Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Johnny Depp is Doctor WHO!?

Yeah. Seriously.
And supposedly RTD is behind it all. Please don't let there be magic potions in it...erm..I mean, -Yay...? A Doctor Who movie..well it's been done before, I guess. Could be awesome!

In the article, titled, "Johnny Depp Starring in Big Screen Doctor Who Adaptation?" Chris Greenland from Tor.com quips:

"To steal a phrase from the Tenth Doctor...
What?"

And continues:
"Sources are reporting that a big screen version of Doctor Who, written by former showrunner Russell T. Davies, is slated for release in 2012. Those same sources are also reporting that Johnny Depp has been confirmed in the iconic role of The Doctor."


Quoting from 'PubArticles' he includes "that the reason (Russell T. Davies)he moved on from the show was due to the opportunity to transform the Doctor to the big screen. 'Bringing the Who franchise to the theaters is a regeneration for the character beyond the usual one.' "

And apparently Johnny Depp has been confirmed as being cast as the Doctor in a 2012 film.

Is this a Good or a Bad thing? Honestly, I can't tell. Mr. Davies was so good at characterisations, and so, well, not so good in other writing areas, shall we say? I'm boggled by this news. And the possible storyline revealed in the article sounds a bit bizarre, so I'm hoping it's a red herring by Mr. Davies. So with fingers crossed let's hope it's a Good Thing and that it happens before the Mayan Apocalypse in 2012...

But I digress. Mr. Greenland has some interesting opinions on the subject. Peruse the complete article here.

Let the debate begin!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Blood-y Hell!

The second of the Dr Who adventure games appeared this weekend (once again, only for those of us who are blessed to live on this Sceptred Isle and owe fealty to the Evil Empire that is Microsoft). Having done the Daleks, we now move on to the Doctor's other great recurring nemesis, the Cybermen. And not those crappy Cybus Industries ones, either...


Without wishing to give the game away, there's an introduction section that involves a fair bit of buggering about and some very zombie like protagonists, who in one scene can't kill you instantly, but in the next scene they can. There's more creeping about corridors and hiding and you still can't run when things go wrong, but at least the mini-game has changed from that annoying drop-things-in-holes effort in the first installment. Unfortunately, it does tend to mean that you can complete the challenges accidentally on purpose just by randomly whirling things (you'll see what I mean when you get there).

We changed our graphics specs for this one, so there was no more treacle-vision and angry swearing, which on the whole made for a much pleasanter gaming experience. There's an excellent filmic joke for those of us old enough to remember John Carpenter and the pace picks up nicely once you get on to the main plot. As before, the graphics wobble a bit in places and the dialogue is a little stilted, but its still all good, clean fun. There's nothing quite as revelatory as in City of the Daleks, although the TARDIS has acquired a new function (apparently as a mobile radiator for those unable to dress appropriately, despite the extensive wardrobes onboard; presumably the Menoptra finally got the Second Doctor's fur coat).

My only other niggle is where the hell do these people buy their jelly babies? Honestly, vanilla flavour? Really? I mean, come on, jelly babies have colours for flavours; you know, the green flavour and the red flavour and the purple flavour. They've never actually tasted like anything vaguely fruit or seasoning related, for heaven's sake. And don't get me started on the chocolate one...

The Grand Moff himself has declared these things canon, so get on in there and kick Cyber botty. You know you want to!

The TARDIS Handbook - A review


I confess to being a somewhat obsessive collector of Doctor Who books. I have thousands, including nearly every publication of every Target novelization. The latest addition to my collection comes courtesy of Oolon across the pond - BBC Books The TARDIS Handbook by Steve Tribe.

While both the Moff and RTD have embraced returning Doctor Who to its children’s program roots, the fact is that the vast majority of Who reference material in print has been aimed squarely at an adult audience over the decades. Tiny print, no pictures, and woefully dry narratives are standard fare for the entire bookcase of reference material I have in a wonderful oak bookcase in our living room. The few reference books geared towards the child audience have made no effort to be factual in any way – I aim my sights of disdain at the oft quoted Technical Manual published in 1983.

This fact annoyed me greatly as a pre-teen. Unwilling to wade through the almost clinical writing style of the books such as The Early Years, A Celebration, and The Doctor Who File (I mean, I had King’s Quest to play on my Tandy computer…), but annoyed with the obvious lack of any canon references in the Technical Manual, I was left resorting to traveling to conventions and asking the actual writers themselves what the hell was going on. Well, I guess I did find a suitable alternative.

