http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom&hideredirs=1&limit=50&offset=&namespace=0&username=&tagfilter=&size-mode=max&size=0The Doctor Who Cuttings Archive - New pages [en]2024-03-28T10:44:22ZFrom The Doctor Who Cuttings ArchiveMediaWiki 1.33.0http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Never_mind_the_MoroksNever mind the Moroks2024-03-24T20:04:42Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-05 SFX 0013.jpg | px = 250 | height = | width = | date = 2010-05-01 | display date = May 2010 | author = Nick Setchfield | pages..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = 2010-05 SFX 0013.jpg<br />
| px = 250<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-05-01<br />
| display date = May 2010<br />
| author = Nick Setchfield <br />
| pages = <br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = video recordings<br />
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DOCTOR WHO THE SPACE MUSEUM/THE CHASE <br />
<br />
Never mind the Moroks <br />
<br />
1965 PG 241 mins £29.99 OUT NOW! Directors: Mervyn Pinfield, Richard Martin <br />
<br />
Cast: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Maureen O'Brien <br />
<br />
Smart marketing choice to let unloved Hartnell tale "[[broadwcast:The Space Museum|The Space Museum]]" ride shotgun with the Daleks. In many ways it's a story knee-capped by the inverse ratio between its title and its execution the very words The Space Museum promise something spooky and vast and intriguing, but it proves a killingly dull environment in which to stage an unengaging take on Who's eternal rebels vs despots formula. Yes, episode one offers some lovely fourth-dimensional weirdness, and clown-haired bad guys the Moroks have a refreshing, Douglas Adamsy sense of middle-management blues, but not even some spiffy remastering can polish this particular turgid tale. <br />
<br />
"[[broadwcast:The Chase|The Chase]]" is better, if only because it's powered by a demented, ramshackle energy that never allows for boredom - or much in the way of logic or good taste. The Daleks are pursuing the Doctor through eternity, and Terry Nation's scribble of a plotline hurls the TARDIS into ever weirder set-pieces. On and on we tumble, crashing from the Mary Celeste (and yes, that's Mary, not Marie) to the Empire State Building to the world of Mechanus, home of rubbish Dalek rivals the Mechanoids. There are cameos by everyone from Frankenstein's Monster to The Beatles, and if you can switch off your forebrain there's tacky entertainment to be had, but its crushing to realise that this is the show that gave us the masterly "[[broadwcast:An Unearthly Child|An Unearthly Child]]" a mere two years before. <br />
<br />
Extras: There are cast and crew commentaries - nabbing the reclusive Maureen O'Brien is a coup. New series scribe Rob Shearman provides a persuasive, perspective-shifting take on "The Space Museum" in "Defending The Museum". "My Grandfather, The Doctor" is a recollection by Hartnell's real-life granddaughter, illustrated with some lovely rare pics. "Cusick In Cardiff" sees original Dalek designer Ray Cusick meet the new series design team. In "The Thrill Of The Chase" director Richard Martin recalls helming the pepperpot epic, branding his time on Doctor Who "a baptism in blood". "Last Stop White City" is a tribute to pioneer companions Ian and Barbara, while "Daleks Conquer And Destroy" is a comprehensive tribute to the Dalek phenomenon, including some hardcore ring modulator talk from Dalek voice man Nicholas Briggs. "Daleks Beyond The Screen" explores the universe of Dalek merchandise. There's also a look back at '60s modelmakers Shawcraft, complete with some gorgeously rare 8mm colour film of monochrome monsters. Daft comedy skit "A Holiday For The Doctor", slides from the '60s Give A Show toy projector set, photo galleries, Radio Times listings and information text complete the package. <br />
<br />
The Beatles only appear in clip form, but originally wanted to appear as aged curators of a Beatles museum in a futuristic Liverpool.<br />
<br />
<br />
"Remember your lines or we'll shoot you."<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_First_ElevenThe First Eleven2024-03-24T20:02:38Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/File:2010-05_SFX.pdf | px = | height = | width = | date = 2010-05-01 | display date = May 2010..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/File:2010-05_SFX.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-05-01<br />
| display date = May 2010<br />
| author = Nick Setchfield<br />
| pages = 50<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = <br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
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Back for its first full series in two years, Doctor Who is returning with two new leads and a new head writer. Nick Setchfield talks to Moffat, Smith and Gillan, the people who'll make your Saturday nights<br />
<br />
One of the eternal struggles of the cosmos is playing out in a cigar factory in Cardiff. <br />
<br />
As ever, Doctor Who is hiding the unearthly in plain sight, like a timeship concealed in a phone box. It's a bright Welsh autumn day and a corner of this anonymous building has been drafted by the BBC to double for the interior of an alien craft. Outside lies the industrial emptiness of Penarth Road with its oblivious sweep of morning traffic. Inside, the bemused; boilersuited workforce of J R Freeman & Son stand and watch as a gleaming swarm of Daleks emerge to confront their perennial nemesis.<br />
<br />
"Behold the restoration of the ii Daleks!" bark the tyrants of Skaro, as pyrotechnics flash and dazzle.<br />
<br />
But it's a stranger's face that opposes them, filling the monitor before us. A face not so much loved by the camera as one that intrigues, enchants and perplexes it. Does it belong to an indie kid scenester or a dashing English air ace? A Bletchley Park boffin or a punch-nosed Walthamstow boxer? It belongs to all of them and more. The camera probes and prowls, uncovering new and contradictory facets with each change of angle. It's a face that's simultaneously handsome, strange, haunted, mischievous, innocent and ancient. A paradox of a face, beneath a Brideshead flop of a fringe.<br />
<br />
Then the eyes meet the blank gaze of a Dalek eyestalk and give a familiar look of wary defiance. And as they lock into the lens you realise that this is a defining TV moment, one that time-ripples all the way back to William Hartnell standing in Lime Grove studios in smokily distant 1963.<br />
<br />
It's Doctor Who. And he's fighting the Daleks, as he always must.<br />
<br />
The director cuts. The workforce chatters again. The cigar machine returns to life with an antiquated chug. The real world is back in the room.<br />
<br />
"Get this," says Matt Smith, strolling over to greet SFX. "The new Dalek eyestalks are designed to meet the level of my own eyes. They made them from my measurements. That's a bit of trivia for you!" <br />
<br />
Stick-lean and charming, he's dressed like a Hoxton Quatermass in tweeds, jeans and bow-tie. He's also obssessively tossing a small, circular prop in the air. Closer inspection reveals that it's a plastic Jammie Dodger. Well, naturally.<br />
<br />
"Tom Baker had his jelly babies. And I've got Jammie Dodgers!" Again the Dodger spins.<br />
<br />
You could be the new face of Jammie Dodgers, we suggest.<br />
<br />
"What, like this?" he smiles, slapping the prop to his forehead. "I'm all about the Jammie Dodger. I just imagine the Doctor in the TARDIS with Amy. Cup of tea and a Jammie Dodger!"<br />
<br />
He twirls it again, higher still. "I'm getting good at this," he shares, just before it escapes his catch and rolls into the far shadows. SFX is witness to the precious sight of an embarrassed Time Lord chasing after a makebelieve biscuit. We like him already.<br />
<br />
"There's just something about him," says new Doctor Who tsar Steven Moffat, whose retooled, Smith-fronted vision of the show launches this Easter. "I don't think it's very hard to see, to be honest. You just think 'Yes, he's going to be one of the people that get to play Doctor Who, isn't he?' I always think he's a kind of Bo' Selecta caricature of a handsome man..."<br />
<br />
Can we quote him on that?<br />
<br />
"We insult each other all the time, it's fine! He's strikingly handsome but he's like a cartoon of handsome with his big sweep of hair! The first time he came in, that's what he looked like, and you just think 'You're the Doctor, you are.'<br />
<br />
"Matt famously on set is the clumsiest human being you will ever meet," adds the briskly witty, Paisley-born writer. "He just knocks things over the entire time, falls over, permanently. You veer away from him if you see him carrying a coffee, because you're going to wear it. He's quite an athlete, though. He was a great footballer when he was young so he can do the action stuff, but there's something quite shambling about him, with his bandy legs — sorry, Matt — and his wee short jacket. He can go from being quite a cool action hero to being really quite Stan Laurel, which is adorable."<br />
<br />
GOOD PEDIGREE<br />
<br />
As the writer of such New Who touchstones as "The Empty Child", "The Girl In The Fireplace" and the spooksome, generation-scarring "Blink", Moffat was always heir apparent to the show's creative hotseat. But inheriting the key to the TARDIS wasn't the obvious act of destiny you might imagine. In fact Moffat gnawed at the decision.<br />
<br />
"I took a long time to say yes," he reveals. "I've got things I will now never, ever write because Doctor Who is such a blizzard. I think it would have been a very, very difficult thing to say no to, and you would worry when you were an old man, wouldn't you? You might think that you'd accidentally lived somebody else's life if you'd said no. I remember my dad phoned me and asked me what I was up to, and I said 'Oh, I've just been offered Doctor Who.' And he said 'Well, of course you have!' said, don't know what I'm going to do...' He said, 'You're going to do it! Of course you are! Everyone knows you're going to do it!' And I suppose at that point I said yeah, I probably am..."<br />
<br />
Moffat knows he's in a different position to when Russell T Davies resurrected the show in 2005. Then it was an abandoned, antique brand, left to gather dust and fond mockery. Now it's an ITV-slamming colossus. Just how radical can he be with the BBC's flagship Saturday night show?<br />
<br />
"What, as radical as recasting it and changing all the music and all the other things?" he counters. "What else could we do? We could change him into a woman, I suppose... well, we haven't done that! You have to be radical. Doctor Who demands it of you. When Doctor Who changes it changes completely. Not only do you recast the lead, you change the lead character a bit too. That's a total no-brainer and it doesn't make me nervous at all. It really, properly doesn't. You have to make good Doctor Who. And that's not the same thing as making the same Doctor Who.<br />
<br />
"It's just Doctor Who as I always saw it. It's not nostalgic, it's not backward looking, but it is reproducing the thrill that I always got from Who. I think I've got a very good ear for what's Who and what's not Who."<br />
<br />
The choice of 26-year-old Smith as the Eleventh Doctor remains Moffat's most conspicuous creative choice. Did he have a particular kind of actor in mind for a particular kind of Doctor, or was he prepared to be surprised?<br />
<br />
"You're always prepared to be surprised," he maintains. "If you've done this before you realise you will be. But I said, and I said it repeatedly, and I've kept emails of me saying it, 'I think he'll be between 35 and 45, and I think most of the actors who can play this part are in that age group.' I was getting quite irritable at one point, saying, 'Everyone on this list is in their twenties, and there aren't enough people in their twenties who can play this part!' And I stand by that. It's absolutely true. It's just not always true, and it wasn't true in the case of Matt. Matt was pretty much the exact opposite of who I thought we would cast as Doctor Who. Except he's not. He plays the Doctor the way I saw it. He is the man. And he happened to be 26 at the time, which makes no difference.<br />
<br />
"It seemed so effortless for him, even though he didn't really know the show at the time. We were auditioning people at a very, very high level, and in a way you can't get it wrong because everyone who comes through the door is brilliant. Tonally, he has never ever been wrong. Even on his worst day he can't be — he absolutely gets the playfulness, the nuttiness, the loveableness. He's note perfect. Born that way, hardwired that way, about how Doctor Who should be. Even though, of all the people who came through the door he knew it the least well."<br />
<br />
It's a brave thing to take on, isn't it?<br />
<br />
"I think brave should be saved for abseiling," smiles Moffat. "Is it brave? What are you going to do, once you're offered it? Say no? Is that what you became an actor to do? Get offered a really, really big part to say no? Yes, it's nerve-wracking, but this is the thing that you wanted, so you do it. Of course you do."<br />
<br />
COSTUME DRAMA<br />
<br />
Smith's fogeyish togs may be the latest in fourth-dimensional chic — expect an influx of tweedy wannabes at the next convention — but as Moffat reveals, the Eleventh Doctor almost made some radically different fashion choices.<br />
<br />
"We were way, way, way down a different road with the costume, and I was very much driving it, saying he should be sort of piratey and a little bit Captain Jack Sparrow, wilder and with big coats and all that. And we had stuff made and Matt wore it, and I was absolutely ready to sign off on it. But Matt hated it! I've still got photos of him standing there, chewing his lip. And he looks fantastic, because frankly Matt would look good in a nightie. But he didn't like it. And the line he came up with was, 'I think this is how other people would dress the Doctor, I don't think the Doctor would ever dress like this himself, because that's not who he thinks he is.' He actually is an adventurer and a swashbuckler, but he thinks he's a really, really clever bloke on his way to a museum or a concert or something, somewhere he can show off... he's always getting distracted by fighting monsters.<br />
<br />
"And we're talking 20 minutes before the end of the day," Moffat continues, "on the final day before we had to unveil something. And he asked if he could put his braces on, so he put the braces on, and I think the jacket is either one of his or one very like his, with the elbow patches, and I was thinking, Well, it's alright [not convinced]...' And then he said — and I knew this was coming, because he'd become so obsessed with Patrick Troughton and "Tomb Of The Cybermen" when he'd seen it... he spent 20 minutes on the phone to me... — he said, 'Can I try a bow tie?' And I said, 'No, no, that's just the most ridiculously retro, child's eye view of what Doctor Who wears!' But still he put on the bow tie he'd brought with him, and he did look really good."<br />
<br />
Moffat gives a wry smile at the memory. "And without a song in my heart, we signed off on it, mainly because Matt was now leaping around the room with a pen, pretending it was a sonic screwdriver, saying, 'I'm Doctor Who!' In a way it's so wrong that costume — it's made of wrong! — but then you see him standing there and you think well, that's the point. The Doctor is the man who dressed wrongly. It almost says it's the Doctor — a totally inappropriately dressed man who probably thinks he's a bit cooler than he is. I think that's him!"<br />
<br />
Pick-pocketing every historical strand of British fantasy, the show's genetic mix has embraced everything from Quatermass to The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. What inspired Moffat's vision of Doctor Who?<br />
<br />
"Principally Doctor Who, I imagine! Because I mainly came to things like Quatermass and The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe through Doctor Who. We just nick stuff all the time. It's an absolute feature of the show that if you see a good idea that someone else has had then you just steal it and put it in Doctor Who. And there's nothing wrong with that. If it's good enough for Hamlet then it's good enough for us. But even if you imitate something else then you make it Doctor Who style, whatever that is. You're kind of doing Hammer Horror in the Generation Game slot, you're doing thrillers opposite Ant and Dec... it's a weird, almost unique flavour. It's a little bit Hammer Horror, it's a little bit showbiz, too, a little bit gameshow, a little bit Strictly. Early evening on a Saturday, that's where it belongs. And part of what makes it belong there is that still to this day it's slightly surprising that we kill all those people and have monsters attacking at 7 o'clock in the evening!"<br />
<br />
DON'T BLINK<br />
<br />
Moffat's previous tales have famously traded in intricate, time-tangling plots but that won't be the case every Saturday, he says.<br />
<br />
"If you did every episode like 'Blink' then you'd go mad. But at the same time I think it's a central part of the show that he not only travels in time but he actually lives inside in a time machine. That's where he lives, so the whole world, the whole universe, is alive to him. It's a very different perspective. The thing I keep banging on about is that he doesn't know what age he is. He's lying. How could he know, unless he's marking it on a wall? He could be 8,000 years old, he could be a million. He has no clue. The calendar will give him no clues. So yes, intricately plotted is good, and something I can bring to it. We've got some intricate shows but also some that are quite simple and epic and big.<br />
<br />
They're not all the same — they're not all written by me! 'Blink' is still probably the most complicated one that I've done but then intricate is what I default to if I haven't got time, and that was in a hurry. Since I've been permanently in a hurry this series then obviously all the episodes will be as good as 'Blink'!"<br />
<br />
He laughs, but there's an uneasy truth in there. Doctor Who does tend to trigger a giddy level of expectation. And often an ego-savaging amount of post-match analysis, too. Moffat tasted fan love for the likes of "Blink" but swore off online forums when he won the showrunner's role. Surely he'll crack once his first episode is broadcast?<br />
<br />
"No, I won't," he insists. "Nobody can avoid it completely — I see bits and people send me things, usually vicious things. I'm not swearing off the forums because I think they're stupid — I actually don't — or because they're vicious, because for the most part they're not. They're mostly wildly positive, with a few lonely people kicking up a stink. That's the absolute reality. It's just that I don't need any more of that fan voice in my head than I was born with. It's going on in here all the time anyway, like a fire alarm. I have to drown that out and make the show for the other 100% of the audience, because they're a statistically negligible amount, just a few people whose mysterious hobby is to decry endlessly a series they've ceased to enjoy watching. Whereas the correct response to ceasing to enjoy watching a series — which is fine — is to stop watching it."<br />
<br />
Moffat knows who he's making this show for. And here, perhaps, is his mission statement.<br />
<br />
"I think children will always need a hero who fights monsters but never becomes one," he tells us. "I think that's such an important story for children. And when I say children I mean children of 48. That's very central. As a myth, that's really important."<br />
<br />
SFX takes a final peep behind the black drapes that surround the makeshift spaceship interior. We see a jacketless Matt Smith, rehearsing with the men who will soon step inside the Dalek casings. They block their moves with easy laughter, trading lines about cosmic domination and death, for all the world like eternal kids at breaktime, playing Doctor Who and The Daleks.<br />
<br />
Best job in the universe, really, isn't it? SFX<br />
<br />
Doctor Who returns to BBC One on Saturday 3 April.<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
Showrunner Steven Moffat - the man with the best job in TV?<br />
<br />
Ones Moffat made earlier "The Empty Child".<br />
<br />
The Hugo-winning "The Girl In The Fireplace".<br />
<br />
And "Blink", which also won a Hugo. <br />
<br />
The Doctor meets Rory (Arthur Darvill), but what's his connection to Amy?<br />
<br />
Still dressed as his morning and wears the new Doctor crashlands on Earth.<br />
<br />
Only a few more weeks till we find out about that uniform...<br />
<br />
The Doctor is hungry, so very hungry...<br />
<br />
10 October 2009: filming continues on season opener "The Eleventh Hour". <br />
<br />
On set for episodes 4 and 5, which see the Weeping Angels return.<br />
<br />
Scenes from the fantastic series trailer, shown in 3D in cinemas.<br />
<br />
Mysterious children from the series opener - could be spooky...<br />
<br />
Amy and Rory check out a strange new patient In the hospital.<br />
<br />
Behind the scenes at the shoot, and Jon Coates' original cover sketch. <br />
----<br />
HE'S CHANGING EVERY DAY FOR ME..."<br />
<br />
Matt Smith<br />
<br />
So what sort of Doctor will you give us?<br />
<br />
The fact that I'm younger, the fact that my soul is different, my energy's different, my history's different, will all add to a different sort of Doctor. It's a part that allows for everything, every facet of you to be revealed. I hope it'll be rich and plentiful, but it's not something that I have analysed enough to have a definitive "He's this or that or the other". Because he's changing every day for me.<br />
<br />
<br />
Are you enjoying it?<br />
<br />
God, yeah. It's thrilling. It's hard work - he says so much! I can't really tell you what I was doing yesterday but it was brilliant, just brilliant - it involved a monster and me and... something brilliant. And you go, "God, this is my job, this is what I do!" You see the TARDIS there and it's just the most beautiful thing to look at. You can place it in any location and it looks like it's been painted by Picasso or Van Gogh. I'm constantly aware that it's a privilege and I feel very fortunate to have such great scripts and such a brilliant show.<br />
<br />
<br />
Did you have much of a say in the costume?<br />
<br />
I did actually, yeah. What's interesting about this particular ono Doctor's look is that it's going to constantly evolve. Steven is very keen that he's a man who gets up in the morning and wears clothes because it's cold. He's not only defined by one thing. If you look at every Doctor, every Doctor has something, and I have a bow tie. As always with this show you're dealing with history, and you go, "Oh, I can't have a scarf because Tom Baker had a scarf, I can't have a pair of Converse..." But I'm pleased, because the costume has come out of my personality, and it feels right on my body and my frame.<br />
<br />
<br />
So what's the Doctor's relationship like with Amy?<br />
<br />
Steven, in my opinion, has written the best companion. I think she's brilliant. She's a real challenge for the Doctor. The way they meet is just rather magical.<br />
<br />
<br />
Is there any hint of a romance between them?<br />
<br />
I don't know... I've only read six episodes. There might be!<br />
<br />
<br />
What can you tell us about your first story?<br />
<br />
I think there's a magic to it. Steven has written a rather brilliant fairytale, in such a magical way. The Doctor's getting to know his new body, which is just brilliant, all the great stuff that Steven's done with that. What's interesting about this particular series is that it has a thread twining through it. And you learn about that in episode one. And the Doctor's scoping it out. It's quite important for the rest of the tale.<br />
<br />
<br />
It's your birthday tomorrow!<br />
<br />
It is! 27! Oh, cracking on, aren't I! Blimey. God, another 900 years and I'm there...<br />
----<br />
"I SHOULDN'T GOOGLE MYSELF... IT'S TOO WEIRD FOR THE HEAD!'<br />
<br />
Karen Gillan<br />
<br />
<br />
What can you tell us about Amy?<br />
<br />
Amy is an incredibly sassy young lady. She's not just the Doctor's companion, she's a person in her own right. She's Amy Pond, and she doesn't always take the Doctor's word as gospel. She's very sceptical of him and doesn't trust everything he says. She's kind of this alpha female and the Doctor's the ultimate alpha male, so together they have this interesting dynamic where they're on a par and they really bounce off each other. So yeah, it's an interesting pairing.<br />
<br />
He likes feisty redheads, doesn't he? Yeah! There's a bit of a theme...<br />
<br />
<br />
We can't help but notice that you're wearing a microscopic skirt in your first episode. Is that conventional policewoman's uniform, then?<br />
<br />
Probably not, no! The thing about Amy and the Doctor's companions in general is that they have to do things in order to ensure that they're successful in their missions. And that possibly may have been one of the things she had to do...<br />
<br />
<br />
Did you Google yourself when you were first announced as the new companion?<br />
<br />
Yes, I totally did! I just started to read a few things, like articles that people had written, and then I started to read a couple of the comments and thought, "Right, I shouldn't do this, it's too weird for the head!" And then I stopped! People talking about you and projecting all these things on you... it was like, "Whoa, okay!" It's also really nice, on the other hand, because people care, and they're interested.<br />
<br />
<br />
Does it help that you and Matt are new to the show at the same time?<br />
<br />
Yeah, I feel really lucky to be going through this with someone who's also going through it at the same time. And we've kind of got this bond now, because we're sharing this amazing experience together, and hopefully that shows on screen with the characters we're playing. We're good friends.<br />
