Friday 15 March 2024

May 11th

With the first two episodes on iPlayer, and on Disney+ simultaneously.

I will be waiting for the actual telly, as my actual telly is bigger than the monitor I am looking at this on.

Thursday 15 February 2024

Doctor Who scripts online

Via Reactor, You can now read a whole lot of Doctor Who scripts courtesy of the BBC Writers’ Script Library. Over two hundred, including the recent specials, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Class, and the audition piece for the Fifteenth Doctor.

ROBIN We’ve got 100 seconds?!
THE DOCTOR And I will get you out.  You will go home.  And see your mum.  And your brother.  Okay?
ROBIN How d’you know about them?
THE DOCTOR They’re in your eyes.

Wednesday 14 February 2024

Tuesday 23 January 2024

101 TARDIS Quirks

101 TARDIS Quirks on RPGnet, more than 10% mine for the initial number but carrying on.

Started bizarrely with the thing where it needs to be given a puma, but most are milder. from the same poster, 7 (unpleasantly organic) is disturbing while 8 (really likes neutron stars) is adorable.

Tuesday 9 January 2024

Three travellers

Since I’m doing Doctor Who revised first edition for the January Character Creation Challenge, I thought I should link them here.

Walker, Time Lord
Josh, busker
Amit, temporal physicist

Monday 8 January 2024

Nine plots from David Bowie's The Buddha Of Suburbia

For David Bowie’s birthday, adventure hooks based on his studio albums’ song titles.

After album titles, , The Next Day, Reality, Heathen, Hours, Earthling and Outside...

If I do these annually I will retire before I get to the end. So since The Buddha Of Suburbia is under ten titles, expect another soon...

And as the soundtrack to the TV version of Hanif Kureishi’s novel it’s ;already been a BBC drama, so dodging that plot. (And Naveen Andrews would make a great Doctor.)

Buddha of Suburbia
The travellers return to find a philosopher as mayor their home town and people coming from far and wide to learn from him. Oh, and it’s one of the travellers, about five years old than he is currently.

Sex and the Church
The travellers have to help Abelard and Heloise escape some very disapproving church authorities backed by the Censors seeking to stifle inappropriate artistic expression throughout human history.

South Horizon
The sun rises in the south. This is concerning.

The Mysteries
A production of a new murder mystery play is interrupted by an actual murder. By laser beam.

Bleed Like a Craze, Dad
1981, and the most famous band in the world is Theda Bara, led by a self-proclaimed immortal vampire queen.

Strangers When We Meet
The Stranger meets an incarnation of herself that she doesn’t recognise.

Dead Against It
A new bypass goes too close to a stone circle and workers start dying horribly. Dangerously zealous protesters or disturbed ghosts?

Untitled No. 1
The travellers have to team up with the Dadaists to stop the Censors wiping out the 1920s.

Ian Fish, U.K. Heir
The travellers return to the present and the person on all the money looks totally unfamiliar. Who altered the line of succession and why? Also, if we have a King Ian, is this the Ianian era?

Monday 1 January 2024

Tuesday 26 December 2023

Playing the Fifteenth Doctor

Fifteen is good at talking his way out of mundane situations, especially by being helpful.

Monday 25 December 2023

The Church On Ruby Road

The Church On Ruby Road is the first Christmas special in six years and the first as the first full adventure for a new Doctor since 2005, introducing a new companion as well.

A big goofy singing goblin adventure too. (With a deeply sad bit.)

Ruby being established as having heroic tendencies right away.

And Davina McCall as well!

Lovely little bit with the policeman’s reaction to the Doctor’s assurance, happily ignoring the police box disappearing.

Which I thought was going with Mrs. Flood’s equally casual reaction to establish that the Doctor isn’t unknown in this version of the present, but apparently not... Hmm...

The reveal of the King reminded me of Wizards Vs. Aliens, which also had a massive power-eating king behind a spaceship door in that case.

And a Buffy shoutout when mentioning the musical number in Unleashed!

As well as Long Lost Family being a visitor from ITV.

I knew Ncuti Gatwa lived in Edinburgh in his youth but I didn’t know he was round the corner in Oxgangs!


See you lot in May!

Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2024

A Merry Christmas to all of you at home!

Having a new Doctor and companion debut at Christmas means you can’t have much merch for them, but Ncuit Gatwa gets to share the Annual cover with David Tennant (as well as all the magazines - so many magazines!) and the back pages, after the story and comic section in between features and mostly puzzles.

Tuesday 19 December 2023

Imagine Russell T Davies

Alan Yentob talked to Russell T Davies on BBC One arts series Imagine, even with a moment on Dark Season. And a new to me bit about what the 60s episode next year is going to be about.

Saturday 16 December 2023

The Goblin Song

No Doctor Who epioode for another ten days! But a preview of The Goblin Song, on all the music platforms with proceeds going to Children In Need.

(It sounds more big band and less Labyrinth than I would have guessed from the goblins’ look. With their black eyes and pallid greenish skin they actually most remind of the Gnome who was so excited to be a monster in D&D 4e!)

Friday 15 December 2023

Sarah Jane's 50th anniversary

Sarah Jane Smith made her debut in The Time Warrior, fifty years ago today. A hero in her own right as embodied by Elisabeth Sladen.

Saturday 9 December 2023

The Giggle

One more special and we could have been weekly!

Still, there’s quite a lot to unpack here.

Bear in mind that this is the casual viewer friendly version of Doctor Who. Doctor Who is a weird show.

(Extra behind the scenes featurette where the end about what come next repeats the Unleashed episode)

The Toymaker!

Creepy puppets!

The Toymaker having a creepy puppet copy of the Doctor, as seen in the first Eighth Doctor comics!

Mel!

Saturday 2 December 2023

Wild Blue Yonder

Quite Midnight but also very Eighth Doctor comics. Also showing off the virtual set bit, while also being a bottle episode.

It does feel like we got one “normal” episode in a very compressed season as a result. (Not necessarily a complaint - I wish the nine episode Buffyverse audio drama Slayers had had standalone episodes - but odd when we only have three, like Sherlock.)