietor of mysterious ad agency Blue Ant. Milgrim is working for Bigend too. Bigend admires the ex-addict's linguistic skills and street knowledge so much that he's even paid for his costly rehab. So together Hollis and Milgrim are at the front line of Bigend's attempts to get a slice of the military budget, and they gradually realize he has some very dangerous competitors. Which is not a great thought when you don't much trust your boss either.

William Gibson first novel Neuromancer sold more than six million copies worldwide. In an earlier short story, Gibson had coined the phrase 'cyberspace', and he developed the concept in the novel, creating an iconography for the Information Age long before widespread use of the Internet. Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive completed his first trilogy. He has since written six further novels, moving gradually away from science fiction and futuristic work, instead writing about the strange contemporary world we inhabit. His most recent novels are Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, both available in Penguin. He was born in South Carolina but has lived in Vancouver, Canada for many years.

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Dalek Invasion!

2010-07-22T17:58:00.001+01:00

Only the brave should venture to the Fleet Air Arm Museum on the weekend of August 7th and 8th as an army of Daleks accompanied by Davros, Miss Hartigan, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Pig Slaves, Weeping Angel and more will invade the Museum.

To add to the fun and terror of the day, children are encouraged to wear Sci-Fi Fancy Dress.

Throughout the day there will be a variety of family activities plus a short stage play, and an Audience with the Daleks when you can ask the more friendly Daleks the questions on everybody's mind such as, "How do you tell the difference between boy and girl Daleks?"

And for those lovers of X Factor, the Daleks will compete in their own version, called X-terminate Factor!

In addition, Dr Who traders and celebrities including David Gooderson - the second Davros, John Leeson the voice of K9 and Marie McGonigle, Weeping Angel from two of the new stories will be present to add to the occasion.

The day will finish with the March of the Daleks when an army of Daleks and their evil accomplices will parade through the Museum ending under Concorde for a giant photo opportunity.

Doors will open to the public from 10.00am and normal museum admission prices will apply. To avoid queuing on the day, tickets are available below or from the Museum Shop.

For further details, and ticket booking, visit Fleet Air Arm Museum.

Katherine Jenkins to star in Doctor Who

2010-07-12T12:30:00.010+01:00

The following press release arrived in my inbox this morning, and I knew you'd want to read it ASAP.

Cardiff, 12 July 2010: Production started today on the 2010 Doctor Who BBC One Christmas Special in which the thrilling adventures of the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) and newlyweds Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) will continue in a fun-filled and heartfelt festive story.

In the grand tradition of Doctor Who Christmas specials, this year the show has once again attracted stellar guest stars as veteran actor Michael Gambon (Harry Potter, The Singing Detective) and Opera diva Katherine Jenkins, in her first acting role, join the Time Lord for what might be his most Christmassy adventure yet!

Arriving on set for her first day of filming, Katherine Jenkins said:
“I'm over the moon to be involved in the Doctor Who Christmas Special - I can't quite believe it as it's a part of the family tradition at the Jenkins household. I heard the news that I got the role on my 30th birthday and it was the best birthday present ever!”

About the series Lead Writer and Executive Producer, Steven Moffat, commented;
“Oh, we're going for broke with this one. It's all your favourite Christmas movies at once, in an hour, with monsters. And the Doctor. And a honeymoon. And ... oh, you'll see. I've honestly never been so excited about writing anything. I was laughing madly as I typed along to Christmas songs in April. My neighbours loved it so much they all moved away and set up a website demanding my execution. But I'm fairly sure they did it ironically.”

The Christmas special follows on from Matt Smith’s first series as The Doctor, which attracted huge critical acclaim for Smith, his companion Gillan and lead writer Moffat, from press and legions of fans alike.

Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning said;
“Matt Smith and Karen Gillan captivated audiences in their debut series and Doctor Who's clever twist on the much loved A Christmas Carol will thrill BBC One viewers this year with special guest stars Sir Michael Gambon and singing sensation Katherine Jenkins joining Amy and the Doctor for an unforgettable present!"

The series was co-commissioned by Ben Stephenson, Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning for BBC One and Jay Hunt, Controller of BBC One. Steven Moffat is Lead Writer and Executive Producer with Piers Wenger and Beth Willis, also executive producing.

Filming on the Christmas special will continue until August 2010.

***ENDS***

Previous Christmas specials have included roles for stars such as Kylie Minogue. The rumour mill is electric with speculation that the Yeti may return this holiday season. These fearsome foes, robots controlled by The Great Intelligence, were last seen in The Five Doctors (1983).

