Bonhams Doctor Who Auction

Is it strange that I see this skeletal Dalek as a beautiful art piece?

Yup, it's another wonderful Doctor Who auction over at Bonhams auction house. Ok, it's not really...quite that. It's an Entertainment Memorabilia auction, taking place on the 23 Jun 2010 in Knightsbridge. But we'll just call it a Doctor Who auction, ok?

Here are just a few random pictures from the many items up for auction. But if you want to see all of them, click on this link to the Bonhams site and then click the little "go right" arrow and the upper left side of the page to view every Doctor Who item, page by page with lovely large images.

Fancy the TARDIS console from Longleat, or maybe Lot 142,complete "Tardis prop, circa 2005, of painted rasped wood panel and glass construction, the base having painted parquet effect floor, panels fastening using bracket and bolt, having a pair of hinged doors, on with Yale® lock, with windows to doors and signage to front, top section of Tardis with removable 'Police Box' signs, interior of Tardis roof with a number of miniature lights, and further interior lighting, the roof with removable lamp to top, height approximately 10ft"? Things of awesomeness.

Mmmmm, tasty.

WHO owls.

Yes it's time for more WHO art. OK, I find these owls ADORABLE!!!!!! *adjusts outfit after having had a cuteness fit*. A friend sent me this. Click the image to see the full size version in all it's glory.

Doctor Hoo by Pu-sama

Thanks to Draculasaurus for the artist information: M.Dyer is Pu-sama on deviant art. ;-)

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 12

This one took a little longer to edit, but hopefully worth it. The usual gang get together over a bottle or 3 to chew the fat on The Hungry Earth, episode 7, and this seasons part 1 of the 2 part Eocene offering from the Moff.

This week we discuss the Doctors wristwatch and rolled up sleeves, try out our new rating system, go all hippy on Silurian mega-fauna, get mildly creeped out by dissection, and Fuchsia gets her 15 seconds of conspiracy fame.

Money back if not entirely satisfied.

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.

Who painted the Dr. ... in 5,000 BC?

The Doctor's TARDIS in a cave painting? Yes it's another silly article from The Sun, and we mentioned it in the latest Hungry Earth podcast so thought we'd better show you the picture.

It begins:

"A CAVE painting created 7,000 years ago has stunned experts - by appearing to show Doctor Who's time-travelling Tardis."

Click on the image to read the full article.

Hitler finds out the Doctor is half human

Personally I'm a big fan of the eighth Doctor, Paul McGann. One of the best first outing performances as the Doctor by an actor. And if you've ever seen the Doctor Who movie (centered around the 8th Doctor's regeneration and his first adventure) you'll enjoy this video. Hitler finds out the Doctor is half human.

I can sympathise.

Video by adama001.

Hole in One!

In homage to the great Bernard Cribbins, please find attached below for your delectation and delight, the Pixie and the Prof's reimagining of his hit "Hole in the Ground", the Hungry Earth Remix


There I was, a-drilling this hole
A hole in the ground, so big and sort of round it was
And there was I, drilling it deep
Couldn’t see the bottom and the sides were steep
When along comes this bloke in a bow-tie, which he wiggled then scratched his head
Well he looked down the hole, poor demented soul and he said

"Do you mind if I make a suggestion?

Don't drill there, drill it elsewhere
You’re drilling right down to a Silurian lair
The size of it's wrong, it's much too long
And you can’t drill a hole where a hole don't belong"

I ask, what a liberty, eh?
Nearly bashed him right in the bow-tie

Well there was him, next to me hole
Scanning the earth for all that he was worth
There was her, standing right there
Sucked underground in a flash of red hair
So I gave him a look sort of sideways and I leaned on my drill-bit and sighed
Well I lit me a fag and having took a drag I replied

I just couldn’t bear, to drill it elsewhere
I'm drilling right down ‘cos I don’t really care
And if you disagree it doesn't bother me
That’s the place where the hole’s gonna be

Well there we were, discussing this hole
A hole in the ground, so big and sort of round it was
Well it's not there now, the ground’s all flat
And beneath it is the Doctor that’s played by Matt

And that's that

Or the alternative ending…

Well it’s not there now, it’s right out of whack,
All thanks to Amy and her temporal crack

Or (ahem) the other alternative ending...

Well it's not there now, the Earth's all gone
Now we're under the rule of a big Reptilion

All Good Things. Dr Who: Adventures in Time and Space Review Part 3

Here we are at the equivalent of the season finale re: the Dr Who RPG. The first part, a general overview, can be found here and the second part, a quick look at the Player’s Guide, can be found here.


I’m not going to review the adventures booklet provided in the box set; we don’t want any spoilers, now do we? All I will say is that there are two full adventures, one created for the Doctor and Martha and another for either the Doctor and his mates or a random bunch of investigators. On top of that, you have over 20 story seeds for last minute inspiration or quick and dirty play. Many of the themes are familiar to Dr Who and the genre as a whole, but there’s plenty in there to keep a group going for a while.

