Enemy of the World - Release DelayedBookmark and Share

Wednesday, 28 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World (Credit: BBC Worldwide)
BBC Worldwide have delayed the release of the DVD The Enemy of the World - Special Edition by one week.

The title will now be released on the 26th March.

Full details of release here.




FILTER: - Blu-ray/DVD - Classic Series - Second Doctor

Peter Miles 1929-2018Bookmark and Share

Tuesday, 27 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
The actor Peter Miles has died at the age of 89

Peter Miles made three memorable appearances in Doctor Who.

In 1970 he played Dr. Lawrence in the second Third Doctor story The Silurians. Lawrence was the director of the Wenley Moor nuclear research facility, who refused to cooperate with UNIT's investigations. He met a memorable death when he succumbed to the Silurian virus.

He returned to the series in 1974, playing Professor Whitaker, the scientist responsible for flooding London with Dinosaurs, in Invasion of the Dinosaurs. He again met a sticky end when he was transported back to his desired 'Golden age'.

Peter Miles as Nyder (Credit: BBC)His final appearance came just a year later in the classic story Genesis of the Daleks. His chilling performance as Nyder, second in command to Michael Wisher's Davros, helped elevate the story to classic status. Who can forget the moment he switched sides after pretending to join the rebels - "Thank you, that’s what I wanted to know”

It was a role he relished and one he returned to in the Big Finish audio play Guilt and in two versions of the stage play The Trial of Davros.
Peter Miles had a long career in British television. His first recorded appearance was in 1968 in Armchair Theatre. Appearances followed in series such as Softly Softly, Dixon of Dock Green, Paul Temple, Colditz, Moonbase 3, Within These Walls, New Scotland Yard, Survivors, Poldark, The Eagle Has Landed, Z Cars, Warship, Disraeli: Portrait of a Romantic, Blake's 7, Blake's 7 and Bergerac

He also appeared in the 1993 BBC Radio Third Doctor play, The Paradise of Death, playing Tragan alongside Jon Pertwee and Elisabeth Sladen, as well as several Big Finish Productions.

The news that Peter Miles had died was released on his official Twitter page.
It is with great sadness that I have to inform you Peter passed away peaceful at home, last week at the age of 89. He didn’t suffer & was full of his usual love of life last time we spoke. Thank you all for your interest in Peter, it meant a lot to him, he was always touched.




FILTER: - Classic Series - Obituary

Black Archive Announces new Range EditorBookmark and Share

Monday, 26 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
Obverse Books have announced the appointment of Paul Simpson as a new Range Editor for the Black Archive, the series of critical monographs on individual Doctor Who stories

Simpson is currently managing editor of Sci-Fi Bulletin and has been helping out behind the scenes with the Black Archive. He joins the team as the range expands to a monthly schedule and gains a sister series, the Silver Archive, covering shows other than Doctor Who.

Simpson is an experienced editor and author, with over 30 books to his credit, and editorial experience with Titan, BBC and Virgin Books, as well as DreamWatch and Star Trek Magazine.

Stuart Douglas, publisher of the Black Archive, said:
When we realised that we would need to take on a third Range Editor to cope with our new schedule, Phil and I both immediately thought of Paul. His wide and detailed knowledge of genre television has already proven invaluable on previous Archives, and I'm very much looking forward to see what he can bring out of our authors as editor.
Phil Purser-Hallard, the Black Archive’s founding Range Editor, said:
I’m delighted that Paul’s stepping up his involvement in the Black Archive – he’s an excellent editor, and a wise and knowledgeable Doctor Who fan. With our increased output of titles this year and into 2019, we will be relying on him to help us maintain the high standards our readers have come to expect.
Paul Simpson himself is delighted to be joining the team.
Even for someone who's been a fan of Doctor Who since the late 1960s, the Black Archive has been a constant source of new ways of looking at the show, and I'm looking forward to working with Stuart, Jim, Phil and the writers on the forthcoming Archives.