Fish custard and bedtime stories

2010-06-28T15:24:00.009+01:00

Last Saturday Doctor Who S5 concluded on UK television! There'll be no spoilers per se, but I'd like to muse on Steven Moffat's first season at the helm.

You had me at fish custard. Matt Smith has given a virtuoso performance in the titular role and is, arguably, the most compelling Doctor Who casting in years! A complex hero wrapped in a riddle.

Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) are worthy companions aboard the TARDIS despite my initial reservations regarding the latter! To be fair the former's characterisation was puzzlingly slight, and with good reason.

Familiar foes returned with a twist, and the enigmatic River Song (Alex Kingston) appears to be an integral part of Moffat's masterplan. What is her relationship with the Doctor?

It's no panacea prior to the Pandorica opening! The Dalek redesign isn't eminently successful and has been the object of much Renault-inspired ridicule! The concept is cool, but the realisation less so. Why fix what wasn't broken? The season has suffered from a few narrative missteps, which is endemic to new Doctor Who. However, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan have remained engaging throughout.

Steven Moffat's Doctor Who is less concerned with bland spectacle, deliberating on the wonder and danger of Grimm folklore told at bedtime. I'm still haunted by visual motifs that wouldn't look out of place in Tim Burton's best work. For this I thank Mr Moffat and his rendering of Verity Lambert's tenure as the series' inaugural producer back in 1963.

Despite BBC scheduling, Doctor Who is stronger than ever.

What lies within the Pandorica?

2010-06-17T15:21:00.006+01:00

This weekend the first episode of a two-part season finale of Doctor Who begins on BBC One and BBC HD in the UK.

So as not to alienate international readers, I thought it maybe fun to use this opportunity to list my favourite episodes of S5 (in no particular order):

*The Eleventh Hour
*Victory of the Daleks
*The Time of Angels
*Flesh and Stone
*Vampires of Venice
*Amy's Choice
*The Lodger

With that out of the way...

The Pandorica is described as "A box, a cage, a prison of fairytale...", the realm contains what is described as "the most feared being in all the cosmos." The clues sprinkled throughout the season make for Grimm tidings, and I'll leave it there for now!

Doctor Who authors at Forbidden Planet

2010-06-15T16:52:00.000+01:00

Bringing down the barriers of Space Time - FORBIDDEN PLANET are delighted to be hosting a triple DOCTOR WHO signing with Una McCormack, Gary Russell and Oli Smith on Saturday 17th July 1- 2pm at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR.

In McCormack’s The King’s Dragon, the Doctor and Amy discover a city of secrets. In dark corners, strange creatures are stirring. At the heart of the hall, a great metal dragon oozes gold. When the battle begins only the Doctor can save the city from being destroyed in the crossfire of an ancient civil war.

In Russell’s Glamour Chase, it’s 1936 and an archaeological dig unearths relics of another time – and another planet. But if Enola Porter, noted adventuress, has really found evidence of an alien civilisation, howcome she isn’t famous? Howcome Amy’s never heard of her? Come to that, since she’s been travelling with him for a while now, how come Amy’s never even heard of the Doctor?

In Smith’s Nuclear Time, Doctor and Amy arrive in Appletown, Colorado, 1978 – where the arrival of a mad scientist heralds death falling from the sky. The Doctor is trapped, the TARDIS is damaged, and Amy is being hunted through the streets of the Doctor’s own future. He must unravel the secrets of Appletown before time runs out…

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Al Williamson: 1931 - 2010

2010-06-14T15:59:00.000+01:00

Al Williamson, the award-winning comic book illustrator, has passed away aged 79.

Al Williamson's distinctive style inspired a generation of artists including Dave Gibbons. His legacy lives on in Flash Gordon and Star Wars comics (amongst others).

Doctor Who action figure set: 11 Doctors

2010-06-11T19:00:00.005+01:00

Massive collectors set of all 11 Doctor Who incarnations packaged in a great TARDIS box with a small bio on each Doctor.

Includes...
William Hartnell 1963–1966
Patrick Troughton 1966–1969
Jon Pertwee 1970–1974
Tom Baker 1974–1981
Peter Davison 1981–1984
Colin Baker 1984–1986
Sylvester McCoy 1987–1989, 1996
Paul McGann 1996
Christopher Eccleston 2005
David Tennant 2005–2010
Matt Smith 2010

Pre-order from Forbidden Planet International today.

