Doctor Who Feeds

The BBC has confirmed today that acclaimed actor Kadiff Kirwan will appear on Doctor Who in its upcoming season. Kirwan is yet another character regenerated from the spy drama Slow Horses, where his character met a tragic end during the series’ run.

From MI5 to the TARDIS

Kirwan has been a hit since Chewing Gum and has gone on to star in Black Mirror, Fleabag, I May Destroy You and This Is Going to Hurt.  He also can be seen in film roles from 2018’s Mary Queen of Scots to 2022’s My Policeman and on the stage in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Hot Wing King.

  Kirwan expressed his excitement about stepping into the world of Doctor Who:

“I feel elated to be joining the rich legacy of actors who have guest-starred in Doctor Who. Russell T Davies and Juno Dawson have truly outdone themselves with this episode in what I can only describe as an intergalactic gargantuan extravaganza. It’s packed with gravity-defying mastery beyond imagination, and being a part of it is an absolute dream. Strap in Whovians, this one is gonna rock your world!”

Not much is known about Kadiff’s role in the Whoniverse, but he will join the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) for an intergalactic escapade in the new season.

A New Era Continues

This casting announcement follows several exciting developments for the long-running sci-fi series, which has been enjoying renewed global attention since its partnership with Disney+.

Showrunner Russell T Davies commented on the new addition: “We’re so lucky in Cardiff to open the doors to world-class talent, and it’s been a riot, getting to work with Kadiff. I’ve loved his work on TV, and stage for a long time, so when we realised he was available and happy to come on board, that was truly a great day in the office!”

What This Means for Season 2

 Kirwan joins the already-announced cast for what promises to be another groundbreaking season. While the BBC remains tight-lipped about plot details, this casting suggests the show will continue its tradition of bringing in top-tier talent to expand the rich tapestry of the Doctor Who universe.

When Can We Watch?

Doctor Who, produced by Bad Wolf with BBC Studios for the BBC and Disney Branded Television, will air on 12th April exclusively on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Disney+ outside of the UK (where available).

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Genesis of the Cybermen steps sideways into a darker and gloomier Season 19 and the Cybermen’s greatest tragedy

 

“I’d call it a genesis,” purred John Simm’s round faced Master in World Enough and Time. “The genesis of the Cybermen.” It’s a playfully dark line which emphasises that no other entry in Big Finish’s Lost Stories range casts a shadow so long as Genesis of the Cybermen’s. In the 1980s, the Cybermen’s original co-creator Gerry Davis conceived it as an overdue response to Genesis of the Daleks. He was unable to get the Doctor Who production team interested in the proposed origin story, though. Instead, the Fifth Doctor would encounter an entirely new type of Cyberman, with devastating consequences, in Earthshock.

But Davis’ ideas would echo down the decades in interesting ways. Indeed, it seems likely that part of the reason Big Finish have taken so long to adapt this particular Lost Story is that it’s already been used for spare parts before now. Quite literally in the case of Spare Parts, still regarded as one of Big Finish’s all time greats. The 2002 audio drama shared Genesis’ vision of a hellish existence on a doomed Mondas pushing survivors towards extreme measures. But the aforementioned World Enough and Time, too, features more than a trace of Genesis in its DNA.

All the same, the retelling of this original inspiration is long overdue. The Genesis of the Cybermen is here at last.

 

Like previous Cyberman origin stories, Genesis contrasts a low tech society on the verge of collapse with the high tech horror its death throws will birth

One thing all three takes on the Cybermen’s origins have in common is the idea that Mondas is an almost perversely technologically unadvanced society. Spare Parts has a steampunk aesthetic with cyber-men riding cyber-horses. Even Steven Moffat’s grand finale is set in a rundown city more 1930s noir than far future SF.

In Genesis of the Cybermen, Mondasian life is almost medieval. A dying king rules a largely agrarian civilization from his castle on the hill, while strolling players entertain the masses. However, this is a cultural choice to stay close to the natural world, and to keep their considerable scientific advancement firmly in its place.

This divide is expressed through the two princes. Sylvan sees himself, perhaps naively, as a man of the people whose place is on the stage. Dega is a keen scientist, obsessed with finding a way to prolong their father’s life and prevent the potential unrest his death could cause. More importantly, he’s also determined to find a permanent solution that will allow his people to survive the global warming and falling life spans which worsen with every generation.

It’s a compelling enough setup in itself that you might almost forget the nature of the story until distant alarm bells start ringing in the Doctor’s memory. Certainly, with a less obvious title, the end to Part One might have provided just as much of a jolt as Earthshock’s famous cliffhanger.

