I bring you ideas!

Also from RPGnet, only the registered can read the play-by-post boards, so I asked to repost this plot hook by Gleaming Terrier on a Doctor Who PBP recruitment thread:

Oh, and as for a Christmas special, if I ever get to run a campaign, I'm having the players arrive on the planet of Raskatchewaron, on the eve of their Great Awakening, a singularity-type event which ushers in the Golden Millennium, as the computer creates scientific wonders and leaves the people free to create art the likes have never been seen in all of existence. Of course, the Time Lord forgot that the beginning didn't go off quite as planned: the computer decided that those detrimental to society were going to be removed, to allow everyone else to flourish. Of course, such genocide can't be allowed to proceed...

"Making a List, Checking it Twice..."

Happy Hogmanay! Or for those in the future, Happy New Year!

Ten Thoughts

Bleeding Cool looks at The Snowmen and partially reviews the episode but also points out connections. I hadn't made the link to the Dalek Asylum being snowy...

Happy Hogmanay!

A new Google Doodle links to the year's Google Doodles and shows what looks like a fun party in the non-time of The Big Bang.

The Doctor Who New Year Special

SFX’s Jayne Nelson imagines a Doctor Who New Year special partying with the Doctor chez Pond among other genre communities, like the Serenity crew in Firefly if you hit “Previously” or Bag End if you hit “Next”.

In reality we’ve only had one New Year special, the mostly lacking in festive cheer The End Of Time Part Two which was actually set on Boxing Day. Classic Hogmanay or New Year’s Day premieres include the one after The Feast Of Steven which was nearly a New Year special but had a bit of the Dalek plan plot. Aside from that we have The Highlanders, and the opening episodes of Day Of The Daleks and The Face Of Evil. None of them festive, per se, although the Third Doctor got stuck into the wine and cheese...

So what might a New Year special be like? The “midnight kiss” plotline Jayne suggested certainly works and sounds like it could make for a fun adventure, chasing all around the world being pursued by monsters from Christmas Island to Midway via Sydney, London and New York.

And of course, there’s always the countdown leading to something apocalyptic - see the Eighth Doctor’s entire canonical tenure, aka Enemy Within.

I’d be tempted to throw in a reference to Gregorian versus Julian calendars and the eleven missing days (I believe this features in the New Adventures books) and how the modern Western human calendar is both arbitrary and important...

Terror Of The RPGnet Links

Nathaniel Torson does a Q&A on the Time Traveller’s Companion.

Stamps Of The Doctor

A big gallery of the Doctor Who anniversary stamps.

They’re all first class stamps, in case you’re wondering why it starts with Hartnell marked “1st” but then Troughton isn’t 2nd...

Oculus

And for those missing Karen Gillan... a first photo from Oculus.

Which is about an evil mirror. And by the creator of Oculus: The Man With The Plan, a thirty-minute short I saw years ago. If so... we’re in for a scary treat.

Orphan Black

BBC America's first homebrew genre show, on the way in March. Wonder when BBC Not America gets to see it...

The Dalek Project

The Dalek Project

Second of BBC Books’ original graphic novels, it was going to be the first (starring the Tenth Doctor) but a particular episode got in the way. So now it stars the Eleventh Doctor and directly references the episode in question.

Past here, we enter the realm of spoilers...

I've mentioned a stop-motion episode before...

So I’ll just link to Alisa Stern’s How The Doctor Puppet Saved Christmas here.

A happy Christmas to all of you at home!

"I never know why, only... who."

The Snowmen

Well, that there was a whole proper episode. And then a “what? what? what?!” type of an ending. I enjoyed it, and look forward to understanding it in a few months' time...

(If you want specifics, SFX have got your back. And Bleeding Cool got your preview. New Cybermen! More Victorian adventures! Celia Imrie! Liam Cunningham! And Bigger On The Inside has your thorough analysis!)

And the musical leitmotif as the Doctor went undercover... hmm...

Very trippy new titles too - complete with slit-scan diamond tunnel effect and faint-but-spottable Doctor face in one of the vortex clouds.

Merry Christmas (if applicable in your spatio-temporal coordinates)!

Devil In The Smoke

The Lizard Woman, The Troll and The Parlour Maid get their spinoff, at least in book form...

A bigger review from Adam Tinworth.

(Hmm... since we have a detective story featuring a Sontaran among the investigators, will the classic “knocked out with a single strike from behind” bit happen to him?)

Also: Sontaran Carols.

Time!

The Time Traveller’s Companion is up for pre-order and I’m linking to the RPGnet announcement because, scroll down...

“Yep. The 50th anniversary is around the corner and the game line is under full steam to get all 11 Doctor books out next year. I’m doing a final proof on the First Doctor this week, actually.”

Edit: TTC PDF downloadable.

Dagnabbit

I see from the latest trailer for The Snowmen that another of my monster ideas has been taken. Oh well, it's validation it was a good idea...