Enter the City of the Daleks in Doctor Who Adventure Games

2010-06-04T16:37:00.003+01:00

The BBC TV Blog has just published another Doctor Who-related post. This one's on the interactive games that have just been launched on the Doctor Who website. Of great interest will be City of the Daleks, which will also be available to Mac users soon.

Simon Nelson, the controller of interactive, talks about how the adventure games sit in with the TV show and why they commissioned them. For further information, and to comment, click here.

Ray Harryhausen - Myths and Legends

2010-06-02T16:00:00.002+01:00

On June 29th 2010 the London Film Museum will open its latest exhibition.

Entitled "Ray Harryhausen - Myths and Legends" - the exhibition will be focusing on the work of Ray Harryhausen and showcase the techniques he used to bring his 'Dynamation' creatures to life.

The opening of the exhibition coincides with Ray’s 90th Birthday.

For further details please visit the London Film Museum.

Hat tip @giagia.

Goodbye Gene: Ashes to Ashes

2010-05-28T16:00:00.018+01:00

I always dread the ending of a television series that I've become emotionally invested in! Twin Peaks, My So-Called Life and Quantum Leap spring to mind. Especially one embellished with such profound personal resonance - as a child I was in a coma following a serious head injury in primary school, and my late mother suffered a most grievous brain injury in hospital - and a superlative final season that could, so easily, have been anti-climactic...

Not so with Ashes to Ashes, the Life on Mars sequel, set in the Thatcherite 80's and follows Alex Drake's (Keeley Hawes) odyssey to awaken from a coma, after being shot on Police duty in 2008, and yearns to be reunited with her beloved daughter, Molly.

Suffering from a cold start and the heavy weight of expectation: How could a series follow the lauded Life on Mars and Sam Tyler (John Simms)? Ashes to Ashes, in its iconic Audi Quattro, took a dark turn into one of the best soap noir and science fiction series of the last decade.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a series that consistently made you care about the characters and grave situations they were facing - savouring the subplots, interplay and art direction, whilst speculating the outcome. Only Mad Men comes close. Incidentally, the Ashes to Ashes writing team are moving to Doctor Who next season. A perfect fit and the icing on a Moffat-baked cake.

For those who haven't seen it yet, I'm not going to spoil your enjoyment of the Ashes to Ashes series' finale. Suffice to say that it delivers and then some. Eclipsing the shocking end of Blake's 7. Readers who've yet to discover the series... It's worth a LOVEFiLM rental. May I suggest that you start from series one? You'll thank me. But, most importantly, thanks Gene, Alex, Ray, Chris and Shaz. Heroes one and all.

Doctor Who 2010 Wave 1 Action Figures

2010-05-27T18:28:00.000+01:00

Recreate scenes from Doctor Who with these detailed 5” action figures. Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, companion Amy Pond and a good selection of villains like Peter the Winder with hidden Smiler Face, Hawthorne also from episode The Beast Below, Ironside Dalek, new Dalek Drone and Professor Bracewell from episode Victory of the Daleks, and last but not least a regenerating Weeping Angel from episode Flesh and Stone.

Pre-order from Forbidden Planet International today.

Super 8

2010-05-19T12:57:00.010+01:00

I'm a little late to this party! The dynamic duo of JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg unveiled a 90-second teaser trailer for their upcoming collaboration 'Super 8' before Iron Man 2 on May 7.

Isn't Super 8 a film format that Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams shot their pre-Hollywood movies on? Where's the fun in that! Read on...

"In 1979, the Air Force closed a section of Area 51. All materials were to be transported to a secure facility in Ohio."

Speculation has been rife that Super 8 is a prequel to JJ Abrams' Cloverfield (2008), which witnessed solipsistic twenty somethings thrown into the midst of an apocalyptic alien smackdown, in Manhattan, all the while narcissistically documenting their trammels: Godzilla for Generation Y! However, the enigmatic footage, depicting a train crash, carrying alien cargo from Area 51, is enough for me to conclude that it's going to be movie magic.

Abrams will complete Super 8 before moving on to Star Trek 2 which will bow summer 2012. The movie is an homage to the sci-fi films Abrams loved as a teenager.

Watch the trailer online here. What did you think of the trailer?

New Flight Control TARDIS from Character

2010-05-15T15:24:00.009+01:00

Character Options is releasing an updated version of its Flight Control TARDIS to accompany the 2010 series action figure range.

