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Post by matthewsee on Mar 31, 2012 0:14:09 GMT
In DWM 410, Russell T Davies wrote about David Tennant’s last work as the Doctor in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith and mentioned that it also featured Zienia Merton from Space: 1999. Considering that he wrote this in DWM, he somewhat made an oversight of not mentioning that Zienia Merton was in Doctor Who in Marco Polo in 1964. He also overlooked the fact that with her appearance in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith in 2009, it – being 45 years – is the longest gap for someone’s Whoniverse appearances.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 1, 2012 23:56:01 GMT
Victory of the Daleks: Churchill mentioned his eventual successor and then predecessor Clement Attlee. Attlee was played at one time by one Patrick Troughton in the mini-series Edward and Mrs Simpson. As Victory of the Daleks is akin to with Troughton’s formal debut story Power of the Daleks (as both have the “I am your…” line from the Daleks) perhaps Gatiss was in a way making a reference to Troughton via Attlee, a real-life person that Troughton once portrayed.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 4, 2012 0:42:39 GMT
Included in The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe DVD release are three “Best of…” specials made by BBC America shortly before the screening of the second half of season 36. These are interviews from well known (mostly to American) fans who had attended Comic Con when these specials were recorded as they give their perspectives on the Eleventh Doctor era so far.
The first of these three specials was Best of the Doctor: The only people that I knew before who were interviewed was that of Mark Sheppard (The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon) and Danielle Harris (all grown up here but I first saw as a little girl in Halloween 4). Pretty good perspectives of the Eleventh Doctor’s life so far and showing key moments from his episodes.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 4, 2012 23:34:36 GMT
2012 Annual
Attack of the 50 Ft Rory: Fourth story. Comic strip which starts with a flashforward of Rory as a giant hence the title. Then the story goes back to see how Rory became that way. Lots of fun this story. The part I really like was when Amy told the Doctor that Rory was not a decoy to distract the giants in which the Doctor responded by saying that the alternative of Rory being a decoy was Amy being one instead. It is then that Amy told Rory to distract the giants and thanks to the illustration of her face here made it easy to imagine of Karen Gillan actually saying that line.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 7, 2012 4:13:12 GMT
K9 and Company was the very first Doctor Who TV spinoff but its first episode A Girl’s Best Friend would turn out to be its last. As a result of K9 and Company, being a one-off, it easily been overlooked not to mention as simply K9 and Company with no one bothering to remember the A Girl’s Best Friend title and/or absorbed within “classic” Doctor Who. In regards to the latter I have seen it being written as Doctor Who: K9 and Company in catalogues. For K9 and Company’s DVD release it came under the purview of the “classic” Doctor Who range with it being part of the K9 Tales set along with the Doctor Who story that introduced K9, The Invisible Enemy. Although K9 and Company was released as part of the “classic” Doctor Who range, its DVD sleeve presented it as its own show the style of it being distinctive to Doctor Who. Despite the DVD sleeve presenting the distinction of K9 and Company to its parent Doctor Who it isn’t reflected on the content of the disc. The K9 and Company disc content is the same in template to the “classic” Doctor Who discs. That is, it has the flying TARDIS followed by the big Doctor Who logo and then comes the menu. On the menu the Doctor Who logo is placed next to the spinoff title making it look like “Doctor Who: K9 and Company: A Girl’s Best Friend” and the menu like the “classic” Doctor Who discs has the TARDIS roundels. The presence of what is usual for the template of a “classic” Doctor Who disc on the K9 and Company disc could easily be explained of presenting consistency with the “classic” Doctor Who range. In the end it is really about maintaining the perception of the absorption of K9 and Company with “classic” Doctor Who. The K9 and Company disc complements the Sarah Jane Adventures season 1 DVD disc. The perception of K9 and Company being part of “classic” Doctor Who would perhaps explains the timeline on the SJA season 1 DVD. The timeline features clips of Sarah’s episodes of “classic” and “new” Doctor Who and the first SJA episode Invasion of the Bane but not K9 and Company. A definite oversight as K9 and Company is much a part of Sarah’s history as that of Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 8, 2012 3:12:54 GMT
From the Doctor Who News Page: The Doctor’s Wife, A Good Man Goes to War & The Girl Who Waited have been nominated for the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.
The three Doctor Who episodes are against the Community episode Remedial Chaos Theory.
Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell has also been nominated for his book The Copenhagen Interpretation for Best Novelette and SF Squeecast for which he is a contributor has been nominated for Best Fancast.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 8, 2012 10:03:01 GMT
From the Doctor Who News Page: According to the latest issue of DWM the fourth episode of the upcoming season will be produced on its own as Block Three and to be directed by Douglas Mackinnon, who previously directed The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, and written by Chris Chibnall.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 9, 2012 8:47:11 GMT
Vincent and the Doctor: Adam Rogers, editor of Wired Magazine said in the Best of the Doctor BBC America special that Vincent having seen his portraits at the gallery in the future, our contemporary times, may have influenced him in drawing them back in his own time.