So now we’ve dealt with that, let’s move on to the Gamemaster’s Guide. As with the Player’s Guide it’s sumptuously produced, crammed with full colour shots from New Who series 1-4. My only real niggle with it (putting my lecturer’s hat on) is that there are some really odd grammatical choices in parts of the editing that felt really jarring (and that I’d mark my students down for). But then, I am incredibly old-fashioned that way, ‘though I haven’t quite taken to wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. Yet. And then there’s that odd box on the top of page 53 about introducing characters in a game, slap bang in the middle of a section on healing and damage…

These complaints are minor and it’s incredibly hard to spot every typo and layout mistake in a project of this size (and Cubicle 7’s staff will be kicking themselves every time they spot one, trust me). The rest of the book is good; straightforward to read, littered with examples from the series, only one of which I couldn’t place for the life of me (the SS Nakamura, anyone?) and some lovely humour harking back to the original series. Indeed, the Brig gets his infamous yet here anonymous (“former head of UNIT”) quote about aliens being resistant to bullets included in the description of potential alien immunities that will tickle long-standing fans without confusing new ones (à la the whole “Who the hell is Rassilon?” debacle at the end of the specials).

So what do you have in there? Another index (yay!), nicely named chapters (we do love a big ball of timey-wimey stuff), more in-depth descriptions of the character stats and the rules themselves, a chapter on monsters you’re likely to want to include in the game (but no named characters; they’re coming in another supplement later in the year) and two very nice chapters on what a GM does and the structure of a story. Even more nicely, they’ve duplicated some of the critical information from the Player’s Guide in there as well, so the GM doesn’t have to go borrowing the players’ book from them at a crucial moment.

I briefly mentioned the rules in the first part of this review: you pick which Attribute, Skill and Traits that will affect your attempt at some task, chuck your two six-sided dice and add all the numbers together. You compare them to a difficulty, usually set by the GM, and as long as you equal it or beat it, you’ve succeeded. That’s as far as it has to go, but there is a very nice touch in what could basically be described as the Vicki Pollard mechanic (“Yeah, but, no, but”). This allows you to have degrees of success and failure based on how far above/below the target number you were and its great for getting some extra dramatics into the game if you don’t already do that sort of thing. Not sure I’d use the mechanics for chases (far too much book-keeping for my tastes), but it’s good to see such an important staple of the Dr Who episode treated to a good few pages of its own.

Those of us who have been roleplaying for years won’t find a great deal of new material in the last two chapters, but for those new to the hobby there is a lot of sound advice (if repeated a bit on occasion) on the potential pitfalls, the types of players you will encounter and how to construct a story that flows logically from start to finish (maybe RTD should have read this section a bit more carefully). It does include one very telling comment in the section on antagonists, bringing up the point that you’d be hard-pressed to find someone unfamiliar with the Daleks. And it’s true; they have transcended the genre to become cultural icons in their own right, as evidenced by the Green Party’s use of them in their recent UK election campaign. Still, the book gives you more than enough information to create your own tailored and/or unique bad guys, as well as the ability to create the ones from the series that they haven’t included here.

If you’re still not sure, pop over to the game’s website. There you’ll find several downloads, including a Player’s Guide preview and the Tenth Doctor’s character sheet.

All in all, a lovely shiny game and accessories, a well balanced rules system that can be pruned to suit your group’s playing style and sufficient support to get you going in the right direction. Can’t wait to see the Aliens book, the UNIT box set (by golly, it looks as though they're going for the UNIT timeline!) and the Companions Guide.

Watch this space for the reviews...

Paul McCartney - Doctor Who of Rock and Roll

Another Planet Entertainment has Paul McCartney giving a concert in San Francisco (OMG that's 40 min. away from me - I could make that!) and their flyer describes Paul as follows:

"Paul McCartney used his only UK concert of 2009 as a showcase for an epic display of back-to-back basics music-making. Armed only with his four-piece band and the greatest collection of hits in pop history, he traveled back and forth across the decades like the Dr. Who of rock and roll."
See the rest of the flier at the original site page (Another Planet Entertainment).

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 11

Another week, another podcast. This week ranting and raving about Amy's Choice, and anything else that takes our fancy.

It all started so well, then we had a 10 minute laugh attack (that hit the cutting room floor) and it all went to shit, again. Ah well, at least the edit's out early.

BIG thanks to DancingRat of whomix (the number one source for Whovian mash-ups and remixes) for letting use that track right at the beginning, the original and full version, Nyman Who, is awesome. Also thanks to Miss Emilly Ladybird for providing the voice over. I have no idea why people humor us.

Let us know what you think in the comments below, and we'll give you a shout on the next one if we remember ;-)

Oh, and that Brain Blessed link we mention is at www.briansatnav.com

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.

Hungry Earth: Informative & Spoilery Stuff

Just dropping in some useful links to spoiler vids and general spoilers and/or informative stuff. You know..."stuff". It's a good word.

