What? What?? WHAAT??! December gone already? Spoilers ahoy!

(more…)

FAMOUS LAST WORDS? 
“she’s gone, Al – let it go!”
( Peter Adamson, September 2007)

WHO NEEDS FAN SPIES TO SPOIL FUTURE DVD RELEASES…
…when you can do it yourself, right Colin? (2entertain must be fuming!)

DOUBLE BEAT
Is it just a coincidence that Christmas Special guest star Kylie Minogue’s new number one hit is called Two Hearts?

THE COVER LOOKS GOOD ONLINE…
…but we bet TSV 75‘s wraparound looks even better in person.

JOIN THE CHAPTER, STAY FOR BREAKFAST
Anyone…? No…?

LDN CALLING
Forget the ’three companions for the price of one’ breaking news… the story we loved was that pop sensation Lily Allen was going to be the Doctor’s travelling companion. So is the rule of the new series companions ‘chav on, chav off, chav on….’?

And finally…

WE’D NEXT LIKE TO RUSSELL TO SAY…
“Paul McGann return to the series? It’ll never happen.”

WHERE’S JONO?
Er, we’re not sure. Didn’t your holiday end a month ago, matey? 
(Thanks, incidentally, to Jamas who did report for duty) 

TSV 75
Talk about turning up late to your own party…

FANDOM IN NEED
We were told the Master would never come back. It happened. We were told that Kylie was just press speculation. It happened. Now the last ‘it’ll never happen’ statement has been ripped up with the news that we get our first multi-Doctor story! Now if only they’d got back Mary Tamm and Lalla Ward, we could have made all Aarronn’s fanboy dreams come true all at once.

SJS SOS
We’ve managed to catch the first episode – usually we’re champions for any new Who, rallying against the fandom screeches of dismay… but we’ve gotta join you lads. it’s pretty bad… especially as kids tv!

“WANTED – VHS COPY OF INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS”
WTF? Are you mad, Jonathan Lawson? You want to show it to a child? A CHILD??? May we suggest Barney instead. It’s much less likely to cause permanent damage, and the dinosaur effects are much more convincing.

[Spoiler warning...ON!] (more…)

[Since the editors can't stop me! - JE]

Since September isn’t over yet, this is Fast Return – Return Faster!

This just in: the Shalka is making its bid for freedom! Mount Ruapehu, famed in song and jerky internet video, has just erupted, and everyone is talking about it! (At least, I’m overhearing the occasional comment at work.)

Now, while we can’t be positive that this really is the birth pangs of an alien entity, I think we still all still move to a certain English village and see if any bar maids need help…

Aaand welcome to a new month’s worth of Fast Return – September-flavoured!

It’s been what they call a ‘slow news month’ out there in the Interior, but we’re doing our best to see that all the news that’s fit to burst for the past month gets… er, burst. On the other hand your regular Fast Returners won’t be around after mid-next week to post this, so this is what you get! No more news from here until October everyone…

OH – AND THERE ARE POTENTIAL SPOILERS IN THE FOLLOWING TEXT…

A WEB OF MAYHEM AND INTRIGUE
So what the Hepesh was that all about? DW Online ‘report’ that they’ve [allegedly] heard “rumours” of a new missing episode find and that it [allegedly] might be something from The Web of Fear. Cue fanboy frothing and not a lot of ‘squee’-ing because we had more self-control back in 1968. Anyway, end of the month, no discoveries of the episodes (but check out that careful wording DWO used – it’s only their job to report rumour, not investigate it. How very modern media!), more than a few angry fans and in all likelihood a very healthy hit-rate for DWO! Not that we’re suggesting anything or anything.

Anyway, there’s got to be nothing more forlorn than a news site that doesn’t ‘do’ news, so in order to inject some purpose to the whole affair and give those plump net-potato fingers a bit of a workout, why not go here instead…

THIS MONTH’S NEW SERIES SCOOP!
Has anyone informed OG yet?

