Oxygen

Writer: Jamie Mathieson
Director: Charles Palmer

The Doctor, Bill and Nardole answer a distress call in deep space, and find themselves trapped on board space station Chasm Forge. All but four of the crew have been murdered - and the dead are still walking!
In a future where oxygen is sold by the breath, and space suits are valued more highly than their occupants, the TARDIS crew battle for survival against the darkest evil of all…

The Ood return in this special issue entitled "Time of The Ood!"

David Tennant is one of the most-beloved Doctors, so we couldn’t wait to include an exclusive variant figure of the Tenth Doctor in our Block. Showing the Doctor in his battle-worn state is an ode to the episode The End of Time Part Two, where he fights against the returning Time Lords. It’s one of my favorite scenes, and the figure captures the Doctor perfectly.

We're big David Tennant fans, and we wanted something special for the first Doctor Who Block. We wanted to give the fans something that would look great on a shelf (hence the larger scale) as well as pay tribute to an iconic moment in the show's history

We will be announcing our next Doctor Who blind-box wave very soon. I can't say too much, but it'll cover the show's history and will feature some characters that we have been asked about for YEARS! I've seen the designs and I'm incredibly excited to reveal them. We're all colossal Doctor Who fans. There's a real joy in being able to produce actual physical pieces of all my favourite characters.

One of favourite TV shows was the ITV programme Shillingbury Tales, a series also filmed in Aldbury. As a location it has always been presented as an idyllic English village, but what if dark forces were at work behind the scenes? My story combines this rural peace with an underbelly of violence.

I remember reading about Starwatch in Doctor Who Magazine a few years back. So when Mark started working with Candy Jar on a new project, we grilled him about this. During these conversations he pitched an idea for a short story: Shillingbury Tales meets The Tomorrow People, with a hint of Children of the Stones. I told him to go away and write it.

I wanted the story to feel as much like the early 1970s as possible. I’m old enough to remember how grim it was. In particular I remember how frightening football violence could be. This story transfers the fears of the terraces to a rural village and throws Lethbridge-Stewart into the mix.

I’ve really enjoyed the detailed work on the novellas, especially as the schedule has been slightly more relaxed. However, I have missed the fun of a tight schedule. And this one was certainly tight! Anyway, nothing brings out creativity better than a tight deadline. I put the artwork together in record time and I am rather pleased with it. It’s like A Clockwork Orange meets Jossey’s Giants.

People who have ordered the bundle already will automatically get the free story, but I would advise those readers who plan to buy all three to do it as soon possible. We only have fifty bundles left and a handful of copies of the individual titles.

New adventures of the Tenth Doctor, as played by David Tennant

Special INTERLUDE issue! What is the mystery of "THE BOY WITH THE DISPLACED SMILE?" New adventures of the twelfth Doctor as played by Peter Capaldi

New adventures of the ninth Doctor as played by Christopher Eccleston!

The astounding Year Two team of George Mann, Rachael Stott and Mariano Laclaustra returns!

The Doctor is ready for a BRAND NEW set of thrilling adventures in time and space...

A super-accessible jumping on point for new readers, Year Three will now ship monthly.

The adventures of the Eleventh Doctor continue!

The team have uncovered a plot by the alien Navigators to harvest the Earth for their own purposes. Captain John Hart and Lady Karina sought the astrolabe, so Karina could give it to the Navigators, but the pair were captured by Torchwood. However, the Navigators have begun their plan to ‘compost’ Earth, causing dormant volcanoes around the planet to erupt...

It transpired it was an anagram for Woman Ten, the companion in the tenth series, because if agents had known it was a Doctor Who casting, they'd have put every client up for it. Just walking through the foyer (of the Soho Hotel) was nerve-racking, I rocked up in my Afro and bright yellow trainers and a baggy T-shirt, into this big glossy octagon foyer and they told me to wait in a room till they were ready for me - I almost ran away.

I think you looked very cool there. You didn't seem fazed, you seemed to have a life beyond the scene. It was like Bill ha existed rather than saying lines for an audition.

In The Last Duty Eileen was only a cameo. Her inclusion came quite late to the mix, and despite her character hinting at a past fighting aliens, we didn’t fully explore this, so when the opportunity came along to delve deeper, I jumped at the chance.

Eileen worked in the Filter Room, the top secret hub of Britain’s air defence, and tracked the first V2 rocket into the country! Before she died, I had a brief conversation with her about our Lethbridge-Stewart series. We joked about her being the first person to track an alien rocket into the country and this sparked an idea. Her sad death prompted us to include her in The Last Duty, but now we feel the time is right to discover more about Eileen’s alien fighting exploits during WW2.

My aunt would have been tickled pink at the fact that she is a central character in this the latest book in the Lethbridge-Stewart series.

For this second cover I wanted to create a full colour image rather than my usual mix of colour and black and white. I had also backed myself into a corner with The Life of Evans. I found it quite difficult to fade the hand-drawn train explosion into the background, so here for the first time I decided to create the fire effects digitally, though Travers and Eileen are still pencil drawings.

I was aware of Eileen from seeing her on the TV, but I never knew just how famous she was until I did my preliminary research. It turns out that she lived quite a life, so there was no pressure to get her portrait right... not! I'm pleased to say that the feedback I received from the family totally blew me away. I just hope that I have done her justice for all her fans.

Travers’ life between The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear is still pretty much unexplored, bar a few hints here and there. It has already been established that he worked for a previous version of the Home-Army Operational Corps during World War 2, but this is our first look at what his work entailed. It’s all part of a much larger canvas, as we slowly unveil the hidden mysteries and secrets of Professor Travers’ remarkable life.

For a limited period, Candy Jar Books are opening their Lethbridge-Stewart short story range to everybody (as long as you've never written for the series before). All you have to do is send a one line idea, and a short story you've written (any original short story, as long as it's a finished piece), so the editors can gauge your writing ability.

Please visit our website for more information and the pitch guidelines. Please note Candy Jar will not consider any submission that had not taken into account the information in the guidelines.

Lauren Thomas, publishing coordinator at Candy Jar, said:

Candy Jar is also looking for submissions for their forthcoming book that celebrate fifty years of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.

Shaun Russell, head of publishing at Candy Jar, said

If you have an idea, then send it to havoc@candyjarbooks.co.uk with the words 'FACT PITCH' in the subject bar.