Liz Shaw

News

News to end the week by

26 January 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Doc girls

I’m off again today. Stu_N knows where. Stu_N knows why.

Doctor Who

  • A cracking bit of art, illustrating the various female companions down the ages. Isn’t Liz Shaw cute, although the David Tennant is pretty cute, too. [via Behind the Sofa]
  • Talking of cartoons, an 13-part animated version of the show is to appear as part of Totally Doctor Who, according to the Mirror (scroll down). Anthony Head will guest-voice.
  • Confirmation of what Paul Cornell’s story will be about in series three.
  • PJ Hammond talks about Sapphire and Steel and Torchwood. He touches in passing on the fact he’s writing an episode for series two and that the ITV revival of Sapphire and Steel has fallen through.

Film

Music

British TV

US TV

Audio and radio plays

The Companion Chronicles and more at Big Finish

20 November 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Big Finish, as always, has news. The interesting stuff (ie stuff that isn’t about Benny Summerfield, The Tomorrow People, Dark Shadows, et al) is as follows:

The Companion ChroniclesJanuary sees the release of The Companion Chronicles, four new Doctor Who adventures on audio – one for each of the first four Doctors. Each story will be told from the viewpoint of one of the Doctor’s companions. Maureen O’Brien (Vicki), Wendy Padbury (Zoe), Caroline John (Liz Shaw) and Lalla Ward (Romana II) all reprise their television roles.

As far as I can gather, these will be two-handers featuring the companion and one other actor – in the case of the Liz Shaw story, it’ll be Nicholas Courtney as The Brigadier, but the other stories won’t feature anyone else from the TV series. They’ll also still be Doctor Who stories, only narrated rather than acted, so don’t necessarily think of these as the audio equivalent of Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma et al, with the companion being Doctor-less and taking over as the hero/heroine of the piece.

Blood of the DaleksThe cover and synopsis for the first of the New Year BBC7 dramas, Blood of the Daleks, is online, too. Anyone want to guess who the enemy is going to be? Looks like they’re going for a different look for these titles and it appears quite adult and grown-up. On the other hand, reading the synopses for the stories, I don’t get the same feeling, so who knows what they’re actually going to be like.

Still, with the likes of Kenneth Cranham, Anita Dobson, Sheridan Smith, Bernard Cribbins, Una Stubbs, Ian McNeice, Elspet Gray, Timothy West, Nerys Hughes, Nigel Havers, Roy Marsden and Nickolas Grace appearing in them, it’s hard not to think the Beeb’s amped up Big Finish’s budget for a reason…

PS Wonder how close Immortal Beloved is going to be to one of our regulars’ forthcoming novel…

Why Liz Shaw had to go

31 October 2006 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Without wishing to start a new almost-war, I thought this little snippet from the Backlash… sorry, BBC Doctor Who web site was of interest:

Another element of the seventh season with which both Letts and Dicks had been dissatisfied was Liz Shaw. This was on the basis that the independent, self-confident scientist had little need to rely on the Doctor for explanations and so, in their eyes, failed to fulfil the basic dramatic functions of aiding plot exposition and acting as a point of audience identification. Letts therefore decided against renewing actress Caroline John’s contract for a further season and the two men set about devising a new companion for the Doctor.

Anyway, here’s a little clip of Liz Shaw in action from my third most favourite story, The Ambassadors of Death. The clip is actually an example of the current restoration work being done by Ian Levine and co, so the quality of the first half is rubbish. And I don’t mean the story.

A Tuesday Doctor Who meme

24 October 2006 Rob Buckley 21 Comments

I’ve not had much joy with these meme things, but I thought I’d give it another go. Today’s meme of fun, to be answered in your own blog or in the comments section, is quite a simple one and I reckon there are enough people here in the know to give it a go.

So here it is: what are you three favourite Doctor Who stories and why? You can have stories from the old series, new series, audio plays, movies, books, comics, stage plays, even fan fic. You don’t have to arrange them in any order (nor put down any other stories if you don’t want). You just need to name your top three.

To get things rolling, here are mine:

  1. Caves of Androzani: It’s just so bleak! With the exception of two characters, everyone dies; even the Doctor ‘dies’. There are those marvellous, fourth-wall breaking asides to the audience by Morgus.
  2. Kinda: One of the only attempts to do proper literary-style sci-fi. Full of Buddhist metaphors, it does suffer a bit from cheapo production values and the inflatable snake. But it’s a cracker all the same. It was either this or the sequel Snakedance anyway.
  3. Genesis of the Daleks: Well, it had to be, didn’t it? Again, bleak as bleak can be, but it was Tombo at his finest, Davros at his most nuanced and the Daleks, surprisingly, at their scariest.

I toyed with Ark In Space (evil alien wasp things lay their eggs inside human beings), Deadly Assassin (the Doctor’s first proper return to Gallifrey) and The Five Doctors (it’s fun) but those were the winners.

Who wants to be first with the follow-ups? Anyone? Bueller?

UPDATE: I’m actually reconsidering Genesis of the Daleks in favour of Ambassadors of Death: it’s adult, gritty, and intelligent thanks to a corker of a script from David Whitaker. Pertwee is on excellent form, Liz Shaw has great fun taunting bad guys (my faves: “It’s so simple even you could understand it” and “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you”) and there’s some fantastic direction, with some particularly well composed shots that you just wouldn’t have expected from the Beeb of the time. Plus you have to appreciate a composer of incidental music, who when faced with an action scene, doesn’t go for the obvious but goes for the flute solo instead. Marvellous.