Doctor Who

An archive of blog entries about British science-fiction programme Doctor Who.

One more day to go news

8 March 2007 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

It’s Thursday. Not long now.

Doctor Who

Film

Comics

British TV

US TV

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: The Companion Chronicles – The Beautiful People

7 March 2007 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

The Companion Chronicles - The Beautiful PeopleWe’re now at the last and least explicable of The Companion Chronicles range, with Lalla Ward (aka Romana II) the final companion to fill the dimensionally transcendental Jackanory armchair. With the previous entries, there’s been a semi-reasonable excuse for the story’s existence – the actor who played the companion’s Doctor being dead and therefore no tasteful or faithful way to have a play featuring the companion alongside her Doctor. Here, we have a simple disagreement between the actor (Tom Baker) and Big Finish that’s resulted in Tombo not appearing in any Big Finish plays, leaving the companions to fend for themselves.

This would still be a good enough reason for the play if Tombo’s companions had had no other opportunities to appear in stories. But of the surviving fourth Doctor companions, Sarah Jane has had two series of Sarah Jane Smith adventures and now has her own TV show; Leela, Romanas I & II and K9 have had three series of Gallifrey to mess about with; Tegan and Nyssa have both had fifth Doctor stories; and the less said about Adric the better. They’ve all been well-mined for dramatic nuggets.

So I think it’s pretty clear that the Big Finish luvvies really just wanted another excuse to work with lovely, lovely Lalla again.

Putting that to one side though, in the form of The Beautiful People, we do have a perfectly acceptable piece of season 17 hokum to while the hour away, and a reasonable enough conclusion to the series.

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The by-jingo it’s early Wednesday news

7 March 2007 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Do you know you have to be at the US embassy at 8am for your i-visa interview? Bah.

Doctor Who

  • Troughton story The Web of Fear gets its first episode aired on BBC4 on Sunday 18th March as part of a London Underground season.

Film

  • Just when you thought there was no way for cinema to get crasser, now come plans to adapt John Milton’s Paradise Lost, getting rid of the dull bits, Adam and Eve being nude, etc.
  • M Night Hasbeen’s new film has been greenlit by Fox

Music

  • As though we cared, The Wurzels reveal who the mystery guest vocalist is on the re-release of “I Am A Cider Drinker” (it’s for charity though)



British TV

  • The DVD of Life on Mars, series two, is out on 16th April. It’ll feature a documentary about the Camberwick Green moment from episode 5.

US TV

  • The Black Donnellys gets okay ratings for its second episode, although others argue it’s a worrying slide.
  • Heroes will be back on April 23rd. Here’s the promo with clips from the next episode.
  • Zach Braff’s sorted himself a good deal to stay with Scrubs
  • An interview with Ronald Moore, exec producer of Battlestar Galactica
  • More pilot casting news. Anyone remember Party of Five?
  • Steve Coogan is to appear in Curb Your Enthusiasm as a psychiatrist
  • Create your own BSG video using SciFi’s BSG videomaker toolkit. You could win a prize
  • He may had jury duty, but he still has spoilers. Michael Ausiello lets us know useful things about Lost. Plus he seems to think a certain thing wasn’t permanent after all on BSG. Was RDM conning us?
  • Kristin talks to the producer of House about what’s to come and what’s past
  • Tim Robbins has a pharma-related drama planned for Showtime
  • Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver’s The Riches is going to premiere online this week
Audio and radio play reviews

Review: The Companion Chronicles – The Blue Tooth

5 March 2007 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

The Blue ToothAs a notorious Liz Shaw fan, I was looking forward to this entry in the Companion Chronicles range. One of the more adult companions (in a good way), she was one of the main elements of a short-lived strategy to make Doctor Who less childish, way back in season seven. However, she never got so much as a leaving scene when she was replaced by Jo Grant and hasn’t yet appeared in any of the Big Finish range. So it was good to hear she would be featuring in this brief set of audio books.

The Blue Tooth sees Liz returning to Cambridge to meet an old friend. In true Who style, it all goes very wrong when an outer space monster intrudes – no less a beastie than the Cybermen, in fact. And it opens with a promise: to reveal why Liz decided to leave the Doctor.

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Monday’s March news

5 March 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Doctor Who

  • Video footage of the possible last scene for John Barrowman in the next series of Doctor Who. No sound to spoil things
  • David Tennant’s video diary is on YouTube, now the Beeb has done a deal with Google

Film

Art



British TV

  • Neil Gaiman gets bewildered by the UK release of Neverwhere

US TV

  • Sort of spoilers for Tuesday’s House. And for The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll. Yey?
  • Chris Showerman (what did his ancestors do?) has been cast as Flash Gordon
  • Spoilers for Heroes. And more spoilers. And more!
  • Sarah Connor Chronicles talk. Yes, Summer Glau is an evil female terminator
  • Joss Whedon talks about Buffy, Firefly, Wonder Woman and the Buffiverse movies that never happened
  • How Lost got a VW camper van onto the island
  • Spoilers for BSG
  • Pamela Anderson has a new TV show in the works
  • Amber Tamblyn is to star in the disturbing Babylon Fields pilot
  • 24 spoilers