November 2010 – it’s so last month. But good grief what a month that was – horrible stuff happening locally, and Who fandom lost some stars of the show as well – Soldeed AND Solow, two of the most fondly-remembered (and possibly re-enacted, you never know) death scenes of the classic series. They don’t make, laser or electrocute them like that anymore, sadly.

So it’s light and breezy and bonus-sized this month to set us up before Christmas is upon us and we slip down the back of the sofa overfed, overwatered and over-relatived:

THE PROBLEM WITH REAL LIFE IS THERE’S NO DANGER MUSIC
Everything in life would go better with a score, wouldn’t it? From Carey to Simpson to Kingslaid to KEFF! ™ to fried Gold, the series has had its fair share of great scores and the occasional null point. Other shows don’t have it so good, reduced to the same music sheet week in, week out, with nary a change in mood or scale. Take The Apprentice UK – and see how TV Cream, a great site that despite doggedly getting their entry for Under the Mountain wrong for well over ten years now, has Sugared the mood with some rather lovely soundtracks sourced from Der Who. Can you name the stories they’re from (of course you can).

DOCTOR DOOLALLY
While we’re on the subject of musical Doctors, Babelcolour offers proof that even the most tuneless of Time Lords can put together a tune. At least we think it’s a tune. Lovely.

“I DO GLASTONBURY NOW. GLASTONBURY IS COOL”.
While we’re on the subject of musical Doctors, Yeah yeah, Hartnell got air shows, Pertwee raced traction engines, but trust the new guy to close Glastonbury with Orbital. It’s cool and everything, sure. But did he write the lyrics as well? Jon did. So let’s hear the mash up we’ve been waiting for: Jon, Smith, and the Common Men…

THEY’RE LIKE BUSES, BIG AND RED AND DESTROYED BY DUBAI DOCKERS
Honestly, you wait for one lookee-likee 28mm Scarecrow figure to come along, and then two arrive at once. And then a handy family to go with them. This is Nerdlord all over again!

IN BED WITH MAH DOCTOR…
Local (and Old – Ed) news now, with this example of the handyman’s art, a TARDIS bed. We’ve all seen it, admired its craft and simplicity, maybe even coveted it. It’s a kid’s bed, guys! The only way it could surely be meant for DW fans of a certain other age is that it’s, er, a single.

5H*CK 0F TH N^W?
Everybody loves a  little nostalgia, a little skewed commentary and a fair amount of intelligence, don’t they? I reckon. So stand up, step aside and get down for Freaky Trigger’s pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør who has for the last few whiles been going through a random selection of Classic Who (mainly “BadBaker” – and that’s not who you’d assume) and offering his decidedly unique take on it all in the FT series Time Reconsidered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Who. Okay, you need to concentrate and the punctuation’s like something out of The Invisible Enemy, but it adds to it all. Really fun, thought-provoking stuff.

MING MONGS IT SHALL BE!
More reading! Courtesy of Dave and reviewed in don’t-dare-be-negative Kasterborous, it’s Planet of the Ming Mongs fanzine! Brilliant! And free.

D’OH! A NEEDLE PULLING THREAD?
Just when you think you’ve seen everything Craft 2.0 can do to Who, miniature crochet Doctors. Not sure about Chris, but they’ve got Smithy down pat!

THE ULTIMATE TEST OF TESTS
Yeah, those new Dalek paradigms have their fans and apparently the upgrades are pretty fat bad arsed. But – will they blend? We don’t know yet, actually. Sequel!

Whew. That was a long while between drinks. It’ll be Christmas before we know it, you mark my words.

For its sins there has been one good thing to come out of Paul McGann’s gifted costume at the recent Armageddon event in Auckland: it has generated new (albeit brief) interest and discussion surrounding the Eighth Doctor. The timing could scarcely have been better, given that the TV Movie has recently enjoyed a re-release, putting McGann’s also brief and otherwise off-camera incarnation back into the limelight. It’s just unfortunate that the ensemble made for him has proved so uninspiring.