MEANWHILE, TSV DEVELOPMENTS CONTINUE APACE…
All quiet in Hamilton you say?

FOR THOSE NOT ABOUT TO START WATCHING LOCAL SOAPS – WE SALUTE YOU!
But in case last month’s mention of Adam Rickit was just too too ‘niche’ for you genre-afficionados, here’s a list of some properly DW-connected actors who have also appearaed in New Zealand soap operas.

Ilona Rogers
Bruce Purchase
Alan Dale
[that's enough pushing old non-news items -Ed.]

PAST TART TO BLAST FARTS
Kudos to Gareth Roberts for putting the Slitheen in a programme where they’re a hundred per cent guaranteed to find their target audience – the Sarah Jane Adventures. Kids love ‘em, adults… not so much. Seriously – good move. Could you imagine the Torchwood team coming up against them? Say, in a follow up to Combat?

SIN IS IN
Cool! Just when the cost of living increases yet again and crude oil prices send the plastics industry into conniptions, here’s a new range of DW miniatures ready for the fan market. Although it was nice and unexpected to hear that the ‘half’ new figure actually was a scaled-down figure after all. And it’s Mister Sin! Bless.

SHOPPING LIST MAKES HEADLINES
With their purported love of ‘shopping list production’ it’s somehow inevtiable that Rusty Davies and Gaz Russell should find a mutual playground in Torchwood. How intriguing for fan speculators to read in the pages of SFX an actual list of Series 4 ‘ingredients’ for a forthcoming publication – a sort of Tenth Doctor’s Dictionary, if you will – only actually completed this time and done by a publisher. Ahem. Said ingredients make for an interesting cake: Enid Blyton (we suspect Gary’s hand in that inclusion unless he’s planning a return to acting), bannakaffalatta (banana coffee perhaps?), Sensorites (ignore it, it’s probably a Gloss reference). The acronym for Gareth Roberts’ story is apparently TUAWT, although it might be one of RTD’s naughty anagrams for all we know. Truth be told, we love this guessing game stuff – so much better than ‘Stay Tuned’!

AND FINALLY… some music
Dean Gray’s Doctor Who on Holiday (courtesy of YouTube).

Hello gentle reader and welcome to our month in review for August 2007. As we’ve been down this road already this month, it’s an abbreviated, slightly less-silly summary of the month’s events. Read and enjoy – and don’t forget to join us at the end of September when Jono will have his snaps back from the UK!

RIP OUTPOST GALLIFREY

Well, we can’t say we didn’t see this coming. Oggie as we’ve known it is a site not long for this world, soon to inhabit a multitude of various new guises with name that just aren’t as cute to abbreviate as ‘Oggie’. It’s all been said before and we’ll not continue the initial chest-beating as a year’s planning has obviously paved the way for a better future for Shaun Lyon and his collaborators. But… damn! And vale Outpost Gallifrey. The days of the great one-stop Who fan site will soon be behind us.

FAREWELL CLAYTON

What? What? WHAT? Nothing happy ever came of that repeated phrase, and yes, ’tis true. Long suspected as happening soon by one of us, erstwhile DWM editor Clayton Hickman has announced his departure for bigger and brighter things (fantattle says Big Finish), with erstwhile deputy Tom Spilsbury jumping into a well-warmed editor’s chair. Longtime readers will remember Clay as being the last editor of fandom’s showless years, managing the difficult task of keeping the magazine viable and entertaining while for a long time having not a lot telly-wise to report. And he did a smashing job. Well done Clay, and all the best for future endeavours.

RTD’s 80s TV

Now is it me or is there a vague vibe going on with the rumours being concocted leaked put about from Rusty these days? Believe them all and you’d be forgiven for thinking series 4 will be largely made up of hat-tips to 70s and 80s TV. Kylie, Joan Collins, cruise liners and lady detectives. Can’t you just hear the pitch? “It’s Neighbours meets Dynasty… and then it’s Murder She Wrote - on The Love Boat!”

