Who News Last Alteration: Thursday 15 April 2021 This page aims to relect on the continuing evolution of Doctor Who through the book and audio series, new project development, and other related news. We won't try to clutter the pages with too much information, but will direct you to other resources on the Net with full details where applicable. There is now also a general WHO-Link section that provides links to the many external webpages relating to Doctor Who! It is with deep sadness we report on the death of Verity Lambert last night,
on the eve of Doctor Who's 44th Anniversary and just a few days shy of her
72nd birthday. Verity Lambert was the first producer of Doctor Who, and will be remembered for bringing us a television series which is as popular today as it was back in 1963 when it started. Awarded an OBE in 2002, she was also due to receive the Working Title Film lifetime achievement award on 7th December. BBC Fiction contrioller and current series executive producer Jane Tranter: "Verity was a total one-off. She was a magnificently, madly, inspirationally talented drama producer. During her long and brilliant career there was no form of drama that was beyond her reach and that she didn't excel at. From the early episodes of Doctor Who to the still to be transmitted comedy drama Love Soup, via Widows, Minder, gbh, Eldorado and Jonathan Creek (to name but the tiniest handful of credits) - Verity was a phenomon. She made the television drama genre utterly her own. She was deaf to the notion of compromise and there wasn't an actor, writer, director or television executive she worked with who didn't regard her with admiration, respect and awe. She will be hugely missed but her legacy lives on in the dramas she made, and in the generations of eager young programme-makers she has inspired." And from Russell T Davies: "There are a hundred people in Cardiff working on Doctor Who and millions of viewers, in particular many children, who love the programme that Verity helped create. This is her legacy and we will never forget that." The UK digital channel UKTV Drama
will be running a Doctor Who weekend on the 14th-15th July, and as part
of the proceedings will feature a vote for your favourite Doctor. You will be able to vote from their website between the 29th June and 13th July. Without much fanfare UKTV Gold are showing the 20th Century series of
Doctor Who once more! On a positive note this run seems to be daily,
though more oddly the order so far is:
UKTV Gold appear to have (finally) bought the rights to show the TV
Movie as it's on tomorrow morning at 7.15am with a repeat very late
tomorrow night/early monday morning at 3.50am and a final showing on
Monday 23rd at 3.20pm.
Also on Monday 23rd Series 2 finally comes to UKTV Gold
(having finished it's current run on BBC THREE on wednesday
18th) with a daily repeat run starting with New Earth at 7pm. submitted by Richard
The Restoration Team website
have details on the Return of the Master boxed set, featuring Anthony
Ainley's debut in the role of the Doctor's arch-enemy. Special features for the stories include:
The DVD of The Sontaran Experiment has been announced as due to be released
on the 9th October. This is the first of the "lightweight" DVDs with fewer
extras in comparison with the normal releases such as The Mark Of The Rani. It will feature:
BBC Announcement of the DVD Restoration Team article on producing the DVD As mentioned last week the next story after The Hand of Fear to be
released on DVD will be the sixth Doctor adventure The Mark of the Rani;
the single disk is expected to be released on 4th September. Features on this release include a commentary by Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant and Kate O'Mara; deleted and extended scenes from the story; isolated music score, plus alternative score for episode one by composer John Lewis; a 40 minute documentary on the making of the story called Lords and Luddites; a location feature on Blist's Hill Victorian museum where much of the story was filmed; a Blue Peter feature on Ironbridge Gorge; a Saturday Superstore appearance by Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant (with Anthony Ainley on the phone!); PDFs of the Radio Times listing, and the 1985 annual; and the usual production notes and gallery. The BBFC now have listed episode one of first Doctor
story The Chase, cleared with no cuts required.
