Review of Robin of Sherwood: Knights of the Apocalypse

Warning: Minor Spoilers!

Robin of Sherwood ended with a 3rd season cliffhanger, as a ratings hit on ITV that had weathered changing its leading man from Michael Praed to Jason Connery. Sadly the funding for a 4th season fell through, and later ITV foolishly turned down the offer of a reunion TV movie which would have seen all the cast (including by then massive movie star Ray Winstone) come back.

That was that until 30 years later the remaining cast reunited for a Big Finish style 2 CD adventure based on the TV Movie script by the show's now-deceased creator, Richard Carpenter. Via an Indiegogo campaign that funded in 24 hours, the entire cast came back, namely Robert of Huntington (Connery), Marion, Little John, Will Scarlett (Winstone), Much, Tuck, Nazir (the now-not-so-silent Saracen assassin that led to numerous copycat characters in nearly every subsequent iteration), the Sheriff, Abbot Hugo and the Earl of Huntington. They even got Michael Praed back, though not as a ghostly echo of Robin of Loxley.

Sadly Robert Addie, the actor who played Gisburne, a major player in Robin of Sherwood, passed away and the replacement actor sounds nothing like his distinctive voice. On the other hand Herne is played by the original actor's son ably and Terry Molloy effortlessly replaces the recurring rat-obsessed prisoner from the series. Anthony Head plays the suave Grandmaster of the Knights of the Apocalypse, while Colin Baker hams it up as a seemingly horse-obsessed sorcerous knight who faces off against the Merries.

Knights of the Apocalypse deals with a particularly nasty sect of templars who indulge in the worst excesses the templars were accused of - worship of Baphomet, sorcery and favouring the material rather than spiritual. The audio has the feel of some of the more memorable and supernatural episodes of the series, in particular the Baron Belleme episodes, the Seven Swords of Wayland and the finale, Time of the Wolf, though the Knights plan is a little unclear and the Sheriff feels a little shoe-horned into the later plot (though I love Nickolas Grace's definitive sheriff).

Knights doesn't resolve the Season 3 cliffhanger (though does briefly mention what happened), nor does it really use any of the dangling Season 3 threads (such as Robert and Gisburne being half-brothers or dealing with the final fate of Robin Hood and his Merry Men). The Earl of Huntington's interactions with Robert even seem to ignore the fact they made peace in the Season 3 episode Rutterkin (though I suppose years have passed).

The audio is great - all of the characters sound great, and while they didn't get the rights to all of the original Clannad soundtrack Spiteful Puppet managed to get a Clannad-style soundtrack that compliments the original nicely. There are also lots of nice character moments. One recurring character buys it in a rather permanent fashion, but there is scope for a sequel (and hopefully an interquel that resolves the Season 3 cliffhangers). However there's a lot of actors to get together, and this was a for-charity audio. I do hope they do another one (and not resort to some sort of talking-book Companion Chronicle style release that many audio series descend into, like the revive Blake's 7).

Dr Stu on Doctor Who

With Season 8 of Doctor Who over it's time to give my thoughts.

Capaldi is a great Doctor and a departure from the often seemingly identical user-friendly personas that Doctors 9, 10 and 11 have had.

Coleman as Clara, she does a reasonable job, though as with most nu-Who companions is written with too much spunk and too little fear of the scenarios that unfold (such as when she managed to temporarily persuade a group of Cybermen she was the Doctor. Quite why this did not end with the coldly logical response of, "If you are the Doctor, you will regenerate from this near fatal shock... bzzzttt" I don't know). That said, as with Tennant, I look forward to Capaldi getting a companion that was cast with him in mind. I'd also love to get beyond the 21st Century London girl companion. By now in the original series we were seeing companions like Jamie, Zoe, Romana and Leela.

I felt the scripting in this season has been somewhat weak in places. Season 8 seemed to repeat scenarios from earlier episodes, which is worrying given this show is supposed to be able to go anywhere and anywhen. I'm not saying all the episodes were carbon clones of earlier ones, but it still seemed quite pronounced. Most aggredious of this is The Caretaker, which like School Reunion felt like a child's show set in an BBC Exec's PC view of what an urban London School should be like. Again, a show that can go anywhere in time and space and we've had 2 episodes set in a high school in London.

Of particular note:-

Deep Breath - elements of this episode were a retread of Moffat's infinitely superior The Girl in the Fireplace. I found the coincidence that the Pompadour's sister ship would have a near-identical malfunction lazy writing in the extreme. Largely this is the B-plot to the episode though.

Into the Dalek - the whole captured Dalek-in-chains scenario was done in Dalek back in Season 1.

Robots of Sherwood - nearly every episode the Doctor meets and "inspires" a historical figure. They really need to tone down these number of these episodes or humanity won't be able to cross the road without the Doctor.

Listen - Some elements of RTD's Midnight. I'm stretching with this one.

Mummy on the Orient Express - this was cribbed from the ending of Season 5. Plus the Orient Express in Space, remind you of I dunno, the Titanic in Space? The whole "contemporary-reference but in space" is getting a bit worn thin.

The Caretaker - the Doctor goes undercover in a London High School and the alien menace takes a back seat to relationship shennanigans. Now where have I seen this?

The Finale - Arguably Moffat's most RTD style finale so far, with a worldwide invasion of the Cybermen, whom no-one remembers from Doomsday in Season 2.

Deep Breath - not as solid a relaunch as the 11th Hour, this seemed to meander for me and it took a while for Capaldi to tone down the Matt Smith impressions. 3/5

Into the Dalek - despite starting off like Season 1's Dalek a very solid start for the new less-accessible Doctor we have. 4/5

Robots of Sherwood - Childish rubbish. Seriously, can we tone down the smug post-modern celebrity episodes. This was as medieval as Martin Lawerence in Black Knight. 0/5

Listen - Solid Spooky Moffat. 4/5

Time Heist - Excellent outing that suits the 12th Doctor's callous exterior well. A truly original episode for once (even if it did slightly remind me of Big Finish's 8th Doctor outing Grand Theft Cosmos). 5/5

The Caretaker - School Reunion 2. Except with Danny Pink on springs instead of Sarah-Jane. If I wanted to hang around high schools, I'd either have become a teacher or been arrested by now. 2/5

Kill the Moon - Science, common sense and the American constution take a back-seat for a reasonable ethical dilemma. 2.5/5

Mummy on the Orient Express - A great outing for Capaldi where his apparent callousness pays off again. Oh and apparently someone called Foxes was in this for 2 seconds to make it kewl for the kids. 5/5

Flatline -  A pretty good episode with an original idea for a baddy. 3/5

In the Forest of the Night - Has all the elements I love about Doctor Who - more coverage of life in school, child actors fresh off a CBBC set, the power of love trumping science and the people of Earth apparently forgetting all the weirdness they just witnessed. 0/5

The Mistress Duology - I'm not a big fan of changing the Master's gender, nor of the way post-Delgado Who seems to portray the Master - more Joker, less Lex Luthor. Gomez, who I've loved since the Blue Wing, however is more believable than John Simms ever was (not that I blame John Simms acting chops). However this was reasonable, if a somewhat convoluted finale with some silliness, like making the Doctor President of Earth or noting, "Hey the Cybermen can fly. Quick, let's all get in a plane. I hope they don't attack us in the air!" 3/5

All in all, a reasonable season but I worry poor Moffat is running low on ideas.

