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9 July 2022 at 16:05 #73295
@janetteb Yes, the implication that it was ok for the movies to make the Cushing Doctor human because the BBC did not reveal him to be a Time-lord until 1969 was a bit dodgy. The snippet of information that I was fascinated by was the promotional campaign for Sugar Puffs cereal where there was a chance to win one of three life size Daleks. I wonder whatever happened to those three Daleks? Is there a home somewhere in the UK where a Dalek still resides?
8 July 2022 at 15:29 #73293@janetteb Here is a follow up piece (with some great set photos) to the review of the Cushing movies that you posted.
3 July 2022 at 16:31 #73280@dentarthurdent There are a couple of options. It could be males duking it out to prove their sexual prowess. It could be the habit of grey squirrels to rip off the bark for the sap (which is bad for the health of the Garry Oaks). When the acorns appear, they are a prized treat (although it is a bit early for the acorns). Who knows? Drunken revelry? Well, perhaps not the last one.
2 July 2022 at 15:24 #73277@winston In our part of Vancouver Island our street is covered by a canopy of Gary Oaks. Canada Day began for me when I came downstairs, peered out the kitchen window to discover bits of one of the Gary Oaks scattered across the street–the tell-tale sign of an overnight dust-up between two squirrels. The rest of the day passed without incident. In other words, a quiet Canada Day.
24 June 2022 at 03:42 #73257@brewski, @devilishrobby, I confess that I don’t know enough (well, anything actually) about the Trickster, and that my thought about the Celestial Toymaker is a wish rather than a well thought out theory, but I firmly believe that RTD will want to dazzle us all with the 60th. To go back to his appearance in “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot”, perhaps he will give his new Doctor the catchphrase “quel dommage”. Now that would be very RTD!
15 June 2022 at 05:25 #73242Both Mrs. Blenkinsop and I decided today that we needed a diversion and, on looking through the DVD collection, discovered something I had obviously ordered at some point but never watched. “Daleks – Invasion Earth, 2150 A.D.”, with Peter Cushing as the Doctor.
Whoa! It was something…and not something good. It was made in 1966, alongside (but totally separate from) the Hartnell era shows, and (sort of) replicated the utterly brilliant “Dalek Invasion of Earth”, but…it turned a wonderfully dystopian story with an incredibly poignant conclusion (where Susan is left behind by the Doctor) into…a ridiculous paint-by-numbers sci-fi adventure with incredibly silly comedy sequences.
And yet it was so silly that we found ourselves enjoying its ridiculousness.
But, as I said, we were in need of a diversion.
13 June 2022 at 21:06 #73240I am sure RTD has a completely new character in mind for Harris, but there is something about the look of him above that seems to say: The Celestial Toymaker.
13 June 2022 at 20:24 #73239Filming is underway for the 60th anniversary, and in the cast is Neil Patrick Harris (so brilliant in “A Series of Unfortunate Events”) and here he is in costume for his role in Who.
6 June 2022 at 23:01 #73225@jimthefish, @mudlark, @craig, @bluesqueakpip, and all the other UK Whovians I am forgetting, my message above was principally meant for you. For those of us in the rest of the world, he is mainly a buffoon, and a sad reflection of what democracy has come to. Also, most of us are fortunate enough to live in societies without a House of Lords open to all…Russian oligarchs.
6 June 2022 at 21:27 #73224Just reading on the UK news that Harold Saxon survived the vote of no-confidence. My commiserations to all.
3 June 2022 at 02:59 #73214@winston, Damn. My commiserations. But think of it this way; as @janetteb can attest, ultimately the voters will realize what is really important, and vote in favour of the values the Doctor would approve of.
In spite of everything, I still believe that people believe in the things that really matter. Sometimes it just take longer than it should.
2 June 2022 at 19:55 #73213@winston, I really hope things turn out well for you today, but all the signs are more of Ford and the conservatives (I refuse to acknowledge the ridiculous “progressive” they stick on their name).
Instead of watching the news, tonight probably calls for some jelly babies and jammy dodgers while watching some uplifting Doctor Who.
30 May 2022 at 16:00 #73201@janetteb A majority Labor government, and the appalling Barnaby Joyce turfed out as the Head of the Nationals! Amazing times in Oz. I wonder if climate policy might finally move forward.
