Jenna-Louise Drama Wrangle Settled

Tuesday, 29 May 2012 - Reported by John Bowman

A copyright wrangle that had prevented a BBC Four adaptation of Room At The Top starring Jenna-Louise Coleman from being shown has been resolved.

The drama, based on the classic novel by John Braine that was first published in 1957, should have been shown in April 2011 but it had to be shelved following a dispute between the late Braine's estate, represented by literary agency David Higham Associates, and Remus Films. The TV rights had been sold by David Higham Associates to Great Meadow Productions but that was challenged by Remus Films.

It is now hoped that the two-parter will be shown "in the near future". In it, Coleman plays the character of Susan Brown opposite Matthew McNulty as protagonist Joe Lampton, as pictured above. The adaptation by Amanda Coe also stars Kevin McNally. It was shot at a variety of locations around Yorkshire and the north-east coast in November and December 2010.

(newslink: BBC News (28 May 2012)

FILTER: - Jenna-Louise Coleman - Broadcasting - BBC

Matt Smith bears the Olympic Torch

Saturday, 26 May 2012 - Reported by Chuck Foster

This morning saw the Olympic Torch Relay commence on Day Eight of its travels around the United Kingdom, kicking off from outside the Norwegian Church at Cardiff Bay - with a familiar face to take on the mantle of bearer! Matt Smith was up bright and early to play his part in the celebratory journey, and spoke on BBC Breakfast about how he felt on his latest role and the crowd that gathered to cheer him on:

It's a great privilege to be involved, I can't quite believe that people have actually turned up, I thought I'd just be carrying it around, waving to the ducks! I'm thrilled that so many people have come out, and it's really nice that the weather's nice - well done weather! I just think it's a wonderful thing anyway, I think the Olympics, the build up, the sense of national focus, with the Euros (Euro 2012) as well, I'm really excited about the summer of sport that we've got ahead, and I think things like this are just wonderful. And the Jubilee! I'm way into this whole sense of national coming together, street parties and things like this.

It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime things, and for me personally to have the privilege of carrying it ... it's one of those rare opportunities that has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the fact that I play the Doctor.

(additional photos thanks to Alun Vega, James Hemery, Andy Davidson; plus a video of Matt starting from H Byrnes)

When asked about his predecessor's carrying the torch before (the Tenth Doctor in Fear Her), Matt commented "I'm pleased I got my turn!"

BBC Newslinks: Matt Smith carries flame (26 May 2012); Watch the Relay live (26 May 2012); Gallery (26 May 2012); Blog (26 May 2012); BBC Coverage of Torch arrival in Cardiff (25 May 2012)

FILTER: - Special Events - Matt Smith

Matt Smith to bear Olympic Torch

Friday, 25 May 2012 - Reported by Marcus

Matt Smith will be carrying the Olympic Torch this weekend when it reaches Cardiff in the latest leg of its 70 day trip around the United Kingdom.

Smith will bear the torch early on Saturday morning, at the start of its journey from Cardiff, the capital of Wales and home of Doctor Who, to Swansea a few miles along the coast. The day will see the torch visit the communities of Barry, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhondda and Bridgend.

Smith told the official BBC twitter feed

To carry the Torch is an honour, one I thought I'd never get, I'm very excited!

The journey can be followed live via the BBC News website, starting from around 6.20am (0520 GMT). Smith will carry the torch from the Norwegian Church Arts Centre, Harbour Drive to the Senedd, National Assembly Building, Cardiff, a distance of about quarter of a mile.

The Olympic Torch featured in the 2006 Doctor Who story Fear Her, where the Tenth Doctor carried the torch on the last part of its journey towards the Olympic Stadium, as well as in the mini episode Good as Gold, shown on Blue Peter yesterday.

FILTER: - Special Events - Matt Smith

BBC Books: The Wheel of Ice

Thursday, 24 May 2012 - Reported by Chuck Foster

BBC Books have released details on the next book in their hardback range of Doctor Who novels; The Wheel Of Ice is written by science fiction author Stephen Baxter and features the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe. It is due to be published on 16th August.

The Wheel of Ice
By Stephen Baxter

Resilience. Remembrance. Resolution. Whatever the cost.