More Games

Some more new games now stored at Casa Kerrigan include:-

The Green Ronin Edition
Need to work out the system.

A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying/Game of Thrones D20: I've got the expensive D20 version and the new Green Ronin D6 system. I'm not sure which to run but I have a yen to run a short one-off in the Game of Thrones universe. The default setting for both games is 10 years before the books/TV show, though I'd also be tempted to run something in the Dunk & Egg era, which feels a little more 'pulpy' and 'high adventure' than the Song of Ice and Fire series.

The Night's Watch would be the most typical "adventuring party" setup for a one-off although the minor house playstyle idea might work for a mini-campaign. The D20 game has a couple of downloadable adventures and ASoIFRPG comes with a pretty long adventure detailing the adventures of House Whatever. Most likely I'd use a Northern House, or a Riverlands House.

Am I alone in thinking
"Lovely art, lousy font"?

To be honest I couldn't imagine running a massive campaign of this game as I'd feel too beholden to the source material. It's the same reason Dragonlance stopped being my D&D campaign of choice - there's too much 'canon' to beholden too, and I'm too OCD to canon.

That said the D20 House adventures and Peril in Kings Landing could make a diverting series of adventures and creative players could easily make enough material for House Whatever.

7th Sea: I was a little late to this party as for some reason it is out of print while Legend of the Five Rings, its oriental cousin, is still around but I've finally managed to track down the 2 rulebooks for this game, and have pdfs of pretty much every supplement. Ever.

7th Sea is a swashbuckling game I feel I should have loved playing but never got into the right game. Pirates, musketeers, magic and intrigue - along with a heroic combat system allowing your hero to wade through expendable NPCs - this should've been a shoe-in.

7th Sea - why is this game
out of print?

I played a few mini-campaigns I never really enjoyed but I put that more down to the DM not advising character generation (i.e. telling where the adventure will be set, and which common languages are advisable) or the players being dicks. One time I played a pirate in a campaign involving Avalonian politics. So my ability to kick my sword into my hand from the floor of a ship didn't become relevant and I was generic muscle for the noble PCs. Another time I played an Avalonian nobleman in a campaign based in Castille. One player even deliberately insisted the party plot in languages she knew my PC didn't speak, and I couldn't interact with the NPCs.

So again, one I'd love to run, but more to play in.

I got 7th Sea from Noble Knight along with a ton of free RPG Day goodies, including some RPG Grip Mat samples - which are great for holding miniatures in place, but apparently one cannot draw on with water soluble marker.

Another downside is the sample mats are too small  for any
serious RPG carnage. Good job I got 2!

Dr Stu on Dr Who: How Night of the Doctor Saved the 50th For Me

It's fair to say my attitude to the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary so far had been bah-humbug. With very few new episodes being aired (the Series 7 episodes we got were left-overs from last year, and only 2 episodes have been filmed this year), the sole announcements of only the returns of the Tennant doctor was mildly interesting but the return of Billie "I think I've returned to Doctor Who enough" Piper had me despairing. Meanwhile An Adventure in Space and Time seemed more like a curio than a replacement for the other 11 or so episodes we normally get in a year, and it seemed there is no shortage of tacky merchandise being released so the Beeb can apparently milk the show and minimize their annual output of the actual show. In fact even the finding of the Web of Fear and the Enemy of the World only served to enhance my cynicism, which could be summed up as, "Gee, if only the BBC had had TV channels to show these recovered episodes on instead of being forced to release them on iTunes for £9.99 a pop."

Incidentally I still expect Episode 3 of the Web of Fear to be found in time for a double-dip DVD release. So does Frazier Hines apparently.

My only real hope was for Big Finish's Light at the End, a celebratory audio featuring Doctors 1-8, which I bought the Limited Edition Deluxe release (naturally it came in 3 releases of increasing price, the Limited Edition is the mid-range at £40), as I like the 8th Doctor - who sadly has not had any other Big Finish release since November 2012. (During the Tennant-march-of-Death specials year McGann's Big Finish output was huge).

It was good by the way. Doctor 8 teams up with Doctor 4. Whoop!

Anyway, last Thursday I came back to my office from teaching a class to find on my feed a review of something called the Night of the Doctor from Stuart Reviews Stuff (another Stuart, not me, he makes much better reviews) with an image of the new-look 8th Doctor crumpled on a rock, bleeding. 6 minutes later I think I went through the highlight of the anniversary - if they cancelled the special now I'd shrug and say, "Oh well, at least we got Night of the Doctor."

He was very cagey when I said it was
a shame he wasn't in the 50th.

Now you might think this was a massive spoiler but during a visit to the Doctor Who experience I got chatting to one of the chaps who worked there while buying some souvenirs. He listed off all the doctors he'd met, and mentioned Paul McGann had filmed some material for one of 5 mini-episode prologues to the 50th - enough for a fleeting cameo. I was skeptical, saying Paul had tweeted he wasn't involved but the guy seemed adamant, saying he knew a lot of the inside things that went on regarding the show. He was right it turns out.

This is an amazing 6 minute episode. My summary would be "Caves of Androzani on steroids, only darker and 6 minutes long".

My two minor niggles are:-

1. It's 6:49 long, not 90 mins. (Hey a fella can dream).
2. We almost, almost got to see inside the 1996 TVM TARDIS, if only that silly, silly girl hadn't deadlocked the door. (To be fair that might've ballooned the minisode budget a little).

But really it's perfect. McGann nails every minute of the minisode We have an older eighth doctor, sans wig, wearing a really cool outfit that resembles his first appearance (frock coat, winged shirt, cravat/tie etc.) and IMHO much cooler than the outfit McGann started wearing for his Dark Eyes era, which to my mind is a cool coat and then whatever the actor was wearing that day (apparently a white T-Shirt and jeans). It'd be like if Tom Baker decided he hated scarves and turned up in a biker jacket, jeans and shirt to film.

TVM, Dark Eyes boxed set and Night of the Doctor Eighth Doctors

Something I did not expect was that the Doctor namedrops his audio companions Charley [Pollard], C'Rizz, Lucee [Miller] and Molly [O'Sullivan] before he downs his chalice of regen-a-juice. Given we know that he definitely believes all of these companions except Molly are dead (and that's only because we've not gotten to the end of the Molly era yet in the audios) I fear for the Irish nurse's future.