Note the Peter Cushing Dalek movies inspired redesign. Stunning!

Now you can control your very own TARDIS with this nine inch electronic toy TARDIS which is in scale with the Doctor Who action figure range. It includes eight motion activated interactive sound effects, flashing TARDIS Lantern, opening front doors and telephone door.

Requires 3 x AAA batteries.

This is superlative TARDIS merchandise! What say you?

Pre-order Flight Control TARDIS from Play.com.

Star Wars Transformers Crossovers: Yoda

2010-05-12T20:37:00.007+01:00

Transformers Crossovers have always been a bit hit n' miss! Therefore I've been selective building my collection which includes: Darth Maul, Luke Skywalker, TIE Fighter Pilot and Darth Vader.

Yoda, the Jedi Master, gets the Transformers Crossovers treatment.

As always the alternate mode looks cool.

Hasbro missed a trick when the toy company decided not to use established Transformers characters, including Optimus Prime and Megatron, combined with the Star Wars brand for alternate modes. Now that's a crossover worth collecting isn't it?

Tweeting the passing of fantasy artist Frank Frazetta

2010-05-11T12:44:00.000+01:00

Fabled fantasy artist Frank Frazetta, who inspired Zelda artist Yusuke Nakano, died yesterday at the age of 82. I learnt of the sad news on Twitter when @Danacea updated her stream, and I was obliged to retweet (RT).

Along with famed artists such as The Brothers Hildebrandt and Ralph McQuarrie, Frazetta's artwork for paperback editions of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and Buck Rogers comic books made an indelible impression on my young mind at Junior School.

Ultimate Spider-Man signing at Forbidden Planet

2010-05-06T15:18:00.001+01:00

Comics legend DAVID LAFUENTE will be signing ULTIMATE COMICS: SPIDER-MAN at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR on Thursday 20th May 6 – 7pm.

Almost ten years ago, Ultimate Spider-Man launched the Ultimate line, a reinvention of the Marvel Universe that defied the odds and every expectation. Now, it happens again: this new chapter in the life of the teenaged webslinger picks up in the aftermath of Ultimatum and completely redefines the status quo of Spider-Man for the next generation! This graphic novel, written by Brian Michael Bendis, collects Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1-6.

Artist David Lafuente was 'discovered' at the Dublin City Comic Con, though his professional work dates back to earlier than his presence at Marvel. His Marvel days began in 2007, with the layouts and coloring for Spider-Man Family #2 - then providing the pencils and inks for Kathryn Immonen's Hellcat mini-series. His collaborated with Brian Michael Bendis on an Ultimate Spider-Man Annual in 2008, and in 2009 was picked as the regular artist for the series' 2009 relaunch.

Forbidden Planet is the largest store of its kind in the world. Some of the biggest names in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comics and Cult Entertainment have come to our London Megastore for signing events, including: Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro, Terry Gilliam, Christopher Lee, Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, William Gibson, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and Stephen King.

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Five authors, one event at Forbidden Planet!

2010-05-04T17:22:00.000+01:00

FORBIDDEN PLANET and Gollancz Publishing are delighted to be hosting an open-format, multi-author signing. At at 6pm on Thursday May 13th, Forbidden Planet 179, Shaftesbury Avenue, London will be playing host to: -

· Stephen Deas
· M D Lachlan
· John Meaney
· Sarah Pinborough
· Adam Roberts

Forbidden Planet and Gollancz Publishing have gathered a host of science fiction and fantasy talent into one event – an event to bring writers and fans together and to promote interest in new and different kinds of fiction.

This is a free-form and open signing, bringing the authors out from behind their tables and giving their readers a chance to meet them and talk to them about their work. An array of fantastic books will be on hand to be picked up and signed – including works by every one of the writers present.

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Amy Pond pregnant! Who's the father?

2010-05-02T14:35:00.014+01:00

In what has been, for me, the best series of Doctor Who since S2 of the new series. S5 takes another twist with a companion's pregnancy!

Amy Pond is pregnant in 'Amy's Choice' to be broadcast on May 15th.

Baby on board: A heavily pregnant Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) sits sulking as her fiance Rory (Arthur Darvill) talks to the Doctor (Matt Smith)

Pregnancy is a theme that has never been addressed in Doctor Who: Mary Tamm (Romana Mk I) left after only one season due to becoming pregnant in real life, which would've proved problematic for the following season - Mary Tamm's Romana visibly pregnant and there's no nookie aboard the TARDIS. Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood has featured pregnancy in 'Something Borrowed'; Gwen is bitten by an alien on her hen night...