<br />
<br />
What was it like stepping into the TARDIS for the first time?<br />
<br />
The first time I walked into the inside of the TARDIS I was actually like, "Whoa...!" It was just incredible, it really was, the scale of it. And it's beautiful. I thought, "Right, this is a bit of what Amy must feel when she first walks onto it." So I just tried to call on that, really, and just exaggerate it a little bit.<br />
<br />
<br />
You've done comedy with The Kevin Bishop Show. Is Amy going to be funny?<br />
<br />
Amy is very, very witty. I think that's one of the big things about her, actually. And Steven is a really incredibly funny writer and he's given her some great one-liners, and she can really reel them off.<br />
<br />
<br />
And are you anxious about how it's all going to be received?<br />
<br />
I'm trying not to think about that, but obviously I can't help but think that the show is under so much scrutiny because it's so loved, and it's done so well before, been loved by so many. I can't help but think, "God, I hope this goes well." But we're doing our best, and I really believe that the show is good. And I hope other people do.<br />
----<br />
BEHIND THE COVER!<br />
<br />
Wondering how we scored this issue's exclusive reality-warping 3D cover? SFX art bods Jon and Catherine headed to BBC Wales In Cardiff for a very special photoshoot with new Doctor Who stars Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.<br />
<br />
"It's the first 3D Doctor Who cover," Jon tells us. "It's new technology, and the new Doctor seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out."<br />
<br />
"Matt bounced in," adds Catherine. "He really got into it. So much energy. He wouldn't stop moving. He kept fencing with the Sonic into the lens and shouting!"<br />
<br />
And Karen? "There was a trampoline at the side, and between shots she couldn't resist having a bit of a bounce!"<br />
<br />
Now there's an idea for our next 3D cover...<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Not_Your_Average_JoNot Your Average Jo2024-03-17T20:02:22Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/0/01/2010-11_SFX_p76.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2010<br />
| author = Ian Berriman<br />
| pages = 76<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = Sarah Jane Adventures<br />
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Sarah Jane Smith is back, and this time she's teaming up with another classic companion... and the Eleventh Doctor! Ian Berriman reports<br />
<br />
<br />
The date is 19 April 2010, and Britain is under a cloud — a cloud of volcanic ash, drifting in from Iceland. Remember that? It's all brightness and light at Upper Boat studios, home of The Sarah Jane Adventures, though, and much of it's radiating from two much-loved Doctor Who actresses. SFX is here for a read-through of a script which not only sees Sarah Jane (Lis Sladen) meet Matt Smith's Doctor but, just as excitingly, sees the return of Jon Pertwee-era companion Jo Grant to our screens after a 37-year gap. As Katy Manning (resplendent in denim dress, red scarf and towering heels) and Lis (Cheshire Cat t-shirt!) share a hug, your moment of Who history. It's a shame Matt Smith couldn't share it — flights grounded, he's stranded in the US.<br />
<br />
"Death Of The Doctor" is the title of this third of six two-parters in SIA's fourth series. Ponder that title and the presence of the Shansheeth — vulture-like intergalactic undertakers — and you can probably guess what brings together two of the Doctor's former companions in a secret UNIT base underneath Mount Snowdon...<br />
<br />
Once the reading gets underway, we discover it's a great script, both moving and uproariously funny. There are echoes of Sarah Jane's return in 2006 Who "School Reunion", and treats aplenty for old-school fans, with<br />
energy to the planet Karfel. As for Jo, the 2010 model is grown up, but certainly not grown old, a hippy nomad who's spent her life battling injustice in her own way. Afterwards, we ask Katy Manning how it feels to be back.<br />
<br />
"When I walked in I was nervous as..." she confesses. "Then everybody was so very lovely, and made me feel very welcome. And when I was reading the script and I got to that scene with the Doctor, even in just a read-through where everybody's sitting around, I felt that me nose started to run!<br />
<br />
"I've been so homesick for so many years," explains Manning, who recently returned to the UK after many years spent living in Australia, "and I don't think that anything nicer could have been offered to me. It's the best gift anybody could give somebody!"<br />
<br />
The man who wrapped that gift is the show's creator, Russell T Davies. We catch up with him several months later, once the episodes are in the can, and ask how he went about bringing back Jo. <br />
<br />
"For the first time ever, I went and watched old stuff," Davies confesses. "We used to bring back monsters and I didn't actually go and watch the old tapes, partly because I think the way you remember them is just as powerful as what they actually were. But I did go back and watch the end of '[[broadwcast:The Green Death|The Green Death]]' [Jo Grant's final story]. And I think it's really important to preserve the absolute beauty of what [producer] Barry Letts and [script editor] Terrance Dicks did there."<br />
<br />
Back in 1973, Jo left the Doctor to marry idealistic ecologist Professor Jones, joining him on a trip up the Amazon in search of a fungus that could end world hunger. In spin-off adventures, her life took a different path, but Davies was determined to remain faithful to her TV last hurrah. <br />
<br />
"We talked about it a lot beforehand," says Davies. "I know there's a feeling that she'd have got divorced, and there was a theory that she'd be living on her own in Wales in a little cottage-some of the novels did this - and you think, 'Nice idea, but actually that's absolutely betraying the way we left her'. We left her with the promise of happiness, of adventure, of love and joy, and you can't be cynical and undercut that by saying, 'Oh, she's a drug addict now! Her husband left her, she's lonely, her life is bitter'. That's just interfering with classic Doctor Who and rewriting what 'were promised. So I was absolutely t that. I wasn't supposed to write this story first of all - Phil Ford <br />
was. So when we were setting it up I said, 'You cannot make this a cynical story, and you cannot reduce her character by getting this adult draft undercutting all the beautiful memories that she left us with.' So I think I've honoured the past and got it right."<br />
<br />
People can change a lot over the course of 37 years, of course. So how did they go about deciding how Jo would have changed, and what qualities must be retained?<br />
<br />
"Well, Katy Manning is absolutely marvellous in it," says Davies. "What's so lovely about her performance is that absolute lack of cynicism — there's a real bright, sparky optimism. There are some scenes that are quite sad, and one or two lines you could play as bitter or slightly angry, and she never plays it like that; she plays it with a smile every time, and a really forgiving heart. The fact that the Doctor hasn't seen her again in all these years doesn't make her pissed off. It's lovely — there is a genuine innocence and wide-eyedness. And of course, Jo's someone who's travelled. She went off to live in the Amazon — not many people do that! She has to have got a certain amount of perspective from that — she's seen amazing things that most of us never will. You can travel in the TARDIS with the Doctor and see different planets but Jo, on Earth, has seen more amazing things than possibly any of the Doctor's other companions have."<br />
<br />
Katy's entrance is classic Jo. She enters babbling good-naturedly, tripping over, and dropping a vase full of flowers.<br />
<br />
"Well, that's famously supposed to be the way that Katy Manning auditioned — she'd forgotten her glasses and she walked in, fell over and Barry Letts said, 'Oh my god, that's the girl!' So it's riffing off that. There's all sorts of memories built into it — not just Jo Grant memories, but Doctor Who mythology memories of what people are like. As a fan, you inherit a lot of Katy Manning as well, so there are lines about her wearing glasses because of her famous short-sightedness and that sort of clumsiness, and that's actually Katy, not Jo."<br />
<br />
As a Who fan himself, how does it feel to see these two immensely popular companions meet for the first time?<br />
<br />
"The funny thing is, when you see Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith in the same scene together it's weird, because it's not as shocking as I thought it would be!" Davies admits. "I thought that'd he a real culture shock, like two eras meeting, and as a fanboy my hairs would he standing on end. But actually you watch it and it just feels right. Even though I know the history of Doctor Who very well, I sit there going, 'Good lord, have they not met before?' Then you see the two of them sitting with Matt Smith, and it all seems completely natural. And you think, 'What a good, open and reflexive mythology this is - it really absorbs anything."<br />
<br />
WHAT ABOUT WHO?<br />
<br />
This story also sees the former Who showrunner writing for the Eleventh Doctor. When Davies ruled out writing more scripts for the series, we never thought we'd see that happen.<br />
<br />
"I know!" chuckles Davies, clearly fearful our line of questioning is heading somewhere painfully obvious... "I wasn't meant to write this story, and when they phoned and said, 'You've got to write it,' literally the first thing I said was, 'I refuse to be interviewed and asked what's the difference between writing for David Tennant and Matt Smith! I refuse!'"<br />
<br />
Er, we didn't ask, actually! But now you bring it up, what's the answer?<br />
<br />
"What I did was take all my old lines of dialogue from David Tennant, and I cut them up, on laminated paper, and made them like those poetry fridge magnets! Then I took all David Tennant's words and stuck them on the fridge, and I rearranged them so Matt Smith never says a word that David Tennant didn't say — oh, except I took two lines of Patrick Troughton from '[[broadwcast:The Tomb of the Cybermen|Tomb Of The Cybermen]]' to jazz it up a bit! So that's how T wrote it, just desperately parasiting off the past!"<br />
<br />
Okay — ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. But writing for the Doctor one more time must have felt a bit weird, surely?<br />
<br />
"Thing is, it didn't really feel like writing proper Doctor Who. Also, I invented The Sarah Jane Adventures, and I haven't had a chance to write it since the pilot, and it's so nice to get a chance to. I loved writing for Clyde and Rani, and there's a really nice couple of scenes for Rani's dad, Haresh, in there that balance Haresh a bit and give him a bit of wisdom, which I think is a little bit lacking sometimes. So it's my chance to do a little bit of fine-tuning, and I really loved that. I'm so glad we did this. I'm so pleased with it, I can't begin to tell you!"<br />
<br />
The Sarah Jane Adventures series four starts on BBC One in the week commencing 11 October. "Death Of The Doctor" airs in the week commencing 25 October. Set the Sky + now, eh?<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions:<br />
<br />
Lis and Katy pose together, on the day of the read-through. <br />
<br />
In 1973's "The Green Death", Jo left to marry Professor Jones.<br />
<br />
Hang on, why Isn't Luke in school uniform? Is he bunking off?<br />
<br />
There are big changes ahead for Luke (Tommy Knight) this year...<br />
<br />
"No-one will possibly spot us if we hide behind these barrels!"<br />
<br />
The episode with the mysterious floating arm is particularly chilling.<br />
<br />
Exploding Slitheen? just a really bad cold? <br />
----<br />
"I WAS IN THE PRESENCE OF DOCTOR WHO ROYALTY!"<br />
<br />
Matt Smith talks SJA<br />
<br />
How does the Doctor get Involved with Sarah Jane and Jo? <br />
<br />
>> There are rumours of the Doctor's demise, which obviously cause Sarah Jane a great deal of concern and an understandable need to try and help by rushing to his side. Even if it may be a trap... It's drama on a grand scale, with some tense scenes inside a secret base beneath Mount Snowdon. We see the involvement of a formidable set of vulture aliens, the Shansheeth. They are known as galactic coffin bearers, so make of their presence what you will!<br />
<br />
<br />
How did you feel about taking the Doctor into one of Who's sister shows?<br />
<br />
>> Very excited! Even more so when I knew that Russell T Davies would be penning the episodes. I filmed The Sarah Jane Adventures after a period of time away from playing the Doctor and I'd really missed him. So going back to the role was fantastic.<br />
<br />
<br />
Does it give you particular pleasure to have filmed a programme aimed primarily at children?<br />
<br />
>> It does, because I think youngsters get a particular kick out of Doctor Who. They're the members of the audience who really believe what they are seeing, who literally watch episodes open-mouthed! I've got a picture on my phone of a couple of youngsters, children of somebody closely involved with Doctor Who, hiding behind a sofa while watching an episode. And that's the classic child's response to the programme - has been for generations!<br />
<br />
You're not only starring with long-time Doctor Who icon Lis Sladen but Katy Manning as well. Was that daunting? <br />
<br />
>> Well, I did feel I was in the presence of Doctor Who royalty! Both they, and their characters, go back a long way, and occasionally I'd be reminded of the show's long and glorious past. There's a scene where Sarah Jane makes reference to being stuck in a ventilation shaft, as she was during an adventure with a previous incarnation of the Doctor, and my character says, 'That takes me back - or maybe it takes me forward!' You never lose sight of the fact that you're part of a programme which has been around for a very long time and will doubtless go on for a very long time in the future, long after I've stopped playing the Doctor. Tim Oglethorpe<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Only_Good_DalekThe Only Good Dalek2024-03-17T19:59:06Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = SFX<br />
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| date = 2010-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2020<br />
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| pages = 128<br />
| language = English <br />
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Action station<br />
<br />
Writer: Justin Richards<br />
<br />
Artist: Mike Collins<br />
<br />
Publisher. BBC Books 128 pages £12.99<br />
<br />
ISBN: 978-1-84607-984-9 OUT NOW!<br />
<br />
{{stars|3|3}}<br />
<br />
Given that the history of Doctor Who comics stretches back 46 years, it's rather staggering to realise that this is only the second stab at an original graphic novel (the first, fact fans, was 1994's The Age Of Chaos, published by Marvel UK and co-written by one Colin Baker). The storyline sees the Eleventh Doctor and Amy arriving at a space station, where, in the hope of gaining an edge in a century-old human/ Dalek war, researchers are striving to unlock the secrets of Dalek technology...<br />
<br />
It's something of a strange hybrid. The TARDIS lands in a recreation of a petrified forest from the Daleks' home planet (shades of "The Time Of Angels"), there are appearances by Skaro's deadly Varga plants, the Daleks' Robomen slaves and their monstrous pet the Slyther, and the Earth forces are decked out in Space Security Agent uniforms - all references to the William Hartnell era. But the tone is very much of the '80s. This is Doctor Who as script editor Eric Saward envisioned it: action-orientated fare crammed with shoot-outs and explosions, and boasting a high body count. There's little room for humour, emotion (other than anger) or, for that matter, female supporting characters.<br />
<br />
As in 1966's "[[broadwcast:The Power of the Daleks|The Power Of The Daleks]]" and last year's "Victory Of The Daleks", the tale features pepperpots who appear to have been tamed, but can't really be trusted. But the most intriguing plot element is the creation of a non-aggressive "good Dalek" through genetic engineering, a concept with echoes of not only Eccleston encounter "Dalek" and Troughton tale "[[broadwcast:The Evil of the Daleks|The Evil Of The Daleks]]", but the Fourth Doctor's mission in "[[broadwcast:Genesis of the Daleks|Genesis Of The Daleks]]". Sadly, this winning idea feels under-used, with the Doctor never forced into difficult ethical territory.<br />
<br />
As for the art by Mike Collins (a regular on Doctor Who Magazine's strip), it's a little hit-and-miss. Likenesses tend to be strong in close-up (perhaps when they correspond to publicity images?) and a little iffy elsewhere, and the overall quality is puzzlingly inconsistent, with some panels looking slick and others more like rough sketches. All in all, this debut effort from BBC Books doesn't quite live up to its landmark Status. <br />
<br />
<br />
DNA SCAN<br />
<br />
*Action! - 45% <br />
*Hartnell references - 30% <br />
*Dalek deviousness - 20% <br />
*Ogrons - 5% <br />
*Laughs - 0%<br />
<br />
The station Commander is named Tranter, possibly in homage to Jane Tranter, responsible for bringing back Who in 2005.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Mystery_diseases,_black_cats_and_the_return_of_Mad_TomMystery diseases, black cats and the return of Mad Tom2024-03-17T19:56:12Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
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| author = Saxon Bullock<br />
| pages = 132<br />
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THE RELICS OF TIME<br />
<br />
<br />
The Mad Old Uncle of the Doctor Who universe is back and after last year's BBC series Hornet's Nest, we're getting another five-part dose of full-on eccentricity starring Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Demon Quest once again feels like it's been deliberately tailored to suit its one-of-a-kind leading man, as we follow the Doctor and his middle-aged housekeeper Mrs Wibbsey (Susan Jameson) on a quest through time to track down a missing component of the TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Their first stop is ancient Britain, where they get caught up in the dealings of a mysterious wizard, but while Paul Magrs's story certainly gives Baker every opportunity to be entertainingly peculiar, it's too aimless, rambling and whimsical for its own good. Even Baker's most shamelessly eccentric moments on the show weren't quite as self-indulgent as this, and while there are some fun highlights, it's more like listening to a cover version of the Fourth Doctor than the genuine article.<br />
<br />
Over at Big Finish, the latest trilogy continues with The Whispering Forest, as the Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Turlough arrive on a jungle planet where a settlement of humans are trapped in superstitious beliefs, while being preyed on by enigmatic figures called "Takers". Again, the tricky prospect of an overcrowded TARDIS actually plays rather well, as the script gives all the leads a fair share of the action, and there are excellent performances across the board, especially from the ever-reliable Peter Davison. An emotive piece of old-school Who storytelling, The Whispering Forest's various twists may not be blisteringly original but they do fit the early-'80s Who vibe extremely well, and it all leads to a doozy of a cliffhanger.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, the new run of Paul McGann adventures continues with Nevermore, as the Eighth Doctor and his new companion arrive in a bizarre prison seemingly dedicated to recreating the works of Edgar Allen Poe. They soon discover that this is all linked to an alien war criminal and an unusual black cat. There are effective twists and enjoyably arch literary in-jokes in this fast-paced and entertaining tale. Once again, this new run of Eighth Doctor stories is shaping up very nicely.<br />
<br />
Finally, the Companion Chronicles reaches back into the '60s once again, with another appearance from Second Doctor assistant Zoe Herriot (Wendy Padbury). Echoes Of Grey once again plays with the fact that Zoe's memories of the Doctor were wiped by the Time Lords, as a mysterious girl takes her on a trip into her stolen memories, to discover the secret of a sinister medical research establishment she visited with the Doctor and Jamie. Padbury gives an excellent reading, and while the story is a little too dark for the Troughton era, it's still a gripping tale with a very powerful conclusion. <br />
<br />
<br />
Out on 7 October part two of Demon Quest, new Eleventh Doctor reading The Jade Pyramid, and The Runaway Train. <br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Objects_of_Desire_(2010)Objects of Desire (2010)2024-03-17T19:52:20Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
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Monsters and wotnot to tickle your fancy<br />
<br />
<br />
1 REMOTE-CONTROL DALEK<br />
<br />
Character Options Height:13cm £19.99<br />
<br />
This "Ironside" from "Victory Of The Daleks" is just one of three new remote-control models - there's also a red Drone and a blue Strategist. No doubt a white Supreme, orange Scientist and yellow Eternal are on the way why flog one Dalek when you can flog five, eh? Not that base commercial imperatives enter into the creative process, obviously.<br />
<br />
<br />
2 DOCTOR WHO KEYFOB<br />
<br />
Wow! Stuff Length: 8.5cm £5.99 <br />
<br />
Press the buttons and this emits six sound effects: the sonic; K-9 barking "Affirmative!"; a TARDIS materialisation; five Cyber-stomps, a Dalek extermination; and, bafflingly, some kind of Hath noise (huh?). Neat, although expect rapid and regular embarrassment if you actually stick your keys on it.<br />
<br />
<br />
3 DOCTOR WHO COASTERS<br />
<br />
Half Moon Bay Width:10cm £5.95 for set of four<br />
<br />
Available from: www.pulpshop.co.uk<br />
<br />
These brightly-coloured coasters feature old-school Who images: Tom Baker in "talk to the hand, girlfriend" pose, a Voc from "[[broadwcast:The Robots of Death|The Robots Of Death]]", three Daleks and the TARDIS flying past a psychedelic purple blob. That's the only one we're not loving - it's like having an acid flashback every time you reach for a cuppa.<br />
<br />
<br />
4 DOCTOR WHO FIGURES<br />
<br />
Character Options Height: 13.5cm-16cm £24.99 (double sets)/£14.99 <br />
<br />
Collecting these is becoming an expensive habit, thanks to a flood of Comic-Con exclusives. Here's a "[[broadwcast:The Claws of Axos|The Claws Of Axos]]" Axon monster/Master set, a "[[broadwcast:Planet of Fire|Planet Of Fire]]" Fifth Doctor/Master set, and a newly-regenerated Fifth Doctor. Best: the Anthony Ainley Master - it's the glaring eyes! Worst: the gutlord Axon, which seems to be wearing John McCririck-sized pants.<br />
<br />
<br />
5 ADIPOSE STRESS TOY<br />
<br />
Wow! Stuff Height:11cm 512.99<br />
<br />
There's something wrong about this, and it's not just that it feels sticky, or smells oddly like hair wax. The little fat-creatures from "Partners In Crime" are just too cute for a stress toy. It feels positively wicked to be crushing its blobby little body in your palm - like standing on a kitten, or squeezing a foetus.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Daily_News_of_Johnson_CountyThe Daily News of Johnson County2024-03-09T14:50:47Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
|firstPublished=1962<br />
|lastPublished=1985<br />
|location=Olathe, KS<br />
|website=<br />
|notes=<br />
}}<br />
{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Help_save_%27Dr._Who%27Help save 'Dr. Who'2024-03-09T14:49:07Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = The Daily News of Johnson County<br />
| file = 1984-02-25 Daily News of Johnson County.jpg<br />
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| date = 1984-02-25<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 4A<br />
| language = English <br />
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| description = <br />
| categories = letters to the editor<br />
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Fans of one of the best science fiction T.V. shows of all time — Dr. Who — may not be able to see this very inventive show on [[broadwcast:KTWU|KTWU]] or [[broadwcast:KCPT|KCPT]] because of lack of funds. All of us who enjoy Dr. Who must write to the stations to let them know how much Dr. Who means to us, and if possible, send in a contribution. Contributions are so very important to the survival of the show.<br />
<br />
Dr. Who is a show for people of all ages and nationalities and profession. It makes you feel young. It has adventure and comedy and good special effects. The main character of the show is a true hero and humanitarian who is outraged by injustice and believes all should be free. It even takes on some of the social issues of our time. There are so many T.V. shows that insult our intelligence but Dr. Who doesn't. It stimulates our imagination about traveling thru time and space with our hero.<br />
<br />
Whenever there is a Dr. Who convention in the U. S., it is a sell-out. The stars of the show care so much for their fans and they truly enjoy meeting with them.<br />
<br />
We, as fans, must do everything we can to keep Dr. Who on KTWU and KCPT, so please write and send a contribution.<br />
<br />
Sincerely, Mary Lou Schmidt 1124 Medford Topeka, Kansas 66604<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Bi_and_proud_with_Pearl_MackieBi and proud with Pearl Mackie2024-03-09T14:43:08Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Diva | file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/6/6f/2021-11_Diva.pdf | px = | height = | width = | date = 2021-11-01 | display date = Nov. 2021..."</p>