This weekend there was another scifi con at the Space Centre and I had a brief chat with Nick Briggs about the minisode. If I recall correctly he told me the following:-

• Apparently Paul McGann asked Nick's advice on whether or not to do this episode, which Nick said, "Er... YES!" So THANKS NICK!
• The scale of the production for this minisode exceeded what one of the producers (not Moffat) was comfortable with.
• We probably won't see the Night of the Doctor costume in Dark Eyes covers for a while, as Big Finish had a hard time getting Paul to pose for new pictures and want to use those.
• Stephen Moffat said (half-jokingly I assume) one of the reasons for this episode was so Big Finish could have more pictures of Paul for their covers.

Anyway, we got to see the Eighth Doctor's regeneration and proof he was rattling around during the Time War. Hopefully now Paul's been to Cardiff and acted his socks off he might get called back sometime. If you feel inclined I'd suggest sending praise to the BBC about the decision to bring McGann back by clicking here, or signing one of the many petitions to say we'd love to see him back.

Now I'm under no illusion internet petitions rule the world.

The BBC might ignore you, Paul might decide he's done enough now (and fair play to him), or the BBC might do something with this. Given both spinoffs, Torchwood and SJA, are for various tragic reasons over a Stephen Moffat Eighth Doctor spinoff, series of straight to DVD/Web episodes or even a one-off TVM would all be awesome. But if this is the last TV appearance of Eight I'm happy. Go check out the audios!

Stuff I've Been Reading: George R.R. Martin's Tales of Dunk and Egg

A whileback when HBO's Game of Thrones was on TV I whizzed through the novel like the devil was on my tail. When the time came to get into Book 2 I started reading and while I have to admit I enjoyed it I did stall round about the one-third mark and started reading (of all things) Ravenloft fiction instead.

What brought me back to Martin's epics (I'm now just finished A Storm of Swords:Steel and Snow) was when I sat down to read his three short stories, The Tales of Dunk and Egg. These are 3 novellas that feature in different fantasy anthologies George R.R. Martin has written. They are all set in Westeros and set 100 years or so before Game of Thrones. As novellas they weight in at around the 100-200 page mark, which is as punchy as Martin gets, suffering from as he describes it "diarrheoa of the wordprocessor".

As a prequel they've often been described as analagous to the Hobbit, but really they are three episodic tales featuring Ser Duncan the Tall, a hedge-knight (wandering knight in the ronin tradition) and his unique squire, Egg. Typically Martin has indicated there will be several more stories, as many as nine to twelve, covering much of the life stories of the two protagonists. There are only three written, with a fourth on its way. Additionally mention is made of unseen adventures that take place between the novellas, including mention of a meeting with a minor character seen in Game of Thrones.

It is more high-adventure than Song of Ice and Fire. While dragons are no more the Targaryen dynasty are still in charge, albeit having to fight a rival branch of the family who are trying to usurp their rulership, and in true Martin tradition killing each other. Also, given Martin's page count is restricted the stories tend to be quite well pace.

The first story, Hedge Knight, takes place as Dunk encounters his new squire whilst vying for a minor victory in a grand tournament. This being Westeros he encounters a prominent member of the nobility being not very nice to the peasantry and being true to his knightly ideals ends up insulting said douche. Needless to say this ends up with our hero in a joust for his life against some of the most prominent warriors in the realm. The resultant fight is brutal in typical Martin tradition. One major revelation in the story stretches the credulity of this series given how dark and dangerous Westeros is, but other than that it is a good read.

The Sworn Sword sees Dunk and his squire swear loyalty to a really poor lord and get involved in a land dispute with the lord's neighbour. This starts off a little Seven Samurai but ends off going of in its own direction. The harsh life of the peasantry and the effects of a drought are typically gritty Martin story elements but the ending of the story is remarkably upbeat for a George R.R. Martin fantasy story. Ultimately this is probably the weakest of the three stories so far as the main characters' development is non-existent and an adventure that is mentioned having taken place between Hedge Knight and the Sworn Sword sounds just as interesting.

Mystery Knight takes place at a tourney again, with Dunk abandoning all reason and tactics we saw in the first story. It features some really nasty grey characters and this tournament is somewhat more unique than its predecessor. There's some nice character moments and development, particularly of Egg.

This is where the series ends, though Martin has a fourth one in the works called "She-Wolves of Winterfell", which is being published in a book called "Dangerous Women" - a fantasy book about warrior women one presumes. There's also vague mentions of the stories one day being reprinted together in a single volume (currently they're a pain to get in three different books), which will presumably feature "exclusive" short stories. This is of course if Martin writes them since he is supposed to be writing Books 6 and 7 of a Song of Ice and Fire. Currently I expect all these to be released in 2020.

Demon Quest: Not So Good

Over the Christmas Break I listened to the remaining audios in the Demon's Quest series, a fourth doctor audio series the BBC brought out. I'd listened to part 1, but had tried to listen to part 2 several times and either fell asleep, lost concentration or just didn't care.

Sadly the latest five offerings slowly began to wear me down and it took a long drive back to Scotland to get me to listen to them. First a little background...

Two years ago Tom Baker surprised everyone by getting out the right side of bed and deciding he wanted to play the Doctor before. This was after years of refusing Big Finish's offers to lure him back, including one alleged incident where he may have made disparaging remarks about the scripts belonging in the bin. Incidentally the scripts he is supposed to have been offered were reworked for other doctors and were in my opinion universally good. They are the Holy Terror (now a 6th Doctor audio), the Stones of Venice (which became an 8th Doctor audio - one I'm relatively cool on to be honest) and the Spectre of Lanyon Moor (a 6th Doctor and Brigadier adventure).

Unlike the other Doctors, the audios featuring Tom Baker were to be made by the BBC, not by Big Finish. Given Big Finish have to pay the BBC for the license to make classic Doctor Who audios I'd be a bit miffed if I were them. (I also live in fear the BBC will decide Doctor Who is so successful they will overprice the license or refuse them the license).

One of the reasons Tom said he wanted to do audios as the Doctor was he wanted to work with Nicholas Courtney - the Brigadier. Sadly before recording Nick had a stroke and was unable to do the audios. The audios were rewritten to feature Captain Yates - a companion who betrayed the 3rd Doctor and thus was last featured in Pertwee's swansong. This was less than ideal as he'd never met the 4th Doctor, though it was said early in the first Hornet's Nest he'd met the 4th Doctor at one of the Brig's UNIT Christmas parties.

The Hornet's Nest featured Yates meeting a pre-Romana Doctor in a cottage in 2010 Surrey he owns - called Nest Cottage. He also runs into the mysterious housekeeper, Mrs. Wibbsey. The baton of narration passes to the Doctor narrates four stories to Yates relating to his current predicament relating to a race of interstellar hornets, with the odd additional cast members interacting with Tom. In the fifth CD the Doctor, Wibbsey and Yates go off and finally deal with the Hornets.

It worked on some levels, but failed on others. I thought the acting was at time wooden (occasionally from Yates), and the idea of the Doctor telling us what he's thinking does away with the whole Who part of Doctor Who.