The TARDIS Handbook is constructed much like a modern day middle school textbook. Dry facts mixed in with interesting story references in a quick paced and flowing narrative style combined with an inviting visual layout. Liberties are not taken to “fix” the myriad of inconsistencies that we have grown to love about the TARDIS’s history, instead pointing out the various continuity errors in the ship’s history as a matter of fact and only offering an explanation when there is one from the small screen to quote. The book touches on such issues as Timelord history and biology, and other facets of the Whoniverse besides the TARDIS, as we all know how intertwined the mythos has become.

Kids are smart. This is a fact that the new Who production team seems to be embracing this year with more complex story arcs, emotionally delicate subject matter, and print material aimed at a more intelligent teenager. This is probably due to the fact that Steven Moffat himself seems to have insightful and intelligent children of his own, and believes in giving a younger audience the benefit of the doubt.

For a new fan to the Doctor Who universe of any age, I highly recommend The TARDIS Handbook as a sort of beginners look at the technical side of the Whoniverse. Definitely a $50 evening when it comes to Who print material.

Matt Smith & Orbital at Glastonbury 2010

Now that's what I call a finale!
Check out Matt Smith playing the theme to Doctor Who with Orbital at Glastonbury.
First posted by Bleeding Cool website, read the rest of the article there.


People were twittering big time amazement with such tweets as:

@andmurphoto: MATT SMITH ON STAGE AT GLASTONBURY. PLAYING THE DOCTOR WHO THEME TUNE. THIS IS A MOMENT OF LEGEND, PEOPLE. WRITE THIS IN YOUR DIARY.
and
@SquireVonSexron: am i really seeing The Doctor play Glastonbury?
and
@pirate_joe: What the... Did I just see... Doctor Who... Glastonbury... It must be getting late, I'm hallucinating. #Glasto
and
Etcetera...

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Doctor Who Series 6 Hints

No real spoilers here, just an indication of in what direction this ongoing story arc is heading.



Enjoy.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 16

Hello again. It's us.

Well, what a rollercoaster ride that was...

This week we take a shufty at The Pandorica Opens, and wild conspiracy theories abound in the run up to the grand finale. It all gets quite heated, well, as heated as 4 Doctor Who geeks 1000's of miles apart can get. The alcohol doth flow.

Big thanks to The Prof, and Fuschia, for the awesome 'Krap Daleks' (TM). One man and his ring modulator.

This is one of the LOST DirtyWHOers Episodes, no longer available for streaming from iTunes etc., but is available for download from our Dropbox archive HERE.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Fan painting of the Big Bang

Wonderful take on that Van Gogh painting we see in the Pandorica Opens.
See the full article on the artist at the Combom blog here.


Coolness.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

2010 Comic Con. Figures

The rumor mill is saying that it's Fifth (Davidson) Doctor and The (Anthony Ainley) Master (as per Planet of Fire) and/or an Eleventh (Smith) Doctor and Dalek (Big Assed) Scientist are gonna be the exclusives for the 2010 San Diego Comic Convention. I've also heard about a Fifth Doctor Castrovalva regeneration Davidson in Baker gear with removable scarf, but sorry, that sounds boddo.


This is gonna cost me shit loads on eBay, though it's very possible these might show up on the shelves in 6 months avec special packaging.

So, anyone going? I'll swap you for UK only Forbidden Planet exclusives ;-)

Monday, June 21, 2010

Now we know the Doctor is Real!

Amy's crack is real and we've got proof!


Turns out it's the image of the day and referred to as a "Ghost Snake" in the article (apparently sketched by the same Disney cartoonist that worked on the Jungle Book, in this animation) at the Daily Galaxy website. The article states:

"A cosmic snake appears to slither across the plane of our Milky Way galaxy in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The snake-like object located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius is actually the core of a thick, sooty cloud large enough to swallow dozens of solar systems and may be harboring beastly stars in the process of forming."

There's much more of it and quite interesting. But the really fun bit are the comments. I bet those astronomers weren't expecting those. Doctor Who fans are awesome. That's all. Click here to go directly to the article.


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

I mean, seriously...

...what the frack?!



Creepy Nick Cave/Max Wall/jaundice skin clown dude.

I may never sleep again.

Cooler than Winter on Necros

We mentioned these bad boys in podcast 15, and thought we better throw you a link to the awesomeness. Available on pre-order at Forbidden Planet this sweeeeet little set (the only place so far to get an 8th Doctor) is a measley £46.49 and most of the figures are exclusives (or the coolest available versions of our favorite Gallifreyan). Bargain.