Notwithstanding the portrait of the exploding TARDIS, Vincent having already painted all the portraits that he remembered seeing at that gallery had no more motivation to live and therefore still eventually committed suicide.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 9, 2012 21:23:00 GMT
The End of Time Part 2 disc on the 2008-10 Specials set includes deleted scenes from the aforementioned specials. Ironically there does not seem to be any deleted scenes from The End of Time Part 2. This perhaps is not surprising considering its running time was 72 minutes, 12 minutes longer than the usual time for a special of 60 minutes. Therefore it would have been a surprise if The End of Time Part 2 did indeed had anything left out of it.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 9, 2012 22:08:07 GMT
Found out from DWM 443 that Alice Krige finally made an appearance in Doctor Who in the Romana season of Big Finish’s Fourth Doctor audio adventures. Alice Krige was the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact & the Star Trek: Voyager, therefore becoming the latest actor to appear in both Doctor Who and Star Trek, and more recently as Elena Gavrik in the final season of Spooks. Looking more into this, she is a guest star in the story Phantoms of the Deep.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 12, 2012 0:54:28 GMT
Worldwide Web: Worldwide Web is the concluding instalment of the finale of the third season of the Eighth Doctor New Adventures from Big Finished released in 2009 and written by Eddie Robson. Worldwide Web concludes the storyline that began with The Eight Truths. Worldwide Web is an effective ending to the Spiders story. Kudos goes to Sheridan Smith as both Lucie herself and that of being possessed by the Queen Spider. As well as The Eight Truths/Worldwide Web being a sequel to the Pertwee swansong Planet of the Spiders, it seems to have taken elements from the TV series. The depiction of an afterlife here came in 2009 the year after one was shown in Forest of the Dead, the Headhunter refusing to give her name so that the Eighth Doctor would be able to save her life felt suspiciously like the Tenth Doctor trying unsuccessfully to convince the Master to regenerate in Last of the Time Lords and the last line in Worldwide Web achieved something that Revelation of the Daleks was not able to do with its last line and that is to state unequivocally that the Doctor and companion’s next destination is Blackpool. The interviews at the end of the disc were enjoyable the highlight of which is guest star Stephen Moore which included him talking about his time as Marvin the Paranoid Android in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It was pointed out to Moore that the Spiders story was directed by the voice of the Daleks, Nick Briggs and this unavoidably led me to imagine a Dalek directing Marvin and it is a sight to behold.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 12, 2012 5:10:40 GMT
Best of the Companions: Second of the BBC America's "Best of..." specials. This looks at the companions of the Eleventh Doctor so far, the most impressive of which was the part about Amy. I understand completely Alison Haislip's jealously of the companions travelling with the Doctor. Personally I think she would have made an excellent companion. When Danielle Harris talked about young Amelia I could not help to think that she could have played young Amelia these Doctor Who episodes were made when Ms Harris was a little girl. She wasn't in the Doctor's special but it was delight to see Natalie Morales who was a regular in the short-lived The Middleman. The Middleman looks like Torchwood but The Middleman has been described as America's Doctor Who. It was curious when Natalie Morales speculated when River was Cleopatra in The Pandorica Opens whether River was Cleopatra all along or only pretended to be her at that time. I just realised that if River was Cleopatra all along that would present a continuity problem. This is because Mickey in Girl In The Fireplace mentioned that the Doctor had already met Cleopatra. If that was the case why is it the Tenth Doctor didn't recognise River in Silence in the Library? Scott Adsit put it correctly when he said that River was like Hogan's Heroes and that is she is able to come in and out of her prison at any time she likes. Quite like the music at the end. Quite upbeat and delightful and not the kind of music that is usually played in Doctor Who.
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Post by matthewsee on Apr 14, 2012 3:02:46 GMT
The Impossible Astronaut: One of the pieces on The Impossible Astronaut in The Brilliant Book 2012 was Tricky Dicky – Just Who Was Richard Nixon as it profiled Nixon. In this article it stated that Nixon’s “cronies” was involved with the Watergate break-in and that despite this Nixon still kept the keys to the White House until his resignation in 1974 (thanks to Nixon taking the Doctor’s advice to tape everything). As the article stated the reason for the Watergate break-in is that with it being the headquarters of Nixon’s opponent the Democratic Party, Nixon’s “cronies” wanted to steal information that might ruin the chances of the Democrats winning the presidential election in 1972. Not only was the Watergate break-in stupid but was definitely not necessary. The Democratic nominee George S McGovern was never a serious threat to Nixon as indicated by Nixon’s eventual landslide victory over McGovern. As the real Nixon wrote in his memoirs about McGovern and the 1972 campaign, the less that he had to do the more likely he was going to win. I know that no election is a sure thing but if Nixon’s “cronies” wanted to ensure Nixon’s reelection then Watergate was not the way to go about it. As well as the Doctor giving Nixon a hint about David Frost in Day of the Moon, perhaps the Doctor should also told Nixon to trust his confidence in 1972 and not to do anything more than he had to do.
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