She had no name. She had only her mission - she would return Home. And bathe in the light of a long-dead sun... Even if it meant the sacrifice of this pointless little moon to do it.

The Wheel of Ice: a ring of ice and steel turning around a moon of Saturn, home to a colony mining minerals for a resource-hungry future Earth. A bad place to grow up.

The Wheel has been plagued by problems. Maybe it's just gremlins, just bad luck. But what's the truth of the children's stories of 'Blue Dolls' glimpsed aboard the gigantic facility? And why won't the children go down the warren-like mines? And then sixteen-year-old Phee Laws, surfing Saturn's rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction.

Aboard the Wheel, The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find a critical situation - and three strangers who have just turned up out of nowhere look like prime candidates to be accused of sabotage ... The Doctor finds himself caught up in a mystery that goes right back to the creation of the solar system. But it's a mystery that could have dire repercussions for the people on the Wheel. It's a mystery that could kill them all.

A thrilling, all-new adventure featuring the Second Doctor, as played by Patrick Troughton in the legendary, classic series from BBC Television.

BBC Books Senior Editorial Director Albert DePetrillo commented:

Stephen Baxter is one of the leading lights of British science fiction, and I was thrilled when he decided to write for our Doctor Who list. The Wheel of Ice is a delight - a bold Second Doctor adventure with elements of the harder SF that is Stephen's forte. It's fitting that our first original adventure for a past Doctor since 2005 should be a book as special as this.

FILTER: - Merchandise - Books

Script To Screen Winning School Announced

Thursday, 24 May 2012 - Reported by John Bowman

The winning entry in this year's Script To Screen competition has been revealed as coming from Ashdene Primary School in Wilmslow.

The theme of the contest was the Olympics, and the team's mini-episode, which stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and sees the return of the Weeping Angels, is to be shown on today's episode of Blue Peter, airing on CBBC at 5.45pm.

Irene Spawton, Year 6 teacher at the Cheshire school, said the pupils involved, named only as Emily, Libby, and Rebecca, pictured above, left to right, with Smith and Gillan - click on the thumbnail to expand, were thrilled and surprised to have won the competition:

It's unbelievable. I couldn't believe it when I got the call to say that the children's script had been chosen as the winner. They worked so hard and came up with some brilliant ideas. I'm so proud of them all, and meeting the Doctor and Amy Pond was a fantastic experience for the girls, their parents and me.

In a short piece last week in the school's newsletter, head teacher Keith Wadcock congratulated the trio on their victory.

The three-minute adventure, called Good As Gold, was filmed at Roath Lock studios the week before last, and Keith Gaskin, the father of Emily, tweeted about it on 8th May: "I've just wished my daughter luck as she's off to Cardiff to have her script made into a Dr Who episode after winning BBC comp. Good luck Em!", 9th May in reply to a comment about the win probably blowing her mind: "It certainly did thanks. The worst part was she knew a while back but couldn't tell anyone! Blue Peter are filming as well" and 10th May: "I've just picked up my daughter after their script was made into a Dr Who episode. Brilliant time apparently & Matt Smith fantastic with them."

The girls' script was chosen by Doctor Who supremo Steven Moffat, BBC Learning executive producer Katy Jones, and Doctor Who executive producer Caroline Skinner, who praised the quality of all the entries, saying:

We loved reading all of the scripts from schools across the UK and the standard of entries was truly outstanding. It was a difficult, but a tremendously fun task to choose a winner and it was just brilliant to see so many children being creative in developing an adventure for the Doctor. We hope all fans enjoy this special one-off mini episode!

Jones said:

This competition aimed to inspire and capture the imagination of storytellers of the future and we're thrilled that so many schools have engaged with it. Pupils have described the competition as the highlight of their school year. There was so much real talent displayed in the entries we received and the final film is a real testament to the hard work the school put into their entry.

A behind-the-scenes item on how Good As Gold was made will also feature in today's Blue Peter, which is repeated tomorrow on BBC One at 4.30pm and will be available via the BBC iPlayer here within the UK following today's broadcast.

