Tin Dog Podcast
- Description:
- tin-dog@hotmail.co.uk The Tin Dog welcomes you to sit back and listen to his rants and ramblings about all that is best in modern SF and Television. Via the gift of the new fangled Podcast over the tinterweb. As you can probably guess Tin Dog mostly talks about Doctor Who, Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith but that wont stop him talking about any other subject you suggest. Hailing from a non specific part of the northeast of England, Tin Dog is male and in his mid 30s. A life long fan of almost all TV SF. His semi-autistic tendencies combined with his total lack of social skills have helped him find a place in the heart of British SF Fandom. Even as a child the Tin Dogs mother told him that she can trace his love of SF TV back to his rhythmic kicking, while still in the womb, along to the beat of the Avengers theme music. From Gabriel Chase to Totters Lane, from the Bad Wolf Satellite to the back streets of the Cardiff, Tin Dog will give you his thoughts on the wonderful Whoniverse. Daleks and Cybermen and TARDIS ES Oh My If you enjoy these Tin Dog Podcasts please remember to tell your friends and leave an email tin-dog@hotmail.co.uk
Homepage: http://tin-dog.co.uk
RSS Feed: http://www.tin-dog.co.uk/rss
- Episodes:
- 2855
- Average Episode Duration:
- 0:0:10:03
- Longest Episode Duration:
- 0:2:09:15
- Total Duration of all Episodes:
- 19 days, 22 hours, 5 minutes and 0 seconds
- Earliest Episode:
- 1 May 2007 (6:54pm GMT)
- Latest Episode:
- 29 October 2024 (3:25pm GMT)
- Average Time Between Episodes:
- 2 days, 5 hours, 43 minutes and 24 seconds
Tin Dog Podcast Episodes
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TDP 213: Frazer Hines DWPA interview podcast whoovers 3 - 2011
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 24 minutes and 47 secondsPresenting the Frazer Hines DWPA interview podcast recorded at whoovers 3 - 2011 Biog taken from his own site http://www.thespeakersagency.com/speakerprofile/189/Frazer%20Hines/ Frazer (born in Horsforth, Yorkshire) is a British actor best known for his roles as Jamie McCrimmon in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, and Joe Sugden in Emmerdale Farm (later just Emmerdale). At the age of eight, after studying acting at the Corona Academy, he made his acting debut. He later appeared in the first Hammer horror film X The Unknown (1955) and then Charlie Chaplin's A King in New York (1957) followed by The Weapon, starring Lizabeth Scott, in the same year. By the end of the 1950s he had appeared in twelve films. In 1960 he appeared in the eight-part serial The Young Jacobites for the British Children's Film Foundation. His television roles included Jan in The Silver Sword (1957-8), Tim Birch in Emergency Ward 10 (1963-4), and Roger Wain in Coronation Street (1965). In Doctor Who he played the part of Jamie McCrimmon, a companion of the Second Doctor, from 1966 to 1969 as well as reappearing in The Five Doctors (1983) and The Two Doctors (1985). After his three-year stint as Jamie he resumed the life of a jobbing actor (appearances include The Last Valley (1970) with Michael Caine and Omar Sharif, and Zeppelin (1971) with Michael Yorke) until he was cast in the new soap opera Emmerdale Farm as Joe Sugden in 1972 — a role he played until 1994. In between making episodes of Emmerdale, as it was renamed in the 1980's, he has continued a career in the theatre and made occasional appearances in other TV shows. Hines was a noted amateur horse jockey, and still maintains a great interest in horseracing through his breeders club at Newmarket. Other interests include cricket, fine dining, women and wine. Hines has recorded linking narration for many Second Doctor serials which no longer exist in video form; the soundtracks, along with Hines' narration, have been released on CD by BBC Audio. He has also appeared in several of Big Finish's Doctor Who audio plays. Among his many theatre credits are twenty eight consecutive pantomimes in which he has played everything from Buttons to Fleshcreep. He is an accomplished after dinner speaker and co-owns a record company in Australia with his nephew Clive.
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TDP 212: SJS5.3 The Man Who Never Was
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes and 43 secondsinfo to follow
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TDP 211: SJSA 5.2 The Curse of Clyde Langer
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 9 minutes and 4 secondsThe Curse of Clyde Langer is a two-part story of The Sarah Jane Adventures which will broadcast on CBBC on 10 and 11 October 2011.[1] It is the second story of the fifth and last series. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Part One 1.2 Part Two 2 Cast Notes 3 Reception 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot [edit] Part One At school, Clyde shows Rani The Silver Bullet, a comic he made. While Sarah Jane has a talk with Mr. Chandra on Sky's first day at school, a strange storm interrupts the meeting, when fish begin to fall out of the sky. According to Mr Smith, it is normal for the weather to be raining fish though the fish that day was abnormally large. Thinking it might be related to an old superstition involving a totem pole, the gang visits a museum that just opened an exhibition of totem poles and other such items. Before the entrance, a homeless woman begs for money, which Clyde gives to her, stating it probably wasn't her fault she is out in the streets. While in the museum, Clyde gets a splinter from an old Mojave totem pole. Dr Madigan explains the legend of the totem pole. Hetocumtek was a vicious warrior who fell out of the skies and tried to enslave the people on the Mojave plains. The Native American medicine men tricked the warrior, imprisoning him inside the totem pole. Sarah Jane suspects that Hetocumtek is both a warrior god and an alien. Having detected no alien signs of any kind the gang leaves. That night, Clyde finished his comic and signs his name on it before falling asleep. He fails to notice that his name on all of his documents, including his comic, begins to mysteriously glow orange. Walking to Sarah Jane's house, Clyde shows her The Silver Bullet. She at first takes interest in his comic. At the mention of his name, Clyde's name glows orange in Sarah Jane's eye. Suddenly, Sarah Jane takes a dislike of Clyde as she orders him to leave her house. At the front of the Chandra's residence, Clyde tries to tell Rani and Haresh his problem he had with Sarah Jane only to face the same conflict when Haresh says his name as it glows in their eyes. Haresh then expels him from school. Getting ready for her first day of school, Sky enters the attic. Sarah Jane tells her she will return to the museum to see if there are any connections between the totem pole and the fish incident. When she mentions Clyde to Sarah Jane, she is instructed to stay away from him. Unaffected by the curse, Sky notices the sudden hatred Sarah Jane has for Clyde. At the park, Clyde is treated kindly by Steve until his name is said. Barely escaping from Steve and his gang who was chasing after him, he enters the museum. Asking Dr Madigan about curses, Sarah Jane enters the museum where she advises her to keep away from Clyde. Dr Madigan, who said his name, orders the security guards to throw him out. Clyde returns home where he sees his mum with an envelope addressed to him. Realizing what has happened, he begs her to let him stay after she called the police to capture him. Finally escaping, he walks out of Bannerman Road. Out in the streets in the middle of the rain, the homeless woman he helped offers to assist him as she holds out her hand. [edit] Part Two While his friends all turn on Clyde as a result from the curse, he meets a mysterious girl on the streets that helps him through the hardship of losing his friends and loved ones. She introduces herself as Ellie. Fearing the curse will do the same to her, Clyde introduces himself as Enrico Box. Ellie tells him about the Night Dragon, how people mysteriously disappears because of the Night Dragon. At the museum, lightning bursts out of the totem pole. Sarah Jane was called in to investigate the suspicions. Scanning, Sarah Jane receives detections of alien energy. She then sees one of the faces' eyes on the pole glow orange. Meanwhile, Sky at school notices how Sarah Jane and Rani hates Clyde but both fails to think of a reason why. Sarah Jane suddenly tears up in the attic although she doesn't know why. The same thing occurs to Rani later in the car as well as Clyde's mum when Sky visits her. All of them feel as if they are missing a person in their life yet they do not realize who it is. Clyde and Ellie visits Mystic Mags, who tells them the Night Dragon is coming and that it will take one of them. She also foresees something else that has put a mark on Clyde, a curse. The totem pole back at the museum begins to cause the weather to rain and thunder heavily as the faces begins to become alive. Within the rain, Clyde and Ellie connects with each other, keeping themselves warm by burning The Silver Bullet. Back in the attic, Sarah Jane and Rani share their tearing experiences. Sky, after being informed that Hetocumtek is getting stronger, discovers that Clyde activated the warrior god when he receives a splinter, creating the curse. She realizes that as long as Clyde is out in the streets, the alien warrior god will get stronger. Sky also sees that his name is the key to stopping Hetocumtek. She manages to convince Sarah Jane and Rani to say his name repeatedly to break the curse upon them. Clyde draws a portrait of Ellie and shows it to her. She then kisses him and tells him she will be back, leaving to get coffee. Sarah Jane and the gang arrives, bringing Clyde to the attic, though it was without choice. There, Mr Smith transports the totem pole to the attic where it begins to fight back, creating lightning and destruction. Clyde, holding onto the pole, shouts, "My name is Clyde Langer!" disintegrating the pole. Clyde, welcomed back by his friends and family, tries to search for Ellie. He asks many people only to find they do not know where or who she is. Clyde suggests they use Mr Smith to track her, but Rani points out her name on a sign, indicating that Ellie took the name. A man there saw Ellie board a truck named "Night Dragon Haulage". He explains that the truck driver occasionally would drive some people to other places for a better life. At night in his room, Clyde reminisces about Ellie as he stares at his portrait of her. [edit] Cast Notes Jocelyn Jee Esien previously appeared as Carla Langer in The Mark of the Berserker and The Empty Planet. Angela Pleasence appeared in the Doctor Who episode "The Shakespeare Code" as Elisabeth I. Sara Houghton is the daughter of Doctor Who writer Don Houghton. [edit] Reception Charlie Jane Anders of io9 thought this story to be as good as stories in the parent show Doctor Who.[2] [edit] References ^ "The Sarah Jane Adventures – The Curse of Clyde Langer" (Press release). BBC Press Office. Retrieved 2011-10-06. ^ Anders, Charlie Jane (12 October 2011). "The Rare Sarah Jane Adventures Episode That's As Good As Doctor Who". io9. Retrieved 14 October 2011. [edit] External links The Curse of Clyde Langer on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki "The Curse of Clyde Langer: Part 1" at the Internet Movie Database "The Curse of Clyde Langer: Part 2" at the Internet Movie Database
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TDP 210: Doctor Who (Twice) on BBC Points of View
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 9 minutes and 34 secondsDoctor Who Has been mentioned on BBC Points of View Twice in two weeks. heres my thoughts... Contact the Points of View team by email: pov@bbc.co.uk Telephone: 0370 908 3199 (calls are charged at local rate, mobile tariffs will vary) Or write to us at POV, BBC Birmingham, Birmingham, B1 1AY You can also send your opinions via video-phone or webcam. Send your video submissions to pov@bbc.co.uk.
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TDP 209: SJSA 5.1 Sky and The Upcoming S4 DVD
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 8 minutes and 32 secondsReprinted from Wikipedia with thanks and respect Sky (The Sarah Jane Adventures) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 25 – Sky The Sarah Jane Adventures story Cast Starring Elisabeth Sladen – Sarah Jane Smith Daniel Anthony – Clyde Langer Anjli Mohindra – Rani Chandra Sinead Michael – Sky Alexander Armstrong – Mr Smith Others Tommy Knight – Luke Smith Mina Anwar – Gita Chandra Ace Bhatti – Haresh Chandra Cyril Nri – The Shopkeeper (uncredited) Christine Stephen-Daly – Miss Myers Gavin Brocker – Caleb Paul Kasey – The Metalkind Chloe Savage, Ella Savage, Amber Donaldson, Scarlet Donaldson – Baby Sky Floella Benjamin – Professor Celeste Rivers Peter-Hugo Daly – Hector Will McLeod – Voice of the Metalkind Production Writer Phil Ford Director Ashley Way Script editor Gary Russell Producer Brian Minchin Phil Ford (co-producer) Executive producer(s) Russell T Davies Nikki Wilson Production code 5.1 and 5.2 Series Series 5 Length 2 episodes, 25 minutes each Originally broadcast 3 & 4 October 2011 Chronology ← Preceded by Followed by → Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith The Curse of Clyde Langer Sky is a two-part story of The Sarah Jane Adventures which was broadcast on CBBC on 3 and 4 October 2011.[1] It is the first story of the fifth and last series. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Part One 1.2 Part Two 1.3 Continuity 1.4 Production 1.5 Notes 2 References 3 External links [edit] Plot [edit] Part One A meteor crashes in the middle of a junk yard to reveal a metal man. Meanwhile, Sarah Jane discovers a baby on her doorstep in the middle of the night who can create power surges. Sarah Jane calls Rani and Clyde over for them to help her and after Clyde shows his paternal side, Sarah Jane and Rani travel to the site of the meteor crash. There they are met by Professor Celeste Rivers who investigates the site with them. Sarah Jane and Rani find a homeless man who saw the metal man and describes him to them; they then discover that the metal man is heading to Bannerman Road. Meanwhile an alien woman named 'Miss Myers' appears at a nuclear power station and discovers that there was a power surge in Bannerman Road. She makes her way to the Chandras' residence and Gita announces that Sarah Jane has just fostered a baby, as Gita had seen Sarah Jane earlier. Miss Myers makes her way to the garden where Clyde and the baby named Sky are to discover that the metal man is about to attack them. Miss Myers saves Clyde and Baby Sky and takes them to the Power Station. Miss Myers reveals that she is Sky's mother and is also an alien. Sarah Jane and Rani return to the house to discover that Clyde and Sky have gone. Mr Smith locates Clyde at the power station and Sarah Jane and Rani make their way to the station. They find Clyde, Sky and Miss Myers who reveals that her species, the Fleshkind, are fighting a war against the Metalkind. She also reveals that Sky is a weapon who will put an end to the war and as she says this the metal man walks in. Sky then transforms from a baby into a twelve-year-old girl. [edit] Part Two At Miss Myers' command, Sky unintentionally attacks the metal man with a burst of energy. Miss Myers reveals that Sky was made and "grown" in a Fleshkind laboratory as a weapon to destroy the Metalkind. Sarah Jane and the gang escapes with Sky before Miss Myers could get ahold of her. Miss Myers then tells the metal man he would help her get Sky and has him wired up. Sky, who is still experiencing the world and words around her, is brought into the attic where Mr Smith scans her. He concludes that Sky's metamorphosis was caused by her synthetic DNA and was done to maximize her effectiveness as a bomb. Full activation would not only destroy the Metalkind but Sky herself as well. Although there is no cure for the energy from the Metalkind's presence would activate Sky's power, she can still be "defused". However, only Miss Myers can disarm her genetic trigger. Sky agrees to go there, stating that she might die anyway. Back at the power station, Sarah Jane tells Sky to stay with Clyde and Rani. With the absence of Sarah Jane at the time, Sky escapes, running inside the factory, trying to help Sarah Jane. Meanwhile, Sarah Jane, who is taken to Miss Myers, learns that the damaged metal man is wired up to the nuclear core in order for him to act as a homing device. Miss Meyers also reveals she reprogrammed his mind as he swears veangance on all flesh kind, including Earth's inhabitants, thus bringing their war to Earth. Believing that the Metalkind will be destroyed upon their arrival on Earth, she activates the calling of the Metalkind. Downstairs, Sarah Jane meets up with Sky, who tells her she must save Earth and goes up to the nuclear core room. Sarah Jane then orders Clyde and Rani to shut down the nuclear reactor in the control room before heading after Sky, whose activation started from the presence of the metal man and Metalkind's portal opened by Miss Myers. In the control room, Clyde and Rani discover the Nuclear Rod Regulation System and removes the rods based on the order of the visible spectrum. They were successful in closing the reactor as the portal closes with a large power outage. The energy from the portal backlashed on Sky, destroying her genetic programming as a bomb. Miss Myers doesn't want the child anymore for she is no longer a weapon. The metal man, who reveals that he saved some of the portal's energy, breaks loose and uses the energy as he takes Miss Myers with him. Sarah Jane explains Sky's appearance to Gita and Haresh back at Bannerman Road, telling them the adoption agency had a mixup. Some traces of Sky's electric powers are still present. In the attic, Sarah Jane finds the Shopkeeper and the Captain, previously met in Lost in Time. He reveals it was him who placed infant Sky on her doorstep. The Shopkeeper, answering Sarah Jane's question of their existence, tells her that he and the Captain are "servants of the universe". He then gives Sky the decision to leave with him in which she declines and stays with Sarah Jane as her adopted daughter. He then disappears before Sarah Jane could ask him any further. She then says they will find out who he is soon.... [edit] Continuity The Shopkeeper and his parrot, The Captain, previously appeared in Lost in Time. Rani suggests that the Doctor was the one who left Sky on Sarah Jane's doorstep. Rani met the Tenth Doctor in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, and the Eleventh Doctor in Death of the Doctor. Miss Myers intends for her daughter to be used against the Metalkind. The idea of a child being used as a weapon from birth first appeared in "A Good Man Goes to War", with the Silence and Madame Kovarian kidnapping the infant Melody Pond and turning her into a weapon to kill the Doctor. Rani tells Sky about how Luke was created by aliens to invade the Earth while Clyde tells Sky about when they fought the Bane, both shown in the pilot episode "Invasion of the Bane". [edit] Production This was the first story to be aired following the death of Elisabeth Sladen. [edit] Notes The ending credits for part one has mistakenly been put onto part 2 ending credits Luke Smith (Tommy Knight) and Baby Sky did not appear in part 2 and The Shopkeeper from Lost in Time was uncredited. [edit] References ^ "The Sarah Jane Adventures – Sky" (Press release). BBC Press Office. Retrieved 2011-09-15. [edit] External links Sky (TV story) on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki "Sky: Part 1" at the Internet Movie Database "Sky: Part 2" at the Internet Movie Database This Doctor Who-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
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TDP 208: The Wedding of River Song
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 18 minutes and 0 secondsTaken from Wikipedia with thankks and respect. The Wedding of River Song From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 223 – "The Wedding of River Song" Doctor Who episode Cast Doctor Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor) Companions Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) Alex Kingston (River Song) Others Frances Barber – Madame Kovarian Simon Fisher-Becker – Dorium Maldovar Ian McNeice – Emperor Winston Churchill Richard Hope – Dr Malokeh Marnix Van Den Broeke – The Silent Nicholas Briggs – Voice of the Dalek Simon Callow – Charles Dickens Sian Williams – Herself Bill Turnbull – Himself Meredith Vieira – Herself Niall Greig Fulton – Gideon Vandaleur Sean Buckley – Barman Mark Gatiss – Gantok[1](credited as Rondo Haxton) Emma Campbell-Jones – Dr Kent Katharine Burford – Nurse Richard Dillane – Carter William Morgan Sheppard – Canton Delaware Production Writer Steven Moffat Director Jeremy Webb Executive producer(s) Steven Moffat Piers Wenger Beth Willis Series Series 6 Length 45 mins Originally broadcast 1 October 2011 Chronology ← Preceded by Followed by → "Closing Time" 2011 Christmas special "The Wedding of River Song" is the thirteenth and final episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC America and Space on 1 October 2011. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Prequel 1.2 Continuity 1.3 Outside references 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 Reception 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot The Doctor, aware of his death at the fixed point of time on 22 April 2011 at Lake Silencio, attempts to track down the Silence to learn why he must die. He encounters the Teselecta shapeshifting robot and its miniaturised crew who are currently posing as one of the members of the Silence; through them, the Doctor is led to the living head of Dorium Maldovar, one of the Doctor's allies taken by the Order of the Headless Monks. Dorium reveals that the Silence is dedicated to avert the Doctor's "terrifying" future, warning him that "On the fields of Trenzelor, at the fall of the Eleventh, a question will be asked - one that must never be answered. And Silence must fall when the question is asked." The Doctor continues to refuse to go to Lake Silencio until he discovers his old friend, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, has passed away. The Doctor then accepts his fate. To avoid crossing his own time stream, he gives the Teselecta crew the envelopes to deliver to Amy, Rory, River Song, Canton Everett Delaware III, and a younger version of himself, inviting them to witness his death. As shown in "The Impossible Astronaut", the Doctor joins his friends at Lake Silencio and then approaches the astronaut, now known to be a younger version of River Song trained to kill the Doctor by the Silence and Madame Kovarian. River does not want to kill him but is unable to fight the suit's control. The Doctor shows River her future self, sentenced to Stormcage prison for killing him, as evidence that her killing him is inevitable and that he forgives her for it. River, in the astronaut suit, surprises the Doctor by draining the suit's weapons systems and averting his death, despite his warning against interfering with a fixed point. Time becomes "stuck", and all of Earth's history begins to happen all at once, fixed at 5:02 p.m. on 22 April 2011. In a time-confused London, Winston Churchill takes the Doctor, his "soothsayer", out from his locked cell to ask him about the stuck time. The Doctor explains the preceding events, but notices they have lost track of time and tally marks are appearing on his arms, indicating the presence of the Silence. After they observe a nest overhead, they are rescued by Amy and an a number of her soldiers. Due to the effects of the crack in her bedroom, Amy is cognisant of the altered timeline, though she has failed to notice that her trusted captain is Rory. Amy takes the Doctor to "Area 52", a hollowed-out pyramid among the Giza Necropolis, where they have captured over a hundred Silence and Madame Kovarian. River is also there, aware her actions have frozen time and refusing to allow the Doctor to touch her, an event that would cause time to become unstuck. They all wear "eyedrives"—eye patches identical to the one worn by Madame Kovarian that function as external memories, thus enabling them to remember the Silence. They soon come to realise that this was a trap arranged by Kovarian, as the Silence begin to escape confinement and overload the eyedrives, torturing their users. The Doctor and River escape to the top of the pyramid while Amy and Rory fight off a wave of Silence and Amy realises who Rory is. Madame Kovarian discovers her own eyedrive is being overloaded; she dislodges it, but Amy forces it back in place with the intention of killing her, explaining that this is revenge for her taking Melody away. Amy and Rory regroup with River and the Doctor. River tries to convince the Doctor that this frozen timeline is acceptable and that he does not have to die, but the Doctor explains that all of reality will soon break down. The Doctor marries River on the spot, whispers something in her ear, declaring that he had just told her his name. He then requests that River allow him to prevent the universe's destruction. The two kiss, allowing reality to return to normal. At Lake Silencio, River kills the Doctor. Some time later, Amy and Rory are visited by River, shortly after the events of "Flesh and Stone" in River's timeline. When Amy explains that she had recently witnessed the Doctor's death and regrets killing Kovarian, River reveals that the Doctor lied when he said he told her his name, instead saying "Look into my eye". The Doctor had in fact enlisted the Teselecta to masquerade as him at Lake Silenco, with the Doctor and his TARDIS miniaturised inside it ever since. The three celebrate the news that the Doctor is still alive. Elsewhere, the Doctor takes Dorium's head back to where it was stored; the Doctor explains that his perceived death will enable him to be forgotten. As the Doctor leaves, Dorium warns him that the question still awaits him, and calls it after him: "Doctor who?" [edit] Prequel A prequel to this episode was aired after the previous episode, "Closing Time". It was the fifth prequel in the series, the first four being for the episodes "The Impossible Astronaut", "The Curse of the Black Spot", "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Let's Kill Hitler". The prequel shows Area 52, with a clock stuck at the time of the Doctor's death, Silence kept in stasis and River Song wearing an eye patch in the same fashion as Madame Kovarian.[2] As all of this is happening, there is a voice-over of the children, the same as that from "Night Terrors" and the conclusion of "Closing Time". They sing "Tick tock / goes the clock" three times, and then "Doctor, / brave and good, / he turned away from violence. / When he / understood / the falling of the silence." [edit] Continuity Several scenes from the episode reuse footage from "The Impossible Astronaut" leading up to and immediately following the Doctor's death. The Doctor tells Dorium Maldovar, "I've been running all my life, why should I stop?", a precursive echo of his early, pre-death dialogue in "The Impossible Astronaut": "I've been running all my life...and now it's time to stop". Following the death of actor Nicholas Courtney, the Doctor learns in this episode that Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart has died peacefully in a nursing home.[3] He last appeared in Doctor Who in Battlefield, and the character's final appearance came in The Sarah Jane Adventures story Enemy of the Bane. When listing all the things he could do with the TARDIS' ability to travel in time, the Doctor suggests visiting Rose Tyler in her youth (which Jack Harkness admitted in "Utopia" to having done) to help her with her homework, attending all of Jack Harkness' stag parties in one night (several of his marriages are mentioned or alluded to in Torchwood episodes "Something Borrowed" and Children of Earth), and returning to Queen Elizabeth I (met in "The Shakespeare Code", and mentioned in "The End of Time, Part I", "The Beast Below" and "Amy's Choice"). When the Doctor awakens in Amy's rail car office, he tries to remind her of the crack in her wall ("The Eleventh Hour") and fiddles with one of her TARDIS models ("The Eleventh Hour", "Let's Kill Hitler"). Amy's sketches include a Cyberman's face ("The Pandorica Opens") a Dalek ("Victory of the Daleks", "The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang"), herself seated in the Pandorica ("The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang"), a Silurian ("The Hungry Earth", "Cold Blood", "A Good Man Goes to War"), herself wielding a cutlass and sporting a tricorn hat ("The Curse of the Black Spot"), a Smiler's face ("The Beast Below"), a vampire girl ("The Vampires of Venice"), the first time she met the Doctor ("The Eleventh Hour"), Rory and another centurion ("The Pandorica Opens"), a side of the Pandorica ("The Pandorica Opens", "The Big Bang"), a Weeping Angel's face ("The Time of Angels", "Flesh and Stone", "The God Complex"), and the TARDIS. Winston Churchill and River Song describe Cleopatra as, respectively, "a dreadful woman but excellent dancer" and "a pushover". River posed as Cleopatra in "The Pandorica Opens". The Fourth Doctor claimed in The Masque of Mandragora to have learned swordsmanship from a captain in Cleopatra's bodyguard. Mickey Smith implied in "The Girl in the Fireplace" that the Doctor had had some romantic history with Cleopatra and that he affectionately called her 'Cleo'. River Song states that she used her hallucinogenic lipstick on President Kennedy; she used the lipstick on guards and Romans in "The Time of Angels" and "The Pandorica Opens". A Silent calls Rory "the man who dies and dies again". Rory dies in "Cold Blood" and appears to die in "Amy's Choice" and "The Doctor's Wife". In reference to the Doctor telling River his name, she reprises the line "Rule One - The Doctor lies" from "The Big Bang" and "Let's Kill Hitler". In "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead", River whispers something in the Doctor's ear that makes him trust her, which the Doctor states just before her death was "my name" and that "There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name". The Doctor also refers to the events and conversation shortly before her death in "Forest of the Dead", stating "You, me, handcuffs - must it always end this way?" when he is handcuffed in the pyramid and reversing part of his final exchange with her in the Library during their conversation by Lake Silencio ("Time can be rewritten" / "Don't you dare!", with the first line spoken by the Doctor in the Library and River by the lake). The episode's main plot centers around the damage caused by River when she tries to re-write a fixed point in time. The Doctor tries to do this himself in "The Waters of Mars" but fails when Adelade kills herself in order to keep history the same. Fixed points in time have also been mentioned in "The Fires of Pompeii" and "Cold Blood". [edit] Outside references Charles Dickens describes his upcoming Christmas special featuring ghosts from the past, present and future, alluding to A Christmas Carol. [edit] Production [edit] Cast notes Within the alternate London several previous characters reappear, including Charles Dickens (Simon Callow) from "The Unquiet Dead", Winston Churchill (Ian McNeice) from "Victory of the Daleks", and the Silurian doctor Malohkeh (Richard Hope) from "Cold Blood". William Morgan Sheppard is credited for his brief appearance in the background of the Doctor's death scene, reprised from "The Impossible Astronaut". Mark Gatiss previously played Professor Richard Lazarus in the episode "The Lazarus Experiment", and provided the uncredited voice of Danny Boy in "Victory of the Daleks" and "A Good Man Goes to War"[4] along with a number of roles in audio dramas based on the show. He has also written for the revived series of Doctor Who. He is credited in this episode under the pseudonym "Rondo Haxton", an ode to the American horror actor Rondo Hatton. American television hostess Meredith Vieira recorded her report of Churchill's return to the Buckingham Senate in front of a green screen while filming a segment for The Today Show’s "Anchors Abroad" segment.[5] [edit] Reception Dan Martin of the Guardian noted that the episode "moves along the bigger, 50-year story and effectively reboots the show. After seven years of saving the Earth/universe/future of humanity," the show now has new impetus. Martin stated that the revelation that silence will fall when the oldest question in the universe is asked - "Doctor Who?" - will safeguard the programme for future generations.[6] Gavin Fuller of the Telegraph called the revelation of the Doctor escaping death by using the Teselecta a cop-out and likened it to serials of the thirties where scenes were cut and shown later to create a cliffhanger. However Fuller praised the episode as visually clever and noted that the question "Doctor Who?" harkens back to 1963 and the original theme of the show. Fuller concluded by surmising that Moffat is obviously plotting story arcs in the episode, hinting that the question will be asked at the end of the Doctor's eleventh incarnation.[7] Neela Debnath of the Independent stated that the series finale was a brainteaser which refused to tie up loose ends neatly. Debnath comments that Moffat is trying to return to the epic story telling that the series once had, spreading it over several series rather than episodes. Concluding, Debnath noted that the episode was underwhelming in terms of drama but overwhelming in terms of information.[8] [edit] References ^ BBC - BBC One Programmes - Doctor Who, Series 6, The Wedding of River Song ^ BBC - Doctor Who - The Prequel to The Wedding of River Song ^ Dowel;, Ben (10-01-2011). "Doctor Who tribute to Brigadier actor Nicholas Courtney". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2011. ^ PBJ - Artists - Mark Gatiss ^ Today Show "Anchors Abroad" ^ Doctor Who: The Wedding of River Song – series 32, episode 13 | Television & radio | guardian.co.uk ^ Doctor Who final episode: The Wedding of River Song, review - Telegraph ^ http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/10/03/review-of-doctor-who-%e2%80%98the-wedding-of-river-song%e2%80%99/ [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eleventh Doctor "The Wedding of River Song" at the Internet Movie Database The Wedding of River Song on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki "The Wedding of River Song" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