~Extremely spoilery vids from DoctorWHOtv, all 3 of the released vids jam packed into one jammy spoilery video(personally, I refuse to watch it. I'm spoiler free this week):

~Doctor Who's Steven Moffat: the io9 interview

~Nice long interview with the Paisley girl, Karen Gillan (I have no idea if she's a Paisley, but it's cool to say).

http://www.reelscotland.com/?p=2496

~57 Cool slightly spoilery photos from "The Hungry Earth" episode (YAAAAY Silurians! ..ahem).

http://doctorwhotv.co.uk/silurian-predator-5805.htm

And that's all for now! Enjoy.

Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space Review (Part 2)

The first part of this review about the new(-ish) game can be found lurking here. Now, down to business. The rules:

Let’s start with the Player’s guide. There’s an index on the back cover, which is a good start. You’d be surprised how many RPGs don’t actually include an index, even for games which are much larger than this. Then we have quite a nice introduction into what roleplaying is and the background to the game, before delving into character creation. If you don’t want to use one of the pre-generated characters included in the box, this section tells you exactly how to create your own Timelord and companions.



Basically, you start with a set number of points that you assign to particular areas. In this game, that’s Attributes, Skills and Traits. There are six Attributes which give your character a rough idea of their overall capabilities. Then there are your Skills, which make it all a bit more specific. I freely admit that this is the point at which I often give up on RPGs; the background might be amazing, but endless lists of abilities usually kills my enthusiasm stone dead. There are quite a few skill descriptions in here, and although for me it was a bit of a slog, I made it through unscathed thanks to some nicely judged comments relating back to the TV show.

Possibly the most interesting of these three areas are the Traits, which show a genuine knowledge and affection for the setting. The best examples of this are “Resourceful Pockets” (a Doctor staple) and “Screamer!” which made me laugh a great deal at memories of Sarah Jane and her powerful lungs. There are also bad Traits, which gain you extra points to spend elsewhere, a fairly common idea in gaming but again containing a nice nod to the show’s history, particularly in the form of “Unadventurous”. This Trait can be used to “retire” a character from the story by giving the companion a reason to leave when they are fed up of being cold and wet, hypnotised left, right and centre, shot at, savaged by bug eyed monsters or not knowing whether they’re coming or going or been. There are also some fairly special Traits for aliens and Timelords, should you wish to play such high powered characters. There's a sample character sheet here to give you a bit more of an idea, along with one for the Tenth Doctor.

The next chapter deals with the actual rules for running a story. There are quite a few tables and loads of examples, some from familiar episodes and some new. A rather cool feature is the order in which events will happen during any given encounter: those who wish to talk go first (so they can do the whole Tennant Shouty Man thing if they want), then those who wish to run (all very in-keeping with the show). Those who wish to do something, like build a gadget, go next and finally those wishing to resort to violence have to wait until the end. The anti-gun message is perhaps a little strident given the Doctor’s previous history regarding fire-arms (and UNIT), but it does fit with Tennant’s holier-than-thou attitude on the matter.

There’s a whole load of stuff on damage and how to use story points to avoid getting moshed (and how to get more of them if you’re running a bit low), which all leads in to a final chapter of hints and tips for the new player. Needless to say, they’re rather more useful than the one from Timelord…

Next up, a review of the Gamesmaster's Guide.

Freeze Frame of Panel Under the Console

I wanted to see that panel the Doctor opened under the console. I did manage to freeze it, but I couldn't read the whole thing. Most of it is intelligible however. See for yourself.

Click the image below to see the fullsized image.

And what I can read says:

"TARDIS
TIME AND RELATIVE DIMENSION IN SPACE
BUILD SITE: GALLIFREY BLACKHOLE SHIPYARD
TYPE 40 BUILD DATE: 1963

AUTHORIZED FOR USE BY QUALIFIED TIME LORDS ONLY BY THE SHADOW PROCLAMATION"

And the rest I simply cannot make out. If anyone can figure that out, let me know!

UPDATE - May18th: Ok, the Prof has informed me that the rest of it says: "MISUSE OR THEFT OF ANY TARDIS WILL RESULT IN EXTREME PENALTIES AND POSSIBLE EXILE"

And that's from the TVchoice website.

Thank you Prof :-)

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 10

Brace y'self.

Another week, another 30 minutes of frothing nit-picking about our favourite Gallifreyan and this weeks episode, Vampires in Venice.

Alas, this one's a tad Lightfoot-lite, but normal service and regular interruptions will resume next week.

A couple of nice celebrity comments in this one. Keep your ears open at the beginning and end ;-)

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.

Amy's Choice Vids (spoilery and not so spoilery)

First the not so spoilery trailer, more of a preview trailer:

and here we have a much more spoilery one, of which I watched a few seconds and then stopped it. What can I say? I like surprises. ;-D

Dirty WHOers Podcast - Episode 9

Same old tosh best quickly forgotten. If you enjoy the mediocre and predictable procedural drivel of Whovian podcasting, this is the one for you. Make the most of this one, it looks like we're going to skip a week, but we'll be back ASAP with twice as much to say (oh, lucky you).

This episode we talk series 31, episode 5, Flesh and Stone, mercifully free of that animated cock Graham Norton and second part to Time of Angels. Spawned by the Grand Moff, with buckets of weeping stone things and the mystery of River Song, it should by rights be a belter.

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.