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| date = 2021-11-01<br />
| display date = Nov. 2021<br />
| author = Nic Crosara<br />
| pages = 38<br />
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THE STAR OF DOCTOR WHO AND THE LONG CALL OPENS UP ABOUT BI REPRESENTATION, THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND HER COMING OUT JOURNEY WORDS NIC CROSARA<br />
<br />
Pearl Mackie made our queer hearts swoon when she came out as bisexual last year. This is the first time Pearl has been interviewed by a queer magazine since that awesome day and our conversation falls on the perfect date, Bi Visibility Day. Pearl joins the Zoom call and her smile lights up the screen. She's surrounded by art, my favourite being a portrait of another bicon, Frida Kahlo.<br />
<br />
Throughout her career, Pearl has helped many of us see ourselves represented. We bond over the fact that neither of us can recall the first time we saw a bi character on TV. "There's a lot of negativity that surrounds bisexuality. We're seen as overtly sexual, that we'll sleep with anyone. Just because I'm attracted to all genders doesn't mean I'll sleep with anyone... As a whole, we are doing a lot better with queer representation, but things that don't fit into the bracket of gay or lesbian are underrepresented. I think there is room for more. Not just so that people can understand us, but so the stereotypes are shattered, because they're bullshit."<br />
<br />
When Pearl was 10, she was excited to be playing Nancy in a school production of Oliver! The Musical. Her mum took her to see it in the West End because there was a mixed race woman playing Nancy. "I was blown away and thought, 'Maybe I can actually do this for real'."<br />
<br />
Since then, Pearl has made her way into our lives through both stage and screen. Her latest on-screen role is single mum of two, DS Jen Rafferty in ITV drama The Long Call. On TV, Black single mothers are often depicted in ways that can be damaging, but Pearl's portrayal of Jen is refreshingly multidimensional. "I wanted the relationship between Jen and her kids to be realistic and loving, but nuanced. I wanted it to not be stereotyped in any way."<br />
<br />
And of course, we all loved Pearl as Bill Potts, Doctor Who's first openly gay companion. I'm curious if the role helped Pearl navigate her own sexuality. "I was more focused on the character and people's reactions to her being out and proud. The reception was overwhelmingly positive. If<br />
<br />
I was going through that and trying to navigate my sexuality, I think that would have been overwhelming." She looks back fondly on how excited young people of colour were about her character. She tells me about a Comic Con in Berlin. "One young girl came up to me. She was quite emotional. I gave her a hug. She said, 'Without you I wouldn't have been able to come out to my family'." Pearl becomes tearful. "I was able to represent myself as a queer brown woman without even knowing it. Which is surreal."<br />
<br />
When Pearl came out during Pride month, it was inspiring to see her embrace being Black, bi and proud. I ask if she can remember the events leading up to her post. "The Black Lives Matter movement had erupted, and the murder of George Floyd." Pearl describes her experiences of attending the London marches. As well as being her first time in a crowd since lockdown started, it was also "the first time I'd seen a majority Black and ethnically diverse crowd on a march ever, which was really powerful". Like many, the pandemic forced Pearl to reflect. "Social media was our means of communication. That's how the movement spread globally. I felt it was my duty to share as much as possible." Pearl eventually burnt out and took some time away from her phone. We both get choked up as she continues to tell me how this allowed her to process past experiences of racism that had happened in both her professional and personal life. "It was the first time I explored a lot of those and was honest about how they had affected me. It was cathartic, but painful. It made me think, 'I'm being so honest about so many elements of my life, I'm not being honest about my sexuality. There is so much oppression [of] Black people and queer people. There is so much to fight against, why am I fighting against myself?' I didn't want to post something for Pride as an ally. I'm a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community and I want everyone to know it."<br />
<br />
Pearl tells me the relief she felt through coming out. "So then I changed my Hinge profile to girls and guys. Big up Hinge for having that, because not many do. A bit later I met my girlfriend, which was great." Pearl often posts pictures with her girlfriend, being bi and visible. It's brilliant for LGBTQI people of colour to see public figures who look like us and love like us, but I wonder how Pearl decides how much to share and what to keep private. "I'm happy to post pictures of us. I mean, we look great together. I think it's important for us to take things slowly, as slowly as you can in a relationship between two women. We are very happy."<br />
<br />
Later on that day after our call, I see Pearl share a Bi Visibility post on Instagram showing her and her girlfriend serving up Black and brown queer joy. As I read the caption, I am reminded of the potency of Pearl's visibility to our community: "Happy #bivisibilityday from your favourite fine-ass bi queens, to all of our bisexual brothers, sisters and non-binary siblings."<br />
<br />
The Long Cal is available to stream on the ITV Hub and BritBox now<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Whozat,_Doctor%3FWhozat, Doctor?2024-03-09T14:37:30Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Radio Times | file = 2023-02-25 Radio Times.jpg | px = 550 | height = | width = | date = 2023-02-25 | author = Huw Fullerton & Louise Griffin | pag..."</p>
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| date = 2023-02-25<br />
| author = Huw Fullerton & Louise Griffin<br />
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September 2023 marks Radio Times's 100th birthday — and in preparation for that milestone, we've been delving into our archive, unearthing a trove of unseen images. A prime example? These exclusive never-before-published photos of Doctor Who's Peter Davison in 1981, before his first episode aired the following year. Back then, he was the fresh-faced 30-year-old fifth Doctor — and now, he's a beloved part of the show's own long history.<br />
<br />
"This year is the 60th anniversary [of Doctor Who] so that's very exciting," Davison, 71, tells RT. "Now the people who grew up watching the programme when I did it are making the show, and presumably the same thing will happen in the future. The lunatics are running the asylum!"<br />
<br />
Davison's Doctor made a surprise return in Jodie Whittaker's swansong last year. "Although the programme looks much better with all the special effects on the screen, it's still made with the same degree of chaos and panic," he says, "Nobody knew what the heck they were doing. So nothing really ever changes!"<br />
<br />
Caption: BATTING CLEVER Peter Davison's incarnation of the Time Lord had a passion for cricket. He was photographed by Radio Times in 1981 during filming at Buckhurst Park in East Sussex<br />
<br />
Caption: DOCTOR NOW Peter Davison at this year's Radio Times Covers Party<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/All_ChangeAll Change2024-03-03T21:52:43Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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| date = 1996-06-01<br />
| display date = June 1996<br />
| author = Garry Jenkins, Paul Cornell<br />
| pages = 47<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = TV movie<br />
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DOCTOR WHO HAS BEEN THROUGH A FEW REGENERATIONS IN ITS TIME, BUT NEVER ONE AS SIGNIFICANT AS THIS. AS FANS WAIT BREATHLESS FOR THE NEW US TV MOVIE , GARRY JENKINS TALKS TO CAST AND CREW, INCLUDING THE NEW WHO HIMSELF, PAUL MCGANN, ABOUT THE TRIALS OF BEING A TIME LORD... <br />
<br />
The good citizens of Vancouver are used to the weird [[broadwcast:Canada|Canada]]'s West Coast capital is, after all, the spiritual home of Mulder and Scully. But on a brutally cold January night, in a dirty, rubbish-strewn alleyway in the heart of the city's bustling Chinatown, the semi-lit silhouette of a blue, London police box is drawing curious glances from the locals... <br />
<br />
The faces of the few who stop to investigate grow even more perplexed when they're filled in on the news that their city is playing host to a series that pre-dates The X-Files - currently filming a few miles away - by a good 30 years. You can imagine the ensuing conversation, an exchange straight out of a bad Benny Hill dream...<br />
<br />
"It's called Doctor Who."<br />
<br />
"Doctor Who?"<br />
<br />
"That's its name, Doctor Who..." etc. etc.<br />
<br />
In the third of a century since he first materialised on our television screens, the Doctor's oddball, sonic screwdriver-wielding magic may have cast its spell in some of the farthest flung corners of our planet - he's <br />
big in [[broadwcast:Brazil|Brazil]] and [[broadwcast:Zimbabwe|Zimbabwe]], for example - but to the inhabitants of this particular corner of Canada, many of whom are recent arrivals from [[broadwcast:Hong Kong|Hong Kong]], he's still a distinct nonentity compared to Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and the martial arts heroes on the window posters of the neighbourhood video stores.<br />
<br />
Not for much longer, however. At least if the group of well-insulated figures pacing up and down at the other end of this windy alleyway have anything to do with it. If producers Philip Segal and Pete Ware, and English director Geoffrey , Sax, can pull it off, Doctor Who will soon not only be big in this part of Vancouver, but the world over, familiar to everyone from Eskimos to Red Indians. Global domination, like it was back in many of the episodes in the original series, is the name of the game. Soon, everyone will be humming that old, electronic theme tune: du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb, du-du-du-dumb...<br />
<br />
Perhaps. If things go to plan. At the moment, they're certainly not going to budget...<br />
<br />
FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, DOCTOR Who has been one of the UK's great institutions, as quintessentially English as leaves on the line and Lady Penelope, cricket and Commander James Bond. But just like Bond, the famous Time Lord's been out of commission for most of the '90s, where he was once considered to have run out of steam in the age of the World Wide Web.<br />
<br />
Now, however, he's back. Vancouver is the setting for a $5 million new Doctor Who adventure being made as a co-production between Universal Television and BBC Worldwide. And just as Bond returned at the wheel of a German BMW, equipped with an Irish accent, so the Doctor has rematerialised, complete with a new set of multinational modifications.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann, the eighth Doctor in a line begun so memorably by the late William Hartnell, is an Englishman, albeit one with the unmistakable glint of Emerald Isle mischief in his darting green eyes. But there's a distinctly American flavour to the rest of the cast, hardly surprising given that the first story of the decade is set in San Francisco on New Year's Eve, 1999. Eric Roberts, the brother of Hollywood star Julia, is portraying the Doctor's nemesis The Master, while Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike Daphne Ashbrook is Dr Grace Holloway, the latest "companion" to hitch a ride in the Time Lord's TARDIS.<br />
<br />
Those of you fretting already at the Americanisation of our best-loved science fiction series need not lose too much sleep, though. As executive producer Phil Segal is at pains to point out, this is definitely not an American Doctor Who. "We have to protect the integrity of the franchise," he explains. "That's why the BBC was so unhappy with the show in its later years because it was written down to; it became silly. If you do cross that line then you shouldn't do it. We are not crossing that line."<br />
<br />
In Segal, it seems, Doctor Who has found as safe and protective a pair of hands as it could have found anywhere in Hollywood. Born in Southend, the former casting director and literary agent has a passion for The Doctor and an encyclopaedic grasp of the series' history that would shame the most devoted of Whovians. You suspect he probably knows the Gallifreyan for "franchise." He certainly seems to have a "Seal of Rassilon" fixation, as the famous swirly pattern from the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey is, at Segal's request, plastered just about everywhere in the new TARDIS, from the walls to the ornate feet at the bottom of the new central control column.<br />
<br />
But, bizarrely, Segal may not stay on board as producer if the TV movie does spawn a series. Even as writers, allegedly including Terrance Dicks (script editor on the original Doctor Who during the Pertwee years), are in preliminary talks about further scripts, Segal has admitted that a series would probably be overseen by another producer. It might have something to do with his perfectionism pushing the pilot over budget by $1 million. He's refusing to be drawn on the subject.<br />
<br />
Which is a shame, because if anyone could pull off the high-wire act of blending the traditional values of Doctor Who with the Hollywoodesque elements vital for success on network American television it was Segal.<br />
<br />
The casting of Paul McGann is yet further evidence of his intent to remain as faithful as possible to the feel of the original series. At 36, McGann is younger than any of the previous Doctors, admittedly, but his features are also more familiar to international audiences, thanks to successful parts in the likes of booze-sodden classic Withnail and I, Alan Bleasdale's Establishment-rattling TV series The Monocled Mutineer and the curiously creepy medical thriller Paper Mask, McGann will also bring a touch of the scallywag Scouse into the TARDIS; he'll be more John Lennon than Jon Pertwee.<br />
<br />
"I thought it was important to have a hero that was a little more accessible to a broader audience," explains Segal. Strangely enough, it was one of McGann's less successful roles, in the City yuppie drama Dealers, that persuaded the producer that this was his Time Lord. "There was an incredible sparkle in his eyes," remembers Segal. "I've seen mad scientist looks and celebrity looks, and I've seen a lot of talented people who wanted to do this show. But McGann had something else...<br />
<br />
"To me he's a cross between Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker. Those two for me solidified the alien quality of the character, with a lot of whimsy and humour. And a lot of fun," he says. "1 think that Paul really is the epitome of those two characters. And I think this is going to make him a big star in the United States."<br />
<br />
IN THE WARMTH OF A HOTEL ROOM THE NEXT MORNING, PAUL McGANN is behaving more like the down-to-earth guy he is than a megastar-in-waiting. He's deep in thought about where he would venture in time and space if he were given the keys to the TARDIS... Suddenly, he snaps into life, eyes as bright as Anfield on a wet Wednesday night. "I would like to go back to 1959, which is when I was born, and when Shankly took over at Liverpool," he says excitedly.<br />
<br />
"I would like to go back and shake his hand. He came in and it all started. He told everybody what was going to happen. Maybe he wasn't the Messiah, maybe he was John The Baptist. Let's get Biblical! Do you know he was offered the job at Anfield in 1952 and he turned it down?"<br />
<br />
He goes on, the bit between his teeth, determined not to be knocked off the ball, a conversational Ian Callaghan: "Guess why? They wouldn't let him pick the team! The board picked the team in those days. But he was offered the job again seven years later — and he took it. The first thing he did was sort out the toilets at the Oakfield Road end. The second thing he did was make us the world's best football team. Good old Bill."<br />
<br />
McGann has been in Vancouver now for over a month. He admits he was lost at first, slightly overwhelmed by the prospect of playing a character he grew up with in Liverpool in the '60s and '70s. "Doctor Who is like the BBC equivalent of Ambassador to the United States. It's big. It's I, a big thing," he enthuses.<br />
<br />
The fact that he's so full of beans this morning can probably be attributed to three factors — the copious amounts of coffee he's been drinking, the news I've just imparted about Liverpool's midweek win over Aston Villa, and the fact he's now feeling completely at ease with a role that could transform his life.<br />
<br />
"When it was first mooted last year and I went over to see the casting agent in Los Angeles, I kept saying to myself, 'I don't want to do this — I thought Eric Idle was going to do it.' And I turned it down. I said, 'This is daft; I can't do it.' That must have been a year ago," he explains. "You can't imagine yourself saying those things, doing those things, wearing that costume... I kept saying, 'There's no way, no way. I am going to look like a tosser. And I am going to feel like a tosser.' I was being honest!"<br />
<br />
By the time he'd agreed to take the role, he'd just finished making the SAS movie, The One that Got Away for ITV and was playing a rather different kind of role on stage. "The last character I played before this was Jesus. The characters you're doing tend to dictate the kind of mood you're in," he explains.<br />
<br />
That other-worldliness only made Philip Segal and his producer Peter Ware even more convinced they had the right man for the role. "Philip kept saying, 'I know you don't think it's something you might entertain, but...,'" he laughs. McGann, however, stuck to his guns. "There was no pressure. It's easy to say no to something. Easy."<br />
<br />
The producers' master-stroke, however, was showing McGann the "bible" they'd put together for the production, a directory of Doctor Who from his origins to his enemies, his previous incarnations — as well as the adventures they envisioned for his future. "He said, 'Look at this.' They gave me the bible. It looked like some monks had done it in Dunstan in about 890AD. It gives you the whole story about where Doctor Who comes from and about his father on Gallifrey..."<br />
<br />
By now, Segal's enthusiasm for the project was becoming infectious —and McGann was hooked. For the first time he began to realise that he may actually enjoy playing the part. "As far as Phil is concerned," he explains, "there is no greater character, in its myriad possibilities. This is a go-anywhere, come-from-anywhere figure."<br />
<br />
"It was then I began to think, 'I suppose it is right.' And I generally tend to work on the principle, 'Will I have a laugh doing it?' Will I be able to do it in the right spirit?' There are actors who can manufacture to perfection — that's a gift — but I can't do it. I've got to believe in what I'm doing, and have a hoot doing it. If I don't believe in it, it looks ropey. So I decided, in the end, it would be a hoot... And it is a hoot!"<br />
<br />
SEVERAL STORYLINES WERE CONSIDERED FOR THE FIRST ADVENTURE.<br />
<br />
"I think Phil Segal wanted to do one where the Doctor goes off in search of his father," explains director Geoffrey Sax. "He lands in the middle of World War II, goes to the British Museum and finds a message in a sarcophagus. He then goes back to Egypt in the time of Ramases and ends up chasing his father all over the world in different time zones. His father is a Time Lord too. I think that would be a great one to do."<br />
<br />
There was also talk of pitting The Doctor against the Daleks. "The problem with the Daleks is that they have to be able to do things that they couldn't do when we were kids. We had some drawings of new Daleks done, but it was financial in the end. If the franchise is successful I'm sure they'll feature," explains Segal.<br />
<br />
In the end, writer Matthew Jacobs came up with a story involving The Doctor and his auld enemy The Master. While transporting his remains back to their home planet of Gallifrey, The Master slips loose and forces the TARDIS down to Earth, San Francisco, on the edge of the millennium, 31 December 1999.<br />
<br />
Fans should have no problems with the storyline. Nor should they complain about the sfx, which will finally bring The Doctor screaming and kicking into the age of computer-generated graphics and matte-paintings.<br />
<br />
Of course, there will be no escaping the wrath of the hardcore Whovians at some point. "We are not going to make everyone happy."<br />
<br />
Segal concedes with a shrug. But if there's one element guaranteed to set the crustier members foaming at the mouth it's the revelation that — shock, horror! — the Doctor enjoys his first serious screen kiss. Yes, McGann and Ashbrook will be seen in not just one, but several screen clinches.<br />
<br />
"I think it's part of the '90s. Yes, the Doctor is a bachelor, but he's a creature of habit, and of love and passion. He is passionate about what he is and what he does," Segal protests. And anyhow, he adds, sex is not an entirely new addition to the series. Remember the Amazonian, chamois-leather clad Leela (Louise Jameson) during Tom Baker's reign? "There was lots of sex appeal there," he offers...<br />
<br />
PAUL MCGANN WAS FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN DOCTOR WHO WAS FIRST<br />
<br />
broadcast on 23 November 1963. William Hartnell will always remain the definitive Doctor as far as McGann is concerned; he reminded him of two terrifying figures in his childhood. "We had this cruel but fair master at<br />
<br />
Ir school with white hair. He was an enormous man. Seddon his name was. He was desperate that we would never forget him. Everyone loved to hate him. He was the one who used to dish out the cane," he recalls.<br />
<br />
"His hair looked premature. We used to ask, 'Sir, how did you get your white hair?' And he would say: 'Because I was a rear turret gunner.' He looked like Bill Hartnell — he was scary. That was partly down to the fact that, to me, he was part Seddon and part the Hack's man."<br />
<br />
The Hack's man?<br />
<br />
"Remember the cough sweets Hack's? Bill looked like the bloke on the wrapper who was about to explode into the world's biggest sneeze," he says, laughing.<br />
<br />
More importantly, McGann reckons Hartnell had the air of a master of the universe, a genius who could float through time and space at will. "He has hung out with Mozart. He's a genius. But where he comes from he's a bit of a young upstart, a maverick. He left and slammed the door. With Hartnell you believed it all."<br />
<br />
Other Doctors paled in comparison. "They were not high church," hi. says, once more lapsing into another of his religious metaphors. The Catholic imagery continues as the actor goes on to explain why the Yeti were the creatures most likely to send him diving behind the McGann living room sofa. "I wasn't scared of Daleks. Go on, show us a Dalek that ran upstairs," he explains. "But the Yetis scared me. What it might have been, looking back, was that we were — are — Catholic boys and at that time in the mid-'60s we were in church almost every day. There was one of these sacred heart statues there. His shirt or robe is drawn back and there, exposed, is his heart. It's the size of a heart and it's quite graphic. Sometimes it might have a crown of thorns around it. And the top of the heart is made to look like Golgotha with a crucifix in it. Scary stuff for a seven year old..."<br />
<br />
But the worst is yet to come. "I remember kneeling there, looking at the beating heart of Jesus, and the next thing, the Yetis are on," he remembers. "And what happens? The Yeti's chest opens up and there's this beating heart. A red throbbing heart! fit's actually a silver ball, but wiry point that out while McGann's in full flow? — Ed] It comes out and goes down the hall. That did it for me. I was going, 'Aaahh!'"<br />
<br />
It's an image that never quite left him. "Even ten years ago, when I finally ended up going to the Himalayas, I was lying there on the first night and thinking, 'Ooooh Yetis!'" McGann leans forward, an extra twinkle in his eye, and drops his voice to a whisper. "It was probably a semi-religious experience."<br />
<br />
His humour is infectious and natural, so too is his down-to-earth demeanour. He often self-censors any lapses into the language of "luvviedom" by apologising for sounding like "a desperate thesp."<br />
<br />
Ever since he burst on the scene in the wonderful Withnail and I —recently re-released — he's been one of the more interesting actors at work in this country. In films from The Monocled Mutineer and Paper Mask to Ken Russell's The Rainbow, he's conjured up an air of appealing edginess and dangerous energy. As Doctor Who, you sense he might take greater risks than any of his seven small-screen predecessors.<br />
<br />
To a certain section of the population, he'll always remain one of the McGann brothers — his brothers Mark, Steve and Joe are all successful actors — but Paul himself has done nothing to dissuade that view, and recently starred with his siblings in The Hanging Gale, the BBC drama set in famine-ravaged Ireland in the mid-19th century.<br />
<br />
Predictably, there'll be two sides to the celebrity Doctor Who will bestow on him. The price of fame he's not looking forward to is the one dished out by the tabloids. "For someone who is awkwardly private like me it will be difficult," he admits. But coping with the series' vast legions of fans will be something he'll grow into, he suspects.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Sylvester McCoy, the previous Doctor, is offering plenty of support. He's already terrified his long-time friend with tales of his experiences amid the most obsessive of Whovians — "McCoy was at a convention in Texas once and someone asked him, 'Aren't you afraid of being shot?' laughs McGann — but he's equally aware of the affection fans have for the character. "A couple of days after I was given this gig, this guy wrote to The Independent, a top Whovian. He was saying you are going to have to brush up on your so-and-so-calculus and astrophysics because you are going to have to waffle on about this for years to come!'<br />