Sci-Fi Online
suggests that this will be for a Christmas-time
release. However, Steve Roberts of the
Restoration Team reported that
this was actually down to confusion within BBC Worldwide during the original
planning for episodes in the Sun giveaway, before it was realised that the
rights issues over the Beatles clip would make this too difficult and
Day of Armageddon substituted in its place. The BBFC also shows other single episodes recently classified and listed for 2Entertain, including episode one of Spearhead from Space, Vengeance on Varos, and The Robots of Death - this might simply be a reassignment to the company from BBC Worldwide. Sci-Fi Online also reports that there will be a Cybermen boxed set for the beginning of next year, containing The Invasion and Revenge of the Cybermen. This follows on from the news last week about the expected releases of The Hand of Fear and The Mark of the Rani later this year. We've also heard that another future release might be the two-part The Sontaran Experiment, which could be a "vanilla" disk at a cheaper RRP than the usual releases (~£9.99). The Season 14 story The Hand of Fear has now been announced as the
story to follow Inferno on DVD. Being the final story to
feature the character of Sarah Jane Smith, it isn't too surprising to
see the main special feature of the release to be about her: Changing
Times is a fifty minute documentary following the relationship between
the Doctor and his "best friend". Other features include a commentary from the lead actors Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen, plus Judith Paris (Eldrad), Bob Baker (co-writer), and Philip Hinchcliffe (producer); the appearance of Tom and Lis on the first edition of Swap Shop from October 1976; PDFs of the 1977 Doctor Who annual, and Radio Times listings for the story; and the usual gallery etc. The next DVD release after this is expected to be The Mark of the Rani. If you'd have felt starved of Doctor Who in recent weeks, then the lead up
to the new series broadcast would be enough to cause an overload, with
consecutive days of Who from tomorrow up to Good Friday!
![]() Meanwhile, the Independent this morning reports on how the BBC has defended the decision to publish the article, even though it is effectively advertising a product which is not an official BBC publication in a BBC magazine. Update Thurs: The BBC have reported that investigations into the publication as to whether it "breached editorial guidelines" continue. BBC Worldwide
have announced a whole range of merchandise for this Spring,
covering
books,
audiobooks, and
toys.
Following The success of BBC Books new range of Doctor Who novels in 2005, three new novels have been launched for Spring 2006. All three books will be published on 13th April, priced £6.99.
BBC's drama and comedy station BBC7
will be broadcasting a new drama this coming Saturday, 11th February.
Dalek I Love You, 6:00pm and Midnight
The short play is written by Colin Sharpe, and stars Charlie Hardwick,
David Raynor and Fiona Clarke.
A young Dr Who obsessive gets more than he bargains for when he meets his very own Dr Who Girl. But is she real or imagined? A vacancy recently appeared on the BBC Jobs website indicating that an
editor would be needed for a new publication:
"We are looking for a Doctor Who expert with first class editorial skills to work on this exciting new magazine for pre-teen boys. Not only will you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Who, you'll have first-hand experience of writing and commissioning for pre-teen boys."
However, as of this morning the vacancy had been removed!
thanks to Ian Wheeler
The Big Finish website
has been updated with trailers for several
forthcoming Doctor Who releases; December's Eighth Doctor release
"Other Lives",
the subscribers only Sixth Doctor and Peri release
"Cryptiobiosis",
and January's Sixth Doctor and Evelyn release
"Pier Pressure".
There is also a Donnie Darko-esque cover image for
There is also a cover for February's Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex
release
"Night Thoughts",
which features a Donnie Darko-esque image
of a toy rabbit holding the earring which Flower Child gave to Ace in
the TV story "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy".
Written by Edward Young, this is a reincarnation of a script which was originally commissioned for the 27th television season prior to cancellation in 1989. Meanwhile, in response to concerns over continual delays to the Professor Bernice Summerfield audio and book range the site confirms that measures are being taken to address these issues. One of the main problems has been the heavy workload of Doctor Who and Benny audio producer Gary Russell. This is recognised to have caused delays to a number of releases in several Big Finish ranges. As a result the Benny releases are now being overseen by Simon Guerrier. It is planned that the remaining Benny audio releases of season 6 - "The Goddess Quandary" and "The Crystal Cantus", the novella collection "Parallel Lives" and the short story collection "Something Changed" will all be released early in 2006. 2006 will see the Benny ranges relaunched under the banner of the Big Finish New Worlds Imprint which already includes some spin off titles as well as several original audio dramas and books. Season 7 will see six new audio releases and three new books. Forthcoming releases will include audio dramas from Jim Mortimore, Daniel O'Mahoney, and Dave Stone and a stand-alone novel by Ben Aaronovitch. compiled by Richard
The new series of Doctor Who is to be released in yet another format, this
time as UMD disks that are suitable for the new Sony portable playstation.