FILTER: - Books

Doctor Who Experience leaves Cardiff with £1 Million BillBookmark and Share

Friday, 23 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who Experience Logo - 2014Cardiff council taxpayers have been left with a 1.1 million pound bill following the closure of the Doctor Who Experience, which ran in the city for five years.

The building housing the experience was built by Cardiff City Council, using money from the Welsh Government's Invest to Save Fund, which provides financial support, on a competitive and repayable basis, to public service organisations across Wales. The cost of £2.4 million, was intended to be repaid by receiving a percentage of the exhibition ticket sales. However, it appears that ticket sales were not sufficient for the council to cover its costs, leaving ratepayers to pick up the shortfall.

Councillor Russell Goodway, Cardiff's cabinet member for investment and development, said
In 2011 when the deal was done to subsidise the Doctor Who attraction in order to bring it to Cardiff, the then-administration worked on the basis of ambitious projections for visitor numbers. Unfortunately the projected visitor numbers failed to materialise leaving the shortfall which should have been made up in ticket sales. This has left the council having to make up the £1.1m which will have to be absorbed by the council's budget. We are, however, working on plans for the building with the Welsh Government although nothing has yet been finalised.
The building, next door to the BBC Studios at Cardiff Bay, has been empty since the exhibition closed last September.

A spokeswoman for BBC Worldwide said:
The Doctor Who Experience was enjoyed by fans for five years in Cardiff Bay during its lease with Cardiff Council.The lease ran for its full, five year term and there was no additional loan agreement. We cannot comment on Cardiff Council's own business plan in relation to the site.
Adrian Robson, leader of the Conservative opposition on Cardiff Council said:
I still don't know how we managed to lose over a million pounds on Doctor Who. Somewhere the council and [BBC Worldwide] have not got their projections right for visitor numbers. It's very strange because this is a global brand.
Thanks to Laura Clements




FILTER: - Doctor Who - Exhibitions

New Target NovalisationsBookmark and Share

Friday, 23 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
The BBC has announced the first Target novelisations of episodes from the revived post-2005 series of Doctor Who.

Both former showrunners, Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat, will be writing novelisations of their own episodes to be published by BBC Books, under the Target imprint, to be published on the 5th April 2018.

The series will also see the first Target novelisation of a Douglas Adams story.

In the 1970's and 1980's Target books were published for most Doctor Who stories, and were the only way most fans of the series could relive the television adventures. Many came to the series through the novelisations, often written by the original script writer.

Rose (Credit: BBC Books)ROSE
RUSSELL T DAVIES


In a lair somewhere beneath central London, a malevolent alien intelligence is plotting the end of humanity. Shop window dummies that can move – and kill – are taking up key positions, ready to strike. Rose Tyler, an ordinary Londoner, is working her shift in a department store, unaware that this is the most important day of her life. She’s about to meet the only man who understands the true nature of the threat facing Earth, a stranger who will open her eyes to all the wonder and terror of the universe – a traveller in time and space known as the Doctor.



Russell T Davies is one of the UK's foremost writers of television drama, creating ground breaking shows such as Queer as Folk, Bob & Rose, Casanova, Cucumber, The Second Coming, and in 2018, A Very English Scandal for BBC One.

He was Head Writer and Executive Producer of Doctor Who when it returned to the BBC in 2005 and has written many of the new series' most memorable episodes. He was awarded an OBE in 2008 for services to drama. He divides his time between Cardiff and Manchester.
The Day of the Doctor (Credit: BBC Books)THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR
STEVEN MOFFAT


The Tenth Doctor is hunting shape-shifting Zygons in Elizabethan England. The Eleventh is investigating a rift in space-time in the present day. And one other – the man they used to be but never speak of – is fighting the Daleks in the darkest days of the Time War. Driven by demons and despair, this battle-scarred Doctor is set to take a devastating decision that will threaten the survival of the entire universe … a decision that not even a Time Lord can take alone.

On this day, the Doctor’s different incarnations will come together to save the Earth … to save the universe … and to save his soul.