<br />
He admits, however; that playing the Doctor full-time will not be easy. "For me, McCoy is really gifted — he can go to these things and act soft and give them what they want," he confesses. "He's an entertainer. I'm not like that. Still, I'm sure you'll find me doing readings soon enough!"<br />
<br />
However, he's unsure how long he might want to play the role: "They've got me on a contract to do this movie, then everything is contingent on whether it gets picked up," he says. "Everyone's chuffed that it is going well, but the viewers might hate it. Who knows?<br />
<br />
"I am only just realising now the depths of people's feelings about the show," he adds, another rapscallion grin spreading across his face. "Some people will love me; some will hate me. It's like being an MP or Stan Collymore. Which is fair play..."<br />
<br />
Doctor Who is being released on video in this country soon after it airs in America on 14 May. The BBC are mooting the last weekend in May as a possible UK airdate, though this is subject to change at the 11Ith hour.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
----<br />
The Director Geoffrey Sax<br />
<br />
ACCLAIMED BRITISH TV DIRECTOR GEOFFREY SAX REVEALS WHAT DREW HIM TO THE DOCTOR'S BOLDEST TV MOVIE.<br />
<br />
One of the most respected film-makers in British television, Sax has an impressive CV, from ITV comedies like The New Statesman (for which he won a BAFTA award for Best Comedy) to popular BBC dramas like Lovejoy and Bergerac.<br />
<br />
So his Doctor Who is clearly going to be flavoured with a healthy pinch of ingredients drawn from his earlier work. In fact, Sax is convinced that blending humour with high-tech action is the key to resurrecting The Doctor.<br />
<br />
"I hope it's something that will keep people on the edge of their seats but also make them laugh," he explains.<br />
<br />
Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook, who plays his companion, Dr Grace Holloway, have been a major asset in Sax's search for comic subtlety. "The first thing we shot was in Grace's apartment. I rehearsed it a day or two before and I knew as soon as I got up to the set with them that the chemistry between the two was extraordinary. She has got this great comic timing."<br />
<br />
And Sax knew from the beginning that the most difficult element would be making audiences on both sides of the Atlantic happy.<br />
<br />
"We have to assume the majority of the audience has not seen this character before," he explains. "You have to keep to the traditions, but also set some new rules. When I worked on the script that's what I worked on, making sure it worked for both audiences without it being a mid-Atlantic compromise and a mess."<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the script is filled with moments that will be familiar to Who fans — the voice of the Daleks at the very beginning, for instance. "To those who know, it will raise a smile," he says, "to those that don't it's simply some alien being. But it still makes sense dramatically to both audiences."<br />
<br />
For all the gentle comedy Sax hopes to evoke, there's no escaping the fact that for many the film will stand or fall on the quality of its action and special effects. The director admits he's had most fun working on the film's more spectacular scenes... "It's important it's fast-paced. So I always try to keep the camera moving," he says.<br />
<br />
There are many ambitious set-pieces too, from shoot-outs and car chases to the apocalyptic showdown between The Doctor and The Master too. Sax makes no secrets where he draws his inspiration from: "I often think, 'How would James Cameron or Steven Spielberg do this?' They are the sort of people who weave magic into films... If I had $50 million to make this, how would I do it? Then it's a case of how can I make it look like I had $50 million!"<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: British director Geoffrey Sax regarded the TV movie as a kind of "comedy thriller."<br />
----<br />
The Designer Richard Hudolin<br />
<br />
AMERICAN PRODUCTION DESIGNER RICHARD HUDOLIN REVEALS HOW HE'S BRINGING WHO INTO THE '90S.<br />
<br />
<br />
You start doing your research," bemoans designer Richard Hudolin, "and you suddenly realise, 'Oh my God, they've handed you the Crown Jewels and expect you to do something with it!'"<br />
<br />
But if giving the new Who movie a distinctive, futuristic look by dressing up Vancouver locations was a hard task, designing a new version of the series' trademark TARDIS was an even bigger challenge...<br />
<br />
Viewed from the outside, the famous time machine is an authentic replica of the original, recreated from original BBC blueprints.<br />
<br />
But the cozy familiarity presents a stark contrast to what lies inside...<br />
<br />
On a cavernous sound stage, Hudolin has created a set that's part Jules Verne, part HG Wells and part Bram Stoker. The interior is a Victorian gentleman's reading room and a monument to the magpie habits of a time traveller. Next door, the cloister room - home of the Eye of Destiny has the appearance of a vast, sinister Gothic cathedral.<br />
<br />
Hudolin's previous credits offer plenty of clues to his influences. As well as being art director on an impressive range of movies (TimeCop, K2, Stakeout and Little Women), Hudolin has also worked on television series, including Sherlock Holmes Returns for CBS and Dracula for the Famous Players TV station in Canada.<br />
<br />
At the heart of the room stands the familiar control console, with Its distinctive crystal column. But the chamber itself has been re-designed to convey the idea of infinity. "Between the cloister and the control room, the idea was to have a 'MObius strip,' with no inside, no outside, and lots of things going on," explains Hudolin.<br />
<br />
"The producer Phil Segal said we could do anything we wanted. He told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted. If you want to create a feeling of space and infinity then you don't need walls or rooms; you need areas, with all Tie Doctor's things around him:"<br />
<br />
His previous experience on science fiction movies helped with some of his ideas. "I did a film years ago called HyperSapien, with Harry Lange, the production designer who worked on 2001," explains Hudolin. "That fell into the sphere where you're mixing reality with what is the future."<br />
<br />
The sheer size of the set is also reminiscent of the work Hudolin did on Superman Ill, where he assisted award-winning designer Terry Ackland Snow. "When you work with those kind of people you get a sense of scale. The TARDIS has got a 24-foot ceiling, because Pete Ware [one of the show's producers] asked how big we could make it, and I said I'll take it as high as it will go. Because you need grandness. You can't put The Doctor into a cubby hole."<br />
<br />
He was encouraged by English director Geoffrey Sax. "He wanted it to be very theatrical," reveals Hudolin. But he also designed the set so it would complement Sax's plans to use atmospheric lighting. "A lot of the set is designed to help the director of photography. As the rotor starts to work on the console there's this blue light that casts a glow," he explains.<br />
<br />
Hudolin admits reinventing the TARDIS has been one of the most enjoyable challenges of his career. He's well aware, however, how critical Who fans will be about his work. "I was not scared by that," he says. "That's part of the fun of it. In the end it's design. There's no right or wrong."<br />
<br />
"Producer Phil Segal said we could do anythinq we wanted. he told us to treat the original as a starting point, but not to feel restricted."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Richard Hudolin's sets were designed with the director's ideas for lighting in mind.<br />
----<br />
The Master Eric Roberts<br />
<br />
<br />
PLAYING THE DOCTOR'S ARCH ENEMY IS A RIGHT LAUGH, AT LEAST ACCORDING TO ACTOR ERIC ROBERTS...<br />
<br />
Eric Roberts was just a typical 18 year old RADA student slumming it in London when, in 1973, he first cast eyes on Doctor Who...<br />
<br />
"I just loved it. It was really fun, really cheesy," he recalls. When, late last year, word got to him that Universal Television were working on a new movie version of the same show, he told his agent to move — and fast.<br />
<br />
"I offered my services," he explains. The Oscar-nominated actor, whose stormy black looks have never left him short of bad guy offers, had never forgotten the most sinister of all the Doctor's enemies. "The first time I saw the Master, he was a big, black, glob with eyes," he laughs. "He was the all-foreboding evil force. I said: 'If you're doing Doctor Who, I would love to play somebody crazy. I would love to play the Master."'<br />
<br />
Fulfilling his wish in Vancouver has, he admits been "a blast." In Matthew Jacobs' screenplay, The Master has materialised in America on New Year's Eve, 1999 and plans to wreak a little millennium mischief...<br />
<br />
Roberts confesses that his first two weeks in his latest evil guise has once more reminded him of the old truism about the bad guys being more fun.<br />
<br />
"Absolutely more fun. You get to carry weapons, you get to wear great suits. And you've always got a way with the babes," he admits.<br />
<br />
On the face of it, the Atlanta, Georgia raised Roberts and the Liverpudlian McGann don't appear to have much in common. But in fact, both actors went to the same drama school. "It turned out we'd had all of the same teachers!" says Roberts.<br />
<br />
Since he graduated from RADA, Roberts' career has been a roller-coaster ride. His debut movie, King of the Gypsies, alerted Hollywood and in the mid-'80s Runaway Train, with Jon Voight, won him an Oscar nomination. But in latter years he has had to live in the shadow of his little sister, Julia.<br />
<br />
His latest movie, an AIDS drama called It's My Party, has once more pushed him back into the limelight. However, his main priority at present is to have fun on set. "In my 20s, even my early 30s, I was always in a hurry to find that good script. But there's no hurry. I'll keep looking and when it shows up I'll be thrilled," he says.<br />
<br />
Roberts is understandably reluctant to reveal The Master's fate at the end of the movie. But he says he'd love to appear in a new series: "I like Paul's work so much that if he wanted me back on it I'd show up in a minute."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Julia Roberts' brother Eric takes over from Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley in the role of the Doctor's nemesis, The Master.<br />
----<br />
Grace Holloway<br />
<br />
Daphne Ashbrook<br />
<br />
ACTRESS DAPHNE ASHBROOK, ALIAS THE DOCTOR'S NEW ASSISTANT, ON WHY SNOGGING A TIME LORD ISN'T EASY...<br />
<br />
Science fiction is not a line of work alien to Daphne Ashbrook.<br />
<br />
Among her many TV credits is the pilot of CBS television's UFO-abduction series intruders back in 1992 and an appearance in Deep Space Nine. Intruders even stimulated a real-life interest in the unexplained. "During Intruders, I got into the whole thing and met a lot of people who claim to be abductees," she explains. "I started collecting clips of film. But I don't believe it is fiction. I believe it's real." One thing Ashbrook did have a problem believing, however, was the existence of an incredibly successful genre TV series which she'd never even heard of.<br />
<br />
"I wasn't familiar with it at all," she admits, feigning embarrassment. But then she found herself cast as The Doctor's new assistant, Dr Grace Holloway — and with only two days to prepare herself to join the Who production in Vancouver!<br />
<br />
"I still haven't seen any [of the old series].To know about all that other stuff — for an actress I'm not sure that would actually help me."<br />
<br />
The relationship between the two Doctors is set to generate the hottest debate when the film airs on this side of the Atlantic. Grace stirs up feelings that have remained dormant in the Time Lord for hundreds of years. In fact, their first romantic moment came almost as soon as she arrived on set in Vancouver.<br />
<br />
"It was right at the beginning and we were a little shy of each other," she remembers. "I would like to have been a little more comfortable, I just didn't know him. It was weird — 'Hello, nice to meet you... Let's kiss!'"<br />
<br />
She knew McGann through Withnail and I. "But I haven't seen much else of his," she says. She is convinced, however, that he will win Doctor Who a completely new set of followers:. "Women will go crazy for him."<br />
<br />
For Ashbrook, the daughter of theatrical parents, working with McGann has made a pleasant change from the formula froth of American shows like Falcon Crest, all talking heads and pouting close-ups: "I'm not used to having an opportunity to work with an actor. It's all about the camera in America." And of the Who experience, she enthuses: "I'm having the best time I have ever had."<br />
<br />
The prospect of being a part of another science fiction production also fascinates her ("This is all up my alley") — and now she is fully aware of Doctor Who and its infinite appeal, Ashbrook is adamant she would have no hesitation in accepting an invitation to voyage inside the new TARDIS: "I would be a perfect companion." Ask her which moment in time and history she'd like him to transport her to and her reply comes quick-as-a-flash: "I want to be here when the aliens arrive..."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Daphne Ashbrook plays the Doctor's latest companion, Dr Grace Holloway.<br />
<br />
Caption: Holloway doesn't follow the Doctor into the TARDIS at the end of the story, but could return, says Ashbrook. She does a mean Dana Scully impression, too.<br />
----<br />
Caption: A behind-the-scenes look at the scene immediately prior to the regeneration.<br />
<br />
Caption: The new, Gothic-style TARDIS console room is designed to look extremely cavernous.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor! Doctors seven and eight come face to face. In the original script, McCoy had a much larger chunk of the plot then he eventually got.<br />
<br />
The crew get ready to shoot a scene with the newly-regenerated Time Lord. It was not the first that McGann had to shoot; no, that involved Daphne Ashbrook and a certain kiss...<br />
<br />
Welcome to the streets of San Francisco, 31 December 1999. It's tough out there as the Doctor finds out to the cost of his seventh incarnation. And so it begins again...<br />
---- ONE ELEMENT OF THE ORIGINAL SERIES I'HE NEW DOCTOR WHO MOVIE WON'T BE ABLE TO EMULATE IS THE CLIFFHANGER EPISODE ENDINGS. SO HERE'S SFX'S TRIBUTE TO THE BEST AND WORST OF 26 SEASONS OF SUDDEN CLOSE-UPS, COLLATED BY PAUL CORNELL...<br />
<br />
THE BEST...<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Daleks|THE DALEKS]] (1963), episode one<br />
<br />
Original companion Barbara has some sort of orgasm at the approach of what appears to be a rubber sink plunger.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Dalek Invasion of Earth|THE DALEK INVASION OF EARTH]] (1964), episode one<br />
<br />
A Dalek rises out of the Thames and induces a fit of overacting in William Hartnell. But what was it doing there?<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Tomb of the Cybermen|THE TOMB OF THE CYBERMEN]] (1967), episode two<br />
<br />
The Cyberleader points to the humans and says: "You belong to us, you will be like us," which sounds like the opening line of a Village People song.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Mind Robber|THE MIND ROBBER]] (1968), episode one<br />
<br />
The TARDIS explodes, and the console, (and Zoe's bottom), spin off into space, with Zoe and Jamie clutching onto it.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Invasion|THE INVASION]] (1968), episode six<br />
<br />
The Cybermen march down the steps of St Paul's Cathedral. Those steps lead to the Thames. Is there something down there we should know about?<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Green Death|THE GREEN DEATH]] (1973), episode three <br />
<br />
A Freudian giant maggot creeps up on Jo Grant as she considers her sexual feelings for Professor Jones.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Deadly Assassin|THE DEADLY ASSASSIN]] (1976), episode three<br />
<br />
Goth holds Tom Baker's head underwater. And holds it. And holds it. And Mary Whitehouse gets in a tizz.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Curse of Fenric|THE CURSE OF FENRIC]] (1989), episode three: Professor Judson has been possessed by Fenric. "We play the contest again, Time Lord!" he growls. Villains still say "Time Lord" like we would say "Bum Face."<br />
<br />
<br />
AND THE WORST...<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Moonbase|THE MOONBASE]] (1967), episode two<br />
<br />
A cyberman stumbles to his feet off a bed where he's pretending to be a sick crewman. And they expect us to believe nobody noticed?<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Underwater Menace|THE UNDERWATER MENACE]] (1967), episode three<br />
<br />
Professor Zaroff throws his head back like something out of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and cries: "Nothing in ze vorld can stop me now!"<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Invasion of the Dinosaurs|INVASION OF THE DINOSAURS]] (1974), most of them <br />
<br />
Episodes one, two, and five end with a rubber T-Rex appearing in front of the Doctor and roaring badly.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Planet of the Spiders|PLANET OF THE SPIDERS]] (1974), episode two At the end of a dull chase, our heroes catch up with Lupton's craft, only to discover that, er, he's not in it. Ho hum.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Stones of Blood|THE STONES OF BLOOD]] (1978), episode one<br />
<br />
Romana's walking across a large, flat, moor, with no cliffs in sight, then suddenly falls down a vertiginous cliff-face above a boiling sea. Serves her right for walking backwards, really.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Five Doctors|THE FIVE DOCTORS]] (1983), episodic version, episode three <br />
<br />
The Master walks down a flight of stairs. Roll credits!<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Trial of a Time Lord|THE TRIAL OF A TIME LORD]] (1986), episodes one, four to eight and 11 to 13 <br />
<br />
Colin Baker pulls a funny face as he's threatened with something slight and incomprehensible.<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Dragonfire|DRAGONFIRE]] (1987), episode one<br />
<br />
The Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), for no adequately explained reason (except that no other cliffhanger seems imminent), climbs off the edge of a cliff and hangs there. Is this an in-joke?<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/No,_Dr_Who_is_not_aboard!No, Dr Who is not aboard!2024-02-29T21:47:49Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette | file = 1995-05-19 Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette.jpg | px = 400 | height = | width = | date = 1995-05-..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette<br />
| file = 1995-05-19 Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette.jpg<br />
| px = 400<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1995-05-19<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 9<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
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| text = <br />
FOR followers of television's Dr Who seeks, this will be a familiar sight. The police box, converted Into a time machine, takes off with the intrepid doctor aboard.<br />
<br />
But there's a down-to-earth explanation for this photograph. It's all part of the programme to phase out police boxes, which have become largely obsolete as officers on the beat now have personal radios.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Meet_the_monster_from_Dr_WhoMeet the monster from Dr Who2024-02-29T20:45:44Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Hammersmith Fulham & Sheperds Bush Gazette<br />
| file = 1989-12-15 Hammersmith Fulham and Sheperds Bush Gazette.jpg<br />
| px = 350<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1989-12-15<br />
| author = Amanda Holloway <br />
| pages = 15<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = <br />
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| text = <br />
VISITORS to the BBC film studios in Ealing last week may have found themselves appearing live on daytime television as a backdrop to presenters Jayne Irving and Eamonn Holmes.<br />
<br />
As BBC staff members and friends were given a preview of the exhibitions open to the public at the weekend, a camera crew followed Miss Irving past the huge water tank. built to film Ealing Studios' epics like The Cruel Sea, to the set of a massive costume drama about novelist Vita Sackville West, where the Open Air team were settled around a Victorian dining table. The cameras swung round to the demonstration make-up table, where Wendy Richards (Pauline in EastEnders) was waiting to do a piece about the early days of television drama. Eamonn Holmes, normally so calm and urbane, three a little tantrum over the late arrival of guests, and any visitor who happened to be in the way was shooed away by an imperious floor manager as the massive studio cameras were wheeled through the crowd<br />
<br />
The studios have changed very little in the last 60 years — the only significant change since the BBC took over is the conversion of the original Stage 1 into offices. But the massive diesel generators are still used to power the lights on the stages.<br />
<br />
This is the second series of open days the BBC has held in the last ten years, but the first to be open to the public. It would be nice to think they could become a regular feature. keeping viewers in touch with the television world.<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: A monster hit ... the open day brought a chance to see the creatures from Dr Who. Below Eamonn Holmes briefs Wendy Richards<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Is_%27Blake%27s_Seven%27_going_downhill%3FIs 'Blake's Seven' going downhill?2024-02-29T20:01:29Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Radio Times | file = 1981-12-05 Radio Times.jpg | px = 350 | height = | width = | date = 1981-12-05 | author = | pages = | language = English |..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Radio Times<br />
| file = 1981-12-05 Radio Times.jpg<br />
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| date = 1981-12-05<br />
| author = <br />
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| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = letters to the editor<br />
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| text = <br />
I PROTEST strongly against the latest series of Blake's Seven (Mondays BBC1). This once excellent programme has been reduced to the level of Doctor Who - mindless, childish trivia. The main strength of the previous series lay in the attention given to the development of the characters. I used to enjoy the intelligent dialogue and subtle interplay of personalities. Look at the programme now - what has happened?<br />
<br />
I can only presume that the producer has found new scriptwriters. True, the plots are as obvious, stereotyped and unoriginal as ever - no change there! - but the characterisation has sadly lapsed ...<br />
<br />
Malcolm Hill<br />
<br />
Hull<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr_Who_and_the_Sontaran_ExperimentDr Who and the Sontaran Experiment2024-02-29T18:12:21Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Starburst<br />
| file = 1979-05 Starburst.jpg<br />
| px = 350<br />
| height = <br />
| width = <br />
| date = 1979-05-01<br />
| display date = issue 9 (May 1979)<br />
| author = Alex Carpenter<br />
| pages = <br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = books<br />
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DR WHO AND THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT By Ian Marter<br />
<br />
Based upon the Dr Who serial [[broadwcast:The Sontaran Experiment|The Sontaran Experiment]] this is an ideal youngster's introduction to science fiction. The storyline does not contain any earth-shattering ideas but, nevertheless, it is good, basic science fiction. Reading the book brought to mind the serial in question and underlined the feeling that it is only the BBC's budgetary restrictions that keeps Dr Who at a children's viewing time. The plot is mature enough to ensure more adult acceptance. If you have a young brother or sister showing an interest in science fiction then you cannot go far wrong by buying them any book in this excellent series—excluding the historical titles like [[broadwcast:The Crusade|Dr Who and the Crusaders]]. It would help them make the transition to reading Moorcock, Silverberg, Farmer, et al. more easily.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Echo_MagazineEcho Magazine2024-02-29T17:54:18Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
|firstPublished=1989<br />
|lastPublished=&nbsp;<br />
|location=Arizona<br />
|website=http://echomag.com<br />
|notes=<br />
}}<br />
{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_BBC_have_zapped_new_life_into_that_most_bizarre_of_geek_entertainments,_Dr._WhoThe BBC have zapped new life into that most bizarre of geek entertainments, Dr. Who2024-02-29T17:53:43Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Echo Magazine | file = 2005-06-02 Echo.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 2005-06-02 | author = Matthew Heil | pages = 66 | language = En..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Echo Magazine<br />