Tom Baker sounds in both series of audios like he is playing an old man. He portrays sherry and brandy swilling 4th Doctor sat by the fireside in a cottage, walking the dog and complaining about his old bones. Personally I always saw Tom Baker's doctor as an energetic (mostly) tea-totaller.

Anyroads here is a review of the latest series of audios.

Here Be Spoilers!
Turn back if ye be not wishing to be spoiled

The Relics of Time: The Doctor loses 4 bits of his TARDIS thanks to Mrs. Wibbsey and traces one to Roman Britain via some artifacts a stranger swapped Wibbsey for the TARDIS parts. He encounters a figure from history who has the missing TARDIS piece and narrowly avoids being taken off in his dematerialisation chamber. This is sadly starts a theme of a character being the titular demon in disguise, the Doctor narrowly avoiding being taken in his dematerialisation chamber and a TARDIS piece being found at the end of the first 4 audios.

3/5

The Demon of Paris: This is where my attention really nodded off. This is a 19th century mystery featuring the Doctor and Wibbsey around the Moulin Rouge. They meet the artist Toulouse-Lautrec, an absinthe-swilling artist who may be committing atrocious murders under the influence of absinthe and who painted the famous bohemian art piece that the 4th Doctor's look is said to be derived from. Given the remaining cast consists of his cemetery trudging concierge, La Charlotte - a slattern both of whom seem to appear and disappear whenever the plot requires it I worked out they were the baddies and were trying to get the Doctor into a dispersion chamber. It failed to grab me or be as charming as say City of Death.

1/5 (Jeez!)

The Shard of Ice: Probably the best part of the series this features the Doctor and Yates (who they've recruited as he decided to come to Nest Cottage for no apparent reason and features in the 3rd artifact). They are in the mountains of Germany with Albert Tiermann, a literally cold-hearted story teller who has sold his heart to a demon in order to gain the inspiration to write stories. The majority of the story is Albie trying to steal the Doctor's book of his future-stories that lured them to the area.

This turns out to be a red-herring, as it's part of the Demon's plan to lure the Doctor into his lair and dematerialisation chamber. He escapes, finding another bit of the TARDIS and releasing Tiermann from the demon's influence.

4/5

Starfall: Wibbsey, Doc and Yates turn up in New York, lured by a comic cover featuring them and a girl getting changed into a superheroine by a meteor. This happens, with the girl becoming Miss Starfall and flying around New York, while the Doc and Yates get arrested for murders the demon is committing when they find some bodies. Wibbsey hangs around with Starfall's employer, an actress called Mimsy.

The whole superheroine plotline turns out to be a rather daft red-herring, as it's part of the Demon's plan (who is Mimsy) to lure the Doctor into its rooms and the dematerialisation chamber. There's also a cult of people dressed like 4th Doctor doing a ritual that can somehow weaken the Doctor, like Kryptonite. This again doesn't really lead anywhere. We also learn the Demon is from a place called Sepulchre and that this is probably where the Demon keeps trying to take the Doctor. It does capture Wibbsey though.

The story is narrated by Ms. Starfall's Stan Lee-esque boyfriend, who has to preface a lot of his narration with "I did not see this part, but the Doctor then..."

1/5 (3/5 until the whole creation of the superheroine was revealed to be the Demon's plan to lure the Doctor into its clutches, considering she uses her powers to save him).

Sepulchre: The Doc and Yates go to rescue Wibbsey on Sepulchre. This kind of makes the whole collecting TARDIS bits a little redundant since this was where the Demon wanted to take the Doctor for the last 4 CDs.

Unable to escape as the TARDIS disappears (d'oh) the Doctor is captured and hooked up to a machine to make a star atlas. The Demon turns up to be working for... a single surviving hornet from the previous CD series. Also GASP! Wibbsey was possessed by the hornet which is why she gave away parts of the TARDIS. The Doctor outwits the hornet, the Demon escapes and everyone else escaped back to Nest Cottage, for another Christmas. But then Wibbsey is captured, meaning there'll be a 3rd series of these...

3/5

Overall Arc: 2/5 (sorry - it makes no sense).

As a whole the arc between the 5 CDs is like a dreadful RTD arc. Large portions of the individual stories are red-herrings (namely the appearance of Emperor Claudius in CD 1, the paintings of Latrec, the fairy-tales and demon's persona Snow Queen in CD 3 and the superheroine in CD 4).

The whole story arc could have been 1 CD long - in that Hornet-possessed Wibbsey could have hit the Doctor on the head in his cottage or put a reefer in his tea/scotch thus knocking him out, called the demon, taken him to Sepulchre and he would've had to escape. Or it could've made an army of superheroines that were actually loyal to itself. Or any one of a number of things.

Yates's involvement was pointless - seemingly included just because he was in the previous series of stories. I wish they'd brought the Brig back, but at 81 I suspect he should take it easy.

Big Finish are still rumoured to be making finally 4th Doctor audios starring Tom Baker. His reservations about the scripts seem ironic given the problems with these scripts. Unlike Hornet's Nest and Demon's Quest these will most likely be full cast audio without linking narration. I suspect they will replace the seasons of Eighth Doctor adventures that are sadly coming to an end, though we'll likely not see them until 2012. Big Finish have a habit of announcing products a year before they come out to court subscriptions to fund productions. Given we've heard nothing official I suspect there'll be a wait.

I don't want you to think I'm down on narration in audios. One of my favourite 8th Doctor audios - Season of Fear - features Paul McGann giving linking narration in the vein of his monologues in the TV Movie. Given this was a 4 part story set across over 4 time zones (ancient Rome, the time of Edward the Confessor, the 19th century and 1930s Singapore) one can forgive them for cutting the story down to ~100 mins with narration, most of which gets the Doctor back to the TARDIS and on with the quest.

If they do a third series of BBC audios (which apparently will not affect Big Finish's ability to produce their own 4th Doctor audios) I, in my armchair quarterback capacity, would suggest they avoid hornets and remove the "talking book" parts of the scripts. I love the Wibbsey character, but ditch Yates. They should also ditch the arcs and try some one-offs, perhaps also throwing in some traditional Doctor Who elements. I'm loathe to suggest Daleks or Cybermen but something like that might revitalize the series. Also - rather than having 1 script writer, Paul Magrs (who has written some good stuff in the past, but seems a bit stretched to write 5 1 CD adventures) perhaps they might want to try some other writers.

Sadly this is my least favourite Dr. Who audio series in a while. They were only £6 a CD I suppose, so I got what I paid for.

He's Back and It's About Clothes.

The Eighth Doctor appears to have been given a new costume at a New Zealand convention. It consists of a blue buttoned coat, a man-bag and a very nice steampunk sonic screwdriver. I have to admit I wasn't too keen on the jacket - perhaps if it was velvet instead of leather. It does seem to have the "is it blue? is it black?" quality his old coat had and perhaps under professional lighting it might look better.




