Doctor Who Rumormongering

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CalliArcale

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SILURIANS!

An old monster is coming back for the first time since the early 80s: the Silurians! Or at least, that's sure what it sounds like. Actress Neve McIntosh has been signed to perform in a two-parter as twin lizard warriors whom she describes as belonging to a lost Silurian tribe. She's clearly a Whovian at heart, and is thus aware of who the Silurians are, and their relationship to the Sea Devils. (For those less familiar with the series, the Silurians are a race of intelligent humanoid reptiles who lived on Earth millions of years ago, but who retreated beneath the surface to enter a state of suspended animation when it appeared that climate change would wipe out reptile species. Some of them awakened in the late 20th Century and were disappointed to discover that some uppity mammals had taken their place.)

Neve to star in Doctor Who
 
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yevaud

Guest
Thought you'd all find the following interesting:

BBC scriptwriters tried to use Doctor Who to bring down Margaret Thatcher

She battled the Argentine army abroad and the unions at home. But Margaret Thatcher never knew she was also under attack from outer space.

Left-wing scriptwriters hired by the BBC during the 1980s tried to inspire a 'Tardis revolution' by using Doctor Who as propaganda to undermine the Tory prime minister.

In one serial they caricatured her as a vicious and egotistical alien ruler who banned outward displays of unhappiness among her downtrodden people and used a secret police to oppress dissidents.

Former actors and writers on the show admitted yesterday that there was also thinly veiled support for the miners' strike and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Full Article
 
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CalliArcale

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Very interesting!

One random tidbit: though they were subtly attacking Thatcher in the 80s, in the previous decade they had sort of anticipated her. During the UNIT years, the prime minister (unnamed) was established as being female, and the episodes were supposedly set around 1980 (a fact which caused considerable confusion later on when scriptwriters forgot that and assumed they'd been set in the early-mid 70s, when they'd been filmed).

I'm not sure I would've seen Helen A as a parody of Margaret Thatcher, though. I wonder how much of it is true and how much is just the sort of unconscious revisionism that many people's minds do as they retell stories of their past exploits. That said, "Happiness Patrol" was probably one of the more overtly political serials on the series, and, probably not coincidentally, also one of the least effective ones. It came across as silly to me, not effective social commentary.

I do expect social commentary from Doctor Who. That's one of the main functions of science fiction -- to hold a mirror up to ourselves, distorted just enough to show ourselves in a way we normally don't see. But it's easy to get too heavy-handed. Happiness Patrol pretty much beat over the audience's head the idea that it's wrong for a government to declare that everyone must be happy, enforce happiness, and then expect it to happen.
 
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CalliArcale

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Some more details of the upcoming season:

http://www.radiofreeskaro.com/2010/02/12/series-fnarg-details-revealed-in-bbc-release/

We'll see 16th Century Venice, 1890s France, the UK in the future, and a nation "floating in space". Enemies will include Daleks (in 1940s London; will they bump into any gasmask zombies?), vampires, Earth reptiles, Weeping Angels, a "Star Whale", and some sort of "silent menace" that trails behind our heroes -- probably another story arc.

I am hoping that whatever story arc they do this year is more cohesive than what was done the last couple of seasons. Something along the lines of the Bad Wolf thing in Series One, which was pretty cool.
 
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CalliArcale

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Cool. Interesting comment over there: apparently Fox is looking into doing a Torchwood series in the US, which would explain why the BBC hasn't been talking about it at all despite the series' popularity. The post linked to this article:

Fox Developing U.S. Version of Torchwood

Torchwood is probably a better fit for Fox than Doctor Who was. I actually enjoyed the 1996 telemovie they did, but it was pretty lightweight as Dr Who goes.
 
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CalliArcale

Guest
Interesting stuff from the Dr Who News Page:

Susannah, a young girl from Lancashire, has designed a new console for the TARDIS. The design was part of a Blue Peter contest, and was ultimately selected by Matt Smith.
http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2 ... unced.html

David Tennant was voted "best dressed man of 2009" by Hello Magazine. Here are the top ten:
1. David Tennant - 35.4 per cent
2. Daniel Craig - 23.3 per cent
3. Jude Law - 16.8 per cent
4. Robert Downey Jr - 15.3 per cent
5. Robert Pattinson - 6.2 per cent
6. Hugh Jackman - 1.3 per cent
7. Andres Velencoso - 0.8 per cent
8. David Beckham - 0.4 per cent
9. Barack Obama - 0.3 per cent
10. Brad Pitt - 0.2 per cent
http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2 ... -2009.html
 
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lildreamer

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CalliArcale":1tr027w6 said:
Cool. Interesting comment over there: apparently Fox is looking into doing a Torchwood series in the US, which would explain why the BBC hasn't been talking about it at all despite the series' popularity. The post linked to this article:

