EARTH DOESN’T EXPLODE, UN SEC GEN THANKS TORCHWOOD
No? Well, maybe in six months, given it’s off-line for the moment. It’s bound to happen.
Good old Torchwood Cardiff.

MCGANN NOT RETURNING
Everybody get back to your work. Sigh.

COME BACK, RETURN OF THE CYBERMEN!
Spoilers for Christmas. Or not. Obviously it was a big dilemma for RTD regarding whether to finsh the over-length Journey’s End on the now de rigeur ‘what-what-what’ spot and undermine the fanw sadness with a teaser for the next ka-rayzey yuletide romp. So a trailer, without the story title proper was made. Now we know the title, have an idea of what the story’s likely to be based on about, and we’ve even got a picture of the removed scene. But are we any happier? Eh? I ask you.

OH GREAT, NOW HE’LL GET TO DO THAT ALONS-Y THING ALL OVER AGAIN…
Is Russell T Ovey, aka Midshipman Frame in the frame to play the Doctor? A clue: no.
Still, sells newspapers, right guys?

LEAVE SYLVESTER ALONE!I
It must be a very slow day in the Tolkien sandpit when they all start talking about a ten year old story added to a year-old even and make an insta-theory. Add to that speculation based on twenty-year old photos (ooh – he does look like Ian Holm! In Ghostlight) and you get the same sort of high hoping that gave us all McGann conniptions last month? Will the next Hobbit movie have a Syl-bo as its lead? A clue… no.

TARDIS MONEYBANK BAFFLES BLOGGER
by the blogger.

The TARDIS Moneybank is sheer genius fun. I’d have loved one when I were a kid but microchips were still the size of houses back then, and I’ve had never have filled the money box with the cash I had. Eee we were poor.

Anyway, for all the Martha-rasping, top-lamp flashing, cash-injecting Vwoorp-vwoorp action you can muster, this’ll do. And it’s to scale with those knock-off figures you got from the warehouse – at last, a home for Space Pig and Chip! but there are problems with bits of it, and I’m not just talking about how the sample of the Doctor sounds like he’s saying the machine stands for ‘Time And Relative Dimensions In Spayn’ (the wag) like this…

Rose? She’s in there too?

You think I’m going to bit the top of my money box? What, am I trying to get in to find Rose or something? I give up!

AND FINALLY…
Some people thought ‘Handlebars’ was a doff too far, apparently. Davies Master Plan? Phssh. What would Brian Boitano do? (hat tip: Dave)

THAT’S NO MICROBE…
Scoop.co.nz reveal their colours once more in another feature filler. Bless.

TAKING THE MICKEY OUT OF TORCHWOOD?
Not so long ago was the time we were sure we’d see both Smith and Jones in the Hub for Torchwood 3 – the closing minutes of Journey’s End seemed to confirm the rumour. But what’s this? No inclusions among the cast announcement for Children of the Damn- er , I mean Earth? Noel Clarke declaring the Mickster has left the building? Oh noes! What next – Freemaagyeman.com binging us down to Earth?

TORCHWOOD RADIO PLAY TO DESTROY ALL OF CREATION
Not that we’ll be around to worry about such casting pecadillos by the time the radio play is aired. Thanks to a complete fluke of timing and some hadron collider thing in Switzerland (picture courtesy of our graphics department), there’s a s-l-i-g-h-t chance we might not be around to hear the ending.*

(*unless that is the intended ending)

LOST HARTNELL STORY FOUND!
It took a while – perhaps not as long as The Lion to appear on our shores, but yes, The Time Meddler is finally in NZ. In abundance! Grab your copy… well, anytime you like, really.

THERE IS NO CONSPIRACY! ™
Eagle-eyed (and therefore weird-looking) readers have alighted on the internetical publishing of TSV 59 and within its entrails, the Greatest Show fanalytical treatise A Carnival of Metaphors writ in large (type) by a friend of this blog. But what’s this? Expurgated text? Rumours of last-minute editorial intervention? What gave? Er, to be honest he can’t remember – it was probably nothing, really! Paul?

DAVIES RUSTYPLAN SET TO MUSIC?
We think so.