The releases commence with the second volume (Aliens of London,
World War Three and Dalek) on 17th October, and will
retail at £17.99; the other three volumes will be released by 2Entertain
(the music to movies company jointly owned by BBC Worldwide and Woolworths)
in the run-up to Christmas! News articles: BBC Cult, The Register. The Big Finish website has been updated with covers
for several forthcoming releases: November's Fifth
Doctor and Turlough release "Singularity", December's
Sixth Doctor and Peri subscriber exclusive
"Cryptobiosis", and "Fear", the second part of the
"Cyberman" series. There is also an online audio trailer for forthcoming spin off release "Wildthyme on Top" starring Katy Manning as transtemporal adventuress Iris Wildthyme alongside Ortis Deley and David Benson as her companions Tom and Panda. The site has also recently revealed a number of forthcoming titles for the Doctor Who range (which will run until at least September 2008). Of particular note are Joe Lidster's double bill of Cybermen stories "Dead Men Walking" featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri and "Summer in the City" featuring the Fifth Doctor and the eagerly awaited return of Janet Fielding as Tegan, Circular Time, another Fifth Doctor story by Paul Cornell and Mike Maddox, Friends and Enemies by Adrian Rigelsford, currently believed to be the first Big Finish audio to feature the Sontarans, and Alone Again, a Seventh Doctor tale by Marc Platt. Elsewhere it has been reported that January's Sixth Doctor release "Pier Pressure" will feature appearances by Veteran actor and comedian Roy Hudd and actor Doug Bradley, best known for playing Pinhead in the Hellraiser film series. compiled by Richard
Two jigsaw puzzles are due to be released by manufacturer
Ravensburger, as shown below; click on the image for a larger version:
The online animated adventure which featured the short-lived "ninth" Doctor
Richard E Grant saw its episodes receive a rating by BBFC on 20th September;
episodes
one,
two
and
three have been classified as a U,
whilst
four,
five
and
six are rated PG. No official announcement on the story coming out on DVD as yet, but the overall PG classification does indicate that it is being considered! Running times are listed as 14m35s, 10m13s, 12m11s, 14m35s, 12m39s, and 14m35s respectively. Big Finish have announced that their three latest audio adventures have
now been released and are on their way to subscribers.
![]() An update from Big Finish on
updates to their website.
The three new hardback novels have entered the top ten in the chart for
hardback fiction this week:
Source: Independent ![]() You can of course still order their previous collections from the website! The next DVD to be released, The Web Planet has been delayed, owing
to a printing error on the cover. The DVD is now expected to be released
on 3rd October. BBC Cult also report on the special features to include commentary by William Russell, Martin Jarvis, Verity Lambert (producer), and Richard Martin (director), a featurette on the making of the story, and William Russell reading a story from the very first Doctor Who Annual, "Lair of the Zarbi Supremo" (also included as a PDF for PC users). (You can also read more about production of The Web Planet with Verity Lambert in the latest Celestial Toyroom). Yesterday's edition of Sunday Past Times on BBC2 happened to show
some clips from Out of the Unknown and Doctor Who - specifically
scenes from missing story The Power of the Daleks. Some clips
from this story already exist, but investigation by Paul Vanezis of the
Restoration Team discovered
that these were clips that weren't currently in the known items in the
archive! The items themselves hail from film inserts which also have a voiceover from
Tomorrow's World overlaid on the sequences. For more details on the find, see the team's discussion forum. Today's
Western Mail
explores the wealth of new merchandise that has recently been released in
celebration of Doctor Who, including the remote controlled Daleks,
sonic screwdriver, and talking TARDIS moneyboxes! The article also talks
to sci-fi stockist Galaxy Four, and
to John Campbell from the
Timeless
local group. Meanwhile, toy stockists Toys R Us have reported that, as well as stocking the remote controlled Daleks later this month, they will have an exclusive Emperor Dalek! These will be available to order from their website. (with thanks to Eye of Horus) See also other recent toy-related articles from The Sun and the Birmingham Post. After polling readers (and online!)
