Today saw the annual pilgrimage to Trent Park, where Mawdryn Undead was filmed back in 1982. This is our tenth picnic and walk here, though we switched to the Monday this year to avoid the clash with Fourth Dimension yesterday.

You can find other photos of the group's antics on Facebook!

Grabbing a bit of time with some of the guests at the Fantom Films Fourth Dimension convention today.

Christopher Robbie, Cyberleader (Revenge of the Cybermen)


Gabriel Woolf, Sutekh (Pyramids of Mars)


Roland Oliver, Proctor Neman (The Keeper of Traken)


Roland insisted I should try the hat!


John Black, Director (The Keeper of Traken)


Geoffrey Beavers, The Master (The Keeper of Traken)

More photos from the event can be found on Facebook.

Amazing, you're away from the Internet for a day and all hell breaks loose! Fortunately our mobile Internet peeps at the convention today caught the press release about the series split next year, and after a lengthy disussion (as fans do!) we pretty much came to the conclusion that this is a good thing!

Personally, I'm looking forward to it. The thought of having two series to look forward to next year is quite exciting - as the Moff says, two openers, two climaxes! Okay, so each series will be half-length to normal, which is perhaps not so good, but the gaps between will be shorter (a few months rather than several).

Plus of course there's series five of The Sarah Jane Adventures and series four of Torchwood to look forward to next year, to - we aren't being rationed for Who like in 2009.

So stop whinging, you in the back!

It's one of those nights when an odd episode takes your fancy, and this time it was The Wheel in Space just before bedtime. I hadn't watched it in a while so just popped on Episode Six. Things worthy of a mention along the way:

• The Doctor suggesting turning on the sexual air supply - once heard, never forgotten! Right up there with his former regeneration's dalliance with the "fornicator"!
• The invading Cyber Army doing a birdie dance towards the Wheel - possible the worst case of "spacewalk acting" since ... umm ... The Moonbase!
• "You Know Our Ways" ... possibly one of the creepiest Cyberman responses in the series. Though I really liked the Earthshock Cybermen (and they were the ones that made me a proper fan rather than an enthusiastic viewer) the voices of the earlier ones were rather menacing, and extremely good here.
• The introduction to The Evil of the Daleks repeat - if only this still survived in its entirety!

This story also produces a minor feeling of nostalgia in me as it was the last episode to be broadcast before I was born, so conceivably the last story I would never have been able to see off-air!

Continuing the "mugshots" with this one from BBC America which has a materialising TARDIS on it, depending on whether it's hot or cold!

Now this has been speculated for a while now (especially with the later filming of the next series due to commence next week), but Digital Spy are now intimating that it is quite possible for Series Six to broadcast away from its "traditional" Easter(ish) spot. When asking Jay Hunt, head of BBC1, she said:

We're talking about what form Doctor Who will take. I think the interesting thing with having Steven running that show now is it will be very much a creative decision. He will decide what he thinks is right for the show.

Actually this doesn't tell us much at all!

Meanwhile Steven Moffat himself has commented about the heated licence fee discussions taking place at the moment (after BBC head Mark Thompson's lecture on it last night):

Are licence fee payers protesting hugely? No. They shouldn't, we give them lots of rubber green people in Doctor Who. Alien invasions are accomplished by at least three of them. Any cut in the licence fee and we'd have solo invasions. That'd be rubbish.

When's Day of the Daleks out on DVD, again?

Read the preview, Wish You Were Here, by James Moran

The new Adventure Game, TARDIS, is now available for download from the BBC, and as its name suggests, takes place inside the Doctor's home. Being it's been a few weeks since the previous adventure, I've been waiting for this with anticipation, so downloaded it straight away (then had to do so again thanks to running out of disk space - oops).

Being spoiler-free, I'm not going to go into that much detail, but those who have played the previous games aren't going to find anything too challenging in this one (apart from the usual problem of rapid movement around things when you're using a touchpad!).

All-in-all, this ironically feels like an "episode three" in terms of plot (unless something mega happens in the later parts - I haven't finished the game yet due to timing issues with aforesaid touchpad temperamentality!), so I'm not quite so enamoured with it. So Blood of the Cybermen is still my favourite at the moment!

After a brief rest between the end of the Christmas Special it seems things are about to kick back into action next week as Neil Gaiman's script begins production with a read-through on Tuesday, according to his blog today:

I'm flying to the UK on Sunday for the Doctor Who table read on Tuesday. This morning I was sent the producers' "this is what we can afford" edited draft of my Doctor Who script. I'll do a polish on that. And then we're pretty much done. I think. I hope. I pray.