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TDP 207: Colony In Space
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 14 minutes and 8 secondsFrom Wikipedia with thanks Colony in Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in 6 weekly parts from April 10 to May 15, 1971. Contents [hide] 1 Synopsis 1.1 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 Broadcast and reception 4 In print 5 VHS and DVD releases 6 References 7 External links 7.1 Reviews 7.2 Target novelisation [edit] Synopsis Three Time Lords meet at an observatory and discuss the theft of confidential files relating to "the Doomsday Weapon." They begrudgingly realise that only one man can help them — and the Doctor, accompanied by Jo, is temporarily released from his exile and sent in the TARDIS to the desert planet of Uxarieus in the year 2472. There he finds an outpost of human colonists living as farmers. The colony is not a success — the land seems unusually poor and recently they are being besieged by representatives of rapacious mining corporations, and more recently, ferocious reptiles. The colony's governor, Robert Ashe, makes them welcome, and explains the colonists fled a year ago to the planet to escape the overcrowding and pollution on Earth. Two colonists die in a reptile attack that night, and the next morning a man named Norton arrives at the settlement, claiming that he is from another colony that was wiped out by the reptiles. While the Doctor is investigating the dome of the dead colonists he is surprised by a mining robot controlled by Caldwell, a mineralogist for the IMC. Caldwell invites the Doctor to talk to his bosses and hear their side of the story. His superior, Dent, is a ruthless mining engineer, who has been using the mining robot to scare and now kill the colonists - something which Caldwell finds repellent. Dent knows the planet is rich in rare minerals and wants it for IMC and his greedy troops agree that this should be done at any cost. The original inhabitants of the planet, known to the colonists as primitives, have a truce with the colonists - but this is tested when Norton kills the colony's scientist and blames it on a primitive, whom he insists are hostile. Later, Norton is seen communicating with Captain Dent, implying that he is in fact a spy sent from IMC to further disrupt the colonists and not the sole survivor of a similar colony as he claimed. The Doctor meanwhile returns to the central dome of the colonists, having evaded an IMC attempt to kill him, and explains to Ashe that the miners are behind the deaths. An Adjudicator from Earth is sent for to deal with the complex claims over the planet - and when he arrives it turns out to be the Master. In this alias he determines that the mining company's claim to the planet is stronger. The Doctor and Jo have meanwhile ventured to the primitive city. From images on cave walls they interpret it was once home to an advanced civilisation that degraded over time. In the heart of the city, in a room filled with massive machines and a glowing hatch, they encounter a diminutive alien known as the Guardian. It warns them that intruding into the city is punishable by death, and lets them go, but warns them not to return. The Master's adjudication is heard by a returning Doctor and Jo. Still in the Adjudicator's guise he tells Ashe that an appeal will fail unless there are special circumstances, such as historical interest and is intrigued when Ashe tells him about the primitive city. By this ploy he finds out more about the planet and the primitive city while Ashe is drawn away from the Doctor, who begins to lose his credibility with the colonists. The Master then manipulates the Doctor into accompanying him to the primitive city. The situation between colonists and miners has meanwhile reached flashpoint with a pitched battle between them. Dent and his forces triumph and he stages a false trial of Ashe and Winton, the most rebellious of the colonists, sentencing them to death but commuting the sentence if all the colonists agree to leave the planet in their damaged old colony ship which first brought them to Uxarieus. Inside the city, the Master tells the Doctor that the primitives were once an advanced civilisation. Before their civilisation fell apart, they built a super-weapon that was never used - and he wants to claim this weapon for himself. The room with the machinery in the city is the heart of a weapon; so powerful that the Crab Nebula was created during a test firing. The Doctor rejects the Master's overture to help him rule the galaxy using the weapon, stating that absolute power is evil and corrupting. The Guardian appears, demanding an explanation for the intrusion. The Master explains that he's come to restore their civilisation to its former glory. The Doctor argues against him, and the Guardian recalls that the weapon led his race to decay, and its radiation is ruining the planet. It instructs the Doctor to activate the self-destruct, which he does. The city begins to crumble, and the Guardian tells them they must leave before it is too late. While the Doctor and the Master flee the decaying city, they find Caldwell and Jo, and the four get out before the city explodes. The colonists' ship has meanwhile exploded on take-off as Ashe predicted it would. However, the colony leader was the only one to die. He piloted the ship alone to save his people. Winton and the colonists now emerge from hiding and kill or overpower the IMC men, with Caldwell having switched sides to support the colonists. Amid the confusion, the Master manages to make his escape. With the battle over, the Doctor explains that the radiation from the weapon was what was killing their crops but this limiting factor has now been removed. Earth has agreed to send a real Adjudicator to Uxarieus, and Caldwell has decided to join the colonists. He tells them that he can help them with their power supply. The Doctor and Jo return to the TARDIS, which returns to UNIT Headquarters mere seconds after it left. Having accomplished what the Time Lords intended, the Doctor is once again trapped on Earth. [edit] Continuity This is the first time since season six that the Doctor travels to another planet in the TARDIS. Excepting a brief CSO shot of one wall in Terror of the Autons, this is also the first time that the inside of the Master's TARDIS (a redress of the Doctor's TARDIS set) is shown. [edit] Production Serial details by episode EpisodeBroadcast dateRun timeViewership (in millions)Archive "Episode One" 10 April 1971 24:19 7.6 PAL colour conversion "Episode Two" 17 April 1971 22:43 8.5 PAL colour conversion "Episode Three" 24 April 1971 23:47 9.5 PAL colour conversion "Episode Four" 1 May 1971 24:20 8.1 PAL colour conversion "Episode Five" 8 May 1971 25:22 8.8 PAL colour conversion "Episode Six" 15 May 1971 25:22 8.7 PAL colour conversion [1][2][3] Working titles for this story included Colony. Script editor Terrance Dicks has frequently stated that he disliked the original premise of the Doctor being trapped on Earth, and had meant to subvert this plan as soon as he felt he could get away with it. He recalls in a DVD documentary interview (on the Inferno release) having had it pointed out to him by Malcolm Hulke that the format limited the stories to merely two types: alien invasion and mad scientist, and says he'd immediately responded, "Fuck Me! You're right!" (on the The Invasion release). The story is one of the first to use the show for social commentary - in this instance, the dangers of colonialism.[4] [edit] Cast notes See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who. Bernard Kay appears as Caldwell. This is his fourth and final appearance on the series. Director Michael Briant spoke the commentary accompanying a propaganda film watched by the Doctor on the IMC spaceship in Episode Two. This was a late cast change, and was originally intended for Pat Gorman – who was subsequently still credited on Episodes One and Two as 'Primitive and Voice'. [edit] Broadcast and reception 16mm colour film trims of location sequences for the story still exist and short clips from this material was used in the BBC TV special "30 years in the Tardis" (1993). [edit] In print A novelisation of this serial, written by Malcolm Hulke, was published by Target Books in April 1974 as Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon. This was the first serial of the 1971 series to be so adapted; as a result, Hulke breaks continuity by having Jo Grant introduced to the Doctor for the first time, even though on television her introduction was in Terror of the Autons (and this would be reflected in the later novelisation of that serial). There is another extensive Malcolm Hulke prologue as an elderly Time Lord describes the Doctor-Master rivalry to his assistant and learns of the theft of the Doomsday Weapon files. There have been Dutch, Turkish, Japanese and Portuguese language editions. An unabridged reading of the novelisation by actor Geoffrey Beevers was released on CD in September 2007 by BBC Audiobooks. Doctor Who book Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon Series Target novelisations Release number 23 Writer Malcolm Hulke Publisher Target Books Cover artist Chris Achilleos ISBN 0-426-10372-6 Release date April 1974 [edit] VHS and DVD releases Although the PAL mastertapes had been wiped NTSC copies were returned to the BBC in 1983 from TV Ontario in Canada. In November 2001, this story was released together with The Time Monster, in a VHS tin box set, entitled The Master. A new transfer was made from the converted NTSC to PAL videotapes but no restoration work was carried out for this release. The story has been scheduled for release on DVD in the UK on 3 October 2011. The single disc release will contain four seconds which were missing from VHS & US masters of the story and which restores two lines of dialogue.[5] [edit] References ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (2007-03-31). "Colony in Space". Outpost Gallifrey. Archived from the original on 2006-03-24. Retrieved 2008-08-31. ^ "Colony in Space". Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved 2008-08-31. ^ Sullivan, Shannon (2007-07-05). "Colony in Space". A Brief History of Time Travel. Retrieved 2008-08-31. ^ Butler, David (2007). Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-7682-4. ^ Marcus (21 July 2011). "Colony in Space DVD release for October". The Doctor Who News Page. Retrieved 22 July 2011. [edit] External links Colony in Space at BBC Online Colony in Space at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel) Colony in Space at the Doctor Who Reference Guide [edit] Reviews Colony in Space reviews at Outpost Gallifrey Colony in Space reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide [edit] Target novelisation Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide On Target — Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon
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TDP 206: BBC Scrap Doctor Who Confidential
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 4 minutes and 34 secondsreprinted from the guardian news page he BBC is to axe Doctor Who Confidential, the BBC3 spin-off from its sci-fi drama, as part of the corporation's ongoing cuts programme. Doctor Who Confidential, which features behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Doctor Who as well as interviews with the cast and crew, has aired in an early evening slot on BBC3 since 2005, when the corporation revived the main series with Christopher Eccleston as the ninth Time Lord. However, with the corporation facing budget cuts of up to 20% across its output as part of its Delivering Quality First initiative, BBC controller Zai Bennett has chosen to axe the show at the end of its current series. Bennett is understood to be pursuing a strategy of focusing investment on original commissions in post-watershed time slots. Since taking over, he has decommissioned shows including Ideal, Hotter Than My Daughter, Coming of Age and long-running sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps. Speaking last month at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, Bennett said: "It's about focusing my budget on 9pm and 10.30pm; those are the time slots that count. Budgets are tight, so we have to be sensible with the money we have." Mark Thompson, the BBC director general, will unveil the corporation's cost-cutting strategy – the outcome of the DQF process – on 6 October. It is thought to include proposals to exploit greater "synergies" between BBC1 and BBC3, with the digital channel acting as a "nursery slope" for its terrestrial cousin. BBC3 will also fill a greater proportion of its 7pm to 9pm slots with repeats of BBC1 shows. A spokeswoman for the BBC said: "Doctor Who Confidential has been a great show for BBC3 over the years but our priority now is to build on original British commissions, unique to the channel."
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TDP 205: Closing Time
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 18 minutes and 33 secondsfrom wikipedia. "Closing Time" is the twelfth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC America and Space on 24 September 2011. Contents [hide] 1 Plot summary 1.1 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 Broadcast and reception 3.1 Critical reception 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot summary Nearly two hundred years have passed for the Doctor after leaving Amy and Rory in "The God Complex"; and the Doctor is on a farewell tour as he knows he has one more day in his relative time before his death (depicted in "The Impossible Astronaut"), saying goodbye to his past companions. He stops by Craig ("The Lodger"), finding he is living with his girlfriend Sophie, moved into a new home, and now raising their baby, Alfie. Craig, tending to Alfie alone while Sophie is away for the weekend, suspects the Doctor is investigating something alien. As the Doctor leaves, he notices an strange electrical disturbance in the area, and decides to investigate. Craig, while at a new department store with Alfie, discovers the Doctor working in the toy department. The Doctor reveals that he has traced the electrical disturbances to the store and using the job to allow him to investigate more. The Doctor and Craig enter a lift and find themselves teleported to a Cyberman spacecraft, but the Doctor manages to reverse the teleporter and disables it. As Craig returns home, the Doctor sees Amy and Rory shopping, but stays out of their sight. The Doctor continues to follow rumours of a store clerk's disappearance and of a "silver rat". With Craig's help, the Doctor enters the store and catches a Cybermat, which has been siphoning small amounts of energy to the spacecraft. The Doctor also encounters a malfunctioning Cyberman in the building's basement, and is curious how it arrived in the store. At Craig's house, while the two are distracted, the Cybermat reactivates, but they are able to stop it, and the Doctor reprograms the unit to track down the Cybermen signal. The Doctors leaves on his own to locate the Cybermen at the store, but Craig shortly follows, bringing Alfie along. The Doctor finds the spaceship actually sits below the store, underground, accessed by a tunnel from a changing room. The ship has been slowly siphoning energy from the store's power lines, reactivating its crew. The Doctor is captured by the Cybermen, who tell him that their ship crashed long ago, but with this new energy, will soon have enough power to convert the human race. Craig, leaving Alfie with a store clerk, follows the Doctor into the tunnel, and is also captured and placed into a conversion machine. The Doctor reveals his own impending death and urges Craig to fight, but the conversion appears to be complete until Alfie's cries over the closed-circuit television echo in the ship. Craig fights the conversion, sending the rest of the Cybermen into overload as they painfully experience the emotions they have repressed. The Doctor and Craig escape via the teleporter as the ship explodes, the blast contained by the cavern. The Doctor slips away unseen, but Craig returns home to find that the Doctor has used time travel to clean the mess from the previous night. The Doctor tells Craig that Alfie now has a much higher opinion of his dad. The Doctor leaves just before Sophie returns. Nearby, the Doctor tells the TARDIS he knows this is his last trip in her and offers some parting words to a small group of children. In the far future, River Song, recently made a Doctor of Archaeology, reviews eyewitness accounts from those children, and also notes the date and location of the Doctor's death. She is interrupted by Madame Kovarian and agents of The Silence; Kovarian tells River that she is still theirs, and will be the one to kill the Doctor. They place her in an astronaut's suit and submerge her in the lake to await the Doctor. [edit] Continuity Two hundred years have passed for the Doctor since the events of "The God Complex", taking him to the age his older self was in "The Impossible Astronaut".[2] Multiple events in the episode correspond to those of "The Impossible Astronaut": the Doctor takes from Craig's home the "TARDIS blue" envelopes he uses to bring Amy, Rory, River, Canton Delaware and his younger self to Lake Silencio; Craig gives him the Stetson hat he wears at the start of that episode[3]; and the "impossible astronaut" is confirmed to be River Song. The Cybermen, like those in "A Good Man Goes to War", do not bear the Cybus Industries logo on their chests. Cybermats are shown for the first time in the revived series. In the classic series, they appeared in Tomb of the Cybermen, The Wheel in Space and Revenge of the Cybermen.[3] The Doctor stops by to see Craig before he dies, as the Tenth Doctor popped in on his former companions before regenerating in The End of Time.[4][5] The Doctor claims to be able to "speak 'baby'", as he did in "A Good Man Goes to War". The Doctor expresses his dislike for Craig's "redecorated" house in a variation of lines spoken by the Second Doctor in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, and Craig explains to the Doctor that the reason his house looks different is that it is a different house from the one he had in "The Lodger"; Craig also remarks that he has inspected the upstairs level, alluding to the false story shown in "The Lodger".[6] The Doctor echoes himself in the classic series serial Revenge of the Cybermen when he recites the mini-poem "Not a rat, a Cybermat" from the novelization of Revenge of the Cybermen.[7][8] Amy appears in an ad for Petrichor perfume, with the tagline, "For the girl who's tired of waiting." The concept of petrichor was used as a psychic password in "The Doctor's Wife" and means "the smell of dust after rain".[6][9] The Doctor frequently refers to Amy as "the girl who waited". [edit] Production Writer Gareth Roberts said in an interview that he was considering bringing the character of Craig back when James Corden was cast and he saw his performance, saying that "it already felt like he was one of the Who family". It was also his idea to bring back the Cybermen, because there were no other returning monsters in the series and he thought "there should be a sense of history about the Doctor's final battle to save Earth before he heads off to meet his death".[2] [edit] Cast notes This episode marks Lynda Baron's third involvement with Doctor Who, having provided vocals for the "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon", heard in The Gunfighters, and appeared in Enlightenment as Wrack. The accompanying Doctor Who Confidential to "Closing Time" is entitled "Open All Hours" in honour of Baron's role in the sitcom of the same name.[6] BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James appears in a non-speaking cameo role, as a man shopping for lingerie.[10] [edit] Broadcast and reception "Closing Time" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 24 September 2011[11] and in the United States on BBC America on the same date.[12] It achieved overnight ratings of 5.3 million viewers, coming in second for its time slot behind All-Star Family Fortunes.[13] [edit] Critical reception The episode received generally positive reviews, with critics praising the comic interplay between Smith and Corden. Jack Pelling of Celluloid Heroes Radio praised Roberts' deftly crafted comic script, and described it as "one of the most enjoyable episodes of Doctor Who in recent years".[14] Dan Martin of The Guardian questioned the decision to air a standalone episode as the penultimate show of the series, calling "Closing Time" "something of a curiosity" as well as writing positively about "Smith and Cordon’s Laurel and Hardy double act".[3] Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph awarded the episode three out of five stars, comparing Smith's performance favourably to that of Patrick Troughton.[15] Neela Debnath of The Independent said it was an "intriguing change of pace" and succeeded with "great comedic moments" and the "brilliant chemistry between the Doctor and Craig". She praised Corden for excelling after his "average" performance in "The Lodger".[16] Patrick Mulkern, writing for Radio Times, thought that the ending was an "emotional overload...but what better way to deal with the emotionally deprived Cybermen?" He was pleased with the "sweet cameo" from Amy and Rory and the "tense coda" with River Song and Kovarian.[17] IGN's Matt Risley rated the episode 7.5 out of 10, praising the chemistry between Smith and Corden as well as Smith's interaction with the baby, but was disappointed with the Cybermen, who he said "never really delivered on the threat or horror fans know they're capable of".[18] SFX magazine reviewer Rob Power gave the episode three and a half out of five stars, saying it "[worked] wonders" as a light-hearted episode before the finale and with "properly bad" Cybermen. Though he thought the Cyberman lacked "real menance" and Craig escaped in a "cheesy way", he considered the main focus to be on the Doctor's "farewell tour" and praised Smith's performance. He thought that the moments of "sad-eyed loneliness and resignation" added weight to "what would otherwise have been a paper-thin episode". He also praised the ending for bringing things together for the finale, though he thought the final scene with River Song felt "a little tacked-on".[9] [edit] References ^ "Open All Hours". Gareth Roberts. Doctor Who Confidential. BBC. 24 September 2011. No. 12, series 6. 4:52 minutes in. "The Doctor allows Craig to come along and play the part of his companion [...]" ^ a b "An interview with Gareth Roberts". BBC. 17 September 2011. Retrieved 18 September 2011. ^ a b c Martin, Dan (24 September 2011). "Doctor Who: Closing Time – series 32, episode 12". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 September 2011. ^ The End of Time. Russell T Davies (writer), Euros Lyn (director). Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One. 25 December 2009–1 January 2010. No. 4, season Specials (2008–10). ^ The Eleventh Doctor tells Jo Grant in Death of the Doctor that he visited her and each of his companions. ^ a b c "Closing Time - Fourth Dimension". BBC. Retrieved 25 September 2011. ^ Anders, Charlie Jane (24 September 2011). "Doctor Who: the Godfather of Soul". io9. Retrieved 25 September 2011. ^ Novelisation of Revenge of the Cybermen by Terrance Dicks ^ a b Power, Rob (24 September 2011). "Doctor Who "Closing Time" TV Review". SFX. Retrieved 25 September 2011. ^ "Doctor Who Confidential: Open All Hours". BBC. 22 September 2011. Retrieved 23 September 2011. ^ "Network TV BBC Week 39: Saturday 24 September 2011" (Press release). BBC. Retrieved 25 September 2011. ^ "Season 6: Episode 12 "Closing Time"". BBC America. Retrieved 25 September 2011. ^ Golder, Dave (25 September 2011). "Doctor Who "Closing Time" Overnight Ratings". SFX. Retrieved 25 September 2011. ^ Pelling, Jack (24 September 2011). "Review: Doctor Who- Closing Time". Celluloid Heroes Radio. Retrieved 24 September 2011. ^ Fuller, Gavin (24 September 2011). "Doctor Who: Closing Time, BBC One, review". The Telegraph. Retrieved 25 Septembe 2011. ^ Debnath, Neela (25 September 2011). "Review of Doctor Who 'Closing Time'". The Independent. Retrieved 25 September 2011. ^ Mulkern, Patrick (24 September 2011). "Doctor Who: Closing Time review". Radio Times. Retrieved 25 September 2011. ^ Risley, Matt (25 September 2011). "Doctor Who: "Closing Time" Review". IGN. Retrieved 25 September 2011. "Closing Time (Doctor Who)" at the Internet Movie Database
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TDP 204: The God Complex
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 11 minutes and 16 secondsreprinted from wikipedia with thanks and respect The God Complex From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 221 – "The God Complex" Doctor Who episode Cast Doctor Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor) Companions Karen Gillan (Amy Pond) Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) Others Sarah Quintrell — Lucy Hayward Amara Karan — Rita Dimitri Leonidas — Howie Spragg Daniel Pirrie — Joe Buchanan David Walliams — Gibbis Caitlin Blackwood — Amelia Pond Dafydd Emyr — PE Teacher Spencer Wilding — The Creature Rashad Karapiet — Rita's Father Roger Ennals — Gorilla Production Writer Toby Whithouse Director Nick Hurran Producer Marcus Wilson Executive producer(s) Steven Moffat Piers Wenger Beth Willis Series Series 6 Length 50 mins Originally broadcast 17 September 2011 Chronology ← Preceded by Followed by → "The Girl Who Waited" "Closing Time" "The God Complex" is the eleventh episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, BBC America and Space on 17 September 2011. Contents [hide] 1 Plot summary 1.1 Continuity 2 Production 3 Outside references 4 Broadcast and reception 4.1 Critical reception 5 References 6 External links [edit] Plot summary The TARDIS, while traveling to a new planet, arrives in what appears to be a 1980's Earth hotel, but the Doctor recognizes it as an alien structure specifically designed to take that appearance. They soon meet a group of four, humans Rita, Howie, Joe, and the alien Gibbis, each who had previously been taken from their routine lives and found themselves in the hotel. The four explain that there is a minotaur-like beast in the hotel that consumes others. It does this by enticing them to enter one of the many rooms in the hotel which contains their greatest fears, upon which they become brainwashed to "praise him" and allow themselves to be taken, their bodies left without any signs of life; many others have experienced this, and photos of them and their fears cover many of the hotel's walls. The hotel is inescapable — its doors and windows walled up — and its halls and rooms can change on a whim. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory soon find the TARDIS has also disappeared, and the Doctor warns them from opening any door they are drawn to, for fear of being possessed. As the Doctor tries to ascertain the situation, Joe, already possessed, has been drawn away from the group and is killed by the beast. Howie soon becomes possessed after entering a room against the Doctor's warnings. The remaining group set up a trap to lure the beast into the hotel's parlor using Howie's voice, upon which the Doctor questions the trapped creature and learns it is in agony wishing for its end. The Doctor realises the hotel is really a prison for the creature, and the "fears" in each room are harmless illusions. Howie escapes from the group, allowing the beast to escape and chase him down, killing him before the Doctor can save him. While exploring more of the hotel, both Amy and the Doctor are separately lured to look into two specific rooms, facing their own fears. Rita soon follows the fate of Joe and Howie. The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Gibbis regroup, and the Doctor surmises that the other three believed that some higher fate controlled their lives. The hotel and its rooms were, by design, meant to challenge their faith by fear to allow the beast to possess them. The Doctor identifies that Gibbis has survived due to the extreme cowardice of his species, while Rory lacks any such faith to be broken. However, the Doctor realises that it is Amy's faith in him that is being challenged; Amy soon becomes possessed like the others. As the beast comes for Amy, the Doctor and the others grab her and take her to the room of her entrancement. Inside, they find the illusion of young Amy, Amelia, still waiting for the return of her "raggedy Doctor" ("The Eleventh Hour"). The Doctor asserts to Amy that he is "not a hero" but "just a mad man with a box" to break her faith in him; her faith broken, the beast outside the door collapses on the floor. As they watch, the hotel is revealed to be part of a large simulation; the Doctor identifies themselves aboard an automated prison spaceship, and the beast as a relative of the Nimon, a creature that feeds off the faith of others. The ship's automated systems had provided it "food" by bringing aboard creatures who had a strong faith. The Doctor identifies Amy's faith in him as the cause of their arrival on the ship. The beast mutters that "death would be a gift" for the Doctor before it passes away. The Doctor finds his TARDIS nearby, offering Gibbis a lift home. He then takes Amy and Rory back to their home on Earth, believing it best for the two to stop traveling with him for fear that their faith in him would lead to their deaths. The Doctor sets off alone in the TARDIS, contemplating these recent events. [edit] Continuity Several references to past alien species are displayed throughout the wall of photos of the past victims of the beast: Tritovore, Silurian, Sontaran, Judoon, Cat Nun, and the Daleks are referenced as the nightmare faced by one of the late guests. The Doctor identifies the beast as being from a species who are close relatives to the Nimon, previously a foe in the serial The Horns of Nimon and audio drama Seasons of Fear; and the group witnesses two illusions of Weeping Angels, from the episodes "Blink", "The Time of Angels", and "Flesh and Stone".