And…

PARROT APES MUTANT, VANISHES LIKE DODO, REAPPEARS LIKE COELOCANTH.
Let’s hear  it for Leonard, the recently-recovered African Grey Parrot – he can mimic Daleks! Wow. Very cool if it’s a big Dalek voice like the Emperor. Dalek Caan? Not so much.

Well that has to be it – July 2008 is a dead cert to being the swiftest July on record. Where did it go? Probably stoled. Maybe by Davros and his minions, that scallywag. Anyway, things moved quickly last month, so you may have missed these happenings…

X-TENDED! X-MAS TRAILER! X-CITEMENT!
Hmm. They’re really keeping things under wraps, aren’t they? Anyway, it appears an extra ten seconds or so gives us but a very confident young urchin, the likely companion of the piece, more David Morrissey and an evil Dirvla Kerwin. And Cyber-Wraiths, or robot Taran Beasts or something. Are we excited? Well, lots of this stuff was to be had in the set photos section of the DW Forum (if you could bear the trudge through the squeeing that is). But at the moment? mm. We’ve been disappointed before with a huge build-up. Scare us this time, Mister Davies!

MOST IMPROVED WHO-BLOG?
Why, it’s Kasterborous! We may have bagged them slightly earlier in the year for getting a bit huffy with the more outrageous rumours (and some which came true… ahem), but hey – a new look, lots of intelligent, up-to-date content devoid of the sort of fannish speculation which makes the DW Forum a chore to read these days, and great editorials. We’ve been away a while, but it’s nice to be back. Well done, Christian and Co!

MEANWHILE ON THE DOCTOR WHO FORUM…
Yes yes, that’s two bags full so far in one installment. So what’s got up our goat this month? Apart from the ennui of it all over there with the youngsters and their shipping and squeeing and Janto-ing. Well, nothing outrageous. And maybe that’s the problem. But just as it appears young Rusty gets the gist of hiding spoliers from us (until the inevitable leak to the tabs that is), young fandom runs out of new series facts to talk about and, say, starts to create their own series five. And you get this…

and…

Eee-yikes.

DALEK-MASKED WOULD-BE ABDUCTOR FOILED BY CAR HEADLIGHTS?
Words fail us.

POLISHING UP THE SILVER?
Aaand it’s twenty years now since Silver Nemesis was unleashed onto an unsuspecting world (insert obligatory ‘NZ got an episode before everyone else’ note – Ed.) There’s precious little McCoy left to release, and going by the stories remaining one does get the feeling 2Entertain have their own impressions as to what’s going to sell quickly or not (a clue: Battlefield is next) . Anyhoo – that wouldn’t stop the interested fan from frustrating the forum administrators bringing up the topic of format and version on the Doctor Who Technical Forum. And what a discussion! Special Edition or standard, slightly wonky edition? Add the documentaries, or delete the rubbish bits? Worth a little extra in the budget to give punters the choice via a two version double disc like Fenric and 5 Doctors, or a blight on potential resources for other, probably less-vanilla-bound stories? Phew! Good job it’s not on the schedule yet…

DWM COMIC STRIP FINDS ITS MOJO ONCE MORE.
Now, ’tis true that we’ve been a bit harsh on DWM lately, perhaps not on this blog, but behind the back of the series’ esteemed organ. but to be fair, despite a whole internet of spoiler potentials and interviews and what have you, the Official Magazine sees to be doing alright for itself. Particularly quite recently in the comic strip department. There was a time, your loyal Rapid Returner must confess, when this was the first and sometimes only thing he turned to with the mag in the new series, most other content being either already old by the time it got to these shores, or a bit… fluffy. But we’re loving Rob Davis’ The Widow’s Curse (spoiler-tastic panels here) right now. Lovely artwork by Martin Geraghty, solid nods to the new series’ history, what could well be Donna’s only comic strip outing (we’ll see, maybe) and bets of all a story that seeks to build on the recent past. A one-off monter race gets fleshed-out (if you could say that) is a quite respectful and very effective way.