| file = 2005-06-02 Echo.jpg<br />
| px = 450<br />
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| date = 2005-06-02<br />
| author = Matthew Heil<br />
| pages = 66<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
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In the 'Why Didn't I Think of That' department, our friends at the BBC have zapped new life into that most bizarre of geek entertainments, Dr. Who. The galaxy-romping show, where a continually reincarnated alien fights bad guys that look like trash cans and evil Muppets, has added a new surprise to his way-out mix: a bisexual space captain.<br />
<br />
Yes, across the pond (and on your Satellite cable) the good doctor gets a good dose of out actor John Barrowman, playing Captain Jack Harkness, according to the folks at www.afterelton.com. If the openly-gay actor's lucky, he'll even reincarnate into season two. Get the latest info at www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr_Who_celebrationDr Who celebration2024-02-29T17:48:14Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = The Burton Mail | file = 1996-05-18 Burton Mail.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 1996-05-18 | author = | pages = | language = English..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = The Burton Mail<br />
| file = 1996-05-18 Burton Mail.jpg<br />
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| date = 1996-05-18<br />
| author = <br />
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| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = conventions<br />
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DR WHO fans are invited to an evening in celebration of the TV time-traveller.<br />
<br />
The event is at the Station Hotel, Burton, tonight from 6pm to midnight. It will include a quiz and a raffle — with prizes from Dr Who, and the likes of The X Files and Deep Space Nine — a buffet and no doubt much heated debate on the classic series.<br />
<br />
It is also hoped to screen a video of the new Dr Who TV film with Paul McGann in the title role, if the BBC overcomes editing hiccups in time. Proceeds will go to the special care baby unit at Burton Hospital. Tickets cost £3.50 on the door.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/FemspecFemspec2024-02-29T14:11:34Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
|firstPublished=1999<br />
|lastPublished=&nbsp;<br />
|location=<br />
|website=https://www.femspec.org/<br />
|notes=<br />
}}<br />
{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Essentialism_Is_Dead!_Long_Live_EssentialismEssentialism Is Dead! Long Live Essentialism2024-02-29T14:10:27Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Femspec | file = | px = | height = | width = | display date = v. 19, no. 2 (2020) | date = 2020-03-15 | author = Christopher Leslie | pages = | langu..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Femspec<br />
| file =<br />
| px =<br />
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| display date = v. 19, no. 2 (2020)<br />
| date = 2020-03-15<br />
| author = Christopher Leslie<br />
| pages =<br />
| language = English<br />
| type =<br />
| description =<br />
| categories = academic articles<br />
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| abstract = At the end of 2017, the Christmas special of Doctor Who, a long-running television program on the British Broadcasting Corporation, concluded with the body of the title character transforming from male to female. The transformation of the Doctor was not a new idea; since 1966, the program's fictional setting stipulated that the main character's impending death could trigger a sort of reincarnation known as regeneration. For at least thirty years, it has been suggested that the Doctor's regeneration could result in a change of sex. Nevertheless, until "Twice Upon a Time," all of the actors who portrayed the Doctor since 1963 were male. Maybe it was easy to pretend that Doctor Who was always open to fluid notions of gender while watching the Doctor and his companion spar about their friendships and love interests, but unsurprisingly there was some robust sexism when the program first appeared in 1963. As a foil to the modern characters, the first Doctor's bias against women is on full display in "Twice Upon a Time." The actor who played the Doctor in the original black and white television series, William Hartnell, died in 1975. A new actor, David Bradley, reprised his role. Both he and the Capaldi, the twelfth doctor, offer a refrain of being unwilling to change. The duet of voices fearful of change built to a cathartic appearance of the first female actor to portray the Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, in the closing of the episode. The fearful sentiment of the first and the twelfth Doctors has been previously expressed by science fiction fandom in in general.<br />
| text =<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Whovian_Alliance_of_Salem_(Statesman_Journal)Whovian Alliance of Salem (Statesman Journal)2024-02-22T05:51:03Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Statesman Journal | file = 1987-10-08 Statesman Journal.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 1987-10-08 | author = | pages = 2B | language..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = Statesman Journal<br />
| file = 1987-10-08 Statesman Journal.jpg<br />
| px = 450<br />
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| width = <br />
| date = 1987-10-08<br />
| author = <br />
| pages = 2B<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = fan clubs<br />
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| text = <br />
A Doctor Who free exhibit by the Whovian Alliance of Salem will be shown from noon to 5:30 p.m. Saturday in the Salem Public Library auditorium. Corey Brunish of the Oregon Public Broadcasting System will be a guest. The non-profit alliance is a fan group of the British television series. Details are available from Rebecca Littau, <br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Starburst_LettersStarburst Letters2024-02-06T03:23:58Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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I am a great fan of Dr. Who and Blake's 7 so when I was told about your article with Terry Nation in [[Terry Nation|Starburst 6]]. I treated myself to a copy. John Fleming's interview was good except for the fact that Dr Who's adventure, [[broadwcast:Genesis of the Daleks|Genesis of the Daleks]] was said to have had the Doctor falling off a cliff and a girl getting her foot trapped in a railway line. In the 1976 story by Robert Holmes, [[broadwcast:The Deadly Assassin|The Deadly Assassin]], the Doctor fell down a cliff and got his foot trapped in a railway point in front of an oncoming train. Incidently page 6's second photo was of the Doctor. Susan and Ian getting cornered by Daleks. Another point is that Dr Who is the name of the programme and the main character is 'the Doctor'.<br />
<br />
The Complete Dalek Index was a let-down as someone had very carefully read The Dr Who Special or Target's issue of The Making of Doctor Who and re-written the information. Many of the facts are incorrect and the list should read as follows:<br />
<br />
<br />
First Season, 1963-64<br />
<br />
Episodes 5 to 12. The original Doctor Who season was only meant to run for 13 episodes. The first four were about stone age savages and the next seven were about [[broadwcast:The Daleks|the Daleks]]. The Dead Planet was, in fact, the first episode of this story, the subsequent ones being The Survivors. The Escape, Ambush, The Expedition, The Ordeal and The Rescue. The war on Skaro was a neutronic one and although Ian and Barbara. the first two companions, were human. Susan slated in the first episode that she was born in another time on another world.<br />
<br />
<br />
Second Season, 1964-65<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Dalek Invasion of Earth|Dalek Invasion Earth]]. The first episode of this story was World's End the subsequent ones being The Daleks. The Day of Reckoning, The End of Tomorrow The Waking Ally and Flashpoint. The "Dalek Leader" was. in fact, the Black Dalek or the Dalek Supreme. The Dalek saucer was parked at Chelsea Heliport. The story actually took place in 2167.<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Space Museum|The Space Museum]]. (4 episodes by Glyn Jones). Whilst at the Morok exhibition of creatures, the Doctor saw and rode in, a Dalek.<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Chase|The Chase]]. The first episode here was The Executioners. The following episodes were The Death of Time. Flight Through Eternity, Journey into Terror. The Death of Doctor Who. and The Planet of Decision.<br />
<br />
<br />
Third Season, 1965-66<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Mission to the Unknown|Mission to the Unknown]] was not the re-introducer to the season, and was preceeded by a four episode adventure. [[broadwcast:Galaxy 4|Galaxy 4]].<br />
<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Dalek Masterplan|The Dalek Master Plan]]. Terry Nation wrote this story with Dennis Spooner. The first episode was The Night mare Begins, which was followed by The Day of Armageddon. The Devil's Planet. The Traitor, Counter. Plot, Coronas of the Sun, The Feast of Steven, Volcano, Golden Death. Escape Switch, Abandoned Planet, and Destruction of Time.<br />
<br />
Dennis Spooner's previous story was [[broadwcast:The Time Meddler|The Time Meddler]], again The Watcher was episode 1. The SSS agent was Sara (not Sarah) Kingdom.<br />
<br />
<br />
Fourth Season, 1966-67<br />
<br />
All the information was correct and the Dalek Emperor was the leader in Evil. Subtitles for episodes had been dropped.<br />
<br />
<br />
Sixth Season, 1969-69<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The War Games|The War Games]] (10 episodes by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke) In the closing episode, a Dalek was amongst the creatures present at the Doctor's trial. <br />
<br />
<br />
Eighth Season, 1971<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Mind of Evil|The Mind of Evil]] (6 episodes by Don Houghton) In episode 2, the Master created images of the Doctor's adversaries to scare him. one being a Dalek<br />
<br />
Ninth Season, 1972<br />
<br />
The Gay of the Daleks. The bomb Shura used was a Dalekenium bomb.<br />
<br />
<br />
Tenth Season, 1972/3<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Frontier in Space|Frontier in Space]]. (6 episodes by Malcolm Hulke) In Episode 6, a squad of Daleks emerged to be the controllers of the Master and the Ogrons who were trying to start a war between Draconians and Humans. The Dalek squad escaped so the Doctor followed them la the planet of Spirodon.<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Planet of the Daleks|Planet of the Daleks]]. All information correct.<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Day of the Daleks|The Day of the Daleks]]. A couple of months after this series. this story was reshown as a one hour compilation.<br />
<br />
<br />
Eleventh Season, 1973-74<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Death to the Daleks|Death to the Daleks]]. All information correct.<br />
<br />
<br />
Twelfth Season, 1974-75<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:Genesis of the Daleks|Genesis of the Daleks]]. All information correct.<br />
<br />
<br />
Thirteenth Season, 1975-76<br />
<br />
Genesis of the Daleks. In mid-season, this story was repeated as a one hour compilation.<br />
<br />
Terry Nation also wrote two other stories for the Dr Who series.<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Keys of Marinus|The Keys of Marinus]]. The first episode of this story was The Sea of Death, followed by The Velvet Web, The Screaming Jungle, The Snows of Terror, Sentence of Death and The Keys of Marinus. Not only the Doctor. but Barbara, Ian, Susan. Arbitan's daughter Sabetha, her friend Atros. and his friend Ekrim. The Doctor only held the fifth key as Sabetha had the second, third and fourth and Arbitan. the first. Sabetha handed her key's over and Arbitan's was stolen, but it was Ian who handed over a fake that he had found.<br />
<br />
[[broadwcast:The Android Invasion|The Android Invasion]], (4 episodes by Terry Nation). The Kraals of Oseidan created a replica of an English village which they inhabited with Android duplicates of the villagers. They were then sent to Earth to release a deadly virus to kill all humans.<br />
<br />
These stories were in the first and thirteenth series. <br />
<br />
I hope that I have put you right on a few things that were maimed. I hope your magazine also does well and you have another feature on Doctor Who or Blake's 7 soon.<br />
<br />
Andrew Pixley. Sheffield. Yorks.<br />
<br />
To be honest, Andrew. you were not the only one to catch some of the mistakes in the Dalek Index. Others to take us to task were: President of the DOM Who Appreciation Society. Jan Vincent Rudzki and Julien Knott. But your information was the most detailed end sets the record straight once and for all. <br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_End_of_Time_Parts_One_and_TwoThe End of Time Parts One and Two2024-01-26T03:11:44Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-04 SFX p140.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 2010-04-01 | display date = Apr. 2010 | author = | pages = 140 | langu..."</p>
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DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD<br />
<br />
<br />
THE END OF TIME PARTS ONE AND TWO<br />
<br />
Writer Russell T Davies<br />
<br />
Director Euros Lynn<br />
<br />
CAST<br />
<br />
The Doctor ... David Tennant<br />
<br />
The Master ... John Simm<br />
<br />
Wilfred ... Bernard Cribbins<br />
<br />
Rassilon ... Timothy Dalton<br />
<br />
Donna Noble ... Catherine Tate<br />
<br />
So, this is how their world ends. Not with a whimper, but a bang. David Tennant and Russell T Davies' farewell to the show they loved and that loved them could not have been bigger or more spectacular.<br />
<br />
This year's must-have Christmas present, "The End Of Time, Part One" {{stars|3|5}}1/2 set the scene nicely for the fireworks that followed in episode two. Like "The Waters Of Mars" before it, it didn't unfold anything like a typical Who story. We first meet a frivolous Doctor arriving on the planet of the Ood to learn of their "bad dreams". It's a minor shock seeing the Doctor in this sort of mood after his traumas on Mars, but we just know that beneath the breezy exterior this is a deeply perturbed Time Lord - Tennant's multi-layered performance gradually reveals his true state of mind, most notably in the wonderful café scene with Wilf ("Even if I change it feels like dying").<br />
<br />
Before this, the Master has been briskly resurrected, and John Simm's performance here eclipses even his season three finale performance, as he's transformed into a snarling, rabid, feral madman who's the most alien creature you could imagine. Indeed, you could almost say this two-parter is all about four great performances: Simm's, Tennant's, Cribbins's and Dalton's. The former Bond's sonorous tones can be expressly appreciated on the small screen, flying phlegm and all.<br />
<br />
He certainly out-villains David Harewood, somewhat ineffective as Joshua Naismith, the main human baddie of the story. Other nitpicks: lipstick bringing the Master back to life is a bit iffy; the use of a real-life president, Obama, so soon after the fictional one in "The Sound Of Drums" feels a tad odd; and doesn't the Doctor take some rather big risks with Donna's life when he shows up so close to her? Unlike some I had no problem with the Vinvocci (but it's a shame they weren't related to Meglos rather than Bannakaffalatta!). And I enjoyed seeing the Master gnaw down on his poultry, imagining comments all round the country along the lines of "Trey, that was just like you at lunchtime"...<br />
<br />
Sandwiched between a couple of classic episodes, it didn't quite have the same insistent narrative drive or power, and at the mid-point, where the Doctor and Master have their second confrontation, things threaten to go a little flat. But then it picks up again and we head toward RTD's most outrageous, most sensational cliffhanger ever. Apparently preview audiences didn't get to see the Time Lord coda, but to be honest, a world full of Masters would have made a superb climax anyway.<br />
<br />
So on to part two {{stars|4|5}}1/2 , Who's highest ever rated regeneration episode. How fitting that it should showcase David Tennant's finest performance - every single line reading was impeccable, every look suggesting so much beneath the surface. But then it had a bit of everything - laughs, thrills, bombast, emotion, a couple of Star Wars nods...<br />
<br />
Like its two predecessors. the episode followed an unpredictable, unusual path, with the now-revealed-to-be-ruthless Time Lords' ambitions crisscrossing with the Doctor and co's escape and re-entry on the Vinvocci spaceship until they finally, astonishingly, meet. It's a measure of the hugeness of New Who that Doctor Ten's dive out of the spaceship into the mansion house via the window didn't kill him. Such falls have terminated other incarnations. It's also a mark of the writer's genius that there are two occasions when we expect the Doctor to die and regenerate before he finally does so.<br />
<br />
The final 15 minutes are like a mini compilation cum homage of RTD's time on the show and offer up further fascinating facets of this tremendous television programme. I'd take this epilogue over the end of The Return Of The King's any day. Following quarter of an hour of our gentle blubbing the flood arrives with the finest ever of the Doctor's many final words. His "I don't want to go" captures not just the feeling of the loss of a man we've idolised since 2005, but every childhood experience of being parted from your mother, every broken down relationship you've ever endured, and also a foreshadowing of the time when we ourselves will eventually expire. "Stirring" hardly does it justice.<br />
<br />
And yet the majesty of Doctor Who is its ability to follow the fraught with the comic, as Matt Smith gets to spout his first, decidedly Moffat-esque lines as the Doctor. The final minute is a tingling treat, all exploding TARDIS (that makeover is going to be much-needed) and Smith jumping about like a ferret on fire. The show is in very safe hands.<br />
<br />
And so the story ends. Magic moments linger in the brain. There was the Worst. Rescue. Ever. The "Breaking news - I'm everyone!". Donna's Lottery ticket. The Adipose, Sycorax and Hath doubling their appearance tally in one quick go. Most scenes with Cribbins, Tennant and Simm. And despite all those rumours and silly whispers, no Rani, no Doctor's daughter, no River Song and no regenerating Master. All the RTD ends have been nicely tied up (asides from that "weeping angel" mother person, Perhaps). Satisfaction has never been so exciting. Russell Lewin<br />
<br />
<br />
Best bit is<br />
<br />
00:48:53 Four knocks<br />
<br />
The Doctor lives - amazingly.<br />
<br />
Who's that knocking at the door?<br />
<br />
The beginning of the end.<br />
<br />
It's old people comedy time:<br />
<br />
The Doctor and Wilf one of the show's greatest ever double acts?<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/A_peek_inside_RTD%27s_inboxA peek inside RTD's inbox2024-01-26T03:08:29Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-04 SFX p117.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 2010-04-01 | display date = Apr. 2010 | author = Ian Berriman | pages..."</p>
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DOCTOR WHO THE WRITER'S TALE: THE FINAL CHAPTER<br />
<br />
A peek inside PTO's inbox<br />
<br />
Authors: Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook<br />
<br />
Publisher BBC Books 704 pages £16.99<br />
<br />
ISBN: 978-1-846-07861-3 OUT NOW!<br />
<br />
{{stars|5|5}}<br />
<br />
The back of this updated version of The Writer's Tale provides a helpful capsule of our original review. "You can douse all the other books on new Who in lighter fuel and spark up your Zippo," our quote raves, "this is all you need!" What sluts.<br />
<br />
We were right, though. There's never been a book like The Writer's Tale before - partly because no-one ever wanted to read a year's worth of some bloke's emails until now, and partly because it's the first to come close to answering that dreaded question: "Where do you get your ideas from?"<br />
<br />
This new softback edition adds another year of exchanges between the Who showrunner and journo Cook, 352 pages worth. Familiarity with the format makes it less surprising this time around, even<br />
<br />
Inflation is a part of life, but we never expected it to hit the fantasies in our creative ideosphere. It seems one secret fate isn't enough to be the chosen one any more. No, your average 21st century fantasy heroine (they're mostly heroines now) needs two. Yeine Darr is such a character, a minor noblewoman elevated to "heir to everything" status just in time for a murderous succession contest.<br />
<br />
Jemisin imagines a place where, after a Luciferian battle in heaven, when Davies is being startlingly candid. The most fascinating passages concern unused ideas. For instance, one of this year's specials could have been "The Doctor On-board the Enterprise", and the Daleks almost returned, allied with the Time Lords, in "The End Of Time".<br />
<br />
With "only" the specials to write about (and Torchwood, and SJA), there's less focus on writing and more on the surrounding rigmarole. The editing could have been more ruthless. There's too much about planning Tennant's departure announcement. And do we really need to know that Cook's mate is getting an octopus tattoo? Probably not. But then, it's these tangents that provide the satisfyingly voyeuristic feeling that you've hacked into someone's inbox.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_Who:_DreamlandDoctor Who: Dreamland2024-01-26T03:04:57Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-04 SFX p116.jpg | px = 250 | height = | width = | date = 2010-04-01 | display date = Apr. 2010 | author = Dave Golder | pages..."</p>
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Anyone remember who this fella was?<br />
<br />
DOCTOR WHO: DREAMLAND<br />
<br />
The forgotten special<br />
<br />
2009 PG 44 mins £12.99 OUT NOW!<br />
<br />
Director: Gary Russell<br />
<br />
Cast: David Tennant, Georgia Moffett, Tim Hower, Stuart Milligan, David Warner<br />
<br />
{{stars|4|5}} Extras: {{stars|3|5}}<br />
<br />
In a year of Doctor Who specials this little gem, originally aired as a red-button extra, deserved to be embraced as every bit as special as its live-action counterparts.<br />
<br />
That's saying something, considering the CG animation is, to put it politely, basic. But Dreamland is a perfect example of that old adage that a decent story is more important than flashy visuals. A hugely entertaining romp liberally sprinkled with some killer one-liners, it feels like a Pertwee adventure given a Russell T Davies spit and polish, with underground bases, lots of running and plenty of chances for our errant Time Lord to deflate pompous military types.<br />
<br />
The basic set-up is so appealing for Doctor Who it's surprising it's never been done before: the Doctor visits Roswell in 1958 at the height of UFO mania. When the TARDIS lands near a diner in the deserts of New<br />
<br />
Mexico, the Doctor steps out to find the US Army has formed an uneasy alliance with an insectoid race named the Viperox.<br />
<br />
It's hardly the most complex story, but as the basis for a fast-moving, action-packed, plot-led animated 45 minutes it fits the bill perfectly, especially if taken in the spirit of being a homage to '50s B-movies. It's cheesy in places, sure, but gloriously so, and while the character animation may be poor, the backgrounds and designs evoke the place and period perfectly (as one person amusingly said on the SFX forum: "I preferred the animation in the stills!").<br />
<br />
Extras: Those three Doctor Who: Greatest Moments celebrations of new Who that BBC Three produced last year, full of clips and talking heads interviews. That's three hours of extras, which is fair enough, but they're hardly the most essential viewing. Shame there's no commentary involving Tennant and the crew. <br />
<br />
The spaceship seen crashing at the start of Dreamland also featured in The Sarah Jane Adventures "Prisoner Of The Judoon".<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Italian_jobThe Italian job2024-01-26T03:03:09Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-04 SFX p115.jpg | px = 400 | height = | width = | date = 2010-04-01 | display date = Apr 2010 | author = Ian Berriman | pages =..."</p>
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DOCTOR WHO: THE MASQUE OF MANDRAGORA<br />
<br />
The Italian job<br />
<br />
1976 U 99 mins £19.99 OUT NOW! Director: Rodney Bennett<br />
<br />
Cast: Tom Baker, Lis Sladen, Gareth Armstrong {{stars|3|3}}1/2 Extras: {{stars|3|3}}1/2<br />
<br />
The Doctor may yearn to regenerate into a carrot top, but we miss the days when he had an unruly mop of curly hair. Why? Because it allowed you to play "spot the stuntman in the terrible wig".<br />
<br />
This handsomely mounted historical adventure provides numerous opportunities, as the Doctor's quite the action hero here, galloping about on horses and hurling himself into swordfights. The setting is 15th century Italy, to which the Doctor unwittingly transports part of the Mandragora Helix (a big cloud of space energy stuff). There, it plots to use a bunch of cultists to stall the Renaissance, and prevent humanity developing into a "rival Power" - though why a big cloud of space energy stuff needs to worry about rivals, who knows. Overlaid on this are courtly intrigues, as a boo-hiss evil Count plots to usurp his hesitant nephew. Prince Giuliano.<br />
