The Curse of Clyde Langer - Final RatingsBookmark and Share

Monday, 24 October 2011 - Reported by Marcus
The second story in the recent series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, The Curse of Clyde Langer, had an official audience of 0.76 million viewers, according to Barb.

The figures are an increase on last year's second story, The Vault of Secrets, which had 0.67 million watching, and an increase on the previous weeks episodes. The two Sarah Jane episodes topped the CBBC chart for the week, with Episode One of The Curse of Clyde Langer getting 0.793 million watching and Episode Two getting 0.733 million.

Third placed Tracy Beaker got 0.433 million watching and Sunday's repeat of The Sarah Jane adventures had 0.402 million watching.

The Series has yet to be shown on the main channel, BBC One and the figures do not include those watching on iPlayer.




FILTER: - Ratings - UK - Sarah Jane

Fan Production RoundupBookmark and Share

Monday, 24 October 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster
A roundup of some of the fan productions that have recently been released.

MythMakers 16 - Pseudoscope

The Doctor Who Information Network presents the 20th anniversary issue of its official fiction anthology, Myth Makers.

What happens when events unfold before our eyes that defy our conscious understanding? Is it a dream? An hallucination? An optical illusion? What hidden truths would our subconscious mind perceive? Myth Makers 16: Pseudoscope features stories written around the theme of altered perception. In making sense of these distorted realities, the Doctor, his companions and his enemies make new discoveries about the world outside - and within.

Stories by Short Trips alumni Dale Smith, Richard Salter, David N. Smith, Violet Addison, Stephen Hatcher, J.R. Loflin and Mike Amberry, plus Myth Makers alumni J.F. Keeping and Chris Heffernan.

Artwork by Carolyn Edwards, Rachel Roach, Iain Robertson, Michael Leis, Pat Degan and Denise Rajauski.
 


The Terrible Zodin #12

The Fall edition of The Terrible Zodin is now available for free download.

This issue we take a look at Doctor Who in the 1970s and pay tribute to Nicholas Courtney and Elisabeth Sladen. We've Axons and Mandrels galore and the Master pops up too (of course!)

Also this issue we visit the exhibition at the Cartoon Museum, take a look at the Graceless spin-off series and compare A Christmas Carol to Inception. Vincent and the Doctor gets the No! Not the Mind Probe! treatment and we follow up on our recommendations of New Adventure novels. All this plus the usual fun and games and a gorgeous front cover by Marc D. Lewis.
 


Fish Fingers And Custard #7

The seventh edition of the fanzine is available to buy from the Fish Fingers and Custard website.

Despite our legal battles with Steven Moffat (we're trying to get more mentions of Fish Fingers and Custard in Doctor Who) we have been busy with a new issue of the fanzine.

We can't believed we've reached 7, and neither can you probably.

Issue 7 contains the following:
  • Whooverville Review and interview with convention organiser Steve Hatcher
  • What Does Doctor Who Mean To Kids?
  • Torchwood: Miracle Day
  • I Love Who: Harry Sedgewick previews a chapter of his new Doctor Who book, exclusively for the fanzine
  • 31 Things Less Painful Than Watching Journey's End
And Much More!


Adventures in Time Space and Music #30

Further episodes of Adventures in Time Space and Music can be found via their website, and you also follow them on Facebook.

In this segment we’ll be looking at the music of the Doctor’s composer Dudley Simpson focusing on his work on Series 16, the Key to Time. We will examine his work on Serial 5A – Story 98 – The Ribos Operation, a 4-part story which originally aired between the 2nd of September and the 23rd of September 1978 on BBC One.

This episode aired as a segment on the HOO ON WHO PODCAST on Monday, 13 December, 2010.
 