Fox Developing U.S. Version of Torchwood

Torchwood is probably a better fit for Fox than Doctor Who was. I actually enjoyed the 1996 telemovie they did, but it was pretty lightweight as Dr Who goes.

bad idea..bad idea....everytime Fox gets a hold of a good scffi theme they mess it up....Firefly they let die...DarkAngel went off on a bent only good thing they came up with is X-files which is now pretty dated...Fringe is your up-to-date version of X-files...oh wait Space Above and Beyond had alot of meat but they starved it to death...whats left...cartoons...yup they're good for cartoons....and personally the 1996 movie sucked.....Americanised to the hilt....

oh wait ....hmmm I remember a pilot version of RED DWARF - that was made for the American market - that sucked tooo...should look for the link....be back...off i go.....
 
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CalliArcale

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Actually, the dreadful Red Dwarf pilot (which at least gave us Robert Llewellyn as Kryten!) was being produced by Universal Studios, to be distributed by NBC. Fox had nothing to do with it.

As for X-Files, you can call it dated, but it ran for nine seasons. That's a pretty respectable run, really. And, perhaps most significantly, it influenced Torchwood. That's what makes this potentially a very good fit. Granted, Fox does have Fringe, but maybe they're not satisfied with it and think Torchwood would be more successful. Being able to exploit the Whovian market without offending them by doing Dr Who itself again may be their real goal.

In any case, I'm quite willing to wait and see. ;-)
 
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CalliArcale

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Doctor Who to start on Easter weekend!

The new series will begin on Easter weekend, and the trailer has been released! It will apparently also be available in a 3D version, but here's the 2D one:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbmMhNe ... r_embedded

Okay, I give up on getting the Youtube tags to work. Sometimes they work for me, sometimes they don't, so I'm settling for the URL.
 
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lildreamer

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actually I would of laugh my silly arse off if he converted into the Master....that would be classic.... :lol:
 
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CalliArcale

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More news!

US viewers will see Doctor Who on BBC America starting April 17.
Canadian viewers will see it on SPACE on the same day.
Australian viewers will see it on ABC sometime in April; the exact date has not yet been released.

Some more episode titles have been revealed, bringing the current list for the upcoming season to:

1 - The Eleventh Hour
2 - The Beast Below
3 - Victory of the Daleks
4 - The Time of Angels
5 - Flesh and Stone (4&5 are a two-parter featuring River Song, and were the first to be recorded)
6 - Vampires in Venice

Meanwhile, the Sarah Jane Adventures have been contracted for another two seasons! Next season will feature several new baddies, and also the first trip to an alien world on the series. The current cast are all continuing for now, so it will still be Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde, and Rani.
 
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CalliArcale

Guest
I *totally* know what I want for Christmas this year -- there's gonna be a Dr Who game on the Wii!!! The BBC went with Wii because "it's something families play together", and of course Dr Who is meant as family viewing. The biggest challenge was figuring out what to do with the Doctor, as most games have the lead character shooting or bashing things, and that's not exactly the Doctor's style. But apparently they've managed to satisfied the bigwigs at the BBC that it will be faithful to the character.

(Mind you, this is the Sun getting an inside scoop. They have a fairly good track record with respect to Dr Who, compared to their track record with other things, but I'd like to see a press release from the BBC itself.)

http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2010/03/doctor-wii.html
 
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CalliArcale

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You lucky Brits -- you'll get to see Doctor Who at 6:25 PM on April 3!

"The Doctor has regenerated into a brand new man, but danger strikes before he can even recover. With the TARDIS wrecked, and the sonic screwdriver destroyed, the new Doctor has just 20 minutes to save the whole world - and only Amy Pond to help him."

Start date and time revealed?

Amusing to hear they've destroyed the sonic screwdriver again; I wonder if Moffat felt as the production team behind "The Visitation" did -- that the sonic screwdriver had become a bit of a deus ex machina and thus needed to be eliminated. Or will he fix it? Time will tell -- in the TARDIS, it always does. ;-)
 
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yevaud

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First Clip Of Matt Smith's Doctor Who Debut!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTcUjehUF_c[/youtube]
 
C

CalliArcale

Guest
Other tidbits:

The Daleks will reappear this season, as previously announced, in "The Victory of the Daleks", by Mark Gatiss. Some more information is now available: rumor has it, the story will feature the Daleks fighting Nazis in WWII at the behest of Winston Churchill! It'll be episode 3, so it should appear in April sometime. (Episode 1 airs April 3 in Britain.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2010/mar/22/doctor-who-daleks

The Guardian also confirms the story about a deal with Nintendo:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2010/mar/12/doctor-who-game-matt-smith