Steven Moffat is best known for Press Gang, Coupling, Steven Spielberg’s movie Tintin, and for the last few years being lead writer and executive producer on Doctor Who and for cocreating, co-writing (with Mark Gatiss) and executive producing Sherlock. He has 5 BAFTAs, 2 Emmys and in 2015 was awarded an OBE for services to drama.
The Christmas Invasion (Credit: BBC Books)THE CHRISTMAS INVASION
JENNY T COLGAN


When a British space probe is intercepted by a sinister alien vessel on the eve of Christmas, it marks the beginning of an audacious invasion of the Earth by the Sycorax – horrifying marauders from beyond the stars. Within hours, a third of humanity stands on the brink of death with not a single shot fired.

Our planet needs a champion – but the Doctor is not fit for service. He’s just regenerated, delirious in a new body and a dressing gown. Forced into his battered shoes is his friend, Rose Tyler, a girl from a London council estate. Will she save the world from this nightmare before Christmas – or see it destroyed?



Jenny T Colgan has written 16 bestselling novels as Jenny Colgan, which have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, been translated into 25 languages, and won both the Melissa Nathan Award and Romantic Novel of the Year 2013. Aged 11, she won a national fan competition to meet the Doctor and was mistaken for a boy by Peter Davison
TWICE UPON A TIME
PAUL CORNELL


Still reeling from his encounter with the Cybermen, the First Doctor stumbles through the bitter Antarctic wind, resisting the approaching regeneration with all his strength. But as he fights his way through the snowdrifts, he comes across the familiar shape of a blue police box, and a mysterious figure who introduces himself as the Doctor …

Thrown together at their most vulnerable moments, the two Doctors must discover why the snowflakes are suspended in the sky, why a First World War Captain has been lifted from his time stream moments before his death, and who is the mysterious Glass Woman who knows their true name. The Doctor is reunited with Bill, but is she all she seems? And can he hold out against the coming regeneration?



Paul Cornell has written some of Doctor Who's best-loved TV episodes, books and comics. He’s also worked on many other TV shows. His other comics projects include his creator-owned series Saucer State and This Damned Band, and runs on Action Comics, Batman and Robin and Wolverine. He's also the author of the Lychford series of fantasy novellas and the Shadow Police novels. He’s won the British Science Fiction Association Award for his short fiction and the Eagle Award for his comics
CITY OF DEATH
JAMES GOSS


Visiting Paris in 1979, the Doctor and Romana’s hopes for a holiday are soon shattered by armed thugs, a suave and dangerous Count, a plot to steal the Mona Lisa and a world-threatening experiment with time.

Teaming up with a British detective, the Time Lords discover that a ruthless alien plot hatched in Earth’s pre-history has reached its final stage. If Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, cannot be stopped then the human race is history, along with all life on Earth …



James Goss has adapted three Doctor Who stories by Douglas Adams for BBC Books (City of Death, The Pirate Planet, and The Krikkitmen) and has also written several original Doctor Who and Torchwood books. His novel #Haterz is in development as a motion picture. He's also written for the stage and the radio.




FILTER: - BBC Books - Russell T Davies - Steven Moffat

David Tennant at Charity PremiereBookmark and Share

Thursday, 22 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
David Tennant is to attend the premiere of the comedy film You, Me and Him, raising money for the charity Baby Lifeline.

Tennant will be joined on the red carpet by members of the cast including Faye Marsay, Georgia E Tennant, Sally Phillips and Director Daisy Aitkens for the charity premiere on Saturday 31st March, at Cineworld, Broad Street Birmingham.

David Tennant and key cast will also introduce the film and answer questions.

You, Me & Him is a comedy-drama about a lesbian couple at different points in their lives
High-powered lawyer Olivia (Lucy Punch) is nearly 40 and wants to start a family but her free-wheeling younger partner Alex (Faye Marsay) doesn't share her urgency. What happens next involves recently-divorced neighbour John (David Tennant) and creates a tangled web of consequences, and pregnancies.
Other well-known celebrities from the music, television and radio world also confirmed are, Peter Davison, Ingrid Oliver, Tessie Orange-Turner, Christian Brassington, Jack Savoretti, Nick Owen, Jimmi Harkishin, Jack Cork and Heart West Midlands Breakfast presenters Ed James and Gemma Hill… more to be announced!