 

L-R (back row); Peter Davison, Matthew Waterhouse, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Evie Ward-Drummond, David K Barnes, Kelly Price, Michael Abubakar, Colin Tierney; (front row) Nuhazet Diaz Cano David K Barnes’ adaptation successfully navigates the rougher edges of Gerry Davis’ outline, while preserving its distinctive feel

The Doctor is accompanied here by the Season 19 team of Adric, Nyssa, and Tegan, in place of Davis’ original creation ‘Felicity.’ It’s one of the significant, if sensible, changes David K Barnes has made to Davis’ storyline. This Genesis of the Cybermen is perhaps closer to what would actually have made it onscreen once Anthony Root or Eric Saward had gotten their hands on it. However, in other ways it remains charmingly old school. Various things suggest Davis had not watched a lot of Doctor Who since his 1960s heyday. The TARDIS is forcibly put out of commission to prevent our heroes from simply leaving, for example.

In other ways things play out a little like a classic historical, just one set on an alien planet, as the Doctor actively tries to avoid having an impact on events in favour of departing as soon as possible. There are echoes too of The Ark, with the story jumping 50 years into the future midway through, and of The Reign of Terror, as the challenge proves to be keeping all four TARDIS travellers free at the same time. There’s also some decidedly dodgy science in this science fiction. The sort of huge, but silly, ideas that Doctor Who might have just about gotten away with in the 1960s but already frowned upon by the 80s.

The result is a true side-step from the Season 19 we know. It’s somehow darker, grimier and more desperate. Wisely, there’s no attempt to align it with the continuity of Earthshock, providing an alternative first meeting between these companions and the Cybermen. Its unique combination makes Genesis feel fresh and new, despite its origins in a decades old story outline.

 

Uniquely, the Cybermen here can give voice to their dilemma and pain in a way which gains the listener’s sympathy

Perhaps the most compelling element of Genesis of the Cybermen is its depiction of these first generation converts. Barnes successfully gets across just how hopeless the situation on Mondas is, and how stark the choice. Extinction, or conversion, with no middle path. These first models also have their human emotions and memories fully intact, leading to some wonderful conversations between Krail and Nyssa. The kind and thoughtful Krail, who would later/previously appear in The Tenth Planet, retains his human morality but doesn’t regret being a Cyberman. More humans can survive for longer thanks to Cybermen needing less. And every new volunteer helps perfect the process to improve the quality of life for those that come after them.

If anything, the Cybermen have never been more tragic. Unlike so many of their other appearances, the battle is not between living as a human or becoming a Cyberman. Rather it’s the struggle between having the patience to perfect the process so they can keep all their humanity, and taking the brutally pragmatic shortcut of simply cutting out their emotions altogether.

It’s no spoiler to say which wins out. As the inevitable end nears, and Krail despairs that anything would be better than going on feeling like he does, Nyssa plaintively argues “not anything.” But whatever they may do later, Genesis challenges the listener not to condemn them for not being able to escape their terrible fate.

 

Krail the Cyberman as he appears in The Tenth Planet (c) BBC Studios Spare Parts may be the more polished story, but Genesis retains a special tragic power all its own

Telling stories where the end is a foregone conclusion is always a challenge. Doubly so, when it means our hero must lose. But Genesis of the Cybermen uses the gloomy air of tragic inevitability to its advantage. Not only does it make for an usually atmospheric Fifth Doctor tale, but it neatly offsets some of the goofier elements. Perhaps it’s for the best that Genesis of the Cybermen has finally come home the long way around. The bright overhead lights of Television Centre would have killed the drama of such a delicately balanced story. While, of course, with Genesis there can be no Earthshock.

However, with Earthshock on our Blu-rays, and Genesis of the Cybermen in our download folders, we get to live the Cyberman dream: the best of both worlds.

Spare Parts is the more polished story, and World Enough and Time is full of time-bending brilliance and cool narrative tricks. But Genesis of the Cybermen not only comes from the mind of their original co-creator. It’s also the version that most keenly feels the true horror of these early Cyber-pioneers: they volunteered.

 

Doctor Who: Genesis of the Cybermen. Cover by Sean Longmore (c) Big Finish Doctor Who: Genesis of the Cybermen

A King lies dying in his castle. His eldest son Prince Sylvan is an artist with no desire to inherit a kingdom, while Prince Dega toils in his laboratory, dedicated to saving their dying people from extinction. They will all burn unless he succeeds.

When the TARDIS arrives, its crew believe they can help. But this planet is Mondas. And this is the Genesis of the Cybermen…

Doctor Who – The Lost Stories: Genesis of the Cybermen is now available to own from just £13.99 (download to own) or £16.99 (download to own + collector’s edition 2-disc CD), exclusively here.