This criticism likely won’t go down well with those involved in its creation. Certainly by all accounts McGann seemed very happy with the new leather jacket, sonic screwdriver and satchel made especially for him by WETA Workshop. I say ‘made especially’, but have some real reservations with its design and even its fit. It’s comfortable, allegedly, and gives the Eighth Doctor a NuWho-styled sonic-handling stance, and maybe that’s all that matters. But even with the full costume not yet being showcased, I feel uneasy about this set-up.

We’ve been here before, in some way. The most famous early example of a Doctor Who lead wanting his own hand in the Time Lord uniform is Colin Baker, to no surprise given the “deliberately tasteless” brief of his costume. I never minded it, really, and even Big Finish’s expedient blue variation has some appeal. Pertwee and McCoy both had aspects of their audition attire incorporated in their ensembles, but Baker (like McGann) had no input whatsoever and later expressed a desire for a ‘black’ version – even updating his preference more recently to something akin to Ecclestone’s U-Boat jacket or a Matrix-style leather coat. In Baker’s defence it should be added that there was also very little designer control over his costume, the brief coming from (and being revised by) John Nathan-Turner. McGann’s idealised costume on the other hand appears to be the product of inspiration from the actor’s late father (a man who has been a great influence on the actor, as evidenced by McGann’s Q&A session in Wellington this year) and the appearance of the Ninth Doctor’s costume. As such it’s an unfortunate visual coincidence looking at worst like wardrobe-envy, and tempered only by fan association of the still-untouched-and-likely-never-to-be area of the Time War. It’s an easy compromise, but far from a satisfying one because as a rule we like our incarnations to be visually distinct. The fact that McGann also hated his wig and for some time opted for a crew cut might have hampered things more if he had not been grown his hair out recently for another role.

Yet, when your ‘official’ look has dated and become a parody of itself, what can you do?

The McGann/WETA costume is clever in many ways though, incorporating aspects of the actor’s aesthetic and personal identity, and referencing the character’s future in a battle motif. But for now the jacket looks new and therefore unlived-in, and that’s a major fault I find with it. It looks ‘off the peg’ and lacks the sense of individuality that a ‘Doctorish’ costume might otherwise have. Cat badges, celery or flying duck badges might not be your cup of tea, but they helpt to individualise a character’s look and therefore the character themself. Wear and tear, or patina give clothing and props provenance and tell their own story – something the show’s last creative force understood quite clearly:

“It’s a great costume. Russel gave a stage direction about when the cape – the gown or whatever you call it – is opened, revealing a battered flak-jacket: the script says, ‘This man is a warrior.’ I know nothing about the Time Lords, but there’s a uniform, isn’t there? With the big collars? Uniform is about losing individuality. The robes were always done up, but the minute  you open them, showing what’s underneath, you’re revealing something of the personal life, the kind of person that this Lord President is. Now, I’m not wearing a flack-jacket as such, but it is redolent of… I mean, it’s got texture, and feeling, and a history to it. Yeah, he’s a soldier.”
(Timothy Dalton interviewed in DWM, December 2009)

In this sense the ‘new costume’ is very much an unfinished piece. Small details offer great opportunities to expand or further personalise wardrrobe – buttons incorporating the Seal of Rassilon (a cliche, but an inescapable motif of the TV Movie), other colours to either provide continuity with the Wild Bill Hickock fancy dress the Eighth Doctor has more often worse, or contrast with the leather jacket to come.

The sonic screwdriver? It’s grown on me. Initial blurry photos weren’t promising, looking like a make-do ‘steampunk’ than anything researchd and designed. Persumably it’s supposed to fit in with the ‘Jules Verne’ TARDIS interior, but if this is the case it falls a little ashort with the crystal end and wood panelling. The more recent in focus shot helps define it more, but like the jacket in the way it’s now held (like a torch, end forward) it’s a shout to the new series and its chunkiness is a dead giveaway, Capitulation!