As it is a work in progress it looks okay - the sort of thing that Benedict Cumberbatch would wear on Sherlock. Put a waistcoat and a wing collared shirt on him and he still dresses like the Eighth Doctor - my only concern is the hair, or lack thereof. And don't get rid of the cravat - unless you replace it with a short scarf or some such!



Without a TV appearance making a new costume seems a little pointless - the Eighth Doctor had a distinctive costume that has been shown throughout the new series.
I doubt this is official - the video itself says it is the official unofficial unveiling of the new costume. Most likely it is the fans having fun in New Zealand. I doubt it will lead to a TV appearance.

Incidentally the Radio Times did something like this for Doctors 5-7 in 2003, as usual #8 was forgotten. This is him catching up I guess.

Star Trek Sequel Amusement

I just laughed when reading this trivia on IMDB concering the next Star Trek movie:-

Sceenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman explained that the dilemma for the sequel was whether to pit the crew against another villain, or to have an "exploration sci-fi plot where the unknown and nature itself is somehow an adversary," like in "Star Trek" (1966)

Nah... you don't want to do anything daft like make it like Star Trek mate!

Dr Stu on the New Dr Who

Here's my thoughts on the new series of Doctor Who. I'm really liking it - which is odd as a lot of folk are giving it a bad rep. It's easily the most solidly written season for me ever.

Pros: Matt Smith is nailing the Doctor. He is much more of a relatable character than Tennant's Fonzy-Cool Doctor. This is a Doctor who cocks up and who realises he does this. There are also consequences to his actions (unlike Waters of Mars which seems to have no repercussions that even remotely led to Tennant's regeneration).

The scripts are actually intelligent. It's worth rewatching episodes by the main scriptwriter. The scripts actually feel more like a 'proper' sci-fi show rather than a London-based melodrama with aliens in it.

Every 2nd character doesn't telegraph their sexuality loudly though we do still have a lot of "unrequited" love situations in everyday places (the older guy and gal at the drill, the couple in next week's episode). And instead of every other character being obviously gay they're obviously Scottish instead. :)

Cons:

The budget - this has been clearly slashed so the series has to make do with some wonky CGI (Prisoner Zero and the Eyeball Ships looked like something I could've rendered for them) and invisible or "edge of the camera") monsters. While there's nothing wrong with being creative it makes me sad when you think how much money RTD managed to waste on farting aliens, the obligitory horde of Daleks or Toclafane zooming into Earth and back through a plot device at the end of every season and the doubtless expensive pointless cameos or appearances by Barrowman (shakes fist), Piper, Freema, Tate and so on who don't work for free.

Amy - I'm not so down on her being blazé about Time Travel and I suspect the actress's manner makes her difficult to relate to. Thankfully this is easier to explain than say, Rose Tyler, as Amy is bat-crazy thanks to meeting the 11th Doc in her childhood.

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Here's some notes on every episode so far:-

The Eleventh Hour - a very good post-regeneration story with typical Moffaty timewimey the only shame is we miss young Amelia 4/5

Beast Below - while this is not particularly well thought out, surprising for Moffat, this is an interesting satire of the British voting system. 3/5.

Victory of the Daleks - even Iain McNeice cannot save this one from being a bit crap. Daleks again. Thankfully they won't be the last survivors of their race... yadayada... anymore. 2/5

Time of the Angels, Flesh & Stone - Genuinely creepy this is Moffat at his best and may be the best 2 parter in a long time. 5/5 - despite the perhaps more creepy ending to part 2.

Vampires of Venice - a fun romp that amuses and looks good. I do hope we get a proper Vampire episode at some point. 3/5

Amy's Choice - another good episode that reminds us this is actually meant to be a sci-fi show. Very clever - almost feels like a clever episode of Star Trek or some such. Hope the Dreamlord comes back. 5/5

The Silurian 2-parter - This is relatively ho-hum and by the numbers, though not so much as the Dalek and Sontaran mid-season 2 parters of yesteryear. The ending to part 2 is a good idea that is not particularly well or dramatically executed. Given the author's track record I think he actually exceeded my expectations. 3/5

Vincent and the Doctor - Pretty good portrayal of a manic-depressive this episode is surprisingly tearjerking. 4/5

Babylon 5 Viewing

Been watching B5 with the missus and we've made it a fair chunk of the way through the 2nd series. Sadly Naomi agrees with me that there is no subtely in the way in which Michael O'Hare is replaced with Bruce Boxleitner. A lot of folk diss O'Hare as being at times wooden, including certain co-stars but I felt he needed to be in the first few episodes of season 2 at least to transition from one CO to another.

It does seem for a few episodes that Sheridan is walking around being really nice to people for no apparent reason, and that no-one is resentful that poor Sinclair got transferred finally. For Naomi though the point where the obvious tipexing of Sinclair with Sheridan hit home was in episode 2 of season 2 when Captain Sheridan volunteers to give some of his life-energy to save Garibaldi. This doesn't really work from a dramatic point of view as Sheridan has never met Garibaldi, while it would make sense for Sinclair to do so.

Still one does wonder how the show would've been with Sinclair... probably not as good if this account is accurate. Though I think this was probably just the rough draft of Seasons 1-5.

Dr. Stu on Doctor Who End of Time 2

This was definitely better than Part One. However it was most definitely not Doctor Who at its best (i.e. Human Nature/Blink levels) and sadly once more my expectations were much higher than the actual events of the episode.

Some folk had been predicting an epic finale appearance of the 8th Doctor (?) and the reintegration of the Time Lords to round off the Time War stories, leaving Stephen Moffat with the opportunity to make his own mark on the Doctor Who universe. Given it was an RTD finale I doubted this...

Every single finale has had some sort of 'reset' device - the first season had Uber-Rose conveniently kill every dalek and resurrect Captain Jack (though not anyone without a player character badge like Lynda with a 'y' or anyone else on that station). The second season had the Cybermen and Daleks on Earth sucked into a void. The third season had a paradox machine that reset the entire events of the episode. The fourth season had Donna push a few levers to destroy the entire Dalek armada. And now this fifth mini-season had the Doctor shoot a machine to send every single Time Lord back into the time locked Time War.

I personally didn't like the idea of making all the Time Lords evil - smacks too much of racism for me (like saying every Welsh person became evil) - and I wish we could've had more exploration of the Time Lords and their newfound evilness. Of course it might be possible in this episode for other Time Lords to have snuck through and remained on Earth, and I did like the fact that they alluded to two Time Lords disagreeing with the President - though I hope a few more were 'co-erced' in their voting by that handy glove device.

We do not know who the mysterious lady was (Susan? Romana? The Doctor's mother?) but then this is typical of RTD finales - the reasons for things are less important than the sheer showmanship. We never understood why Bad Wolf appeared everywhere at the end of Turn Left, exactly what Bad Wolf was or why Rose was able to appear on TVs throughout Season 4 - she never even mentions trying to contact the Doctor this way in the Season 4 finale. However I'm less bothered by not knowing who the lady in white is than these other things - I've come to expect it I guess.