[1] Though the audience is not shown the contents of the room that the Doctor is lured to open, the sound of the TARDIS' cloister bell can be heard.[2] This episode is the third time in the television series where the Doctor has forced his companions to leave the TARDIS, following Susan Foreman and Sarah Jane Smith.[3] Young Amelia, played by Gillan's cousin Caitlin Blackwood, is shown waiting for her "raggedy Doctor" to return from the episode "The Eleventh Hour". The Doctor, being forced to break Amy's faith in him, repeats a previous event in The Curse of Fenric where the Seventh Doctor is forced to break Ace's faith in him.[4] [edit] Production Toby Whithouse originally pitched the episode for the previous series with the idea of a hotel with shifting rooms.[5] Showrunner Steven Moffat thought that there were too many instances in which the characters were running through corridors in that series, so Whithouse wrote "The Vampires of Venice" instead and "The God Complex" was pushed to the next series.[6] The idea to have a Minotaur be the monster came from Whithouse's love for Greek mythology.[5] David Walliams, who plays Gibbis in this episode, previously appeared in the Fifth Doctor audio drama Phantasmagoria where he played two separate characters.[7] [edit] Outside references The hotel and setting has been compared to Stanley Kubrick's film, The Shining, using similar composition such as long corridor shots.[8][9] [edit] Broadcast and reception "The God Complex" was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 17 September 2011[10] and on the same date in the United States on BBC America.[11] Overnight ratings showed that 5.2 million viewers watched the episode on BBC One, beaten by direct competition All-Star Family Fortunes on ITV1. This made Doctor Who third for the night behind The X Factor and Family Fortunes. The episode was ranked number 1 on BBC's iPlayer the day after it aired service and also was popular on social networking site Twitter, where the phrase "Amy and Rory" trended the night it aired.[12] [edit] Critical reception The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. Jack Pelling of Celluloid Heroes Radio praised look of the episode, describing it as "stylishly directed by Nick Hurran, whose use of Dutch camera angles and Hitchcock zooms gave the episode an impressive, cinematic quality."[13] Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph awarded the episode 3 and a half stars, stating that "the surreal tone to the episode, helped camouflage the fact that the plot made very little sense."[14] Dan Martin of the Guardian was surprised by the exits of Amy and Rory stating that "since the reboot they've been big, climactic, end-of-the-universe tragedies." Martin also praised Karen Gillan for her performance and stated that her exit was "the kind of ending that would have been nice for Sarah-Jane, really." Martin also praised Smith's Doctor stating that we start to see the darkside more, particularly directed at himself and stronger than Tennant's portrayal. The main part of the episode Martin felt that it was "like a runaround bolted on to make way for the ending." Continuing to add that as has already been shown in this series the formula is not a recipe for success. Martin sums up the episode though by describing it as funny and thoughtful.[1] [edit] References ^ a b Martin, Dan (2011-09-17). "Doctor Who: The God Complex – series 32, episode 11". The Guardian. Retrieved 2011-09-17. ^ Queenie Le Trout (2011-09-17). "Queenie's TV Highlights: The Queen's Palaces, Torchwood and Doctor Who". ATV Today. Retrieved 2011-09-17. ^ Anders, Charlie Jane (2011-09-17). "Doctor Who: The Hero Takes A Fall". io9. Retrieved 2011-09-17. ^ Brew, Simon (2011-09-17). "Doctor Who series 6 episode 11 review: The God Complex". Den of Geek. Retrieved 2011-09-17. ^ a b "An Interview With Toby Whithouse". BBC. 10 September 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2011. ^ Golder, Dave (25 July 2011). "Toby Whithouse on Doctor Who "The God Complex"". SFX. Retrieved 11 September 2011. ^ "Doctor Who - Phantasmagoria". Big Finish. Retrieved 2011-09-11. ^ Phillips, Keith (2011-09-17). "“The God Complex”". A.V. Club. Retrieved 2011-09-17. ^ Mulkern, Patrick (2011-09-18). "“Doctor Who: The God Complex”". Radio Times. Retrieved 2011-09-18. ^ Network TV BBC Week 38: Saturday 17 September 2011 (Press release). BBC. Retrieved 18 September 2011. ^ "Season 6: Episode 11 "The God Complex"". BBC America. Retrieved 18 September 2011. ^ Golder, Dave (18 September 2011). "Doctr Who "The God Complex" Overnight Ratings". SFX. Retrieved 18 September 2011. ^ Pelling, Jack. "TV Review: Doctor Who- The God Complex". The God Complex. Celluloid Heroes Radio. Retrieved 17 September 2011. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/8768248/Doctor-Who-The-God-Complex-BBC-One-review.html [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eleventh Doctor The God Complex on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki "The God Complex" at the Internet Movie Database "The God Complex" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
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TDP 203: The Blesssing Explained
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 1 minutes and 16 secondsHere is the explanation of the Blessing as seen in Torchwood Miracle Day
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TDP 202: Day Of The Daleks
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 9 minutes and 8 secondsTaken from wikipedia with thanks and respect ay of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 1 January to 22 January 1972. Contents [hide] 1 Synopsis 2 Plot 2.1 Continuity 3 Production 3.1 Cast notes 4 In print 5 VHS, Laserdisc and DVD release 6 References 7 External links 7.1 Reviews 7.2 Target novelisation [edit] Synopsis Rebels from a future Earth conquered by the Daleks travel to the 20th Century to prevent that from happening. But will their actions prevent that future, or make it inevitable? [edit] Plot This article's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (June 2011) Sir Reginald Styles, a British diplomat trying to organise a peace conference to avert World War III, is in his study at the government-owned Auderly House when a soldier dressed in grey camouflage and wielding a futuristic looking pistol bursts in and holds him at gunpoint. However, before the guerrilla can fire, he vanishes, leaving Styles to shakily tell his secretary he has been visited by a ghost. As the conference is of vital international importance, UNIT is called in. The Chinese have pulled out of the conference and Styles will be flying to Peking to try to persuade them to rejoin, and nothing must interfere with the conference's success. However, when the Third Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier go over to Auderly House, Styles denies ever seeing the "ghost", even though the Doctor notes the presence of muddy footprints in the study. The guerrilla reappears on the grounds in a vortex-like effect, but he is intercepted by two huge humanoid aliens, Ogrons, who attack him and leave him for dead. UNIT soldiers discover the severely injured guerrilla and take him to the hospital while the Doctor examines his weapon and a small black box that was found in a nearby tunnel system. Styles leaves for Peking, while the Doctor discovers that the pistol, which is an ultrasonic disintegrator, is made of Earth materials, not alien, and that the box is a crude time machine, complete with a miniature dematerialisation circuit. As he tries to activate it, the vortex effect appears again and the guerrilla vanishes from the ambulance. The temporal feedback circuit on the time machine also overloads — as the Doctor explains to the Brigadier, it has blown a fuse. Since everything seems to be centred on Auderly House, the Doctor decides to spend the evening there. The night passes without incident, but in the day, three guerrillas appear from the time vortex — Anat, a woman who is in command of the mission, along with two men, Boaz and Shura. They come across a UNIT patrol and disintegrate the two soldiers while making their way to the house. In the study, the Doctor tries to reactivate the time machine, causing an alert to be sounded in the 22nd Century. Shura enters the house, but the Doctor subdues him with some Venusian karate. Shura begs the Doctor to turn off the box, as in the future, a human Controller reports to the Daleks that the machine has been activated. The Daleks command that once the spacetime coordinates of the box are confirmed, whoever is using that device must be exterminated. In the present, Anat and Boaz enter with Jo as their prisoner and demand that the machine be deactivated. The Doctor complies, and the conversation makes it apparent that the guerrillas believe that he is Styles, whom they are apparently here to assassinate. The Doctor shows them a newspaper to convince them otherwise, and Anat demands to know who the Doctor is. When Captain Mike Yates and Sergeant Benton enter the house to search for the missing patrol, the guerrillas usher the Doctor and Jo into the cellar where they tie them up. Finding the Doctor and Jo gone, Yates contacts the Brigadier, who tells them to search the grounds again. In the future, the Daleks order the Controller to send troops to the frequency they detected earlier, and activate a time vortex magnetron, so that anyone travelling between the two time zones will be drawn to the Controller's headquarters. In the past, Anat sends Shura to contact the future for more orders, but Shura only manages to retrieve a bomb from near the tunnel before being attacked by Ogrons. He is wounded, but manages to stumble away. In the cellar, Jo asks the Doctor why, if the guerrillas wanted to kill Styles, they do not just travel back to the previous day to try again, and the Doctor says that this is due to the "Blinovitch Limitation Effect". Before he can explain further, they are ushered back up to the study — the Brigadier is calling on the house phone. The Doctor is forced to pretend over the telephone that everything is fine at Auderly House. The Brigadier tells the Doctor that Styles has convinced the Chinese to rejoin the conference and that the delegates will arrive the next day. The Brigadier asks for reassurance that everything is all right, and the Doctor tells him it is, but the Brigadier gets suspicious when the Doctor asks him to also "tell it to the Marines." The Brigadier decides to go to the house and see for himself. Jo frees herself from her bonds and threatens to destroy the box the first guerrilla used, but Anat and Boaz tell her that it only worked for that person. Suddenly, the time vortex effect activates and Jo vanishes into the future, appearing in the Controller's headquarters due to the vortex magnetron. There, the Controller ingratiates himself with Jo, who tells him everything, including the exact time and location where she came from. The Daleks use this information and send a Dalek supported by Ogrons to the present, where they attack the house. Anat and Boaz fire back, and flee towards the tunnels. The Brigadier arrives just in time to gun down an Ogron, and the Doctor commandeers his jeep in pursuit of the two guerrillas. In the tunnels he meets a Dalek, and runs away, finding Anat and Boaz just as they activate their time machines, and is swept up in the same vortex. In the 22nd Century version of the tunnels, the Doctor and the guerrillas are separated when Ogrons pursue them. The Doctor climbs out of the tunnels onto the surface, where he sees a Dalek order Ogrons to exterminate some rebels. When the Controller informs the Daleks that Jo mentioned a "Doctor", the Daleks react violently, declaring that the Doctor is an enemy of the Daleks and must be exterminated. The Doctor stumbles into what appears to be a factory, and sees humans being used as slave labour, guarded by other humans. He is captured by an Ogron, and is being interrogated when the factory manager comes in and persuades the interrogator to let him speak to the Doctor. When they are alone, the manager asks the Doctor which guerrilla group he comes from, but the Doctor says he is not part of any group. Before any further conversation can take place, the Controller arrives, and takes the Doctor to see Jo. The manager contacts the guerrillas, who have made it back to their base with their leader, a man named Monia. The manager tells them of the Doctor, but he is discovered by an Ogron and killed. Monia decides that they must rescue the Doctor, because he seems to be the only man the Daleks are afraid of. After an abortive escape attempt, the Doctor is strapped down to a Dalek mind analysis device, where images of the Second and First Doctors confirm to the Daleks that he is indeed their sworn enemy. The Controller bursts in, saying that using the mind analysis device will kill the Doctor. They should keep the Doctor alive for information on the rebels, and he will question the Doctor personally. The Daleks gloat to the Doctor that they have discovered time travel, invaded Earth again, and changed the course of history. The Doctor calls the Controller a traitor, and the Controller explains that at the end of the 20th Century, a hundred years of devastating worldwide wars began, killing 7/8ths of the population and forcing the rest to live in little more than holes in the ground. It was during this period that the Daleks invaded, conquering the world and using it for raw materials to fuel the expansion of their empire. Some humans cooperated — the Controller's family have been officials for three generations. The Doctor calls them a family of quislings. The rebel guerrillas attack the Controller's base and rescue the Doctor. Monia is about to shoot the Controller but the Doctor tells him not to — the Daleks would have used somebody else in any case. The rebels take the Doctor back to their hideout and tell him the rest of the story. Styles organised the peace conference, and when Auderly House was blown up, everyone was killed. The rebels believe that Styles engineered the whole thing, and caused the century of war that followed. That was why they used Dalek-derived time travel technology to travel to the past, to kill Styles before he could destroy the peace conference. They used the tunnels because that is the only common location shared by the two time zones. The Doctor is sceptical, believing Styles to be stubborn but basically a good man. When the Doctor finds out that the rebels brought a bomb made of dalekanium with them, a powerful and unstable explosive that will affect even Dalek casings, he realises that the rebels are caught in a predestination paradox. They will cause the very explosion they went back in time to prevent, and create their own history. Indeed, back in the 20th Century, Shura has found his way into Auderly House and plants the bomb in the cellar. The Doctor and Jo make their way back to the tunnels so they can travel back and stop Shura, only to run into an ambush the Controller has set up. The Doctor convinces the Controller that he has the means to stop the Daleks even before they have begun, and the Controller lets him go, only to be betrayed by the interrogator and exterminated by the Daleks. The Daleks send a strike force to the 20th Century to ensure their version of the future is preserved, and attack as the delegates arrive at the house. In the ensuing battle between the Daleks, Ogrons and UNIT, the Brigadier evacuates the delegates. The Doctor, back in the present, makes his way down to the cellar to try to convince Shura not to activate the bomb; Auderly House is empty, it will all have been for nothing. However, once Shura hears that the Daleks are entering the house, he tells the Doctor and Jo to leave — he will take care of the Daleks. The Brigadier tells his men to fall back to the main road as the Daleks search the house for delegates. Shura detonates the bomb, destroying the house and everything in it. The Doctor tells Styles that it is now up to him to make the conference a success. Styles assures the Doctor it will be, because they know what will happen if they fail. The Doctor, nodding at Jo, says that they know too. [edit] Continuity The Blinovitch Limitation Effect is never explicitly laid out, but the Doctor cites it as a means to explain why a time traveller cannot redo his own actions. Dalekanium is presented in this serial as an unstable explosive in the alternate future. In The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Dortmun also calls the material that Dalek casings are made of dalekanium. This is continued in "Evolution of the Daleks". To explain the return of the Daleks after their "final end" (as stated by the Second Doctor in The Evil of the Daleks), lines were scripted to reveal that the humanised Daleks had lost the civil war seen in Evil, placing this story after Evil in the Daleks' own chronology. However, this scene was ultimately not filmed. The Doctor, in an unusual instance, is seen to both hold and use a gun to eliminate an enemy, in this case an Ogron, near the end of episode 2. [edit] Production Serial details by episode EpisodeBroadcast dateRun timeViewership (in millions)Archive "Episode One" 1 January 1972 23:36 9.8 PAL 2" colour videotape "Episode Two" 8 January 1972 23:52 10.4 PAL 2" colour videotape "Episode Three" 15 January 1972 24:18 9.1 PAL 2" colour videotape "Episode Four" 22 January 1972 24:17 9.1 PAL 2" colour videotape [1][2][3] Working titles for this story included The Ghost Hunters and Years of Doom.[3] The production team only had three Dalek props available for use during the production of this serial, so only three Daleks appear on screen at any one time. One of the Daleks is painted gold so only two regular casings are seen in shot. Film editing is used to attempt the illusion of more than three Daleks. As originally written, the serial revolved around the Ogrons instead of the Daleks. It was planned to bring the Daleks back at the end of the season, in a serial called The Daleks in London by Robert Sloman. This plan was dropped when the production staff realised that the show would not have a hook to entice viewers (after the Third Doctor's introduction in Season 7 and that of the Master in Season 8), and Sloman's serial was allegedly shaping up to be too similar to The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Instead, writer Louis Marks was asked to alter his serial to include the Daleks. Early in the first episode, there is a scene where the Doctor and Jo are working on the TARDIS console in the Doctor's lab. A mistake by the Doctor causes another Doctor and Jo to briefly appear at the entrance to the lab. Originally the serial was to end with a scene where the Doctor and Jo went back to the lab, and saw their earlier selves working at the TARDIS console. However, the last episode was overrunning and director Paul Bernard decided to cut the scene, which he personally disliked. Script Editor Terrance Dicks tried to persuade Bernard to put it back in, but Bernard refused and producer Barry Letts agreed that it should be cut. Dicks would later restore the scene in his novelisation of the story. It should be noted that this story features the TARDIS console once more outside of the TARDIS itself, as in The Ambassadors of Death and Inferno. Osterley Park was originally proposed as the setting and location for Day of the Daleks. The name was changed to Auderly in the finished programme, and renamed Austerly in the novelisation. Terry Nation, who penned the first story The Daleks in 1963, was given an on-screen credit at the end of all four episodes of this story as having originated them. [edit] Cast notes Scott Fredericks later played Max Stael in Image of the Fendahl. [edit] In print The novelisation of this serial, by Dicks, was published by Target Books in April 1974. There have been Dutch, Turkish, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese language editions. A Brazilian edition, separate from the Portuguese version, was published with the title Doutor Who e a Mudança da História (Doctor Who and the Change in History). Doctor Who book Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks Series Target novelisations Release number 18 Writer Terrance Dicks Publisher Target Books Cover artist Chris Achilleos ISBN 0-426-10380-7 Release date April 1974 [edit] VHS, Laserdisc and DVD release The story was first released on VHS and Betamax in an omnibus format in 1986 (with the story mistitled as The Day of the Daleks on the VHS box art) and re-released in episodic format in 1994. The previous omnibus edition VHS remained as the release for the United States and Canada. This story was released on Laserdisc twice, first in an omnibus format in the US in 1992, and later in episodic format in the UK in 1996. A DVD release has been confirmed for 12 September 2011.[4] [edit] References ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (31 March 2007). "Day of the Daleks". Outpost Gallifrey. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008. Retrieved 31 August 2008. ^ "Day of the Daleks". Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved 31 August 2008. ^ a b Sullivan, Shannon (17 May 2005). "Day of the Daleks". A Brief History of Time Travel. Retrieved 20 December 2006. ^ http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2010/10/day-of-daleks-on-dvd-in-2011.html [edit] External links Day of the Daleks at BBC Online Day of the Daleks at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel) Day of the Daleks at the Doctor Who Reference Guide [edit] Reviews Day of the Daleks reviews at Outpost Gallifrey Day of the Daleks reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide [edit] Target novelisation Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide On Target — Doctor Who and the Day of the Daleks [hide]v · d · eDoctor Who season 9 serials Day of the Daleks • The Curse of Peladon • The Sea Devils • The Mutants • The Time Monster [show]v · d · eDoctor Who: Dalek television stories [show]v · d · eDoctor Who: UNIT television stories [show]v · d · eNovels and novelisations featuring Daleks
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TDP 201: The Girl Who Waited
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 8 minutes and 55 secondsNotes to follow Sorry the dvd reviews are behind. they have been recorded but I have no room on my lybsyn account.
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TDP 200: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep 9 and Ep 10 Review (Contains Spoilers for UK)
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 9 minutes and 36 secondsTDP 200: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep 9 and Ep 10 Review (Contains Spoilers for UK) Notes to follow
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TDP 199: Night Terrors and Torchwood Miracle Day Ep 8
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 18 minutes and 59 secondsReprinted from Wiki Pedia with all due respect "Night Terrors" is the ninth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC America on 3 September 2011. Contents [hide] 1 Synopsis 1.1 Continuity 2 Production 3 Broadcast 4 Critical reception 5 References 6 External links [edit] Synopsis The Doctor decides to make a "house call" after his psychic paper receives a message from George, a frightened 8-year-old child, asking his help in getting rid of the monsters in his bedroom. On arrival at a council estate on present-day Earth, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory split up to try to locate the child. The Doctor, taking the guise of a social services worker, finds the right flat, and meets George's father, Alex, while his mother Claire is working a night shift. Through Alex's photo album, the Doctor learns that George has been frightened all his life, fearing many of the sounds and people around the flat and is helped to cope by various habits, including metaphorically placing his fears within his wardrobe. Meanwhile, Amy and Rory, while taking the lift down, suddenly find themselves in what appears to be an eighteenth-century house, but shortly discover most of the furnishings are wooden props. Other residents of the estate appear in the house, but are caught by life-sized peg dolls that laugh and sing like children, and transform the residents into more dolls. Amy and Rory witness one transformation and try to flee, but Amy is caught and becomes a doll herself, joining the others in chasing Rory. The Doctor, suspecting that the wardrobe is containing the evil that George fears, opens it to find its contents are simply clothes and toys, including a doll house. The Doctor suddenly recalls from Alex's photo album that Claire did not appear pregnant in the weeks leading up to George's supposed birth, causing Alex to remember the fact that Claire was unable to have children. The Doctor asserts that George is a Tenza child, an empathic alien who took on the form of Alex and Claire's desired child through a perception filter, and has the ability to literally lock away his fears within the wardrobe. George begins to panic from this revelation and the Doctor and Alex are pulled into the wardrobe, joining Rory in the dollhouse. As the dolls descend on the three, the Doctor calls out to George to face his fears; George is able to open the wardrobe and appears in the dollhouse, but the dolls turn to advance on him. The Doctor realises that George is still frightened that Alex and Claire plan to send him away, having mistakenly interpreted a conversation they had earlier that night; Alex rushes through the dolls to embrace George as his son. They all soon find themselves back at the estate, restored to normal. Claire returns the next morning to find George no longer scared while Alex and the Doctor make him breakfast. After being thanked, the Doctor rejoins his companions to set off for their next adventure. [edit] Continuity The Doctor refers to "Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday", "The Three Little Sontarans" and "The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes" as being among his childhood nursery stories, referencing the 1974 stage play Seven Keys to Doomsday[1] and the Sontarans and the Emperor Dalek, two of the series' recurring monsters. He also repeats his predilection for tea and Jammie Dodgers from another Gatiss-written episode, "Victory of the Daleks". He expresses his irritation that his sonic screwdriver still does not have "a setting for wood," a criticism also made by Rory in "The Hungry Earth" and "The Curse of the Black Spot" and by Donna Noble in "Silence in the Library". Rory states "we're dead again" after dropping down the lift shaft, referring to his previous deaths in "Amy's Choice", "Cold Blood", "The Curse of the Black Spot" and "The Doctor's Wife", and Amy's in "The Pandorica Opens". The episode's final shot continues the story arc for the second half of the series, showing the Teselecta file on the Doctor's date of death from "Let's Kill Hitler". [edit] Production The life-size dolls in "Night Terrors" are based on the peg dolls of Germany and the Netherlands. Mark Gatiss told Radio Times that he had always been scared of dolls, and was surprised that Doctor Who had never used them before. He was especially interested in peg dolls, which he said were "the stuff of proper nightmares".[2] In order to achieve a greater variety of stories in the first half of series 6 "Night Terrors" was moved to the second block of episodes, having been filmed as episode four.[3] This necessitated minor changes to the episode, including the removal of a sequence featuring Madame Kovarian.[1] [edit] Broadcast The episode achieved an overnight figure of 5.5m viewers, with an audience share of 25.9%, and Doctor Who was the fourth most-watched programme for Saturday [edit] Critical reception Reception to the episode has been largely positive[4]. Assignment X gave a positive review "There’s plenty of tension to be had in awaiting the arrival of the episode’s central creatures – the creepiest dolls you will ever see. In fact, the horrific, bone-crunching transformation of human beings into dolls may trump the gas mask zombies as one of the most unsettling body horror moments in modern DOCTOR WHO. Amy’s scene is probably the most affecting, although it’s slightly undercut by the knowledge that she’s going to be all right."[5] Crave Online gave a positive review saying "This episode was reminiscent of "Fear Her," from the second season of the revived "Doctor Who." But "Night Terrors" fared a little bit better because it didn't rely on Jamie Oram's George to be anything more than a scared little boy. Matt Smith carried the day with another impressive outing as the Doctor. I think the key to Smith's tenure as the Doctor has been the sheer manic energy he throws into his performances. Some online commentators are already suggesting that the writer, Mark Gatiss might be the next showrunner after Steven Moffat."[6] Dan Martin of the Guardian also commented on the suggestions of Gatiss as a future showrunner, commenting that the episode was an improvement on Gatiss' previous two episodes ("The Idiot's Lantern" and "Victory of the Daleks"). He complimented it overall as "a classy, creepy episode of retro Doctor Who" in comparison to "Let's Kill Hitler", though he saw its plot as over-similar to "The Empty Child" and other episodes written by Steven Moffat[7]. [edit] References ^ ab"Night Terrors - The Fourth Dimension". BBC. Retrieved 3 September 2011. ^Jones, Paul (19 August 2011). "Doctor Who: Mark Gatiss on new episode Night Terrors". Radio Times. Retrieved 29 August 2011. ^"Episodes shuffle for the 2011 series...". Doctor Who Magazine (430): 7. 