Doctor Who News, Articles, Cast and Crew Interviews

[Blencathra]

Chris Chibnall on Series 8

http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/chris-chibn...ctor+Who+TV%29

Writer Chris Chibnall is still hoping to return for Doctor Who Series 8.

Chibnall – who previously wrote 42, The Hungry Earth two-parter, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The Power of Three – said it is still dependent on schedules and his workload on the second series of hit crime drama Broadchurch.

He told the Mirror: “If we can get the schedules to work I will write for series eight, but obviously Broadchurch is my priority and that’s no small commitment. If their schedule and our schedule can work together then I’ll nip in and do one. Steven (Moffat) has asked and that’s very nice but it will just depend on the detail of schedules.”

Matt Smith could also appear in the second series of Broadchurch, according to the Mirror’s source.

Chibnall appeared open to the idea: “I’d love to work with Matt again, he’s absolutely brilliant. I’d *absolutely work with him at the drop of a fez. Matt is a brilliant actor and he can effortlessly become an even bigger star than he is already. The thing is he’s transformative and brilliant I think it’s great he’s off doing this movie role as a little break.”

___________

Hmmmm. Personally I hope he sticks to Broadchurch. Broadchurch was absolutely fantastic, but I've found Chibnall's DW episodes to be mediocre at best. I think another writer should be given a chance - I'm all for Nicholas Briggs.

[Blencathra]

Moffat: “I’m sure I’ll work with Matt again”

http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/moffat-im-s...gain-50868.htm

In the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine (#462) Steven Moffat pays tribute to Matt Smith and his time as the Doctor.

Moffat says: “These have been the maddest few years of my writing career – so many ridiculous adventures, so many things I thought I’d never do – and I could not have shared them a with a kinder, more considerate, more entirely supportive friend than the man I completely refuse to call Smithers.

“We’ve been to so many insane press launches, we’ve looned about New York, we’ve dropped in on a specialist Doctor Who bar to watch the show with some (fairly surprised) fans, travelled the country in a special Doctor Who bus (well he did, I just dropped in occasionally!) and shown the new Director General of the BBC how to fly the TARDIS. And we’ve spent a fair amount of time looking at each other, and wondering how the hell any of this happened, and how we ended up here.

Moffat goes on to state that he believes he will work with his departing friend again one day: “Out there in the future, Matt’s finale is to be written and made and a new Doctor is to be summoned. Soon I’ll be lying on my sofa, in an agony of indecision again. Beyond that, some day I’m sure I’ll work with Matt again, and we’ll laugh about old times. But I don’t want to think about that right now. I want to think about the best of days. About the impossibility of replacing Russell T Davies and David Tennant in the two most brilliant jobs in television and the fact we didn’t entirely screw it up. About all those episodes, all those monsters, and those stories we’re never going to tell you.

“I will never forget a moment of it – me and my mate Matt, making Doctor Who.”

[Blencathra]

Strax sings to the choir on Doctor Who 50th anniversary plans

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-rad...sary-sontarans

In November, the BBC will mark the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who with a highly anticipated special. If the corporation needs any help striking the right note for such a momentous occasion, Dan Starkey may have made the perfect pitch.

Starkey is best known as Strax, a Sontaran warrior-cum-nurse-cum-butler who is a member, with Madame Vastra and Jenny, of the Paternoster Gang. Last Friday, appearing in Manhattan as the star attraction of a WhoYork fan event at the Stone Creek Tavern, on East 27th Street, he took questions from a dedicated Whovian crowd.

Asked if he would ever produce a successor to Songtaran Christmas Carols, a 2012 YouTube hit in which Strax adapts seasonal tunes to his peculiarly aggressive ends, Starkey pondered the potential for a whole album of Sontaran cover versions. Evidently taken by the idea, he treated his audience to snatches of an oddly appropriate 'Wild Thing', a tear-jerking 'Send in the Clones' and the timeless funk classic 'War: What is it Good For? (Everything! It's the basis of an entire civilisation!) The crowd's reaction suggested he was on to a good thing.

So, of course, have been Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the guiding spirits of Doctor Who, since they promoted Strax, Vastra and Jenny to their regular supporting role. Between the Paternoster Gang's first appearance, in the 2011 episode A Good Man Goes to War, and their key role in the culmination of the most recent series, in The Crimson Horror and The Name of the Doctor, they have attracted a loyal and passionate fan following.