Unless Character Options have a billion of these, they're gonna sell out.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 15

In a startlingly rare bout of competence, this one's ready early in the week (and dripping with the usual froth and nonsense). The usual diversions, news, reviews, and piss-taking. Thank god we don't have a swear box.

Mixed opinions on this one from the WHOers. We desperately try to stay on topic, but Sputters had had a few too many and Sen couldn't articulate any other word than 'Timeship'.

Please bear with us as we take a shufty at Series 31 episode 11, The Lodger, in which Gareth Roberts gives us the Doctor doing Men Behaving Badly, Spaced, This Life (or some other awkward flatshare drama thing) with that spherical bloke from Gavin and Stacey.

Hey, was that tune he was singin' in the bath is the same one he sang in the shower in Spearhead From Space?

This is one of the LOST DirtyWHOers Episodes, no longer available for streaming from iTunes etc., but is available for download from our Dropbox archive HERE.

Kings Arms Team Shirts #11

I'm going a bit T-shirt crazy these days, but it's great fun. In honor of "The Lodger" episode I've made these:

  

I just couldn't resist! ..and yes there's a great big 11 on the back.
There is also another version on darker blue, available for men and women.

Carry on.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 14

Can we get this uploaded before we have to go camp out in front of the telly before 'The Lodger'? Let's see. A rush job? Us? As if we would...

...ok, so there's a bit of a weird cut in the news that we didn't notice cos we were last minute getting it out the door. Bite me. It's free :-)

This week it's all about Van Gough, and we get all Ministry of Arty(and farty)ness about the monoauditory Sunflower dude, the leggy ginger stripper, and the bloke with the fringe and bow-tie. Did we enjoy it? Did we cough up the $'s? Was it a load of chick-flick bollocks? Listen to the podcast if your really that curious. Better still, go over to iTunes, rate it a 5, then we won't keep bothering you I promise.

Boomshanka.

This is one of the LOST DirtyWHOers Episodes, no longer available for streaming from iTunes etc., but is available for download from our Dropbox archive HERE.

Glass Eye for the Dalek Guy

The Prof, whilst bumbling around cyberspace avoiding doing the housework, discovered this rather interesting site by Matt Brooker, comic artist and photographer, that shows you how to make these lovely corridors for your Daleks to chase the Doctor and his companions down.


He also has a has some rather entertaining pictures on a different site of Johnny Alpha and Mr Tony Stark squaring up to some cybermen. Most amusing.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Matt Smith Doctor Who Font

Doctor Who Font...
A very close facsimile of the Doctor Who font style being used in the Moffat era Doctor Who. It's called "Matt Smith Doctor Who" by thejamjar96 and currently hosted on dafont.com

         
click on the preview image to go to the download site.
Oh, did I mention it's FREE?
Get in!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Four Spoilers in One for "The Lodger"

And here is the latest SPOILERIFIC four BBC video teasers for the upcoming Doctor Who episode, "The Lodger".



Courtesy of DoctorWhoTV.

Old Blue Eyes

I mentioned Steven Caldwell in my review earlier this week. But here, for your enjoyment is one of his pieces, just in case you missed it:


What might not be immediately obvious is the fact that they all have the most amazingly blue eyes. If you don't believe me, go and have a look at the individual portraits on his Deviant Art site

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Game for Adventure

This weekend just gone saw the release of the first of the BBC’s interactive Dr Who adventure games. Well at least, it did if you were in Britain and owned a PC. The Beeb, in their infinite wisdom, have region-locked the game in order to charge those overseas for the pleasure of perusing it. Fair enough, as I’m sure it will have cost them many shiny quatloobs to produce, but they could have at least gone for a simultaneous release world-wide so our Colonial cousins weren’t chomping and frothing about the sheer injustice of being on the wrong side of the Puddle. Again.


But what will you be getting for your money as and when they finally let it go Stateside? Not a bad little game actually. The graphics are a bit wobbly in places and some of the animation is a little basic, but the backgrounds are rather nicely rendered. They’ve really captured Matt Smith’s ambling gait, leading me to suspect that he’s not actually a Labrador puppy in a skin-suit after all, but a computer sprite on the run from Reboot.

