Doctor Who Planet Of Giants DVD Review

Go on over to The Gallifrey Times and check out my review on the Planet Of Giants DVD which is released in the UK on 20th August, in Australia on 9th September and in the US on 11th September.

Click here and check out my review

BBC Confirm Genesis of "Doctor Who" Drama

The main players: Carole Ann Ford (Susan), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara), Verity Lambert (Prodcuer), William Russell (Ian), and William Hartnell (The Doctor).

There have been rumblings for sometime that Who writer Mark Gatiss has been writing a drama about the conception of Doctor Who to mark the show's 50th anniversary. This has now been officially confirmed by the BBC. The 90 minute drama will air on BBC 2 and is titled An Adventure in Space and Time and will tell the story of the genesis of the BBC sci-fi show in the early 1960s. The drama will cover the programme's first broadcast on 23 November 1963 with the four-part adventure An Unearthly Child and also William Hartnell's rise to fame.

Gatiss said:

"This is the story of how an unlikely set of brilliant people created a true Television original. And how an actor - William Hartnell - stereotyped in hard-man roles became a hero to millions of children. I've wanted to tell this story this for more years than I can remember! To make it happen for 'Doctor Who's 50th birthday is quite simply a dream come true".

Steven Moffat, Executive Producer, said:

“The story of Doctor Who is the story of television - so it's fitting in the anniversary year that we make our most important journey back in time to see how the TARDIS was launched.”

Also sure to feature: Warris Hussein (Director).

And Sidney Newman (Creator)

Further details about the production, including the casting, will be confirmed next year but I'm sure speculation will be rife.

The original cast in An Unearthly Child.

"Whovian" Is Officially A Word

The Oxford English Dictionary has officially made "Whovian" a word!

Click here to see the Oxford English Dictionary website.

Doctor Who "The First Sontarans" Audio Review

Check out my review of the latest Big Finish, Doctor Who Lost Stories release "The First Sontarans" featured over at BlogtorWho.

Please click here to have a look-see at my review.

Doctor Who Segment Cut From Olympic Opening Ceremony

According to this leaked playlist for the Olympic Opening Ceremony, reported in the Telegraph, Ron Grainer's original Doctor Who Theme was meant to be part of the opening ceremony. Along with segments based on Coronation Street and Monty Python, the Doctor Who section was cut due to time constraints. The vworp vworp sound of the TARDIS was included in the middle of a Queen song, but the rest of the Doctor Who section was unfortunately lost in the annals of time. It's shame this was cut, but that aside the Ceremony was incredible.

RIP Mary Tamm

Mary Tamm 1950-2012.

I am very sad to announce that Mary Tamm has died aged 62. The actress, who was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, fought a long battle with cancer and died in hospital in London. Tamm appeared as Tom Baker's Doctor's companion, Romana in Doctor Who for one season in 1978-9. She leaves behind husband Marcus Ringrose, daughter Lauren and seven-year-old grandson Max.

Her agent Barry Langford revealed that Tamm had been saddened by the recent deaths of contemporaries Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who, and Angharad Rees, who died last weekend.

He said: "All of these people who she knew were going."

This is sadly true as we add Mary Tamm, to the other we have lost in the past few years including: Nicholas Courtney, Elisabeth Sladen, Philip Madoc and Caroline John. As all of these wonderful performers, Mary Tamm will be sorely missed.

60: Day Of The Daleks - A Surprisingly Unusual Time Travel Plot

Written by: Louis Marks.

Companions: The Doctor, Jo Grant, Brigadier, Captain Mike Yates, Sergeant Benton.

Monsters/Villains: The Daleks, Ogrons.

Brief Synopsis: Freedom fighters from the future attempt to thwart a Dalek invasion by coming back in time to assassinate a delegate at the second World Peace Conference.
Rating: 8/10.