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Two new Candy Jar Books feature the further adventures of Doctor Who’s Sergeant Benton

Two new volumes coming soon from Candy Jar Books highlight UNIT NCO Benton in his career defending planet Earth. UNIT: The Benton Files VI – Aliens, Alchemy & Ale by Paul Driscoll, sends the Brigadier’s most loyal soldier undercover to Oxbridge. Meanwhile, Benton and Hawthorne Investigate, written by Lucy McCaul, finds the White Witch from Doctor Who story The Dæmons working with UNIT. Together Benton and Hawthorne ward off mythical creatures, uncover murder plots, and take on a mission to obtain missile plans.

 

The Benton Files VI features Aliens, Alchemy & Ale

Range editor Tim Gambrell explains how Aliens, Alchemy & Ale was chosen to be the latest Benton File. “Paul [Driscoll] was one of a number of writers to whom I reached out some time ago,” he says, “Like Matt Barber previously, Paul came back with an idea and, indeed, an initial draft that I just felt we could do so much more with. Unless it’s a stylistic choice, I tend not to enjoy short stories that feel like edited highlights of something much larger. There were moments in Paul’s story where that seemed to be the case because – like the good writer he is – he was trying to keep within the word limit. So, I sent him away with the task of expanding key parts of the story that felt could be developed further. Thankfully, he jumped at the chance and here we are.”

 

Benton is a fish out of water as the NCO goes undercover in elite academia

Driscoll explains where the seed of his idea came from. “The starting point I set myself was to imagine Benton in a totally unfamiliar setting – not an alien one, but a very human world far removed from his day job. I thought it would be fun to place Benton in a setting where he’d be like a fish out of water.

“There’s a very personal link in choosing Oxford University. I was a mature student there between 1996-1999, at the same college where I set much of the story, and very much felt out of place myself. I was married, we’d not long had our first child, and I wasn’t particularly academically minded.”

He continues, “I didn’t have time to join a student society, but I did spend many an evening drinking in The Eagle & Child.

“Yes, the college did have a resident tortoise, and croquet was a regular pastime on the quad. It also had a snooker room in the basement. Having to wear a gown and mortar board as we walked from one college to another made them surprisingly irritating journeys to navigate, with overseas tourists regularly stopping us to take photos. So many memorable images that I could play around with as I imagined the story. Benton has similar experiences to my own, with the added spice of him having to mix with pacifist, anti-military students.”

 

The new story will link to an upcoming Benton Files entry from Kara Dennison

“We have to be careful,” adds Gambrell, “that we’re not putting Benton in certain situations simply for the sake of a story. Part of my role as range editor is to know when to put the brakes on an idea. Benton goes to university – to Oxbridge? It might sound unlikely, but Paul fully justified it in the context and how could I doubt such a shrewd undercover move by the Brigadier?

“My original intention was to pair up Paul’s story with a linked one by Kara Dennison. Paul and Kara have written together often. However, it would have been a very uneven book if we’d continued down that path. Candy Jar readers won’t have to wait too long to find out what Kara came up with, but between her and Paul, his story ended up heading much further afield than simply Oxford. Paul’s story is now able to breathe and develop more organically, without losing the pace or the sense of wonder.”

All in all, Aliens, Alchemy & Ale takes Benton to some intriguing new places, never before explored in the Benton Files range. Readers will have to wait to find out which of the alien guest cast in Paul’s story will also feature in Dennison’s!

 

Olive Hawthorne from Doctor Who story The Dæmons takes on a role as UNIT’s supernatural advisor in Benton and Hawthorne Investigate

Meanwhile, Benton and Hawthorne Investigate comes from Lucy McCaul approaching John Levene about the idea. He says: “I was overjoyed to learn that Lucy has created a whole world of new adventures for Miss Hawthorne and my character,” says the actor who played Benton in Doctor Who between 1968’s The Invasion and 1975’s The Android Invasion. “We’ve made six stories that really fit into the spirit of 1970s Doctor Who – and personally take me back to the wonderfully happy time I spent filming in Aldbourne, which doubled for Devil’s End. Lucy and I are very proud of the final collection and can’t wait for fans to enjoy them too.”

Lucy McCaul adds: “Sergeant Benton and Miss Hawthorne made such a great team in The Dæmons – it didn’t seem fair that they only had the one adventure together, so I wrote them some more! When I gave the stories to John Levene at Aldbourne, I couldn’t have imagined what would happen next. I’m very grateful to him for his enthusiasm in advocating for the stories. This wouldn’t have happened without his efforts. I hope that readers enjoy these new adventures for classic characters and this tribute to the era of the Third Doctor.”