THE ‘QUEEN’S BUM’ AWARD
As in… we believe it occupies physical space, but we’ve not actually seen proof of its existence. And it goes this month to the Time Meddler DVD. Has anyone actually seen a copy here, let alone bought one? From a terrestrial shop?

July already? That’s crazy talk. Here at ZeusBlog Terraces the passage of time and the changes it brings are not unknown to us. Jono has left the building, series 4 and Torchwood: The Puberty Year are mere days away ‘free for the first time’ as TVNZ is fond of saying (whatever that means), and things just tick along. We marked them, as usual, so you could reads them later. And so…

TOOTHGATE!
Wash ever sho much made about the shtate of a Who alumnush’ teeth than in the return of the Piper? Well, some of us recall vague comments from US fans about the number of fillings young Davison showed during Caves of Androzani, but we can’t all have dental plans and a bewildering electoral system. And surely those gags about British teeth are as old as… well, the JN-T Era at least?

Speaking of products of the Davison years…

“HELLO DAD!”
Now this might be true or it might not be true. We’ll leave the serious factfinding to the celebrity bloggers (that’s people who blog about celebrities, not, y’know..) on Stuff and t’Herald and the like. Regardless, is it us or does it make this picture seem all the more – awkward?

UNCOVERED!
Al tells this story best:

“A certain Wellington-based designer and frequenter of this Blog was elated to find himself in the position to create a Doctor Who cover for a national publication.  Not TSV, but the Dominion Post’s TV Week supplement – the front of which has proudly displayed Who‘s NZ premiers for the last three years in a row.So, having beaten off more senior designers for the privilege, he awaited the inevitable Dave and Kylie pic with eager anticipation.

But when the file arrived it was revealed instead to be a shot from local ‘comedy drama’ Burying Brian starring Shane Cortese! So rather than creating the best TV Week Who cover ever, he’s now jinxed the programme’s perfect cover rate.”

TRAILERPARK
The Doctor! Donna! Her from Call-Girl! Captain Jack! Harriet Jones! Martha Jones! Gwento Jones! Dempsey! Those kids and the Briscoes Lady! More drum beats than a Cadbury’s dairy milk ad! Trailers, eh? Back in the days of paper fandom it was said that whole comic routines from Red Dwarf could be constructed out of the dozens of slogan t-shitrs that were merchandised off the programme. We’re not there yet, but what Who fandom does have made for them, as well as by them is… trailers! Everywhere! Well, obiously not so ‘everywhere’ if you happento live outside the UK and can’t access those parts of the official site, but you can find them easily enough, and more, on the Tube of You. Official trailers, spoof trailers, fan-trailers (some with the unmistakable features of the late Michael Wisher wheeling menacingly through Dalek corridors, bless ‘em). At this rate, and if you can take a little Emo soundtrack-adding, play your cards right and you might never need to watch a complete episode off the telly again.

3-D RHUMBA
But fandom isn’t always a happy little town as some- say, a fan animator, will tell you. Fresh from the Guardian‘s well-intended and quite interesting look-in on the world of lost episode restoration post-Invasion there’s… well, a lot of bitching really. Put to footage of some of the said attempts at resurrecting Power and Evil of the Daleks with dayglo TARDIS crewmembers seemingly bumping and grinding their way through classic Who dialogue. The fact that the Guardian obviously haven’t been able to use the original broadcast audio and have instead opted for a musical soundtrack doesn’t help. Oh, but well done guys. Keep it up!

OBLIGATORY VIDEO
So he saw the Housemartins before they split up, did he? Does that mean that- gasp – the Doctor created Fatboy Slim?!

AND FINALLY – THE MEDALS TABLE UPDATED FOR THE FINALE:
Bloody newcomers! Don’t ask us to explain it, it’s complicated.

Greetings! It’s the 7th of Eurovision and we’re not long for the remainder of the mid-series pause. You can view our analysis of the trail elsewhere on the blog, but for now, let’s look at the month in review…

THERE’S A BOX SET OUT THERE WITH YOUR NAME ON IT
You realise that fandom has taken an almight leap back into its own innocent youth when, in the midst of a spoiler thread about the reappearance of certain OS icons, someone pipes up the sort of comment that’s only a few crucial details away from being an opinion:

Still, at least they’ll freely admit to being wrong. But honestly, what are we teaching the kids, eh? Etc.