David Tennant and Sally Phillips are both Ambassadors for the charity Baby Lifeline’s £5 million Monitoring for Mums appeal to provide maternity and neonatal equipment for maternity services nationally, and the premiere will raise funds for this appeal.

Tickets are available from the website and cost £36.




FILTER: - David Tennant

New Logo RevealedBookmark and Share

Tuesday, 20 February 2018 - Reported by Chuck Foster
BBC Worldwide have revealed the new logo to accompany Jodie Whittaker's incarnation of the Doctor.

Doctor Who 2018: Landscape (Credit: BBC/BBC Worldwide)

Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker today teased the new series of Doctor Who by unveiling a new logo and insignia for the brand to over 700 of the world’s top TV buyers and international press at BBC Worldwide’s annual showcase event in Liverpool. In an evening devoted to the new incarnation of Doctor Who, Whittaker built excitement in anticipation of the new era of The Doctor, leaving global broadcasters in no doubt as to the sense of wonder, joy and mystery the forthcoming series promises audiences.

The Doctor Who logo is an iconic and powerful trademark for the franchise that is recognised all around the world. The updated logo and insignia mark a new era of WHO. BBC Worldwide commissioned creative agency Little Hawk to create the brand new designs, working closely with Showrunner Chris Chibnall and Executive Producer Matt Strevens.

BBC Worldwide Executive Creative Director, Rafaela Perera says:
The Doctor Who logo and insignia are the quintessential signifier for the brand. Our aim was to create modern and elegant designs that were anchored in the things that we love most about Doctor Who.

Doctor Who 2018: Insignia (Credit: BBC/BBC Worldwide)
The sound for the animated logo is created by Matthew Herbert. It will launch with a 10 second animation which features the TARDIS blazing a trail through the logo. All official Doctor Who merchandise featuring the new logo will be available at selected retailers from 20th February 2018.





FILTER: - Doctor Who - Jodie Whittaker - Leading News - Press

Fifty Years of the BrigadierBookmark and Share

Saturday, 17 February 2018 - Written by Peter Nolan
Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Credit: BBC)Moments in Time
17th of February 1968. Fifty years ago today The Web of Fear Part Three is transmitted for the one and only time; never to be seen again save for a brief sighting of a film tin in a far-flung relay station. A tin which, itself, would vanish into thin air. It would be handy to describe this as a particularly tragic loss – the moment the Doctor meets (then) Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart. But strangely even if we had the episode to include in our collections alongside the five recovered episodes, we still wouldn’t have that magical moment to see – it occurs inconveniently offscreen, with the Doctor simply showing up with the Colonel in tow, describing how they’d bumped into each other in the tunnel.

The throwaway nature with which the character debuts is an earmark of how unplanned and organic his growth into a Doctor Who legend is. It’s par for the course with this show, of course, with possibly the Master the only time a production team has set out to create the Next Big Thing and succeeded – the likes of the Krotons and the Mechanoids and the Zarbi litter the battlefield of intended recurring elements that didn’t take off, while ever since the Daleks the most in-demand characters always seem to take the creators by surprise. Yet even considering that, the Brigadier’s has been an astonishing evolution from shifty looking suspect in the mole hunt for a traitor to a character that’s such a universal totem of Doctor Who that when Steven Moffat wanted to bring the First Doctor face to face with the future life he was destined to live, it was Lethbridge-Stewart’s WWI era grandfather that he brought in to symbolize it.

In part, this evolution from guest star to icon is down to good fortune. Had it not been for the bright idea to cut costs by leaving the Doctor Earthbound then there would have been no need for UNIT to become such fixtures of the early to mid-1970s. But the lion’s share of glory must go to that magnificent gentleman Nicholas Courtney.  Circumstance promoted the Brigadier from one-off guest to regular fixture, but it was Courtney that elevated him to a legend almost as beloved by fans as the Doctor himself. His combination of warm charm, unflappable dignity, and self-knowing irony made him the perfect straight man to Jon Pertwee’s caustic egoist and Tom Baker’s mercurial oddball.

