The Best of Days

Monday, 8 June 2020 - Reported by Marcus
A new Doctor Who scene, The Best of Days, written by former showrunner Steven Moffat, has been released on the Doctor Who Lockdown YouTube channel



The mini-episode features Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts and Matt Lucas as Nardole. It was written to form part of the final Doctor Who Lockdown event, a tweet along to the final two episodes of Season 10 World Enough and Time and The Doctor Falls. The event would have been the 18th Lockdown event since the series was devised by Doctor Who Magazine's Emily Cook.

Since the events started over £13,000 has been raised for The Film and TV Charity's Covid 19 campaign.

The mini-episode is set after the terrible events of World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls, and features Bill Potts and Nardole trying to keep their spirits up.

It was home-produced with all involved contributing their time and talent for free.

The producers ask that if you enjoyed it, you could consider making a donation to support one of the Black Lives Matter organisations chosen by Pearl Mackie.
  1. The Black Lives Matter movement in the UK.
  2. The Black Curriculum, which aims to get accurate Black history on the curriculum in the UK ..
  3. Campaign Zero in the US consisting of 8 policies intending to decrease police violence by 72%. 
  4. Black Visions Collective, a black, LGBTQ+ led organisation
  5. Black Lives Matter in the US




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Big Finish Warehouse to Re-open

Monday, 8 June 2020 - Reported by Marcus
Big Finish Warehouse (Credit: Big Finish)Big Finish have announced they are to recommense shipping of collector’s edition CDs and box sets to clear the backlog of pending orders amid the coronavirus pandemic.

As of Monday 8 June, Big Finish staff will be returning to work on a split-shift basis. The company has taken steps to ensure the protection of its warehouse workers, including providing safety equipment and a regular schedule of deep cleaning, which will allow the introduction of a one-person per day rota pattern for the coming weeks.

Company chairman, Jason Haigh-Ellery said:
Our listeners have been extremely patient over the past three months, while our warehouse staff have been furloughed, and as we operated a digital-first release schedule. I would like to thank all our customers for their understanding during this time; we really couldn’t have done it without you.

We are now delighted to be in a position to begin shipping the orders for physical products we have taken since 24 March.

The team has put procedures in place to ensure the continued safety of our staff. However, we naturally have a lot of pending orders to work through, and our warehouse is not yet back to full capacity, so we ask that customers continue to bear with us as we start to clear the backlog.

To make it fair for everyone, outstanding orders for collector’s edition CDs and box sets will be fulfilled on a ‘per month’ basis; so, orders placed in April will be batched up and mailed out first, followed by those placed in May and June.

Please note we are still awaiting the delivery of some stock from our pressing plant and we cannot guarantee the status of local mail or postal services. We expect there to be continued delays, particularly for overseas customers.




FILTER: - Audio - Big Finish

Fish Fingers and Custard

Saturday, 6 June 2020 - Reported by Marcus
Fish Fingers and Custard (Credit: Fish Fingers and Custard)The new edition of the fan publication Fish Fingers and Custard is now available.

Issue 18 is the first issue in four years and can be downloaded as a free PDF

Included in this issue 
  • The Curse of Time – Are all Doctor Who stories with ‘Time’ in the title destined to not be very good? The Doctor Who Cookbook – A review of one of the more ‘left-field’ official publications. 
  • 10 Years of Fish Custard – How we took 4 years off but still claim to have been ‘fanzining’ for a decade. 
  • Returning Villains – Which classic Who baddies are due for a return? 
  • Obituaries for John Hurt and Deborah Watling 

And plenty more besides




FILTER: - Fan Productions

The TARDIS Chronicles: Volume 1

Monday, 1 June 2020 - Reported by Marcus
The TARDIS Chronicles  (Credit: Wonderful Books)The TARDIS Chronicles: Volume 1 has been published by Wonderful Books.

The book is written, designed and illustrated by Paul MC Smith – author of The Classic Doctor Who DVD Compendium and The New Who Programme Guide – with a foreword by TARDIS aficionado Clayton Hickman.

The TARDIS Chronicles charts the complete voyages of the Doctor’s space-and-time machine in greater depth than ever before. As well as every journey seen on screen, it also covers all those we only hear the Doctor mention with an ‘I once met…’ and ‘I remember when…’.

More than a simple list of dates and planets, each TARDIS landing is pinpointed to a precise location and time. Plus everything the TARDIS itself experiences is recorded, from its environment to events that occur both inside and within sight of the Police Box. Icons denote each time we see or hear the Ship materialise or dematerialise.

In addition, for each trip, there are exhaustive notes detailing which controls are used and what they do; what we learn about the functions and abilities of the TARDIS; behind-the-scenes facts about props, sets, models and materialisation techniques; discussion of what we see and learn about the Ship and its destinations; and much more.

The book also features comprehensive histories of every Police Box prop, control room set and console, covering their design, construction, usage and modifications. These are illustrated with accurate schematics, including annotated plans of every control panel and their variations.

Volume 1: Before the Time War covers the TARDIS’s travels from the Doctor and Susan’s flight from Gallifrey to a gunship crashing down on Karn – more than 400 landings that we’ve seen or heard about.

Clayton Hickman, ex-Doctor Who Magazine editor and TARDIS connoisseur, has provided a foreword, and says
The blessed relief of The TARDIS Chronicles finally existing – without me having to write the bloody thing – cannot be overstated.
THE TARDIS CHRONICLES: VOLUME 1 (paperback; 412 pages; 7x10in) is available now for £22.99 from Amazon.co.uk or $32.99 from Amazon.com.




FILTER: - Books