DOB-IN-A-DOC!

Earlier this year we had news of series 3′s Big Bad spoiled by none other than Gene Hunt from Life on Mars (well okay, Philip Glenister). But who could have foreseen that the alleged involvement of Sir Peter of Davison in an alleged Comic Relief skit and/or series 4 would be revealed by… Sylvester McCoy? To Peter Jackson? Here in NZ? Bonkers. It’s got to be a conspiracy, or a red herring to throw us off or something. Either that or some King Lear-vs-Spamalot theatrical rivalry hitherto unspoken and now realised in the form of- oh God I don’t know. You couldn’t make this stuff up!

MEME PEOPLE SUCK

Poor Adam Rickitt. A Coro star in the UK, then sent to our shores to play mixed-up could-still-be-murderer Kieran Mitchell on Shortland Street (and play very well this week it has to be said!). He’s ours for a while, it would seem, and a welcome guest to our little local telly scene. BUT. On Outpost Gallifrey’s Forums he’s an institution. A weird, you’re-in-on-the-joke-or-you’re-completely-bewildered institution. We’re not in. We’re not sure we want to be in. Some folks go on Who and move on to Coro (Mark Eden, William Russell, Helen Worth); some go on Coro and progress to Who (Thelma Barlow). And then there’s ‘teh interweb’ in all its mad glory, doing the job for them. Weird. And a little obsessive.

WE’RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 1987!
Truly, we are living in a Golden Age. A Doctor Who is touring the country with Gandalf and has made the time to stop by and see us. And TSV enters its third decade. It’s all here in our special bumber-sized bijou edition of Fast Return…

ORCINI’S CAREER SAVED BY ZEUS BLOG!
You read it here first, folks.  And then you probably read it here.

IT WAS TWENTY YEARS AND A WEEK OR SO AGO TODAY!
July 1987. Where were you? Were you even born yet? On this month in history future-TARDIS anagram Kylie Minogue put her singing career into motion with, er, ‘The Loco-motion’. The world’s population turned five billion. TSV‘s readership was two. It all began there though. How did you mark the event? A moment’s silence? Hugging the nearest Xerox machine? Thinking of Ken Dodd’s casting in Delta and the Bannermen and clenching your fists? We camped out at the Auckland University Library to find the original photocopier that made the dream a reality, but it’s been sent to that service depot in the sky, the original photocopier bay refitted to include computer terminals. Our balloons may have shrunk, the Miami wine cooler gone flat and the Cheezels gone stale, but the dream lives on. Happy birthday TSV!

THE HISTORY OF TSV REVISED!
It was tantalisingly promised on the Armageddon website, then cruelly corrected – revised, even. So in order that a few fans are traumatised as possible by this loss, here’s what our research boffins came up with:

• The first issue of TSV was actually discovered in the form of some microfilms found embedded in some glass cubes dug up in Terry Nation’s back garden. Translated by David Whittaker and resized to A5, they became the quarterly fan newsletter we enjoy today.
• The Christchurch years of the NZDWFC never existed, but were in fact a crafty way of utilising the Garden City’s lighter tax regime. It’s all obvious when you realise that Andrew Poulsen is an anagram of LAUNDER NEW SOP – that ‘sop’ being of course the TSV coffer. Thought you’d get that one past us, eh Paul?
• Volumes 1 through to 5 (plus volume 9) of the Doctor Dictionary were in fact composed and published, but were incinerated by BBC Archives in 1974 and now rest somewhere deep underneath the Johnsonville Landfill.
• With the imminent departure of TARDIS Tales fromthe TSV roster the zine’s editorial team was put into an intense panic. By chance during the turmoil Junior Editor Matthew Dentieth knocked over a table of Banana Man and Viz comics, and Erato was born.
• Plans for TSV 70s editorial to be made available as a podcast from the NZDWFC website were shelved at the last minute, when it was discovered that playing the audio backwards revealed the phrase “Paul is Dead” repeated throughout the recording.

