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!