 

This special one-off collection of stories is part of the commemorations marking fifteen years of Candy Jar Books

Keren Williams, Head of Marketing at Candy Jar, says: “We’ve covered so many aspects of Doctor Who in that time – from artbooks to the Lethbridge-Stewart novels, memoirs to The Lucy Wilson Mysteries – so we really wanted a fresh and unexpected approach, to add to that ever-growing universe of stories. That’s what Benton and Hawthorne is, and the playful cover, unlike anything Candy Jar’s done before, is perfectly evocative of that. It’s a little bit of magic.”

Benton and Hawthorne Investigate is edited by Philip Bates, who previously wrote 100 Objects of Doctor Who and Companions: More Than Sixty Years of Doctor Who Assistants. He says: “I’ve always loved The Dæmons (like most fans!), but even more so, I loved hearing all the anecdotes that came from behind the scenes. The serial is all the better for knowing that the cast and crew were having such a fantastic time together. These short stories, then, come from that happiness, an extension of it, almost a nostalgic bubble to get lost in. They take you from quiet English villages where evil is brewing to an international threat in mainland Europe.”

Lucy explains: “I studied in Trier in Germany for a year when I was at university, so I thought it would be fun to include a place I knew so well. I hope readers are transported there and want to visit because it really is a beautiful city.”

The location for the first story, The Wyverns of Addershall Hall, is also based on the Colchester Campus of the University of Essex, where Lucy spent a couple of years studying, and the nearby village of Wivenhoe too!

Benton and Hawthorne Investigate also features a foreword by John Levene.

 

 

UNIT: The Benton Files VI (c) Candy Jar Books UNIT: The Benton Files VI

Join retired Sergeant Major John Benton as he recounts another tale of his exploits from yesteryear. In Aliens, Alchemy & Ale, by Paul Driscoll, young Sergeant Benton finds himself dispatched to Oxford University on an undercover mission for the Brigadier. He swiftly inveigles himself with the Alien Investigation Society, which leads him to the local brewery where strange things are afoot with their new drink, Alchemy. Stranger still is the College groundskeeper and his links to the prison planet Sirius Five. What plans does the masked, enigmatic Mr Stein have, not only for the students at Oxford, but for the government of Great Britain itself – and possibly the world? Read this new hair-raising adventure to find out…

UNIT: The Benton Files VI, by Paul Driscoll, with cover art by Richard Young, is available to pre-order now for £6.99 (+ p&p).

 

Benton and Hawthorne Investigate (c) Candy Jar Books Benton & Hawthorne Investigate

Murder! Magic! Morning tea!

When UNIT is called in to investigate strange goings-on at Addershall Hall, they uncover a supernatural menace about to be unleashed upon the world. They need an expert. They need Miss Hawthorne.

Or “Aunt Olive”, as Sergeant John Benton of UNIT calls her.

The pair must go undercover to find out the truth about the wyverns ushered into this universe by a clandestine group of evil-worshippers. Tempted away from Devil’s End, Miss Hawthorne soon gets a taste for adventure, and so, in these six short stories, she and Benton have to track down the reason for mysterious earthquakes across the sleepy village of Lower Budworthy, slip out the Wringford Worm’s grip, and find themselves in Germany, recovering experimental missile plans. Of course, they also meet some new friends – and plenty of enemies – along the way.

It’s Agatha Christie, spliced with dark magic, and infused with that warm nostalgic glow of the 1970s Doctor Who Target novels.

Going beyond The Dæmons, the Brigadier assists Benton and Hawthorne in this exciting confrontation with the forces of black magic!

Benton and Hawthorne Investigate is available for pre-order now, for £12.99 (+ p&p).

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The latest Doctor Who trailers make clear that we’re in for a universe of adventure!

The recent Doctor Who trailer gave us our best look yet at the upcoming season. But before we jump aboard the TARDIS with the Doctor and Belinda next month, we can take a deeper dive into what we know about their adventures. Blogtor Who must give you fair warning, though. This article may just be speculation based on officially released BBC publicity. However, you may want to go into the new season completely cold. If so, you should consider everything from this point on spoilers.

 

The TARDIS encounters a weird spatial anomaly The Doctor pulls a lever on the TARDIS console The TARDIS flies towards the Earth The Doctor pokes his head out of the TARDIS door Belinda is woken by strange lights outside her window Belinda looks through her bedroom window at a descending rocket ship Episode 1: Doctor Who’s Homage to Flash Gordon

We don’t have titles for any of the episodes yet. Indeed, even though we know the writing team for this season, we don’t have exact details of who has written what. Plus, we only have a general idea of the running order for these stories. But we do know that episode one features Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor meeting his latest new friend, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu.)