Steaming: Amy gives the Doctor a dirty look as they talk to The Dream Lord (Toby Jones - 2nd right)

With romance blossoming onboard the TARDIS. Is Doctor Who becoming EastEnders in space? Not likely! A programme source said: "Viewers will have to wait and see how the pregnancy came about, but as always with Doctor Who, things are not always as they appear."

Who at the Fab Cafe

2010-04-30T13:03:00.000+01:00

Fans Like Us, the team that previously brought you three sell-out events at THE CAVERN CLUB in Liverpool and two at THE FAB CAFE in Manchester, have once again teamed up with Manchester’s premier sci-fi bar to present WHO AT THE FAB CAFE 3 on Sunday 2nd May 2010!

The event will run from 10AM to 6PM (doors open 9:30am).

FAB CAFE,
Portland Street,
Manchester,
M1 6DN

Confirmed guests include Colin Baker (The Sixth Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Colin Spaull (Mr. Crane / Lilt), Alan Ruscoe (Andy Stone / Slitheen / Auton), Rob Shearman (Writer) and Graeme Harper (Director).

For further details please visit Fans Like Us.

Meet Gerry Anderson at Forbidden Planet

2010-04-29T15:45:00.002+01:00

Television legend GERRY ANDERSON will be signing two new volumes of Century 21: Classic Comic Strips From The Worlds Of Gerry Anderson, at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR on Saturday 1st May 2 – 3pm. He will be joined by the series editor CHRIS BENTLEY.

From its launch in 1965, TV Century 21 (later known simply as TV 21) was the smash-hit British comic of the 1960s. Thunderbirds, Lady Penelope, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlet and Joe 90 all burst forth in full colour from the magazine's packed pages, in stories illustrated by such giants of the comic industry as Frank Bellamy, Don Harley, Mike Noble, Ron and Gerry Embleton.

Gerry Anderson needs no introduction as the creator of a massive number of still hugely popular TV series that include Thunderbirds, Joe 90, Stingray and Space 1999.

Chris Bentley was Chairman of Fanderson, the Official Gerry Anderson Fan Club, for over ten years. He is the author of The Complete Gerry Anderson and The Complete Book of Gerry Anderson’s UFO.

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Dorothy upsets the Weeping Angels

2010-04-25T22:35:00.001+01:00

Doctor Who fans were livid last night when a promo pop-up for 'Over the Rainbow' appeared during S5's 'The Time of Angels'. Alas, pop-up blockers have yet to be made available to television viewers!

Matthew Graham, executive producer of Ashes To Ashes, tweeted: "I take it everyone else was livid that the Beeb put a gurning cartoon Graham Norton across the exciting cliffhanger climax of Dr Who. Please BBC - you're not a US network, you're so much better than they are. Don't cheapen yourself. The public know what's up next."

Thanks to Twitter, I was able to dodge this bullet and enjoy the brilliant return of the Weeping Angels sans Dorothy on BBC iPlayer. That gripe aside. Matt Smith continues to portray the Doctor brilliantly and the early appearance of familiar foes is a McGuffin! Can't wait to see how Moffat's masterplan unfolds...

Anyone with strong feelings on the appearance can make a complaint via the BBC website, or by phone to 0370 010 0222.

Elect the Daleks!

2010-04-14T16:00:00.011+01:00

This week the RadioTimes reprised its award-winning 'Vote Dalek' issue from 2005 and, in doing so, published a major spoiler (not that I'm precious about such matters in this era of instant gratification).

The official Doctor Who magazine published a teaser of the upcoming Dalek redesign, but I never expected to see the TV Century 21 comic book inspired Daleks until 'Victory of the Daleks', a post postmodern remake of 'The Power of the Daleks', is broadcast this Saturday!

I prefer the update over the current design and it's in keeping with the fairytale theme of the new series: it's not difficult to envisage these Daleks battling the Raggedy Doctor and Amy in a pop-up book.

No matter who wins or loses the General Election in the UK. Toy shelves will be full of new Dalek merchandise this holiday season and facilitate further quantitative easing at BBC Worldwide.

The Prisoner: Return to The Village

2010-04-09T20:05:00.066+01:00

Later this month ITV's remake of Patrick McGoohan's sociological opus The Prisoner (1967) debuts on network television in the UK.

“Where am I?”

“In the Village.”

“What do you want?”

“Information. We want information.”

