Resolution Revelation

Well, gosh. Whoda thunk?

A Christmas Special! Of sorts.

A TARDIS Yule log, courtesy of BBC America. While the UK pulls out all the stops for Christmas Day TV, a recording of a log fire is one of the all-time classic Christmas specials in the US...

And a happy Christmas to all of you at home!

Gifts from Paul Cornell

From his Twelve Blogs Of Christmas, Paul Cornell imagines Christmas specials for the first seven Doctors. Need plots? Have plots.

And also a free Hammer House Of Podcast commentary track with Paul and Lizbeth Myles for Dr. Who And The Daleks, including Paul’s impression of a Dalek artist and Lizbeth’s appreciation of tickertape, plus the favourite Hammers of a variety of artists.

The 13th Doctor figure is out!

Just before Christmas is better than just after, I feel.

Doctor Who RPG Bundle Of Holding

A big deal on the inside, with 10% of proceeds to Children In Need.

Leaving the TARDIS 2 U

Spent my entire commute today writing in my head the farewell speech Prince gives in the traditional Doctor Who regeneration finale before he regenerates into Janelle Monae. So that's where my head's at.

John Rogers on Twitter

"... heh ... so *this* is what ... it sounds ... like ... when doves --"

A small Doctor Who Christmas special

Twas the night before Christmas, a minute.

See You Yesterday

See You Yesterday, a new film produced by Spike Lee, about creating a time machine to save a loved on from police brutality.

Adventure hooks

Caused by the news of no new series in 2019, an RPG.net thread of plot hooks limited to plausible budgets and featuring the Thirteenth Doctor and friends.

The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

“Travel hopefully.”

Neural Net Titles Of The Daleks

One solution for a lack of new Who in 2019 - get a computer to write it!

... Maybe not.

Thanks to Adrian Tchaikovsky via Paul Cornell on the Twitter for the link.

Although I’m amazed nobody’s actually done The Daleks Of The Daleks.

My 1500th post here!

Looks like the next series will be early 2020. Hmph.

It Takes You Away

“We’d know if we were vampires, right?”

Fan work of the wilderness years

Radio Times looks back at the time of Wartime, the Stranger, and more, and talks to some of those involved whose names are more familiar now.

Happy 55th Anniversary!

Fifty-five years!

Kerblam!

“If you want it, Kerblam it!”

I did rather like putting this one out on the weekend before Black Friday.

Apparently this is the first episode with an exclamation point in the title. This seems like a shocking oversight.

Controversial opinion...

While a Christmas special is the jewel in the crown of British TV, I think New Year’s Day fits Doctor Who better than Christmas.

(Added suspicion: it’s a way around the promise to have no classic monsters in 2018...)

A 5.5 inch 13 figure

Coming out in time for, uh, two weeks after Christmas?

The Thirteenth Doctor from Warlord Games

With her TARDIS.

The Tsuranga Conundrum

“There aren’t enough kind people.”

The Prisoner Of Eternity

The first published adventure for Beautiful Anomalies is out now! Featuring (a) ancient evil and (b) a reboot of Time Team.

Arachnids In The U.K.

Giant spiders. Can I be excused if I have a note?

Rosa

“You can walk away.”
“Rosa Parks can’t.”
“Rosa Parks doesn’t.”

Rosa gets big hero camera pans and music as well as the Doctor.

It felt very much like an episode of Timeless - a story about people trying to manipulate history, specifically American history.

The Ghost Monument

“I’m on a spaceship. Okay.”

Oooh, oner in the Cerebos cockpit.

That was a quick special guest Art Malik.

Robots in camo gear, bit Destiny rather than Call Of Duty, but then I would say that.

Coming soon...

... some people! Some of them in historical costumes. Is Alan Cumming playing James the Sixth and First maybe?

The Woman Who Fell To Earth

“Don’t be scared. All of this is new to you and new can be scary.”

"Half an hour ago, I was a white-haired Scotsman."

The first clip!

“It’s on the tip of my... whab dap?”
“Tongue?”
“Tongue!”

Google at 20

Many happy returns! Don’t be evil.