True to form contradictions arise - Donna remembers her time with the Doctor and suddenly zaps every Master in the vicinity unconscious rather than exploding - which is what the Doctor said would happen to her. This is just like how Rose could never ever get back from the parallel universe... but did and then got taken straight back by the Doctor.

There was some good stuff however - Bernard Cribbins was excellent. The revelation of 'he will knock four times' was clever. The cactus guys were good.

The last 15 minutes of the show were absolute self-indulgent nonsequitur with lots of ex-cast members cameoing in a shameless nostalgiafest that makes me wonder why the production team criticise multi-doctor stories so much.

6/10

Dr. Stu on Dr. Who: End of Time Part 1 (long)

So... Waters of Mars I didn't blog about but it was pretty darn good. Especially the end where they finally acknowledged that Tennant's doctor has always had tendencies to be an arrogant twat and needs a companion to keep him in check. To be honest I never felt Rose would be the one to do it - she was always eager to fan the flames of 10's ego. But its always nice to see Tennant's sometimes smug Doctor taken down a peg or two. This only really started happening in Season 3 with episodes like 42, Human Nature and the Master Trilogy taking the Doctor to the very edge.

I must admit I was somewhat wary of Simm's master returning... as you may know I didn't think too highly of the original John Simm episodes. Derek Jacobi on the other hand was the bomb - he nailed the part in the 5 seconds he played the Master. The Master is supposed to be like Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock. A true Moriarty Master hardly ever gets his hands dirty - he has minions for that. He is a sinister, distant and aloof figure - thinking of the grand scheme. He should appear austere, respectable and sophisticated on the outside and yet is completely evil. Instead we got a Master who listens to Scissor Sisters, is clearly barmy and yet became Prime Minister of Britain for no reason that seemed relevant to the plot later on...

Anyroads - I was sure it wouldn't be that bad? Simm can do nasty when he wants - perhaps the script would be better.

Mother of All Spoileryness Warning for End of Time Part One

The End of Time Part One

The episode starts off rather nicely with Wilf and a mysterious woman (who I think is meant to be a Time Lady) chatting about the Doctor in a chapel in (drum roll...) London, Earth, 2009/10. Then we see the Doctor turning up on the Ood Sphere listing all the unseen Big Finish adventures he's had. It's all a bit silly and I wished we'd followed him immediately after Water of Mars's great cliffhanger. He meets the head Ood and is given a peak at the script visions of Wilf, Dave Harewood, Lucy Saxon and the Master.

There's a rather pointless sequence where the Disciples of Saxon, a group who believe Harold Saxon (the Master) should live again ('cos he was such a wonderful chap who inspires loyalty) break Lucy Saxon out of jail to extract DNA or some maguffin off her to resurrect the Master. We learn who took the ring off the remains of the Master in Last of the Timelords and are completely underwhelmed as it is a random unnamed woman. Lucy however thought there was a possibility the Master might come back and made an anti-Master-Resurrection potion and has moles who have infiltrated the Disciples of Saxon. She uses it while I ponder the following nits/plotholes:-

1: If Lucy Saxon thought there was even the most remote possiblity the Master might come back WHY DIDN'T SHE TELL THE DOCTOR ABOUT IT?
2: Doctor 10 didn't notice that fecking massive ring in the cremated remains of his nemesis? What - is he attention deficit? Was there a mirror nearby when he was cremating the master...
3: Why did the Master bother to kill himself and go through this whole convoluted resurrection scheme?
- What if the Doctor had put his corpse in the TARDIS?
- What if the Doctor had cremated him in the TARDIS?
- What if the Doctor had taken his ring off him?
- What if the Doctor had taken his wife away from Earth?

The Master's escaped from the TARDIS and the Doctor before you know - ask the 7th Doctor if you don't believe me. This resurrection put me too much in mind of the ridiculously convoluted plot in the Torchwood episode They Keep Killing Suzie wherein Suzie relied on a resurrection glove that had never worked in the past to bring her back to life.

Most of my concerns are rendered moot as there is a massive explosion killing Lucy, the Disciples of Saxon, and any point to this scene*. We then cut to David Harewood, staple of all BBC drama at the moment (and wasted as he was in Robin Hood), talking about some alien technology they've got off Torchwood's** latest car boot sale and how they reckon the Master is alive and will prove useful. The narrator tells us they're idiots so we don't have to worry too much about their scheme, whatever it is, coming to fruition.

We then cut to scenes of the Master inexplicably wandering round some (fairly extensive) ruins near Lucy's prison in present day London. He seems to have developed superpowers, including lightning, flying and turning into a Martian from Mars Attacks! Which leads to niggle 4:-

4: Why did the anti-Master solution turn him into Superman?

He needs to keep replenishing his lifeforce apparently, as he kills some homeless people and the staff of a burger van that operates out of these London ruins (obviously the derelict area is a good place to sell sausage in a bun) whilst eating like Mr Creosote from The Meaning of Life. He pointlessly bumps into the Doctor and runs away from him, leaving him in the clutches of Wilf's randy OAP army - the Silver Cloak. We learn in 21st century BBC tradition these unlikely pensioners tick every Politically Correct box in the book, flirt with the Doctor and then bugger off. This leaves the Doc and Wilf to actually act - after all the "essential" plot development so far there's a nice scene where the Doctor tells Wilf he's dying (after all if some psychic bint on the Number 200 Bus told me I was dying I'd be buying a plot of land for my grave), and some talk about Donna marrying a guy who looks a little like her old fiancee. Inexplicibly the Doc ditches Wilf and runs back to the wastelands and into the Master again. The Master beats him with his lightning and flying powers, but not before the Doctor gets to listen into the Sound of Drums the Master's been harping about since RTD rewrote his character forever.

To be fair this is one occasion where Simm's*** Master actually stopped chewing the scene for a few minutes but before long he's captured by David Harewood's marines. Which leads to concern #5:-

5: Oh come on - you're saying that with all his new powers the Master was captured? You could argue he allowed himself to be captured, but given he knows nothing about Dave Harewood's alien device plot there's no reason for him to do so.
6: Why not capture the Doctor as well? Dave Harewood seems to know all about the Master but nothing about the Doctor which is... unlikely given how active Drs 9 & 10 have been and that we had a group of OAPs recognise him earlier. (Yes - I know Wilf told them about him, but still).

The Doc meets up with Wilf again and through some oblique clues provided by Donna rushes through some plot developments and porcupine aliens to fail to stop the Master accomplishing his latest "plan" - to make everyone on Earth (except the Doctor, Wilf and Donna) into clones/copies of himself****. Obviously he's never read Shatnerquake - that's not as much fun as it sounds.

