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.

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.

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.

The Cult of Skaro

Meet Dalek Sec, Dalek Caan, Dalek Jast and Dalek Thay. The Cult of Skaro, operating above the Emperor, who have set their creative minds on Universal domination in the glorious, if flawed, two-part season finale (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday).

The Black Dalek, Sek, delights in taunting the Cybus Cyberleader in a manner that would have garnered the Dalek's destruction during David Banks' era! An alliance between these iconic monsters could have set the tone for season 3!

The Dalek/Cyberman/Human battle was perhaps predictable and less balanced than it may have been. However, there's only so much that can be compressed into two 45 minute episodes and what we're left with is a roller coaster ride bereft of invention (not another portal?), but no poorer for it! Think of it as Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride for Whovians. I'd be more than happy to take this ride more than once and recommend to friends...

Rose Tyler's farewell was an emotional tour de force underscored by BBC Wales' Orchestra, culminating in the Rose/Doctor Who leitmotiv; dare I suggest love theme? Genuinely heartbreaking and evocative of Buffy season 5. The only fly in the ointment was that the producers were not brave enough to end on David Tennant's Doctor standing all alone, the Tardis as Batcave. Perhaps I was asking too much?

Four to Doomsday

Daleks, Cybermen, The Master, Sutekh and more? Army of Ghosts and Doomsday will contain the answers and then some!

Now, whilst we wait, why not checkout this excellent review (replete with gorgeous photos) of Character Options' Tardis playset? Pre-order at Forbidden Planet for £34.99.

The Incredible Sarah

Thirtysomething Doctor Who fans rejoice! The Hand of Fear (1976) debuts on DVD for the first time next month.

When the TARDIS lands on Earth in a quarry (where else?), the Doctor and Sarah are caught in a mining explosion. She is found clutching what appears to be a fossilised hand, buried in 150 million-year-old strata. Analysis shows the hand to be silicon-based and inert, but when Sarah begins to act as if possessed, the Doctor suspects that it may still be alive...

Every self-respecting fan knows that this is the story in which Sarah Jane Smith leaves the Tardis for the last time (until the highly affecting School Reunion). I have no memory what-so-ever of this story and can't wait.

Sunday School

Did you see last night's Doctor Who episode School Reunion? Russell T. Davies' magnum opus, starring Anthony Stewart Head (Buffy's Mr Giles), culminated in a tear-jerking denouement.

Given that it's been 30 years since Sarah Jane Smith disembarked from the Tardis in The Hand of Fear (The Five Doctors notwithstanding), emotions and expectations were running at an all time high for this lifelong Whovian. Suffice to say that School Reunion satiated both in spades.

Season 2 of 'new' Doctor Who harkens back to the 'gothic seasons' 13 and 14 (Tom Baker in his prime). The Hammer Horror theme from Werewolves to Frankenstein (Rise of the Cybermen) is prevalent, albeit with a post, postmodern twist.

I'd like to close this post with a heartfelt thank you to Mr Davies. Long may you control the Tardis' production console.

Rose

The how and why of the online leak for the first episode of the new Doctor Who series (allegedly sourced from a Canadian broadcaster) isn't the subject of this post. I've covered the issue of P2P before. No, this is a review of the first episode as shown to the Press (the post production appears to be complete). Rose.

The opening title sequence marks the welcome return of the Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker main theme arrangement and sent chills down my spine. The CGI TARDIS, blurrily tumbling through time and space, recalls the Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy eras. The logo is the work of someone who has never heard of Photoshop! Why not update the classic diamond logo?

The subsequent montage introducing Rose pays homage to BBC franchises EastEnders and S-Club! The producers make excellent use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound and make reference to gay and popular consumer culture.

Billy Piper's pop career still haunts this reviewer and I'm ashamed to admit that, gulp, I liked "Because We Want To"! However, before Piper's pop career she was trained at Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts (BBC taps this rich reservoir) and once she encounters the good Doctor, amidst an Auton attack, their chemistry is electric. Somehow Piper disarms you and the Doctor is, well, the Doctor! I couldn't help smiling and thinking Christopher Eccleston was a canny choice. He's funny, but there's an edge waiting to be explored.

The Autons (controlled by the plastic manipulating and octopus-like Nestene Consciousness) were an infamous enemy and irked parents and the self-appointed moral guardian Mary Whitehouse following the broadcast of Terror of the Autons (1971). I saw the latter in 1983. Terror was screened at the Doctor Who 20th Anniversary convention and followed by a Q&A with the principal actors (including Jon Pertwee) and production crew.

I could opine that the production values of the new series are not on a par with Angel, Buffy, Battlestar or X-Files. But this is a postmodern parody and Rose is loosely based on Spearhead From Space (1970). So, international audiences may be left out in the cold at its superficial lack of sophistication. I defy any Doctor Who fan not to be deeply moved by the sight of the TARDIS and its familiar sounds.

All in all I'm delighted to see the Doctor back (sans episode cliffhangers) and so should you. Just in time...

Logopolis

Cloister bell - an alarm which rings in the TARDIS to warn the crew of impending disaster. It was first heard in Logopolis, and rang again in Castrovalva, Resurrection of the Daleks, the 1996 television movie, and the 2005 Children in Need special.