Mister Rogers

A Google Doodle in the US for the 51st anniversary of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a public television series about someone who always seeks to help.

"Let's get a shift on."

New trailer, just over a minute. Spaceships! Shadows! She’s in charge, bro!

“Sometimes I see things need fixing, do what I can.”

Getting close now...

A wallpaper-friendly poster and blurbs for the first two episodes...

Joanna Baillie

A Google Doodle for Joanna Baillie, born 256 years ago today, a Scottish playwright (and descendant of William Wallace) who I must admit I had never heard of before. She had some boosting from Sir Walter Scott, and inspired Lord Byron, among others.

Sunday, October 7th

The Woman Who Fell To Earth leads the new series, on Sundays. Likely a solid call after the last series which may not have started at the same time twice.

Since my games society meets on Sundays it’s not great for me, but, eh.

Lucie Miller is coming back

io9 describes her as the best companion you’ve probably never heard of... they really should have said the best you’ve never seen.

Doctor Who Infinity

Motion comics and puzzle games, starring a variety of Doctors and companions and enemies in different stories.

A Doctor Who RPG Stream

Thanks to the announcement of new shows from Geek & Sundry at Gen Con, I discovered that their Star Trek Adventures series Shield Of Tomorrow has finished... and the GM mentioned a previous Doctor Who RPG game. So something to look through the backlog of!

The Time Traveller's Wife, the series

The Time Traveller’s Wife to be adapted for HBO by Steven Moffat. In the interview he acknowledges having been influenced by it before.

(And will the title role get as weirdly typecast by it as Rachel McAdams?)

Is that...?

Jodie Whittaker sneaking on stage to model the Doctor’s outfit in the Comic-Con fashion show for the official replica clothing line from Her Universe was delightful.

"All of this is new to me..."

First footage trailer from the Comic-Con panel. And we have... yellow sonic screwdriver light!

And an alien planet and some horse riding.

Right! This is gonna be fun!

The universe is calling

Now that the teaser trailer has aired on BBC One, here it is.

And in showing the Doctor making little changes in her future companions’ lives in a flash, it makes the Doctor look like an artron-energy-powered speedster. Which I presume is just artistic licence... though with this show, you never can tell! :)

"I pretended to defuse something..."

Entertainment Weekly puts Doctor Who on the cover and talks to Jodie Whittaker about her audition and more, as well as giving us an early look at her companions. Note: self-playing video. Boo, hiss.

The Thirteenth Doctor toys

Various sites have photos of a variety of inevitable stylised pop culture ornaments, a costume from Her Universe, and a 12” scale figure from Character Options. No sign of anything for their classic 5” scale line, or their Star Wars style 3.75” scale.

Apparently we’re also getting Bill in 5” scale this summer, among various new and variant figures for it. In the UK they’re exclusive to B&M. So I have to find one of those, I guess.

Edit several weeks later: apparently you can get Bill from Amazon. If she’s in stock.

We made it! London, 1965!

The Twitch marathon has produced some unexpected and delightful results. Ian and Barbara getting so much love.

Timeless season two

Well, that was quite a thing at the end there.

Classic Doctor Who on Twitch

Today, Twitch begins a seven-week endurance run/celebration of all things old-school Doctor Who, live streaming over 500 episodes worth of adventures in Time and Space. As reported by io9, with some suggestions for specific stories to check out.

Wedding Of The Century Part II

I did a royal wedding plot hook last time.

Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trips

Big Finish are running their Short Trips open call again, in memory of Paul Spragg.

Karl Marx

Today marks the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, whose ideas (and the misinterpretation of his ideas) had a huge effect on history starting around a century later.

Georges Méliès

Sometimes Google go all in with their Doodles. To celebrate George Méliès they produced a cartoon that can be viewed in VR as well as showing the 360 view in Youtube and I don’t even know how that works.

World Book Night

It’s World Book Night. Read a book. It doesn’t have to be about night. Necessarily.

Do you use sound effects in game?

The BBC just made 16,016 available for non-commercial use.

Rose

It was thirteen years ago today that Rose Tyler met a mysterious stranger...