during the course of July, yesterday
saw the final ceremony for the
TV Quick and TV Choice awards for television drama and soaps;
Doctor Who had been up in
a number of nominations
in various guises, and
resulted in
Christopher Eccleston winning the Best Actor award. Links: The Mirror, BBC Cult, RTE, Yahoo. ![]() The series (obviously!) features the return of one of the Doctor's oldest and frightening adversaries, and consists of four parts to be released in successive months this year, Scorpius, Fear, Conversion, and Telos. As well as the individual price, the complete set can be bought for £35.00 in the UK. Transmission Transcript and Teaser Trailer (Media Player) Update 2nd September: a further article on making Scorpius is available at the BBC Cult site. Speaking at the Edinburgh Television Festival this weekend,
Lorraine Heggessey's successor, new BBC1 Controller Peter Fincham,
announced his ambition to turn the channel into a station that would
bring families back around the television set, highlighting
Doctor Who as an example of a programme that could draw in new,
younger audiences.
BBC1 was named as the best terrestrial channel of the year in a ceremony
at the festival on Saturday evening. Links: The Scotsman; also The Stage (July story). CBBC are running their regular
favourite shows
poll, and as of writing Doctor Who is in the lead
with 17.18% of the 1624 votes cast! Last week's winner The Simpsons
is in second place with 14.90%, new series Lost in third place with
11.70%, and fourth place has Big Brother with 11.33%!
A BBC press announcement on the release of
the third volume of their collection of Doctor Who-related items from the
radio, due out on the 5th September.
The BBC will be releasing episodes of Doctor Who and
Red Dwarf for mobile phones from next month! The new
technology, created by ROK Player, has designed new digital video chips
which to go into the Multimedia Card slot of compatible phones
in order to play television shows and films. The chips will initially
be sold through Nokia and Choices outlets, and are expected to retail
around the £17.99 mark. The first Doctor Who release is the 20th Anniversary story The Five Doctors. Links: ROK Player, BBC Press Release, BBC Cult Site, Reuters, The Times, Guardian, icWales, The Inquirer,` The Register, Yahoo News, WaveGuide, Manchester Evening News, WebPro News, Silicon, C21Media, VNUNet(includes WhatPC and Computing News), PC-ProWebPro NewsSoftpediaVOX Marketing, Cellular News, Phone Content, Telephony World, Digital Lifestyles, Net Imperative, Stuff (NZ), news.com.au, Electric News, Symbian, and DM Europe. Monday 5th September will see London's Forbidden Planet
hosting a signing session for the next three hardback Doctor Who novels,
featuring all three authors of the books:
A whole host of merchandise releases are mentioned on the
official BBC site as they interview
toymaster Alasdair Dewar from Character Options, the company behind many
of the items coming out, including the sonic screwdriver and new Daleks.
Other recent merchandise links:
Well as least as far as the SFX poll is concerned! The recent results
show that Doctor Who was a clear winner, with the rest of the top ten
taken up by: Red Dwarf, Hitchhikers, Blake's 7, The Prisoner,
Sapphire and Steel, Quatermass, Ultraviolet, The Avengers, and
Robin of Sherwood.