There’s lots of creeping about (sadly, no cardboard boxes for the Metal Gear Solid fans) and some devilish little hand-eye co-ordination puzzle games to complete. These wouldn’t have been so bad if the game wasn’t doing its best impression of Second Life on a Saturday night. In fact, trying to do the last two climactic encounters whilst wading through computer treacle was a tad frustrating after a while. If it hadn’t been for the lagtacularness of the final stages on our poor little laptop, it probably would have taken about the time of a TV special to complete, without the regret and time you’ll never get back feeling usually associated with, say, an RTD gap-year episode.

You’ll find no spoilers here, but there are some immensely important continuity points brought up during the game, which made us at Chez Pixie make happy “Ooo” noises (though why they’ve felt the need to change the name of one thing, we’re not quite sure). And thanks to the way the game is written, everything’s sorted out in time for tea with no harm done. Once again, as so often during the current TV series, the continuity nods will please old fans without confusing or alienating the new ones.

The voice talent do a decent job, although neither Matt Smith nor Karen Gillan seems to be quite cut out for voice-over work. Maybe its their lack of experience; only time will tell on that one. The sheer physicality that Matt Smith brings to the role is understandably missing and its quite odd how flattened his portrayal feels without all those little far from tawdry quirks. Not that he gives a bad performance here, far from it, but it’s just not quite the same.

And that’s really the point here; it’s a fun game featuring the Doctor and Amy and it’s an entertaining little diversion, but in the end it’s not as satisfying as a TV episode. Well, the good ones, anyway.

Next time we get to go head to head with the Cybermen. Wonder if they’ll get round to sorting out the whole Mondas/Cybus Industries thing…

Starry Night with TARDIS

I made this having been inspired by the recent Doctor Who episode Vincent and the Doctor. And no...I didn't repaint a masterpiece. I'm using a photograph of the original here, and did my best to digitally reproduce Vincent Van Gogh's technique on the Time and Relative Dimensions In Space machine.


T-shirts, iPad covers, prints, etc...over here.

UPDATE: I have been forced to update this image, linking to a heavily watermarked image and taking out any links to larger versions. Someone is on ETSY selling this image on products as if it were theirs. I also saw a merchant at Gallifrey One selling small prints of this work. Live and learn.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Keep Your Friends Close

I’d never been to a Doctor Who convention. Roleplaying ones, yes (some quite big ones, in fact), but never a Doctor Who one. And it ever so slightly passed me by when Terry mentioned during the news that there was one at Temple Park on 6th June, which is a bit embarrassing as Temple Park is only a few miles up the road from us.


The weather on the day was a bit grim, so me and the Prof decided that what the heck, we’d go and give it a try. After all, Nicholas Courtney would be there, along with Colin Baker, Terry Molloy and Sophie Aldred. The fact that Oolon had expressed a desire to get hold of a Davros sound-bite for the podcast did spur us on a little, so, armed with only the Prof’s trusty iPod Touch, we set off on our adventures.

We were a bit late getting there due to the Prof trying to find his bow-tie and failing, so we missed most of Mr Courtney’s talk, which was a massive shame as I’ve always had a huge soft spot for the Brigadier even though I’ve seen relatively few of the stories with him in. The only one I could have seen him in at the time on the telly was “The Five Doctors”, unless my toddler self had some dim recollection of “Robot”. That to me speaks volumes about his charisma in the role. In real life, he was even more charming and more than willing to humour our requests.

Next, I screwed up the courage to go and talk to Colin Baker. Sadly, thanks to previous difficulties with another podcast (who remained nameless), he wasn’t willing to let us record him. To be honest, I don’t blame him at all; I try to guard my professional reputation very carefully, so I completely understand when other people want to, too. However, he was utterly charming, polite and good-humoured about our asking and even commented that the Prof’s golden curls were indeed ideal for portraying his Doctor in live roleplaying events. And for the rest of the day we got nods and smiles, so at least we hadn’t offended him.

We also had a lovely chat with Terry Molloy, who was heartily amused at the idea of Brian Blessed doing a sat-nav voice-over, treating us to a very fine impersonation of the bearded giant himself. He also very kindly did a recording for us, which you will find as part of the Cold Blood review for your listening pleasure. I giggled like an utter fan-girl, I’ll happily admit that, but it was rather cool. And as with Mr Courtney and Mr Baker, he was good-humoured, charming and consummately professional.