“You won’t get it.”

“By hook or by crook, we will.”

“Who are you?”

“The new Number Two.

“Who is Number One?”

“You are Number Six.”

“I am not a number. I am a free man!”

Reaction to the six-part mini series has been mixed. Why attempt a remake of a seminal series that has had gushing semiologists deconstructing every frame for decades? It does boast a superlative supporting cast...

Starring Jim Caviezel and Sir Ian McKellen as Number Six and Number Two, the six one-hour episodes tell the story of a man who finds himself trapped in a mysterious and surreal place known as The Village, with no memory of how he arrived. As he frantically explores his environment, he discovers that its inhabitants are identified by number instead of by name and have no memory of a prior existence or outside civilization.

ITV Director of Television Peter Fincham said of the new series, “It’s changed a lot, though it’s the same in some ways. It has echoes of The Prisoner of the sixties but it’s a thoroughly modern series. Its themes of freedom of the individual against the state, of the pressure to conform, they’re timeless. And you’ll find them all in this new version of The Prisoner.”

The Prisoner begins on ITV1 on April 17th. You have been warned.

Twin Peaks: 20 Years Later

2010-04-08T23:10:00.006+01:00

Twins Peaks turns Twenty and I haven't seen the enigmatic television series since its original broadcast on BBC2 in the early 1990s! Suffice to say that coffee, cherry pie and the willowy women of Twin Peaks were as much a part of my teens as Beverly Hills 90210.

Thank you David Lynch and Mark Frost for creating the soap noir genre. That is all.

The Grimm new adventures of Doctor Who

2010-04-04T12:12:00.012+01:00

Last night's season première of Doctor Who S5 didn't disappoint!

Much has been written regarding the casting of Matt Smith in the titular role, and whether or not Doctor Who would skew towards a younger audience. This is a view I never shared with fellow fans or the series' detractors! Peter Davison (the fifth Doctor) wasn't much older than Matt and his incarnation was far from infantile.

Doctor Who has always been a show with the broadest appeal and why would Steven Moffat break what isn't broken (unless you count the final few seasons of Russell T Davies' tenure, which fell into self-parody)? Incidentally, Steven Moffat's 'The Girl in the Fireplace' (S2) is one of my all-time favourite Doctor Who stories. So, I was hoping for a move towards darker fairytale motifs in the new season.

Geronimo! Here, we see the adventures of our beloved Time Lord framed as a fairytale. Not a fairytale in the mainstream sense, as popularised by the Hollywood studio system, but as a darkly lyrical coming of age story penned by the Brothers Grimm or Lewis Carol.

Moffat's narrative adroitly references famous literary works with gusto: from a red apple to being late for a very important date. It's haunting, poignant, brilliant...

Aside from Murray Gold's continued attempts to destroy the iconic main theme (the original will never be surpassed) and not at all reflective of his compositions therein. Doctor Who S5 is off to a superlative start - Matt Smith and Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) are effortless - and the return of iconic adversaries, throughout the season, will bring more twists and turns than any rabbit hole that Alice (or Amy) might tumble down.

Seeds of Doom coming to DVD

2010-03-30T20:10:00.017+01:00

Play.com is currently running a Doctor Who competition: A chance to meet and greet Tom Baker as he records the audio documentary for the upcoming Seeds of Doom DVD, which was unconfirmed until now.

Seeds of Doom (1976) is one of my earliest memories of watching Doctor Who, and a splendid reworking of the classic sci-fi b-movie The Thing from Another World (1951).

Transformers Hall of Fame

2010-03-28T15:04:00.001+01:00

Hasbro wants fans to chose the fifth inductee into the "Transformers Hall of Fame": joining Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron and Starscream.

HASBRO “ROLLS OUT” TRANSFORMERS HALL OF FAME
TRANSFORMERS Fans Will Participate in Selecting One Robot for the Class of 2010

Pawtucket, R.I. (March 26, 2010) — After more than 25 years of “MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE” action, Hasbro (NYSE: HAS) is announcing the TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame that will honor both “ROBOTS IN DISGUISE” and those influential in creating and building this iconic entertainment brand.

Heroic AUTOBOTS OPTIMUS PRIME and BUMBLEBEE, as well as evil DECEPTICONS MEGATRON and STARSCREAM, will be the first robots honored with admission as chosen by Hasbro’s TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame internal panel of judges. TRANSFORMERS fans around the world will determine a fifth robot to join the inaugural class via voting on the Transformers.com website starting on Monday, May 10, 2010. The winning robot will be revealed Saturday night, June 26, 2010 in Orlando, FL at the annual TRANSFORMERS convention known as “BotCon” when the entire Class of 2010 will be officially inducted.