The Scarifyers - Magic Circle

The next episode of The Scarifyers is the first to feel the loss of its lead actor Nicholas Courtney; producer Simon Barnard says:
This one brings in David Warner as a new lead character, replacing Nick Courtney. The whole story serves as a kind of farewell to Nick – it’s about what happens to his character, Lionheart, and his friend Stephen Thorne takes an important part. There’s also a documentary about Nick on the end of the CD.

It is due to be released on 1st November, and will available on CD and download from the Cosmic Hobo website.

The Magic Circle
Starring David Warner and Terry Molloy


Professor Dunning (Terry Molloy) is finding the business of single-handedly saving Great Britain from the forces of darkness rather taxing.

And Lionheart? Lionheart is missing.

When the only clue to his disappearance seems to lie in a twenty-year-old murder investigation, Dunning turns to the one man who might have the answers: Lionheart’s erstwhile colleague Harry ‘Thumper’ Crow (David Warner).

Harry doesn’t hold with supernaturalism, but over the next few days he’s going to see some very strange things indeed: a string of murdered magicians, a dead music-hall star come back to life, and a pensioner from the depths of hell.

Can Crow and Dunning find Lionheart? A terrible truth awaits, as they unearth the long-buried secrets of THE MAGIC CIRCLE.

This is the sixth adventure of THE SCARIFYERS.


Fight for the Remote

Fight for the Remote is a new comedy series from Fantom Films, starring Andrew Hayden Smith (Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel/Doomsday) and Ayesha Antoine (Midnight). Episode one is available to download for free from the Fantom Films website.

Fighting for the remote are Jon and Alice, a twenty-something couple living together in London. Alice enjoys socialising; Jon hates meeting people. While Alice is climbing her career ladder, Jon is quite content on the bottom rung of his. They are constantly caught in the middle ground between settling for what they have and wanting more, and wondering whether what they have together is worth fighting for.




FILTER: - Fan Productions

Sarah Jane Adventures - BAFTA NominationBookmark and Share

Monday, 24 October 2011 - Reported by Marcus
The Sarah Jane Adventures has been nominated for two 2011 BAFTA Children's Awards.

The series is nominated as Best Drama, facing opposition from Combat Kids, House Of Anubis and Just William.

Lead Writer of the series, Phil Ford, is also nominated in the Best Writer category. He faces opposition from James Lamontand Jon Foster for The Amazing World of Gumball, Ben Ward, Steve Punt and Dave Cohen for Horrible Histories and Simon Nye for Just William.

The Sarah Jane Adventures have been nominated for best drama in 2008, 2009 and 2010 in the Children's awards, but have yet to clinch the prize.

In addition, this year’s Awards celebrates the BAFTA Kids’ Vote, in which children aged between 7 and 14 years have their say across a whole range of entertainment media in a nationwide poll to choose their favourite film, television programme, website and video game. The Sarah Jane Adventures is nominated in the TV category.

Voting for the BAFTA Kids’ Vote opens today (24 October 2011) and closes at 18.00 on Friday 25 November 2011. Children can cast their votes at baftakidsvote.org. Winners of each category will this year be presented their Award by JLS.

The Awards will be hosted for the second year running by ex Totally Doctor Who and current Blue Peter presenter, Barney Harwood, and will take place on Sunday 27 November at the London Hilton on Park Lane.




FILTER: - Awards/Nominations - Sarah Jane

Elisabeth Sladen - The AutobiographyBookmark and Share

Sunday, 23 October 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Aurum Press have released the final version of the cover for their forthcoming book, Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography, which is due to be published on the 7th November:

When Elisabeth Sladen first appeared as plucky journalist Sarah Jane Smith in 1973 Doctor Who story The Time Warrior, little did she know the character would become one of the most enduring and fondly remembered of the series’ long history.

The years that followed saw Elisabeth traverse time and space alongside classic Doctors Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, whilst a generation of children crouched behind the sofa, terrified but transfixed as their tea-time heroine found herself menaced by Daleks, dinosaurs, Cybermen, Egyptian mummies, extras in Bubble Wrap and even the Loch Ness Monster. By the time she quit the TARDIS in 1976, making front-page news, Elisabeth had become one of the most familiar faces of a TV golden age.