Hello wonderful blogtastics, I can only apologise for my absence of late, I've been kept busy with various other projects, auditions and trying to write a musical, but I am back with a vengeance to give you a full report on the first episode of Jon Pertwee's third season and the ninth overall, The Day of The Daleks. Since Dalek creator Terry Nation, was unavailable to write this one we welcome back Louis Marks who wrote the Hartnell story Planet of Giants, and would go on to write two Tom Baker stories: Planet of Evil and The Masque of Mandragora. The script that had originally been submitted wasn't called Day of The Daleks and didn't actually feature the intergalacticly infamous pepper-pots at all. It was called The Ghost Hunters and featured a fairly nondescript group of alien oppressors. Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts liked the story and decided to develop it, substituting it's extraterrestrials for the Daleks, who hadn't been seen for five whole years after being destroyed (for good, supposedly) in the Patrick Troughton story, The Evil of The Daleks.

Radio Times cover.

They pulled out all the stops, including a specially shot television trailer, an illustrated Radio Times cover, and even a contest to win your own Dalek. In 1972 this was Event TV and it clearly paid off as the story received 10.2 million viewers. The Daleks return brought in the viewers and the story was excellent, if flatly directed, but what of the Daleks themselves? They spend most of their time in a control room, barking orders, and then try to invade earth with just three Daleks.

The most interesting part of The Day of The Daleks is it's surprisingly unusual plot that centres around time travel. Uncannily similar to James Cameron's motion picture 'The Terminator' (1984), the story centres around a small group of Guerillas from the future who time-travel to the present day to avert the domination of a totalitarian dictatorship, but end up causing the very events they set out to prevent. In Cameron's case it's Skynet, in the Doctor's it's the Daleks. 

It's the most interesting part of this story because surprisingly Doctor Who doesn't do it very often. You'd think in a series where the main premise centres around a man who can travel in time and space, you'd get this sort of thing all the time, but it's surprisingly rare.

The Doctor with the Guerillas, Boaz and Anat.

The story also has a political connection. The Guerillas Target is Sir Reginald Styles who is on a mission of peace. He is trying to coax the Chinese to attend the Second World peace conference (The first having taken place in The Mind of Evil) and prevent the escalation of war. This is a direct reference to the Sino-Russian border conflicts of 1969 which almost spiraled into a nuclear strike on China by the USSR. Styles's last attempt to broker peace by flying to Peking is also an analogue to the February 1972 visit of Richard Nixon to China that would eventually establish the future Washington–Beijing–Moscow diplomatic relationship. It is also interesting to see that when the story starts we are meant to believe that the Guerillas are "the baddies," but they turn out to be "the goodies." It forces an interesting notion, that the characterisation of good or bad, of terrorist of freedom fighter is totally in the eye of the beholder.

The Daleks have got themselves a police force, the Ogrons.

Rather shockingly the Doctor acts in a very uncharacteristic way in this story. He drinks wine, something we rarely see him do, but much worse than that, he kills two Ogrons. I'm sure the script suggested that he was defending himself but in actuality he seems to calculatedly kill two Ogrons in cold blood. This is certainly one of those moments, much like Hartnell's 'I'm gonna bludgeon this guy with a rock,' moment, where I initiate my selective memory.

"Oh no, someones shot him. Me? No it wasn't me!"

Episode Four was originally to have featured a confrontation between the Doctor and the Daleks, in which the Daleks explain how they destroyed those of their number who were infused with the Human Factor in the events seen in The Evil of the Daleks, and then turned their attention to conquering Earth by means of time travel. This scene was actually recorded but had to be cut at the editing stage for timing reasons. What I would give to see that...

Aubrey Woods gives a stage-like, exaggerated yet excellent
performance as the Dalek's Human Controller subordinate.
He's also really shiny and wears silver nail polish.

The Guerillas try to assassinate Sir Reginald Styles as they believe his death will stop the Daleks future domination of earth, but it is his death that would in fact be the cause. However we don't get this temporal paradox fully explained until an expositional scene in the last episode of the story. In the end the Doctor gets Styles to safety and one of the Guerillas sacrifices himself to destroy the invading Daleks.

Just three??

The story's most infamous moment is when the Daleks have followed the Doctor back to present day and along with a handful of ambling Ogrons attempt to invade earth with just three Daleks. This issue along with many others including, the somewhat stilted Dalek voices, lack of future earth imagery and sometimes longwinded editing has been adressed by Steve Broster in a special edition included on the official DVD release. The special edition includes, new effects shots, extra material including a vastly larger Dalek invasion force and new Dalek voices supplied by Nicholas Briggs. I was lucky enough to attend the first screening. It's an excellent piece of work and really brings the story bang up to date.