Belinda peeks through her bedroom blinds A rocket ship lands in Belinda’s back garden The TARDIS pursues the fleeing rocket ship through space A rocket ship lands in a retro futurist city Belinda arrives in the city’s control centre Belinda doesn’t know what to expect of her first alien planet

 

It looks like Belinda is going to get an usual entry point compared to most companions since 2005. Like all the Doctor’s primary companions, she’s from contemporary Earth. But this time, rather than being caught up in some alien invasion she seems to be cast straight into an outer space adventure. By the looks of things, the action begins with some weird spatial anomaly as it passes through the TARDIS. Soon the Doctor’s arriving on Earth to investigate at the hospital where Belinda Chandra works. But before long there’s a retro space rocket in Belinda’s back garden and she’s whisked away to a planet straight out of Flash Gordon.

 

Episode 1 seems to feature a pair of menacing robots If her new friend is “the Doctor” then Belinda is “the Nurse” The Doctor switches to local clothes and works to repair some of the resistance’s ancient looking technology The Doctor and Belinda in Episode 1 Belinda enters a brave new world this season Rebels launch an attack on the city’s control room Can the Doctor and his latest companion liberate an entire planet? Of course they can

Giving chase, the Doctor appears to be swiftly caught up in that old Who classic – a revolution by a repressed underclass. Some scenes show Belinda checking IVs while the Doctor works on fixing up some old technology. So it’s even possible the Resistance have been specifically looking for a medic to help them.

One of the rebels is disintegrated by a robot during the battle Battle erupts in the skies over the city The Doctor, Belinda, and their rebel friends Belinda enters the TARDIS for the first time. It’s bigger on the inside! Belinda’s understanding of the material universe is changed forever

The Doctor’s intrigued by the fact Belinda looks identical to the Anglican Marine Mundy he met last year, but the nurse insists he’s not his latest adventure and just wants to go home. However, it looks like it won’t be easy. One shot shows the horrified Doctor in his clothes from this episode looking out into empty space. Has Earth been stolen? Again? We also see a terrified Mel look around her as buildings simply fold themselves up out of existence, and social media teasers feature wreckage of things like London cabs, the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower floating through space. If Earth’s destroyed in the very first episode, the arc of the season can only be figuring out how, and undoing it.

What is the connection between Belinda and Mundy? The Doctor promises to get Belinda home Belinda only wants to get home to her life asap Off into time! And space! Meanwhile on Earth, it’s the end of the world… for real this time The Stolen Earth! Again!

Although Blogtor didn’t spot her in the trailer, based on the costumes, this is presumably the episode guest starring Rose Ayling-Ellis too.

 

 

Belinda gets her first experience of the TARDIS wardrobe for a trip to the 1950s “You’re Scooby Doo!” “Honey, I’m Velma!” Mr Ring-a-Ding enters the real world Movie audiences react in terror Episode 2: Mr. Ring-a-Ding

We know the second episode takes us to 1950s America, where our heroes encounter living cartoon Mr. Ring-a-Ding, voiced by Alan Cumming. The trailer actually adds surprisingly little detail to that. We do find out we’re getting an adorable wardrobe change scene akin to the one in last year’s Devil’s Chord, and that the Doctor definitely thinks of himself as the Velma of the gang, not the Scooby. It also looks like Mr. Ring-a-Ding’s antics are twisted and dangerous enough to leave Belinda deeply freaked out about continuing her travels, including the pair being temporarily transformed into cartoon characters (as per the German version of the trailer.)

The Doctor in the movie theatre’s projector room Mr. Ring-a-Ding meets Belinda and the Doctor The Doctor and Belinda can’t believe that they’re facing a living cartoon Mr. Ring-a-ding transforms the Doctor and Belinda into cartoons Belinda asks the Doctor if he’ll always keep her safe

As a result Belinda demands an assurance from the Doctor that he’ll always keep her safe. It’s a promise he willingly gives which, historically, is usually a bad sign…

 

Episodes 3-5 The Doctor and Belinda tag along on a military space mission The troopers prepare for their drop to the planet below The troopers don their helmets The troopers are launched from the decompressing airlock The Doctor and Belinda fall through the sky Terrors in Space

We don’t know the exact running order of the middle set of episodes yet. But we do know that Episode 3 is dark and terrifying. That would seem to fit with the outer space creature hunt feel of some of the scenes in the trailer. An early placement would also fit with the Doctor claiming in one of them that Belinda is “starting to enjoy” her adventures as he shows off an epic starscape above.

 

“You’re starting to enjoy this!” The episode brings the team to an alien planet The troopers head for some sort of industrial facility on the planet’s surface The troopers search the building for… something Could this be the face of the enemy in Episode 3?