<br />
It's an entertaining mish-mash of sci-fi, Hamlet and The Masque Of The Red Death. Strong performances and ripe dialogue abound, and there are some notable "firsts" - Sarah asks why everyone seems to speak English, and the Doctor explains it as a "Time Lord gift". Still, there are reasons this story's overshadowed by others of the period. All the elements are familiar, there are too many rounds of capture and escape, and it fizzles out at the climax, as the Doctor does an unspecified Clever Thing. Confident and accomplished, then, but somewhat routinely so. <br />
<br />
Extras: Commentary by Tom Baker and three cast and crew; a Making Of shot at Portmeirion; featurettes on the TARDIS's interior and this story's locations; a surprisingly amusing spoof documentary; text commentary; trails and continuity announcements; photo gallery. <br />
<br />
Many of the costumes were previously used in a 1954 feature film adaptation of Romeo And Juliet, starring Laurence Harvey as Romeo.<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Tom man, get your scarf off, it's 90 degrees!<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Eleventh_HourThe Eleventh Hour2024-01-26T03:00:43Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/3/3f/2010-04_SFX_p10-11.pdf | px = | height = | width = | date = 2010-04-01 | display date = Apr...."</p>
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Incoming Who boss Steven Moffat on the dawn of a new era<br />
<br />
You won't miss a heartbeat, I can tell you that much. When the series begins, it just carries straight on from the end of 'The End Of Time'." David Tennant may have regenerated into a "Geronimo!"-screaming Matt Smith, and the production team outside the TARDIS may have changed, but new Doctor Who supremo Steven Moffat says he's picking up right where the Russell T Davies era left off.<br />
<br />
"I think it's vital that people understand the Doctor's the same man," Moffat tells Red Alert. "Obviously if you put on a new suit or pair of shoes you feel different, so as the Doctor develops he does seem quite different, but the essential core of absolute Doctorness is there all the time. You write the Doctor as honestly and clearly as you can, then you give it to a very different actor, and of course it comes out differently - a different voice, a different physicality - but that's about letting Matt inhabit the part more than it's about writing a different man. From the Doctor's point of view, all that's happened is his body's rearranged itself a bit." <br />
<br />
The latest rejig of flesh, bones and hair is the Doctor's youngest-ever incarnation, a 900-and-something genius in the body of a 27-year-old man. Blokes in their mid-20s aren't traditionally known for their immense wisdom and empathy, so does writing a character so old for an actor so young create problems? "It becomes a non-issue so instantly," Moffat says. "The Doctor certainly looks absurdly young for someone who's 900, but if you compare Matt to David in 'The Christmas Invasion', frankly he doesn't look any different - to an eight-year-old I assure you he'll just seem like yet another old man! And of all the things you would say are strange and fascinating and exciting about the Doctor, the fact that he might have a manner that belies his years is hardly the first one that would blast your eyeballs back, is it? You'd say he's mad and he's brilliant and he's wearing a stupid bow tie before you'd even think about that!"<br />
<br />
The new series will see the new-look Doctor hooking up with new companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan). The RTD years made sure that the home lives of the Doctor's TARDIS buddies became almost as much a part of the show's DNA as aliens, but Moffat is tight-lipped about how much we'll see of Miss Pond's family. "I think you'll have to wait and see," he teases. "There isn't a formula that we follow, as there wasn't a formula that Russell followed. It's a story, it's not some kind of re-enactment of a haiku that's been invented already."<br />
<br />
The Doctor and TARDIS aside, some links with the past will definitely remain. Murray Gold's supplying the show's music once more, while returnees in front of the camera include Alex Kingston's River Song, and classic Who foes the Daleks and the Weeping Angels. Moffat's not convinced, however, that alluding to the old days is essential for keeping viewers hooked. "You could do a whole series of Doctor Who that's absolutely brand new, with not one single reference to the past, and people would barely notice that you'd done it," he says. "It's just about whether there's stuff that's worth bringing back. There's a sort of dichotomy in Doctor Who. In some ways the ideal Doctor Who story is the one where every single thing the Doctor encounters is something he hasn't seen before. That sort of maximises the opportunities that the format gives you. On the other hand, it's absolutely classic and brilliant if the Doctor re-encounters his most popular enemies, so yes, you bring back the Daleks, yes, you bring back the Weeping Angels and we're very excited when we do. But by God you make sure you've got a good story to make them worth bringing back again."<br />
<br />
But you can't escape the feeling that with a new Doctor, companion and showrunner not to mention a new-look TARDIS and show logo - the Smith/Moffat era could be rather different to the one that ended when Doctor Ten told us he didn't want to go. "I think the actual core of the series has remained so consistent since the 1960s, that you worry about trying to make the style of each adventure different, rather than the overall style of the show. But you refresh things and change things to keep them new - nothing is more important when a show is as ancient as this one. I always want to make the eight-year-olds feel like it's theirs, that this version is brand new and just unwrapped for them. One of the things that Doctor Who has done throughout its life is to periodically, and with no particular reason other than the sheer hell of it, completely renew itself. It's not a coincidence that a show that's done that has lasted for 40 odd years, because that's how you survive. You survive by change for change's sake." <br />
<br />
The new series of Doctor Who comes to BBC One this spring.<br />
----<br />
Men with Pen<br />
<br />
Who's writing the new series?<br />
<br />
<br />
Steven Moffat<br />
<br />
Who's new main man has been a Hugo Award magnet with "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", "The Girl In The Fireplace", "Blink" and "Silence In The Library"! "Forest Of The Dead" (okay, so the last story was "only" nominated, but that's still pretty good). This year he's got six episodes to try and repeat the feat, including the first two stories of the Matt Smith era, a two-parter across episodes four and five and (we're assuming) the two-part series finale.<br />
<br />
<br />
Mark Gatiss<br />
<br />
The League Of Gentlemen-er wrote "The Unquiet Dead" and "The Idiot's Lantern" during the RTD era, and provides episode three for the new series. He's also teaming up with Moffat for the Beeb's new take on Sherlock Holmes.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gareth Roberts<br />
<br />
Another writer carried over from the Tennant years, Roberts' Who CV includes "The Shakespeare Code", "The Unicorn And The Wasp" and a co-scripting credit on "Planet Of The Dead".<br />
<br />
<br />
Chris Chibnall<br />
<br />
Torchwood's former lead writer (and now showrunner on ITV1's Law & Order UK) wrote the 24-inspired "42" for new-Who's third series. This year he gets a two-parter (episodes eight and nine).<br />
<br />
<br />
Richard Curtis<br />
<br />
The king of the rom-com had already blabbed about his Who gig, so this doesn't seem as leftfield a choice as it once did. Curtis is returning to the historical furrow he ploughed to great success in Blackadder with a story about Vincent Van Gogh.<br />
<br />
<br />
Toby Whithouse<br />
<br />
The Being Human creator gets his second crack at Doctor Who, following series two's "School Reunion", which featured the return of robot dog K-9. Apparently, this year's offering involves vampires, which should be right up his street.<br />
<br />
<br />
Simon Nye<br />
<br />
Arguably the most surprising addition to the writers line-up is the creator of the megahit sitcom Men Behaving Badly and the deserved-to-be-a-megahit How Do You Want Me?.<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Matt Smith in episode one of the new series, with Karen Gillan.<br />
<br />
Caption: Dressed up and somewhere to go: Matt and Karen relax between takes.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_California_AggieThe California Aggie2024-01-25T18:39:38Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
|firstPublished=1922<br />
|lastPublished=&nbsp;<br />
|location=UC Davis<br />
|website=https://theaggie.org/<br />
|notes=<br />
}}[[Category:Student publications]]<br />
{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_Who_materializes_at_Cal_State_SacramentoDoctor Who materializes at Cal State Sacramento2024-01-25T18:38:33Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = The California Aggie | file = 1987-09-25 California Aggie.jpg | px = 600 | height = | width = | date = 1987-09-25 | author = Katje Sabin-Newmiller..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = The California Aggie<br />
| file = 1987-09-25 California Aggie.jpg<br />
| px = 600<br />
| height = <br />
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| date = 1987-09-25<br />
| author = Katje Sabin-Newmiller<br />
| pages = 7<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = celebration & Tour<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
| morePublications = <br />
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Time to fire up your TARDIS* and materialize at California State University at Sacramento for the Doctor Who Celebration. Be sure to set your time gizmo for this weekend, and double-check your dimensional circuitry — it is somewhat difficult to confer with 2-D beings when one is a confirmed 3-D.<br />
<br />
Doctor Who, for the uninitiated and confused, is sort of the low-budget BBC equivalent of "Star Trek." The main difference is that Captain Kirk's escapades were canceled after three years, while the good Doctor is still going strong after 24 years of time travel and adventuring.<br />
<br />
The Doctor undergoes periodic transformations (six so far), and this celebration is hosted by the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee, who played the Timelord as an elegant daredevil from 1970 to 1975.<br />
<br />
The event will manifest itself in the CSUS music recital hall, 6000 J St., from noon to 8 p.m. (so you can make it home in time for that night's episode of Doctor Who, 10 p.m. on [[broadwcast:KVIE|Channel 6, KVIE]]) Saturday and from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.<br />
<br />
A special addition to this celebration will be a 48-foot exhibition of the show's most infamous monsters and villains. Pertwee's classic companion, Bessie, will be there, too. (Remember? Bessie is the yellow vintage car built especially for the show.)<br />
<br />
K-9, Daleks, sonic screwdrivers and Jelly Babies will all make their appearance this weekend, sponsored by Lionheart Television International. Tickets are $5 for Channel 6 members, $7.50 for nonmembers. For details, call Channel 6 Special Events at<br />
<br />
*TARDIS: Time And Relative Dimensions In Space<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/El_PaiEl Pai2024-01-25T18:21:20Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
|firstPublished=1964<br />
|lastPublished=&nbsp;<br />
|location=Rio Hondo College<br />
|website=http://elpaisanoonline.com<br />
|notes=<br />
}}[[Category:Student publications]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Paisano, El}}<br />
{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_Who_fan_celebrate_25_years_at_Gallifrey_OneDoctor Who fan celebrate 25 years at Gallifrey One2024-01-25T18:19:36Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = El Paisano<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/e/eb/2014-02-21_Pai.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
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| width = <br />
| date = 2014-02-21<br />
| author = Jazmin Lucero<br />
| pages = 12<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = conventions<br />
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Whovians from all over the world gathered together for the 25th annual Doctor Who Convention, Gallifrey One from Feb. 14-16 at the Marriot Los Angeles Airport Hotel. This year's convention was entitled Gallifrey One: 25 Glorious Years and tickets sold out within the first 12 days.<br />
<br />
Gallifrey One offered the fans access to over 40 different panels, vendors, and events. Some of the panels included interviews with the guests, prop making classes, and screenings of various Doctor Who episodes. The convention even offered events for adults including two nights of karaoke and an after party.<br />
<br />
Attendees could even meet, get autographs from, and take pictures with the convention's guests, at a cost.<br />
<br />
The headlining guests this year ranged from Colin Baker (6th Doctor), Billie Piper (Rose Tyler), Paul McGann (8th Doctor), and Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams).<br />
<br />
Most fans had no trouble meeting new people and making new friends since most of all the attendees were fans of the show, "at a regular convention, there are so many different fandoms whereas at Gallifrey One, everyone is here for the same thing, it's an awesome experience," one fan explained.<br />
<br />
With most conventions, fans usually cosplay, in which the fan attends dressed up as their favorite character. Gallifrey One was the home of some of the most creative costumes.<br />
<br />
One fan made a TARDIS costume out of cardboard, others wore costumes they made from scratch, and one group of women dressed as various Doctors but in can-can outfits.<br />
<br />
The guests seemed to enjoy themselves as well, as Darvill elaborated, "It's amazing coming to these things 'cuz you get to meet so many people that it means so much to." Nerdist founder Chris Hardwick and girlfriend Chloe Dykstra are both fans of Doctor Who and made an appearance on the second day.<br />
<br />
One new trend that is appearing at conventions all over the world is the exchanging of ribbons. Attendees customized their own ribbons before the event and exchanged ribbons with other fans. The ribbons have a strip of glue at the top to attach to one's convention badge or another ribbon. For a lot of people, ribbons are not only a trophy symbol, but also a great way to make connections with new people.<br />
<br />
In celebration of their 25th anniversary, Gallifrey One made a game for attendees to play the whole weekend. Every program book listed all the convention themes throughout the years, whovians were to find stickers with years on them (the stickers were scattered throughout the hotel) and put the correct sticker next to the correct year. Fans that completed the challenge won a prize and were entered into a drawing for a bigger prize.<br />
<br />
Gallifrey One is the world's largest Doctor Who convention, founded by members of the local Southern California fan organization, The Time Meddlers of Los Angeles back in 1989. Tickets to the 2015 Gallifrey One: the 26 Seasons of Gallifrey One go on sale on March 7 for $90.<br />
<br />
<br />
The four day annual Doctor Who convention, Gallifrey One, swept creators, fans, and cosplayers off their feet on the weekend of Valentine 's Day. Vendors upon vendors were set up at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel, showcasing many merchandises and memorabilia. Panels were held during the expo and special guests included the beloved Rose Tyler herself, Billie Piper, and Arthur Darvill who portrays Rory Williams.<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions:<br />
<br />
Guests of Gallifrey One attend the companion's panel, "Traveling with the Doctor." <br />
<br />
From left to right, Danica Lisiewicz, Dawn Rose, Bridget Landry, Belle Benson, and Kate Morgenstern as the tenth, fourth, sixth, eleventh, and the fifth doctors.<br />
<br />
The Oodkind are a race of telepathic humanoids in the show, Doctor Who. <br />
<br />
Hanna Cathcart, 11, dressed as a weeping angel at this year's Gallifrey One.<br />
<br />
Arthur Darvill and Billie Piper, or better known as the companions Rory Williams and Rose Tyler, attend a panel at Gallifrey One.<br />
<br />
Sarah Elmassian, 56, portrays Novice Hame of the sisters of Plenitude.<br />
<br />
Andrew Elkins, 43, portrays the fourth Doctor played by Tom Baker. <br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/J.:_The_Jewish_News_of_Northern_CaliforniaJ.: The Jewish News of Northern California2024-01-25T15:55:13Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
|firstPublished=2003<br />
|lastPublished=&nbsp;<br />
|location=San Francisco, CA<br />
|website=https://jweekly.com/<br />
|notes=<br />
}}<br />
{{Publication|United States}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_Who_loves_its_Nazi_storylines_but_where_are_the_Jews%3FDoctor Who loves its Nazi storylines but where are the Jews?2024-01-25T15:52:58Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = J.: The Jewish News of Northern California<br />
| file = 2020-02-21 J.jpg<br />
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| date = 2020-02-21<br />
| author = Julia Peterson<br />
| pages = 47<br />
| language = English <br />
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I've been a huge fan of "Doctor Who" for years, so when I saw in the trailer for the new season that the iconic time traveler's adventures were going to feature a story set in Nazi-occupied Paris, I thought — finally. After 57 years since the first episode aired, and 15 years since the show was revived, it looked like "Doctor Who" was going to try its hand at a Jewish story.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately I was wrong. While a good bit of the second episode did take place in occupied Paris, and there were a few tense confrontations with Nazis and Nazi-affiliated characters before the series returned to the modern day, again there were no Jews featured onscreen.<br />
<br />
For nearly 60 years, "Doctor Who" has made a point of fighting Nazis. One of the show's most famous recurring characters, the Daleks, a warlike alien species genetically engineered to hate and destroy anything that is not like themselves, were deliberately designed as a Nazi allegory. Designer Terry Nation, who grew up during World War II, based his concepts for the Doctor's iconic enemy off aspects of Nazism - their distinctive salute, their use of the catchphrase "exterminate" and their belief in their own genetic superiority.<br />
<br />
The Doctor and their traveling companions have also met and fought a handful of human Nazis over the years. A particularly memorable episode in 2011 features Hitler himself getting punched in the face and locked in a closet, which I'll admit was a little cathartic to watch.<br />
<br />
However, by failing to include Jewish characters in both their allegorical and historical episodes, "Doctor Who" simply continues telling stories about triumph against indiscriminate hate rather than strengthening the heart of any Nazi-fighting episode by seriously exploring what it would look like to face an enemy with such a very discriminate hatred.<br />
<br />
In fact, the show has only made specific references to Judaism twice in its entire modern run, and I've felt somewhat let down by both. I would feel differently about the lack of Jewish inclusion if the show had been generally secular. However, it has never shied away from overt religious content. Until Season 11, every modern character who has traveled with the Doctor — our audience surrogate — has come from an identifiably Christian background.<br />
<br />
In the past two seasons, the show has prioritized a more inclusive view of religion, most notably by featuring Muslim police officer Yasmin (Yaz) Kahn, played by Mandip Gill, in a leading role.<br />
<br />
If "Doctor Who" were to apply this same spirit of inclusivity to Jewish religion and culture, I can imagine the show including characters like an alien Jewish mechanic who saves a crashing spaceship by repurposing the device they use to figure out which way to pray toward Jerusalem, or a minyan facing down the next Dalek invasion of Earth on the steps of their synagogue. Maybe, someday, a Jewish companion could think about their decision to travel with the Doctor specifically in terms of "tikkun olam," or repairing the world (or, as my rabbi likes to put it, "repairing the space-time continuum").<br />
<br />
While I was disappointed to see the show sidestep another excellent opportunity for Jewish inclusion, I am still holding out hope: Maybe next year in the TARDIS?<br />
<br />
This story originally appeared on Alma and was distributed by JTA.<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: (From left) Karen Gillen as Amy Pond, Matt Smith as The Doctor and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams in the 2011 "Doctor Who" episode "Let's Kill Hitler!"<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Who_convention_just_what_the_Doctor_orderedWho convention just what the Doctor ordered2024-01-25T14:45:06Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = The Sacramento Bee | file = 1986-11-23 Sacramento Bee.jpg | px = 350 | height = | width = | date = 1986-11-23 | author = Richard A. Lovett | pages..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = The Sacramento Bee<br />
| file = 1986-11-23 Sacramento Bee.jpg<br />
| px = 350<br />
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| date = 1986-11-23<br />
| author = Richard A. Lovett<br />
| pages = Encore, p. 4<br />
| language = English <br />
| type = <br />
| description = <br />
| categories = conventions<br />
| moreTitles = <br />
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HE IS OVER 750 years old. He has two hearts and a body temperature of 60 degrees. He travels through time and space in a machine known as Tardis, which is bigger on the inside than on the outside.<br />
<br />
Who is this man? He's Doctor Who — a Time Lord from the planet of Gallifrey who is better known as simply "the Doctor" — and he is the main character of an immensely popular British science fiction series that [[broadwcast:WVIE 6|Channel 6]] has been broadcasting in Sacramento since late 1984.<br />
<br />
Like "Star Trek" in its heyday, "Doctor Who" has acquired a large and loyal following. Throughout the country, fans gather at Doctor Who conventions, where they exchange trivia, meet the actors and view videotapes of episodes that are not yet available on PBS. Such a convention is being held today at the Red Lion Inn near Cal Expo to celebrate the series' 23rd anniversary. Mayor Anne Rudin has declared today to be Doctor Who Day in Sacramento, and convention visitors will have the opportunity to meet Colin Baker, the actor who has portrayed the Doctor in Britain for the last two seasons.<br />
<br />
Colin Baker is the sixth actor to have played the role. Most television shows could not survive a single change of lead actor, but for "Doctor Who," such changes have become almost commonplace. They are accomplished through the Doctor's ability to "regenerate" into a new body — and a new personality — if he receives certain types of otherwise-fatal wounds. Each of his five regenerations has allowed a new actor to take the role, each time injecting new life into the series.<br />
<br />
The most famous of the six Doctors is Tom Baker, who played the role for seven years. Colorfully attired in a floppy hat and a 17-foot scarf, he gave the character a piercing gaze and toothy grin that became instantly recognizable to audiences throughout the English-speaking world. His 41 episodes were the first ones to be shown by KVIE, and will be rebroadcast next year.<br />
<br />
Sacramento audiences are also familiar with the fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, and the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee. Davison's episodes were broadcast last year, and the actor himself was in Sacramento for a convention in June. The Pertwee episodes are currently being shown at 10 p.m. Saturdays on Channel 6.<br />
<br />
Colin Baker, however, is new to local fans, and it is likely that as many as 1,000 of them will be at the Red Lion to meet him and to view the inevitable videotapes.<br />
<br />
What makes "Doctor Who" so popular? It isn't the special effects, which by Hollywood standards are generally poor and often laughable. Nor is it the plots, which are frequently juvenile, contrived, or incomprehensibly convoluted. Instead, the primary attraction of the series is its main character.<br />
<br />
The Doctor is a hero with whom it is easy to relate. He may occasionally be cranky, self-centered, or absent-minded, but his heart — or perhaps one should say hearts — are in the right places, and he usually triumphs not only over his foes, but also over his own shortcomings.<br />
<br />
And at its best, the show is also an entertaining mixture of humor, adventure and interesting ideas. It proves that science fiction can be produced without fancy special effects or a large budget. Many fans<br />
<br />
appreciate that: "Doctor Who" allows them to use their imaginations.<br />
<br />
One fan, a Ph.D. student in sociology, makes an additional observation: "The Doctor," he says, "is something like a clinical sociologist. He travels around the universe visiting sick societies and figuring out how to cure them."<br />
<br />
It isn't often that life can be so simple.<br />
<br />