“The TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame celebrates a global entertainment property that has sparked the imagination of millions of kids over the past 26 years and remains one of the world’s most iconic brands,” said Greg Lombardo, senior director of marketing for TRANSFORMERS. “Starting in 2010, Hasbro will annually honor fans’ most-loved characters from the world of CYBERTRON as well as those individuals who have helped shape a brand that has spawned an army of popular action figures, multiple animated series and two blockbuster live action movies that set worldwide box office records.”

First introduced in 1984 by Hasbro and Takara as a toy line, the TRANSFORMERS brand has provided kids with hours of MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE fun with their action figures that convert from robot to vehicles and back again. Legions of boys around the world grew up creating fantastic adventures and battles set on both the planet CYBERTRON and Earth that featured the “good-guy” AUTOBOTS and the “bad-guy” DECEPTICONS. Since then, more than 7500 robots have been introduced and are now eligible to earn a slot in the TRANSFORMERS Hall of Fame’s inaugural class.

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About HASBRO
Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS) is a worldwide leader in children’s and family leisure time products and services with a rich portfolio of brands and entertainment properties that provides some of the highest quality and most recognizable play and recreational experiences in the world. As a brand-driven, consumer-focused global company, Hasbro brings to market a range of toys, games and licensed products, from traditional to high-tech and digital, under such powerful brand names as TRANSFORMERS, PLAYSKOOL, TONKA, MILTON BRADLEY, PARKER BROTHERS, CRANIUM and WIZARDS OF THE COAST. Come see how we inspire play through our brands at Hasbro Toys, Games, Action Figures and More... © 2010 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Malkovich and Hot Rod in Transformers 3?

2010-03-22T22:30:00.008Z

Michael Bay has announced, on his official blog, that John Malkovich has been signed for the upcoming Transformers 3 movie, which goes into preproduction in April.

Following the risible appearance of an Audi R8 Decepticon in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I hope Bay makes better use of the Ferrari 458 Italia. Odds on it'll be Autobot Hot Rod? Would be a left field choice if Malkovich provides voice over chores, but comedic actor Ken Jeong maybe the front runner!

Transformers 3 can't be any worse than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, can it?

You can read my Transformers (2007) review here.

New Doctor Who and Amy Pond promo images

2010-03-19T22:00:00.003Z

To coincide with a second teaser trailer, the BBC has released new promo images depicting the new Doctor and his companion Amy Pond.

The organic space vortex evokes the Third and Fourth Doctors' opening title sequences. Hopefully the main theme harks back to the unsurpassed original composed by Ron Grainer and realised by Delia Derbyshire. Murray Gold has an opportunity to undo the mess he's made of it in recent years... Regardless. I'm looking forward to Steven Moffat and co. taking Doctor Who in a new direction.

Jonathan Ross' 'TURF' signing at Forbidden Planet

2010-03-15T21:53:00.000Z

Forbidden Planet is pleased to announce a signing by JONATHAN ROSS and TOMMY LEE EDWARDS. They will be signing the very first issue of Image Comics’ TURF at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2h 8JR on Wednesday 14th April 6 – 7pm.

Needing no introduction, Jonathan Ross is not only a national celebrity but a lifelong comics fan - now making his writing debut with Image Comics and this fantastic four-issue mini-series! Tommy Lee Edwards is a top-drawer illustrator famous for his versatility. His clients have included just about every major film company, and his comics work includes 'Hellboy', 'Batman' and 'Marvel 1985'.

TURF is a hard-boiled noir crime thriller bristling with girls, guns, fangs and aliens. It’s New York, 1929, the height of prohibition. The cops turn a blind eye while the mobs run the city - but the arrival of the Eastern European Dragonmir Family coincides with a series of brutal attacks on the gangsters themselves. As the gangs fall before fangs, an unlikely alliance forms between tough guy Eddie Falco and a character from a LONG way from New York City - a long way from Earth in fact – and offers the humans a glimmer of hope.

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Kick-Ass signing at Forbidden Planet

2010-03-11T19:30:00.007Z

Diary Date: Sunday 21st March 2 – 3pm

Forbidden Planet is pleased to announce a signing by MARK MILLAR and JOHN ROMITA Jr. They will be signing the graphic novel KICK-ASS and the movie companion book KICK-ASS: CREATING THE COMIC, MAKING THE MOVIE at Forbidden Planet Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2h 8JR on Sunday March 21st 2 – 3pm.