29 May 2022 at 17:30 #73195I seem to be one of the few these days who post on old Hartnell stories which in this case, was “The Romans”, from 1965.
SPOILER ALERT: I am going to give away some of the plot details, but I do so in the belief that so few people will ever get to see it. (Nonetheless, I am cutting in our wise time lord @jimthefish, who can make a decision on whether it should stay here.)
The 4 part story has Ian and Barbara, along with Vicki, who had only recently replaced Susan, who the Doctor had left on a devastated Earth with her new love, at the very emotional end of “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”.
Perhaps for this reason, “The Romans” was almost whimsical by comparison. The Tardis crashes on Earth in the first century AD in Italy. The Doctor and Vicki become separated from Ian and Barbara who are captured by a slave trader. After a series of adventures, all four (but still separated) find themselves in Rome, at the court of the emperor Nero (who is played as something of a comic buffoon). There is much intrigue involving Nero’s wife trying to poison everyone in sight, Ian fighting as a gladiator, Barbara turned into a glamorous maid-in-waiting, and the Doctor playing a game of double-bluff as he impersonates a visiting musician who is really supposed to be an assassin. It all ends up with the Doctor inadvertently putting into Nero’s mind the idea of burning down Rome (!)
So yes, it is all rather silly, but actually quite enjoyable in a whimsical kind of way. The strange thing about it from my perspective was that, although I had watched all of Hartnell back in Australia in the mid 1960s at the age of 13 or so, I realised as I watched it, that I had never previously seen it. Why? I looked it up to discover that there was a lot of negative feedback when it was screened in reponse to a very funny, but rather risqué, sequence in one of the episodes of Nero chasing the delectable Barbara through the palace corridors like something out of a French farce. And Nero definitely had designs on her. Apparently, this caused outrage among some offended English parents in 1965. Knowing what Australia was like at that time, I would not be at all surprised if the ABC had made a decision to ban it from impressionable minds such as mine.
27 May 2022 at 03:47 #73187@winston You really have been through a lot. So sorry to hear about it, but so glad it is all over. The closest I have been to that was when we flew into Halifax about 10 or 12 years ago; the day after a huge storm had ripped up most of the trees in the city. It was chaos. The thing I do remember was that people took it in their stride, which was inspiring. Take care.
25 May 2022 at 04:51 #73181@winston That sounds really scary. So glad those closest to you came through unscathed. Sorry about the maple too. They are so lovely.
24 May 2022 at 21:16 #73177Over the last few nights Mrs Blenkinsop and I have been catching up on stories from season 10, including “The Pilot”, “Knock, Knock”, “Empress of Mars”, “World Enough and Time” and “The Doctor Falls”. All of them were incredibly enjoyable, and in some ways I might even argue that the Capaldi tenure was at its best in his last season (of course the previous seasons had brilliant stories, but there was so much that was so good in season 10). And last night we watched “Twice Upon a Time”. I don’t think we had seen it since its original airing. What a fabulous story and send-off for Capaldi. The use of the 1st Doctor (and the brilliant performance of David Bradley) was just wonderful. And the way Moffat tied it all together, with flashbacks to the Hartnell Doctor at beginning and end, was like a love letter to the history of the show.
After watching it, we both reflected on the subsequent stupidity of Chibnall’s idea of the Timeless Children/Child, whatever (even Chibnall didn’t seem to know) that relegated the importance of the first Doctor as the first Doctor to the rubbish bin. Time for a calming cup of tea.
23 May 2022 at 03:04 #73173Thanks for that @mudlark. Incredibly poignant. No child should be subjected to that.
21 May 2022 at 15:04 #73161@janetteb – Excellent news! A minority government, but that still represents hope. And some justice for Grace Tame.
19 May 2022 at 23:54 #73151@jimthefish The other suggestion I read about Yasmin Finney’s Rose is that she could be Bel and Vinder’s child. I find a certain appeal in that, but everything so far seems to indicate that RTD is only including characters from RTD’s tenure. I hope that is not true, as there is a lot more to the history of Who than the RTD years. If it was up to me, I would bring back the Zarbi. But that probably demonstrates why nobody would leave it up to me…
17 May 2022 at 23:12 #73145@jimthefish Thanks for the new page. It is true that the old one was getting rather full, and at the rate that news stories about the next RTD incarnation are emerging, this page will fill up quickly, I suspect. Indeed, I have been reading so much about it in the last couple of days (but not from the BBC, so not for this page) I am actually feeling a bit sorry for Chibnall and Jodie, whose final story seems to be completely overshadowed by all the announcements about RTD’s return.