FILTER: - Steven Moffat - Competitions - Caroline Skinner - BBC

Big Finish: Klein Trilogy offer

Thursday, 24 May 2012 - Reported by Chuck Foster

Big Finish are to hold a special sale this weekend of the trilogy of adventures starring Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor with Tracy Childs as Klein, the stories of which can currently be heard on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

A Thousand Tiny Wings
The TARDIS arrives in 1950s Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising, and the Doctor again encounters Nazi scientist Elizabeth Klein.

Klein’s Story/Survival of the Fittest
The secrets of Klein’s past are revealed, and a visit to an alien world sees an attempt to save an insect race from exctinction.

The Architects of History
A new future is threatened by an attack by the alien Selachians...

The three adventures will be available individually or as a bundle.

The two characters are to be reunited in October:

UNIT: Dominion
By Nicholas Briggs and Jason Arnopp
Directed by Nicholas Briggs
Starring Sylvester McCoy, Tracy Childs, Beth Chalmers
Release date: October 2012

The universe stands on the brink of a dimensional crisis – and the Doctor and Raine are pulled into the very epicentre of it.

Meanwhile, on Earth, UNIT scientific advisor Dr Elizabeth Klein and an incarnation of the Doctor she's never encountered before are tested to the limit by a series of bizarre, alien invasions.

At the heart of it all is a terrible secret, almost as old as the Time Lords themselves. Reality is beginning to unravel and two Doctors, Klein, Raine and all of UNIT must use all their strength and guile to prevent the whole of creation being torn apart.

Available for pre-order at Big Finish

FILTER: - Audio - Sylvester McCoy - Big Finish

Production: Jenna-Louise Coleman begins filming

Thursday, 24 May 2012 - Reported by Chuck Foster

Photo: Gareth Bundy
"We were really lucky to catch her. As we arrived, literally, she was leaving."

Jenna-Louise Coleman began her tenure as the new co-star of Doctor Who this week, with the actress spotted yesterday at the end of filming her first scenes on location at Plas Llanmihangel Manor House, South Glamorgan.

The read-through for her first episode to be recorded took place on Monday, with the BBC's official Doctor Who Twitter feed stating: "History has been made! A new era begins! Jenna-Louise Coleman has just completed her first Doctor Who read-through. One word. Brilliant!"

Details of her character are being kept under wraps, at least for present. Speaking to Digital Spy, Steven Moffat said when we could expect to learn more:

Christmas! But don't expect to learn everything! We've got a good story and there are some proper legitimate surprises in it. I'm excited by it. I think we're going to do some fun stuff.

We can't really contain everything, because people will crawl all over us with cameras and sneak views of scripts and call-sheets. Something will get out. But we've been fairly sly, so let's wait and see.

Moffat also explained the later launch of the new series this year:

I don't know, on this occasion, that the thinking particularly came from me, actually. I've always been open to anything that shakes [the series] up. I think that decision actually came from the BBC. But I've been well up for anything that we can do to shake up the transmission pattern, the way we deliver it to the audience and how long we make the audience wait, simply because that makes Doctor Who an event piece.

The more Doctor Who becomes a perennial, the faster it starts to die. You've got to shake it up, you've got to keep people on edge and wondering when it will come back. Sherlock is the prime example, as far as that goes. Sherlock almost exists on starving its audience. By the time it came back this year, Sherlock was like a rock star re-entering the building!

So keeping Doctor Who as an event, and never making people feel, 'Oh, it's lovely, reliable old Doctor Who - it'll be on about this time, at that time of year'. Once you start to do that, just slowly, it becomes like any much-loved ornament in your house - ultimately invisible. And I don't want that to ever be the case.

Newslink: Digital Spy: Steven Moffat on 'Doctor Who', 'Sherlock' and his BAFTA Special Award (19 May 2012)

FILTER: - Steven Moffat - Production - Filming Reports - Jenna-Louise Coleman - Series 7/33

DVD Update: The Ambassadors of Death / Special Editions

Wednesday, 23 May 2012 - Reported by Chuck Foster

The Ambassadors of Death:

The British Board of Film Classification have passed the special features for the forthcoming DVD release of the Jon Pertwee adventure The Ambassadors of Death:.