But you don’t just walk away from Doctor Who. Elisabeth was asked to reprise the role many times, appearing in anniversary specials; an ill-fated 1981 spin-off with robotic sidekick K-9; radio plays; and for the BBC’s Children in Need. She toured the weird, wide and wonderful world of Doctor Who fandom and became one of the series’ all-time favourite companions. So when TV wunderkind Russell T Davies approached her to come back again, this time to a Doctor Who backed by multi-million-pound budgets and garlanded with critical plaudits, how could she refuse?

This warm and witty autobiography, completed only months before Elisabeth died in April 2011, tells her remarkable story, from humble beginnings in post-war Liverpool, through an acclaimed theatrical career working alongside stage luminaries such as Alan Ayckbourn, to Coronation Street, Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em and the furthest reaches of the Universe.

A unique, insider’s view of the world’s longest running science fiction series, and of British television yesterday and today, Elisabeth’s memoir is funny, ridiculous, insightful and entertaining and a fitting tribute to a woman who will be sadly missed by millions.

Elisabeth Sladen played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and The Sarah Jane Adventures. She also appeared in Coronation Street, Z-Cars and Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em among others, and enjoyed a long, successful and very happy career in the theatre. She died in April 2011.
 
The book is available to pre-order via our Amazon shop.

(with thanks to Liz Somers)





FILTER: - Auto/Biography - Books - Elisabeth Sladen

Justyce Served - A Small Start with a Big FinishBookmark and Share

Sunday, 23 October 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Miwk Publishing have announced a new book that delves into the history of Audio Visuals – Adventures in Time & Space, a fan-produced series of adventures starring Nicholas Briggs as the Doctor that ran between 1984 and 1991:

Audio Visuals – Adventures in Time & Space were a series of fan-produced Doctor Who audio plays made as part of a non-profit making venture. The series ran for nearly ten years becoming more polished and professional with each play.

The Doctor was played in the pilot by Stephen Payne but for the rest of the run by Nicholas Briggs, whose incarnation also played a couple of brief cameos in the comic strip for Doctor Who Magazine.

Michael Wisher was a regular performer and both Nabil Shaban and Peter Miles made appearances as well. Scripts came courtesy of Gary Russell (who later went on to produce the final season of AVs), Nicholas Briggs, Jim Mortimore, Andy Lane, Alan W. Lear and many others, while others went on to appear in and contribute creatively to BBV, Bill Baggs’ video company whose productions included, among others, a remake of the Audio Visual play More than a Messiah.

Justyce Served benefits from the contributions and support of many AV team members including Gary Russell, Nicholas Briggs, John Ainsworth, Bill Baggs, Patricia Merrick, Nigel Fairs, Jim Mortimore, Tim Keable (who also provides the new artwork as seen on the cover), Richard Marson, Alistair Lock, Nigel Peever and many others, this book charts all 27 plays and acts as both an episode guide and a production journal bringing us right up to date with the launch of Big Finish in 1998 and their subsequent acquisition of an official license to produce Doctor Who audio plays, some of which were based on Audio Visuals plays (The Mutant Phase, Minuet in Hell, Sword of Orion, Cuddlesome and more).
 

The book is written by Alun Harris and Matthew West, and is due to be published in September 2012; profits from the book will be donated to Amnesty International UK. It is available for pre-order from the Miwk shop.

(with thanks to Matt West)




FILTER: - Books

Big Finish: Counter-MeasuresBookmark and Share

Sunday, 23 October 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Cover

Pamela Salem, Hugh Ross, Simon Williams, Karen Gledhill
Big Finish have announced a new spin-off from Doctor Who based on characters from the Seventh Doctor adventure Remembrance of the Daleks: Counter-Measures will be a four-part series of hour-long episodes based around a new specialist group formed by the British Government in 1964 to investigate unexplained phenomena and dangerous new technology, leading on from the RAF Regiment's encounter with the Daleks some months beforehand.