As for the satchel – what’s the point of this? Really?

There’s an irony that the TV Movie was criticised so greatly for its adherence to the series past in look and feel. It’s natural that fifteen years in public with little change has aged that look. Change is inevitable, change is good – I just hoped for something a little better than this.

Now ‘vember is upon us we approach the Christmas special at increasing speed. October was… odd, wasn’t it? A change of clothes, some drive-by legislation for Radagast (plus some other Moff alumni in Freeman and Nesbitt of course) – is there nothing we won’t do to get Doctors to return to our shores? And this:

AXONMANIA!

Who’d have thought we’d come to this? It seems all the planets have aligned for the moment – we’re near enough in Axon heaven for those of us who enjoy a bit of frog-faking bug-eyed curly-whirly in our lives. DWM’s current strip The Golden Ones is storming barns everywhere with a solid team of Johnny Morris and Martin Geraghty leading the charge – and it’s in colour! Precisely the sort of thing colour was invented for, that – the Pertwee canon. Coming soon from Big Finish Productions of course is the spoilerifically-titled The Feast of Axos for Old Sixie and Evelyn, so if you like that sort of thing (and we do) it’s well looking forward to, especially with old Axon Male Bernard Holley soothing the mike with that cake-in-a-velvet-glove voice of his. Oh I’ve come over all funny. What else? Well, Seeds of Doom, innit? There’s an Axon in that one for sure. A green one. Hat-trick!

SPEAKING OF HATS…
Bouquets to DWM also for their recent interview with mad Tom Baker and his latter-day costume designer June Hudson. In Soho, of course. Six pages of mutual admiration, madness and genuine fondness. It’s a great read. And good to see June’s still dress-model deep in Who, having created the rather painterly cover for the third volume of Tom’s new audio series Demon Quest. And it’s not like she didn’t have designs of her own on Old Sixie and yon Eighth Doctor as well, as this fascinating link shows.

SPEAKING OF EIGHT IN CLOTHES…
Oh dear.

A leather jacket, Paul? A big chunky glow-headed sonic that you now have to point at things? A hand bag?

Your Doctor’s meant to be approaching an all-encompassing Time War, not a mid-life crisis!

RIP TORCHWOOD MAGAZINE
Yup. It’s dead. Kaput. Joined the choir invisible.
I don’t think draping tea bags over a Cardiff fence is going to bring this one back either, kids.

SPEAKING OF RETURNING FROM THE DEAD…
Revisitations Twooo! Carnival! Resurrection! Seeds of Deaaath!
Your mileage may vary in your response to that forthcoming DVD line-up. Resurrection gets an episodic treatment and if there are new effects a Tennant-hosted doco and cool Info Text then fair enough and more power to your gunstick. But Carnival? Really? And didn’t we already pay too much for Seeds in the first place? I mean, it’s a good story with some lovely images but it’s a slick package already at two-thirds the price. Sure, Pat’s face is blue on the DVD spine and not full-colour. Apparently this is a BIG DEAL to some of the more OCD collectors out there. But is it worth delaying a VidFired copy of Tomb of the Cybermen for this?

LINKS
Some love though, people, for our recent additions to the links over to the right. A CosPlay blog that’s really seriously good and well-researched! Doctor Oho is reviewing comic strips (and there’s a great Martin Geraghty interview over on his page too, with some rather tempting Vworp Vworp news!) And even RTP’s blog has shaken some of the grave dirt off and staggered out onto the empty streets, hungry for braiinns!

Chuck us a vid, love…

Good ’nuff!

Well, it’s certainly ambitious…

Great music, voices sound cool. An ABBA lyric? Ending with the Pert firing a gun? Hmm…

What, already? Where is this year GOING to?