CONTROLLER: Where there any complications?
OGRON: No complications!

Without a doubt, one of my all time favourite moments in Doctor Who takes place in this story. I like it for all the wrong reasons. It's the "No complications" line. There are two extra actors who are playing the Ogrons reporting to the Controller on their mission to kill one of the Guerillas. One explains they were successful in his best attempt at how an Ogron might speak. When the controller asks, where there any complications the first Ogron's counterpart replies just a little too abruptly in a comparatively normal and unaffected voice, "No complications." It's hilariously bad and that's why I love it. 

All in all the story is incredibly strong, but it is let down by incredibly poor direction. Steve Broster makes up for some of this in his wonderful special edition, but it's still just a little under par. The prototype 'Terminator' story is excellent, and the political parallells to the story's creation are handled tastefully but the actual return of the Daleks seems a little stilted and inanimate.

Join me next time for the return of the Ice Warriors in The Curse of Peladon.

SEASON 7 SPOILERS: New DW Toy Descriptions Contain Possible Season 7 Spoilers

Please don't read this if you don't want any of Season 7 spoiled!

Two new Doctor Who toy accessories' descriptions appear to contain massive spoilers for large parts of Season 7. This isn't the first time Doctor Who action figures have spoiled plot points or season revelations. When Davros returned we already knew because his action figure was announced too early. This first one contains spoilers for the video game: The Eternity Clock. Beyond that is an item with Season 7 spoilers!

First up we have the Trans-Temporal Sonic Screwdriver which carries this description: 

'With the TARDIS trapped on Earth in a Trans-temporal schism, the Doctor find himself at the centre of four time zones. As with each previous time the TARDIS generates a new sonic screwdriver for the Doctor but this time it is created in the style of each time zone, Elizabethan, Victorian, Present Day and Future London. With additional features including a ‘wood’ setting, the Doctor must try and free the TARDIS before time runs out. Replica sonic screwdriver with 8 new sound effects.'

This info suggests many revelations: Multiple Doctors (and sonics), split through four time zones and the TARDIS is trapped on Earth again, which hasn't happened since Pertwee's tenure as Doctor, and also finally a 'wood' setting! This is the sonic screwdriver from the PS3 PSVITA and PC game, The Eternity Clock (thanks to Quazz on Reddit). So, as it turns out no Season 7 spoilers here. It's a shame as the Trans-Temporal Schism could certainly have been used as a plot device to bring back past Doctors for the 50th Anniversary.

Then we have the considerably more interesting Q.L.A Anti-Time Device which lends us the following:

'After the Doctor disappeared, the Cybermen and Daleks went to war across the universe. And on each world they destroyed they left in their wake, Stone Angels, picking over the dead and dying. But the Cleric army fought back and scoured the dead worlds left after the wars, looking for the wreckage of Daleks, Cybermen, and broken Angels to create a hugely powerful ‘anti-time’ device. A device part Dalek, part Cyber technology and used the Quantum signature from the Angel to trigger a Gateway to pull enemies into the time Vortex…. Erasing them from Time completely. This Dalek & Cyberman Hybrid Technology Unit includes four play modes: Dalek, Cyberman, Angel & multi technology. Includes speech, sounds and light FX. Send your enemies into the Time Vortex!'

This suggests that in the Doctor's absence, the Cybermen and Daleks have been at war or possibly joined together to conquer the universe. The Weeping Angels have apparently been left as scavengers on the worlds the Daleks and Cybermen have destroyed. The Cleric army presumably refers to the same army we saw in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and A Good Man Goes To War. Their army has created a device, part Dalek (the eye piece) and part Cyberman (head handle bars) and using the Angel's quantum signature (the stone finger of a Angel) to send their enemies into the time vortex, erasing them from time. The device possibly has different setting depending on the enemy.

This description is certainly incredibly spoilerific, which does annoy, but I must say it all sounds very promising, if it is indeed related to season 7. I'm now even more excited about the Doctor's triumphant return to our screens in September.