As anticipation builds for the 50th anniversary and the imminent replacement of Matt Smith by the as yet un-named 12th Doctor, even the gregarious Starkey is tight-lipped about Strax's prospects for further employment. The Stone Creek Tavern crowd, though supportive, knew not even to ask – indeed, among them sat one of the Who bloggers who received, in error, an advance BluRay copy of the 2013 series finale and then heeded the BBC's plea not to reveal the plot. Demands for a spin-off series for the Paternoster Gang are not, however, subject to such discretion.

"I'd give it serious consideration," says Starkey, who has form in that regard. He played Plark in The Sarah Jane Adventures, a series featuring a former companion of the Doctor which ran from 2007 to 2011, and now plays Randal Moon, a hobgoblin, in that show's successor, Wizards vs Aliens. Those roles and his 2008 Doctor Who debut as another Sontaran, Skorr – as well as detailed discussion of the rigours of make-up and a Sontaran's "rubber trousers" – prompt the wistful remark: "At some point I'll see my own face on television."

[Blencathra]

Doctor Who: More Tom Baker - With Added Hinchcliffe!

http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/doct...ed-hinchcliffe

Philip Hinchcliffe, who produced Doctor Who from 1975 to 1977 and oversaw many all-time classic stories including Pyramids of Mars and The Talons of Weng-Chiang, is returning to the Fourth Doctor and Leela in an audio drama collaboration with Big Finish.

Doctor Who: Philip Hinchcliffe Presents is a box set of two brand new audio adventures that will evoke the tone of the series from his era.

“When we were recording series three of The Fourth Doctor Adventures, Philip asked if he could come along to the studio and observe,” says producer David Richardson. “I know that Tom Baker and Louise Jameson were thrilled to have him there, and they both enthused to him about what a great time they were having working for Big Finish. After the recording ended, Philip took me and executive producer Nicholas Briggs aside, and pitched the idea of doing a set of stories of the kind he would have hoped to have done, had he stayed on to produce the series for longer. We just said ‘yes’ instantly!”

The first story in the set will be an epic six-parter set in Victorian London, adapted by Marc Platt (Ghost Light), which will be paired with a four-parter.

“My aim with the box set is to create stories that feel they could belong to my second or third season,” says Phllip. “They are not designed to follow on from my era, more to re-evoke it for fans who enjoyed the originals: and so the Doctor and Leela in these new stories are the same as they were then, in the glorious seventies! That's the beauty of radio - they look and sound the same!

Doctor Who: Philip Hinchcliffe Presents will be released in August 2014, and is available for pre-order.

Also available for pre-order now is the fourth series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures, which features eight brand new stories, starring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as Leela. You can subscribe to all eight, or order a bundle which also includes the Philip Hinchcliffe Presents box set, all at a low pre-order price!

[Blencathra]

Who Is The Doctor?

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2013/06...ce=twitterfeed

BBC Radio 2 has told Doctor Who News it is to produce a documentary entitled Who is the Doctor? to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who.

The 90 minute programme will be broadcast on Thursday 21st November, just two days before the celebration date. More details when we have them.

Also on Radio 2, former companion to the Sixth Doctor, Bonnie Langford, will be Graham Norton’s guest this Saturday . The actress, who played Mel from 1986 - 1987 is scheduled to appear at around 12.15pm UK time. Questions can be sent to Norton at the usual address [email protected]

BBC Radio 2 can be heard worldwide via the BBC Website. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tw2b9

[BruTak]

Sounds good. I've been a Radio 2 listener for years.

[Alan]

I've been watching a few clips the BBC have been putting up on YouTube...but on this particular video I was extremely intrigued by the pop-up note that briefly appears:

A possible hint of things to come perhaps? Need it to be November now please!

[Nolamom]

interesting popup

[Greenee]

Need it to be November now please!

Judging by the weather it allready is. But I think, this doesn't help.

[BruTak]

Four Possible Doctor Who Spin Offs.

http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/4-possible-...offs-50919.htm

[Greenee]

Oh this sounds good. I'd like to see the paternoster gang or/and river and jack. No interrst in unit at all, and I have seen too lass of sarah jane to care much about the fourth idee (yet). Well. we see what they make of it.

[BruTak]

Five Awesome Candidates for the New Doctor.

http://whatculture.com/tv/doctor-who...new-doctor.php

[Coco Pops]

Fun clip I found from Terror Of The Autons.

The very first meeting of The Doctor and The Master

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bc2ny

[Flyboy]

Fun clip I found from Terror Of The Autons.

The very first meeting of The Doctor and The Master

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01bc2ny

Very first ON SCREEN meeting...

They used to know each other back at the academy.

[Coco Pops]

Very first ON SCREEN meeting...

They used to know each other back at the academy.

True but wouldn't it be awkward seeing them as friends from the past? I wonder why they became enemies though.