Here’s the September-October skinny from the scene that dares not generate much news…

SPLITSVILLE FOR 2011
A-ha o-ho! TWO series next year – not a series of specials, or a gap year (although that’s some gap in there), but two bijou series in sized positively RETRO in design, albeit with the Noosurries narrative impetus of an overarching story. Maybe. Or a cliff-hanger betwixt them. Possibly. Hmm. Actually, we like this idea, and even if there’s no World Cup, Olympics or Eurovision (does anyone watch this post-Wogan anyway?) dividing things up or scaring the ratings, it seems like a fair enough experiment. Who is strong  and flexible – bring it on!

But…

PARADIGM LOST?
Not such good news for the new Dalek Paradigm (insert Teletubbies/i-Daleks/Mini Cooper/Lardeks substitute here, if you insist). A telling Moff interview in The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who Bumpers or whatever it’s called seems now to be relegating 2010’s bonded polychromatic enfants terrible to figurehead status and presumably opting for a quick paint-job of their predecessors, Rusty’s dumpy bots. It might be that cursed credit queeze putting word in the Grand One’s mouth, but any way you read it, this seems like a fair compromise. So we could be looking at genuinely red near-Classic looking Daleks for 2011. Cool! A-ha o-ho, but how will they be able to see one another, we ask?

GIRL U WANT?
Crooked Dice Game’s miniatures division have released shots of their new ‘green’, a template figure for their cult telefantasy line.

Unpainted she’s a beauty, and an enterprising modeller could no doubt turn her into a model citizen, video shop owner, kissogrammer, or even Time Lady. Where to begin?

TRAILER PARK 1 – THE 2e TWITTER TEASE
So what’s it all about then, this ‘new Dimension’ Classic DVD release hyped in this trailer? We ought to know by tonight. It looks Daleky (or Greek – maybe it’s Mythmakers? Nah). 3-D? Animation? Surely not – too expensive. A Special Edition for sure… is that a spaceship exterior the teaser’s crawling over? Resurrection, maybe?

TRAILER PARK 2 – FAKE SNOW
Oh, this is Christmas! A trailer for this year’s Yuletide Special. But it isn’t, of course. It’s a well-made fake. How well-made? Head on over to the delightfully-named Dirty Whoers blog to see the simple genius behind it all. (Thanks to Dave for the link!)

And finally…

SIMPLE GENIUS REVISITED
Our Al Hughes is nothing of the sort (simple, we mean), but has provided a rather genius Who-related illustration in his time. Here, in case you missed it in the Fairfax TV Week supplement, is his Cardiff section of the big TV land location map, where Torchwood’s sandpit nestled wickedly among such spooky neighbours as Bon Temps, Summer Bay and, er, Shortland Street.

We particularly like the pterodactyl, Al. K-k-klak!

Everybody’s gonna love today. It’s true! I heard it just now on the wireless. And it’s spring – can’t you tell?

Anyway, enough about the wireless, here’s your actual August in retrospect:

Everybody’s gonna roll those Rs (Enough! Ed)

RADAGHAST!
Last Return we remooted the possibility that the Seventh Doctor might finally get some big screen treatment in the shape of the future Hobbit movies, possibly to play the older Bilbo. Well now the rumour’s back, but it seems the Bilbo bit’s not in it, and that Sylv himself is intimating he might be in line for a more wizardly role, that of Radagast the Brown, mentioned only by name in the book, and replaced by a moth in the LotR movies. Charming! Anyway, it sounds like a good fit as Wizards go – Radders isn’t described in great detail in The Fellowship of the Ring, so a height difference or stray accent wouldn’t rock the boat surely. Let the campaign for Tom Baker for Beorn begin here!

RENT!
Series six split in two? A game-changing cliffhanger to see us at seat’s edge betwixt Easter and November? No Daleks? 2011 gets more intruguing by the day!