17 May 2022 at 16:04 #73140I feel a bit like Data when he is trying to access the Borg mainframe…”Processing, processing…”
It is starting to feel like RTD is going to plunge the new Doctor into the alphabet soup of Doctor Who, but with the proviso that it is the RTD Who universe he is plunged into.
15 May 2022 at 21:13 #73136The Tennant Doctor and Donna Noble??!! Well, I suppose they were both RTD’s creations. I cannot imagine how he will use them. But then again, I am also finding it hard to believe that we have to wait 18 months before we see the first RTD show.
12 May 2022 at 00:48 #73123But another Scot!!???!!!???
Where’s the diversity BBC????Ha!! Brilliant!
You have been gone too long, my friend.
11 May 2022 at 04:37 #73117@dentarthurdent Yes I take on board all you say. Growing up in Australia in the 50s and 60s the impact of England was always there. I know from friends it was the case in NZ as well. I often recall the joke about NZ at the time that so many men looked like Sir Edmund Hillary and so many women wore pleated tartan skirts with big safety pins on the side, and seemingly everyone drove a Morris Minor.
I have always thought that one of the characteristics of countries like Australia, NZ and Canada back then was that they defined themselves by reference to somewhere else. For OZ and NZ it was the UK. For Canada in those years it was a mixture of the UK and the USA. (But then there was Quebec, of course.)
But it was that relational dimension (ie, defining one’s own culture in relation to the colonial origins) of those Commonwealth countries that I still believe informs the origins of Doctor Who.
9 May 2022 at 22:27 #73110Was just reading an interesting article in the Guardian about the casting of Gatwa as the new Doctor, and the connection with the Englishness of the show. In the article it is pointed out that from the very beginning of the show, it was created, not by those who represented some idealized notion of “authentic” Englishness, but by those whose idea of “Englishness” was fundamentally informed by their “outsider” status. And crucially, they came, not from the Anglican Home Counties, but from a diverse British Empire/Commonwealth.
The show was created by Sydney Newman, a Canadian, the first stories were written by Anthony Coburn, an Australian, the first episodes were directed by Waris Hussein, from British India, and who was gay, and the show was produced by Verity Lambert, who was Jewish.
I started to wonder about how this informed the Englishness of the show itself. Could one see the show (particularly the early Hartnell years that set the tone of what followed) in relation to the British Empire/Commonwealth? In other words, could the travels through space and time, to exotic and potentially threatening worlds be something of a representation of the British Empire/Commonwealth? I am not suggesting direct parallels, but rather that the “Englishness” of the show can only be understood by accepting that the very idea of “England” is meaningless without accepting that it has always been shaped, informed and expressed through the diversity of the Empire/Commonwealth.
Will ponder more over a cup of tea (darjeeling tea, of course).
9 May 2022 at 15:33 #73108@dentarthurdent Thanks for the link to the different Tardis consoles. I had completely forgotten about Season 14, even though I would have watched it at the time. Come to think of it, I have a feeling the opposite sex was occupying more of my attention than the Doctor around then…
8 May 2022 at 19:35 #73096Have now watched a couple of things with Ncuti Gatwa and he certainly projects charm and charisma, but have not seen a sense of authority yet. Does the Doctor require authority? To someone of my age, who remembers watching Hartnell as a child, probably. That was also part of the reason I responded to Matt Smith. Did Tennant convey authority? Less sure about that. And Tennant was RTD’s Doctor, as Ncuti Gatwa will be. Time will tell.
8 May 2022 at 14:54 #7308930 April 2022 at 16:36 #73074Just finished watching the first season of “Slow Horses” with Gary Oldman. A really enjoyable and excellently plotted spy series. It is based on the first novel in a series by Mick Herron. Was pleasantly surprised to discover at the end of the last show a teaser trailer for the second season (with the same cast) based on the second novel in the series. Obviously, I cannot reveal the twists and turns, but suffice to say that the show continues a sort of vaguely Le Carre tradition of the immorality of insiders vs. the morality of outsiders. But with a bit more humour than one finds in Le Carre. Highly recommended. Here in Canada it is available on Apple TV.