(Seeing a few people have asked, writing a Babylon 5 episode was much simpler: I think it was two drafts. But it was all existing sets and basically no special effects. My Doctor Who episode is Bigger in every way, inside and outside: I've asked them for the impossible, and they've knocked themselves out to give it to me, and when they can't they've managed to somehow give me the very improbable.)

If you've followed his blog/tweets in recent weeks you'd know that he's had to make quite a few re-writes, and in this article he mentions the loss of several dialogue scenes which he thought were nice but weren't really needed for the plot (oh, the days of 20th Century Who when you could have scenes and scenes of TARDIS chat ... not!).

He picked on one scene in particular, where the Doctor is having a meal of sorts; here's the scene:

AMY
Is it something people can eat?
(to Doctor)
Shouldn’t you scan it with your screwdriver or something?

THE DOCTOR
Why would I scan food with my screwdriver?

AMY
See if it’s safe?

The Doctor leans over, dips his finger into his bowl, tastes it.

THE DOCTOR
Some unusual trace elements, smidge too much background radiation, but, yeah, very yummy.

Amy is about to try some of his food... he stops her.

THE DOCTOR (cont’d)
No. Don’t put it in your mouth.

AMY
Not for humans?

THE DOCTOR
Not for you. Tastes like Marmite on socks.

If all goes to plan, filming should start over the course of next week, so time to keep those eyes peeled!

He's gone to MIT it seems ...

Apparently this is what they call a "hack" - a joke that students play as term begins at the institute.

Here's a nice lit up one by Eric Schmiedl - visit his website for a few others!

... but not quick enough for some ...

Here is a mash-up trailer that 'dwcast25' has made, now showing on You-Tube! It is really quite good, plus there's a "making of" to go with it!

Today's fantasy boxed set features the Doctor's adventures in the London Underground!

This set comprises of the following adventures: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Web of Fear, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, and Mysterious Planet - plus the bonus addition of Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD!

Find out more at Kuriositas!

Coming in October 2010 from Entertainment Earth ...

A couple of games have appeared for the Nintendo DS and Wii platforms.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, though, as they are featuring the two most popular monsters from the series, so they could be brand new games!

Return to Earth: The Doctor and Amy help the SS Lucy Gray to return home to Earth, unravelling a Cyber Plot and preventing the Daleks from retrieving a lost Time Axis along the way. The Doctor and Amy arrive on a human colony ship returning to Earth after it was rendered uninhabitable by solar flares. Without provocation they are attacked by the ship’s maintenance robots and become separated in the struggle. The Doctor is eventually led to the ship’s Head Quarters, where he discovers a Cyber Leader has connected himself to the ships AI and is blackmailing it into doing his bidding, or else he’ll kill the crew. Meanwhile the Cybermen that were hiding in the ship ambush Amy and chase her out into space. Guide the Doctor and Amy as they face their biggest adventure yet!

Evacuation Earth: The Doctor and Amy arrive at the Lake District to watch the humans leave the planet. Suddenly the TARDIS gets lifted from them and bolted onto the evacuation ship. They have to make their way onto the ship before it leaves. As the ship launches it has technical problems and they realise the Silurians have built a ship underneath. The Doctor finds a solution to make the ship work. Suddenly the Dalek ship smashes into the human one and splits the Silurian half off. It’s the Dalek ship that chased the Time Axis into the sun – they weren’t destroyed, they actually made a random jump several hundred years into the past. The Daleks are pleased that they can exact revenge on the Doctor but first they make him fix their ship. The Doctor goes along with their plan but tricks them into bolting the TARDIS onto their ship, which he promptly jumps into and uses to fling them into the nearest black hole.

We do like our lists, us fans. Being it was stated that all (complete) stories will be out on DVD by the time of the 50th anniversary, what have we got left to go? It's certainly getting short for some Doctors, and not including the known releases in the next few months we have left:

William Hartnell: The Sensorites, Planet of Giants, The Ark, The Gunfighters.
Patrick Troughton: The Krotons.
Jon Pertwee: The Ambassadors of Death, Terror of the Autons, The Mind of Evil, Colony in Space, The Dæmons, Day of the Daleks, The Mutants, Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Death to the Daleks.
Tom Baker: Terror of the Zygons, The Android Invasion, The Face of Evil, The Sunmakers, Nightmare of Eden.
Peter Davison: The Awakening, Frontios.
Sylvester McCoy: Paradise Towers, Dragonfire, The Happiness Patrol, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

That's it, 26 to be scheduled. Assuming the The Dæmons comes out on the 50th anniversary itself as Steve Roberts intimated in an interview last year, then that means there are 30 other months to fill out 25 releases ... though of course with their penchant for boxed sets it seems 2Entertain will have some more of those, too. Jon Pertwee has the most to be released, and has likely candidates for a double release (e.g. Day of the Daleks/Death to the Daleks and Colony in Space/The Mutants). Also The Awakening/Frontios seems possible, too. So what will fill up the other gaps in the schedules, or will we simply see a slow-down in the release schedule?

