Friday 31 July 2015

Happy 50th birthday to J.K. Rowling, who helped Martha help Shakespeare save the world, nearly wrote an episode and was nearly the star of a Christmas special!

Thursday 30 July 2015

Sunday 26 July 2015

Titan Doctor Who 9.2 writer's commentary

Writer Cav Scott explains the story behind the story of issue 2 of the Ninth Doctor serial from Titan Comics. Contains ALL THE SPOILERS. ALL OF THEM. :)

Saturday 18 July 2015

The Doctor's hopes and fears

Talking to io9 at Comic-Con:

Peter Capaldi feels that the Doctor has “a complicated moral position, in that he definitely wanted to help people, and wanted to save the universe, but often there would be a wake of suffering and pain. And he thought, ‘Can I live with that? Am I responsible for that?’ And eventually, he realized that is who he is.” But now the Doctor has realized what a gift he has, because “the universe is mine to play in,” says Capaldi. He can “range all the way in time and space.” And even though the Doctor is 2,500 years old, “life is still short.”

Steven Moffat adds “I don’t think the Doctor ever stops asking the question, ‘Am I a good man?’, because that’s what good men do.”

Michelle Gomez talks about making Missy likable, and Jenna Coleman about Clara going headlong into adventures.

Thursday 9 July 2015

Doctor Who Series 9 Trailer

Stop what you’re doing and click this link. CLICK IT. Unless you want to avoid spoilers, of course.

Dimensions In Lego

Peter Capaldi as the Lego Doctor in the Lego Dimensions video game, as he and Clara team up with Batman, Gandalf and Wildstyle. And Doc Brown. And Homer Simpson. And...

Wednesday 8 July 2015

One Minute Time Machine

Like a save point for the real world - a time machine that takes you back one minute, and no further. Far enough to redo an awkward conversation, for one thing. NSFW language. (Coming from Jimmy from NCIS of all people!)

See also Life Is Strange for a more serious examination of the issues and possibilities such small-scale time travel can bring up.

Tuesday 7 July 2015

The Third Doctor and Ultraman

Today is the birthday of Jon Pertwee, the Third Doctor, and as a big interactive Google Doodle celebrates, and Eiji Tsuburaya, special effects master of Godzilla and creator of Ultraman. (And also Rose Bailey, sometime contributor to this blog and the Doctor in a PBP game I once ran!)

I suspect that the Third Doctor and Ultraman would have gotten on pretty well. Both great scientists using their advanced knowledge - and martial arts skills - to defend the nations they lived on from a variety of terrifying and somewhat rubbery monsters.

For instance, this handsome devil is Mefilas, whose motive for invading Earth is to show other aliens that he can do it better than they can. Now there’s a UNIT story waiting to happen. And his plan was to trick a representative human into trading the planet away, which sounds better than many. The original episode title The Forbidden Words would totally work too...

Friday 3 July 2015

Back To Back To The Future

Back To The Future was first released thirty years ago today. Of course, the most significant date in 2015 is October 21st, when Doc and Marty arrive to help his not-yet-conceived children and he acquires a hoverboard. (Still waiting...) Anyway, the original is pointedly filled with 1950s nostalgia while also undermining plenty of it, while the 80s still looks fairly normal apart from the bodywarmer. Compare retro-80s stories being made now. And plenty of then-modern 50s films, for that matter. How do you evoke an era without overdoing it?