It finally seems we're in danger of having a cliffhanger which involves John Simm clones "humorously" in variety of getups (including women's clothing - thanks RTD!) giving the thumbs up and generally mugging the camera. Thankfully for no discernible reason we cut to the narrator of this episode, Timothy Dalton, who it appears is a Time Lord and starts going on about how somehow the Master has inadvertently brought them back. He then starts yelling about the End of Time and For Gallifrey, leaving us going OMG The Time Lords are back! Yay! And wondering how all this mess is going to be neatly resolved in 75 minutes on New Year's Day.

Although I'm often critical of RTD's episodes I did love Rose, The End of the World, Midnight and even Love and Monsters (right up until we had the implied oral sex with a paving slab, something I'm amazed wasn't censored). However for every Rose there is at least two World War Threes, with farting aliens talking about dalliances with farmboys. Aside from the fact I don't think he sees the Master in the way I see him his season finales have had plotholes you can drive flying double-deckers through - preferring emotional content and a bullet point list of 'memorable scenes' over sensible well-thought out plots. To be honest RTD would make an amazing co-author but as the dominant force behind Doctor Who he has a tendancy to write plots that any script editor worth his salt should send back covered in red pen decrying the lack of logic in them.

So in some ways its good that RTD is leaving - I feel I'm going to like a Steven Moffat penned finale more than an RTD finale. He really should've let someone else write the major 'event' stories. Moffat on the other hand is capable of writing very, very clever scripts - akin to the Douglas Adams scripts Tom Baker excelled at. RTD's turkey is getting a little cold - I'm glad there's only another round of turkey sandwiches to gobble, but put me down for that last helping - it might still be good. Or it may fail to explain everything to my satisfaction*****.

5/10 - Could Try Harder (To Be a Coherent Story)

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And now the ranty footnotes:-

* My comment, over the pandomonium of my folks chatting was, "I liked it better when the Master came back to life without any explanations."

In my view if you had to do this kind of scene it would've been more spooky if it was a brief flashback when the Doctor first re-encounters the Master.

Doctor: You are dead.
Master: So you thought, but I prepared for that contingency. My followers on Earth, the Disciples of Saxon, had orders to perform a ritual to resurrect me if I died.
(Cut to people in Satanical robes performing the resurrection stuff we see in the episode)
Master: Something went wrong though...
(Cut to explosion)

** Gaddamit - another reference to Torchwood and how useless they are with keeping alien technology under wraps! Seriously - the show went from 1963 without mentioning Torchwood (because RTD hadn't taken over invented them they were so secretive) - now they're behind every alien tech disaster in Doctor Who! Even old ladies in downtown Cardiff know about them.

*** Simm is a good actor BTW - watch any episode of Life on Mars or his episode of Cracker. He is especially good at scary murderers, but in my opinion his acting chops are wasted playing the Joker-Master. Of course from interviews I've read he enjoys playing the part as a kind of panto villain.

**** One thing I'll hope we'll ditch in the Steven Moffat era is the routine plethora of 'world-shattering' plotlines. Since 2005 the entire planet has experienced the following:-

1. has seen ghosts


2. has been invaded by said ghosts who turned out to be Cybermen


3. has been invaded by Daleks, twice in some cases!


4. saw the President of the USA killed by the Master and aliens


5. had the planet moved


6. had all the people of a correct bloodtype stand on the edge of a ledge


7. had all the children stop what they were doing and acting as mouthpieces to a bunch of aliens


8. had bad dreams about John Simm, and been unable to concentrate because of him


9. turned into John Simm

The last 4 in particular realistically would have incredibly widespread effect on people. Consider for example people worldwide in 'critical' jobs and situations - for example defusing a bomb in the bomb squad, driving a car at high speeds down a motorway, operating heavy machinery, walking the tightrope in the local circus and so on. Bear on mind it's the entire planet - statistically a lot of these situations should pop up and a lot of unfortunate people would all probably die. Repeatedly.


***** Concerns like

1) Why are the Time Lords back?
2) Why do they want the End of Time to happen - doesn't that mean they're out of a job?
3) How on Earth does the Master's latest idiot plan lead to them existing again? (I think I know how they'll explain this - if they bother)
4) What's so special about Wilf?
5) If Donna gets her memories back then why doesn't she explode as previously promised?
6) Why are the Ood appearing to the Doctor? Why is their future connected with 21st Century Earth? Surely they'll be better off without humanity enslaving them (which might explain their advances in civilization)
7) What exactly does the Immortality Gate do? Does it heal entire civilizations?
8) Why hasn't the Master made the Master-clone-Martha-Jones jump off a roof in revenge for her part in deposing him in Last of the Time Lords?
9) Does the Master now know everyone on Earth's thoughts and secrets?

Dr. Stu on Dr. Who

No - not Waters of Mars. I'll maybe blog about that again at some point. For now move along if that's what you're interested in.

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I've not been blogging a lot recently - I'm twittering a lot more these days. One of the results of my twittering was that recently the lovely people at the WhoCast reviewed the Company of Friends, a Doctor Who audio play starring my favourite Doctor, Paul McGann. I felt it was only fair I reciprocate and make my thoughts known (particularly as one of the podcasters sounded in physical pain due to his experiences).

I personally was not too fussed about this release - I'd rather Big Finish had created 4 short McGann plays in keeping with their own continuity. In my mind the McGann audios are the canon eighth doctor era and creating a series of 4 short audios that link with the novels and comic books was a cluster-frak in terms of continuity. There are events in these separate continuities that invalidate the other continuities and at times don't even link with the current television series.

For example in the comics Ace dies, the 7th Doctor and Sarah-Jane hang out and Rassilon is a good guy who the Doctor has met time and time again. In the novels Gallifrey is destroyed, but not by the Daleks, Romana regenerates again and becomes an enemy of the Doctor and so on.

As for the novels there are dozens of 8th doctor novels, but I'm not that much of a fan to read them - especially as they did not conclude before the 2005 series came back.

It's also worth considering that the last time Big Finish explicitly addressed the separate 8th doctor continuities it was in Zagreus - and was (in my opinion) a bit of a disaster. With this trepedation in mind I did however listen to the plays over the summer break, whilst in darkest Exmoor and have finally got round to blogging about them. Here is a breakdown of the 4 plays:-

Benny's Story - I'm not familiar with the Bernice Summerfield range. I have some Benny novels, but they were given to me for free as the result of a botched order from Big Finish and currently take up space in my wardrobe rather than my bookshelf (don't ask!). She was a companion of the 7th doctor for a large portion of the pre-1996 novels and teamed up with the McGann doctor in another novel, and (in a wafer thin example of author-surrogacy) may have slept with him. This story is unremarkable and seems to play off the novelty of having McGann and Bernice in a fairly ho-hum corridor chaser. Sadly, not being a fan, the novelty is lost on me. 4/10 - but as Lisa Bowerman (Benny) has graciously added me as a friend on Facebook I'll up it to 6/10 and promise to one day listen to the Bernice Summerfield range.