28 April 2022 at 00:41 #73069@devilishrobby, @nerys, An interesting thought, but I can’t really cast Chibnall as quite that Machiavellian. As I watched the shows slowly (ever so slowly) turn up months apart I felt that there might have been a more promising three years of stories if COVID had not reared its ugly head. So, on the one hand, Chibnall was unlucky. But on the other hand, I always felt that his ideas were undercooked. His first season seemed to only have the idea of not using traditional monsters. That’s really not much of a unifying theme to set his tenure apart (and he realised he had to abandon that anyway. Rather, we had a soap opera theme of “the fam”, which, if I am honest, I hated. Then there was “the timeless child”. But he really did not make much of it. It seemed to be more hints that a carefully constructed narrative arc (compare it to how Moffat used Amy’s story in his first season). And when the Timeless Child trope did not really go anywhere, he cooks up the Flux. And frankly, that didn’t really go anywhere. And with his last year he has no theme, just Daleks and Sea Devils. Ultimately, I think I would compare the Chibnall years to the John Nathan Turner years. They had both become a sad parody of the glory days of Who. Now we have to wait till November 2023 to see if the show can recapture some of the wonder with the return of RTD.
23 April 2022 at 05:54 #73050@jimthefish Yeah, I can see where you are coming from, and it was a slight episode. But, for me, it was still a fun (albeit) slight episode. Regarding the Doctor telling Yaz how great she was, this was someone trying to break bad news to someone she cared for. Should she have said that on a sliding scale of truly great figures from human history that she had met that Yaz was way down the list? Of course not. The Doctor was trying to break the news to Yaz with some consideration.
My main criticism off the show was that it was so slight, even if fun. In the original series it was the type of episode that Troughton or Pertwee would have done between one week and the next. But in the Chibnall years (the long, long, slow years), it was all we were offered after a 6 month wait.
So…November until the finale, and then a full year (!!) until RTD re-invents it.
Before I sign off, a shout-out to the brilliant emperor @craig, for keeping the site going as enthusiasm has declined.
But I know there are people out there who are still waiting for the opportunity to see the episode (yes, I too, remember living in Australia), and it will be great to hear from all of you.
19 April 2022 at 02:49 #73025Has everyone deserted the site? Where is @jimthefish ? Where is @bluesqueakpip ?
18 April 2022 at 03:10 #73021OK, on the one hand, I really liked it. It was a swashbuckling adventure, that looked really great, and all the actors worked. On the other hand, (and I tend to think of this as a Chibnall issue) why does everyone, but mainly the Doctor, have to be constantly explaining what has either happened, or is about to happen? The last time I saw the Sea Devils was with the Pertwee Doctor, and he didn’t have to tell me what had happened…it just happened!
In terms of the love life of the companions (and the implications for the final special), the scene with Yaz was fine (although I don’t know how she is going to cope with the loss of the Doctor) but it was optimistic that Dan made contact with Diane again.
Was it strangely silly that the Sea Devils had developed technology to have flying 18th century ships? Well probably, but it did look cool!
But you have to watch the teaser for the final Jodie special at the end of the episode, with the return of…???
13 April 2022 at 16:29 #7300211 April 2022 at 23:55 #72992@nerys The other TV show I have been watching (on Apple) is the spy mystery “Slow Horses” with Gary Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas. And I am really enjoying it. Gary Oldman is very good as the irascible head of a group of agents who have been demoted from MI5 for past mistakes to a grim office where they are delegated menial tasks, but who are drawn into solving a potential terror event. In terms of approach, imagine a cross between John le Carre and Armando Iannucci.
10 April 2022 at 23:03 #72989@nerys Yes, I tend to agree. I was intrigued by the beginning, and up until they arrive in 2024. But when they started to cram all the actors from the future into the past, and and invented a Picard family history, the story seemed to crowded and sort of…disingenuous. There is nothing like the episode “Nepenthe” in this series.
3 April 2022 at 17:46 #72983Trailer for “The Legend of the Sea Devils”
31 March 2022 at 18:16 #72979The Legend of the Sea Devils screens April 17. Time to stock up on the jammy dodgers, or jelly beans.