READ-OUT!
NZ fanzines. Are there any about? It’s a weird and contrary business, their absence coming as it does whilst the phenomenon seems to be enjoying something of a boutique revival overseas (as noted by Paul on his blog). There’s possibly space for an Editorial column on this, or a Media Circus one, but the shorter version you’ll read from Zeus Blog is well, perhaps at last paper press has finally had its day here in NZ, regardess of well-meaning attempts to resurrect either TSV (resting between editors) or RTP (er…) As much as we love hard media there’s more life currently online than in print, and perhaps it’s time for NZ fandom to migrate there, whether in the form of a PDF-zine – or none at all.

Good news, somebody… please!

REGION 4!
Oh so excellent news for next year’s 15th anniversary of the TV Movie – the McGanniversary we’re calling it around ZeusBlog Terraces. Thanks to skillful negotiations the TV Movie is to be released as a solo package here (oh, and in some other non Region 2 areas too, apparently) – no need to buy Revisitations if you don’t want to again! 2Entertain can do no wrong!

REVENGE!
Also available early next year, twin cyber dilemmas Revenge/Nemesis released with nice extras but no CG or extended editions. We knew this for ages and clearly the money’s not there but not everyone’s happy, as no less than FOUR derailed message threads on OutpostGally indicate. 2Entertain can do no right!

At least there’s that very cool doco on pirate videos to watch. Speaking of which…

RUINED!
BBC Books and BF writer Johnny Morris has a go at watching regionally televised Trial of a Time Lord from back in the day via his old VHS tapes. Hilarious!
(researching for a Colin/Bonnie BF script? Let’s start the rumour here!)

REANIMATED?
Ian Levine. Telesnaps. Restoration = shudders. 2Entertain can do no right! And yet Dan Hall mentions a ‘ReAnimations’ project? Intriguing… but we bet we’ll not see anything happening on this for a long long time yet. If at all. There’s probably a ‘Revisionista!’ column in this, surely?

REGENERATION!
In the mean-time let’s return to Sylv and whet our appetites for the forthcoming Time and the Rani DVD by watching this skillful fan bash at one of the series’ least succesful fudges…

AFTER THE SILENCE FALLS…
Fandom implodes. So let’s see what they’re all talking about over the webs…

FIRST RETURN:

Quality stuff from ’84. Only wish I knew where on the Internet I found it… (sorry)

MOFF ON TWITTER – WHAT A GOOD IDEA! OR IS IT? TWEET TWEET…
Yeeah. After proclaiming that he doesn’t browse the forums any more does it make much sense for an already busy man ( i.e. Steven ‘Two Shows” Moffat) to allow his followers, detractors and petitioners 24-7 access to his In box, 120 letters a time?

And why does he look so much like his son, eh? Eh? Cloning or self-interview by time travel?

WELCOME FLOYD!
Did anyone notice a new NZDWFCMBTSVUB40/apple  contributor to hit our shores recently? Who? Well, the clue’s here: Mr Floyd Kermode, infamous Antipodean serial corresponder with the Judge Dredd megazine and its current editor (not that) Matt Smith. A lovely chap, active on the (late, lamented) 2000ADReview board and overdue a decent welcome in our back yard. Welcome, cobber!

THE DALEK ROCKS!
Proof that there’s life beyond the Dalek teasmaid in the land of miniature kit bashers? Well, how’s this for an improvement on the new design Dalek?

THE BALLAD OF SYL-BO BAGGINS
So is it true or is it false? Is it rue or false? The rumour/speculation/flim-flam that the next ‘hasn’t aged in a day’ Bilbo Baggins will be played by none other than the Seventh Doctor has resurfaced amid tales of Peter Jackson ‘scouting’ for actors whilst abroad (and entertaining Brad Pitt in Wellington at the same time?)  It’s a nice thought – particularly so to think that a couple of years back some form of loose dress rehearsal could have been played whilst McCoy and Sir Ian McKellan were visiting Jackson while here for Lear (Sir Ian even stayed in Bag End!), but is it true? Time will tell. It’s a little disconcerting though to see evidence to the affirmative trotted out by Tolkein fans based on that twenty-two year old publicity shot from Ghost Light…

AND FINALLY…
Madness!

