On 28th November 2011 the TARDIS landed at London’s Westfield Stratford City in celebration of the UK release of the Doctor Who Complete Series 6 box set on DVD and Blu-ray.
Matt Smith (the Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) and Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) took part in a Q&A session hosted by celebrity Doctor Who fan Jo Whiley.
The cast talk about their experiences while filming Series 6 and give some cryptic clues about the 2011 Christmas Special (The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe) as well as some plans that Steven Moffat may or may not use in the next series.
(The following clips are from the BBC Worldwide YouTube page.)
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New rumors have surfaced today about the fabled Doctor Who Theatrical Movie. David Yates, the director that brought us the last 4 Harry Potter movies told Variety that he is about to start work developing a Doctor Who movie with Jane Tranter. Tranter is the head of L.A. based BBC Worldwide Productions, she was also the Controller of Drama Commissioning when the Doctor Who TV series was revived in 2005.
David Yates:
“We’re looking at writers now. We’re going to spend two to three years to get it right,” he said. “It needs quite a radical transformation to take it into the bigger arena.”
Yates made it clear this his movie would not be related to the current TV series, but would be a completely new take on Doctor Who.
David Yates:
“Russell T. Davies and then Steven Moffat have done their own transformations, which were fantastic, but we have to put that aside and start from scratch,” “We want a British sensibility, but having said that, Steve Kloves wrote the Potter films and captured that British sensibility perfectly, so we are looking at American writers too,”
Before directing the final 4 Harry Potter movies Yates worked with Tranter on several BBC
TV series, including “The Way We Live Now” and “State Of Play”.
This all sounds good, but every few months we are treated to some rumor about a Doctor Who movie about to start development/production, and admittedly this is the most possible sounding of all those rumors. Twitter and the interwebs exploded with news of this new Doctor Who Movie, even BBC news reported the Variety article. With no official announcement from BBC or BBC Worldwide, nothing at all has been confirmed. Then reports started coming in from those in the know that I would certainly trust in this instance.
Tom Spilsbury (Editor of Doctor Who Magazine):
To put this in some context, no Doctor Who movie is in production. It’s just some discussions at the moment.
Doctor Who Magazine:
To those hearing Doctor Who movie rumours, it’s just the same rumours which have been going round for years. Nothing’s currently happening!
Edward Russell (Brand Manager for Doctor Who):
Off Twitter for a few hours and the Doctor Who world explodes. There’s always talk of a movie. Perhaps? Maybe one day. But not right now!
BBC America:
A Doctor Who feature film remains in development w/ BBC Worldwide Productions in LA. As of yet no script, cast or production crew in place.
So as far as anyone in the know is concerned nothing is happening at the moment, now Yates himself said that they were going to take 2 or 3 years to get going. Maybe he is in some sort of discussions to helm the project, but nothing has been confirmed at this point. Even if it was, which as far as I’m concerned could be great news if Doctor Who is given the proper treatment, it would still be several years before anything came of it.
I am all for a Doctor Who theatrical movie, and I think it should be in its own universe separate from the TV series, much like the 2 Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies in the sixties. It needs to stay distinctly British, no Americanizing it, don’t make the Doctor human or half-human, and definitely no Johnny Depp! Show it the respect it deserves.
If a Doctor Who Movie ever goes into production the BIG questions are:
- Who will play the Doctor?
- What will the Movie Logo look like?
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The BBC is prepping to release almost its entire archive of speech radio programs going back to the 1940s. The new site is codenamed Audiopedia, which is a really good name, so I imagine they will stick with that when the site goes live.
The BBC are planning to launch the site “within the next 12 months”, said Tim Davie, director of BBC Audio and Music.
Tim Davie:
“The BBC is working on how best to present Audiopedia at the moment but most people will probably access the new on demand content via other pieces of related content they are already listening to across the BBC website,”
Audiopedia will be the biggest release of BBC programming on demand since the iPlayer was introduced in 2007.
The BBC is currently digitizing its audio and TV archives. Currently about 20 hours a week of Radio 4 archive is being added to Audiopedia. According to Davie the digitizing is being handled at a “small cost to the tax payer” and the website will be “porous” to other broadcasters’ content.
Davies Said:
“Audiopedia will not be a closed library. We will link to other broadcasters’ content.”
The project was announced by Mark Thompson, the BBC’s Director General, at the annual Radio Festival in Salford.
Mark Thompson:
“Imagine a world in which all the content the BBC created was available online and, critically, linked to and shared with numerous partners.