9 Feb 2011 (cover date). ^http://www.buzzfocus.com/2011/09/04/doctor-who-season-6-episode-9-review-night-terrors/ ^http://www.assignmentx.com/2011/tv-review-doctor-who-series-6-night-terrors-review-1/ ^http://www.craveonline.com/tv/reviews/173724-doctor-who-609-night-terrors ^http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/sep/03/doctor-who-night-terrors End of the Road (Torchwood) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 39 – "End of the Road" Torchwood episode Cast Starring John Barrowman – Captain Jack Harkness Eve Myles – Gwen Cooper Mekhi Phifer – Rex Matheson Alexa Havins – Esther Drummond Kai Owen – Rhys Williams Bill Pullman - Oswald Danes Others Lauren Ambrose - Jilly Kitzinger[1] Candace Brown - Sarah Drummond Sharon Morgan - Mary Cooper Marina Benedict - Charlotte Willis John de Lancie - Allen Shapiro Wayne Knight - Brian Friedkin Paul James - Noah Teddy Sears - Blue-Eyed Man Nana Visitor - Olivia Colasanto Megan Duffy - Claire Constance Wu - Shawnie David Desantos - Agent Baylor Nayo K Wallace - Wilson Production Writer Ryan Scott Jane Espenson Director Gwyneth Horder-Payton Producer Kelly A. Manners Brian Minchin (UK unit) Executive producer(s) Russell T Davies Julie Gardner Jane Tranter John Shiban (co-executive) Vlad Wolynetz (co-executive) Production code 108 Series Miracle Day Length 55 minutes Originally broadcast 26 August 2011 (US) 1 September 2011 (UK) Chronology ← Preceded by Followed by → "Immortal Sins" "The Gathering" "End of the Road" is the eighth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Torchwood, and was first broadcast in the United States on Starz on 26 August 2011. Contents [hide] 1 Plot summary 2 Reception 3 References 4 External Links [edit] Plot summary The Torchwood team arrives at the Colasanto estate led by Olivia Colasanto, Angelo's granddaughter. At the estate, Jack finds Angelo, now an old man and in a coma, having lived that long trying to find out about the secrets of immortality. Olivia reveals that the ones responsible for the Miracle are called "The Families", the three mob bosses who bought Jack when he was captured in 1928 and were able to create the miracle, in some manner related to his blood. Jack explains that his immortality doesn't work like that, but the Miracle is real, and a lot of his blood was taken while he was imprisoned. Angelo initially tried to join the alliance with The Families due to their common goal, but Angelo was rejected because they frowned on his homosexuality. While Olivia explains this, a CIA team led by Brian Friedkin captures everyone in the mansion. Friedkin is trying to cover up The Families and his treason. Rex explains that he set Friedkin up, so that he could expose him to the CIA at large. Using the I-5 contact lenses, he transmits Friedkin gloating straight onto a monitor in front of their superior, Allen Shapiro. With their names cleared, Jack and Gwen decide to work with the CIA in order to find the whereabouts of The Families, and stop the Miracle. But one of their only leads is destroyed when Friedkin kills himself with a bomb along with Olivia. Jack then takes some time to say goodbye to his former lover, as alarms go off around him announcing that Angelo's just died. In annoyance he turns off the machines, until he realizes that unlike everyone else on the planet, the rules for the miracle do not apply to Angelo either; as he dies in front of Jack. In Dallas, Texas, Oswald asks Jilly to get him a prostitute on a whim, claiming he wants something normal in this new world. Jilly gets a new intern, unaware that she is a CIA agent. When the prostitute arrives at Oswald's room, she is surprised to learn that Oswald just wants to have dinner with her. She rejects his offer and tells him that as a celebrity, he is worshiped, but as a man, he's still hated for what he did and soon will become a "Category 0". Demanding answers, Jilly reveals that there is a new law that is being worked on that will classify criminals like Oswald as Category 0s and send them to the modules. Angered that PhiCorp used him for their plans and intended to abandon him once they were done with him, Oswald batters Jilly and runs away. Later, Jilly is met by a representative of The Families, who shoots the CIA mole. The mole's identity was revealed by another Family agent (and presumably member) within the CIA, Charlotte Wills, who happens to be a former teammate of Esther and Rex. After a one-question job interview, he takes Jilly to meet The Families. Esther gets in contact with her sister, who's currently in a secure mental facility, and finds out to her horror that her sister wants to volunteer herself and her children to become "Category 1". In desperation, Esther ignores Jack's pleading not to reveal a critical detail she noticed about Angelo's room (the floor). After removing the floor panelling, a mysterious device is discovered. After Shapiro orders Gwen to be deported, Jack explains it's a null field transmitter, which interferes with the morphic field he previously postulated was behind the Miracle. Although he claims to be broadly unfamiliar with the technology, he is forced to help disable it so it can be taken to Langley. Jack modifies the Null Field to target sound, so he can converse with Rex and Esther without being overheard. Jack explains the reason for his reticence: he is trying to protect humanity from technology they should not have access to, due to the damage to the timeline. He also explains that the tech is alien, and that it came from the Torchwood Hub. It was buried in the ruins as shown in the third series, but Angelo had people salvage the transmitter, preparing for the miracle. It's suggested that Jack is mortal because Angelo used the device to target him as well through his blood. Jack begs Rex and Esther to help him escape, to help save the shining future he's seen. He takes a critical piece of the technology so nobody can replicate it. On the way out, an agent shoots Jack and sees Esther helping. Rex knocks the agent unconscious, and Esther drives a wounded Jack away. The episode closes with Esther begging Jack to reply, as she drives not knowing where to go, while at the same time Gwen is on the plane leaving the US for the UK. [edit] Reception The HD Room gave a positive review "Cryptkeeper Angelo did more for the plot progression of the arc in Torchwood: Miracle Day 'End of the Road' than every line that has come out of Rex's mouth up to this point. Jilly's flip out was a long time coming and didn't disappoint and again, the writing is subtle and effective, like watching Ali fight. All in all, 'End of the Road' is another great episode that allowed all the players, even Mekhi Pfifer as Rex, to showcase their skills as actors/actresses. Tons of questions are answered, and tons more presented. The giant ball that is Torchwood: Miracle Day's story arc is now rolling at full speed."[2] Den of Geek gave a positive review "The beauty of Miracle Day is that there are so many things going on that, if one element isn’t working for you, there’s something else not far away." "The three families, though, is just one of the balls that this episode was attempting to juggle, with sizeable success I should add. Esther, played impressively as always by Alexa Havins, is facing the tragedies and difficulties within her own family. If we follow the usual path of Torchwood, that suggests she’s got a horrific decision at some point to face, and just two episodes in which to make it. Rex, meanwhile, hints at what’s troubling him, in that his days might be numbered the minute the miracle is reversed. Which, presumably, it will be. Will he, and many others, just instantly die? That might make for a haunting final episode? We also get Jilly Kitzinger coming out of the shadows of Oswald Danes, and more importantly, being recruited by the three families. What, exactly, do they want her to do? Whatever it is, lots more Lauren Ambrose in the final two episodes would be very, very welcome. I still think the more focussed work in Immortal Sins has provide the highlight of the series to date. But I also liked that End Of The Road was so keen to tell so much story. Credit to Star Trek veteran John De Lancie, who eats up every minute of screen time he’s allowed. His contribution is a welcome one. And given that few showrunners can put together a momentous penultimate episode to a series as Russell T Davies, I, for one, can’t wait for next week…"[3] In the UK the episode was watched by 3.5 million viewers, a 15% audience share.[4] Dan Martin states that after weeks on end of the same episode, Miracle Day seems to finally becoming into it's own with a tidal wave of answers. Most of the answers are however nonsense but viewers positively embrace it. The series still has two hours left but it finally feels like it's moving on, with Martin hoping that we the audience may see some aliens before long. While the return of Jilly and Oswald sets things up nicely for the conclusion of their story arc.[5] [edit] References ^ "Torchwood: Miracle Day - Episode 8". BBC. Retrieved 26 August 2011. ^ http://www.thehdroom.com/news/Torchwood-Miracle-Day-Episode-8-End-of-the-Road-Review/9450 ^ http://www.denofgeek.com/television/1036246/torchwood_miracle_day_episode_8_review_end_of_the_road.html ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/02/itv-911-doc-bbc1-torchwood?INTCMP=SRCH ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/aug/27/torchwood-television
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TDP 198: Whooverville 3 (2011)
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes and 27 secondsSaturday 3rd September - Whooverville 3 An unofficial convention for Doctor Who fans, presented by The Whoovers. That's right - Get ready for an invasion of Daleks, Cybermen, et al as Derbyshires very own Doctor Who convention returns in September 2011 for the 3rd installment and this time: it's right in the centre of Derby...at The Quad in Derby Market Place!Guests confirmed so far (in alphabetical order)... Barbara Shelley (Courtesy of our friends at Tenth Planet Events) - Sorasta ('Planet of Fire' - 1984) Frazer Hines - Jamie McCrimmon ('66-'85) Ian McNeice* (Courtesy of our friends at Tenth Planet Events) - Winston Churchill ('Victory of the Daleks' & 'The Pandorica Opens' - 2010) John R Walker - Too many Doctor Who appearances to list!!! Maurice Roeves - Stotz ('The Caves of Androzani' - 1984) Nicola Bryant - Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown ('84-'86) Sarah Sutton - Nyssa ('81-'83) Stephen Calcutt (Courtesy of our friends at Tenth Planet Events) - Several Doctor Who appearances Tristan Peatfield - Production Designer Amy's Choice (2010) * Please note - Barbara, Ian and Stephen are sponsored guests courtesy of Tenth Planet Events. Although they will be charging for autographs, it will still be free to meet them. Our thanks go to Derek at Tenth Planet Events for so generously providing us with this bonus for attendees at Whooverville, and for all the other help that he continues to give us. The Podcasters will be there again too, as will our friend Derek and his Tenth Planet team, who will again be bringing some extra sponsored guests, including 'Planet of Fire' guest star & Hammer Horror 'legend' Barbara Shelly. Tickets cost £35 (adults), £15 (aged 5-15), £85 (family ticket, 2 adults, 2 children) and can be bought now from the QUAD either in person or online from The Quad website or by phone from the box office on 01332 290606
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TDP 197: Lets Kill Hitler and Torchwood Ep 7
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 14 minutes and 13 secondsreprinted from wikipedia with thanks and respect "Let's Kill Hitler" is the eighth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One, Space and BBC America on 27 August 2011. It is the second episode of a two-part story,[1] continuing stories from "A Good Man Goes to War".[2] It features alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and her husband Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), plus their daughter and the Doctor's sometimes-assistant River Song (Alex Kingston). Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Prequel 1.2 Synopsis 1.3 Continuity 2 Production 3 Broadcast and reception 3.1 Critical reception 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot [edit] Prequel On 15 August 2011, the BBC released a short "prequel" to "Let's Kill Hitler", written by Steven Moffat.[3] This procedure had previously been done earlier in the series to give a short introduction to "The Impossible Astronaut", "The Curse of the Black Spot" and "A Good Man Goes to War".[4] In the prequel, Amy calls the Doctor and leaves a message for the Doctor on the TARDIS' answer phone, begging him to find her child, Melody. Though Amy knows Melody will grow up to be River Song, she does not want to miss seeing her grow up. As she ends her message, it is revealed that a very upset Doctor was listening but did not pick up the phone, even though Amy had pleaded for him to.[5][6][7] [edit] Synopsis In modern-day Leadworth, Amy and Rory create a crop circle to gain the Doctor's attention. He arrives with his TARDIS, but they are soon joined by Mels, Amy and Rory's childhood friend who knows of Amy's "raggedy Doctor" and was responsible for Amy and Rory's relationship; Amy had subsequently named her daughter Melody after Mels. On the run from the police, Mels brandishes a gun and coerces them to escape in the TARDIS and "kill Hitler". Inside, she fires the gun, hitting the central console which fills the time machine with a poisonous gas and sends it out of control. Back in 1938 Berlin, "Justice Vehicle 6019", a Teselecta[8] robot manned by a human crew from the future miniaturised inside it and able to take on the appearance of other humans, is seeking to deliver justice on war criminals like Adolf Hitler. They do this by using the Teselecta's weapons to torture the criminal, near the end of their timeline. Having taken on the appearance of a Wehrmacht officer to meet with Hitler, they are surprised when the TARDIS crashes into Hitler's office. Hitler, already panicked, fires on the Teselecta, but his aim is poor and strikes Mels. As Rory locks Hitler in a cupboard, the TARDIS crew finds Mels regenerating, becoming the woman they know as River Song—Melody as a grown woman. River, having been trained by her captors to kill the Doctor, makes several attempts but the Doctor has taken precautions to nullify these. Instead, River kisses him and before disappearing into the streets of Berlin, reveals that her lipstick is a poison that will kill the Doctor within the hour and prevent his regeneration. The Doctor orders Amy and Rory to follow River, passing her his sonic screwdriver, while he returns to the TARDIS to try to discover a cure. The Teselecta, aware that the Doctor's death on 22 April 2011 is a "fixed point in time" ("The Impossible Astronaut"), instead follow Amy and Rory in chasing down River, having identified her as their most wanted war criminal, responsible for the Doctor's death. Amy and Rory chase River to a café at the Hotel Adlon, but the Teselecta arrives, bringing them aboard as allies, and takes on Amy's appearance, allowing the robot to get close to River to attack her. Before they can complete the attack, the TARDIS materialises; the Doctor, spurred on by the TARDIS' "voice interface" hologram of Amy's younger self, Amelia, has found time to dress for the period and stops the attack, now aware of the Teselecta's nature. The captain speaks to the Doctor, informing him that River has been trained to kill him by the Silence, a religious order that believes that "when the oldest question hidden in plain sight" is asked, silence will fall across the universe. When the crew refuse backing down from attacking River, Amy uses the sonic screwdriver to turn the robot's "antibodies"—its security robots—against the crew. The crew power down the robot and are teleported away by a mothership, leaving Amy and Rory to face the antibodies. The Doctor finds himself too weak from the poison's effects to pilot the TARDIS to rescue his companions; River is inspired by the Doctor's sympathy, and finds herself guided by the TARDIS itself to pilot the ship, and rescues Amy and Rory in time. On returning to the café, the Doctor whispers something in River's ear before he passes away. River asks Amy who River Song is; Amy uses the Teselecta to show River her form stored in the robot's database of who she is to become. With this, River sacrifices her remaining regenerations to bring the Doctor back to life, and passes out. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory take her to a hospital in the far future, leaving the TARDIS-shaped diary as a gift by her bedside, and depart. Later, River is shown becoming an archaeologist so she can find the Doctor herself. Aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor has discovered the date of his death from the records aboard the Teselecta, but does not reveal this knowledge to Amy or Rory. [edit] Continuity This episodes alludes to several previous elements of the River Song character, several which include ontological paradoxes. River reveals herself as the young girl seen regenerating at the end of "Day of the Moon" before she became Mels, short for Melody; Mels' name would used in turn by Amy to name her daughter. River's ability to regenerate is a result of being a "child of the TARDIS", from the infusion of Time Lord DNA into Melody during her conception aboard the TARDIS on Amy and Rory's wedding night as described in "A Good Man Goes to War".[9] Later, when regenerating into the form of River Song, she learns of this name from the Doctor and Amy. River's TARDIS-coloured diary, which the Doctor and his companions have seen in River's relative future, is given to her anew by the Doctor. The Doctor further introduces River to the concept of "spoilers" of her future timeline, a phrase River has used in previous adventures. River's aptitude with flying the TARDIS, taught to her by the machine itself, is alluded to from "The Time of Angels" where River explains she "had lessons from the very best" (which the Doctor has assumed referred to himself).[10] During the moments after her initial regeneration into the River Song form, River reenacts the iconic scene between Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft) and Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) from the movie The Graduate, calling out to the Doctor "Hello, Benjamin".[11] The Doctor likens River to Mrs Robinson in "The Impossible Astronaut".[12] The Teselecta crew consider River a wanted dangerous criminal; River has been shown to be imprisoned in her personal future in "The Time of Angels" for killing "the best man she ever knew".[13] In the episode's epilogue, River is shown asking Professor Candy of Luna University to become an archaeologist as to find the Doctor; previous episodes that take place later in River's personal timeline show that she has acquired these degrees. Both the professor and the university appeared previously in Steven Moffat's 1997 Doctor Who short story Continuity Errors, which showed Candy as having himself conducted research concerning the Doctor. The concept of "fixed points in time" has been explored before, including the episodes "The Fires of Pompeii" and "The Waters of Mars". The supposed "state of temporal grace" within the TARDIS was previously alluded to by the Fourth Doctor during The Hand of Fear. Like River giving up her remaining regenerations for the Doctor, the Doctor has been shown prepared to do this to save his companions during the Fifth Doctor serial, Mawdryn Undead. While bringing up the voice interface aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor is shown holograms of his former companions Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) and Donna Noble (Catherine Tate).[14] He rejects these, as they all cause him guilt, eventually settling on the young Amelia. She also appears in flashback scenes from Amy's past interacting with a younger Mels and Rory, revisiting the various toys and props Amelia created of her "raggedy Doctor" shown throughout series 5. The Amelia hologram refers back to "fish fingers and custard", a phrase used between Amelia and the Doctor during "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Impossible Astronaut". The Silence are revealed not to be a species as shown in "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon", but a religious order who believe silence will fall when "the oldest question in the universe" is asked.[15] They are also revealed to be responsible for training Melody to assassinate the Doctor. The Eleventh Doctor wears his secondary jacket, a long dark-green military overcoat, for the first time in this episode.[11] [edit] Production The read-through for "Let's Kill Hitler" took place on 21 March 2011.[12] The opening scene in the cornfield were the last shots filmed of the series on 11 July 2011.[12][16] The Temple of Peace in Cardiff used in the episode for the German dinner party, was also used for Karen Gillan's first Doctor Who appearance, when she played a Soothsayer in "The Fires of Pompeii".[17] Exterior shots of the Hotel Adlon were filmed outside Southampton Guildhall. One scene involving the Teselecta (disguised as a German soldier) chasing Amy and Rory on motorcycles through Berlin was cut from filming due to budget issues. AT&T, who wanted to advertise in the United States broadcast of the episode on BBC America as a tie-in to their "Rethink possible" slogan, brought the idea of using a motion comic to create a bridging scene within the advertising break where this scene would have been placed. AT&T and BBC America worked with Moffat and Senior to create the 60 second scene, which was animated by Double Barrel Motion Labs. The scene will be included in all international home video releases of the episode, though lacking the AT&T branding used on the initial broadcast.[18] [edit] Broadcast and reception "Let's Kill Hitler" was first broadcast on 27 August 2011 on BBC One in the United Kingdom.[19] Internationally, it was broadcast in America on sister station BBC America on 27 August[20] as well as on Space in Canada.[21] Overnight ratings showed that the episode was watched by 6.2 million viewers on BBC One, the second most viewed show of the day behind The X-Factor and the second most-viewed Doctor Who episode in Series 6 behind "The Impossible Astronaut". The episode also came in a number one on the BBC iPlayer service the day after it aired.[22] The episode also received an Appreciation Index of 85.[23] [edit] Critical reception The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. Dan Martin, writing for The Guardian, was more pleased with "Let's Kill Hitler" as an opener than "A Good Man Goes to War" as a finale, and said it was "an energetic, timey-wimey tour de force with with gags and flourishes like the car and the crop circles that still maintained a strong sense of what it was about". He also commended Alex Kingston's performance, saying that "she got to steal her every scene even more completely than usual, masterfully swerving the episode into a properly emotional final act".[14] Michael Hogan of The Daily Telegraph gave the episode four out of five stars, praising it for being "jam-packed full of ideas, twists, turns and wibbly-wobbly time-bending stuff" and "giddily thrilling entertainment, albeit rather exhausting". He also praised the way it allowed Rory to "finally find his niche".[11] Writing for The Independent, Neela Debnath praised the lighter mood and "great slapstick moments". Though she thought the identity of Mels was "obvious to everyone but the characters", she said that Toussaint-White was "excellent" and that "it was shame that she regenerated so early on because she brought a different energy to the character".[15] Radio Times reviewer Patrick Mulkern, unlike Debnath, admitted that Mels' true identity "took [him] completely by surprise". He thought that a plot hole was generated in terms of what Melody did in between regenerating in 1969 and joining Amy and Rory, still as a child, 20 years later, but said that "the episode moves too fast for such quibbles to stick, and it is hilarious".[24] Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly called it "a marvelously energetic, funny, clever, noble mid-season start" and praised the acting of Smith, Gillan, Darvill, and particularly Kingston, as well as the emotion that developed in the episode.[25] IGN's Matt Risley gave the episode a score of 9 out of 10, saying that it was "arguably Moffat's most unashamedly fun Time Lord romp yet". While he praised the humour, plot, and character development, he was critical of the Teselecta; though they "score[ed] high on the sci-fi kitsch factor" they were "anything but memorable".[26] SFX magazine critic Richard Edwards gave "Let's Kill Hitler" five out of five stars, thinking it "has to rank among the cleverest Who episodes Moffat has ever written". While he praised Kingston's performance, he wrote that "it's Matt Smith who steals the show, in one of his finest performances as the Doctor...he's utterly magnificent, whether acting the joker, or living out 32 minutes (ish) of death scene. The mix of optimism...and sadness is a tricky thing to pull off, yet Smith does it in a quintessentially Doctor way".[27] Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club graded the episode as a B+, saying that he was "a bit divided". He praised Moffat's River Song arc, which made "the mind [reel]...in a good way", as well as the dialogue and "big concepts". On the other hand, he did not think the Teselecta's mission was developed and "as characters they seem kind of bland". What "really [troubled]" him was that it did not have the "impact" of some previous episodes and he thought it unlikely that Amy and Rory were willing to quickly accept that they were meant to raise their daughter as a school friend.[13] Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph said the Moffat "delivered a pacy romp" and praised the concept of the Teselecta, but was disappointed with the "wasted opportunity" of the setting. He thought that the setting offered "great dramatic potential" but was "little more than window dressing for the story". He thought that using Hitler as a comic relief "struck a wrong note given the nature of the man and the regime he led" and that it was "an odd way to treat such an historically significant character". He was also critical of Moffat's "seeming keenness to kill the regular cast in some way, shape or form".[28] Entertainment Weekly's Tucker thought that it "didn't need Hitler to be an excellent [Doctor Who] episode".[25] Assignment X gave a negative review of the episode: "Matt Smith is wonderful as always and I love his new coat. And there ends the positive part of this review."[29] Jim Shelley of The Daily Mirror also was negative about the episode, especially towards Alex Kingston, who appeared to be acting while "the rest of the cast play their parts perfectly naturally".[30] [edit] References ^ "News Flash!: Matt's Back!". Doctor Who Magazine (428): 5. 15 Dec 2010 (cover date). ^ BBC (16 August 2011). "Steven Moffat talks about the new series of Doctor Who". Press release. Retrieved 17 August 2011. ^ "Avaliable Monday: The Prequel to Let's Kill Hitler". BBC. 12 August 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2011. ^ "The Prequels". BBC. 27 June 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2011. ^ Marshall, Rick (15 August 2011). "Let's Kill Hitler prequel teases Doctor Who midseason premiere". Yahoo! News. Retrieved 27 August 2011. ^ Edwards, Richard (15 August 2011). "Let's Kill Hitler Prequel Online". SFX. Retrieved 27 August 2011. ^ "Prequel to Let's Kill Hitler". BBC. Retrieved 27 August 2011. ^ "Let's Kill Hitler". BBC. 17 August 2011. Retrieved 17 August 2011. ^ "A Good Man Goes to War". Steven Moffat (writer), Peter Hoar (director). Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One. 4 June 2011. No. 7, series 6. ^ "The Time of Angels". Steven Moffat (writer), Adam Smith (director). Doctor Who. BBC. BBC One. 24 April 2010. No. 4, series 5. ^ a b c Hogan, Michael (27 August 2011). "Doctor Who, Let's Kill Hitler, BBC One, review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ a b c "Let's Kill Hitler - The Fourth Dimension". BBC. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ a b Phipps, Keith (27 August 2011). "Let's Kill Hitler". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ a b Martin, Dan (27 August 2011). "Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler - series 32, episode 8". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ a b Debnath, Neela (27 August 2011). "Review of Doctor Who 'Let's Kill Hitler'". The Independent. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ "On Location with the Cast and Crew". BBC. 27 August 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ "River Runs Wild". Doctor Who Confidential. BBC. BBC Three. 27 August 2011. No. 8, series 6. ^ Hampp, Andrew (2011-08-26). "AT&T to Help Tell the Story of 'Doctor Who'". Ad Age. Retrieved 2011-08-29. ^ BBC. "Network TV BBC Week 35: Saturday 27 August 2011". Press release. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ "Season 6: Episode 8 Let's Kill Hitler". BBC America. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ "Doctor Who Midseason Premiere Announced!". Space. 29 July 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ Golder, Dave (28 August 2011). "Doctor Who "Let's Kill Hitler" Overnight Ratings". SFX. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ "Let's Kill Hitler: Appreciation Index". Doctor Who News Page. 29 August 2011. Retrieved 30 August 2011. ^ Mulkern, Patrick (27 August 2011). "Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler". Radio Times. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ a b Tucker, Ken (28 August 2011). "'Doctor Who' mid-season premiere review: 'Let's Kill Hitler' was a great lark through time and space". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ Risley, Matt (27 August 2011). "Doctor Who: "Let's Kill Hitler" Review". IGN. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ Edwards, Richard (27 August 2011). "Doctor Who 6.08 "Let's Kill Hitler" Review". SFX. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ Fuller, Gavin (27 August 2011). "Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler - a wasted opportunity?". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 August 2011. ^ http://www.assignmentx.com/2011/tv-review-doctor-who-series-6-lets-kill-hitler/ ^ Shelley, Jim (29 August 2011). "Doctor Who's plots are getting lost in space...". The Daily Mirror. Retrieved 30 August 2011. [edit] External links Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Eleventh Doctor "Let's Kill Hitler" at the Internet Movie Database "Let's Kill Hitler" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
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TDP 196: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep6
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 8 minutes and 33 secondsreprinted from wikipedia with repect and thanks "The Middle Men" is the sixth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Torchwood, and was broadcast in the United States on Starz on 12 August 2011. Contents [hide] 1 Plot summary 2 Reception 3 References 4 External links [edit] Plot summary In the pre-credits sequence, PhiCorp CEO Stuart Owens (Ernie Hudson) attempts to investigate PhiCorp constructions sites in Shanghai but his hired investigator(Eric Steinberg) jumps off a high-storey building to end consciousness rather than tell him the horror of what is really going on. Jack later confronts Owens and learns from him that the PhiCorp is as much a pawn as any other player in the system, and that whoever orchestrated the miracle has been working towards it for a very long time. He also learns of another term relating to the miracle which Owens' team of investigators have uncovered: "the blessing", dating back to the 1990s. In San Pedro, Rex finishes his video message contained along with the footage of Dr. Juarez's incineration, and Esther begins to suspect something has happened to Dr. Juarez. Rex attempts to pass himself off as a soldier working at the San Pedro Overflow Camp but is unsuccessful and captured. Juarez's killer, camp director Colin Maloney (Marc Vann), briefly considers using Rex's video to expose the death of Dr. Juarez and become a hero, but then attempts to kill Rex. Esther finds them and is forced to strangle Maloney. With assistance from soldier Ralph Coltrane (Fred Koehler), who had been complicit in Juarez' murder, they are able to escape the compound with the footage. They release it, causing a public outcry, but do not affect the government's stance on Overflow Camps and the life and death category system. In Wales, Gwen manages to break her father out of the Overflow Camp as Rhys runs over the gates with Geraint in the back of his truck. With the Torchwood contact lenses, Gwen publicly broadcasts a message explaining the purpose of the Overflow Camps shortly before blowing up the Modules (where people are incinerated) at the Cardiff facility. However, touching down again in Los Angeles she is unable to make contact with Rhys. A mysterious phonecall at the LAX white privacy phone tells her to put on her lenses, where she receives a message directly to her line of sight from the conspirators behind Miracle Day: they have her mother, husband and child, and to set them free she must deliver Jack. [edit] Reception Assignment X described the episode as "lackluster", stating, "This story seems to excel in examining all the permutations of its premise in society – such as the intriguing “45 Club” early in this episode – but the further it goes in following the actual plotline with the Torchwood team and their investigation, the more frustrating it gets as a viewing experience".[1] [edit] References ^ http://www.assignmentx.com/2011/tv-review-torchwood-miracle-day-the-middle-men-review-1/ [edit] External links The Middle Men on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
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TDP 195: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep 5 - The Categories of Life