OH, AND HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY…
The Official Site’s tribute to last weekend’s musical
interlude. We’re thinking the heading probably sounded better said aloud.

FAME IS WHEN THEY SPELL YOUR NAME RIGHT.

Ugh. You know how it is when your fannish enthusiasm overtakes the niceties of Net life. News rolls in as you wake to it and, bleary-eyed, medicated and in a back brace compose a feverish epistle to the apostles. Tired and emotional, before you know it you’ve forgotten to check a nearby DWM for spelling, and you hit Publish. Then someone like Love and Garbage alerts everyone to the oversight. Excellent pwnage, dude. No really – we’re just happy to have been Googled.
ADD IT UP
It wasn’t so long ago that the Editor of Her Majesty’s Fanzine called for reviewers for series four for TSV 76, sure to come out some time after Journey’s End you would think. Here at ZeusBlog Terraces we think the job has been half done already, with the TSV Message Board already filling with regular viewers clamouring to be the early bird for each individual episode. Surely all that remains is some prudent editing of those comments (a vertitable round robin) and a sorting of who’s to be up for the job. We did the maths already in a handy Olympic-themed chart, running from Gold (first review per story) through to Silver and then Bronze of course. Here’s how it looked halfway through series four, including the mid-series trail. As you can see there’s a clear advantage to Darrell P and Jon P, but the game’s being joined more recently by the likes of Wade C (currently in the UK), and there are a few others unnamed bobbing along under the vital top three. At the top though, it’s pretty bloody and it could go to the wire. There’ll be tears before bedtime, we’re sure.

PARTNERS IN CRIME
Cribbens! Tate! That cameo! RTD finally beating the press to a spoiler!! Surely the best season opener yet?

JUMPING THE MERCHANDISE GUN FOR FAT PROFITS
Before we all plumped for Adiposemania (we did. That as the idea, wasn’t it?) There was ample evidence to show the spirit of cottage industries and free enterprise unshackled by copyright issues so prevalent on the World Wide Web these days. Back in those heady early March moments you could have had one of Miss Foster’s finest fashioned (or sort of fashioned) in crochet, modelling clay or – what looked like plasticine… and it could be yours! Or go to the highest bidder.  Hang on… they seem to have all gone. I wonder where?

A VIDEO GAME AT LAST!
…and it’s based on the highly popular Top Trumps card game. Oh yes.  Er, why?
Hardly a thrill a minute, surely?

DRINKEL’S WINKLE
Oh so you didn’t want to see more of a Timelash cast (ahem) member than you’d bargained for? Then why did you buy Zygon then – silly boy? 

FOUR TO DOOMSDAY OUT SOON?
Now, it is true that we know so little about telebiogenesis, but this tid-bit of gossip has us interested. Especially when you consider the potential – Davison’s lowest rung combined with the promise of a Davison/Sutton/Waterhouse/Fielding commentary. Just turn the picture down and the sound up – brilliant!

OUTPOST GALLIFREY’S SONTARAN STRATAGEM
Is it us, or does this caption just make the photo seem
even more like another one of those ‘Who F*rted’ pictures?

THE FACE OF GE
According to scoop.co.nz

and (hopefully) finally…
TORCHWOOD GETS ROLLED
It had to happen sooner or later. Poor Tosh.

YOU HEARD IT HERE SECOND
For the love of dog will someone explain why people re-post general series news on the NZDWFC Message Board? Seriously guys – do you think we don’t read any other pages on the Internet? Is the Doctor Who News Page a foreign country to us all? What do you think you’re adding – local insight? Stop! Now! Arrgh!

