DWM #446

My subs copy of DWM #446 has arrived. A little thrill every fourth Wednesday as the only magazine to which I subscribe, falls somewhere in the vicinity of the doormat. A great effort by the team this month as not only did they manage to grab an interview with Jenna-Louise on 23rd March and get it ready, complete with cover shot and even a sneaky pic from the Official Convention and delivered on time. Well done to Tom Spillsbury and the team!

I’ve not managed to read much of it yet… I’ll be adding some comments to this blog post as and when over the coming days. However, what I’ve gleaned so far is that the new companion is not called Jasmine and there will be more episodes in 2013 than the 8 episodes of the second half of Series Seven already announced. Exciting, eh!?

 

New Stuff

Within the space of two days, our rather brilliant postman (who shall henceforth be referred to as Brian, for that is his name), has delivered unto the house not one, not two and, no, not even three but FOUR new pieces of merchandise for me to enjoy.

• My four-weekly instalment of Doctor Who Magazine (which I now tend to refer to as @DWMTweets in my head). I got the TERROR cover, not the DOOM one as I know you were worried about that.
• My first ever delivery from my first ever Big Finish subscription also arrived in the form of “Destination: Nerva”, which marks Tom Baker’s debut for BF, in which he pairs up with Louise Jameson for a two part adventure.
• I also got my copy of the latest classic DVD release, the “U.N.I.T Files”, featuring the Android Invasion, and Invasion of the Dinosaurs.
• The final part of my quadrilogy of goodness was finally getting around to buying the Series 6 Soundtrack from the ever-impressive Murray Gold.

Now I’m just torn as to what to do first.

 

Doctor Who Ruined My Christmas

“Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a cybermat.”

Okay, the best laid blogging plans are always up for a bit of revision when you have (a) a full-time job, (b) a life to live, and (c) all your blogging instincts consumed by Twitter. However, since migrating this site over it’s new hosted service on WordPress.com, not only has it all gone silent but I have barely given it another thought. Apologies and all that. With tomorrow’s Christmas special in the offing I figured it was high time to return to this under-developed, under-appreciated, under-whelming blog and give it another kick start in to life. So, I do plan to develop it, appreciate it and… erm… whelm it a bit, and all that will start with a review of “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe” at some point on Boxing Day.

In the interim, today’s Who’ish news has been the conclusion of the advent calendar: an experience so desperately soul-destroying that it could single-handedly suck the life out of Christmas itself with far more effect than any Sycorax invasion or a conversion to a “Master Race” could ever dream of. The issues….

• It is described right up front as a “Milk Chocolate Advent Chocolate”. I’m sure that Trade Descriptions people need to get on the case because whatever the festering, brown concoction to be found behind the twenty-four doors actually was, chocolate it was not. It tasted of cardboard and despair.
• Second problem was the doors themselves. Not a picture in sight. Surely it cannot be beyond the wit of man to print up some vaguely Doctor Who related images on the backs of the doors as a little spark of acknowledgement that, ostensibly and above all, should be a “Doctor Who” calendar. So, the closer you actually get to Christmas, the more the bleak and intimidating white space appears to block out the only Doctor Who picture they bothered printing.
• Thirdly, after your digestive system has acclimatised over the course of three-and-a-half weeks to the consuming of these so-called chocolates (they didn’t kill me as I had first feared they might), you end up looking forward to the final door, number 24, which sits there and teases you with its extra-large dimensions and promise of a larger-than-average confection. Imagine then the disappointment of finding, with no hint of Whovian irony, that it’s bloody smaller on the inside than all the other “chocolates” that have gone before! [Bottom row, second from the right, if you're looking at the picture]

So, there you have it, the worst piece of Doctor Who merchandise ever created. That’s £1.00 I’m never going to see again.

 

The Sarah Jane Companion – Volume Two

Look what has dropped on the doormat with today’s mail. A fitting if unintentional tribute to the late and ever so great, Elisabeth Sladen. Your reviews and thoughts in the comments as usual please, although I think I will wait awhile before reading.

Tributes, of course, continue to pour in and I have been updating the links in my previous post withe the best of them.