THE DOCTOR WHO FESTIVAL AND EXHIBIT TOUR will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m today at the Red Lion Inn near Arden Way and Business 80. Admission is $8.50 for adults. $5 for children. For information:<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/New_Year_Drama_PreviewNew Year Drama Preview2024-01-12T18:04:26Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = TV & Satellite Week | file = 2023-01-07 TV & Satellite Week.jpg | px = 550 | height = | width = | date = 2023-01-07 | author = | pages = 4 | langu..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = TV & Satellite Week<br />
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Following Jodie Whittaker's departure in October, David Tennant returns to the role he originally played from 2005 to 2010 in a trio of specials, before Ncuti Gatwa takes over as the Fifteenth Doctor later in the year.<br />
<br />
'What a lovely, lovely thing to get to revisit something that was such a wonderful, happy, significant time in my life; says Tennant.<br />
<br />
Catherine Tate is also back as the Doctor's companion Donna Noble, while Russell T Davies, who was showrunner for Tennant's first stint as the Doctor, takes up the reins again for the three episodes.<br />
<br />
'The path to Ncuti's Fifteenth Doctor is laden with mystery, horror, robots, puppets, danger and fun,' says Davies. 'And how is it connected to the return of the wonderful Donna Noble? How, what, why? We're giving you time to speculate, and then all hell lets loose!'<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Catherine Tate and David Tennant are back as Donna and the Doctor<br />
<br />
Caption: Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson will debut as the new Doctor and friend Ruby later in 2023<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Are_diehard_fans_ready_for_a_modern_Doctor_Who%3FAre diehard fans ready for a modern Doctor Who?2024-01-07T01:39:48Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{article<br />
| publication = TV Guide (Canada)<br />
| file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/5/51/2005-04-02_TV_Guide_Canada.pdf<br />
| px = <br />
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| date = 2005-04-02<br />
| author = Brenda Hampton, Linda A. Fox<br />
| pages = 18<br />
| language = English <br />
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The Doctor is In<br />
<br />
Are diehard fans ready for a modern Doctor Who?<br />
<br />
The Doctor is back on Earth.<br />
<br />
After an absence of nearly a decade, Doctor Who's time-travelling TARDIS lands back on television. But, a lot has changed since the good Doctor left.<br />
<br />
"This is a chance for a brand-new start," says Doctor Who head writer, producer and diehard fan Russell T Davies. "The new series will be fun, exciting, contemporary and scary - a full-blooded drama that embraces the Doctor Who heritage as well as introduces the character to a modern audience."<br />
<br />
But with numerous changes from past seasons, the new series appears to be aimed at the new audience - something that might offend the large, already-existing Doctor Who fan base. After debuting in 1963, Doctor Who became a cult hit that averaged over 13 million viewers at its peak. Though these numbers filtered off towards the series' end in 1989, a TV movie was produced in 1996 and the show continues to draw huge numbers in syndication. And, the devotion of viewers doesn't end there.<br />
<br />
Doctor Who fans are so passionate about the series that they've kept a monthly magazine alive during its extended absence. True enthusiasts continue to read Doctor Who books (150 original stories have been published since 1997) and listen to Doctor Who radio dramas. In fact, an annual Doctor Who convention takes place in L.A. (this year's was in February and next year's is already scheduled). These fans are not looking for a "brand new" show. But, as a producer of the successful but sensitive series Queer as Folk (British version), Davies is no stranger to controversy - a good thing, because the changes to Doctor Who are destined to stir some up.<br />
<br />
In fact, so many things are different from the original series it's easier to say what isn't - the Doctor's worst enemy, the Daleks - and even then, the evil robots have received minor makeovers.<br />
<br />
But is change really such a bad thing?<br />
<br />
"Doctor Who has a remarkable fandom, which has kept the show alive while it's been off-air," says Davies honestly. "I'm sure they'll have the time of their lives - but equally it's the new audience I care about."<br />
<br />
Neil Gorton, the man responsible for creating the show's ghouls and goblins agrees: "I think the initial reaction [of Doctor Who fans] will be joy and despair in equal measure. But, by the end, they'll all love it.<br />
<br />
"We're not making [the new show] for the fans - we're making it for everybody."<br />
<br />
That's the biggest difference. No longer just for sci-fi geeks, Doctor Who has something for the whole family - action, humour, science and not to mention an attractive cast.<br />
<br />
"I think good drama attracts everyone," explains Christopher Eccleston, who brilliantly fills the Doctor's shoes wearing a modem, sexy black leather jacket. "A lot of sci-fi can feel remote, so we'd like the audience, young and old, to connect with the series."<br />
<br />
And they will. Women will gaze at the intense and witty Eccleston while pretty pop-princess-cum-actress Billie Piper, who plays the Doctor's sidekick, Rose, is eye candy for the men. Kids will be captivated by the show's sleek style and fast pace, made possible by special effects company The Mill (Gladiator, see sidebar).<br />
<br />
Aesthetics aside, however, the relationship between the Doctor and Rose 1s at the heart of the show as they travel the universe - an attempt by Davies to add more feeling (and a little less science) to the series.<br />
<br />
"While the Doctor is alien, Rose is human," explains Piper thoughtfully. "She is the viewer's eyes and ears, and she experiences a world that I think secretly we all wish existed."<br />
<br />
Adds Davies: "Chris and Billie fill the show with great emotion - all the awe, wonder, fun and fear you'd expect. I think sci-fi can be a little sterile sometimes, but not this show.<br />
<br />
"From the moment they meet, the Doctor and Rose are soulmates," he continues, getting more excited as he talks. "They understand and complement each other. And together they have fun."<br />
<br />
Doctor Who is fun, particularly for new viewers. But true fans may need time to warm to this change in focus and the changes to the show's more traditional<br />
<br />
But again, change can be for the better. Though the Doctor's beloved time-travelling machine has not been mirrored after past versions, the TARDIS (which stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, of course) is bigger and better - with the height, width and look of an original Police Call Box (the original emergency phones used in Britain by bobbies before walkie talkies). The outside door now leads directly into the control room, instead of the black void seen in past seasons.<br />
<br />
"I made a conscious effort not to look at the old series that much," says production designer Edward Thomas. "You'll always have the diehard fans. They'll love the show for just being Doctor Who. My priority is the new audience."<br />
<br />
And that is the approach to the series. The eerie theme song which used to send children hiding behind their couches has received a minor tune-up from musician Murray Gold (which Davies describes as "brilliant"). And a more family-friendly format has been introduced - the original four or six 25-minute episode storylines have been replaced with 13 45-minute single shows - which means viewers can miss an episode and still tune in the following week.<br />
<br />
But it seems not all fans are happy - rumours suggest changes to the logo have sparked threatening emails to cast and crew.<br />
<br />
Yet despite its differences, fans old and new should give the good doctor a chance. With everyone behind the show being a major Doctor Who fan (Davies, Gorton and Thomas all say working on the show is their "dream job"), the Doctor Who tradition is in good hands. And a wider audience just might ensure the Doctor keeps travelling in the future.<br />
----<br />
Who's Who<br />
<br />
Christopher Eccleston (Doctor Who) <br />
<br />
Born: 1964, Lancashire, England <br />
<br />
What he's done before: He first came to film fans' attention as Derek Bentley in the 1991 Brit flick Let Him Have It and in Shallow Grove. Since then Eccleston has played opposite Nicole Kidman in The Others, with Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, and in Gone in Sixty Seconds with Nick Cage. His last TV role was as a messiah in The Second Coming.<br />
<br />
<br />
Billie Piper (sidekick Rose Tyler) <br />
<br />
Born: 1982, Swindon, England <br />
<br />
What she's done before: After enrolling in theatre school, Piper landed several TV commercials and a spot in an episode of The Eastenders. But when scouts for Virgin Records spotted her, she was signed to the label as a budding pop diva. Her first single, "Because We Want It", propelled Piper to No. 1 on the Brit hit charts. Her follow-up single, "Girlfriend", also hit No. 1. She relaunched her acting career with a string of critically acclaimed roles in projects such as The Canterbury Tales and Bella and the Boys. Now she is the young and quirky sidekick to Doctor Who.<br />
----<br />
"Mill"ion Dollar Effects<br />
<br />
Ghosts and monsters and aliens, oh my! With the help of<br />
Europe's only Oscar-winning special effects company, The Mill, Doctor Who is back on the small screen. And now anything is possible.<br />
<br />
Doctor Who is the first TV series for The Mill. The <br />
company's long list of big-screen credits includes Tomb Raider, the Harry Potter films, HBO's Band of Brothers and Gladiator, for which the company earned an Oscar in 2000. But TV is a whole new experience.<br />
<br />
"If you look at shows like Buffy and Smallville, you visit the same environment - or the same special effects - time and time again," explains Robin Shenfield of The Mill, adding, "The TARDIS takes the Doctor everywhere.<br />
<br />
"For Gladiator, we produced 100 visual effects shots over seven months. For Doctor Who, we're producing about 100 shots every four to five weeks."<br />
<br />
With such a large quantity for the small team of 30 to produce, it takes approximately one month to complete an episode. But Shenfield promises the amount of work doesn't influence its high standard.<br />
<br />
"You can never ask a writer to write around what they think might be achievable in visual effects. Everything can be done."<br />
----<br />
Enemies Exposed<br />
<br />
Don't worry; the Daleks are back - just with a few 21st century upgrades.<br />
<br />
"When you have a villain who's so motivated and bad, it really helps define your characters and put your heroes at their very best," says Nicholas Briggs, the man behind the voice for the Doctor's evil tin enemy. "The goal was to make them instantly recognizable, but be the best Daleks you've ever seen. Instead of going to a garden centre and seeing what you could find, we've designed something for every aspect of (the creature]."<br />
<br />
<br />
DALEKS BEFORE AND AFTER<br />
<br />
*Formerly car indicator lights, the side head lights have been modernized.<br />
*The head panel now has lines on it.<br />
*The end of the arm features a designed probe - instead of the sink plunger (above) used before.<br />
*The head is moved by radio control instead of manually (although someone sits inside to move the creature's arms and guns).<br />
*Mesh has been placed over the front opening and the operator inside wears black tights over his head, in hopes of preventing a glimpse inside.<br />
*Finally! Viewers will see the evil creature that drives the Dalek! Davies had a clear idea of its appearance, but unfortunately it's top secret.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/TV_Guide_(Canada)TV Guide (Canada)2024-01-07T01:01:15Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>{{Publisher<br />
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|lastPublished=2006<br />
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{{Publication|Canada}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Hit_Sci-Fi_Series_is_BackThe Hit Sci-Fi Series is Back2024-01-07T00:59:50Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = TV Guide (Canada) | file = 2005-04-02 TV Guide Canada pL44.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 2005-04-02 | author = | pages = L44 | lang..."</p>
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Watch the ALL-NEW DOCTOR WHO on CBC and you could win an exclusive trip to the closed set in Britain<br />
<br />
The Hit Sci-Fi Series is Back!<br />
<br />
<br />
SIMPLY FILL OUT THE CONTEST BALLOT BELOW - BE SURE TO ANSWER THI WATCH-AND-WIN QUESTION - AND YOU COULD BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN!<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Nasty_Nazis,_tricky_Tractators_and_sufferin%27_suffragetesNasty Nazis, tricky Tractators and sufferin' suffragetes2023-12-30T18:01:13Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-06 SFX p131.jpg | px = 250 | height = | width = | date = 2010-06-01 | display date = June 2010 | author = Saxon Bullock | pages..."</p>
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THE HOLLOWS OF TIME<br />
<br />
Big Finish 120 mins (two discs) £12.99 (download)/£14.99 (CD) OUT NOW! {{stars|2|5}}1/2<br />
<br />
<br />
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST<br />
<br />
Big Finish 120 mins (two discs) £12.99 (download)/£14.99 (CD) OUT NOW! {{stars|4|5}}<br />
<br />
<br />
THE SUFFERING<br />
<br />
Big Finish 135 mins (two discs) £12.99 (download)/£14.99 (CD) OUT NOW! {{stars|3|5}}1/2<br />
<br />
<br />
How important are explanations? Over the years, Doctor Who has occasionally flirted with ambiguity, weirdness and outright confusion, and the latest in Big Finish's Lost Stories series. The Hollows Of Time, fits comfortably into the "head-scratching oddness" category, alongside tales like "[[broadwcast:The Mind Robber|The Mind Robber]]" and "[[broadwcast:Ghost Light|Ghost Light]]".<br />
<br />
Hailing from ex-Who script editor Christopher H Bidmead, this unmade TV script from 1985 brings back the Tractators, gravity-wielding insects previously seen in Bidmead's 1984 gem "[[broadwcast:Frontios|Frontios]]". Told in flashback, it's a gently paced adventure, as the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and Peri (Nicola Bryant) encounter strangeness in the sleepy village of Hollowdean, where creatures lurk in the nearby sand-dunes.<br />
<br />
Baker and Bryant are on outstanding form, and the story has plenty of old-fashioned charm - but charm only gets you so far, and Bidmead's aimless, frustrating story mistakes confusion and weirdness for genuine mystery. The adaptation tries hard to paper over the lack of visuals but there's still a ton of over-descriptive dialogue. Despite the best efforts of the cast and production team, it's the first genuine misfire of the Lost Stories series.<br />
<br />
Things improve with the regular releases, as Survival Of The Fittest sees the latest Big Finish trilogy hitting its stride, as the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) is once again paired with Nazi time-traveller Dr Elizabeth Klein (Tracey Childs). First on the disc is the one-parter Klein's Story, which fills in some all-important history on the Doctor's latest companion. Charting exactly how Klein was separated from her original Nazi-controlled timeline, it's powerfully played stuff, and while the presence of Paul McGann (in the pivotal role of "Johann Schmidt") is a bit of a giveaway, there are still some nicely played twists, as well as an emotional sting in the tail.<br />
<br />
Survival Of The Fittest itself is rather more traditional Who, a three-part adventure that puts the Doctor and Klein in the firing line between alien insects and a pair of trigger-happy humans. It's a well-paced and involving thriller with some fine sci-fi world-building, but what lifts it into exceptional territory is the characterisation, as both Klein and the Doctor are forced into making difficult moral choices. It all builds to a whopper of a cliffhanger.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, The Companion Chronicles goes double-length for the first time, giving us a two-disc First Doctor story featuring '60s companions Vicki (Maureen O'Brien) and Steven (Peter Purves). Splitting the perspectives between the discs (with Steven on the first, and Vicki on the second), The Suffering is a historically-themed tale that sees the TARDIS landing in 1912 England, at the height of the Suffragette movement's struggle to win women the right to vote.<br />
<br />
With the discovery of fossilised remains resulting in Vicki being possessed by a mysterious intelligence, the story owes an initial debt to 1976 Who "[[broadwcast:The Hand of Fear|The Hand Of Fear]]", but The Suffering does head in its own distinct direction, mixing sci-fi with social history and pulling off plenty of impressive moments. It's another example of how effective old-school Doctor Who storytelling can still be.<br />
<br />
Also available this month, from BBC Audio, is a CD of Terrance Dicks's novelisation of 1973's "[[broadwcast:The Three Doctors|The Three Doctors]]", read by Katy Manning.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Mythed_opportunitiesMythed opportunities2023-12-30T17:58:28Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-06 SFX p108.jpg | px = 350 | height = | width = | date = 2010-06-01 | display date = June 2010 | author = Dave Golder | pages..."</p>
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DOCTOR WHO: MYTHS AND LEGENDS<br />
<br />
1972-1980 12 339 mins £49.99 OUT NOW!<br />
<br />
Directors Paul Bernard, Norman Stewart, Kenny McBain<br />
<br />
Cast: Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Katy Manning, Louise Jameson, Lalla Ward<br />
<br />
{{stars|2|5}}1/2 Extras: {{stars|4|5}}<br />
<br />
<br />
Considering the low regard in which these three myth-related stories are held by fans, they could well have called this box set Dregs. But while none are classics, rewatching them suggests that their reputations are not entirely deserved.<br />
<br />
Atlantis tale "[[broadwcast:The Time Monster|The Time Monster]]" may be plodding, repetitive and hampered by a monster that's some bloke dangling from a wire flapping his arms and some very dodgy science, but it does features the Jon Pertwee/UNIT family at its glorious height. "[[broadwcast:Underworld|Underworld]]" (a Tom Baker take on The Odyssey) is infamous for using CSO models to place the actors inside caves, but this early experiment in virtual sets is not the disaster popular opinion would have you believe. The story itself, though, is dour and colourless.<br />
<br />
Not something you could accuse "[[broadwcast:The Horns of Nimon|The Horns Of Nimon]]" of being. Here we get the Minotaur myth reimagined as a pantomime. It truly is a load of bull, but rates highly on the "so bad it's good" scale. And the costumes are magnificent - one bloke's wearing what looks like the Sydney Opera house.<br />
<br />
Extras: The jewel in the crown is a documentary on the symbiotic relationship between Who and Blue Peter - witty, interview-packed and informative. "Nimon" also has a chat with writer Anthony Read and a scene rescored by Peter Howell - an experiment by the incoming producer to see if electronic music would work. Twenty minutes of studio footage from "Underworld" are surprisingly interesting; the accompanying Making Of reveals that Tom Baker even directed one scene! "Time Monster" has a frothy documentary on the science behind the story (which doubles up as a decent Making Of) and a short restoration piece. All three stories have commentaries. "Time Monster"'s oddly swaps with each episode - some have comedian Toby Hadoke chatting with producer Barry Letts, guest star Susan Penhaligon and the production assistant; a clearly unprepared John "Benton" Levine bumbles through two episodes; and a group of new series scribes (Phil Ford, Joe Lidster, James Moran) fill in entertainingly for one. Tom Baker is great value for money on "Underworld", asking co-commentator Louise Jameson, "Were we getting along at this point?"; Bob Baker also contributes. Lalla Ward, Janet Ellis, Anthony Read and a loveably barmy Graham Crowden take over for "Nimon". Then there's all the usual text commentary, photo gallery and PDF gubbins. Great stuff. <br />
<br />
The Burmese cat that appears briefly in "The Time Monster" was sacked alter it scratched Ingrid Pitt.<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Tom couldn't decide whether to propose or not. <br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Collecting_Doctor_WhoCollecting Doctor Who2023-12-30T17:56:39Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = 2010-06 SFX p101.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 2010-06-01 | display date = June 2010 | author = | pages = 101 | langua..."</p>
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Ever since the 1960s Doctor Who has been a favourite with collectors, making it one of most collected themes around. Popular items include the Denys Fisher range from the '70s. The Denys Fisher Tom Baker doll can sell for up to £250 with its box, and the fragile Cyberman doll can fetch as much as £600 if in mint condition. However, the best Denys Fisher Who toy to track down is the friction drive Dalek from 1976. Finding a mint example is very hard and good examples can cost as much as £800.<br />
<br />
Let's not forget the Talking Dalek and K-9 toys made by Palitoy in the mid-'70s, which were able to talk thanks to a tiny record player hidden inside their bodies. Working K-9s can fetch as much as £350 and the Daleks, especially the rare silver colour variant, can change hands for as much as £400.<br />
<br />
Older toys from the '60s are even harder to come by. One popular toy to look out for is the Doctor Who Anti-Dalek Jet Immobiliser made by Lincoln International in 1965. Mint on the card examples can sell for as much as £800. <br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Sonic_YouthSonic Youth2023-12-30T17:54:09Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = SFX | file = https://cuttingsarchive.org/images/8/82/2010-06_SFX_p58.pdf | px = | height = | width = | date = 2010-06-01 | display date = June 201..."</p>
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| author = Nick Setchfield<br />
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You may not have noticed, but there's a new fella in the TARDIS. Matt Smith tells Nick Setchfield what the biggest part on TV means to him Matt Smith: a shining example to young actors everywhere.<br />
<br />
<br />
Matt Smith gives a regretful glance at a virtually drained bottle of mineral water. "I wouldn't mind just using the bathroom," he confides. "I seem to have drunk the majority of that."<br />
<br />
And with a grin he's gone. His exit triggers a tangible shift in the room's charisma level. There's something genuinely enchanting about this chap, with his gangling frame and fidgety digits and explodo-hair. Something quirky, mesmerising, magnetic. It's hard to imagine him as the professional footballer he dreamed of being — all too easy to see him as the tweed-jacketed action-boffin he's just become.<br />
<br />
A back injury put paid to the soccer. A career-swerve into acting found him in the National Youth Theatre, then snatching TV gigs in The Ruby In The Smoke, Party Animals and Moses Jones before his off-centre charm won the eye of those casting the Eleventh Doctor Who.<br />
<br />
And now he's back in the room, and ready to share his love of Patrick Troughton, the truth behind his mad, twirling fingers and just what it's like to be chosen to play the greatest role in television...<br />
<br />
<br />
How did your world change that Saturday back in January 2009, when you were announced as the new Doctor?<br />
<br />
God... well, I was in Brazil. It changed for my parents quite significantly that day. The nation's press! But it's changed subsequently, quite hugely. I've moved up to Cardiff and I get to go and be the Doctor every day, which is just glorious. It's a great privilege, really. And obviously there aren't many parts where a) it's announced like that and b) your life changes in a public sense as much, because obviously the show is so well loved and so widely received that people are aware of it. Of course, it's changed. It's changed in the way that I now fight aliens every day! Aliens that aren't actually there in front of me... Often you're looking at a ball of string and some guy, and that's meant to be some sort of horrible demonic creature from the gallows!<br />
<br />
<br />
Did it feel odd that people were already recognising you for a part that hadn't even been on television yet?<br />
<br />
At first it's different, it's just different. I wouldn't say it's odd... it's a new thing in your life, and like any new thing you learn to deal with it. But it's one of the only parts that would do that. It's the enormity of the show, it's the brilliance of the show. It's him, it's that part. It's something you adapt to, and people generally are very lovely and very nice. "Are you the new Doctor?" "Yeah!" You sort of do the business and sign something and have a photo. And kids come and watch you while you film as well. It's lovely, really.<br />
<br />
<br />
Do you feel the scrutinising gaze of the fans, the hardcore?<br />
<br />
In what sense? In the work sense or the literally walking down the street sense?<br />
<br />
<br />
In every sense...<br />
<br />
I think the hardcore fans will always scrutinise this show, as is their right and as they should. It's part of what makes it so special, that it has this following who are so dedicated to it. I turn up and try and make it as brilliant as I can every day, you know, via me and my stuff.<br />
<br />
<br />
How did that first screen test feel? Did you know that you'd nailed it? <br />
<br />