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 11 minutes and 11 secondsThe Categories of Life reprinted From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia with respect and thanks "The Categories of Life" Torchwood episode Cast Starring John Barrowman – Captain Jack Harkness Eve Myles – Gwen Cooper Mekhi Phifer – Rex Matheson Alexa Havins – Esther Drummond Kai Owen – Rhys Williams Bill Pullman – Oswald Danes Others Lauren Ambrose – Jilly Kitzinger Arlene Tur – Vera Juarez William Thomas – Geraint Cooper Sharon Morgan – Mary Cooper Tom Price – PC Andy Frederick Koehler – Ralph Coltrane Teddy Sears – Blue Eyed Man Marc Vann – Colin Maloney Daniel Adegboyega – Guard Brad Bell – Nurse Chris Charles Carpenter – News Reporter Jim Conway – Man Jonathan Dane – Handsome Man Teresa Garza – Spanish Newscaster Brendan Hughes – Pidgeon Joelle Elizabeth Jacoby – Excited Teenager Liz Jenkins – Rachel Ria Jones – Pushy Woman Masami Kosaka – Japanese Newscaster Eve Mauro – Maria Candido Francine Morgan – Stressed Woman Stuart Nurse – Thomason Tracy Pfau – Pale Woman Caroline Whitney Smith – Paramedic Vito Viscuso – Angry Man Randa Walker – Candice Production Writer Jane Espenson Director Guy Ferland Producer Kelly A. Manners Brian Minchin (UK unit) Executive producer(s) Russell T Davies Julie Gardner Jane Tranter Jane Espenson (co-executive) Vlad Wolynetz (co-executive) Production code 105 Series Miracle Day Length 55 minutes Originally broadcast 5 August 2011 Chronology ← Preceded by Followed by → "Escape to L.A." "The Middle Men" "The Categories of Life" is the fifth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Torchwood, and was first broadcast in the United States on Starz on 5 August 2011 and in the UK on 11 August. Contents [hide] 1 Plot summary 2 Reception 3 References 4 External links [edit] Plot summary The government panels are cancelled after PhiCorp and the world's governments implement a categorization system regarding life. Those who should have died and are brain-dead are assigned Category 1 status, and those who have persistent injuries/diseases are to be given Category 2 while Category 3 status are normal people who have no or minor injuries. Category 1s and 2s are sent to Overflow Camps which resemble concentration camps where there are hidden modules not appearing on satellite footage, and Torchwood suspects that these modules have a dark purpose. Appalled by growing governmental control over life and death, Vera travels to California to assist Torchwood. As he survived a fatal injury, Rex investigates a camp in California as a Category 2 patient while Esther sneaks in and administratively assigns Rex a Category 1 status and smuggles him a camera to film evidence. Using her medical panel credentials, Vera attempts to inspect the treatment of Category 1 patients and discovers that many conscious people are being assigned Category 1 status, essentially being declared non-living by the government. Vera threatens to prosecute Colin Maloney, the man overseeing the overflow camp after she sees the inhumane conditions which conscious Category 1 patients are enduring. He panics and shoots her. To cover up his actions, he and soldier Ralph Coltrane transport her to one of the modules and place her inside. Elsewhere, Jack tries to convince Oswald to use his fame to expose PhiCorp's advanced knowledge of the Miracle, but Oswald goes ahead with his pro-PhiCorp televised speech to a packed stadium. Meanwhile, Gwen returns to Wales to rescue her father from an Overflow Camp. During the escape attempt, her father suffers another heart attack and the doctors later give him Category 1 status, which Gwen struggles to challenge. When her husband Rhys reveals to her that the camp's personnel are taking Category 1 patients to the "burn unit", Gwen deduces that the modules are in fact incinerators used to burn the Category 1 patients. This is grimly confirmed when, back in the California Overflow Camp, Maloney activates the incinerator on the module containing Vera. Rex comes across Vera but cannot free her, and is forced to watch her being burned alive, reluctantly video recording her agony. [edit] Reception Writing for the Guardian, Dan Martin describes this episode as the episode in which "Miracle Day finally realised its potential". For Martin, the success of the episode is based on the fact that it revolves around "looking at humanity through a camera contact-lens, darkly". He concludes by opining that although this episode is set in a world completely different to our own this episode has greater verisimilitude than those previous.[1] AfterElton's Heather Hogan also praised the writing of the episode, stating that although she knew in advance that Vera was going to die, the ending left her with her mouth "completely agape". Hogan felt that the use of Nazi imagery relating to the in-universe use of the final solution was particularly unsettling. She questions whether this is making the show too dark, but ultimately concludes that the reverses applies, as Miracle Day now has her full attention, stating that the final scenes will continue to haunt her.[2] Writing for entertainment site io9 Charlie Jane Anders also praises the set-up of the episode, stating that it illuminates a basic truth about the perils of rationing healthcare. She also praises the way some of the failures of the protoganists (particuarly Vera and Gwen) play into the episode, stating that "'The Categories of Life' exposes human vanity in the way that only a script by Jane Espenson could".[3] [edit] References ^ Martin, Daniel (6 August 2011). "Torchwood: Miracle Day – episode five". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 August 2011. ^ Hogan, Heather (8 August 2011). ""Torchwood" Gets Even Darker With a "Final Solution"". AfterElton. Retrieved 10 August 2011. ^ Anders, Charlie Jane (7 August 2011). "Torchwood ensures you’ll never think about Death Panels the same way again". io9. Retrieved 10 August 2010. [edit] External links
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TDP 194: The Sun Makers
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 15 minutes and 22 secondsThe Sun Makers From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 095 – The Sun Makers Doctor Who serial "An ongoing insurrectionary situation would not be acceptable to my management." Cast Doctor Tom Baker (Fourth Doctor) Companions Louise Jameson (Leela) John Leeson (Voice of K-9 Mk. I) Others Henry Woolf — The Collector Richard Leech — Gatherer Hade Jonina Scott — Marn Roy Macready — Cordo David Rowlands — Bisham William Simons — Mandrel Adrienne Burgess — Veet Michael Keating — Goudry Carole Hopkin — Nurse Derek Crewe — Synge Colin McCormack — Commander Tom Kelly — Guard Production Writer Robert Holmes Director Pennant Roberts Script editor Robert Holmes and Anthony Read (both uncredited) Producer Graham Williams Executive producer(s) None Production code 4W Series Season 15 Length 4 episodes, 25 minutes each Originally broadcast 26 November–17 December 1977 Chronology ← Preceded by Followed by → Image of the Fendahl Underworld The Sun Makers is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 26 November to 17 December 1977. Contents [hide] 1 Synopsis 2 Plot 2.1 Continuity 3 Production 3.1 Cast notes 4 Outside references 5 In print 6 VHS and DVD releases 7 References 8 External links 8.1 Reviews 8.2 Target novelisation [edit] Synopsis In the far future, the planet Pluto is habitable, heated by several miniature suns. However, the heat is available only to the ruling classes, the working population being oppressed by the ruthless, bureaucratic and omnipresent Company. When the Doctor and Leela arrive, they help to initiate a rebellion from the Undercity, and stop the evil company's plans once and for all. [edit] Plot The inhabitants of Pluto in the far future are taxed to desperation, not least the functionary Cordo, who is so overwhelmed by the size of his tax bill that he decides to take his own life by jumping from the roof of one of the vast Megropolis tower blocks. He is interrupted by the arrival of the Doctor and Leela from the TARDIS, who save him from his chosen fate, and discover that false suns have been created around Pluto to provide the ability for some of mankind to live. However, the Company which owns the suns and all the buildings on Pluto is using its economic stranglehold over mankind to extort ever growing taxes through an extreme form of usury. The Doctor is concerned at this economic and social structure, where each Megropolis is ruled by a taxation Gatherer, and the entire operation on the planet reports to a malevolent Collector. Some citizens have rejected this social order and choose to live in the dark tunnels of the Undercity. The Doctor, Leela and Cordo venture there and encounter the renegades of the undercity, a vicious bunch of thieves and drop-outs led by the brutal Mandrel. He tells the Doctor that he must use a stolen consume-card to obtain money from a cashpoint or else Leela will be killed. The Gatherer of Megropolis One, Hade, has been alerted to the arrival of the TARDIS. He uses an electronic tracker to follow K9, who has now departed the craft in search of his master. K9 finds the Doctor and Cordo at a cashpoint where the Gatherer sees them and suspects they must be arms dealers. He orders his private guard, the Inner Retinue, to deal with them. When the Doctor tries the stolen card he is overpowered by a cloud of noxious gas and falls unconscious. When the Doctor awakes he finds himself restrained in a Correction Centre alongside a similarly incarcerated man named Bisham. They are likely to be tortured, but the Doctor is as concerned for Leela, whom Mandrel threatened to kill if the Doctor did not return. Leela has defended herself though, and Cordo, who evaded capture, returns to the Undercity with news of the Doctor’s capture. This serves to increase Leela’s standing with the thieves and the threat over her life diminishes. The Doctor’s lot improves too when he is released for questioning by Gatherer Hade, but Hade is playing a game of double bluff. He has the Doctor released but orders his movements tracked, believing the Doctor will lead him to the heart of a conspiracy against the Company. Not knowing about this change in fortunes, Leela, Cordo and K9 attack the Correction Centre to try and rescue the Doctor. He has left, but they do succeed in freeing Bisham. As they depart the Centre they find all their possible travel routes blocked by Inner Retinue troopers. Leela leads her friends in an attack on the guards, but she alone is injured in a skirmish and falls from a troop transporter they have commandeered. The Doctor has returned to the Undercity to find a very agitated Mandrel, who refuses to believe he could have been simply released after such a crime. Once more Cordo returns, this time with Bisham and K9, and defuses the situation when he explains what has happened to Leela. He also uses a stolen blaster to force Mandrel to stop threatening the Doctor. He asserts control and persuades the Undercity dwellers to start a revolution against the Company. Their first target will be the main control area where the Company engineers that PCM, a pacifying drug which helps keep the population servile, is being added to the air supply. Mandrel and his gang are also persuaded to start destroying the monitors throughout the Megropolis and to start spreading the message of revolt. Leela is now presented to the Collector himself, an odious humanoid in a life-support wheelchair who is even more obsessed with money than Gatherer Hade, who fawns all over him. The Collector deduces from interrogating Leela that Hade’s conspiracy theory was unfounded and orders that Leela will be steamed to death in a public execution. He is especially pleased at a public steaming and arranges immediate publicity, unaware of the revolt spreading through the Megropolis. The Doctor heads off to rescue Leela from the steamer, but is running out of time. The Doctor manages to save Leela in the nick of time, but the microphones set up to relay her death screams instead relay the sound of Mandrel warning the Doctor of how little time he has left to rescue her. The Collector is incensed and even more troubled when the revolution starts spreading even more quickly. Gatherer Hade is thrown to his death from the top of his Megropolis, and his normally dutiful underling, Marn, joins the revolution. Leela and the Doctor head for the Collector’s Palace, and there he sabotages the computer system. The Collector arrives and is challenged by the Doctor, who discovers the being is a Usurian from the planet Usurius. He is really a seaweedlike being like a sentient poisonous fungus. The Doctor denounces his operation on Pluto, which consumed Mars as well as the population were moved from Earth. Before the Collector can implement a plan to gas the population of Pluto, Cordo and the lead rebels arrive and help the Doctor defeat the remaining members of the Inner Retinue. The Collector checks his computer to find the Doctor’s input has resulted in projected bankruptcy, and the shock of this causes the Collector to revert to his natural state in a compartment at the base of his wheelchair. The Doctor seals him in to be sure the threat is over, and he and Leela depart with K9, leaving Cordo, Mandrel and the others to contemplate recolonising the Earth. [edit] Continuity Part Two contains a rare false cliffhanger, where Cordo, Bisham, Leela and K-9 spot an oncoming guard vehicle and Cordo says, "It's no good, they've seen us." The reprise at the beginning of Part Three omits Cordo's remark, and continues with Leela ordering K-9 to hide, allowing it to easily disable the guards. Leela refers to her tribe, the Sevateem, seen in The Face of Evil. The Company computer correctly guesses the etymology of the name. The Usurians are aware of the Time Lords and Gallifrey, having graded the former as "Grade 3" in their "latest market survey." [edit] Production Serial details by episode EpisodeBroadcast dateRun timeViewership (in millions) "Part One" 26 November 1977 24:59 8.5 "Part Two" 3 December 1977 24:57 9.5 "Part Three" 10 December 1977 24:57 8.9 "Part Four" 17 December 1977 24:57 8.4 [1][2][3] [edit] Cast notes Michael Keating also appeared in the audio play The Twilight Kingdom as Major Koth and in Year of the Pig as Inspector Chardalot. See also List of guest appearances in Doctor Who. Louise Jameson stated in the DVD commentary of the story and on the commentary for The Talons of Weng-Chiang that The Sun Makers was her favourite serial. [edit] Outside references Robert Holmes intended the serial to be a satire of his own experiences with the Inland Revenue services. However, much of the political content was toned down by order of producer Graham Williams, who feared it would be controversial among viewers. Many of the letters and numbers used to denote the labyrinth of corridors in the city, for example P45, allude to well-known tax and Governmental forms. The actor who played the Gatherer had deep bushy eyebrows, very reminiscent of the then-Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey. However, Holmes presented the villains of the piece as working for a private corporation rather than a government. Near the end of Part Two, when prompted by Mandrel for a story, the Doctor begins, "Once upon a time, there were three sisters ..." mirroring the same story he started telling Sarah Jane Smith near the end of Part Three in The Android Invasion. The Doctor refers to Galileo Galilei in passing, saying "Galileo will be pleased." When one of the rebels rhetorically asks the Doctor, "What have we got to lose?" he replies, "Only your claims!" This is a playful paraphrase of the famous slogan derived from the last lines of The Communist Manifesto. K-9 refers to Pluto as "the ninth planet." It was regarded as such at the time the programme was written and broadcast; in 2006, Pluto lost that distinction when it was downgraded to the status of dwarf planet. In this episode, Leela and the Doctor are identified as "terrorists." In real life, Leela's character was partially based on Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled.[4][5] [edit] In print A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in November 1982. Dicks chose to tone down the scene in which revolutionaries cheer as they hurl one of their former oppressors from a roof, reducing the apparent horror so that the rebels concerned feel that their actions have gone "a bit too far". Doctor Who book Doctor Who and the Sunmakers Series Target novelisations Release number 60 Writer Terrance Dicks Publisher Target Books Cover artist Andrew Skilleter ISBN 0-426-20059-4 Release date 18 November 1982 [edit] VHS and DVD releases This story was released on VHS in July 2001. The Sun Makers was released on region 2 DVD 1 on August 2011.[6] [edit] References ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (2007-03-31). "The Sun Makers". Outpost Gallifrey. Archived from the original on 2008-07-31. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ "The Sun Makers". Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Sullivan, Shannon (2007-08-07). "The Sun Makers". A Brief History of Time Travel. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Sullivan, Shannon Patrick. "The Face of Evil". A Brief History of Time (Travel). Retrieved 2007-03-18. ^ Viner, Katharine (2001-10-26). "'I made the ring from a bullet and the pin of a hand grenade'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2007-03-18. ^ "Sun Makers goes Solo". 28 January 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2011. [edit] External links The Sun Makers at BBC Online The Sun Makers at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel) The Sun Makers at the Doctor Who Reference Guide [edit] Reviews The Sun Makers reviews at Outpost Gallifrey The Sun Makers reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide [edit] Target novelisation On Target — Doctor Who and the Sunmakers
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TDP 193: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep 4
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 15 minutes and 17 secondstaken with thanks from wikipedia Plot summary Dr. Vera Juarez and several doctors visit an abandoned hospital that is being used to handle the extra surplus of patients but much to Vera's frustration, the plan is a failure as there are too many patients admitted to the hospital and they don't have enough equipment to handle them. Meanwhile, Ellis Hartley Monroe, a Mayor and member of the Tea Party starts a campaign call "Dead is Dead", which aims to segregate the undying from the public until death finally comes for them. Oswald, Jilly and PhiCorp do not like this since her popularity might derail Oswald's and threaten PhiCorp plans. When Ellis makes a speech near the hospital where the extra patients are being sent, Oswald makes a bold move by entering the hospital and meeting the patients there, thus making the press immediately focus on him. Inside, Oswald tells the patients that they all deserve equal medical treatment and that people like Ellis are trying to take their rights away for them as they don't consider them human anymore. He promises to fight on their behalf and instantly the patients, the press and the public call Oswald a hero much to Ellis's frustration. The secret organization that controls PhiCorp drugs and kidnaps Ellis to a car compactor, where they tell her "The Families" will eliminate anyone who poses a threat to them before her car is crushed in the compactor, trapping Ellis inside. After obtaining information from the PhiCorp's servers, Torchwood learns that PhiCorp are building "Overflow Camps" around the world where extra patients will be sent. However, Rhys calls Gwen that her father is being sent to one of these camps as well and by the time Gwen tells him stop them, her father has already been taken away. [edit] Reception Den of Geek gave the episode a positive review saying "Come the end of Escape To L.A., it feels as if most of Miracle Day’s key themes are now firmly established, even if the detail is yet to come. And the episode is an interesting one. It doesn’t have the lovely smaller moments that really set Dead Of Night apart, and we still think that episode three is the peak of the series to date. But, episode four? It's still strong, and it's still worth tuning in to see."[1]
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TDP 192: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep 3 Dead of Night
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes and 35 secondsDead of Night (Torchwood) reprinted From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia with thanks and respect 34 – "Dead of Night" Torchwood episode Cast Starring John Barrowman – Captain Jack Harkness Eve Myles – Gwen Cooper Mekhi Phifer – Rex Matheson Alexa Havins – Esther Drummond Kai Owen – Rhys Williams Bill Pullman – Oswald Danes Others Lauren Ambrose – Jilly Kitzinger Arlene Tur – Vera Juarez Wayne Knight - Briam Friedkin Dillon Casey - Brad Richard Gilliland - Congressman Morganthall Tasha Ames - Carla Thea Andrews - Local Reporter Richard Augustine - George Sayer Daryl Crittenden - Young Man Mitchell Edmonds -Senior TV Anchor Matt Eyde - Atlanta Cop Mary Garripoli - Woman Tourist Ted Mattison - Phi-Corp Rep Jason Medwin - Sunroof Screamer George Murdock - Preacher Brian Treitler - Dr. Murphy Randa Walker - Candice Perlmutter Maurice Webster - Cop Michelle Wong - Nurse David Youse - Dr. Rosenbloom Production Writer Jane Espenson Director Billy Gierhart Producer Kelly A. Manners Executive producer(s) Russell T Davies Julie Gardner Jane Tranter Doris Egan (co-executive) Vlad Wolynetz (co-executive) Production code 4.3 Series Miracle Day Length 54 mins Originally broadcast 22 July 2011 Chronology ← Preceded by Followed by → "Rendition" "Escape to L.A." "Dead of Night" is the third episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Torchwood, and was broadcast in the United States on Starz on 22 July 2011, in Canada on Space on 23 July 2011, and will be broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 28 July 2011. Contents [hide] 1 Plot summary 2 Sex scene censorship controversy 3 Reception 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot summary Rex (Phifer) and Esther (Havins) have joined Torchwood out of necessity. The team successfully acquire the phone from CIA director Friedkin (Wayne Knight), through which Friedkin received mysterious orders to exterminate Torchwood. The team follow leads and uncover a stockpile of painkillers at the pharmaceutical corporation PhiCorp, indicating they knew the Miracle was going to happen. At a loose end, Jack (Barrowman) takes the night off and picks up a man in a bar, and Rex seeks solace in his surgeon, Vera Juarez (Arlene Tur). Juarez tells Rex that PhiCorp representative Jilly Kitzinger (Lauren Ambrose) has invited her along to an important meeting tomorrow; Rex recruits Juarez to listen in for Torchwood, while Gwen goes on mission with the special Torchwood contact lenses and steals information from Kitzinger's computer. The meeting turns out to be a seminar, where Congressman Morganthall announces plans to make painkillers legal to purchase without prescription. At Torchwood HQ, Rex and Esther receive a mysterious phonecall from Friedkin's anonymous superiors and figuring their base has been compromised, realise that Torchwood must now leave D.C. Released murderer Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) struggles to fit in the real world, and after being assaulted by police officers accepts Kitzinger's earlier offer of representation. He attends a select board meeting at PhiCorp. PhiCorp award him personal security on the condition he promotes their new painkiller legislation on national television to his growing following. Suspicious of Danes, Jack confronts him at the TV station. Jack gets Danes to admit that he does not feel forgiveness, but also that he enjoyed the rape and murder of his 12-year-old victim; Jack realises from this speech that Danes has a deathwish that is being denied him. Danes' security assaults Jack and releases him onto the streets just as Danes tells the world about the need for PhiCorp's painkiller legislation. [edit] Sex scene censorship controversy "Dead of Night" features a concurrent gay and straight sex scenes; the straight sex scene features Rex and Vera (Mekhi Phifer and Arlene Tur), and the gay scene features John Barrowman and guest actor Dillon Casey, playing bartender Brad. Gay mens' website AfterElton.com enthusiastically reported on Casey's casting in March;[1] the casting side for Brad, released in December 2010, had assuaged fears that Jack would be "de-gayed" by American network Starz.[2] Barrowman later told Access Hollywood reporters that the gay sex scene the series would feature would be more explicit than previous shots of its kind in Torchwood, because Starz as a US premium cable network allowed the show to "push the envelope a little bit more".[3] For airings in the UK, the BBC (a public broadcast network) edited the scene because it was deemed inappropriate for the primetime slot. However, a BBC spokesperson stated that the edit would not affect the story in any way.[4] Barrowman however, responded by saying that sex scenes in the show were not gratuitous did form a part of the plot.[5] This section requires expansion. [edit] Reception The A.V. Club's Zack Handlen awarded "Dead of Night" a B- rating. He felt that the episode did not have any truly tense scenes compared to previous episode "Rendition". While he celebrated that the "two-fer sex scene" was unusual for mainstream science fiction, Handlen felt it "didn't make for gripping television", and felt Jack's hook-up was at least more believable than the prospect of a Rex/Vera romance. Though he gave the episode a relatively high rating, and was optimistic for Miracle Day as a series, Handlen's concluding paragraph stated "an episode like this isn't a good sign".[6] Los Angeles Times reviewer Todd VanDerWerff wrote "With every week it’s on the air, Torchwood: Miracle Day continues to expand its scope"; his reviewer was largely positive but marked with criticisms. He felt "the episode's mid-section was where it was flabiest", referring to Gwen's contact with Rhys and the lovemaking scenes. Like Handlen, he remarked on the believability of the Rex/Vera pairing, saying "It made sense for later in the episode that Rex and Vera had hooked up (since it gave her stronger motivation to work with Torchwood), but in the moment, it seemed ludicrously convenient." Like Handlen, VanDerWerff didn't find the American public's reaction to Danes believable either. However, his summary said "All in all, this was a "putting the pieces in place" kind of episode, and though some of the pieces were moved quite inelegantly -– again, the Rex and Vera hook-up -– much of whether this episode stands out as the start of a decline or a brief hiccup will be determined by where the pieces go from here."[7] This section requires expansion. [edit] References ^ Jensen, Michael (5 March 2011). "Exclusive! Meet Brad, Captain Jack's One Night Stand on "Torchwood: Miracle Day!"". AfterElton.com. Retrieved 23 July 2011. ^ Jensen, Michael (12 December 2010). ""Torchwood" Casting One Night Stand for Captain Jack". AfterElton.com. Logo Online. Retrieved 23 July 2011. ^ 8 April 2011, Morgan. "'Torchwood' star: 'New series not toned down'". Digital Spy. Retrieved 23 July 2011. ^ Wrightman, Catriona (19 July 2011). "'Torchwood' sex scene cut from UK broadcast". Digital Spy. Retrieved 23 July 2011. ^ Wrightman, Catriona (20 July 2011). "John Barrowman: 'Torchwood sex scenes aren't gratuitous'". Digital Spy. Retrieved 23 July 2011. ^ Handlen, Zack (22 July 2011). ""Dead of Night"". A.V. Club New York. The Onion. Retrieved 23 July 2011. ^ VanDerWerff, Todd (23 July 2011). "'Torchwood' recap: I'm buying stock in Phicorp". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 23 July 2011.
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TDP 191: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep2
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 8 minutes and 4 secondsRE PRINTED HERE FROM WIKIPEDIA Synopsis As Rex brings the Torchwood team to America, problems arise on the plane. CIA operatives are plotting to remove them, and poison the only mortal man; Captain Jack Harkness. Gwen, Rex along with the help of a Doctor create an antidote using only items found on a plane. Meanwhile, Oswald Danes is appearing on News Talk Shows and is becoming a trend on many online social networks after breaking down on national television. Plot Rex has Jack and Gwen boarded on a plane headed to Washington, D.C. with fellow CIA agent Lyn Peterfield escorting them. However Gwen's husband Rhys and their daughter Anwen are forced to stay in the UK. Back in Washington, D.C., because no one can die due to the Miracle, Dr. Vera Juarez has her hospital staff focus on treating the least wounded first so they can get them out quickly and have enough beds to treat newer patients. After his release, Oswald is being interviewed on a local talk show but doesn't say much since there is a campaign to have him returned to prison and anything he might say might be used against him. But when the reporter shows him a picture of the girl he murdered, Oswald starts to break down and cries, apologizing to the girl and revealing he was too scared to apologize to the victim's mother, which earns him sympathy from some viewers. As he's about to leave the TV station, PR agent Jilly Kitzinger congratulates him on his interview and offers him to be his agent but he declines, after which a TV staff tells Oswald that Oprah Winfrey wants to do an interview with him. Meanwhile, Vera attends a medical conference where doctors are trying to figure out the Miracle but when a Doctor tweets that his hospital needs more antibiotics, Vera realizes because nobody is dying, people who were suppose to died have become living incubators for bacteria which allows it to grow and become resistant to antibiotics. What's worse, the Miracle is not true immortality as people still aged and grow old. With fears that supplies will dwindle as the undying grows, Vera suggest hospitals needs more painkillers to handle this situation. Later, Vera meets Jilly who actually works for a pharmaceutical company called PhiCorp and convinces Vera they can work together as she can help her. When Director Brian Friedkin suspects Esther and Rex may know too much about Torchwood, he has their security clearances deleted, frames them as spies working for China and orders Lyn to kill Jack with an arsenic pill. However, Esther manages to escape before the CIA catches her and tries to warn Rex. Back on the plane, Jack realizes that he's being poisoned which both Gwen and Rex apprehend Lyn. As Jack is slowly being killed by the arsenic, Rex calls Vera for help. With the help of her fellow doctors at the medical conference and the air stewards on their plane, Rex and Gwen successfully creates an antidote and administers it to Jack. When Jack, Gwen, Rex and Lyn arrive at the airport, they are accompanied by a group of CIA agents, unaware that they are under orders by Friedkin to arrests the three and free Lyn. However, Esther manages to warn Rex which him, Jack and Gwen subdues the agents including Rex twisting Lyn's neck and escape. By the time they come out of the airport, they are greeted by Vera with Rex's painkillers and Esther who is their getaway driver. After Rex gets his painkillers, he, Jack, Gwen and Esther are about to go until Lyn, still with a twisted neck, tries to stop them but because of her condition, they leave her alone and drive off. Broadcast This episode was broadcast on Starz in the US on Friday 15th July. It is due to air on BBC 1 on Thursday 21st of July. International broadcasters in Canada and Australia received the show on Saturday 16th July, where it was broadcast on Australia's UKTV network. Entertainment Weekly reported that this episode on Starz was watched by "1.4 million this weekend, down about 30 percent from last week's debut."[1] Reception Chris Swanson from WhatCulture gave the episode 4 stars and said "I liked this episode. It wasn’t exactly action-packed or anything like that, but it did feature some nice moments, like a conversation between Gwen and Jack about how dangerous being around him is (shades of similar conversations on Doctor Who)." "I also very much liked that they are continuing to examine the logistics of exactly what would happen in a situation like this. Interestingly, no one has yet suggested mandatory birth control, but we do see discussions about the fact that the entire medical industry would have to change from a life-saving position to one that’s more about pain management."[2] References ^ Hibberd, James (July 18, 2011). "'Torchwood' ratings dip for second episode". Inside TV (Entertainment Weekly). Retrieved July 19, 2011. ^ Swanson, Chris (July 18, 2011). "TV Review: TORCHWOOD MIRACLE DAY, 4.2 – “Rendition”". WhatCulture!.