AND FINALLY…

SPINNING AROUND

So Ms Minogue is in the Christmas Special and the world hasn’t ended! Maybe the news managed to be muffled under the roar of disapproval that occurred after LotTL, maybe fans just didn’t see it coming, but overall it seems that cool heads have prevailled, and we’re not heralding the apocalypse just yet. Come December 26 though…

OH PLEASE…

Apart from Messers Preddle and Walker, who on EARTH would bother?

K-KLAK! TO THE FUTURE

Watch out, Dr Who – Primeval is here and it’s going to take your ass and kick your name! After revealing more oak in its lead performances than the entirety of Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood didn’t seem to last long as the top contender to supplant our favourite (okay, ONLY) Time Lord. But now here’s a new show with a modern British location, cutting-edge special effects, time-travel shenanigans and a female lead who was once a pop star! Yeah, that’s right Doctor Who – you should be scared! 

WE ARE LIVING IN A GOLDEN AGE ™

Oh yes. There’s a theory of Dave Ronayne’s out there that likens the current series to early years of the old series. But he’s got it all wrong! Surely the series is going backwards in its references. Not neatly and quickly like in LotTL, but more gradually and meandering, like a cat with its head stuck in a paper bag. Sort of interestingly backwards with the tantalising potential for comedy gold pratfalling near the end. And before you all write in and report us to the SPCA, look over this formula and tell us that we’re wrong:

It’s the return of the Eighties, I tell you! Time is reversing – everybody get down!!!

X OF THE Y

Good call to Alden this month on recognising that RTD has taken advantage of another great Welsh institution and used the Dery Mark II Title Generator for season 4′s episodes. But how cool is that title? So retro, so Seventies. Truly, We Are Living In a Gol- hang on, we’ve done that already, haven’t we?

THAT’S GAUNT. G-A-U-N-T

Fans drooling everywhere in Wellington. You can’t make it up Courtenay Place these days without wading ankle-deep in squee juice. TheOneRing.Net are getting all wriggly over the return of Cyrian McKellan to Wellywood for the RSC production of Lear. Who fans are understandably excited at the prospect of Sylvester McCoy playing the Fool (like he didn’t for Inside the TARDIS…). But it’s just not right! All this fuss over a repeat appearance of Gandalf and the Doctor, when there’s a THIRD alumnus coming in tow to no advance fanfare or jetlagged reception at Wellington International by a consignment of furries and 17 stone elves. People – William Gaunt! Orcini is coming to see us! If he can work a bionic leg and self-destruct device into his role as Gloucester there’ll be no containing us.  

PRETTY POLYSTONE

Finally, because under NZ law we are statutorally required to invoke the name of Jackson as soon as the word Gandalf is uttered, we segue as slick as squee juice to the Weta Collectibles. How cool are they? A Dalek exposing himself, a Cyberman sitting down – it’s all the boxes ticked for the sheer dynamism of the new show! And they look great. And they’ll cost a bomb. But to hell with it, it’s the culmination of years of hoping and speculating rendered in three loving dimensions. Who could say no?

1. OGGIE OGGIE OGGIE – SPOIL! SPOIL! SPOIL!

Sigh. We used to visit Outpost Gallifrey all the time for the news, casually ignoring its hemispherist promotional images for the next episode that hadn’t made it to NZ yet. It worked. Then this (June 15th 2007 for those of you playing at home) happened and we’ve been not that keen to go back. “Spoilerish” my arse! You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do, Lyon!