These scenes feature the pair leaving the TARDIS behind on some sort of military dropship, as they join a group of black clad troopers (possibly called Paleen Troopers or Palin-Paleen Troopers) on a sky dive down to an inhospitable planet. Walking to some sort of industrial complex on the surface, the team begin searching it. But are they hunters or hunted? And is the mummified type face we glimpse the creature or what it leaves behind of its victims?

 

 

The Doctor and Belinda holiday in 1980s West Africa By the middle of the season, it’s clear the Doctor and Belinda are firm friends The Doctor discovers an epidemic of missing persons in town Whatever’s going on has Belinda worried The Doctor shares an intense moment with a new character about the nature of stories Doctor Who updates the classic BUS format with a Barbershop Under Siege

Next up in the running order might be the episode by Inua Ellams. The Doctor and Belinda are back on Earth, but in what appears to a country in 1980s West Africa. At first the companions are happy to soak up the tourist vibes, but before long they stumble upon evidence of a missing persons epidemic. Arachnophobes in the audience will be less than thrilled to see that this seems to the work of some sort of giant inter-dimensional spider, able to bring entire buildings into its cosmic web and shake the people out.

The Doctor uses the sonic to get the attention of the civilians in the latest BUS (Barbershop Under Siege) The Doctor takes charge The reason for the missing people is worse than anyone imagines A giant spider hangs in the space between worlds in the new season of Doctor Who Another view of the giant spider in this year’s season

The episode presumably adds the West African trickster god Anansi, who often takes the form of a spider, to the pantheon of malign superbeings the Doctor has faced since The Giggle. There’s also a hint of another romance for Ncuti Gatwa’s Time Lord. Whether it ends as badly for all concerned as Rogue, we’ll have to wait and see.

 

Is the Doctor undercover as just another urban commuter in one of this year’s stories? Freddie Fox stars as the villain in what may be a Severance style parody of office life

The last of these unplaced middle stories features a dapper looking Doctor doing his best impression of Steed from classic TV show The Avengers. Donning a bowler hat and pin stripe suit, the Time Lord appears to be living the life of a regular urban professional. But there’s something strangely off with this world, as the commuting crowds simply ignore the giant dinosaur-like skeleton looming above the city.

Everyone in this world seems to simply ignore the giant skeleton in the sky

This also appears to be the episode guest starring Freddie Fox as the villain. Another scene from the same story features the Doctor being led down a corridor made of bone by a guard in all black, wearing a distinctive gold and black helmet. The same guard, or one in the same uniform, appears in the background of the publicity photo of Fox’s character. Fox himself sports a nifty pair or horns.

It looks like there will be an evil lair *inside* a skeleton

Curiously, none of the images from this episode feature Belinda, indicating that this might be a companion-light story.

 

Rylan greets the audience for the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest at the Harmony Arena Rylan and his alien co-presenter introducing the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest The Harmony Arena seems huge The Doctor and Belinda instantly decide to stay for the show Mrs Flood loves a good show It’s the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest!

With Episode 6 of the new season airing the same night as Eurovision, it seems near certain that this will be the story taking place at the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest. How Rylan is still presenting centuries in the future is a mystery for now, though. Clone, android duplicate, or just really, really good moisturiser?

The dome of the Haven Arena explodes, exposing it to space The Doctor is pushed out into space by the escaping air The TARDIS flies through space above the arena among the fragments of the dome A tearful Belinda grabs the Doctor into a grateful hug The Doctor is determined to uncover the truth

No wonder our time travellers instantly decide to stay. Of course this being Doctor Who, things instantly take a disastrous turn. The song contest is taking place in a vast arena aboard a space platform. But when the force field dome is turned off the audience are sucked out into space, including the Doctor. Can he and Belinda save the survivors? Complicating matters is the presence of the Sundays’ old neighbour Mrs. Flood. What does she know and how is she involved?

 

Kate Stewart pays a visit to a nasty something locked up in UNIT HQ What are UNIT holding prisoner? What strange creatures are prowling the unnatural fog covering the Earth? Ruby holds the fort back on Earth this season “You taste better.” The creatures season their next victim with fear Episode 7-8: Gargoyles, UNIT, and Ruby

After a season long quest to find out what’s happened to present day Earth and get Belinda home, it all seems to end in a traditional two part finale. The entire planet seems lost in another reality, in a perpetual twilight where monsters dwell. Monsters which, Ruby Sunday warns, like people afraid because they taste better than way. Meanwhile, Kate Stewart and her UNIT team have something nasty, possibly another of those creatures, contained in a cell.