I don’t know exactly what was going on, but it became obvious that the organisers were having one of those days where nothing goes quite to plan. Sophie Aldred was very late arriving due to train problems, road works and flooding, but gamely plonked herself on stage minutes after arriving to talk about her life and career. Terry Molloy compèred many of the talks for them to help out, but whatever was up, they tried to make sure it affected the attendees as little as possible.

Having heard Graeme Harper and Nicola Bryant chatting about the new series when we went to see “Caves of Androzani” in Derby earlier this year, it was interesting to hear Messers Baker and Company’s thoughts on the matter. Universally, they loved what Matt Smith was doing with the role and were pleased that Steven Moffat had stuck to his guns in securing him for the part. You won’t hear any argument from me on that score.

The cross-section of people attending was very interesting indeed. There were loads of children there, some obviously with fan-parents, but also some scarily knowledgeable ones as well. One tot asked a very good question of Mr Baker about chameleon circuits and got a very honest reply (as ever with the Beeb, in the end it was down to money). There was also a very relaxed atmosphere, with no-one rushing about (other than the organisers and yet they still seemed to radiate an odd sense of calm as they sailed past).

Speaking of sailing past, let us come now to one of the other highlights of the day: Dalek Mack. He was far too charming for a Dalek, kept the vast majority of the children entertained all day with his witty quips and even let us interview him (not that he could manage my name, so we agreed that “Petal” would be a good alternative). When confronted by one small human waving a Sixth Doctor action figure, he squeeked in a most unbecoming way for a destroyer of worlds. The little boy hastened to reassure him that it was just a toy, to which the suddenly emboldened pepper-pot replied “Oh, I thought he looked a bit small. I just thought he was far away.” His interactions with Terry Molloy were brilliant to watch and you can find him on Facebook. He’s very sweet. No hang on, that can’t be right. He’s a Dalek, for heaven’s sake!

A special mention must go to Steven Caldwell, a fabulous artist who also had a booth at the con. His artwork is amazing, the level of detail eye-watering and we bought several pieces so we can have a geeky display going up the stairs. I had to restrain the Prof from buying one of everything. We may have to buy more once his proper website is up and working.

So, was this convention worth attending? Most definitely, yes; we had a great day talking and listening to some very interesting people. Would I go to another Dr Who convention? Well, Dimensions is on in Newcastle in November…

Monday, June 7, 2010

TARDIS introduces the BAFTAS.

Sort of..
OK, yeah yeah, real funny Graham. (Tosser.) But Tim Burton walking out of the TARDIS? YES Please~!
Watch this opener for the BAFTA awards from last night:

Saturday, June 5, 2010

The Celestial Cheesemaker

The Prof and I were out exploring the local gastronomic delight that is the Northumberland Cheese Company and look who'd popped in last month (presumably whilst looking for the Cheese of Marinus):


From his inability to spell the name of his home planet, it is quite obvious why it took two attempts for him to graduate from the Academy...

[All other names have been blurred to protect the not so innocent]

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 13

Yeah, it's a bit late, sorry, episode 13, unlucky for Oolon, and big thanks to The Prof for rushing through a quick pass on the edit for us to get this out the door in time.


This week, Cold Blood. Even Fuschia needed a drink this week...

This is one of the LOST DirtyWHOers Episodes, no longer available for streaming from iTunes etc., but is available for download from our Dropbox archive HERE.

Friday, June 4, 2010

London's Calling...

Doctor Who - the Adventure Games: City of the Daleks


Finally the Doctor has arrived in London, 1963 and the adventure begins. Provided you've got a PC and are in the UK. Otherwise, bugger off.

Spooky TARDIS Illustration

I am currently using this lovely and moody piece of Doctor Who artwork as my background wallpaper for my new droid phone. Illustrated by jinkies36 on DeviantArt (@Thirtysix on Twitter). See much more Whovian related art (as well as other subjects) from him by clicking on the image. It's based on the cliffhanger from the first episode of Doctor Who, "The Unearthly Child". 
Hauntingly beautiful and inspiring. Thank you Nat!

First Doctor: "Fear makes companions of all of us."

Oh, and he's also Nat on the Doctor Who podcast Bridging the Rift! ;-)

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

That Blessed Video

A little (kinda) un-Who related stuff, but, remember us saying we did some fun work with Brian Blessed and he did us a nice plug for the podcast? Well, here's the (rather jolly fun) short that got made as a result.



Please 'like' it up on YouTube and join the campaign to show ya support.


Spread the bearded love :-)

WebMaster: Terry Lightfoot
WebDoctor: Oolon Sputnik
Blog by Terry Lightfoot
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