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TDP 190: Torchwood Miracle Day Ep 1 - The New World
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 16 minutes and 52 secondsREPRINTED FROM WIKIPEDIAA WITH THANKS AND RESPECT The New World" is the first episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Torchwood, and was broadcast in the United States on Starz on 8 July 2011 and in Canada on Space on 9 July 2011. It will be broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 14 July 2011. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 Reception and Broadcast 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot [edit] Synopsis In Kentucky, convicted pedophile and murderer Oswald Danes (Bill Pullman) is due to be executed by a lethal concoction of drugs. However, the execution fails. At the start of "Miracle Day", a mysterious email is sent to members of the intelligence agencies in the US, bypassing the usual security protocols and containing only the word "Torchwood". CIA agent Rex Matheson (Mekhi Phifer) is fatally injured in a car crash whilst receiving information on Torchwood from Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins), and is taken to a Washington DC hospital. There he is treated by surgeon Vera Juarez (Arlene Tur), who informs Esther that Rex has survived, and also that no-one has died in the past 24 hours at any US hospital. This information leads to the discussion of the "miracle" on International news and social networking sites. It is revealed that individuals can still become sick and injured, but continue to live regardless. As Esther investigates the remaining files on Torchwood in the CIA archives, Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) appears in the US to deal with Esther, after erasing all online mentions of Torchwood. After saving her from an assassin who later blows up the CIA archives, Jack gives Esther an amnesia pill, and she subsequently forgets about her encounter with Jack, though her memories of Torchwood itself are triggered by a file brought to her by CIA agent Noah Vickers. Oswald meets a representative of the Governor of Kentucky who has come to apologize for any pain Oswald suffered during his failed execution. But Oswald demands that he should be released since he technically already served his sentence or else he will sue the State for breaching his Eighth and Fifth Amendments rights for unlawful imprisonment and unnecessary pain. Realizing the lawsuit would cost millions for the State, the Governor reluctantly release Oswald due to Force majeure much to public anger. In Wales former Torchwood operative and young mother Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) is called out of exile by her old collegaue Andy Davidson (Tom Price), who informs her that her father Geraint (William Thomas) has had two heart attacks, but not died. Gwen is persuaded not to investigate the strange events any further by her husband Rhys (Kai Owen). However, CIA agent Rex Matheson links Torchwood with the worldwide miracle and with Esther's help tracks Gwen down using the phonecall data from Davidson's phone. Upon arriving at Gwen's seaside house, a helicopter arrives with the intention of killing Gwen. Gwen fights off the helicopter, and escapes with the help of Jack who has arrived to watch out for her. The remaining members of Torchwood escape to Roald Dahl Plass, the site of the original Torchwood Institute, where Jack reveals that he hasn't healed from an injury sustained at the CIA archives, and therefore is assumed to be mortal, just as the entire populace is now Immortal. Gwen discusses what actions they should take, but is interrupted by the arrival of the South Wales Police force and Rex's announcement that he is renditioning Torchwood to the United states. [edit] Continuity Jack flashes counterfeit credentials to gain access to the bomber's autopsy. He claims to be an FBI agent named Owen Harper, a reference to his late Torchwood colleague whose own extensive collection of false identity cards was shown in "Ghost Machine". The temporal setting of "Everything Changes" and "Day One" is established when Esther reads that Gwen Cooper joined the Torchwood Institute in October 2006. The CIA officers make several mentions of 456 level security, a reference to the aliens (the 456) that are encountered in Torchwood: Children of Earth. As the team sit in Roald Dahl Plass, they note that it and the Water Tower have been rebuilt since the demolition in Torchwood: Children of Earth. [edit] Production [edit] Cast notes [edit] Reception and Broadcast The episode recieved positive reviews. Crave Online said it's good to see John Barrowman easily step back into his iconic character,they gave the episode 8 out of 10.[1] When premiered on SPACE in Canada, the episode drew in nearly a million viewers with an average of 432,000, the highest the channel has ever had for a show.[2] Overall, the first episode of "Miracle Day" was entertaining and intriguing enough to justify Torchwood's new lease on life. [edit] References ^ http://www.craveonline.com/tv/reviews/170849-torchwood-miracle-day-101-the-new-world ^ "The New World: Canadian Ratings". Doctor Who News Page. 2011-07-12. Retrieved 2011-07-13. [edit] External links The New World on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
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TDP 189: Torchwood - House of the Dead - Lost Tales 3
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 5 minutes and 8 secondsREPRINTED FROM BBC PRESS SITE WITH THANKS AND RESPECT The brewery have called 'time' and it's the last night at The House of the Dead - the most haunted pub in Wales. Barry the barman has invited renowned psychic, Mrs Wintergreen, to hold a special seance to mark the occasion, and there's a big crowd hoping for the chance of seeing their deceased loved ones for one last time. But when Jack arrives on the scene, he's determined to stop them. Ianto is puzzled by Jack's behaviour, and Gwen is suspicious. Why is Jack acting so strangely? Then the ghosts start arriving - and all hell breaks loose. By James Goss. Cast: Captain Jack Harkness ... John Barrowman Gwen Cooper ... Eve Myles Ianto Jones ... Gareth David-Lloyd Mrs Wintergreen ... Rosalind Ayres Barry ... Bradley Freegard Mr Jones/Tony ... John Francis Harries Helen ... Lucy Davis Ness ... Moira Quirk Late Arrival ... Shelley Rees Recorded at The Invisible Studios, by Mark Holden and mixed at BBC Wales by Nigel Lewis. A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
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TDP 188: Torchwood - Submission - Lost tales 2
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 6 minutes and 19 secondsREPRINTED FROM BBC PRESS SITE WITH THANKS AND RESPECT In Ryan Scott's episode, Torchwood are chasing aliens down the M4, when Jack accidentally blows a hole in the Severn Bridge, and the SUV hits the water. Whilst submerged John, Gwen and Ianto hear a strange noise, which, back at the Hub they realise is a cry for help. They track the cry to its source which turns out to be the deepest part of the Ocean - the Mariana Trench. Ianto rings old Torchwood flame, Carlie Roberts, who's an expert in marine geology, and Jack pulls strings with the US government to get them all on board the USS Calvin, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, which is heading for the Trench. From there they board the Octopus Rock, the only submarine built to withstand the pressure at that depth, and follow the signal. But when the Submarine crashes, the team are left at the mercy of a hungry alien. Cast: Captain Jack Harkness ... John Barrowman Gwen Cooper ... Eve Myles Ianto Jones ... Gareth David-Lloyd Carlie Roberts ... Erin Bennett Sam Doyle ... Angelo Tiffe Captain Cudlow ... John Francis Harries Henry Goddard ... John Lee Recorded at The Invisible Studios, by Mark Holden and mixed at BBC Wales by Nigel Lewis. A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll. Broadcast Tue 12 Jul 2011 14:15 BBC Radio 4ss
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TDP 187: Torchwood - The Devil and Miss Carew - Lost tales 1
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 9 minutes and 36 secondsREPRINTED FROM BBC PRESS SITE WITH THANKS AND RESPECT The Devil and Miss Carew Listen: Next on: Today, 14:15 on BBC Radio 4 Synopsis Martin Jarvis and Juliet Mills join the regular cast for this latest Torchwood adventure by Rupert Laight. When Rhys's elderly Uncle Bryn has a heart attack while listening to the shipping forecast, it seems like another routine death at Ivyday Nursing Home. But when Rhys and Gwen go to collect the old man's effects, Gwen's suspicions are roused by another elderly resident. The conversation is cut short, though, by a fire alarm, one of many consequences of the mysterious power cuts that are sweeping the nation. Gwen has a hunch that something is wrong and her search leads her to Miss Carew, a suspiciously fit and strong octogenarian who, despite having supposedly terminal heart disease, has left Ivyday and gone back to work at the Computer firm she used to run. Miss Carew has been offered a deal by Fitzroy, a wandering alien with an aversion to electricity who is looking for a home. It's a deal that Miss Carew can't refuse. But the consequences for planet Earth are unthinkable. Cast: Captain Jack Harkness ... John Barrowman Gwen Cooper ... Eve Myles Ianto Jones ... Gareth David-Lloyd Rhys Williams ... Kai Owen Fitzroy ... Martin Jarvis Miss Carew ... Juliet Mills Sian ... Hayley J Williams Uncle Bryn ... James Walsh Old Lady ... Shelley Rees Rupert Laight is one of the writers of The Sarah Jane Adventures Recorded at The Invisible Studios, by Mark Holden and mixed at BBC Wales by Nigel Lewis. A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll. Broadcast Mon 11 Jul 2011 14:15 BBC Radio 4
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The Tin Dog Drinking Game by Victor S
Episode Duration: 0 minutes and 0 secondsagain the link is here http://gallifreymatrix.blogspot.com/2011/06/tindog-podcast-drinking-game.html The Tin Dog Podcast Drinking Game v 1.3Requirements: Episode(s) of Tin-Dog Podcast This list People (the more the merrier) Beverages of your choiceInstructions: Simple. Listen the show, and whenever a condition is met, take the appropriate number of drinks. The definition of "drink" should be decided before game play starts. Usually, a good mouthful will suffice.Compiler's Note: I would advise taking some time before game play starts to decide which conditions to use and which to ignore.Remember that this list is canonical, so you probably will _not_ want to use them all (especially with a new podcast, Since you'll spend all your time reading the list, rather than listening).Please send any corrections, suggestions, Requests, submissions, flames, etc. to the address listed below.Thanks Michael for the Tin Dog Podcast: Compiled by victoswindell@hotmail.com (send me your input/changes)Podcast Event - Number of DrinksHost voice not OK - 1Host is recording outside of studio/home - 1Host starts to ramble off topic - 1Host says "let it go" - 1Host says "There Again - 1Host says "Out of its Time" - 1Host says "Better than I remember" - 1Host asks for funds/selling something - 2Host uploads wrong podcast - 2Host changes Theme music - 2Host podcast is not what he said it was going to be - 1Host not reviewing Doctor Who - 2Someone has donated funds for podcast -1Host mentions iTunes - 1REVIEW COMMENTSHost mentions 'steam-punk' -2Host mentions another Dr Who podcast - 1Host plays clip from another podcast -1Host plays audio clip from DW - 1Host play recording of DW Actor advertising the Tin-Dog Pod cast -1Host reads one of his stories -2WHOSTROLOGY is the same as your birthday - 2It's your WHOSTROLOG - 1Host mentions the first or ninth Doctor - 1Host mentions the second or tenth Doctor - 2Host mentions the third or eleventh Doctor -3Host mentions the fourth Doctor - 4Host mentions the fifth Doctor - 5Host mentions the sixth Doctor - 6Host mentions the seventh Doctor - 7Host mentions the eighth Doctor -8Host references/compares another Doctor Episode -1PODCAST REVIEWS EVENTSHost references Non DW SciFi series (Star Trek, X-Files, The Tomorrow People-etc) - 1Host references another DW media (Book Episode, etc) - 1Host really likes episode -2Host likes episode - 1Host sort likes episode -1Host hates episode - 2Host says "LI-N-DA" or mentions 'Love and Monsters' -3Host references actor other work - 2Host mentions "K-9" -2Host mentions "BBC" -3Host gives list of possibilities - 1Host gives a theory - 2Host gives a bit of Who Trivia - 1Host says "TARDIS" - 1Host mentions your favorite Doctor -1Host gives episode 9 or 10 -4Host gives episode 6, 7 or 8 -3Host give episode 5 or below -2Host references NON-SciFi series -2Host mentions a clue for future episode. -1Host says 'Candy Man' -1Host is reviewing a Big Finish Audio -2Doctor Who is the property of the BBC, All right Reserved. We forfeit all rights, privileges, and licenses herein and herein contained," et cetera, et cetera... "Fax mentis, incendium gloria cultum," et cetera, et cetera... Memo bis punitor delicatum! - *By Victor Swindell, owner of PepperEyes.com, a division of Swindell Enterprises. PepperEyes.com is dedicated to assist those people who are unwilling to b...
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Solo Con Revisited
Episode Duration: 0 minutes and 0 secondsWith thanks to Victor page can be found here http://gallifreymatrix.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-have-scifi-convewntionby.html How to have a SciFi Convention...by yourself v1.3This blog was wholly inspired by the Tin-Dog Podcast ‘How to have your own Doctor Who Con’. We just decided to write it all down for ya, and expand it a bit, and run with it. I'm sure you can add to it a bit as well. If you have any suggestions..leave them in the comments..and I'll add them in later. This posting is subject to updating.Anyways, do you miss the old days of going to Science Fiction conventions? Is there a big convention going on in another part of the country that you would like to go to, but can’t afford? Never fear, now you can enjoy the convention experience in your residence, and save a ton of cash. Here are the steps.The PreparationLike anything else prepartation is the key, the more work you put off up front, the better off your con will run. If something isn't right you can just blame the organizers later. Anyway this is all up to you. You have to so all the setting up, buying the stuff for the bar..blah blah blah1. Give your Con a name. Good names can be like of the following (just make sure there isn’t a con with that name): SoloCon SingularityCon It’s All about Me Con NotaCon UnoCon AloneCon ImaginaryCon SoleCon BinaryCon** The next time you host the event, you can just stick a Roman numeral after the name.2. Two days before the con tell your Social media friends you plan on attending the con, and hope to see some of them there. Don’t reply when they ask for information about the con. This way you can complain when you don’t see any of them at the con. More on this later. It would be interesting to know how may internet searches will be done looking for information on the con.3. Make a list of the stars you want to attend your convention (living or dead). This is your convention you can do what you want. You can even include the guest of the con you can't make it to. Three days before con, send an E-MAIL to their fan clubs telling them how you’re a great fan of the actor, and how you look forward to seeing them t ( name of your Con). This is your kind-a-sort-a invitation. You really don't have to send the e-mail, but if you want to cause even more chaos, give it a go.4. Stock the Bar – after all lot of before, during and after con activity is spent in the bar. You may as well get stock up on the things you know you like, and a few you don’t, or never tried. Just for the effect. If someone happens to drop by during your con, you can serve them the ones you don’t like. (Somebody has to drink them anyway) Don't forget the peanuts, this is very important...just in case a Vogon Constructor Fleet comes by to do some demolition. the neat thing abou this, is that the drinks at your con will be much cheaper at the con, you didn't attend, and you'll actually have stuff you like.5. The Screening Room – One of the rooms in your house has to be the screening room. Pick a random DVD or whatever media you have or just leave the TV on the SCI-FI Channel if if you have it. If you have a recording with a Commentary track, turn this on, to mimic the comments that fans make during the movies anyway. For a more realistic effect pick an episode you don’t like and let that play...all weekend.6. Doing the Schedule – The heart of any convention is the schedule of events. You need to take time to plan your convention schedule and well as plan the logistics and utilization of the space in your residence for the various parts of the convention.o Make of list of weird Panel topics- where would a good Con be without them.§ Topics that you would never attend§ Topics that you would attend· Place these at the same timeo List a Panel where you are the guest speaker based on your expertise§ Make a list of Fandom type questions to ask the expert – A mix of the very intelligent and very dumb.§ You can even play various podcast or recording of interviews.o Plan other fan events.Get some recordings of interviews for one or three of the celebritieis that you've invited. You can can probably locate a podcast or find a few YouTube clips.o Have a Charity of Auction§ List something on E-Bay that you have and donate the proceeds to Charity ;E-bay gives you the option of donating up to 100% of the proceeds to a charity.· It could be a dust ball that you think looks like William Shatner's Trek Hair.· It could be the last Cheerios in your box· It could an un-matched sock from your laundry· If you are cleaning out your closet..sell that stuffo You have to have a Dealers Room§ Put some of your collections in a in a room or on a table.. to be the dealers room§ Make a list of the things you want to have and want to buy (you will need this later)§ You can also have a computer set to e-bay to allow you to shop of items, if you actually want to buy something during the con.o Print up the schedule and hi-lite the things you would like to do using different color, then take the schedule to your favorite sci-fi hang out, bookstore or library, and accidentally loose it there.7. Set up a registration Desk…if you likeo Make a few name tags and VIP Tags for your invited guest, but do not make one for yourself. This will become important later.8. Set up a time for your costume contest. (more on this later)9. You can put up signs for events, and cross off panels that are canceled due to guest not showing, if you wish.Attending the ConIt’s time to go have the convention experience, and let your friends know all about it. If you have a mobile phone with twitter, or a lap top, you are good to go. Send random tweets about what your doing, or not doing.1. Go get in your car. Imagine the long drive to your con, tweet about not having FTL Drive or transporters, and the traffic standing still.2. Get out of your car, and tweet that you have arrived. Tweet that the place looks ..inexpensive3. Go to the registration deck and check in. Complain because they seem to have lost your registration, and you have a handwritten badge, and some free peanuts. Comment how none of the guest have arrived yet.4. Check into your room, tweet how nice and homey the room is. You can even say how weird it is that it reminds you of home. Check out what is on TV, remake about the lack of good channels.5. Complain that you lost your schedule, and they don’t seem to have anymore.6. Complain about the poor poor organization and lack of convention staff. You can't find anyone who can answer your questions.7. Every hour or so hang out in the hallway for 5 minutes with the hopes of catching one of the stars for a picture, or inverview or trying to catch any of your friends who may have attended from the E-Space, the Continuum, or has the confused with Milliways. Complain that most of your friends went to the other con, or isn’t there. Complain that the stars may have taken another route just to avoid you. Look in the mirror and comment someone is wearing your costume..but that you look more authentic. Read a message on your phone.8. Head to the Bar (Frig) and let your imagination go wild. Chat it up with Sue Richards, and tweet how she completely ignored you.9. Go Check out the dealer room. Complain that they don’t seem to have the things you were looking for (on your list) or how you already have most of this stuff. You can check on E-Bay to see if they have it.a. If you’ve taken out one prize possession to display – pick it up and hold it. You can even tweet about it.10. Go hang in the hallway, and complain about one of the guest not showing up. You will repeat this all during the convention weekend.11. Complain about the poor organization tweet “Couldn't organize a pissing contest in a brewery”12. Head to the Bar again. then back to the corridor to see if you can catch up with anyone you know.13. Drop by the Screening room, tweet how they selected the worst episode ever. Say you can find a staff member to see what else is showing. Several hours later you can complain that the same episode seems to be playing.14. Go hang in the hall way, read something, looking for the next star. Stare at something, check the contents of your bag. Tweet some more. Say how you think you may have seen someone you may know out of the corner of your, but how they just seem to have just vanished in the dealer's room.15. Head to the panel room or Interview room, and listen to a the podcast interview of one of the stars you've invited. Keep putting up your and to ask a question. Tweet how they would not recognize you. The next Panel session is the one where you are the speaker. Read your questions and think of smart ass answers. Tweet about the lack of intelligence in modern fandom.16. Getting the Autograph.a. You can shop on E-bay for the ones you wantb. Complain on twitter that you missed the autograph queue because it was schedule for the same time as your panel. Then complain about whom ever did the schedule17. More Bar Time, put some peanuts in your pocket...just in case.18. Wait for the Costume contest, you can go get some dinner or something. Leave your name tag on.19. Attend the Costume contest (you are the judge..you can also be a contestant)a. Dress as your favorite earth character, nothing fancy or exoticb. Go sit on the porch and judge the people going by for their costume.c. Pick the cutest kid that went by, if there is a small child in the house, they win.d. If you don’t see anyone, you win.20. Call it a day, comeback tomorrow –mix it up a bit21. Complain you missed the closing ceremony because you were checking out.22. Tell your friends you had a great weekend and can’t wait until next year.
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TDP 186: The Why Aye Player
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 10 minutes and 49 secondsNew fro the GBC and the BBC the Geordie language converter
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TDP 185: Paradise Towers
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes and 1 secondREPRINTED FROM WIKIPEDIA WITH THANKS AND RESPECT Paradise Towers is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from October 5 to October 26, 1987. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 In print 4 VHS and DVD releases 5 References 6 External links 6.1 Reviews 6.2 Target novelisation [edit] Plot The Doctor and Melanie, looking for a swimming pool, land in Paradise Towers, a luxurious 22nd century high rise apartment building now fallen into disrepair and chaos. The building is divided between roaming gangs of young girls called Kangs, grouped in colour theme, and the Doctor and Mel encounter the Red Kangs. They have just discovered the death of the last Yellow Kang and are plotting how to attack the Blue Kangs. Elsewhere in the Towers, one of the Caretakers - who act as 'Judge Dredd' style policemen – is hunted down and killed by a robotic cleaner, which appeals to the sadistic Chief Caretaker when he overhears the death. The Chief sends a squad of Caretakers to arrest the Red Kangs and in the ensuing confusion the Doctor is split from Mel and captured by the Caretakers. Mel meanwhile heads off to one of the still occupied apartments in which two elderly ladies ('rezzies') live. Tilda and Tabby explain that all the able bodied men left the Towers to fight a war, leaving behind only the children and the elderly. The only other man still loose in the Towers is Pex, a would-be hero, who appoints himself Mel's guardian. At the Caretaker control centre, the Doctor meets the Chief Caretaker, who greets him as the Great Architect, designer of Paradise Towers, and then promptly calls for him to be killed. The Doctor cites an imaginary rule from the Caretakers manual, confusing them enough to make his escape. Mel and Pex meanwhile have headed to the top of the building, and are captured by a party of Blue Kangs. Before the pair are freed the Kangs reveal to Mel that Pex survived by fleeing from the war. The Doctor finds the Great Architect is named Kroagnon, and is reunited with the Red Kangs. They explain that Kangs and Caretakers have been disappearing in ever greater numbers. While the Doctor is being interrogated, the Caretakers track him down to the Red Kang headquarters and attempt to break down the door to their headquarters. Elsewhere Mel has visited Tilda and Tabby again and soon finds herself under threat when it emerges they are cannibals and plan to eat her. The Doctor succeeds in holding off the Caretakers long enough for the Kangs to flee. Meanwhile Tabby and Tilda are delayed in their eating of Mel when they are disturbed by a noise in the waste disposal. It turns out to be a metal claw, which first drags Tabby to her death in the disposal system, and then Tilda. Pex arrives and somehow succeeds in saving Mel. Mel and Pex find a map of the Towers and decide to venture to the roof, where the luxury swimming pool is located. The Doctor is taken to the Caretakers HQ again, where he realises that the Chief Caretaker has been allowing the Cleaners to kill people in the Towers, but that the killing has now got out of hand and the Chief Caretaker is no longer in control. The creature the Chief keeps in the basement is demanding more sustenance and making its own hunting arrangements. When the Chief heads off to investigate the deaths of Tabby and Tilda, the Red Kangs attack the HQ and rescue the Doctor. He returns with them to their base, taking with him the Illustrated Prospectus for the Tower, which they all watch. It reminds the Doctor that Kroagnon, the Great Architect of Paradise Towers, also designed Miracle City, a cutting edge development which killed its occupants. It seems Kroagnon had an aversion to people actually populating his buildings. The Blue Kangs arrive suddenly, overpowering the Red ones, but it soon becomes clear their game is over and they must now work together. Mel and Pex finally find the swimming pool. When Mel takes a dip in the pool, she is attacked by a robotic killer crab. The Red Kangs know of the monstrosity in the basement, and guess it must be linked to the terror in the Towers. The Doctor heads off to investigate and finds the Chief has been herded by the Cleaners toward the mysterious intelligence, which turns out to be Kroagnon himself. The Doctor is soon spotted by the Cleaners too, and the robots start to attack. The Kangs rescue the Doctor in the nick of time while on the roof Pex fails to rescue Mel, who has to destroy the crab herself. When the Doctor and the Kangs arrive, the latter taunt Pex for his cowardice. The Doctor explains that Kroagnon felt human beings would ruin his creation and so placed multiple deathtraps throughout the Towers before he was killed and trapped in the machine in the basement. The remaining rezzies, led by a woman named Maddy, join them all at the swimming pool and pledge to work together with the Kangs to defeat the menace in the building. Pex pledges to help too. The Deputy Chief Caretaker and the surviving Caretakers, who have become convinced of the peril in the basement, soon join them. The Chief Caretaker has now been killed and his corpse animated by the artificial intelligence of Kroagnon. He now intends to use the Cleaners to kill everyone in the Towers and repair the damage the “filthy human parasites” have caused. However, the combined human forces are now fighting back against the machines. The Doctor and Pex devise a ruse to lure the Chief into a booby trapped room and thereby destroy Kroagnon, but when the plan goes wrong Pex sacrifices himself to drag the Chief into the trap. They are both killed, but the terror is over. After a period of reflection and Pex’s funeral, the Doctor and Mel leave Paradise Towers, trusting the remaining Kangs, Rezzies, and Caretakers to build a better society. As the TARDIS dematerialises, a new piece of Kang graffiti is revealed - "Pex Lives". [edit] Production Serial details by episode EpisodeBroadcast dateRun timeViewership (in millions) "Part One" 5 October 1987 24:33 4.5 "Part Two" 12 October 1987 24:39 5.2 "Part Three" 19 October 1987 24:30 5.0 "Part Four" 26 October 1987 24:21 5.0 [2][3][4] Working titles for this story included The Paradise Tower.[5] Author Stephen Wyatt based his story in part on the J. G. Ballard novel High Rise, which depicts a luxury apartment building which descends into savagery.[5] The music track was originally meant to be provided by a member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but producer John Nathan-Turner had decided that the incidental music no longer needed to be produced in-house. Instead, freelance composer David Snell was hired to provide the score, but Nathan-Turner terminated the commission late in production as he was unsatisfied with the way the score was turning out. Keff McCulloch provided the final score at short notice.[5] [edit] Cast notes Nisha Nayar, an uncredited extra playing one of the Red Kangs, later appeared in a more substantial speaking part as the Female Programmer in the 2005 two-part story "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways". This made her the second performer to appear in both the classic and new series of Doctor Who. Julie Brennon, who played Fire Escape, was married at the time to Mark Strickson, who had been the Fifth Doctor's companion Vislor Turlough. Features a guest appearance by Richard Briers as the Chief Caretaker who also later appears in the Torchwood episode A Day in the Death as Henry Parker. See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who. Clive Merrison previously played Jim Callum in The Tomb of the Cybermen. [edit] In print A novelisation of this serial, written by Wyatt, was published by Target Books in December 1988. It reveals that the Blue Kang Leader is named Drinking Fountain. Doctor Who book Paradise Towers Series Target novelisations Release number 134 Writer Stephen Wyatt Publisher Target Books Cover artist Alister Pearson ISBN 0-426-20330-5 Release date 1 December 1988 [edit] VHS and DVD releases This story was released on VHS in October 1995. A DVD release of Paradise Towers is due in 2011[6] [edit] References ^ From the Doctor Who Magazine series overview, in issue 407 (pp26-29). The Discontinuity Guide, which counts the four segments of The Trial of a Time Lord as four separate stories and also counts the unbroadcast serial Shada, lists this story as number 149. Region 1 DVD releases follow The Discontinuity Guide numbering system. ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (2007-03-31). "Paradise Towers". Outpost Gallifrey. Archived from the original on 2008-05-02. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ "Paradise Towers". Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Sullivan, Shannon (2007-08-07). "Paradise Towers". A Brief History of Time Travel. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ a b c Paradise Towers at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel) ^ http://gallifreynewsbase.blogspot.com/2010/11/101110013312-dvd-paradise-towers-doctor.html [edit] External links Paradise Towers at BBC Online Paradise Towers at the Doctor Who Reference Guide [edit] Reviews Paradise Towers reviews at Outpost Gallifrey Paradise Towers reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide [edit] Target novelisation On Target — Paradise Towers
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TDP 184: Special Neil and Sue on Radio Tees