The Doctor finally gets back to present day Earth to save the day It’s New Year’s Eve in London! Belinda discovers it’s 2007 At UNIT HQ, Ruby continues to wait and hope for the Doctor’s return The gargoyle like creatures attack UNIT HQ Colonel Ibriham defends Kate as they make what may be a return to Ruby Road.

As you’d expect for the finale, this far out there’s practically nothing else revealed. Though through a process of elimination, we can probably guess that this is the story in which the Fifteenth Doctor wears the cricket whites look revealed in last year’s Entertainment Weekly sneak peek. If only because he doesn’t have it on in any of the released footage from the others. Mysteriously, the German trailer suggests this episode brings the TARDIS brings our heroes to 2007. It will be intriguing to see how this ties in to the presence of Ruby and UNIT.

 

 

Blogtor Who can’t wait, can you?

There’s less than a month to go until we see the full season on screen. But based on the trailers so far, it’s already shaping up to be one of the scariest, funnest, and most action packed in years.

In the meantime, you can check out the original BBC version over and over again until the 12th of April:

 

 

 

Belinda (Varada Sethu) and the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) head out into a universe of adventure in 2025 Doctor Who returns with a new season on the 12th of April 2025 to BBC One and iPlayer in the UK and Ireland, and Disney+ everywhere else. Episodes drop at 8am GMT.

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Classic Target Books novelisation Snakedance is back with an audiobook edition read by Geoffrey Beevers

Penguin’s series of new readings of classic novelisations continues with Snakedance. One of the rare cases of Doctor Who doing a direct sequel, the 1983 story saw the return of the Mara from the previous year’s Kinda. The Mara itself is just as unusual a foe for the Doctor. A creature of the mind, from “the dark places of the inside,” it’s the manifestation of the most horrible corners of our collective subconscious. It erupts into the real world, both by taking direct possession of individuals, and in the form of a giant snake.

In Kinda it took control of the Fifth Doctor’s companion Tegan in order to ‘turn the wheel’ on the planet Deva Loka, part of an apocalyptic cycle of rising and falling civilisations. The TARDIS travellers saved the day, but it turns out Tegan’s not entirely free of the Mara. She unknowingly sets the TARDIS controls for Manussa, the Mara’s birthplace as a physical entity and one time capitol of its empire. Now, five hundred years after its defeat by the Federation, it plots to use Tegan as a pawn in its resurrection, to cover the world in a second darkness.

 

Snakedance is one of Terrance Dicks’ more restrained adaptations, with no expansions of the plot or extra character insights

The text is by Terrance Dicks, originally written for the 1984 Target Books paperback edition. It’s one of Dicks’ more restrained adaptations. Expanding on the backstories of characters, and taking the time to fix minor plot holes in the original, were hallmarks of Dicks’ Target books. Here, there are a few scripted moments which didn’t make the final broadcast cut which are restored. But barring that, this is very much a straight retelling of the events as they happened on screen. Christopher Bailey’s original script is thematically rich, the events unfolding on Manussa simply the visible surface of dangerous waters full of Buddhist and Jungian symbolism. Dicks stubbornly refuses to take the opportunity to dive deeper, and without the eerie atmosphere and performances of the TV version, feels like a much more standard runaround of alien possession and science experiments gone wrong.

It’s a particular shame that this retelling don’t take advantage of the format to explore what’s going on inside the possessed Tegan’s head. What the experience of being taken by the Mara is actually like, and where one’s own inner darkness ends and the alien influence begins, is never explored. The same is true of Lon, direct descendant of the man who defeated the Mara last time, but now a critical part of the Mara’s scheme to recreate its old body. When Tegan spreads the Mara to him, the switch is about as dramatic as a Faithful being recruited to change sides in The Traitors. The jaded, decadent, childish emperor in waiting becomes a jaded, decadent, childish servant of evil instead.

 

Lon (Martin Clunes) and Tegan (Janet Fielding) – avatars of the Mara in the original TV version of Snakedance Beevers inhabits the jaded Lon and fussy Ambril perfectly in a strong reading that elevates the text

However, what does elevate Lon, and the new audiobook of Snakedance as a whole, is the wonderfully urbane reading by Geoffrey Beevers. Beevers’ signature character, the Master, might not be present in Snakedance, but he’s nevertheless the perfect reader for this tale of the veneer of society’s civility cracking to reveal unpleasantness beneath.

For the most part, Beevers doesn’t attempt impersonations of the original cast, but there’s a lovely echo of original actor Martin Clunes in his Lon. Deliciously disaffected, Beevers’ Lon feels like he could break out in a heavy sigh at any moment, no matter the drama around him. The stuffy, self-satisfied academic Ambril is a wonderful creation, too, especially in Beevers’ hands. People in authority who refuse to listen to the Doctor’s warnings, even as the evidence stacks up, are two a penny in Doctor Who. But Amrbil’s a superior example: exactly the sort of fool we’ve all met in real life who’d do exactly that.