2. JUST BLOODY WATCH THE THING – THAT’S WHAT IT’S FOR!!!

Speaking of spoilers, is this any way to discuss them? And we thought we all got into fandom for the exciting lifestyle…

3. ZEUS PLUG IS HISTORY… AGAIN!

Some sad news to impart, but one which immediately raises the value of every issue of Zeus Plug out there in hard copy by – ooh, cents probably. Last month saw Jono’s laptop stolen, and with it, the proofs of every single Zeus Plug edition known to man. Layout, text, the lot. But here at Zeus Blog Terraces we aren’t negative Nellies, and so we should stress that Jono’s tragic loss is also the gain of every collector of ‘zines out there (that’s you Jon Preddle!) If our 5th form Economics teachers taught us anything (and it’s doubtful), that means that every issue out there is now rare and thus worth something more than the ‘free’ it originally went for and could be a tidy investment. Hang on to your copies and you could be rolling in it by Christmas. That’s better now Jono – isn’t it?

4. WE’RE NOT ANGRY, WE’RE JUST DISAPPOINTED…

Here’s an idea Shaun: you might find it useful to provide some sort of colour-coded ‘visual’ to qualify just what ‘spoilerish‘ means and just how damaging said tidbits could be, sort of like what the President (not that president, I mean George W Bush) uses for when the polls are against him terrorists are about. Sort of like this:

5. WHERE DO YOU GET THOSE WONDERFUL TOYS?

Well, Neville could hook a brother up of course, but for the rest of us it’s a slightly sheepish skulk down to the local Ware-whare ‘y’know, just in case’. Watch out for those eight-year olds lads, they fight like tigers!

and finally, our funny from the Web…

6. TSV 74 (COLOUR COVER)

Awesome!

SAMPLEPALOOZA!
So, let’s see – ZeusPlug the pubzine issues a hard copy sample of itself through the pages of TSV (and then turns into a blog). Then, TSV issues an online sample of itself throught its website (and remains hard copy). Surely, logically the next fanzine sample out on the market will be RTP (both blog and hard copy- see below) doing a pubzine sample of itself?

“THIS NEVER HAPPENED ON THE TELLY!”
…but it is the best thing to date with Farmergeddon’s name attached to it.

BLOG IS THE NEW BLACK!
Blogs – once a Zeus Blog editor was said to ask “what are they”? Now everyone has one, busily updating their lives online. In the midst of all of this activity, Christchurch loungezine RTP has capitulated and traded in its Geocities web ad for a real blog (see above). And it’s a cracker, taking its cue from Paul Scoones’ online TSV diaries. Apparently Colin Baker was so impressed he started a blog of his own (that’s enough links – Ed.)  

RESTORED AT LAST!
We weren’t able to make it, but were thrilled to hear about the powerpoint (or something) presentation of the Restoration Team’s efforts on TSV No. 1. At least we think it was them. Nobody’s saying anything about the recent event, but for the record we’d like to see:

• A 5:1 ratio and isolated score
• Linking narration by Peter Purves
• ‘Now and Then’ – the usual documentary visiting sites of the ‘zine’s creation,
  seeing how that Auckland University photocopier room looks today.

[VidFired version of cover]

JOHN KEY IS NEW ZEALAND’S NEXT…

(1. Russel Norman, Co-Leader NZ Green Party as featured in the NZ Listener August 2006)
(2. Michael Cullen, Deputy PM as featured in the Dominion Post 7 June 2007)

SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN!

DW fandom and the tabloid press have always enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. We think they’re self-seeking rumour-mongering scum, they think we’re scarf-wrapped twats with Oedipus complexes. Who then could have predicted that after a fortnight of Freema-baiting sacking rumours and ‘RTD will can the series in 2008′ tattle in The Sun, Freemaagyeman.com and Kasterborous would launch these salvos? Blimey!

CON-GRATULATIONS!

Well done to Jam-Master Jamas Enright and the rest of the National SF Convention Committee for a succesful convention (Conspiracy 2) run over Queen’s Birthday Weekend. They may not have managed to get Sam “‘that man could bore for his country’ – T Baker” Neill as media guest, but they did get a shot of a fan and a remote control Dalek in the pages of the Dominion Post without either looking like a backyard Klingon or manga-addled Armageddon junkie. $100 NZ for a toy worth… well, we’ll ask Darrell Paterson for the latest prices, but it sounds like a bargain to us!