TROWBRIDGE CHRISTIAN SELLS WHO COLLECTION
Eh? He’s going to sell his collection of Doctor Who memorabilia including the TARDIS, Cyberman and K9 he meticulously spent several years building from scratch? Tch – back in the old days any self-respecting born-again would have consigned the lot to the incinerator in the back yard. Go on, mate – burn those rare 1960s annuals! Burn them!
(thanks again to Alden for the link)

 ZYGON FINALLY RELEASED
In development hell for three years, BBV has finally unleashed its long-awaited spin-off ripe for a new family market boosted by the original series’ return. Well, in this case ‘Family’ means dads and adolescent lads, but what’s a little full-frontal nudity good for if not advancing the plot, eh? What’s that you say – publicity? Not for us to say, guv…

DWM UPDATES KYLIE’S ACTIVITIES
Actually for a change it hasn’t! Which is good now that April’s nearly among us (at least someone doesn’t still think it’s Christmas). So now we’re onto another riveting full-page update on events so closely aligned to the series - Stacy and Bradley from Eastenders.
Er, excellent.

“I CAN’T MAKE THEM LAAFF!!”
Are you sure about that mate? Fans of Torchwood who loved the carnival action of Out of the Rain but yearn still for some more past-life detail on Captain Jack could do worse than check out this feature including ‘evidence’ of one of John Barrowman’s own past lives, courtesy of the great Charlie Brooker. Scary. [May not be safe for work]

SALE AT THE WAREHOUSE!
You might have missed this. If you didn’t don’t worry – there are still plenty of Toby and Grandma Noface dolls for anyone wishing to front up with the recently adjusted monies ($19 again if you’re interested).

ALTERNATIVE MONSTER DESIGNS 
Ever since someone stuck an alligator in a shell-suit and called it an Ice Warrior we’ve all been entranced by alternative designs for DW monsters. Niklas Jansson from Itch Studios had a go at this last year, concentrating on some of the more innovative original designs of the 60s monsters. You can find them here. Nice Cyberman!

AND FINALLY…

IS THIS THE BEST NON-DW CONFIDENTIAL MONTAGE EVER?
Well, if we’re talking a brilliant mash-up between Benny Hill, Eminem and the whole damned series so far, then… yes.

And so the summer of our squee-content has drawn to a close. The mainstream media call this part of the year the ‘silly season’, where not a lot of real news happens, so instead of trying to find it, the papers and telly rummage through the old ‘wack-o’ files for anything they can find to fill the tyranny of the front page. This sort of thing never happens in the Doctor Who community because we generally have interesting things to talk about all the time and can be relied upon to introduce topics of conversation that invite feedback and discourse.

Or so we thought.

In other spaces of the intertubes this tendency to acquire blog-like symptoms has mutated. In this example for… example, we see that it’s still the happiest time of the year.

Still, last Christmas does seem to have been pretty unique for dragging on well into the first quarter of the following year, as Exhibit A (February’s DWM) proves. Please,  can we just step back in time from Kylie? She was a guest star, her character died, we moved on. What next? An update on what Imagination have been up to?

Enough grumpiness – or not! Yes, February brings us a new Spirit of Hartnell Award, and this time we award it with enormous pride to none other than the Restoration Team’s fearless spokesman Steve Roberts’ life-affirming statement on 2008′s big milestone.

Perhaps they’re concentrating on something extra special? Like CGI that not only fulfils a logical conclusion but actually adds to a story effortlessly. Like this!

And finally, you didn’t read it in Her Majesty’s zine, but Torchwood‘s back! And it’s been neutered improved with tighter stories, improved character motivation and less swears. We sort of miss that last bit because it made the show sound somewhat daft, unconvincing and pretend-cool, like listening to a bunch of third formers on a school bus. So in memory of the way things used to be, here’s a wee tribute to Torchwood series one: the Gordon Ramsay years.

News highlights of the past month – now with click-along-a-pictureness!

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2007. It was a game of two halves. We began the last twelve months in Cardiff and walked the globe with Martha and journeyed to the end of all time or something like that with Jack and the Doctor’s hand. Peter came back for char-i-dy, Kylie saved Her Madge and got a honour for her efforts, and Dalek Sec became a cover model for the Radio Times. TSV turned twenty, RTP! turned ten, and Outpost Gallifrey turned into Doctor Who News, apparently. But what for Fast Return were the most interesting things to take place in 2007?

Well, don’t expect miracles. Instead, here’s a selection of things that slipped through our net. It’s all here, after the jump:

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