Beevers creates a good flavour of Peter Davison’s Doctor, too; the chipper politeness of an English gentleman barely concealing the grumpy conviction that everyone around him is an idiot. Meanwhile, though his Tegan spends much of the time possessed, Beevers has fun with the Mara’s languid certainty of its preordained victory.

 

The audiobook presents a chance to encounter a rare piece of long out of print Terrance Dicks magic

One weakness of the audiobook format is that it does give you more time to ponder some of the plot’s eccentricities. If the Mara’s return can only come about by placing the Great Crystal of the Mind’s Eye in its ceremonial socket, why didn’t those who believed it would attempt to return destroy one, or the other, or both? In Kinda, the solution was to drive the Mara out of its host, to force it adopt a physical form so it could be banished. Yet here, it can’t take physical form without the Great Crystal, and gaining a real existence of its own is its entire endgame. Meanwhile, if the mere presence of a non-believer who knows a little basic mindfulness is enough to interfere with The Becoming, why don’t Dojen and the snakedancers just take care of it themselves?

They’re the sort of oddities Dick might usually try and paper over. That there’s no such attempt here indicates the more workmanlike nature of the adaptation.

If you’re not familiar with the story, your best introduction to it will absolutely still be the television version. For those who feel they know the original inside and out, the novelisation doesn’t really add anything new. However, with the paperback now long out of print, the audiobook still provides a chance to encounter a rare bit of Terrence Dicks magic, even if it’s not an example of the master at his best.

 

Doctor Who: Snakedance. Cover by Andrew Skilleter Doctor Who: Snakedance

The TARDIS arrives on the planet Manussa, about to commemorate its ancient banishment of the evil entity known as the Mara. Unbeknownst to the Manussans, the Doctor’s companion, Tegan, has become an unsuspecting medium for the Mara. Now she has helped it to return home. The Doctor realises that this could mark the spectacular revival of the Mara’s reign of terror – but it seems that no-one will heed his warning.

Find links to order Doctor Who: Snakedance on CD or as a download from your preferred retailer here.

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Doctor Who Magazine 614 goes right from 1963 to 2025, with interviews with original director Warris Hussein and brand new companion Varada Sethu

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out now. It’s an issue full of coverage of major milestones in the show’s history. Waris Hussein discusses the legacy of directing the very first episode, and his lost epic Marco Polo is also explored. Meanwhile, 20 years on, Russell T Davies and the 2005 season’s other executive producers re-live the terror and excitement of resurrecting a legend. Finally, Varada Sethu gives her first DWM interview as she prepares to arrive next month as new companion Belinda.

 

Varada Sethu as Belinda Chandra ,BBC Studios,James Pardon This issue:

• Varada Sethu – an introductory chat with the actor playing new companion Belinda Chandra.
• Sacha Dhawan – back to terrorise the universe once more: the actor discusses finding hidden depths to the Master!
• 20 Years Ago Today – a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the return of Doctor Who in 2005 with ‘The Three Who Rule:’ Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner, and Jane Tranter, as well as contributions by writers Rob Shearman and Paul Cornell
• Waris Hussein – a very personal interview with Doctor Who’s first director
• Marco Polo – a look at the Hussein directed missing story Marco Polo
• Doctor Who Auction – a visit to Propstore to see the Doctor Who costumes and props that are being auctioned in aid of BBC Children in Need
• The Autons – an investigation of the strategies of the Doctor’s plastic antagonists
• Back to 1997 –  the mystique of New Adventures novel Lungbarrow.
• Dance Till You Drop – join Beatie and the Hypnotising Cat in this issue’s comic strip!
• Me and Him and Who – Stephen Wyatt and Richard Unwin on the play that reflects on the life and legacy of eighties producer John Nathan-Turner
• Paul Grist – the actor speaks about playing Bill Filer in The Claws of Axos
• Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant – speaking to DWM at an anniversary screening of 1985’s Vengeance on Varos.
• The Randomiser – Gary Gillatt takes us on a voyage to the fiery surface of the planet Venus
• The Fact of Fiction – Twelfth Doctor adventure Robot of Sherwood

 

Doctor Who Magazine 614 (c) Panini Doctor Who Magazine 614

DWM Issue 614 is on sale Thursday the 30th of January from the online Panini store, WH Smith and other retailers priced £7.99 (UK). Also available as a digital edition from Pocketmags You can also save with a subscription, as well as receiving exclusive, text-free covers.

 

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