You're going when? And wearing what?

Spare a thought for the time patrol wardrobe department.

Stephen Hawking's time travel party

Stephen Hawking held a party in 2009, but the public invitation went out the day after, inviting time travellers. He said none showed up... but why did they miss it?

To add another theory, obviously they knew to stay away because history records that they did...

Daylight Saving Stories

And not all about time travel!

International Women's Day

Among other celebrations of International Women’s Day, Amelia Earhart is now available in Barbie format. Now to run Doctor Who adventures starring others in the range like Frida Kahlo (who has already appeared in DWM), Katherine Johnson (featured in an episode of Timeless), Ava DuVernay (director of A Wrinkle In Time), Olympic boxer Nicola Adams...

Who Against Guns

A charity fundraiser for gun safety, earning commentaries on The War Games.

Here comes tomorrow

First Doctor Who Magazine cover with the new logo!

Which adventures from other RPGs would work for Doctor Who?

Which adventures from other RPGs would work for Doctor Who? I chickened out of looking at all 400+ Call Of Cthulhu options.

Ghosts In The Machine

Rose Bailey used a Stormbringer adventure for her ongoing Doctor Who game, and the results sound like a lot of fun.

The New Logo

The animated reveal for the new logo.

Radio Times article

Update rulebooks, jotters, tattoos...

Want that DOTD extract?

A Second Target For Tommy is in pre-order now, and will only be available to those who order.

An extract from the Ninth Doctor script of Day Of The Doctor

... is included in a book of Whovian material coming out for charity.

How to write a multi-Doctor crossover

A look at writing the latest multi-Doctor miniseries from Titan Comics. Which nearly featured Cthulhu.

Wilder Penfield

A Google Doodle we didn’t get here: the 127th birthday of Wilder Penfield, Canadian immigrant neurosurgeon, famous for this work on mapping the brain and its sensory functions.

His method for treating epileptic seizure was made into a short film that kicked off “I smell burnt toast!” as shorthand for oncoming brain trauma and a fairly standard joke about the subject - I used it myself a couple weeks ago, because I did actually smell burning.

The Next Day addendum

DarkStarling came up with intriguing spins on several more of the titles here.

North Korea as a setting

Tim Knight challenged me thus:
I challenge you to come up with a modern Doctor Who scenario set in North Korea ... that doesn't feature Tr*mp or some 'twist' like Kim Jong-un is a slitheen ;-)

I think Team America: World Police pretty much covered that twist. :D

For North Korea specifically, the Doctor would normally find a pretext to overthrow a dictatorship or unite a divided people, but since we can’t just do that in real life...

Kim Jong-il went after advanced technologies, which makes for obvious “unscrupulous people try to exploit aliens and/or dangerously unfamiliar technology” stories, but those are indeed obvious.

My usual trick here is looking up local history and mythology - which in this case led me to discover a South Korean hit TV show with Train To Busan star Gong Yoo playing an immortal protector sometimes called the Great And Lonely God. So if you want a Korean version of the Doctor that’s an option too!

Let’s focus on something at ground level, with relatable people on all levels.

The Iron Eater
Miners going deep in the North Korean mountains find their equipment breaking down, apparently corroding overnight. The overseer cracks down to increase productivity - himself worried about the response from the capital if the mine’s quotas fall too far behind. A veteran miner old enough to know the old myths of monsters refers to Bulgasari, a monster who eats iron - and in exchange it fights nightmares.

Is an old, forgotten bargain still in effect? Can the travellers and the miners find a way to communicate with the creature and find out why it’s sabotaging the dig before the central authorities move in? And is there something worse waiting in the depths?

(The creature also appears in a film Kim Jong-il had made by kidnapped South Korean director Shin Sang-ok.)

Fourteen plots from David Bowie's The Next Day

For David Bowie’s birthday, riffs on the titles from the album preceding ★, The Next Day:

Jodie Whittaker on the importance of the Doctor

“There’s nothing unattainable about me. I don’t look like I’ve been carved out of rock.” Unlike so many roles, the Doctor could be anyone.