Well, my agent rang me. I was in my bedroom and he said, "Do you want to go and audition for the Doctor in Doctor Who?" "'Yeah, why not?" So in I go. It was all very secret, in a hotel. It's all mad. There's no other casting like it. I did my best, as I always do, tried to be brave in the audition and all the rest of it. And then I went for another one, which was in a different, plusher hotel, and there were a few more people there, looking beadily on. But it's funny. With most actors the ones they think they've done brilliantly in they never get, and the ones where they go, "I'm never going to get it," they get. I don't know what this was. I was pleased with the way I prepared, I thought I gave a good account of myself, which is always what I try to do in any interview. You've just got to do your best.<br />
<br />
<br />
Could you ever have said no when it was finally offered to you? Because it's so much more than just another television role.<br />
<br />
That's a good question. Prior to doing it I probably would have thought, "Well, I'll really consider it...." But when they rang me up and said, "Do you want to do it?" my heart spoke, not my head. Yes, done, sign me up. And also the part's so great... he's brilliant, he's a brilliant man. He's the cleverest man in the universe. He's got two hearts! And he has two hearts because he has such heart and such courage. I read the first episode, which is the one I auditioned with, and it's a brilliant piece of writing. Steven's written a magic fairytale.<br />
<br />
<br />
Moffat has a reputation for scares. And for comedy, too. Does that side of his writing appeal?<br />
<br />
Yeah, he does that stuff so well. Steven's one of the few men in the world that I roar out loud to. I find him incredibly funny, and he's so bright, and again it's that fairytale he taps into so well. And he knows the show so well. There's the most amazing picture of him in his house - he won't mind me telling you this, I'm sure... [rethinks] oh, I don't know... [rethinks] oh, he won't mind! and he's got this Doctor Who book and he's six. And he's a little version of Steven. He's tiny and he's this mad, wacky kid. And everyone else is sort of swimming around in the swimming pool. And he's there, and he's got this Doctor Who hook. You might know the book! The show is so ingrained in him, and he's been waiting to write this for 40 years. It's his dream, dream job, as it is for so many of us, to be honest.<br />
<br />
<br />
Was David Tennant there when you actually filmed the regeneration? <br />
<br />
Yeah, one in, one out! That's what it was, literally. I came in the TARDIS and he came out the TARDIS.<br />
<br />
<br />
What was that like emotionally? <br />
<br />
God, it was a totally mad day. I've never been on a set like it. There must have been about 60-80 people there. And then you do your scene. But it's thrilling... it's the regeneration! I get one of the classic moments in television! That's what's amazing. And then you get the TARDIS, and then you get the sonic screwdriver, and you meet old monsters and so many great new monsters. Every day you're just faced with all these... It's unlike anything I've ever made. It's thrilling, it's thrilling. But it's tough it's a hard show to make because it's very ambitious.<br />
<br />
<br />
Did David give you any advice? <br />
<br />
Yeah, we talked about his experience. We talked and I tapped his brain. More about practical things, really. And, I'll be honest with you, about the public side of things, and how that changes your life and affects you. He was very helpful. He's a lovely man, David.<br />
<br />
<br />
Have you ever met any of the other Doctors?<br />
<br />
I've had dinner with Peter [Davison], at Steven Moffat's house, which was very exciting, and we talked all things Doctor Who. And we got his toy out! Which is a collector's item, apparently. So that was fun. I've never met Chris - I've seen Chris, in Manchester, walking down the road, when I was doing a play there. It was only my second job, I think. And I thought, "Oh, that's Chris Eccleston!"<br />
<br />
<br />
Have you seen your own toy yet? <br />
<br />
I have. I'm pleased! I filmed it for Doctor Who Confidential on my video camera. I don't know how to explain it to someone. What would you do if you saw a tiny little doll of yourself? You'd sort of marvel at it for a bit and go, "Wow, that's cool!" It's a privilege of the job. I feel very privileged to have this part.<br />
<br />
<br />
And are you anxious what people think about you?<br />
<br />
I think every actor would probably say yes. Because actors are incredibly vain and incredibly tender! I go to work every day and try to make the best choices and the most inventive choices via my truth and my personality and my soul. I try my best. I make those choices now, so whatever happens when it's out is whatever happens when it's out. I can't control that, and therefore I won't let it affect me privately.<br />
<br />
<br />
Is there a huge pressure following someone who's been so successful? <br />
<br />
You know, this show has been a huge success. And I suppose yeah, at some point you contemplate that it has been so big. And he's been so fabulous, hasn't he, David? But the part takes over. It just becomes about learning your lines and what you are going to have for breakfast. It's really so thrilling to play, and it feels like it's in me now, so it's my version of it. I hope to play it in a way where people continue to enjoy the show, because that's what's great about Doctor Who - it's enjoyable, it's for the whole family, it's just thrilling. Does that answer your question? Or does it dance around it a bit?<br />
<br />
<br />
Have you explored the history of the show?<br />
<br />
I've obviously watched Chris and all of David's, and I quite like Patrick Troughton. [[broadwcast:The Tomb of the Cybermen|The Tomb Of The Cybermen!]] He does this brilliant thing with his hands.<br />
<br />
<br />
And he has a bow tie as well, Just like you.<br />
<br />
Yeah, he did have a bow tie, he did, he did! I think he's rather marvellous, Patrick Troughton. But it's so clever. It's just such a clever televisual conceit. Whoever thought of it... we have this show that can go to any universe, any place, any time, and this one person can continue to be reinvented in whatever direction he or she chooses.<br />
<br />
<br />
Have you taken any bits from your predecessors' performances? <br />
<br />
No. Well, maybe when you watch it you'll say, "Oh, there's a bit of Pertwee," or whoever.<br />
<br />
<br />
No Troughton hands, then?<br />
<br />
Oh yeah, I do that! It's just my hands... I do that a lot with my hands! And it's because he's a thinker as well. The Doctor is a real thinker. And me, with my personality, when I think, I do that [twiddles fingers]. And it's my personality that's coming across on the screen via this wonderful man.<br />
<br />
<br />
How does it feel to be facing up to the Daleks?<br />
<br />
How thrilling. The Doctor and the Daleks... again, it's one of the great romantic brilliances of Doctor Who. What a great war, what a great battle, this great war over time... It's so epic in scale and so rich. So for me as an actor, it's thrilling, utterly thrilling.<br />
<br />
<br />
People fret that you're going to be the youngest Doctor. Do you worry about that?<br />
<br />
The great thing about the Doctor is that it's a body. It's a vessel, essentially, and he is the same man. He always has been the same man via a load of different personalities and make-up and limbs and everything else. No, that's not something that concerns me at all. I'm just privileged and thrilled to be playing him. To me it's just a brilliant part. Of course there's such history that you can dip into with the Doctor as well. There's a great sea of knowledge out there. It's like anything - you've got to start with the scripts you have. It always comes from the scripts, and I have a particular process of working - which I won't bore you with - and I did that again. And so much of the Doctor is instinct and personality and your energy and tapping into that... it's like Hamlet or someone. Is it the greatest part in British television? Certainly one of them. I feel very proud. It's a huge joy in my life. <br />
<br />
Doctor Who is transmitting on Saturday evenings on BBC One.<br />
<br />
<br />
Captions: <br />
<br />
Matt Smith will have to get used to being smiled at by children...<br />
<br />
Filming opener "The Eleventh Hour" back In October 2009.<br />
<br />
Churchill and Daleks! Just how brilliant is this show?!<br />
<br />
"Victory Of The Daleks" features Daleks after a trip to the army and navy store....<br />
<br />
Umbrellas wanted in second story "The Beast Below".<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/I_was_fortunate_enough_to_work_with_Chris_BoucherI was fortunate enough to work with Chris Boucher2023-12-30T14:20:12Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = The Times | file = 2022-12-30 Times.jpg | px = 300 | height = | width = | date = 2022-12-30 | author = Andrew Morgan | pages = 47 | language = Engl..."</p>
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Andrew Morgan writes: I was fortunate enough to work with Chris Boucher ([[Chris Boucher|obituary, December 20]]) on my first job as a freelance director. We were filming Blake's 7 and staying in a hotel in Ripon. One evening when some of the crew were sitting around, the conversation turned towards discussing hairstyles. At that time Chris had a rather silly combover with a low parting, and he was asked why he bothered with this. He mumbled something about not really knowing and had sometimes thought of doing away with it. Quick as a flash, the make-up girl whipped out her scissors and within a few seconds the comb-over was nestling in an ashtray. There was a stunned silence. Then, with his head in his hands, he stood up and left the room. Several minutes later he reappeared carrying a tray of drinks. It turned out he was rather pleased with his new look and was grateful for the way it happened. He said it gave him a new freedom.<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Chris_BoucherChris Boucher2023-12-30T14:17:52Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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TV scriptwriter who introduced Doctor Who's popular companion Leela and did not always see eye to eye with Tom Baker<br />
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<br />
As a middle manager for Calor Gas in Essex, Chris Boucher was working in a mundane and unexciting world. So he invented another one.<br />
<br />
Having grown up reading American pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and Astounding Science Fiction, in 1976 he submitted an unsolicited script to the producers of Doctor Who.<br />
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Titled The Day God Went Mad, it found the Time Lord — then in his fourth iteration and played by Tom Baker — in another galaxy assisting a race which had become enslaved to a supercomputer whom they worshipped as a god but which had turned vengeful.<br />
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Boucher's title was a little risqué for the BBC but the programme's script editor, Robert Holmes, liked what he read. Retitled [[broadwcast:The Face of Evil|The Face of Evil]], it became one of the classic Doctor Who stories of the Seventies and introduced one of the Doctor's most popular companions, Leela.<br />
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The show's producer, Philip Hinchcliffe, and script editor, Robert Holmes, had conceived a character based on George Bernard Shaw's Eliza Doolittle, a "bright primitive" who would learn from the Doctor. Boucher came up with the idea of a. companion called Leela, played by Louise Jameson, a proud, strong, self-willed and occasionally violent woman who was meant to be a contrast to the "little screaming types" that had historically accompanied the Doctor on his time travels. Unbeknown to the BBC, Boucher had also based his character in part on the Palestinian terrorist and plane hijacker Leila Khaled.<br />
<br />
Leela was originally intended to appear only in the four episodes of The Face Of Evil but was so popular with viewers that she was retained for Boucher's second story, [[broadwcast:The Robots of Death|The Robots of Death]], which was even better. Heavily influenced by Isaac Asimov, it was chosen as the finest representation of the Tom Baker era in the British Film Institute's 50th anniversary celebration of Doctor Who. Another poll ranked it the sixth best story in the show's 60-year history. It was followed by a third story featuring Leela, [[broadwcast:Image of the Fendahl|Image of the Fendahl]].<br />
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The shows Boucher scripted for Doctor Who pulled in audiences of 11 to 12 million, but he was still working for Calor Gas while writing them. It was not until the BBC offered him a full-time salaried post as the script editor of its new sci-fi series, Blake's 7, that he took the plunge and gave up the day job.<br />
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When the first Star Wars film was released several months before the first episode of Blake's 7 aired, he wondered if he had made the right decision. "Well that's us finished, we can't possibly match that, we're dead," the show's producer, David Maloney, told him morosely. It was, Boucher said, "like having an aircraft carrier land in the pond in your back garden".<br />
<br />
In fact Blake's 7 was successful enough to run for four seasons between 1978 and 1981. Boucher stayed throughout and to the delight of film buffs he merrily threw lines borrowed from classics such as Casablanca, The Magnificent Seven and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid into the scripts. The series ended with a bang — literally, when in the last of the 52 episodes Blake, played by Gareth Thomas, was killed before his entire crew were exterminated by the forces of the totalitarian Federation.<br />
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Fans were outraged by this abrupt end, as Boucher found out when his mother-in-law mentioned to an electrician doing work on her house that her son-in-law worked for the BBC. "Oh that's good," he replied. "But I'd like to lay my hands on that bugger who killed everyone in Blake's 7." She wisely decided to say no more.<br />
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Boucher's third foray into sci-fi was less successful when he created the 1987 BBC series Star Cops, set in the near future when man had begun to colonise other planets and it became necessary to police the rest of the solar system. Despite great lines such as "Spacemen are ten-a-penny. What they need out there is a good copper," the series was poorly received and folded after nine episodes.<br />
<br />
Chris Boucher was born in 1943 in Maldon, Essex, on the Blackwater estuary. His God-fearing parents sent him to church where he served as a choir boy. He later rebelled and became an atheist, although he insisted he was a liberal and tolerant one. "People are perfectly entitled to be as benightedly stupid as they wish," he said.<br />
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As an only child, he was "self-absorbed" and his solitariness made him a voracious reader, devouring the romantic stories in the women's magazines to which his mother subscribed before he discovered science fiction.<br />
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Educated at Maldon Grammar School, he fluffed his A-levels and took off on the overland route to India before eventually making his way to Australia, where he spent a year working on the railways and "drinking and carousing".<br />
<br />
When he returned home, his father, who worked for Calor Gas, secured him a placement as a management trainee with the firm, which sent him to night school to get his A-levels then to Essex University to read economics.<br />
<br />
On graduating he reluctantly returned to Calor Gas to "work off my debt", as he put it. He is survived by his wife Lynn and their three children, whose needs prompted him to take up writing as a sideline to make some extra cash.<br />
<br />
He sent a few stories to the women's magazines his mother read but his break came when he sent gags to Braden's Week, a BBC1 series fronted by Bernard Braden and Esther Rantzen which humorously reviewed the week's events and was the predecessor of That's Life!<br />
<br />
It earned him a retainer of £25 per week and he was soon writing gags for other TV comedians, including Dave Allen. After the BBC sacked Braden, Boucher turned to Doctor Who because at the time it had a reputation for trying out non-established writers.<br />
<br />
He remained grateful to the programme, which he called "the beginners' slopes, where you were taught your trade". Much later he wrote four Doctor Who novels, all of which gave a prominent role to Leela, who remained his most potent creation. However, he did not always see eye to eye with Tom Baker, whom he described as "a big personality and a big ego to go with it, and from a writer's point of view a pain in the butt".<br />
<br />
Outside the sci-fi stockade, he wrote episodes for the TV crime dramas Juliet Bravo, Bergerac and The Bill. Having started in comedy, all of his scripts in whatever genre were notable for the sly humour he insinuated into them.<br />
<br />
"It has rather cruelly been suggested that I will cheerfully sacrifice plot and character in pursuit of a gag," he said. "It's a lie of course. I would only ever do so for a food gag."<br />
<br />
<br />
Chris Boucher, television scriptwriter. was born on January 1,1943. He died of undisclosed causes on December 11, 2022. aged 79<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Boucher wrote the character Leela as a contrast to previous companions <br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_Harrow_LeaderThe Harrow Leader2023-12-26T20:01:15Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{Publisher |firstPublished=&nbsp; |lastPublished=&nbsp; |location=Harrow, England |website=&nbsp; |notes=&nbsp; }} {{Publication|England}}"</p>
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{{Publication|England}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr._Who_would_have_been_proud_of_themDr. Who would have been proud of them2023-12-26T20:00:42Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = The Harrow Leader | file = 1995-05-25 Harrow Leader.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 1995-05-25 | author = | pages = 18 | language = E..."</p>
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<div>{{article<br />
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The Clio Van and Renault Extra Challenger are two of the most versatile small vans in the known universe. Designed to carry loads that belie their size, it defies logic how much you can actually fit into them. Whether you are a time travelling Doctor or in need of a quick, efficient delivery machine, the Clio or Extra Challenger packed with their standard equipment are the perfect way to travel.<br />
<br />
To find out more or for a free test drive call Duncan Craddock or Elliott Pratt.<br />
<br />
RENAULT LONDON<br />
<br />
CONCORD ROAD, WESTERN AVENTUR, LONDON W3 0RZ<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr_Who_Fears_The_Iron_LadyDr Who Fears The Iron Lady2023-12-26T19:55:29Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = The Kingston Informer | file = 1989-03-03 Kingston Informer.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 1989-03-03 | author = | pages = 14 | lang..."</p>
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| publication = The Kingston Informer<br />
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| description = <br />
| categories = The Ultimate Adventure<br />
| moreTitles = Dr Who Fears 'The Iron Lady', Dr Who Fears 'The Iron Lady'<br />
| morePublications = Hounslow & Chiswick Informer, Richmond Informer <br />
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MRS Thatcher and the Daleks are set to share the same stage at Wimbledon Theatre this month in a spectacular theatrical version of the long-running BBC series, Dr Who.<br />
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The show — Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure — begins a three-month tour at Wimbledon and brings the 'regeneration, as it is referred to in Who terms — of Jon Pertwee, considered by many to be the best Doctor ever.<br />
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The Doctor's assistants, Jason and Crystal, will be played by Australian actor Graeme Smith and a young, unknown (not for long!) beauty from Danford, Miss Rebecca Thornhill.<br />
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Back come the Daleks and the Cybermen. But how, you may be wondering, does the PM enter the drama?<br />
<br />
The good Doctor, it seems, has not been requested to surrender his famous sonic screwdriver to the cause of dismantling the health service.<br />
<br />
Maggie, in fact, summons the time traveller to Downing Street because an American peace envoy has been kidnapped. The Doctor's involvement takes him to far-flung cosmic resorts (and through a feast of special effects) before he returns to the terrestrial setting at Number 10.<br />
<br />
SPECTACULAR<br />
<br />
Details of the spectacular were unveiled last week and is sounds like a Whoot! Writer Terrance Dicks is anticipating a laugh or two from Jon Peewee's last line at the end of the first Downing Street scene, which reads: "I can tackle everything in the Cosmos from dinosaurs to Daleks, but quite frankly that woman terrifies me."<br />
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The box office is now open<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Graeme Smith plays Jason.<br />
<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Boney_MasterBoney Master2023-12-26T03:39:53Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Radio Times | file = 2022-11-05 Radio Times p150.jpg | px = 400 | height = | width = | date = 2022-11-05 | author = | pages = 150 | language = En..."</p>
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A massive thank you to everyone involved in creating Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor (23 October BBC1). Boney M's Rasputin is lodged in my brain and the biggest smile is on my face at the thought of just what that Dalek and Cyberman were thinking as they watched the Master (the mercurial Sacha Dhawan) dance around the bewildered Doctor (Jodie Whittaker). This was truly an adventure in time and space, spanning centuries and crossing universes, bursting with familiar faces and longed-for meetings that tugged at the heartstrings.<br />
<br />
Paul Reynard Manchester<br />
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}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Doctor_on_Call_(Radio_Times)Doctor on Call (Radio Times)2023-12-26T03:37:54Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{article | publication = Radio Times | file = 2022-11-05 Radio Times p7.jpg | px = 450 | height = | width = | date = 2022-11-05 | author = | pages = 7 | language = English..."</p>
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A clutch of past Doctors appeared in Jodie Whittaker's Doctor Who farewell, but not the longest-serving of all, Tom Baker. Departing showrunner Chris Chibnall confirms he approached Baker, now 88, but the actor was unavailable. As for more recent Doctors not appearing, Chibnall "wanted it to be classic Doctors — there's not a huge amount of those left." <br />
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Caption: DOCTOR, DOCTOR Former Doctors Tom Baker and Jodie Whittaker<br />
}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Faversham_Gazette_%26_TimesFaversham Gazette & Times2023-12-26T03:27:18Z<p>John Lavalie: Created page with "{{Publisher |firstPublished=&nbsp; |lastPublished=&nbsp; |location=Faverham, England |website=&nbsp; |notes=&nbsp; }} {{Publication|England}}"</p>
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{{Publication|England}}</div>John Lavaliehttp://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dalek_invaders_are_welcomed_-_by_someDalek invaders are welcomed - by some2023-12-26T03:26:39Z<p>John Lavalie: </p>
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<div>[[File:1999-11-10 Faversham Times p1.jpg|300px|frameless|right]]{{article<br />
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FIVE model Daleks who set up shop in Faversham on Saturday made many new fans among curious youngsters - and delighted old buffs of the long-running TV series Dr Who.<br />
<br />
The display, organised by the East Kent Society for Science Fiction, raised £100 for BBC Television's Children in Need Appeal but for some of the smaller visitors it proved just too realistic.<br />
<br />
Some were just too frightened to meet the Daleks, at their temporary home in Court Street, so organiser Sue Claridge, found herself babysitting outside, as mums, dads and older brothers and sisters went in to meet Dr Who's arch-enemies.<br />
<br />
Society member Sue and fellow enthusiasts Garry Mitchell and Dave Duggan, set up the exhibition in the former greengrocer's shop to raise funds for the Children in Need appeal. They were helped by estate agents Ward and Partners and Colyer Commercial, who arranged the use of the pemises, and Faversham Dire Centre, which lent a generator.<br />
<br />
Sue explained: "Five of our members have Dalek models, so we thought it would be a great idea to display them for charity. We were surprised at how much boys of about 10 and 11 knew about the programme." Visitors were able to enjoy video clips of classic Dr Who and the Daleks moments and chat with experts about the classic TV drama.<br />
<br />
"It was a really enjoyable day, and we never expected we would raise so much money."<br />
<br />
<br />
Caption: Exterminate: This view of three mighty Daleks will send a shiver down the spine of anyone aged over 35, who used to hide behind the settee when the sci-fi robots were first on the screen in BBC TV's long-running Dr Who series. But organiser of the exhibition in Faversham Sue Claridge doesn't seem too worried!<br />
}}</div>John Lavalie