"Sontar-Ha!"

Did you enjoy Saturday's Sontaran yarn? It was good fun, and most humorous to see the diminutive potato-headed clones back in full force! The tech noir trappings of The Sontaran Stratagem were most becoming!

Can't wait for the action figures!

Doctor Who "Welcome Aboard" Airfix Model Kit

The first of the Airfix products to feature the latest Doctor.

This set is wonderfully detailed and includes models of the Doctor, Martha and "light and sound" TARDIS that is over 24cm tall! This kit also comes with a tub of Humbrol Precision Poly, two brushes and all the required Humbrol Acrylic paints required to complete the model.

Model Scale 1:12. Requires painting.

A Doctor Who Christmas

This is my final post of 2007! May I take this opportunity to thank all my readers and sponsors for their continued support. Don't miss Doctor Who: The Voyage Of The Damned on Christmas Day!

I'll be back in the New Year...

Rose Reprise

Billie Piper will be reprising her role as companion Rose Tyler in the upcoming season of Doctor Who.

According to a report in the Daily Mirror, today confirmed by the BBC, Piper will appear in at least three episodes towards the conclusion of the fourth season, which is currently being filmed in Cardiff. The 25-year-old actress will star alongside Catherine Tate's Donna Noble, and the returning Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones.

Since leaving the hit time-travelling show in 2006, following two hugely successful seasons and numerous awards, Piper has starred in ITV2's Secret Diary Of A Call Girl and as Philip Pullman's heroine Sally Lockhart in a BBC adaptation of The Ruby In The Smoke.

Santa Sec

What to get your favourite little consumer this Christmas? What do you mean you had barely even thought about it? It's already mid-October for goodness' sake!

It will drive the rest of the family to distraction within minutes of being unwrapped, but a new Dalek mask made of flesh-pink ribbed plastic will be one of the "must-have" toys this Christmas, retailers predicted yesterday.

The mask, modelled on a one-eyed Dalek-human hybrid which appeared in the episode Daleks in Manhattan, changes the voice of the wearer to the metallic scream of the doctor's mortal enemies. Games based on films and TV characters will fill Santa's sack this year, according to toy manufacturers who made their annual prediction of Christmas best-sellers yesterday.

The Sarah Jane Adventures

First appearing with Jon Pertwee then Tom Baker, Sarah Jane Smith is one of the most popular Doctor Who companions in the show’s history – the perfect choice for a new spin-off series from CBBC aimed at younger fans, but terrific fun for older viewers too as Sarah Jane uses her experiences from her TARDIS days to investigate alien mysteries right here on Earth.

The Macra: Masters of Terror

Last Saturday's episode of Doctor Who, Gridlock, refreshingly brought back the dreaded Macra, the celebrated crab-like enemy that Patrick Troughton's Doctor faced, four decades before, in 1967.

This riveting adventure, framed against an homage to Ridley Scott's Bladerunner (Scott was commissioned to design the Daleks (Terry Nation only provided the scantest of descriptions), but passed duties to Raymond Cusick)), reintroduced the Face of Boe and the 'revelation' that the Doctor is not the only Time Lord to have survived the last great Time War with the Daleks!

This lends further, possible, credence to online speculation that The Master is set to return. As noted previously, I remain hopeful that John Simm will indeed play the role!

Life After Mars?

The excellent time-traveling cop drama Life on Mars concluded, controversially, last night on BBC 1! In the tradition of the very best genre series, the ending is deliciously problematic and evocative of seminal semiological tour de force The Prisoner!

Given that I have experienced a coma, following a near-fatal head injury at St Michael’s Nursery & Primary School Kingsteignton in October 1977, which left me paraplegic, I can empathise with Sam Tyler's (dryly played by John Simm) 'Alice in Wonderland' adventure!

Can't wait to see John Simm on Doctor Who. Who's betting he'll be playing the Doctor's brother, and arch nemesis, The Master? Russel T Davies make it so!

Boe

The Face of Boe first appeared in the 2005 series episode The End of the World five billion years in the future. There, he was the sponsor of an event to safely witness the destruction of the Earth by the expansion of the Sun. He is around 5" tall complete with tendrils and a mouth that moves as if he truly is speaking.

Planet of the Spiders

**Contains Doctor Who Christmas Special 2006 spoilers**

A confession! I wasn't particularly impressed with the use of the Empress of Racnoss in The Runaway Bride, the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas special starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate! The performance was too static and the Empress' excessive ranting expunged any sense of palpable threat - quiet and measured is always more effective (see Davros in Revelation of the Daleks or Number Six in Battlestar Galactica 200x).