And we’re back in the room! Read the rest of this entry »

“Spoilers, sweetie…”
Read the rest of this entry »

The end is in sight.  The grand two-part finale of the most anticipated series since 2005 is just around the corner, but before we get the Moff’s kitchen sink thrown at us we must first sit patiently through the curtain raiser.

Episode 11, or sometimes 10, is traditionally experimental (to varying degrees of success), with deliberately humble production values and the reduced participation of one or both of the Leads.  It used to be known as the ‘Doctor-less episode’, but in the case of The Lodger, the very reverse is true.  More than any other episode to date, this is ‘The Doctor Show’; to the extent that this week’s ‘alien menace is very much sidelined by what would normally be the ‘B’ plot – the ‘human’ interest story.  Gloriously centre-stage is the Doctor trying to live as ‘an ordinary bloke’ until he can be reunited with the two significant others in his life (both making as much noise as each other during Amy’s brief but loud scenes in the runaway TARDIS).

This is a rich seam which Gareth Roberts exploits well for its comedic value, bringing back the soccer stardom and electric toothbrush/sonic screwdriver confusion of his original comic strip.  The episode itself is a refreshingly fun take on the Human Nature/Family of Blood scenario, making an episode-long gag of the Doctor’s attempts to be human. It’s a strong enough idea to have supported entire series in the past, from My Favourite Martian to Mork and Mindy and beyond, and very few tricks are missed here.    I really should stop making comparisons with David Tennant, but the tenth Doctor, who fell in love at least three times and even became homo sapiens briefly, was by far the most human, whereas Matt Smith is very much continuing the legacy of Tom Baker, who felt duty-bound to constantly surprise the audience with the Doctor’s alien-ness. The Lodger is a tour-de-force for Matt Smith and his unpredictable, increasingly delightful performance.

The eleventh Doctor completely misses the minutiae of human society: air-kissing everyone he meets and un-self-consciously regurgitating wine (disgustingness is a recent trait, apparently) but he sees straight to the heart of the larger, more important issues.  The Doctor immediately understands Craig’s relationship dilemma, when to let a difficult customer go and even how to inspire Sophie to follow her dream.  Perhaps if Rusty was still holding the reigns he’d find a way to create another spin-off series – ‘Matt about the House’, anyone?

But being Doctor Who there is also an alien threat to be dealt with, lurking at the top of Craig’s stairs. Passers-by anxiously climbing towards that flickering, buzzing room is a nightmarish image, reminiscent of a carnivorous plant luring insects into its lethal clutches, but its power becomes a little diminished after the third or fourth repetition.  This time the menace is of the non-adversarial kind, a mechanism blindly carrying out its programming in the way that Moffat often employs in his stories.  Visually, it’s nice to see echoes of the TV Movie, and given Amy’s ‘contribution’ to this story it’s appropriate that another scene featuring lots of sparks and shouting should also take place on a set which looks like a TARDIS.

The Lodger is ultimately a warm, happy and extremely funny episode (wouldn’t The Three Doctors have been so much more amusing if the eleventh’s method of psychically imparting information had been used back then?  I don’t doubt Troughton and Pertwee would have risen magnificently to the occasion).  This script is a Godsend for Matt Smith and he seems to know it, pitching every nuance, line and gesture perfectly.  And he can even talk to cats – the Doctor rocks, indeed!

Garnished with nods to the past reaching as far back as The Time Monster (I’ll resist making a list, but do have to mention ‘Jubilee Pizzas’) and topped with the third ‘past Doctors roll call’ this year, The Lodger is an extremely satisfying entrée to savour before the colossal main course and dessert arriving next. 

AH