The KICK-ASS phenomenon unites acclaimed writer Mark Millar and award-winning artist John Romita Jr. for one of the 21st century’s most outrageous and acclaimed series. What would happen if you tried to be a superhero – if an ordinary kid in spandex came face-to-face with the criminal underworld?

In the graphic novel, Dave Lizewski is just a regular American teenager with a MySpace page, a comic book collection, and no girlfriend. As self-styled vigilante Kick-Ass, however, he’s about to find out exactly how a superhero would fare in the real world... and it’s going to get really, really violent!

To accompany the film release, Mark Millar has also written the full and official page-to-screen story of KICK-ASS, collecting the input of the cast and crew as well as artist John Romita Jr. With eye-popping art from the original comics, script extracts and hundreds of movie photos, this is the indispensable guide to every aspect of ass-kicking.

PLEASE NOTE: WE CANNOT OFFER THESE ITEMS AS SIGNED PRE-ORDERS. IF YOU WOULD LIKE A SIGNED COPY, YOU WILL NEED TO BE AT THE EVENT.

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Forthcoming signings at Forbidden Planet

2010-03-05T12:44:00.003Z

Forbidden Planet is the largest store of its kind in the world. Some of the biggest names in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comics and Cult Entertainment have come to our London Megastore for signing events, including: Sam Raimi, Terry Gilliam, Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Simon Pegg, William Gibson, Mark Millar, Guillermo Del Toro and Stephen King.

We are delighted to be welcoming: -

Saturday 13th March 1 – 2pm
Alastair Reynolds signing Terminal World

Saturday 20th March 1 – 2pm
Joe Hill signing Horns

Tuesday 23rd March 6 – 7pm
Kelley Armstrong signing special advance copies of Frostbitten

Wednesday 24th March 6 – 7pm
Scroobius Pip signing Poetry in (E)motion

Thursday 25th March 6 – 7pm
Mike Carey signing The Unwritten

Friday 26th March
Brian and Wendy Froud signing The Heart of Faerie Oracle

All of these signings will take place at the Forbidden Planet London Megastore, 179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JR, the foremost location for genre and cult signings in the heart of London.

For more news about our signings please go to: http://www.forbiddenplanet.com/Signings.html.

Bigtrak is back!

2010-03-04T17:38:00.008Z

Bigtrak, one of the most beloved programmable toys from the 1980's, is being brought back by Dubreq Ltd (creators of the famous Stylophone pocket synth) with new updated accessories to include a rocket launcher and a digital camera - the scourge of pets everywhere.

Zeon will relaunch an authentic reproduction of Bigtrak, boasting all the features of the original model, including 23 button keypad, front-mounted blue photon beam headlamp and the ability to store up to 16 preset programmes.

Simon Gilham, general manager of Zeon in London said: "This is a very exciting time for Zeon. Bigtrak was one of the most exciting toys from my childhood and it’s so exciting to see the revival of this product.

“We wanted to take the incredibly popular toy and do something truly spectacular for the millions of children that came to love Bigtrak in the 1980’s by enabling parents of today to buy one of the most memorable toys from their past and bring it back to life for their own children to enjoy and of course for those who simply wish to have the toy they were never lucky enough to own as a child.

"This introduction mirrors the trend for retro toys and games but even by today’s standards of technology, this is still an immensely fascinating toy to play with what ever age you are!“

Bigtrak will be available in stores nationwide from July 2010, priced at £39.99, with accessories following in 2011. Pre-order Bigtrak from Amazon.

I originally missed out on owning one of these bad boys, my parents bought me MB's Star Bird and Command Base, and can't wait to see Bigtrak in retail stores this summer. I seem to recall that there were white and gray variants released to international markets.

How about Star Bird and ROM the Spaceknight? Make it so.

Follow Bigtrak on Twitter.

Masters of the Universe vs DC Universe Classics

2010-02-28T14:12:00.008Z

Mattel is bringing Masters of the Universe vs DC Universe Classics 2-packs to TRU! These will feature repaints of classic figures, sculpted by 4H, starting with Superman vs He-Man and Lex Luthor vs Skeletor. Each 2-pack includes a comic book pack-in.

Would a US-based reader be able to procure a set of each, to send me, as I'd like to write a review? Please contact me here. Thank you.