Perhaps the Brig’s best quality as a character was his attitude to “the odd, the unexplained, anything on Earth, or even beyond.” However bizarre or strange the threat, he faced it all with the same matter of fact acceptance that the world was plainly a jolly rum old place and that pondering the deep metaphysical questions that raised was less important than figuring out which bits of it he needed to shoot in the face. Sometimes, yes, as time went by that will slip over the line into giving him a kind of literal-minded stupidity instead for the sake of a quick gag but the equilibrium would always be restored. When people think of their favourite Brigadier moments, it’s his response to being confronted with a living statue animated by dark magic from beyond the dawn of the human race (“Chap with wings there. Five rounds rapid,”) his giving the best ever response to discovering the TARDIS is bigger on the inside (complaining as he finally realizes how much of his UNIT budget has obviously gone into the Doctor’s work on it), or his deep sighs at discovering he’s been transported halfway across the galaxy to a ‘Death Zone’ populated by Yeti, Cybermen, and other beasties as if he’d expected nothing less.

If anything underlines this perfect combination of actor and character it’s how forgettable every substitute for the Brigadier has proven to be. In The Android Invasion, we even get Patrick Newell’s Colonel Faraday as such a direct, and late, substitution for the unavailable Nicholas Courtney that his dialogue was practically unchanged yet Faraday is never more than a bit of plot machinery to represent the authorities in the final couple of episodes. While it’s not until the introduction of Alistair’s own daughter, Kate Stewart, forty-four years after his own, that we again get a UNIT leader worth re-visiting and not just the one-off guest that Lethbridge-Stewart himself could have been.

Such was his cache as a Doctor Who institution that for decades after he was no longer a regularly recurring character, meeting the Brig was still a box every Doctor need to tick. Not only did he reunite with the Fifth and Seventh Doctors on television, but clearly one of Big Finish’s earliest priorities on getting their license was to finally give the Sixth and Eighth proper outings alongside him. Even David Tennant’s incarnation was all set to have one last hurrah with the Brig until Courtney’s worsening health tragically robbed us of the brilliance such a team up offered.

It’s this, more than anything that has solidified the Brigadier as the Doctor’s unlikely best friend of all. While fans can’t even agree whether he qualifies as a companion or not, the fact remains that so many of those the Doctor has traveled with have been left in his past with nary a backward glance, yet it’s the Brig that he’s returned to time and again.

Since Nicholas Courtney’s death in 2011, Doctor Who has tried more than once to provide him a final salute. But none of them, whether a final phone call, Kate’s name-checking of him, one last act of heroism by the controversial ‘Cyberbrig’, or Mark Gatiss’ aforementioned Captain, has really stuck. None of them have felt like a final word that sums up the Brig’s contribution to the series.

In truth, probably nothing ever can. But what we can do tonight is raise a glass of good scotch, or ginger ale, or whatever you're having yourself, and give a nod to Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, fifty years on from that business with the Yeti. Cheers, Brig!

Nicholas Courtney: (Credit:BBC)Nicholas Courtney, Jon Pertwee: (Credit:BBC)Nicholas Courtney, Tom Baker: (Credit:BBC)Nicholas Courtney, Patrick Troughton: (Credit:BBC)Nicholas Courtney, Peter Davison: (Credit:BBC)Nicholas Courtney, Sylvester McCoy: (Credit:BBC)Nicholas Courtney: (Credit:BBC)




FILTER: - Lethbridge-Stewart - Moments in Time

The Seventh Doctor and Ace Come to Titan ComicsBookmark and Share

Friday, 16 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor #1DOCTOR_WHO_7D_BLACK_AND_WHITE_PROMO_ART.JPG (Credit: Titan )BBC Worldwide Americas and Titan Comics have announced that the Seventh Doctor is back, in comic form.

This brand-new three-part comic series stars the Seventh Doctor, as played by Sylvester McCoy, alongside classic companion Ace, played by Sophie Aldred.