 

Character Building

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Then I grew up some more, realised what a trumped-up, condescending and wholly nonsensical idea it was to pretend that, just because something may or may not be intended for children, that it cannot be embraced and enjoyed by anyone. So, I got all my childish things out of the cupboard, fell in love with Doctor Who all over again, and decided to say “yah-boo sucks” to the rest of them. The culmination of all this occurred this morning when a parcel was delivered containing …. wait for it …. Doctor Who Lego. Life is complete. And somewhere out there lost in the mists and space and time, my ten-year-old self has just let out a squeal of absolute joy…

Okay, so strictly speaking, it’s not branded as “Lego” per se, (if you have 20/20 vision and a magnifying glass, you can make out that the dimples are labelled “COBI” instead of “LEGO”) because it is part of the new Character Building range from Character Options, purveyors of fine Doctor Who merchandise (and, admittedly, some rubbish old tat as well) since Doctor Who’s successful relaunch in 2005. They might just be the greatest pieces of merchandise I own.

 

Radio Times Aboard The Ghost Train

The drip… drip… drip… of teases from the production offices of Doctor Who continues with the latest issue of the Radio Times (dated “16-22 April 2011″), which features the now traditional Doctor Who cover. Available now for the not-quite-as-much-of-a-bargain price of one pound and twenty of your English pence from all good newsagents, some bad ones, or for £4.99 on eBay. Of course, we are getting the cover a week earlier than we would normally expect it because some bloke is marrying some woman the following week and apparently that is more important Doctor Who. Yeah, right!! Anyway, I would have told you what’s inside (including the revelation of quite a substantial spoiler, in case you are averse to such things) but but web-connected friend, Frank Collins, gives you everything you need to know at the click of >>>this<<< button.

Back later for some Silurian retrospectives… TTFN.

 

Come In Number Five

Away from the hullaballoo that surrounds the build-up to Easter Saturday’s debut of The Impossible Astronaut, I thought I would go a little old school and say a few words about Revisitations 2: the recently released boxset featuring special editions of Resurrection of the Daleks, Carnival of Monsters and Seeds of Death. These re-releases tend to cause a little furore when they arrive because many fans feel somewhat put-upon to have to fork out money on the same story more than once. They have a point, to a small degree. To cough up the RRP for a DVD only to find a better, more comprehensive version turn up a few years later could feel like a waste of money, and, with the dreaded compulsion that collectors feel to have *everything*, this must feel like a constant drain on resources. However, my copy of Revisitations 2 only turned up yesterday and I have just dipped my toe in to the contents by watching Ed Stradling’s “Come In Number Five” documentary hosted by David Tennant. It has already been worth the expense thanks to this 60 minutes of a wonderfully insightful retrospective of the Peter Davison era. He, as David Tennant says, was my Doctor and so this feature could have been made specially for me. Lovely stuff. Personally, I have tried to limit the expense by buying this at a nicely discounted rate, using a cashback credit card, and selling the older versions of these DVDs via eBay… thus, Revisitations 2 feels like nothing more than an upgrade. Long may they continue, I say.

 

DWM 433 – Review

Look what turned up on the doormat this lunchtime! It’s only my subscription copy of the mighty Doctor Who Magazine, number 433 for those keeping score. This time (for the fourth time in its history) we get a choice of four covers… Amy, the Doctor, Rory or River. The ‘choice’ thing isn’t really a factor for the subscribers of the world because, as my mum used to tell me, you get what you’re given. I really rather wanted the River cover but it wasn’t to be. The question, therefore, is… am I fan enough to buy another copy? My mum also used to tell me “It’s what’s on the inside that counts” and that is true here as well. Wise woman, my mum.

Well, it’s everything you would expect in the weeks leading up to transmission of Series 32. Tom effervesces in the editorial, Steven causes much hilarity in the Production Notes, and the Gallifrey Guardian is replete with news, including the correct titles for the first seven episodes and also two more from the second half of the series: just ignore what I told you yesterday. Episode 3 gets the moniker of The Curse of the Black Spot, 6 becomes The Almost People, 9 will be What Little Boys Are Made Of, and 11 will be the God Complex. All this and we’re only on page seven. Then we get to the juicy stuff. Previews of episodes 1 and 2 (seemingly not being broadcast on the Easter Saturday and Sunday as some had speculated) as well as (happily) the new look DW Confidential coming soon to BBC3 and a monster interview with the Boss, Steven Moffat. I’ve not read any of this you understand, I do have a job to do, but it looks sumptuous as ever.