All speculation, of course, but if The Revisitations set does the business then others seem likely to follow (Tomb of the Cybermen/Spearhead from Space/The Robots of Death have been doing the rumour rounds as the next set), so they may fill up the gaps until the anniversary - and if they are doing well then I wouldn't have thought the Doctor Who collection would end there.

There's also the incomplete stories to consider. It would be a real shame if we didn't get to see these, too (The Reign of Terror, The Tenth Planet, The Ice Warriors), even as another "Lost in Time" collection if 2Entertain really won't give us animated reconstructions as with The Invasion.

Such a shame the other stories seem unlikely to ever see the light of day as reconstructions - thank goodness for Loose Cannon!

The Doctor Who News Page has reported that fourth Doctor story Meglos is due to be released on DVD some time in the next few months, as evidenced by a "Coming Soon" trailer being cleared at the BBFC.

Now I know this story isn't exactly one of the classics of that era, and in my view the weakest of the excellent Season 18 stories, but it does hold significance to me in being one of the only stories I never got on VHS and so all I have is a UK Gold version from some early Sunday morning showing on an E240 alongside The Leisure Hive through to Warriors Gate!!!

So I am quite looking forward to this in so far as it is a story I haven't seen for quite a number of years (though not an enforced fast like The Twin Dilemma!). Mind you, we could always have had the prickly adversary back in The Lodger had Gareth Roberts got his way!

Incidentally, S18 fans could catch up with guests from Warriors Gate and The Keeper of Traken at Fantom Films's Fourth Dimension convention this weekend - only a couple of tickets left (and you get Jago and Litefoot, plus Sutekh into the bargain too!).

Well I succumbed to Wave 2 of the Classic figures, thanks to what I consider was a good price on ebay (considering the complete set was hitting prices some £30 more than when I bought the set a couple of days ago ... !). Here they are, in the impromptu photo studio!

I decided to get the Season 13 gang together for a pose:

Since the "studio" was set up, my various Cybermen wanted to join in, too!

A friend just asked which commentaries he should listen to first. So I suggested:

• Earthshock. This is possibly the best commentary ever! Peter Davison is in fine form, as are his compatriots in arms! Actually, most Davision commentaries are worth a listen.
• The Brain of Morbius The commentators are in fine form in this one, with some real laugh-out-loud moments! This is one of those commentaries where they sound like they're having a great time, almost blokes-down-the-pub in style, unlike some that try to be too technical.
  
• The Five Doctors For those who don't know, the special edition has an easter egg commentary by David Tennant, Phil Collinson and Helen Raynor hiding on the original broadcast version. Unashamed fan-boy alert, and a great laugh.
• Spearhead from Space. If for nothing else, this was the first commentary to feature Nick Courtney!

Been umming and ahhing over the Classic Character Options figures for a while now, and then Em bought me my first arrival ...

Of course now this is causing me the dilemma of whether I want to collect the rest of the K1 robot! Though looking at the prices of some of the Wave 1 releases on ebay mayhaps this isn't such a good idea at present!

Matt Smith and Karen Gillan appeared on The One Show tonight, reportedly getting the show out of trouble when guests couldn't be booked for Chris Evans's inaugural show. Plenty of discussion about the duo's kissing session from Flesh and Stone, but perhaps unsurprisingly they wouldn't be drawn on what could be expected from the Christmas Special!

Though we did get a promo photo to keep us going!

Other hijinx included a bit of scholarly education from Matt and Karen on the various states of batter(!), which you can also now see on YouTube!

In many ways this release was bound to cause a bit of a kerfuffle, with the extended version being the version of the story that many remember. There were times watching the story when I kept thinking "I'm sure there was another line there!", and of course it was from the extended cut. Unlike, say, Fenric, the cut plot wasn't quite so important in the grand scheme of things ... coming into the last scenes in the hangar I hadn't a faintest clue what Lady Peinforte was meant to be doing - I know she was insane, but still the whole ranting on and then throwing herself onto the statue - WTF? Even the Cyberleader looked surprised, quite a feat considering the faceless metal mask!