“A sort of ‘Audiopedia’ that would give listeners access to much of our speech content and which listeners would be able to search for by programme, subject or person… so ‘Audiopedia’ is an internal name for the project, but a very good one, that plans to create a searchable, ever-expanding archive of radio and audio content.
“The content would be searchable by subject, participant or programme, bringing together thousands of hours of unique information and entertainment to stream and download.”
In March this year the BBC made 500 archive episodes of Desert Island Discs available online. Those episodes have generated 5 million downloads to date. Audiopedia will build on these 500 episodes with another 500 to be made available by the end of the year.
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Cover art for the Fan made Shada Novelization
Available in the UK on March 15th 2012 will be Doctor Who: Shada. That’s right Shada, intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 season (Season 17), but was never completed due to a strike at the BBC during filming. Oh and did I mention it was written by The Douglas Adam’s, yep of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame. The serial was only ever released on video with linking narration provided by Tom Baker. But a Target Novelization was never published. Now some 32 years later the script has been novelized by Gareth Roberts writer of Doctor Who episodes The Lodger and Closing Time. Shada will be available in both Hardback and Paperback.
I haven’t seen the cover art, but I hope they went with something that will blend well with the old Target Doctor Who Novelizations. Either way it’s in my pre-order cart as soon as Amazon.com has it.
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Karen Gillan, the actress that plays Amy Pond on Doctor Who,
has said that she would like Amy Pond to be killed off in an emotional goodbye.
Speaking to Graham Norton on BBC Radio 2 Saturday morning, Karen hoped that fans would remember her time
on Doctor Who as a ‘good one’ .
Karen Gillan:
“I think it could be done if you tackled it right – not that
I wouldn’t like to pop back every so often.”
It would certainly be a change from the Russell T. Davies
years where companions would leave, but it was no big deal, because you knew
they would just turn up again next season.
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Help save Doctor Who Confidential by signing the Petition. The Save Doctor Who Confidential group will take a count of the petition signatures on Friday, October 28th at midnight and then send the signatures to the BBC Trust.
Follow @SaveDWC on twitter or like them on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/SaveDoctorWhoConfidential
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In the most recent edition of Doctor Who Magazine, Steven Moffat has given his opinion on the controversial cancellation of Doctor Who Confidential.
“It seems hard to grasp. All shows have their time, and all shows end, but not, in all sanity, while people still watch and love them. And going by the numbers and the outcry, this show was watched and loved everywhere.”
“I’m not supposed to say it, but I’m going to anyway: bad day, bad decision. I know these are straitened times. I know we’re all at sea and the night is colder – but you don’t start burning the lifeboats to keep warm.”
“Or to put it another way, you might want to think about the future if you’re planning to live there.”
Doctor Who Magazine and Steven Moffat have both shown support for the Save Doctor Who Confidential campaign whose petition at writing of this article, is at 44,500 signatures. If you haven’t done so already, show your support by signing the petition. A count will be taken midnight Friday October 28th 2011 and sent to the BBC Trust.
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BBC Worldwide have announced that the Doctor Who stories Invasion of the Dinosaurs and The Android Invasion will both be released in North America on the January 10th 2012. The two stories will be released individually in North America, but will be a box set in th UK.
From BBC Worldwide:
Invasion of the Dinosaurs
Written by Malcolm Hulke
Directed by Paddy RussellStarring Jon Pertwee, Elisabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, John Levene, Richard Franklin, Martin Jarvis,Peter Miles
Doctor Who Story Code: WWW
6 epsiodes: Broadcast: Sat 12 Jan 1974 – Sat 16 Feb 1974
Total Running time: 147 minutes 15 seconds
Episode One of Invasion of the Dinosaurs only exists in the BBC Archives as a black and white film print. There is no official info on it yet, but I assume that the Doctor Who Restoration Team have perfomred a color restoration. They did some amazing work restoring episode 3 of Planet of the Daleks
The Android Invasion
Written by Terry Nation
Directed by Barry LettsStarring Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, Ian Marter, Milton Johns,Martin Friend
Doctor Who Story Code: 4J Story Number:
4 epsiodes: Broadcast: Sat 22 Nov 1975 – Sat 13 Dec 1975
Total Running time: 98 minutes 11 seconds
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And here it is the motion comic that was aired during a commercial break on BBC America during Let’s Kill Hitler.
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In case you are behind on Doctor Who this short video covers the events of the previous 777 episodes. I remember all this stuff, man I feel old. Check out the newest episode of Doctor Who tonight on BBC America at 9/8c.
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