The series will see all three lead actors reprising their roles from the original 1988 story, Simon Williams as Captain Gilmore, Pamela Salem as Rachel Jensen, and Karen Gledhill as Allison; the latter said of the new series:
Remembrance of the Daleks was one of the first television productions I ever took part in back in 1988, so it was a very exciting event for me. I couldn’t believe I was working with the likes of Simon Williams, Pamela Salem and Sylvester McCoy! It turned out to be the best possible introduction to team playing on television as we spent eight weeks together in the studio and on location and had a really fantastic time.

I had no idea that 23 years on the story would still be so popular, and that some of us would be getting together again to recreate our characters and tell another story! I love the new scripts – Allison has really come into her own in these stories, and I am looking forward to meeting her again and having fun with her. The best bit will be being back in my 20s!

The Counter-Measures team will be joined by Toby Kinsella, their liaison with Whitehall; the character is played by Hugh Ross. Alastair Mackenzie also features as Julian St Stephen, Allison’s boyfriend of five years, and other cast members include Vernon Dobtcheff, Adrian Lukis and Stephen Greif.

Producer David Richardson said:
Gilmore, Rachel and Allison are very fondly remembered by fans. They also have a great dynamic, and it’s easy to imagine that they had a life beyond the one TV story in which they appeared. So it’s been relatively painless for script editor John Dorney and myself to sit down over the course of several months and fashion a brand new series format centered on these characters that were originally created by Ben Aaronovitch.

I was really inspired by the era in which the series is set. It’s long before digital technology… even before colour TV. The UK is relatively not long out of the Second World War, nuclear power is new and society is changing. We’re feeding into that – the audio will feel ‘black and white’. The composer for the project, Nicholas Briggs, will even be making use of 1960s style stock music tracks in his music.

The tone is part 60s Doctor Who, part Quatermass, part Doomwatch, and a lot completely new...

The four episodes comprising the first series will be released in July 2012 as a boxed set, which will also include an additional behind-the-scenes documentary; it is available for pre-order on CD or for download at the Big Finish website.

(with thanks to David Richardson)




FILTER: - Audio - Big Finish

People RoundupBookmark and Share

Sunday, 23 October 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster
Peter Davison discussed the possibility of a 50th Anniversary appearance in Doctor Who: "I feel no need to turn my back on it, but I don't feel like it's the kind of thing they'd do. I'd be very surprised if they tried to do anything involving the old Doctors because it always takes a slight stretch of the imagination anyway to figure out why the previous Doctors look older - but I'm sure that can be done. But at the same time I'm not sort of longing on it. I'm perfectly happy to have played my part to go back to 'Time Crash'. I don't feel like I'm hanging on a phone call from the 'Doctor Who' offices saying let's do something special." [Contact Music, 21 Oct 2011]

John Barrowman also commented on his interest in the golden year of the series: "If I'm asked to go back I would love to go back - I think it would be great to be involved with the 50th Anniversary, since Jack was such a big part of the Who world. But, having said that, nothing's been said, so I don't sit and wait and I don't want fans to think that I don't want to do it because I would love to, but if I'm not asked I'm not going to push and bang down the door - I'll just move onto something else." The actor also suggested that should Torchwood return it was unlikely to commence filming before next September. [Scottish Daily Record via YouTube, 18 Oct 2011]

Catherine Tate (Donna Noble) will be returning to NBC's version of The Office, reprising her role of Nellie Bertram who appeared in the previous series finale back in May. The character is expected to appear in a multi-episode arc. [Theater Mania, 21 Oct 2011]

Kai Owen (Rhys, Torchwood) is encouraging local 'daredevils' to take part in a charity abseil down the West Orchards Shopping Centre's glass dome in Coventry, aiming to raise money for CLIC Sargent. The event takes place in the evenings of 29th and 30th October and is open to anyone aged 16 or over. [Coventry Telegraph, 19 Oct 2011]