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 15 minutes and 43 secondsexapme from the blog click links to read more from Neil. AUDIO from the bbc local radio - suplied from the internet/other podcasts and provided here simply incase you missed it. With the Wife The Underwater Menace The Highlanders The Power of the Daleks The Hartnell Years The Tenth Planet The Smugglers Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150AD The War Machines The Savages The Gunfighters The Celestial Toymaker The Ark The Massacre The Daleks' Master Plan 11-12 The Daleks' Master Plan 5-10 The Daleks' Master Plan 1-4 The Myth Makers Mission to the Unknown Galaxy 4 Dr. Who and the Daleks The Time Meddler The Chase The Space Museum The Crusade The Web Planet The Romans The Rescue The Dalek Invasion of Earth Planet of Giants The Reign of Terror The Sensorites The Aztecs The Keys of Marinus Marco Polo The Edge of Destruction The Daleks An Unearthly Child with the Wife in Space Nuffink in ze world can stop us now! Except this story, obviously... A couple of hours before we settled down to watch The Underwater Menace, Sue and I appeared as guests on Bob Fischer's BBC Tees radio show to shamelessly plug this blog. You can listen to the edited highlights below (and Sue's PVC Dalek-suit anecdote was news to me!): Adventures with the Wife on BBC Tees - click to play Episode One Sue: That's just great. This story is going to star that ****ing hat. I hate that ****ing hat. We both enjoy the opening TARDIS scene, especially Jamie's reactions to the insanity he has walked into. There's a playful edge to the proceedings and a warmth we haven't really felt since the glory days of Ian, Susan and Barbara. We chuckle when Ben sarcastically hopes for the Daleks ("I bet the kids wouldn't have complained") while the Doctor's desire to encounter prehistoric monsters is dismissed out of hand ("not on this budget, love"). Me: Where do you hope they'll end up this time? Sue: Somewhere with decent carpentry. The TARDIS arrives on a beach and when Polly guesses at their whereabouts, Sue declares, in perfect harmony: Sue: Cornwall! It's always ****ing Cornwall! It doesn't take very long for our heroes to find themselves in danger: a platform they have been standing on is actually a lift, and as they hurtle beneath the sea, the TARDIS crew succumb to the bends. Sue: That's very interesting. Ben just asked Polly to get them out of there. He didn't ask the Doctor and he's standing right next to him. I don't blame Ben though; this Doctor is still pretty useless. When they regain consciousness, Polly finds some pottery with the logo for the 1968 Mexico Olympiad emblazoned on it, and then our heroes are confronted by a race of people dressed in clam shells and seaweed. Sue believes she has it sussed: Sue: Are they rehearsing for the Opening Ceremony? Their high priest even sports a fish on his head: Sue: Please tell me the Doctor doesn't get a hat like that. Just as Sue believes she has a handle on events, our heroes are strapped to some slabs and sadistically lowered toward a mad man's pet sharks. Sue: Is this a Bond movie now? Me: Yes. You Only Live 13 Times. Sue: Has this got anything to do with the Olympics? Anything at all? When the Doctor signs his name 'Dr. W', he reignites an old debate: Sue: You can't really argue with that, can you? That settles it: his name is Dr. Who. You'll just have to accept it, love. Me: Unless his real name begins with a W - Sue: Like Doctor Wibbly-Wobbly-Timey-Wimey? Would that make you feel any better? And does it really matter? I call him Dr. Who all the time - Me: Yes, I know. And every time you do it, part of me dies. When Professor Zaroff reveals that they are currently hanging out on the lost continent of Atlantis, Sue doesn't even flinch: Sue: Atlantis. Of course it's Atlantis. Where else would they be in this ****-ed up programme? So, it's James Bond on Atlantis? Gotcha. Thanks to those fainthearted Australians, the cliffhanger moves, although we find ourselves sympathising with the censor as Polly is strapped to a table and threatened with a large hypodermic needle by some evil scientists who want to turn her into a fish. Yes, a fish. Sue: I don't know what Polly is moaning about; I'd love to breathe underwater indefinitely. She could stick around and enter the 1972 Olympics. Mark Spitz would have nothing on her. Episode Two Me: How short is Polly's surgical gown - Sue: Trust you to notice that, love. The hot topic of conversation during this episode is Zaroff. Who else? Sue: He reminds me of that mad scientist from that show you love: Comedy Theater 2000 - Me: Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Sue: That's it. He reminds me of the mad scientist from that: an over-the-top pantomime villain. Me: Believe it or not, the guy playing him is actually a very fine actor - Sue: Oh, I don't doubt it. He's just having a laugh with the part. And who can blame him? How else would you play this character? His plan is completely pointless; there's no clever reason for him to do any of this, he just wants to blow up the world. There's no benefit or motive at all. Me: He's insane. Sue: It's lazy. With no motivation or backstory you have to play him as a larger-than-life lunatic. I like him; he's committed. He's definitely the funniest villain we've had in the series so far. When Ben and Jamie are taken to the mines of Atlantis, a high pitched whining cuts through the scene. We assume it represents the sound of the drilling but whatever it is, it's making our teeth itch. Sue: If we were 16 years old, we would hear that sound whenever we went near an off-license - Me: Have you warmed to Troughton yet? He's basically playing his version of the Doctor now. More or less. Sue: He reminds me of Ken Dodd in some of these stills. That one in particular (see right). The music doesn't help. It's atrocious. It sounds like they've let a small child loose on a Bontempi organ. This is the worst music that I've heard in the series so far. Who's responsible for it? Me: An Australian called Dudley Simpson - Sue: Sack him. He's rubbish. Episode Three Finally, after enduring thirteen consecutive recons (count them! thirteen!), we are reunited with a real bona fide episode. I never thought I'd ever hear myself say this but thank Amdo for The Underwater Menace Episode 3. Sue: Even though the story is still a complete mess, it's a thousand times easier to follow it when it exists. I don't want to state the bleedin' obvious but even the very worst story improves when you can actually see it. The recons I gave good scores to must have been incredible - The highlight of the episode for Sue is, of course, the sight of Jamie and Ben in tight-fitting rubber: Sue: Given the state of some of their costumes, they should have called this story The Underwear Menace. Me: I think the playwright Joe Orton mentioned this story in his diary. Or was it in Salmon Rushdie's The Satanic Verses? No, it must have been Joe Orton; he fancied Jamie in his rubber suit, I think. Or maybe it was Kenneth Williams. My memory is almost as bad as yours. Sue: Jamie and Ben wouldn't look out of place at that nightclub, Heaven. As if to accentuate this observation, Jamie and Ben suddenly launch themselves into the campest salute this side of 'Allo 'Allo. Sue: I'll say no more. Sue: Does Troughton ever go through a story where he doesn't play that bloody recorder? And are there any stories where he doesn't dress up at the drop of a hat (which he'll probably pick up and put on)? He's a borderline transvestite. Me: You might want to hold onto something during the next scene. We're about to meet the Fish People. Sue: They look like a second-rate dance troupe who are waiting to audition for Britain's Got Talent. They're probably going to do a up-tempo version of Yellow Submarine. A miner called Jacko attempts to turn the Fish People into striking militants. He does this by winding them up a bit. At one point he cries, "Are you not men?" and, quick as a flash, Sue replies: Sue: No! We're fish! What are you, blind? Hang on, is that Polly in a snorkel? Me: No, it's a Fish Person. Sue: They're having a laugh. And then it happens. Impossible to describe. Impossible to watch. Sue: This is the lowest point in Doctor Who yet. By some considerable margin. Please make it stop. Me: Is this worse than The Web Planet? Sue: Oh yes, this is even more half-arsed. Me: It's like a perverse joke: you wait 13 episodes for a real episode and then you get this. Sue: I take it all back - this would have been much better as a recon. Something that really niggles at us is the Fish People's economic impact on Atlantis, which is based on the assumption that the food they farm must be consumed immediately: Sue: OK, let me get this straight: Zaroff has a nuclear reactor but he hasn't got a fridge - or, better still, a fridge freezer - to put any food in? That makes no sense at all. Me: This is your first proper look at Patrick Troughton. Have you formed an opinion yet? Sue: I feel a little more comfortable with him now that I've seen him in action. He's far more animated than I expected and he's definitely got charisma. There's something about him. Sadly, the director isn't doing him any favours so I'll have to reserve judgement until I've seen some more. And then we reach the moment The Underwater Menace is probably best known for. But immediately before it arrives - and I'd completely forgotten this - Zaroff stabs someone with a spear, he shoots someone at point-blank range and then he has two others killed off-screen. It's horrific! But it's completely eclipsed by what follows: Sue: Wow. It's so mesmerising, we have to watch it again. And again. And again. Sue: He's having a whale of a time. Me: I'm glad someone is. Episode Four Sue: I still can't believe he didn't bring some fridges with him. Still, I guess if you are planning to blow up the world you can't think of everything. You know, I think every episode of Doctor Who could be improved with a Zaroff. The only thing missing is a scene of him tearing his hair out as he screams, "Why am I surrounded by idiots!". Me: There's still twenty minutes to go. I wouldn't rule anything out. Sue: I like the way the show has kept to its educational remit. Me: What? Sue: Jamie is from the past and therefore he doesn't understand what radioactivity is. Some of the children watching this wouldn't know either - Me: Yeah, that's great. There's just one tiny problem: they don't explain it. Polly says she can't be bothered! Polly and Jamie are struggling to escape the rising waters of Atlantis: Sue: It's turned into a disaster movie now. Me: Oh, it's a disaster all right. Sue: Why is Polly wearing a fireplace corbel on her head? Me: I don't even know what that means. Thanks to those Aussie wimps, we get to see Professor Zaroff drown. Well, I say drown... Sue: That's not drowning! Zaroff has hours left before the water rises above his head! Maybe he was bored and he decided to commit suicide? The world saved, the Doctor and his companions leave the Atlantans to it. Sue: Why are they bothering to rebuild Atlantis anyway? Why don't they just move up to the surface? They've got fridges up there. And while they missed the 1968 Olympics, Mexico have got the World Cup in 1970. It would be a shame if they missed it. The Final Score Sue: That was bonkers. And a little bit shit. 2/10 Sue: Zaroff was excellent, though. I could watch him all day. I'm not convinced that he's dead either; I think he was just wetting his hair a bit. He should definitely return in the new series. The League of Gentlemen could play him. Me: What, all of them? The experiment continues. Tags: anneke wills, frazer hines, innes lloyd, michael craze, patrick troughton Click to share this
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TDP 183: The Awakening
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 13 minutes and 28 secondsREPRINTED FROM WIKIPEDIA WITH THANKS AND RESPECT This story features a creature known as the Malus, who is responsible for creating a time link between the year of 1984 and the events from the English Civil War. The Doctor must also face the villagers of Little Hodcombe, who have been influenced by the Malus, and save Tegan before she is burned as the ill-fated Queen of the May. [edit] Plot On 13 July 1643, two forces came to the village of Little Hodcombe during the English Civil War and destroyed each other. As the story begins, a group of Roundheads are riding horses in the village of Little Hodcombe, with little regard to the villagers around them. Only it is not 1643, it is 1984. A schoolteacher, Jane Hampden, is convinced that her fellow villagers, led by the town’s leader, Sir George Hutchinson, have taken their re-enactment of a series of war games too far. Hutchinson attempts to assure her that the games are a harmless event, which are merely to celebrate the English Civil War. When Hampden asks him to stop the games, Hutchinson ignores her. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor promises to take his companion, Tegan, to 1984 so she could spend some time with her grandfather, Andrew Verney. The Doctor sets the coordinates to Little Hodcombe, where Verney resides. However, the TARDIS experiences some turbulence and arrives in what appears to be a structurally unstable church. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough, while watching on the scanner, see a man in 17th Century clothing, fleeing from the church and the Doctor dashes out to help him. However, the man has now vanished. Tegan is convinced that they have landed in the wrong time zone. However, Turlough tells her that he had checked the TARDIS coordinates and they were in 1984. As the Time Lord and his companions continue pursue the man, smoke starts to billow from a crack in the wall. Eventually, the three travellers are captured by Captain Joseph Willow and taken to Sir George Hutchinson. The Doctor and his companions are first brought before Hampden and Colonel Ben Woolsey, who apologizes for the poor treatment that they received. Hutchinson arrives and explains to the Doctor that the town is celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Little Hodcombe and then he urges him to join the celebration. Tegan then explains that they have come to this village to see her grandfather, Andrew Verney. She is informed that her grandfather is missing, and runs outside the room, upset. The Doctor follows but loses her. Tegan, still upset, is crying when someone steals her purse. She tries to get it back and she runs into a barn where she finds the ghost of an old man. The Doctor returns to the church and meets a 17th Century peasant, Will Chandler, who emerges from a wall. He has been hidden in a priest hole and believes the year to be 1643. Turlough eventually rescues Tegan from the barn and they return to the TARDIS, where they see a sparkly projection on one of the walls. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Will investigate the church. Tegan and Turlough leave the TARDIS and they are re-captured. Turlough is locked in a building with Verney. Willow forces Tegan to change into a 17th century costume. He informs her that she is to become the Queen of the May. The Doctor and Will continue to investigate. Eventually they find a secret passage back to Ben Woolsey’s living room under a slab marked with a picture of a creature that Will identifies as the Malus. Coming the other way through the passage, the Doctor and Will meet up with Hampden, who found the passage’s other end by accident after being locked in Colonel Wolsey's office. They avoid Hutchinson, who has followed Jane down the passage, and the Doctor finds a small ball of metal. The Doctor identifies the metal as “tinclavic,” a metal “mined by the Terileptils on the planet Raaga for the almost exclusive use of the people of Hakol,” a planet in the “star system Rifta,” where “psychic energy is a force to be harnessed.” Returning to the church, the Doctor and Hampden are astonished when a massive alien face pushes its way through the crack on the wall, roaring and spewing smoke. They manage to escape from the psychic projection of a cavalier, and head back to the house via the tunnel. The Doctor realises that the Malus in the church was discovered by Verney and Hutchinson. The latter tried to exploit the creature, but instead, the creature began to use him by organizing the war games. He deduces that the psychic energy released by the war games has fed the Malus. The Doctor and Jane again try to persuade Hutchinson to stop the games, as the final battle will be for real. He refuses and orders Woolsey to kill the Doctor. However, once Hutchinson leaves, Woolsey joins forces with the Doctor. The Queen of the May is taken in a horse-drawn cart towards the village green, where she is to be burned. When the cart arrives, Hutchinson suddenly noticed that the Queen is not Tegan, but a straw dummy that has been put in her place by Woolsey. Hutchinson becomes angry and he orders his men to kill Woolsey and the others. Will appears in the nick of time and uses a flame torch to cause a distraction, which allows the Doctor, Hampden, Woolsey and Tegan to escape and get back to the TARDIS. The Doctor locks the signal conversion unit on the frequency of the psychic energy feeding the Malus, hoping to be able to direct it. Willow and a trooper try in vain to break their way into the TARDIS, and Turlough and Verney knock them unconscious with lumps of masonry. The Doctor succeeds in blocking the energy, and the projection of the Malus in the TARDIS dies. The real Malus, in an act of desperation, attempts to drain as much psychic energy from the villagers as possible. He creates a corporeal projection of three roundheads who try to kill the Doctor, Woolsey, Tegan, Turlough, Hampden, Verney and Will. However, the dazed and confused trooper stumbles from the TARDIS and into the main church area, becomes surrounded by the roundheads, and they decapitate him then vanish. Hutchinson arrives and holds them all at gunpoint. When the Doctor tries to talk Hutchinson out of the thrall of the Malus, Willow attacks the group. In the scuffle, Will pushes Hutchinson into the mouth of the Malus, destroying the Malus's medium. Realizing it has failed, the Malus prepares to destroy itself and everything around it. Subsequently the church begins to collapse and the Doctor leads the others, including Willow, into the safety of the TARDIS. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor's companions are surprised to see Will still among them. The Doctor explains that he must have been wrong in his assumption that Will was a psychic projection. He then says that the Malus must have created a temporal rift, which allowed Will to slip into the future. The Time Lord then says that he will take Will back to 1643. Tegan objects and ask the Doctor to allow her some time to visit her grandfather. The Doctor is initially disgruntled but he is persuaded to stay in Little Hodcombe for a while for a rest. [edit] Continuity No explanation is given for companion Kamelion's absence from this story. The Doctor mentions the Terileptils mining tinclavic on the planet Raaga. Script editor Eric Saward added this in the script to create a reference to his own story The Visitation (1982). He had planned to write another story featuring the Terileptils, and wanted to make sure the audience remembered who they were. But as events worked out, Saward never wrote their planned return. This was the first story to feature alterations to the Fifth Doctor's costume. The Doctor wears a lighter-coloured frock coat, and a white "v-neck" cricketer's sweater with thick red and black piping around the "v" and the lower waist, as opposed to the costume he wore during the previous two seasons where the "v-neck" piping was thin and coloured red, white and black and there was no piping around the waist. The shirt is also altered with green lining on the collar and where the shirt is buttoned, instead of red. The Doctor disposed of his original costume in episode 2 of the previous story, Warriors of the Deep, in which he disguised himself in the uniform of a Sea Base 4 guard; it is possible he never retrieved his costume from the base before he left. The Fifth Doctor would wear the secondary version of his costume for the remainder of the season, save for most of Planet of Fire (1984). The newly regenerated Sixth Doctor would also be seen wearing it during the first episode of his debut story, The Twin Dilemma (1984). The Seventh Doctor encounters the other half of the Hakolian war machine that became the Malus in the Past Doctor Adventures novel The Hollow Men. [edit] Production Serial details by episode EpisodeBroadcast dateRun timeViewership (in millions) "Part One" 19 January 1984 25:18 7.9 "Part Two" 20 January 1984 24:47 6.6 [2][3][4] The working titles of this story were War Game and Poltergeist. Pringle had submitted this story in the mid-1970s to then-script editor Robert Holmes as a four-part story entitled War Game. In the 1980s he resubmitted his story (as well as a different four-parter, The Darkness, possibly featuring the Daleks) to script editor Eric Saward. Realizing the story did not have enough impact for four episodes, it was later pared down to two, renamed Poltergeist and then finally The Awakening. The story featured extensive location shooting and studio work. Saward wanted to add a TARDIS sequence with Tegan and Kamelion, utilising the robot prop and played in chameleonic form by Peter Davison and Mark Strickson. However, this scene was cut from the transmitted episode for timing reasons. The recovery of an early edit of episode one on video (in the personal archive of late producer John Nathan Turner) means that this element, previously thought lost, may now be included on a DVD release of the serial. A small part of the scene has appeared in the documentary Kamelion: Metal Man which featured on the DVD release of The King's Demons[5]. The master tape for Part One was found to have some scratch damage when the 1984 compilation version was being mastered, no protection copy was made at that time so the original tx master continued to deteriorate, the tape was checked in the early 90's and the scratch damage found to be far more intrusive than it had been in 84, fortunately the original film sequences were kept and using these, the compilation copy and the reprise from part 2, in 1997 the Doctor Who Restoration Team were able to make a repaired master copy. This was used for the VHS release. The episode will probably have to be restored from scratch when, at some point, it is mastered for DVD. This was officially the final story of the series to consist of two 25-minute episodes. All two parters since then have been 45 minutes long per episode, including most of season 22 and several stories of the revived series. The Ultimate Foe, the concluding segment of The Trial of a Time Lord, is numbered on screen as Parts Thirteen and Fourteen of the latter title; furthermore, they share the same BBC production code, 7C, with the preceding four-part story arc, Terror of the Vervoids, even though they have their own separate novelisation and feature compilation. The production designer for this story, Barry Newbery, had worked on Doctor Who intermittently ever since its very first story. After completing "Awakening", Newbery took early retirement from the BBC, making this story his last professional effort. John Nathan-Turner liked the character of Will Chandler a great deal and seriously considered keeping him on as a companion. However, it was eventually concluded that Chandler's child-like character would quickly wear thin and lacked any clear path of development, so Nathan-Turner dropped the idea. [edit] In print Doctor Who book The Awakening Series Target novelisations Release number 95 Writer Eric Pringle Publisher Target Books Cover artist Andrew Skilleter ISBN 0-426-20158-2 Release date 13 June 1985 A novelisation of this serial, written by Eric Pringle, was published by Target Books in February 1985. [edit] Broadcast and VHS release The story was repeated on BBC One in July 1984 as a 46min compilation (20/07/84) at 6.50pm. This story was released on a double VHS set with Frontios in March 1997. It will be released in a box set named Earth Story along with The Gunfighters on 20th June 2011. [edit] References ^ From the Doctor Who Magazine series overview, in issue 407 (pp26-29). The Discontinuity Guide, which counts the unbroadcast serial Shada, lists this as story number 132. Region 1 DVD releases follow The Discontinuity Guide numbering system. ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (2007-03-31). "The Awakening". Outpost Gallifrey. Archived from the original on 2008-07-31. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ "The Awakening". Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Sullivan, Shannon (2007-08-07). "The Awakening". A Brief History of Time Travel. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ http://www.denofgeek.com/Reviews/527149/doctor_who_kamelion_tales_collection_dvd_review.html [edit] External links The Awakening at BBC Online The Awakening at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel) The Awakening at the Doctor Who Reference Guide The Awakening on BBCWorldwideTV Youtube channel [edit] Reviews The Awakening reviews at Outpost Gallifrey The Awakening reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide [edit] Target novelisation On Target — The Awakening
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TDP 182:The Gunfighters
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 20 minutes and 14 secondsREPRINTED FROM WIKIPEDIA WITH THANKS AND RESPECT Synopsis In 19th Century America in the frontier town of Tombstone, Arizona, the troublesome Clanton brothers, Ike, Phineas and Billy, are in town in search of Doc Holliday to settle an old score over the death of another brother called Reuben. They meet up with their hired hand Seth Harper at the Last Chance Saloon. He knows what Holliday looks like and describes his coat and demeanour. This is overheard by bar singer Kate, who lets her paramour Holliday know he is in danger. The TARDIS has arrived in a nearby stable, with the Doctor in agony from toothache. He and his companions Steven Taylor and Dodo Chaplet, dressed as cowboys, soon encounter local marshal Wyatt Earp, who offers them his protection and warns them to keep their counsel. The Doctor finds the dentist – Holliday himself - while Dodo and Steven book rooms at the local hotel. There they are mocked by the Clantons, who suspect the Doctor they refer to is Holliday himself. Seth Harper is sent to the dentist’s surgery and invites the Doctor, tooth removed, to the hotel in five minutes to meet his friends. Holliday is initially happy to let him be shot in his place, allowing the real Doc to disappear, but Kate intervenes to ensure the Doctor survives. This buys some time until Holliday relents and hides in an upstairs chamber of the hotel, firing his gun at appropriate moments to con the Clantons into thinking the Doctor is indeed Holliday the sharpshooter. Soon afterward Wyatt Earp and Sheriff Bat Masterson arrive and break up the fracas, taking the Doctor into custody for his own protection. Steven now becomes embroiled in a plot to smuggle the Doctor a gun to help free him from the jailhouse, but the Doctor refuses to be armed. Steven is shortly afterward confronted by a rabble wound up by the Clantons, who are intent on lynching him as an associate of the disreputable Holliday. Once more it is Earp and Masterson who defuse the situation, and also take Phin Clanton into custody to ensure the co-operation of his brothers. The Doctor and Steven are freed and told to leave town as soon as possible. Dodo has meanwhile fallen in with Kate and Doc, who both plan to leave town and take her with them. When Seth Harper stumbles across their escape plans, Holliday kills him, and the trio then depart. Harper's role as aide to the Clantons is soon replaced by a new arrival, Johnny Ringo, who shoots local barman Charlie by way of an introduction to the town of Tombstone. The Doctor and Steven return to the Last Chance Saloon in search of Dodo and encounter the dangerous Ringo. Wyatt Earp’s brothers Warren and Virgil have meanwhile arrived at Tombstone to help him enforce the law. The Doctor soon tells them that Ringo is in town. Events take a harsh turn when the other Clanton brothers visit the jail to free Phin, killing Warren Earp in the process. Meanwhile Steven heads out of town to look for Dodo with Ringo in tow in search of Holliday. Steven and Kate end up being taken by Ringo to the Clanton ranch where the Clantons recamp and tell their father, Pa Clanton, that they have killed an Earp. Wyatt Earp swears vengeance and starts to build a posse of lawmen to deal with the Clantons once and for all. Doc Holliday returns to Tombstone with Dodo, and offers his services to his old friend Earp too. Attempts by the Doctor to defuse the situation amount to little: there will be a gunfight at the O.K. Corral. On the one side are the three Clanton brothers and Johnny Ringo; on the other, the two Earps and Doc Holliday. At the end of the gunfight Ringo and the three Clantons are shot dead. Shortly thereafter, the Doctor, Steven and Dodo slip away in the TARDIS. They arrive on a strange planet, and decide to go out and have a look. As they leave, a strange man is seen approaching the TARDIS on the scanner. [edit] Continuity For dating of this episode, see the Chronology. Apart from the time travellers, this serial intentionally takes dramatic liberties with historical events and many inaccuracies are present. For example, the participants in the gunfight are nearly entirely wrong; in the fight, Wyatt Earp, Morgan Earp, Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday faced down Frank McLaury, Tom McLaury, and Billy Clanton. The McLaury brothers and Billy Clanton died. Although Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne were initially present at the scene of the gunfight, both ran from the fight and were unharmed. The Clantons' father had been killed by Mexican Rurales in an ambush in August 1881, in retribution for the killing of Mexicans at the Skeleton Canyon Massacre (and most likely did not wear a bowler hat). There was no one by the name of Reuben Clanton, and neither Johnny Ringo nor Phineas Clanton were in town at the time. Warren Earp lived in Tombstone with his brothers, but he was not a marshal. James ran a saloon. Warren was shot and killed in a bar fight almost twenty years after the Tombstone events. Likewise there is no basis in fact for anything about the depiction of the Last Chance Saloon. Neither its name, its offered entertainment, its set decoration, nor its apparent volume of business are appropriate to Tombstone saloons in 1881.[1] [edit] Production Serial details by episode EpisodeBroadcast dateRun timeViewership (in millions)Archive "A Holiday for the Doctor" 30 April 1966 23:48 6.5 16mm t/r "Don't Shoot the Pianist" 7 May 1966 23:47 6.6 16mm t/r "Johnny Ringo" 14 May 1966 23:52 6.2 16mm t/r "The OK Corral" 21 May 1966 23:53 5.7 16mm t/r [2][3][4] The working title for this story was The Gunslingers.[5] This was the last serial of the series to have individual episode titles (until the 2005 revival). From The Savages on, each serial had an overall title divided into numbered parts or episodes. Despite this, a caption at the end of The OK Corral read "Next Episode: Dr. Who and the Savages".[6] According to About Time by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles, this was the first Western made for British television. [edit] Cast notes Dalek voice actor David Graham played Charlie the barman. He later played Kerensky in City of Death. Doc Holliday was played by Anthony Jacobs, whose son Matthew visited the set during production of the serial. Thirty years later, Matthew Jacobs wrote the script for the 1996 Doctor Who television movie. Laurence Payne later played Morix in The Leisure Hive and Dastari in The Two Doctors. [edit] Music The Gunfighters is notable for being the first Doctor Who episodes to contain musical narration, in the form of the "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon". It was sung by Lynda Baron, who does not appear onscreen (although Dodo appears to hear the ballad at the end of the serial). Baron would later appear, however, in the Fifth Doctor serial Enlightenment, in the role of Captain Wrack. (See also List of guest appearances in Doctor Who.) The ballad itself is included as an extra on the CD soundtrack release. The notion of commissioning original songs for Doctor Who would resume when the series was revived in 2005, beginning with "Song for Ten" in The Christmas Invasion. [edit] Broadcast and reception A common myth is that this story has the lowest ratings of any Doctor Who story. This myth likely stems from a misunderstanding of the difference between audience share and Audience Appreciation scores. The former indicates the size of the viewing audience and the latter is based on a survey gauging the viewers' opinions of the programme. In fact, the audience size for the serial ranged from 6.5 million viewers for the first episode to 5.7 million for the last. However, the Audience Appreciation scores for the last three episodes equalled or went below the lowest scores for Doctor Who, with the very last episode, "The O.K. Corral", having a score of 30%, the lowest ever to date. That said, the story did post ratings that were disappointing by a number of different measures. The Gunfighters represented a significant decrease over the previous serial, The Celestial Toymaker, which had ranged from 7.8 to 9.4 million viewers. Each episode of The Gunfighters was also significantly lower than for the first 18 weeks of Series 3, wherein the lowest-rated week—at 7.9 million viewers—belonged to the episode "The Feast of Steven" from The Daleks' Master Plan. Each episode of the serial was also beaten by the serials, which were respectively broadcast in similar April–May slots in 1965 (The Space Museum) and in 1964 (The Keys of Marinus). While not the lowest-rated Doctor Who story of all time, or even the lowest-rated Hartnell story, The Gunfighters did open a sustained period of significantly lower ratings for the program that would last almost the entirety of the remainder of the First Doctor's era. Beginning with "The O.K. Corral" — the very same episode that received the lowest Audience Appreciation figures of any Doctor Who episode — no Hartnell episode would top 6 million viewers until Episode 2 of his final story, The Tenth Planet. [edit] In print A novelisation of this serial, written by Donald Cotton, was published by Target Books in July 1985. It is narrated in first person by Doc Holliday (a framing scene introduces him on his deathbed) and makes a major change in the character of Johnny Ringo by depicting him as a student of the classics. Doctor Who book The Gunfighters Series Target novelisations Release number 101 Writer Donald Cotton Publisher Target Books Cover artist Andrew Skilleter ISBN 0-426-20195-7 Release date 9 January 1986 [edit] VHS, CD and DVD releases This serial was released on VHS in November 2002. Later, in 2007, it was released on CD, with linking narration, the entire "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon", and a bonus interview from Peter Purves. It will be released in a box set named Earth Story along with The Awakening on 20 June 2011. [edit] References ^ http://www.wildwestinfo.com/index1_files/page0003.htm[dead link] Monahan, Sherry. Tombstone's Treasure: Silver Mines & Saloons. University of New Mexico Press. 2007. ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (2007-03-31). "The Gunfighters". Outpost Gallifrey. Archived from the original on 2008-03-31. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ "The Gunfighters". Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Sullivan, Shannon (2005-04-29). "The Gunfighters". A Brief History of Time Travel. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Howe, David J.; Stammers, Mark; Walker, Stephen James (1994). Doctor Who The Handbook - The First Doctor. London: Doctor Who Books. p. 126. ISBN 0 426 20430 1. ^ Howe, David J.; Walker, Stephen James (1998). "The Gunfighters: Things to watch out for...". Doctor Who: The Television Companion. London: BBC Worldwide. p. 89. ISBN 0 563 40588 0. Retrieved 7 March 2011. [edit] External links The Gunfighters at BBC Online The Gunfighters at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel) The Gunfighters at the Doctor Who Reference Guide The Whoniverse's review on The Gunfighters [edit] Reviews The Gunfighters reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide The Gunfighters reviews at Outpost Gallifrey [edit] Target novelisation The Gunfighters novelisation reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide The Gunfighters novelisation reviews at Outpost Gallifrey On Target — The Gunfighters
