Alden Bates' Weblog

Like part 1, I pretty much knew what to expect, as it was typical of just about every Davies finale thus far. Despite it having many good moments, it felt ultimately like a bit of a let down. This was Davies' last chance to write a finale, and instead he more or less repeats himself.

Continue reading "The End of Time, Part 2"

To summarise in advance: The End of Time, Part 1 is an example of a typical first part of a Russell T Davies finale. If you're seen his previous finales, you'll know what to expect.

Right, from here on, spoiler warning apply.

Continue reading "The End of Time, Part 1"

Helpfully under the cut, in case you're one of the few people left who hasn't seen it. Spoilers included, obviously.

Continue reading "Doctor Who: Waters of Mars, in a nutshell"

This time, with UNIT fighting Cybermen. Seriously the BBC should give this guy a job!

previously: Doctor Who Anime - yes, I realise it's still halfway down my main page. I am so terribly slack of late.

Making a Doctor Who anime, part 2:

Smashing work!

Gee, blink and half the month goes by!

Good Monday was good because it brought me The Next Doctor on Prime (which I'd already seen) and Planet of the Dead, which I hadn't. The problem with Doctor Who doing a year with just 4 specials in is that there's not as much lee-way when you get a duff story. Planet of the Dead, the Easter special, is a bit duff, and it's all we're getting until some vague date in November.

Spoilers follow...

Continue reading "The Next Doctor/Planet of the Dead"

I have two links!

Back in the Village - an ongoing comic based on cult series The Prisoner

and

The last couple of weeks of Player Versus Player - have been full of Doctor Who goodness.

A while back I wrote about a fan-designed Police Box Transformer. I was unaware at the time that there was actually a canonical (in Transformers canon anyway) Doctor Who related Transformer. In a 1989 UK comic drawn by Lee Sullivan (who's not unknown in Doctor Who circles, having drawn Abslom Daak strips for DWM), one of the ruling Decepticon triumvirate, Octus, is quite clearly meant to transform into a Dalek.

Sadly Octus has never had a toy, but considering we've recently had the Transformers toyline cross-over with Marvel's Avengers, Star Wars, and Mickey Mouse of all things, I think it's time for Hasbro and the BBC to strike up a deal and bring us a toy version.

Although I'm not entirely sure how the transformation would work!

TSV 61 came out in December 2000 and featured the aforementioned article on the New Zealand performance of Seven Keys to Doomsday. It also featured one of my favourite TSV covers ever. See if you can spot which movie it's based on!

Festively, you can also read The Karkus and "the Two Santas".

I remember there was a version of this cartoon which appeared in RTP around the same time, featuring that 'zine's Cyber-guy character.

I had two audio adventure reviews in TSV 61 (by then I'd stopped getting the books): The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, featuring the sixth Doctor and Evelyn, and The Fires of Vulcan, featuring the seventh Doctor and Mel. Both great stories!

Also very interesting: Jamas' article on Religion in Doctor Who, which is a somewhat more complete overview of the show's history of the treatment of religion than previously published in the 'zine.

Next time, interviews with Colin Baker and Gary Russell, Beyond the Sofa tackles The Tenth Planet and Attack of the Cybermen, the first of a series of articles by David Lawrence on the New Adventures, and reviews of the Pertwee era on Prime TV.

Previously: TSV 60
See also: Entries by Paul and Jamas.

Must. Keep. Up. Blistering. Post. Rate.

So anyway, back in 2000, when I had an ISP which actually supported Usenet, someone posted a question in rec.arts.drwho about a production of the 1974 stage play Seven Keys to Doomsday which was put on in Wellington some ten years later. The question sparked memories for me of both an old newspaper clipping I'd kept, and of seeing a news item about the play on the evening news. Unfortunately I hadn't gone to the play itself (in fact, I have a vague memory that I turned down an offer by my parents to take me, as at the time I didn't think it'd be as good as the TV show). Don't regret what you do, only what you don't do, as the saying goes.

Surprisingly, the 1984 performance of the play wasn't common knowledge, and Wellington fan Graham Howard tracked down director Brian Hudson for an interview which appears in TSV 61. As it happens TSV 61 is the issue I'm currently getting ready to put online, so watch out for that within the next week.

Another wave of Robot Heroes has turned up, so it's time to play guess the Doctor Who title!

Can you guess the Doctor Who story title represented in this picture?

Edit: The answer was "The Unicorn and the Wasp", as represented here by Unicron and Waspinator (Not to scale).

So, it's less than a week until the American elections, and I'm currently wondering more who will be the next actor to step into the role of the Doctor than I am who will be the next US President. Because David Tennant has announced he's stepping down as of the end of next year.

That means for series five we'll have a new producer, new Doctor, and likely a new companion. That hasn't happened when the show's been an ongoing prospect since 1970, when Jon Pertwee took over. That's kinda scary.

OTOH, the Moff's a genius, so I'm sure he'll do well.

TSV 60 went live on the NZDWFC site last night. Originally printed in mid 2000, this issue features, amongst many other very good things, some stuff written by me. Primarily an article on Tetraps, which on reflection I should have waited until after the release of audio adventure "The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind", as it had a bunch more Tetrap lore in it (though I wrote a sequel article for TSV 63 anyway).

Interestingly this issue also has an article about the Doctor Who references in "Queer as Folk", one of the series Russell T Davies did before reviving Doctor Who. If you look at a QAF character list, you may notice that two of the protagonists of that series share last names with Rose Tyler and Martha Jones. Hmm. If crossover articles are your thing, there's also one called Star Wars Connections, which notes actors who've been in both Doctor Who and Star Wars.

This cartoon makes me snicker every time I see it.

Next up, TSV 61, which has one of my favourite TSV covers ever!

Previously: Doctor Who and the City of Death
See also: comments by Paul and Jamas.

Via TARDIS Television:

So, last time I made noises about putting a "coming soon" tag on the last novelisation to curb the "are you going to put City of Death online?" emails. In the end, I did, and got "when are you going to put City of Death online?" emails instead. Hehehehehe!

Doctor Who and the City of Death is the last of the TSV novelisations to go online, so all the holes left by the Target novelisation range have been (unofficially) filled. It's written by Wellington fan David Lawrence, who's a long-time contributor to TSV and has has most recently been writing a series of articles on the BBC eighth Doctor novels. He's also working on a commentary for the novelisation, which will go online at a later date.

In addition to getting the last novelisation up, I've been slowly working my way back through the archive, converting issues to the new site scheme. While I've been doing so, I've also been cleaning things as necessary - mostly making the cover images a tad bigger, putting in fancy quotes (‘’ instead of ''), tidying up some of the formatting, and so on.

Previously: TSV 59
See also: comments by Paul and Jamas