00:01:27:01 (DOCTOR WHO - THE AMBASSADORS OF DEATH) (TRAILER)
00:13:05:07 TOMORROW'S TIMES - THE THIRD DOCTOR
00:04:24:15 THE AMBASSADORS OF DEATH - PHOTO GALLERY
00:25:49:16 MARS PROBE 7: MAKING THE AMBASSADORS OF DEATH

The DVD has yet to be formally scheduled, though it is believed to be due in Autumn this year.

Special Editions:

The BBFC have also passed features due to appear on September's special edition of Vengeance on Varos (tape 1 and 2):

00:01:07:01 (NEWS) (TELEVISION NEWS CLIP)
00:15:07:11 (SATURDAY SUPERSTORE) (TELEVISION CLIP)
00:05:41:15 BBC BREAKFAST TIME (TELEVISION CLIP)
00:01:37:07 (ACID BATH SCENE) (ALTERNATE MUSIC TRACK)
00:29:37:17 NICE OR NASTY? - THE MAKING OF VENGEANCE ON VAROS
00:07:29:11 THE IDIOT'S LANTERN (FEATURETTE)
00:12:54:03 TOMORROW'S TIMES - THE SIXTH DOCTOR (FEATURETTE)
00:07:31:05 (FRENCH AND SAUNDERS) (TELEVISION CLIP)
00:17:42:04 (EXTENDED & DELETED SCENES)
00:06:38:08 VENGEANCE ON VAROS - PHOTO GALLERY

Speaking at the Utopia convention, Steve Roberts confirmed that another story to get the special edition treatment will be Jon Pertwee's adventure Inferno; the episodes are to be 're-coloured' using the black and white film prints and the NTSC reverse standard conversions recordings to create a better quality image to the original 2006 release. The project will also include a 'secret project' alongside the range's commentary moderator and presenter Toby Hadoke. The DVD is expected to be released in 2013.

Actor John Levene also reported that he had recently recorded a documentary which, though unconfirmed, could feature on this DVD.

FILTER: - Jon Pertwee - Classic Series - Blu-ray/DVD - Colin Baker

New Doctor Who on Thursday: Good as Gold

Wednesday, 23 May 2012 - Reported by Marcus

Thursday sees a brand new mini Doctor Who adventure, Good as Gold come to BBC Television, when the results of this year's Script to Screen competition are broadcast as part of the children's programme Blue Peter.

The 2012 competition was launched in January and was open to UK pupils aged 9-11, who were asked to collaborate on a script that takes the Time Lord on a new quest travelling through space and time.

The lucky winners were invited to the Doctor Who set in Cardiff to see their mini-episode being recorded and the results can be seen on Thursday's Blue Peter, broadcast at 5.45pm on the CBBC channel. The programme is repeated on Friday at 4.30pm on BBC One.

FILTER: - Doctor Who - Competitions

TV Choice Awards 2012

Tuesday, 22 May 2012 - Reported by Chuck Foster

Voting is now open for the sixteenth annual TV Choice Awards, with Doctor Who nominated in the same three categories it won last year.

The series itself has been nominated for Best Family Drama, which it won both last year and in 2010. This year again sees it up against spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures, as well as Waterloo Road, Merlin, Casualty, Holby City, Glee, Doc Martin, and Wild at Heart.

Matt Smith is up for his second award for Best Actor, a huge category of names that also includes Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, all four Mad Dogs stars John Simm, Marc Warren, Philip Glenister and Max Beesley, and Merlin's Colin Morgan.

Karen Gillan is up for her second Best Actress award, and again sees her pitted against former companion Freema Agyeman for Law and Order UK; others nominees include Gillian Anderson for Great Expectations, Emilia Fox for Silent Witness and Miranda Hart for Call the Midwife.

Additionally, Torchwood: Miracle Day has been nominated in the Best Drama Series category, which sees it up against Sherlock amongst many other shows, including Being Human, Dirk Gently and Downton Abbey.

Voting is open online until 15th June, with the Winners' Ceremony taking place on the 10th September at The Dorchester Hotel in London.

As well as the three awards won last year, previous ceremonies have seen Doctor Who win every year except 2009 (where it was beaten by Waterloo Road), both of the recent former Doctors voted Best Actor - Christopher Eccleston in 2005 and David Tennant in 2006-2008 - and sidekicks Billie Piper in 2006 and Catherine Tate in 2008 for Best Actress.