(and how many of us don't have all of these in their
video/dvd collection?!!). Says SFX editor Dave Bradley: "(Doctor Who was) a great British institution which has entertained people for generations. There has always been great affection for Doctor Who. The recent series has just introduced a whole new generation to the concept and reignited our love for it." Covered by: BBCi, The Sun, The Mirror, The Register, Female First, UTV, and the Liverpool Daily Post The Eighth Doctor will
soon be heard on digital radio, with channel BBC7 due to broadcast
four Big Finish audio adventures starring Paul McGann with
India Fisher as companion Charley Pollard. The series will consist of
Storm Warning, Sword of Orion, The Stones of Venice
and Invaders from Mars (Minuet in Hell won't appear in
this run due to clearance problems). The station will see the first adventure begin broadcast from Saturday 6th August at 6:30pm and 12:30am, and continue over each Saturday thereafter. However, the episodes as broadcast may differ from the original CD releases in a number of places to fit the standard BBC7 timeslot, and producer Gary Russell confirmed that the long-running episode three was re-edited accordingly at the Invasion convention yesterday. Ramsay the Vortisaur has seen a number of cuts made to it's appearance in the Sword and Venice episodes, and the final episodes in the run (Invaders parts three+four) see a new edit of the cliffhanger to rationalise their length. Now, does this mean that these episodes should now be considered canon?!! Let us know what you think? Blue Peter have launched a competition for their viewers (ie. under 16s!)
to design a monster and, if it is the winner, see it in the new series!
The monster needs to be a physical design that can be turned into a
costume/mask to be worn by an actor. The winner also gets to visit
the series being made! For more details visit the Blue Peter site. Reports are coming out that there have been problems with playback
of the new Revelation of the Daleks DVD, which manifests itself
on some players as a skip/repeat or stick around 8 minutes in (a scene
with Natasha and Grigory in a corridor). Steve Roberts of the Restoration Team has suggested that a workaround is to go to the CGI Effect menu and toggling the new effects on and off again to see if that resolves the playback problem. The team would also like to know of any players that are exhibiting this problem; see their forum for more details. Over a month after they were published, all three hardback novels based
on the ninth Doctor are still riding high in the Hardback Fiction charts, with
the Indepdent placing their positions on 1st July at:
4. Winner Takes All (Jacqueline Rayner) 5. The Clockwise Man (Justin Richards) In general, Sophie Kinsella's The Undomestic Goddess remained at the top of the charts, and second place fell to new entry Eleven On Top by Janet Evanovich.
Big Finish
have launched their summer sale, which includes many deals including
the following:
For full details and ordering see the Big Finish Summer Sale page. In other release news from Big Finish, the final play in their UNIT series, The Wasting, has now been released, and guest-stars new Doctor David Tennant alongside Nicholas Courtney. Pandora, the third title in the second Gallifrey series starring Lalla Ward and Louise Jameson is also now available. Also, the next Short Trips anthology, A Day in the Life is shortly to be published, and you can read a sample chapter, Making History by Trevor Baxendale (PDF). The Cult TV website's annual poll
of the top science fiction programmes saw Doctor Who finally knock
Star Trek off the top spot, a place the American franchise has
held for nine years! Also reported by BBCi, Sky News, and Digital Spy. ![]() This volume contains the old DWM comic strips of the fifth Doctor written by Steve Parkhouse: Monday: unfortunately, Red Route have now advised that the book did not arrive as expected, so delivery to shops is now expected to be towards the end of the week. Thursdau: the distributors have now received the book and it is being sent out over the next couple of days.
The
Rutherglen Reformer in Scotland mentions a plea
that has gone out from Michael Stevens of the BBC Audio Books range.
They are hunting
for off-air recordings of interviews with Andrew Smith, who
became the writer for Season 18's
Full Circle, which they'd like to include on Volume Three of the
Doctor Who at the BBC CD Collection. The items in question were an
interview on the Jimmy Mack Show on BBC Radio Scotland on Friday 1st August, 1980, and from the Radio One programme Playground at around the same
time, neither of which are in the BBC Archive.
Today's Sun and Mirror report on the top BBCtv moments throughout its
seventy-five years, with Doctor Who reaching third place with the
first appearance of the Daleks in 1963. First place went to The Office (David Brent's disco dance), and in second was Blackadder Goes Forth (hospital scene from General Hospital). Other News Resources You can find other news items and features from the following sites: |