The narrative situations in The Runaway Bride were too derivative of last year's Christmas Special and owed much to the Lost in Space (1998) movie. In fact I speculated as to whether or not the Empress would be consumed by her own children during the predictable "fire" finale (the Doctor Who writers aren't the only culprits to commit this popular sin so-to-speak). The insidious spiders of Metebelis III need not lose any sleep!

Right, now that's out of the way lets get down to business.



Character Options, the award-winning UK based toy company, continues to raise the bar on mass-produced collectibles with the advent of their Doctor Who 2007 - 12" Empress of Racnoss. The Empress is a giant arachnid from deep within space. She has over 24 points of articulation, creating a spectacular action figure from the Doctor Who 2006 Christmas Special. To say she looks cool would be an understatement.

Stay tuned for further Character Options announcements over the coming weeks!

The Ark

The second season of the new Doctor Who television series was a fan’s dream come true – two of the biggest, nastiest cyborg villains in Who history (hey, in SF history!), the Daleks and the Cybermen, battling on and above the streets of London.

We’ve been loving the new Who action figures this year and now the fine folks behind them, Character Options, are celebrating that epic season finale with these two brilliant box sets, the Doomsday set with the Doctor, Dalek and Cyberman and the Genesis Ark with four Daleks (Cult of Skaro) and the Ark stolen from the Time Lords to generate a new Dalek army, so now you can re-enact the battle almost every fan has always wanted to see.

Terror of the Autons

Recreate scenes from Series 1 of Doctor Who with these all-new 5" poseable action figures.

The Doctor Who 2007 action figures range includes Rose Tyler with 2 spider robots, a Slitheen & Space Pig (twin pack), Captain Jack & the Empty Child (twin pack), Autons (twin pack) and Dalek with mutant reveal.

The Adventures of Doctor Who

Travelling through time and space on board the TARDIS, the Doctor and his companions began their adventures on November 23rd 1963 when two teachers followed a mysterious pupil into a blue police box, and discovered her alien grandfather and his remarkable TARDIS.

26 years of television adventures followed until the series ended in 1989. After the 1996 TV movie, the Doctor was again lost in time and space until the series returned to the BBC on March 26th 2005, starring Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor and Billie Piper as his companion Rose Tyler.

Follow the longest running program and relive the adventures with Doctor Who Series 2 Collectible Plates. There are three to collect.

The Adventures of Doctor Who.
The Cybermen.
The Doctor.

Produced in a limited edition of only 1000, each plate comes complete with an individually numbered certificate of authenticity.

The Ood Couple

In 2007 Character Options expands its award-winning Doctor Who license with all-new 12" articulated collector figures.

The Ood
This 12" Ood (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit) has tentacles on the lower portions of its face along with 14 points of articulation to his body.

The Ood has a translator device, a small sphere connected to its "mouth" by a tube, to facilitate speech between it and humans. This sphere attaches to the Ood's hand or tunic. There is no gender differentiation of the Ood.



Clockwork Droid
This 12" Clockwork Droid (The Girl In The Fireplace) wears a removable porcelain style mask and period costume.

The figure has 14 points of articulation and under his mask he has a detailed clockwork mechanism. He also has a removable weapon attached to his arm.

Shop Doctor Who

Today I've launched a dedicated shop for all things Doctor Who!

Doctor Who Shop UK

Doctor Who Shop USA

Buy toys, games and books under one roof and be assured of excellent order fulfilment (provided by Amazon).

Christmas is less than six weeks away! Happy holiday shopping and please bookmark.

G'Dalek Kylie!

Kylie Minogue, pop musics' Green Fiery, made a triumphant return to the Sidney stage alongside, what looked like, Cyberwomen!

The BBC was forced to confirm that the diabolical dustbins are to return in the third season of Doctor Who!

This time their gambit, spearheaded by Dalek Sec (The Cult of Skaro), involves invading New York in the 1930's! Expect to hear the sounds of Dalek death rays serenaded by jazz music!

Don't forget to pre-order Doctor Who - The Complete Series 2 Box Set from Amazon UK.

Torchwood Night

The first Doctor Who spin-off begins on UK television tonight. Torchwood, replete with sex, expletives and violence, spearheaded by Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman).

Captain Jack Harkness, the former Time Agent and con man from the 51st century last seen traveling with the Doctor, ventures to early 21st century Cardiff. There, he becomes a member of Torchwood Institute, a renegade criminal investigation group founded by Queen Victoria to battle hostile extraterrestrial and supernatural threats.

The premise sounds a lot like The X-Files, which was itself inspired by Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

Memory Lane

For several generations of Whovians, this time of year is synonymous with watching Doctor Who on television! And, with the changeable weather, there's no better time to buy digitally remastered adventures missing from your DVD collection!

Sendit.com has reduced the RRP £19.99 on selected titles to just £7.89 including:

Inferno
"If you break through the Earth's crust now you'll release forces you never dreamed existed!"