Ah yes, the Cybermen. Okay, so I get that it was a silver anniversary and they are, well, silver(ish), but this whole barfing at the mere sight of gold is just getting a bit on the silly side - especially as the boxed set with Revenge shows the other side to this plot point - Cybermen walking around the planet of gold with no real ill-effects whatsoever. The production notes indicate that in the original they weren't to "die" immediately they are hit by gold, so it's a shame this was changed.

Actually, having commented on the extended cut, there's still very little going on in the story, overall. A bit of to-ing and fro-ing through time, and then quite a lot of sitting about in episode two waiting for something to happen. "Social workers" ... Mrs Remington ... with 75 minutes-odd of screen estate this could all have been tightened a bit with a little more action. But then this was the 1980s style of production (yet again with Fenric it couldn't all fit into 100 minutes!).

Shame about the extras, really, too. In my mottley collection of off-air bits and pieces I had Andy Crane beating off a cyberman in the broom cupboard, Open Air's anniversary thoughts (with Jon Pertwee!), plus the Points of View segment which was mentioned in the production notes, all of which could have been included. Not so sure about Daytime Live, though, being "the other channel" 'n' all!

Money on another "Revisitations" release in the future ...

With the 'themed' boxed sets from 2Entertain, one of our pastimes at group meetings are to come up with our own, not always so serious sets!

So here's our one for today, the "Fez boxed set", featuring The Pyramids of Mars, Silver Nemesis, and The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang!

Today we went along to the Churchill War Rooms, home to the British Government during the Second World War. For Doctor Who fans, the place is of interest through its representation in the episode Victory of the Daleks, and briefly in The Pandorica Opens. The stories were not filmed in the War Rooms themselves. but made use of a couple of bunkers in Wales.

The long corridor running through Brackla Bunkers in Bridgend was used to represent the those within the War Rooms. In the story we see Churchill and the Doctor having discussions as they walk, not to mention passing a Dalek or two. However, the corridors within the real War Rooms aren't "open" like in the show, they have buttresses every now and again in order to break the corridor up - this most likely provided cover should the bunker ever have been infiltrated by the enemy!

The Map Room was represented by the West Cross AAOR in Swansea. The location provided a room that was somewhat less cramped than the real one under Whitehall - pretty handy for getting cameras in! As can be seen in the screen-caps, the room was laid out quite differently in reality, too!

The final room for comparison was Churchill' office, briefly seen in The Pandorica Opens as Churchill and Bracewell discuss Vincent's painting. The office in the War Rooms is a little more cramped!

This is probably the most nostalgic featurette I've seen so far on the DVD releases! The 1980s were certainly a time of meagre pickings for us fans who couldn't afford the original official BBC releases, and after the excitement of The Five Faces and The Monsters series we only had a few repeats to enjoy, and even they dried up. Sigh. But then the wonders of Doctor Who local groups came along and suddenly there were people with ... old stuff!

My first experience with 'non-current' Who was to be ... Frontier in Space. It's hard to describe the mounting excitement of seeing another Jon Pertwee for the first time, and then the biting disappointment when finding out it didn't meet the expectations built from the novelisation The Space War! A certain producer once said "the memory cheats" (though saying it for the likes of Pyramids of Mars and The Talons of Weng-Chiang is still a bit silly!), and the imagination certainly does!

Over the next couple of years a collection expanded and appetite of older Doctors slowly sated; then the BBC videos became affordable, and once BSB's Galaxy channel started up (and later UK Gold), and these treasured ragged VHS copies were usurped. I still think of them fondly, but I'm not entirely sure I'd ever dig them out of the box and put them on again (the example of generation copying shown for Revenge really brought back the memories - shudder).

How did we put up with the quality back then? Well, it was Doctor Who!

Oh, I could have appeared in the featurette, but I chickened out :)

Finally got around to transferring the episode off the old Sky+, its only been sitting there since New Year's Day! This was the BBCHD repeat, packaged up as a nice feature rather than two individual episodes.

A little walk down memory lane, I almost feel nostalgia from it, which is slightly odd being it is less than a year since original transmission! Maybe it was Sarah with the Doctor again that helped, or even the fact that it was seeing David Tennant as the Doctor again. I haven't really watched any of his episodes since Matt Smith arrived on our screens, and it felt a little off having him there doing his allonsies! It's also strange to think that this was his last venture as the Doctor, too, and having his moment with Sarah Jane at the end still evokes a little tear to the eye! (It'll be interesting to see how the eleventh Doctor fares in Sarah's company in a couple of months).

Its a shame K9 was missing for so much of the previous series, as the repartie between him and Mr Smith is great fun. Also a shame we never got to see his "hover-mode" down the stairs in episode one (cop-out!). More of this next series hopefully!

Spit spat!