Released in June 2018 with a double-sized first issue, DOCTOR WHO: THE SEVENTH DOCTOR #1, is written by Seventh Doctor script editor Andrew Cartmel, and writer Ben Aaronovitch who wrote the seventh Doctor stories Remembrance of the Daleks and Battlefield.

Actor Sylvester McCoy starred as the Seventh Doctor from 1987 to 1989 anchoring hundreds of novels and comic strips before regenerating in the 1996 TV movie. As well as this new comic, the Seventh Doctor’s era lives on in a tremendously successful series of audios from Big Finish. McCoy’s portrayal as the Doctor was, at first, a light-hearted eccentric who darkened into a secretive, mysterious, and cunning planner across the course of his tenure.

In Titan Comics’ new mini-series, an unknown alien intelligence in orbit around the Earth. Astronauts under attack. A terrifying, mysterious landing in the Australian interior. The future of the world itself at stake. Counter Measures activated. The Seventh Doctor and Ace are slap bang in the middle of it all! This is OPERATION VOLCANO!

Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel return to the TARDIS, on the 30th anniversary of fan-favorite episode Remembrance of the Daleks with The Seventh Doctor comics, and are joined by illustrator Christopher Jones (The Third Doctor) and colorist Marco Lesko (Robotech, The Ninth Doctor) to bring astonishing twists and turns to the lives of the Seventh Doctor, and his companions, with Titan’s new comic series.

The debut issue comes with four variant covers to collect: three art covers by artists Alice X. Zhang, Simon Myers, and Christopher Jones, and a photo cover by Will Brooks. The Seventh Doctor will also materialize with a back-up strip written by Twelfth Doctor scribe Richard Dinnick, with art by Jessica Martin (Actor: Doctor Who: The Greatest Show In The Galaxy, Voice actor: Doctor Who: Voyage of the Damned).

Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor #1 - Cover D (Credit: Titan )Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor #1 - Cover C (Credit: Titan )Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor #1 - Cover B (Credit: Titan )





FILTER: - Comics - Seventh Doctor

Doctor Who Magazine - Circulation FiguresBookmark and Share

Friday, 16 February 2018 - Reported by Marcus
Doctor Who Magazine had an average certified circulation figure of 21,275 issues, between July and December 2017, according to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

The figure is an increase of 4% on the figure for the first six months of the year, although the figure usually rises when the series in being broadcast.

Of the total 19,467 are printed copies, while 1,808 ore digital editions. An average of 7,482 subscribe to the magazine, while 13,706 copies are sold to those without a subscription. 75% of the copies are sold within the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland.

In comparison SFX sells 18,716 copies while Radio Times sells 631,960 copies

The best selling edition of Doctor Who Magazine in 2017 was issue 515, the biggest seller since the Tom Baker Special in 2016

Doctor Who Magazine 508 (Credit: Panini)Doctor Who Magazine - Issue 509 (Credit: Panini)Doctor Who Magazine Issue 510 (Credit: DWM)Doctor Who Magazine issue 511 (Credit: DWM)Doctor Who Magazine: 512 (Credit: Panini)Doctor Who Magezine 513 (Ice Warrior variant) (Credit: Panini)Doctor Who Magazine: Issue 514 (Credit: Panini)
Issue 508 - 21,724Issue 509 - 18,790Issue 510 - 19,442Issue 511 - 21,561Issue 512 - 20,048Issue 513 - 20,421Issue 514 - 21,438
Doctor Who Magazine 515 (Credit: Panini)Doctor Who Magazine 516 (Credit: Panini) Doctor Who Magazine 517 (Credit: Panini)Doctor Who Magazine Issue 518 - Cover (Credit: Panini)Doctor Who Magazine - 519 (Credit: Panini)Doctor Who Magazine Issue 520 (Credit: Panini)
Issue 515 - 23,620Issue 516 - 22,021Issue 517 - 19,587Issue 518 - 20,690Issue 519 - 20,425Issue 520 - 22,972




FILTER: - DWM - Ratings