A splended and well-informed piece by Toby Hadoke.
Continuing our tradition of, during the festive season, reviewing the Doctor Who stories which are the wildest, weirdest and most outrageous in the series, we give you 40 Stupid Things About "The Twin Dilemma" (and 10 Cool Ones). There's even a direct festive connection: read on to learn which Doctor Who villain very nearly wound up being named "Aslan".
All of us at Magic Bullet are very sorry to hear of the death this morning of Chris Boucher, co-creator of Kaldor City, writer of Doctor Who: The Face of Evil, The Robots of Death, and The Image of the Fendahl, script editor of Blake's 7; and creative stalwart of many other genres of television.
Chris was always hugely supportive and we will miss him very much on a personal as well as a professional level.
Continuing our ongoing tradition of sharing complete free PDF editions of Doctor Who Appreciation Society magazine Celestial Toyroom with Magic Bullet fans, this month we provide copies of Issue #520/1 free to download! With items on Barry Letts and the Classic Serials, BBV audio, Cool Things... The Time Monster, a major feature on the making of Kaldor City, and more Dalek articles than you can shake a sink plunger at, this publication has something for everyone! Download it from the Articles Page.
Fiona Moore is once again on the Dan Schneider Video Interviews, this time guesting with Sixties expert Gideon Marcus to talk about Danger Man, the prequel The Prisoner never had (OR DID IT?!).
Below is Alan Stevens' Editor's blog entry for Celestial Toyroom issue 531/2.
Here’s a thought…
Doctor Who is always an imperfect shadow of the perfect, ideal image of the programme you have in your head.
When I watched the show as a child, I never noticed its flaws. Indeed, how could there be errors in what for me seemed thrilling and real?
As I entered my teenage years, I noticed every imperfection and was depressed by them, but in adulthood, I recognised a deeper meaning below the surface adventure, and production shortcomings no longer bothered me; to the point where I considered anyone who whined on about them immature, or even worse, foolish.
Was adult me unreasonable in my analysis?
I don’t think so.
Doctor Who was made on a TV budget, so, surely it was the characters, the dialogue and the plots which were the main draw, not the odd dodgy piece of CSO, or chipped Dalek.
It was something entirely different if the narrative failed to convince me, if the dialogue was clunky, or an actor performed badly, and on those occasions, I was less forgiving!
Then the BBC decided to finish with Doctor Who, and I was informed by various media bods that this was because it was unable to compete with Star Wars’ special effects.
To their minds, sci-fi was primarily about spaceships, robots, monsters and derring-do, with plot and characterisation a poor second.
All of which would either suggest that good storylines and memorable characters were not a part of the Star Wars universe, or conversely, the smug, self-satisfied pundits saying these things had no idea what they were talking about.
And yet, when Doctor Who returned for the twenty-first century, there appeared to be a huge emphasis on the look of the series, to the extent where spectacle usurped everything else. Whilst any criticism in those early years was treated as a form of heresy.
It was as if the production team, together with a significant portion of Doctor Who fandom, had absorbed all this clichéd nonsense about what sci-fi should be and were now using it as a stick to beat dissenters.
Today, 17 years down the line, a large contingent of fans complain about the scriptwriting, saying it’s too preachy and the programme should instead be concerning itself with spaceships, robots, monsters and derring-do…
There’s a pattern here.
So how about this for a thought?
Maybe that flawless, ideal model of Doctor Who those critics have in their heads is, rather, the imperfect shadow of a TV series which no longer exists, and that they themselves were complicit in erasing.
I would like to acknowledge the following contributors to this latest edition of Celestial Toyroom: Andy Lambert, Ann Worrall, Colin Brockhurst, Finn Clark, Fiona Moore, Ian Scales, Jez Strickley, John Kelly, Kevin Mullen, Nicholas Hollands, Paul Bensilum, Paul Driscoll, Paul Scoones, Phil Stevens, Timothy Stephen Keable and Tristan Lee Stopps.
Kindest regards,
Alan Stevens (with thanks to Plato)
http://www.dwasonline.co.uk/node/1509
Finally, this is Andy Lambert's suberb wrap-around cover, minus the Celestial Toyroom logo and issue number.
Interview with Fiona Moore and Dean Motter (author of Shattered Visage, a The Prisoner graphic novel) on why The Prisoner is great, 55 years after it aired:
Here is artist Timothy Stephen Keable's moody and evocative artwork for the giveaway Doctor Who postcard that's available for free with Celestial Toyroom issue 531/2. He tells me it was “inspired by the double spread in The Dalek Outer Space Book depicting The Strata of Skaro, specifically ‘Icanos’.”
A non-Kaldor, but KC-related, project is now complete: Management Lessons from Game of Thrones! This is the management textbook you never knew you wanted, but now you know you have to have it: learn all about strategy, organisation studies and personnel management through battles, murders, and really bloody weddings. The hardback has a scary academic price tag, but the paperback has a nice friendly RRP of £20/$30 or equivalent, and you can get ebooks from the publisher's website.
Purchasing details and links are here.
Every
picture tells a story (or so it’s said). Judged by artist Andy
Lambert’s amazing wrap-around cover for this edition of Celestial
Toyroom, Vincent Van Gogh’s involved meeting the Sixth Doctor and
encountering at least one Dalek sometime after his adventure with the
Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond!
Great stuff!
New article up on the site: "28 Stupid Things about The Three Doctors (and 22 Cool Ones)". In the year of the BBC's 100th anniversary we take on Doctor Who's 10th anniversary story, featuring not-so-secret organisations, metatextual jokes and the most evil Time Lord to ever feature in the series!
UK fans! Tomorrow The Robots of Death starts its first time run on Forces TV. Part One is broadcast at 8.30 am, with two further showings throughout the day, at 2 pm and 9.25 pm respectively.
New on the site: 33 Cool Things About "The Mind Robber" (and 17 Stupid Ones). Join us for the strangest story to ever feature the Master without actually featuring the Master!
This is the sixth book in the series and concerns the Eleventh Doctor. In all it contains around 150 pages of material, including a review of ‘The Time of the Doctor’ by Alan Stevens.
The annual is available free of charge at The Doctor Who Appreciation Society website.
To access it, please visit: http://www.dwasonline.co.uk/
A print version will be made available to buy later in January 2022.