Now, I don’t usually get into the Big Finish material. I have about a dozen or so CD’s but for the most part the ever-expanding corner of the Whoniverse remains an unexplored mystery to me. However, the feature here on the unmade 1990 series that has now found its way on to a new BF series, really tantalises. I will have to have a listen to them. The rest of the magazine features the now familiar Countdown to 50 (series 4), the comic strip (Forever Dream by Jonathan Morris with art by Adrian Salmon), Time Team (Aliens of London), Fact of Fiction (of the TV movie), Battle of Wits (is the Doctor half human?), a quick interview (Geoffrey Beavers), reviews, previews, competitions, and the Next Month teaser. It’s a lot to take in. I also got another Who-related delivery but more on that tomorrow.

 

Five Inches Of Plastic

12 Blogs of Christmas: #10

Toys – are they for kids or for grown-ups or for both? In recent years I have been collecting the Doctor Who action figure range that has been released by Character Options. I don’t collect any other toys. I never collected any action figures when I was a boy with the possible exception of an Action Man or two and I don’t recall that ever turning to obsession. In the latest DWM there was a review of some of the latest batch of figures that were released during 2010, and that set me thinking about that question that I opened with (not for the first time, I should point out). But are these things aimed at people like me?

First up, I should say that I don’t open these toys and play with them, but instead I keep them as pristine as I can in their plastic packaging. I can hear gasps of shock in my mind as I type those words. It like heresy. It reminds me of Stinky Pete, the prospecter in Toy Story 2: not playing with the toys that I buy, I think, makes me a bad person. I do not collect these things because I want them as toys, but I seem to collect because of some inner compulsion that makes me feel… well, I’m just not sure how it makes me feel. Poor but content is not a bad description I suppose.

I am quite happy with my collection and display many of them along with all my other merchandise but I cannot fathom out what the appeal is. What is this obsession that drives me to continually fork out my hard-earned cash on five inches of plastic? And I know that I am not alone in doing this because there are many other collectors who will raid the shelves of their local stockists as soon as new variants are released. If I tried to collect every model and every variant I would be very poor indeed, so I try to limit myself to a certain style (single carded figures as opposed to box sets, in case you were wondering) and I don’t worry if the Weeping Angel from Series Five is released with a slightly different coloured paint job. However, “one of each” is a must.

I will confess that they are, in the main, quite cool. The new design Daleks, for instance, when they appeared on the telly met with a mixed reception, but in their plastic form they look like something designed by Apple. There is a whole sub-culture that exists around these figures too, complete with its own lexicon and sub-groups and fraudsters and customisers and insider moles. For the large part I don’t get involved in most of that side but it continues to try to lure me in. I own about 250 figures now. The “Time Crash UK100″ set featuring David Tennant and Peter Davison being the prize of my collection.

So, tell me… how far do you go in your passion for all things Doctor Who\?

 

The Postponement Of The Terraphiles

12 Blogs of Christmas: #9

So, today’s blog was supposed to be about Michael Moorcock’s first foray in to the world of Doctor Who, with a review of his recent book, “The Coming of the Terraphiles”. It has been sitting on my shelf for about a month or so, ever since I picked up a cheap(ish) copy from Tesco. I had every intention of sitting down during my relaxing Christmas holidays and devouring this from cover to cover. But, it didn’t quite work out that way. Eleven days off work sounds like loads and I really should’ve found myself the time to curl up with a good book but I failed (again). I am currently only on page 30 or so, and to review it now based on that small chunk alone would no more fair than judging it by its cover (which, if I did, would give it a score of about one-out-of-ten because the cover is, to be frank, a bit rubbish). Therefore, I have turned my Twelve Blogs series back to New Year’s Eve when I failed to Review Doctor Who in 2010 and have provided something a bit more comprehensive for your edification. Hope you enjoy.