The Doctor Who News Page has a nice collection of bits from the newly released Dr Who presskit. One interesting observation among many: Moffet apparently agreed with the widespread sentiment that the Doctor shouldn't be too young, but cast Smith anyway because he didn't come across as young, talking about how the great thing about casting is that when it's right, the characters aren't what the writer conceived but are something even better.
http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2010/03/bbc-press-pack.html

The thirty-second series of Doctor Who has been commissioned, to air in 2011. Rumor of that was already out, though. ;-)
http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2010/03/2011-series-confirmed.html

Tom Baker has signed a deal to work with Big Finish, and they've also got Lis Sladen, Louis Jameson, and Nicholas Courtney interested. There's no word yet on exactly *what* they'll be doing, or whether all of those parties will be involved, but everybody certainly seems keen. The Fourth Doctor will finally appear on Big Finish's series of Doctor Who audio adventures. ;)
http://www.bigfinish.com/news/Fourth-Doctor-Rumour-Control
 
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CalliArcale

Guest
Episode two of the new season, "The Beast Below", will be set in the distant future, where the British people have left Earth and are searching for a new home. It sounds like a very classic type of Who story. According to the Beeb:

The Doctor takes Amy to the distant future, where she finds Britain in space. Starship UK houses the future of the British people, as they search the stars for a new home. But as Amy explores, she encounters the terrifying Smilers and learns a deadly truth inside the Voting Booth.

The title of Episode 7 has been revealed, so now the known list is as follows:
1 - The Eleventh Hour, by Steven Moffat
2 - The Beast Below, by Steven Moffat
3 - Victory of the Daleks, by Mark Gatiss
4 - The Time of Angels, by Steven Moffat
5 - Flesh and Stone, by Steven Moffat
6 - Vampires in Venice, by Toby Whithouse
7 - Amy's Choice, by Simon Nye
8 - TBA, by Chris Chibnall
9 - TBA, by Chris Chibnall
10 - TBA, by Richard Curtiss
11 - TBA, by Gareth Roberts
12 - TBA, by Steven Moffat
13 - TBA, by Steven Moffat


A clip from Episode 6, "Vampires of Venice" has been made available on the Internet:
http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2010/03/vampires-in-venice-clip.html

The new K9 spinoff series begins in the UK and Australia on April 3. It has been running in Scandinavia already and was filmed in Brisbane, Australia. In the UK, Disney XD will run it. In Australia, TEN will run it. There is a greatly redesigned K9 in it, but apparently the first episode ("Regeneration") starts off with the original K9 Mark 1 (except wasn't he left on Gallifrey with Leela?) and explains his change to a new model body.

A French-dubbed version of the 2009 specials has debuted in France, and the makers have made plans for who will take over dubbing duties from David Manet (who dubs for David Tennant) when they have to start dubbing for Matt Smith.
http://tattard2.blogspot.com/2010/03/11th-doctor-speaks-french.html
 
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CalliArcale

Guest
The new series will start on BBC America on April 17 at 9PM Eastern, 8PM Central. I would presume that would also mean 7PM Mountain and 6PM Pacific, but they might time-shift the schedules there. They're currently doing reruns. Go to their schedule page. In the middle, just above the table with the schedule, there is a drop-down menu where you can pick a show. This Saturday, while the Brits are enjoying the first episode of the new season, BBC America will run bunch of Doctor Who from 7PM (Eastern) to 4:30 tomorrow morning, including an episode of the Graham Norton show where he interviews David Tennant about his departure from the series.

It's kind of a peculiar lineup for Saturday, though. They'll run "The Sound of Drums" but not its conclusion, and then they'll run "Planet of the Dead" and "Waters of Mars".
 
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redmars1995

Guest
I live in Australia and the 5th season hasnt aired yet... i still have to wait for a couple of weeks :cry:
 
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CalliArcale

Guest
I was too impatient to wait, and got it via . . . other means. It was excellent. Matt Smith *is* the Doctor. It took me a little while to adjust to the last two Doctors (though both had me sold by their second episodes), but this guy had me sold within ten minutes. I can see why they cast him, even though Moffatt was firmly of the opinion the Doctor ought to be somebody in his forties (old enough to look wise, but young enough to run). I was very sad when Tennant decided to leave; I'm okay with it now. :cool:

The writing was very good; just what I expect out of Moffatt, really. It was a lot lighter than his past Who episodes, as a season opener really ought to be. There were some nicely creepy bits -- an innocuous looking crack in the plaster wall, a door that nobody seems to be able to see except out of "the corner of your eye, where you don't want to look". And though the monster was scary looking, it didn't do much more than snarl warnings at people (as it was trying to keep a low profile to avoid recapture). It was good.

And I like Amy Pond. There was some early criticism, based on trailers, of her costume -- a policewoman's skirt should not be so short, or include silk stockings with a seam up the back. Well, that's explained. :lol:

And I do hope she doesn't end up late when the Doctor finally returns her after her adventures this season.....
 
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