22 March 2022 at 14:22 #72959Looks like there is a future Doctor out there who is not Hugh Grant, after all.
20 March 2022 at 21:16 #72947I agree that the biggest impediment would be the time commitment, particularly given the number of movie roles he is in at the moment. But, who knows; RTD has worked with him before on “A Very English Scandal”. And I have heard that RTD has very big plans for Who, and he might regard an A-lister as essential to those plans. And Grant can do all the aspects of the Doctor–humour, cunning, authority, deception. I think he would make a pretty cool Doctor, actually.
20 March 2022 at 20:28 #72945Well, was just reading that apparently Hugh Grant is in discussion with the BBC about taking over as the Doctor. I will leave that bit of news hanging…
Of course, it was recorded first in the Mirror…
17 March 2022 at 16:55 #72936Just sticking up my hand to confirm my continued existence (not drowning, but waving–to turn the phrase on its head). Life is quiet here on the island. The price of petrol has gone through the roof (not sure if Putin is to blame, but I’ll happily blame him anyway). And not a million miles from the subject of Putin, I was just reading that the British Film Institute will be releasing (for the first time) the 1954 British TV adaptation of George Orwell’s “1984” on DVD with a young Peter Cushing as Winston Smith. It has a great reputation in books on British television, and I have been awaiting this release for some time. I shall be putting aside my pennies for its release next month.
7 March 2022 at 02:36 #72924Just reading that the penultimate JW Who story is to air at Easter. Hurrah!
But have no more information. Am overloaded with information about Ukraine, which makes me horribly pessimistic. Would really like to read more stories about Who to make me more optimistic.
3 March 2022 at 02:52 #72919@dentarthurdent, Have just dragged myself away from looking at awful news about Ukraine in order to put up a robust defence of early “Danger Man”. I loved that show. Still love it. It went through two iterations–the early 30 minute episodes and then the later 50 minute episodes. I would argue that the early ones were better than the later ones (some exceptions, of course). Why? For a start, they managed to pack so much into 30 minutes, that I was always astounded and impressed. I loved the focus on stories set in parts of the post-colonial sites of the British empire. They were in no way nostalgic for the Empire, but, in a popular way, designed for a TV audience, they tried to tell stories that that were surprisingly cosmopolitan for the time.
The show was the brainchild of Ralph Smart, an Australian who, like so many others at the time, gravitated to London for more opportunities. He was, I think, acutely aware of the impact of the decline of the British empire after WW2, and the rise of independence movements. And that interest is reflected in the show. I could go on, but, in my own outpost of the post-imperial British empire, dinner approaches…
30 January 2022 at 21:08 #72858@janetteb Loved your story about the Tardis salt and pepper shakers. It prompted me to look up from the couch in the living room only to see the Tardis cookie jar sitting on a bookcase next to the fireplace. Upstairs is my mini Tardis USB port connected to my laptop. And a recent arrival is the Tardis backpack (a frivolous, lockdown-induced, purchase on Amazon). We have decided to repurpose it as our household emergency packet (containing flashlight, batteries, drinking water, waterproof matches, candles, etc) that we are all encouraged to keep handy, as the island is potentially vulnerable to earthquakes. It seemed appropriate that if we do need to survive disaster at some point, that it should be with the assistance of a Tardis.
24 January 2022 at 21:20 #72848@devilishrobby, I read the Radio Times article, and it seems clear the rumour was more of a fan speculation than anything else. I would be quite surprised if Tennant actually came back full-time. But a multi-Doctor show on 23 Nov 2023…? That seems to be highly likely. As for when an announcement of a new Doctor is going to be made, I know that JW has long since filmed her last special, but that doesn’t mean the brief appearance of the new Doctor could not still be added; even as a post-credit sequence.
20 January 2022 at 04:51 #72835Many of you will have seen this. But it is so brilliant it deserves another look.
16 January 2022 at 14:36 #72824@janetteb I wish I could say I saw it on the big screen, but we watched it at home, courtesy of one of the very few video stores left. (I cannot see either of the two ageing Blenkinsops inside a cinema anytime soon.) It was still visually stunning.
16 January 2022 at 05:50 #72820Just finished watching “Dune”. We both thought it was really good. And when I say really good I mean that it told a complicated story (i.e. given the novel if you have read it) surprisingly clearly, was visually spectacular, and with all the actors giving really good performances, especially the young guy playing Paul Atreides, which is a difficult role to do justice to. Anyway, a Blenkinsop recommendation!
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