Actor and writer Mark Gatiss was the guest on this week's edition of the long-running BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs; during the show he spoke about his life, growing up opposite a psychiatric hospital, his interest in the supernatural, and his successful career with The League of Gentlemen, Sherlock and of course Doctor Who. [Desert Island Discs, 23 Oct 2011]

Ray Brooks has recorded an audio version of his autobiography, Learning My Lines; the actor traces his career through rep, comedies, his various television appearances including famously the voice of Mr Benn, Big Deal, and Eastenders, and of course his role as David in Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD. Revealing the vulnerability of an actor's life, the candid account is full of down-to-earth humour and captivating honesty. [available from Fantom Films]


Inadmissable Evidence has opened at the Donmar Warehouse, featuring Karen Gillan in her first theatre role; reviews of the play can be found at the Independent, Guardian, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Standard, The Stage; it was also reviewed in the BBC Radio 4's Front Row.




FILTER: - People - Karen Gillan - Catherine Tate - Auto/Biography - Peter Davison - John Barrowman

The Wedding of River Song: New Zealand ratingsBookmark and Share

Saturday, 22 October 2011 - Reported by Adam Kirk
In New Zealand, The Wedding of River Song and Torchwood: Miracle Day, End of the Road (both on Prime) rated 80,490 viewers and 58,320 viewers respectively.

Thanks to Hazz.




FILTER: - Torchwood - Ratings - Series 6/32 - New Zealand - Broadcasting

The Gunpowder Plot : Teacher's GuideBookmark and Share

Saturday, 22 October 2011 - Reported by Marcus
The BBC have released a Teacher's Guide to the latest Adventure Game, The Gunpowder Plot, which is due for release at the end of this month.

The game has been designed, much as Doctor Who was originally designed, to contain specific learning elements and allows players to discover historical facts while playing with historical references and key objects woven in throughout the game. Children will get the chance to step back in time and interact with famous figures such as Guy Fawkes and discover what was happening at this important moment in Britain’s history.

The Teachers Pack aims to provide resources to help them explain the issues raised by the game. The pack has sections designed for use at different stages across the primary school and early secondary education.

It is being released in four parts with the first looking at The Plot available now. Further packs will deal with Childhood (Released 31st October), Crime and Punishment (Released 5th December) and London Life in 1605 (Released 10 January). The final section will encourage students to create a museum or exhibition piece for the whole school.

The first pack is split into four sections and focuses on four main learning questions:
  • When and where did the Gunpowder Plot take place? 
  • What was the Gunpowder Plot? 
  • Who were the Plotters and why did they want to blow up the Houses of Parliament? 
  • What really happened in November 1605? 
It contains 
  • Introduction for teachers (1.32MB) Aims and Objectives 
  • The Doctor’s Detectives(5-7 year olds) (3.31MB) The students will gain a basic understanding of the main events of the Gunpowder Plot, the people involved and its place in British history. 
  • Deep Cover Time Agents (7-11 year olds) (4.59MB) The students will gain an understanding of the main events of Gunpowder Plot, the people involved and the Plotters’ motivations. 
  • TARDIS Media Team (10-14 year olds) (1.81MB) The students will gain an understanding of the historical interpretations of the Gunpowder Plot within the political and religious context of the period.




FILTER: - Online - Games

People's Choice Awards 2012Bookmark and Share

Saturday, 22 October 2011 - Reported by Chuck Foster
People's Choice have launched their 2012 Awards, and Doctor Who has been nominated in the Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Show category.

The show is up against a wealth of US and Canadian produced series, including the remake of Being Human; other popular shows in the category include Fringe, True Blood, The Walking Dead, Supernatural and Game of Thrones.




FILTER: - Doctor Who - USA - Awards/Nominations