Fitz's Story - I -really- liked this one. Maybe I miss the fact that the Doctor never seems to get a 'normal' bloke as his companion. Case in point, Captain Jack, C'Rizz and Turlough all having their own peculiarities. It's a light, comedic episode which is hilarious partly due to the infomercials that McGann's doctor performs against his will (and is that him doing additional accents?) and due to Fitz's comedic nature. The only problem is the continuity of Fitz's tenure coincided with another companion, Anji, who (suspending disbelief) spends the whole episode badly hung-over and unable to take part in the episode. 7/10

Izzy's Story - I actually bought the 4 volumes of the McGann Doctor's comic books - this is where Izzy comes from. Izzy, a very loud shouty girl, leads the Doctor off in search of a rare 2000AD-esque comic book. Hilarity ensues - though I was not taken with the actress playing Izzy. This was a reasonabble showing however - and weird enough to be an example of the daftness of the 8th doctor's comics. 5/10

Mary's Story - This was the one I expected I would like the most as it did not have to frak around with the 8th doctor era. I did like it the most, though the writers felt the need to have McGann list companions from all the different types of spin-off novel, audio etc. at one point.

Storm Warning, the first McGann audio, had a throw away reference about Mary Shelley (as did Shada if I remember correctly, though that also implied Chronotis was there). This personally annoys me slightly as I liked to assume Storm Warning was set immediately after the TV Movie.

A later McGann play (Terror Firma) made it clear it was not as it retroactively added two companions called Samson and Gemma who had been adventuring with the 8th doctor prior to Storm Warning. Interestingly the reason for this addition was because an earlier McGann play had referred to "Sam", a companion out of the novels. This was meant to allow the audios to exist in their own continuity as the Sam was retroactively made to fit "Samson", a male companion. Of course these plays have references to the novel-Sam as well as the audio-Samson.

Argh!

This episode shows Mary Shelley become a full blown companion and of course has some very clever Frankenstein allusions. As the WhoCast pointed out technically it's a multi-doctor story, and one that would be relatively easy to do in the TV show. It takes place both at the start and possibly near the end of the McGann era. It is very clever, aside from the unnecessary fanwank of having the Doctor feverishly name Gemma (retconned audio companion), Compassion (novel companion), Destrii (comic companion), Charlie (audio), Lucie (audio), Alex (unknown), Tod (unknown) and Retha (unknown). Tin of worms for table one!

It would be very easy for me to be harsh in my criticisms of this play but it is very clever, very well acted and despite its continuity headaches is the best of the bunch. I do hope we see more of Mary's saga however. 9/10

Return of Tom Baker to Doctor Who

No Tom's not going to appear in the TV show in some kind of Time Crash event as he told Doctor Who Magazine he would not want to do that. Instead he is starring in a new series of Doctor Who audios, called Hornet's Nest, featuring his doctor post-Invasion of Time, travelling to 2009 and renting a cottage on the south coast of England and getting into all sorts of whacky adventures.

These are made by the BBC, not Big Finish, which is a little bit of a kick in the teeth to that company, but sadly Tom Baker seems to do things his own way, rather than associating with anything involving the other doctors. His reason for doing these audios is (very Tom Bakerish) that he was sick of saying no to the various reprisal offers he gets, and because he wanted to work with Nicholas Courtney (or more likely go down the pub with him after recording).

Interestingly his companion is Mike Yates, a Pertwee-era companion. Sadly it was originally intended to be a very old Brigadier, but poor Nicholas Courtney is not very well. I hope he has a speedy recovery and gets involved in a 2nd series of Tom Baker audios. I also hope people's bank balance can afford all these radio plays from Big Finish and the BBC.

A dedicated website is being setup by the BBC and it looks like just the thing before the next season of McGann audios start up in December again!

Highlander Audios

Big Finish, the guys who make Doctor Who audios, Stargate audios, Sapphire and Steel audios, 2000 AD audios and even audios for the recently cancelled Robin Hood have started making Highlander audios. Yay!

I recently purchased the first one with a view to listening to it on holiday it looks very cool and is explicitly set during Highlander: Endgame and Highlander: The Source, even explicitly referencing significant events in Endgame (no - not that one - they reference the villain!) It's narrated by Adrian Paul, who has a bit of an accent, but with a 2nd voice typically as the villain of the piece.

I've bought the other 2 audios as well and hope to have the last one when it is released. Sadly given the dismal activity on their forums and the other Highlander forums I don't imagine a 2nd season being commissioned - I never thought of Highlander the TV Series as that popular in the UK - which is Big Finish's main market. However if I'm wrong I'll be queueing up to buy more.

Literally Raising the Dead

So, new Red Dwarf in less than a month's time. Not bad since it's been nearly 10 years since the last episode ended on yet another cliffhanger. Given the delay between Red Dwarf VI and VII due to rape trials and so forth I was always surprised Red Dwarf VIII ended on a cliffhanger. This cliffhanger was of course like the last one resolved in a deleted scene which could easily be tagged on to explain it. In case you have no idea what I'm gibbering about here's the cliffhanger and deleted scene...



Not sold on the need to resurrect Red Dwarf. I personally liked Red Dward VII (Stoke Me A Clipper was my favourite ever episode of RD) but when I hear about things like :-

• No Kochanski - she has apparently died... again


• Rimmer is a hologram. He died... again.


• No Holly... again. Apparently Lister left the taps on. In real life Norman Lovett reckons they were too cheap to bring him back


• Some sort of bizarre Coronation Street crossover.

I don't exactly overflow with confidence. Add to the fact the cast look ancient, as evidence by the following:-



Hmmm...

I didn't expect to ever see this...

Eh?



I always knew that R2D2 was a wrongun.

That Show I Like Comes Back in Style

Been watching a lot of Twin Peaks. Which is nice as I managed to snag a R2 copy of the Twin Peaks Gold Edition (which despite being a gold edition doesn't have all the extras from the Season 1 discs but it does have loads of other stuff like second season, all the outtakes and even finally a complete set of the coffee ads).

In the meantime I discovered an awesome Black Lodge simulator (click on the sycamore grove and don't take the ring unless you want to leave!)

Oh, and Tibet.

Dr. Stu on Torchwood

This video, round about the 4:12 mark does an excellent job of summarising my feelings towards Torchwood. Apologies if you've heard this before, but I thought it was cool.

Oh Puleeeze God No!!!

Peas and rice! As if Catherine Tate's return wasn't bad enough. One companion too many will be back for the new series of Dr. Who methinks!

Actress Billie Piper is to return to Doctor Who, the BBC has confirmed.

She will star in three episodes of the sci-fi drama, reprising her role as the Doctor's companion, Rose Tyler.

Rose's return will mean the Doctor has three assistants in next year's series - Donna, played by Catherine Tate, and Freema Agyeman as Martha.

And Captain Jack no doubt. The Tardis is going to be crowded - and I suspect this is going to be Tennant's last season.