20th Century Earth. An unhinged scientist, Professor Stahlman, is attempting the first penetration of the Earth's crust in a top secret drilling project called Inferno. His purpose? To tap into a new energy source at the core. But at what cost? When the Doctor is called in with his companion Liz Shaw to oversee the project, he soon develops grave misgivings. Things begin to go very wrong when a mysterious green substance leaks from the drillhead. A substance which turns all who come into contact with it into alien primeval creatures called Primords.

Meanwhile, the Doctor finds himself transported into a parallel universe identical to 20th Century Earth. The mystery deepens as he finds that although the place, time and people are all the same, no-one seems to know who he is. Only one thing is certain: the drilling must be stopped before the full force of the energy from the core is unleashed, destroying not only this Earth but the one the Doctor has just left behind.

Genesis of the Daleks
The Doctor and his companions are transported back in time by the Time Lords who have decided that the Daleks need to be destroyed. The Doctor's mission is to change history so that they have never existed. Soon they are separated and The Doctor and Harry are captured by the evil Elite of the mad scientist Davros, who is working to perfect his Mark 3 travel machine: the Dalek.

The Hand of Fear
The TARDIS materialises in an English quarry where Sarah is involved in a rock fall. When she is rescued, she is clutching a stone hand, which takes control of her and forces her to take it into the core of a nuclear reactor. The Doctor (Tom Baker) arrives too late to stop the hand from regenerating into an alien lifeform known as Eldrad, who demands to be returned to her home planet of Kastria. The Doctor obliges, but all is not as it seems with Eldrad. This was Sarah Jane Smith's last adventure with the Doctor, although she later returned in 'K-9 and Company', 'The Five Doctors' and 'Downtime'.

Classics one and all.

Friday the 13th

With Halloween only a few weeks away. Now is the ideal time to purchase the Cyberman Voice Changer Helmet, which is billed as one of this years "must-have" holiday toys according to BBC News.

A must for Doctor Who fans old and new!

This Voice Changer is a Replica Cyberhead at 1:1 scale which features speech, sound effects and lights.

It has three play buttons.
Button 1--Play Cyberman phrases with light up mouth.
Button 2--Change your voice into a Cyberman's for role playing with light up mouth.
Button 3--Cyber weapon sound effect.
Please note: Requires x3 AA Batteries Included
Manufacturer's recommended age 5+

Doctor Who Underground

BBC Worldwide announced today the appointment of Underground Toys Ltd. as the North American manufacturer and distributor for Doctor Who toy and collectible products, including the popular figure line from the UK’s award-winning Character Options Group. The deal was brokered by MOST MANAGEMENT, BBC’s North American licensing agency for the Doctor Who franchise.

Underground Toys will be bringing action figures, R/C figures, 12" collector dolls, clocks, watches, electronic gadgets, electronic keychains, diaries and more to market through their own distribution channels, direct-to-chain stores and through sub-distributors around the country. Underground Toys directly supplies specialty market retailers including Borders, Hot Topic and Spencer Gifts as well as independent retailers, comic book and hobby stores. Underground Toys will begin shipping initial products in time for the holidays, with a full roll out of the items in February 2007 at the International Toy Fair in New York.

Already a huge success in the UK, the Doctor Who toy line was the second highest-selling last Christmas in the UK and is expected to repeat its success this year. The line also won Best Licensed Toys and Games Award and the Innovation Award at the 2006 Licensing Awards.

“Underground Toys recognizes that there is a growing demand for Doctor Who products at retail in the USA and will be strongly pushing and supporting the brand into specialty retail,” said Robyn Morgan, Underground Toys' Licensing Manager. “We are focused on executing the merchandise program effectively in conjunction with the growing popularity of the new Doctor Who series."

“Underground toys has a wealth of experience and knowledge in the market along with an enthusiastic approach to the Doctor Who brand,” said Anna Hewitt, Head of International Licensing, BBC Worldwide. “We are thrilled that fans both new and old in North America will have a chance to purchase Doctor Who products.”

The first season of the new Doctor Who proved a huge success for SCI FI Channel, delivering an average of 1.5 million viewers each week. The second season began with a two-hour premier on September 29th, where over a million viewers tuned in to watch the new Doctor, David Tennant.

Doctor Who: The Complete First Series has become BBC Video’s best selling ‘Doctor Who’ DVD title ever in North America. The second series will arrive on DVD January 16, 2007, following the airing on SCI FI Channel this fall. In addition, over forty classic Doctor Who episodes are currently available on DVD through BBC Video, with new releases in the classics line releasing each quarter. A range of Doctor Who novels, featuring adventures from the new and classic Doctor Who series, is available through Diamond Book Distributors.