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TDP 181: A Good Man Goes To War
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 20 minutes and 30 secondsREPRINTED FROM WIKIPEDIA WITH THANKS AND RESPECT Plot [edit] Synopsis The Doctor (Matt Smith) and Rory (Arthur Darvill) have discovered that Amy (Karen Gillan), Rory's wife and the Doctor's companion, has been taken from them and was replaced with a doppelganger made from 'the Flesh' ("The Almost People"). The Doctor has come to learn that the real Amy is being held on a secret asteroid base called "Demon's Run", and collects several old allies from across time and space, including Sontaran Commander Strax (Dan Starkey), Silurian Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and her human companion Jenny (Catrin Stewart), and the black market trader Dorium Maldovar (Simon Fisher-Becker), to lay an assault on the base. Rory, after collecting information on the base's location from a Cyberman fleet, attempts to recruit River Song (Alex Kingston) from her Stormcage prison cell, but she refuses, saying she cannot be with the Doctor at this time as this battle is when he will discover her identity. Aboard the base, Madame Kovarian (Frances Barber), who has been watching over Amy during her pregnancy and taken her child, Melody, from her, prepares her human troops to fight the Doctor alongside the Order of the Headless Monks who reside at Demon's Run; the monks are literally headless and incapable of being influenced by emotions. Human soldier Lorna Bucket, who had met the Doctor as a young girl in the Gamma forests, attempts to befriend Amy and gives her a cloth good luck token with Melody's name on it in her language. Amy warns Bucket of the Doctor's fury if she fights against him. Demons run when a good man goes to war Night will fall and drown the sun When a good man goes to war Friendship dies and true love lies Night will fall and the dark will rise When a good man goes to war Demons run, but count the cost The battle's won, but the child is lost “ ” River Song, explaining the meaning of the name of Demon's Run base Assisted by additional Silurian and Judoon forces, the Doctor and his allies launch a surprise attack and secure the base. The Doctor and Rory free Amy and retake Melody before Madame Kovarian can escape with her. As the Doctor celebrates, considering this his greatest achievement, Vastra and Dorium discover that Kovarian has been scanning Melody and has found that the child has both human and Time Lord DNA. The Doctor surmises that Melody was likely conceived on Amy and Rory's wedding night aboard the TARDIS, the baby's DNA influenced by the time vortex. The rest of the Doctor's allies regroup, and Amy and Rory tend to their daughter using an ancient wooden cot that the Doctor claims was his own. Kovarian, well away from the base, contacts the Doctor, explaining that they will be using Melody as a weapon in the war against him. She takes delight in telling him he has fallen into another trap, and that "fooling [the Doctor] once was a joy, twice in the same way is a privilege." The Doctor races to the hangar to warn his friends. Meanwhile, Bucket has arrived and warns the group of Kovarian's trap, but they are too late as the TARDIS is blocked by a force field and they are attacked by the Headless Monks. Dorium is killed immediately, while Strax and Bucket are fatally wounded in the battle. At the same time, Kovarian, appearing through a hatch opening in midair near where Amy and Melody are hiding, tells the baby to wake up. The baby dissolves into the Flesh liquid, leaving Amy distraught. The Doctor arrives too late to help his wounded allies, and helps Rory to console Amy. River appears, and the Doctor berates her for not helping. She tries to explain that she could not, and tells the Doctor how these recent events were partially his fault, having been brought about by those that feared his reputation. The Doctor, angry and emotional, demands to know who she is. River shows the Doctor the cot, and The Doctor recognises River's identity. Elated, he goes off on his own in the TARDIS to rescue Melody, asking River to return everyone to their proper time stream. Amy demands that River explain what the Doctor learned, and she shows them the cot. Initially Amy believes River is referring to the Gallifreyan symbols engraved on it, but they cannot be read by humans even with the aid of the TARDIS translation systems. Instead, River shows them Bucket's cloth charm with Melody's name, still in the cot. The Gamma forest people only know of one source of water ("The only water in the forest is the river" quotes Dr. Song) and have no word for "melody", Bucket used the closest approximations: "song" and "river". River Song re-introduces herself to Amy and Rory as their daughter. [edit] Continuity Dorium previously appeared in the opening to "The Pandorica Opens", selling River Song a vortex manipulator. Henry and Toby Avery, from "The Curse of the Black Spot", appear briefly to secure Madame Kovarian's ship. The space-worthy Spitfires modified by the Doctor and piloted by "Danny Boy" as shown in "Victory of the Daleks" are shown to disable the base's communication array. Fat One and Thin One refer to the Doctor sending the Atraxi away from a planet before calling them back "for a scolding", an incident that took place in "The Eleventh Hour". The Headless Monks were previously mentioned in "The Time of Angels", added to that episode's script to help explain the Delirium Archive's monastic look.[2] Bucket refers to her unit as "the Clerics" - this unit was introduced in "The Time of Angels" / "Flesh and Stone". "The only water in the forest is the river," the phrase River uses to explain why the people of the Gamma Forest translate Pond to River, was first said to Rory by Idris in "The Doctor's Wife". Rory wears the armour of a Roman centurion, as in "The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang" and "A Christmas Carol". Amy also tells Melody of Rory's nickname of "the Last Centurion", derived from his two thousand-year vigil over the Pandorica in "The Big Bang". In describing Rory's time in and out of the TARDIS, the Doctor refers to "sexy fish vampires" ("The Vampires of Venice"), Rory's death and erasure from time ("Cold Blood") and his time as an Auton before the universe was restored ("The Pandorica Opens" / "The Big Bang"). [edit] Prequel On 28 May 2011, immediately following the broadcast of "The Almost People", the BBC released a prequel to "A Good Man Goes to War". The prequel has Dorium talking to two Headless Monks. He gives them the brain of a Judoon, which contains a security protocol the hooded figures need. Dorium tells them that he knows what they are up to, as he hears a lot of rumours around the area. He asks them, "All this, to imprison one child? Oh, I know what you're up to, I hear everything in this place. I even hear rumours about whose child you've taken. Are you mad? You know the stories about the Doctor? The things that man has done? God help us if you make him angry!"[3] [edit] Production The seventh episode of series six was the 777th episode of Doctor Who, but there are no seven puns as the production team did not realise this until after shooting.[4] [edit] Cast notes Dan Starkey appears as the Sontaran Commander Strax. He previously played Commander Skorr in "The Sontaran Stratagem" / "The Poison Sky" (2008) and Commander Jask in The End of Time (2010). Neve McIntosh played the Silurian sisters Alaya and Restac in "The Hungry Earth" / "Cold Blood" (2010). [edit] Broadcast and reception Matt Risley of IGN rated the episode a 9.0/10, stating that the episode was an "epic" one that "opened with a grandstanding, wonderfully OTT pre-credits tease and didn't really let up from there."[5] Gavin Fuller of The Telegraph said that the episode was good but lacked significant background motivation into the villains. Fuller also notes that the revelation of River Song being Amy's grown up child "is perhaps a narrative strand that would sit uncomfortably with a series where loss has often been brushed off as soon as the next couple of episodes". However, he did have praise for the performance of Matt Smith, commenting that "the last few weeks have seen Matt Smith’s Doctor in a welcome generally more serious vein, which he kept up here, with leavening at the right moments where his alien lack of comfort with human emotions, although used to comic effect, rang very true, as did his awkwardness when discovering the truth about River".[6] Dan Martin of The Guardian was less favourable, stating that that the producers "promised us a cliffhanger, and now we're left the whole summer long to contemplate whether our favourite show can really have just dropped the ball. Oh there was plenty to love about this mid-season finale, and even more to pick over. But as an hour of drama it was all over the place". Because the episode was so fast-paced with little being explained, he did not feel any emotional connection to the Anglican marines or Lorna Bucket. Unlike Fuller, Martin was not favorable to Matt Smith's Doctor, stating that "the non-event of the battle means that the Doctor never really gets to show this dark side we've been hearing so much about" and that Smith's predecessor, David Tennant, "got angrier most weeks". Martin did have praise for the final reveal of the episode, stating that although it had been "hidden in plain view from the very beginning as soon as its revealed Amy has called the baby Melody", he was unable to make the connection and was suitably surprised.[7] [edit] References ^ "Matt Smith's Series Two: Latest News". Doctor Who Magazine (432): 9. 6 April 2011 (cover date). ^ "The Born Identity". Doctor Who Confidential. BBC. BBC Three. 04 June 2011. No. 7, series 6. ^ "A Good Man Goes to War Prequel". BBC. 28 May 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2011. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011rf7y ^ http://tv.ign.com/articles/117/1172497p1.html ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/doctor-who/8552099/Doctor-Who-episode-7-A-Good-Man-Goes-to-War-review.html ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/jun/04/doctor-who-a-good-man-goes-to-war [edit] External links "A Good Man Goes to War" at the Internet Movie Database A Good Man Goes to War on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki "A Good Man Goes to War" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage "A Good Man Goes to War" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
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TDP 180: The Almost People Smith 2.06
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 14 minutes and 9 seconds"The Almost People" is the sixth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was first broadcast on BBC One on 28 May 2011. It is the second episode of a two-part story which began with "The Rebel Flesh". Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 Broadcast and reception 3.1 International broadcast 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot [edit] Synopsis The ganger of the Doctor struggles to reconcile his old regenerations, quoting from them, before he stabilises. Both Doctors look the same but can be told apart by their different shoes. The two Doctors determine that they need to restore power to the factory in order to send a distress call to the mainland. Amy becomes distrustful of the ganger Doctor and asks him not to call her "Pond", his sobriquet for her. While the group escapes from the chapel, the Jennifer ganger explains that every time a ganger dies, the last question in their eyes is "Why?". She convinces the other gangers to rise up against humanity. Rory, still looking for Jennifer, eventually finds two Jennifers, each insisting they are the 'real' Jennifer. They fight each other; one finally pushes the other into an acid pool, where she melts and is revealed to be a ganger. The humans and the Doctors arrive at the power control room. Sensing the Flesh in his head, the ganger Doctor runs outside, and Amy runs after him. She confronts him about the death she witnessed, but the ganger Doctor does not respond. He echoes the Jennifer ganger's question: "'Why?' It's all the eyes say. 'Why?'" He pushes Amy up against the wall, and she runs back into the control room, scared. Cleaves separates the Doctors, saying they cannot trust the ganger. The Doctor sends his ganger and Buzzer off to find Rory and Jennifer, explaining that the sonic screwdriver can distinguish between humans and the Flesh. Jennifer leads Rory to a room and asks him to initiate a power system, but this instead turns off the factory's cooling system and the acid begins to boil. The Doctor and the humans are forced to flee the communications room as acid pipes start to explode. Jennifer and Rory come across a pile of discarded gangers, left to rot but fully aware. Rory says they have to show the world what they have found: to this end, Jennifer tricks Rory into locking the humans and the Doctor into the crypt, and Jennifer reveals herself to be in fact another Jennifer ganger. This episode features the 'Eye Patch Lady'. Meanwhile, Jennifer has killed Buzzer and the Doctor ganger is recruited by the other gangers. With the help of a holographic phone call to Jimmy's son, the Doctor ganger convinces them that they share the same compassion as the humans. Ganger Cleaves orders the humans released. This enrages Jennifer, who transforms into a monster intent on killing them all. The group runs through the factory and find the TARDIS, which falls through the ceiling. The Cleaves ganger and the Doctor say they will remain to hold back the Jennifer ganger. Amy tries to get the Doctor into the TARDIS, but he reveals that they switched boots; the ganger Doctor and the original have been pretending to be each other all along. Amy apologises for mistrusting them, and the ganger Doctor tells Amy, "Push - but only when she tells you to." The Doctor and Cleaves gangers stay behind as the others leave, sacrificing themselves to destroy Jennifer. The Doctor drops Cleaves and the Jimmy ganger off at their company headquarters. Amy suddenly begins to feel pain in her abdomen, and The Doctor tells her she is having contractions. In the TARDIS, the Doctor tells Amy she is a ganger, and has not actually been with them for a long time. He explains they visited the factory so he could scan the Flesh in its early stages. He promises to find the real Amy, and blocks her connection to the ganger. The ganger disintegrates. Amy wakes up in a white room. The Eye Patch Lady slides back a window and looks down on her, telling her to push. Amy looks down to see that she is pregnant, and screams as she goes into labour. [edit] Continuity While struggling with his past regenerations, the Doctor's ganger alludes to several previous Doctors' words. He misquotes the First Doctor's line "one day we shall get back... yes, one day" from An Unearthly Child as "one day we will get back", speaks the Third Doctor's famous line "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow", and speaks with the voices of the Fourth and Tenth Doctors (Tom Baker and David Tennant respectively), the former expressing that Doctor's fondness for jelly babies.[1] The Eye Patch Lady previously made brief appearances in "Day of the Moon", "The Curse of the Black Spot" and "The Rebel Flesh". According to Executive Producer Beth Willis, the Amy Pond ganger has been acting in place of the original Amy Pond since the beginning of series 6.[1] The original Amy is shown to be in labour; the Doctor has performed several inconclusive pregnancy tests on Amy since "Day of the Moon". Believing she is talking to the Doctor's ganger, Amy informs the original Doctor of his future self's death as seen in "The Impossible Astronaut". [edit] Production [edit] Cast notes Raquel Cassidy previously appeared in the Fifth Doctor audio drama The Judgement of Isskar where she played Mesca.[2] Cassidy also previously starred in the BBC TV series Party Animals alongside Matt Smith. Marshall Lancaster, who played Buzzer, has also starred Life On Mars and Ashes To Ashes, which were written by Matthew Graham, who wrote this episode and also "The Rebel Flesh". [edit] Broadcast and reception Dan Martin of The Guardian said of the episode, "The Almost People feels a bit uneven, though it's worth saying that it's one of those where everything makes more sense on second viewing",[3] but went on to describe the gangers as "an exercise in moral dilemmas", and "memorable Almost Villains".[3] Gavin Fuller of The Telegraph described it as a "taut, claustrophobic, sci-fi thriller", and as an "impressive episode with its neatly realised psychological and body horror"[4]. A largely positive review also came from Neela Debnath of The Independent, who states that Matt Smith "excels in his acting, managing to be reassuring and threatening, hilarious and sinister all within the same few scenes".[5]. Both Martin and Fuller were less generous of Jennifer's monster transformation. Martin commented "this dark, thoughtful story is restored to camp running-for-your-life-around-some-corridors"[3], and Fuller called it "something of a pity".[4] [edit] International broadcast BBC America plans to show this episode on 4 June, one week later than it is aired in the UK, due to expected low numbers of TV viewers during the Memorial Day weekend.[6]
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TDP 179: Frontios
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 10 minutes and 5 secondsFrontios is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from January 26 to February 3, 1984. Contents [hide] 1 Synopsis 2 Plot 2.1 Cast notes 3 Continuity 4 Production 5 In print 6 Broadcast and VHS release 7 References 8 External links 8.1 Reviews 8.2 Target novelisation [edit] Synopsis Its inhabitants having fled a dying Earth, the planet Frontios is mankind’s last colony and the location of hidden dangers. [edit] Plot The TARDIS lands in the far future, on the planet Frontios, where some of the last vestiges of humanity are struggling for survival. The planet is being attacked by meteorite showers orchestrated by an unknown enemy responsible for the disappearance of several prominent colonists, including the colony’s leader, Captain Revere. After witnessing Revere being “eaten by the ground,” Security Chief Brazen engages in a cover up. To the public, Captain Revere died of natural causes. After a state funeral, Revere’s son, Plantaganet, assumes the leadership of the colony. The TARDIS is mysteriously affected by a meteorite storm and dragged down to the planet by gravity. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough emerge, in the middle of the bombardment, to investigate. Despite his earlier reservations about getting involved, the Doctor violates the cardinal rule of the Time Lords by helping the colonists who were injured by the meteorite bombardment and by providing medical assistance. Needing better light in the medical facility, the Doctor sends Tegan and Turlough to fetch a portable mu-field activator and five argon discharge globes from the TARDIS. However, once they arrive, they find that the ship’s inner door is stuck, preventing them from getting beyond the console room. Norna, Tegan and Turlough obtain an acid-battery from the research room to power the lights. On their way back, however, they are forced to render the Warnsman unconscious to avoid capture. Another bombardment occurs and, in the Warnsman’s absence, catches the colony unawares. When the skies clear, the TARDIS has gone, seemingly destroyed; all that is left is the Doctor’s hat stand. Plantaganet orders the execution of the Doctor, but Turlough intercedes, using the TARDIS hat stand as a weapon. Plantaganet tries to attack the Doctor with a crowbar but suffers a heart attack. The Time Lord manages to save his life using the battery, but Plantaganet is later dragged into the ground by some mysterious force. The Doctor, Tegan and Turlough discover that the culprits are the Gravis and his Tractators, giant insects with incredible powers over gravity. Turlough briefly undergoes a sort of nervous breakdown due to the fact that the Tractators once attempted to invade his home world long ago; his mind contains a deep, horrific "race memory" of the event. The disappearing colonists were being used by the Tractators to run their mining machines. Plantaganet was kidnapped to replace Captain Revere, the current driver who is now brain dead. The Gravis intends to transform Frontios into an enormous spaceship. Once successful, he would be able to spread the terror of the Tractators across the galaxy. The Doctor, Turlough, Brazen and his guards rescue Plantaganet by knocking out the Gravis. However, Brazen gets caught by one of the mining machines and is killed while the others escape. Tegan wanders around in the tunnels and comes across bits of the TARDIS’s inner walls. She is chased by the Gravis, who has now regained consciousness, and two of his Tractators. She inadvertently comes upon one of the TARDIS’s inner doors and she opens it to find herself in the TARDIS console room, which has bits of rock wall mixed in with its normal walls. She also finds the Doctor, Turlough and Plantaganet hovering around the console. The Doctor ushers the Gravis in and then tricks him into reassembling the TARDIS by using his power over gravity. The Gravis pulls the TARDIS back into its normal dimension. Once fully assembled, the Gravis is effectively cut off from his fellow Tractators, which revert to a harmless state. The Doctor and Tegan deposit the now-dormant Gravis on the uninhabited planet of Kolkokron. Returning to Frontios, the Doctor gives Plantaganet the hat stand as a farewell token and asks that his own involvement in the affair not be mentioned to anyone, especially the Time Lords. Once the TARDIS has left Frontios, its engines start making a worrisome noise. The Doctor appears to be helpless as the ship is being pulled towards the centre of the universe. [edit] Cast notes The part of Mr. Range was originally to be played by actor Peter Arne, but he was murdered at his home prior to the start of recording. Jeff Rawle later played Mr. Harding in Mona Lisa's Revenge, an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Lesley Dunlop later played Susan Q in The Happiness Patrol. [edit] Continuity No explanation is given for companion Kamelion's absence from this story. This story remains, to date, the sole appearance of the Tractators in the television series. However, on March 6, 1984, then Doctor Who script editor Eric Saward wrote to Bidmead a request that he write a sequel to Frontios, which would have featured the return of the Tractators and the Doctor’s arch nemesis, the Master. This lost story is brought back to life (minus the Master) in the Big Finish audio The Hollows of Time. The short story Life After Queth featured in Short Trips: Farewells details an adventure the Doctor, Tegan and the Gravis had on the way to Kolkokron. The Big Finish audio story Excelis Dawns details an adventure the Doctor had on the way back to Frontios. [edit] Production Serial details by episode EpisodeBroadcast dateRun timeViewership (in millions) "Part One" 26 January 1984 24:39 8.0 "Part Two" 27 January 1984 24:35 5.8 "Part Three" 2 February 1984 24:30 7.8 "Part Four" 3 February 1984 24:26 5.6 [2][3][4] The story’s working title was The Wanderers. This story was the final televised story written by former Doctor Who script editor, Christopher H. Bidmead. The actors who played the Tractators were all trained dancers, as the script called for the actors to curl around their victims like woodlice. In the event, the Tractator costumes produced were too inflexible for this to be done. It is unstated what happens to Kamelion, who has been inside the TARDIS since The King's Demons. The writers of The Discontinuity Guide theorise that he is disguised as the hatstand.[5] The final episode ends on a cliffhanger, with the TARDIS dragged into a time corridor. The episode was followed by a trailer of clips for the following serial, Resurrection of the Daleks, which continued the story. In addition to the death of Peter Arne, production designer Barrie Dobbins committed suicide after finishing most of the preparations for the story. His assistant had to complete Dobbins' work. [edit] In print Doctor Who book Frontios Series Target novelisations Release number 91 Writer Christopher H. Bidmead Publisher Target Books Cover artist Andrew Skilleter ISBN 0-426-19780-1 Release date 10 December 1984 The story was novelised by Bidmead and published by Target Books in December 1984.Bidmead includes many gruesome images of the Tractators technology including a hovering translation device. The cliffhanger that led into Resurrection of the Daleks is removed. [edit] Broadcast and VHS release This story was released on a double VHS set with The Awakening in March 1997. It is due to be released on DVD in May 2011. [edit] References ^ From the Doctor Who Magazine series overview, in issue 407 (pp26-29). The Discontinuity Guide, which counts the unbroadcast serial Shada, lists this as story number 133. Region 1 DVD releases follow The Discontinuity Guide numbering system. ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (2007-03-31). "Frontios". Outpost Gallifrey. Archived from the original on 2008-07-31. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ "Frontios". Doctor Who Reference Guide. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Sullivan, Shannon (2007-08-07). "Frontios". A Brief History of Time Travel. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Cornell, Paul; Day, Martin; Topping, Keith (1995). "Frontios" (reprinted on BBC Doctor Who website). The Discontinuity Guide. London: Virgin Books. p. 299. ISBN 0-426-20442-5. Retrieved 20 April 2009. [edit] External links Frontios at BBC Online Frontios at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel) Frontios at the Doctor Who Reference Guide Extended Edit: Frontios in Time Space Visualiser [edit] Reviews Frontios reviews at Outpost Gallifrey Frontios reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide Frontios in Time Space Visualiser [edit] Target novelisation Frontios (novelisation) reviews at Outpost Gallifrey On Target—Frontios [hide]v · d · eDoctor Who season 21 serials Warriors of the Deep • The Awakening • Frontios • Resurrection of the Daleks • Planet of Fire • The Caves of Androzani • The Twin Dilemma
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TDP 178: The Rebel Flesh
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 8 minutes and 20 secondsThe Rebel Flesh" is the fifth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and is the first episode of a two-part story which will conclude with "The Almost People". Contents 1 Plot 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 Broadcast and reception 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot [edit] Synopsis As the Doctor (Matt Smith) continues the unresolved TARDIS scan on the possible pregnancy of his companion Amy (Karen Gillan), the TARDIS is caught in the first waves of a "solar tsunami" and materialises on Earth in the 22nd Century. The Doctor, Amy, and Amy's husband Rory (Arthur Darvill) find themselves on a remote island in the future, where a factory housed in a former castle monastery pumps a valuable, highly corrosive acid to the mainland. The skeleton crew of the factory uses a self-replicating fluid called the Flesh from which they create exact doppelgängers of themselves, colloquially called gangers. The crew controls the gangers from special control beds, operating the hazardous environment of the factory via the disposable bodies. The Doctor, initially posing as an inspector, fears the worst part of the solar tsunami will strike the solar-powered factory soon, threatening those still remaining, and offers to take the crew in his TARDIS. The foreman, Miranda Cleaves (Raquel Cassidy), refuses to shut down the factory until she receives orders from the mainland. As the solar storm begins, the Doctor races to disconnect the solar collector, but an electrical strike hits the castle, throwing the Doctor off the tower and knocking everyone else inside unconscious. When the crew awakens they find themselves out of the control beds with no sign of the gangers. However, their own personal belongings have been gone through and the TARDIS has sunk into acid-corroded ground. The Doctor explains that they have likely been unconscious for more than an hour and the gangers have gained sentience. They soon discover that two of the gangers are amongst them, posing as Cleaves and Jennifer (Sarah Smart), when the two give themselves away by losing their facial similarities and turn pale-white. Jennifer also exhibits the ability to contort and stretch her body well beyond human limits. The Jennifer ganger struggles with her new identity and befriends Rory who has begun to demonstrate an emotional attachment to her. The Cleaves ganger works in secret with the other gangers to try to kill the real humans, as the human Cleaves works towards killing the gangers. The Doctor attempts to reunite the two sides but fails when the human Cleaves kills one of the gangers with a high-powered electrical charge. As the gangers plan an attack, the Doctor accuses Cleaves of killing a living being, but Cleaves refuses to acknowledge this. The ganger version of Jennifer goes in search for her human counterpart in order to kill her. The Doctor determines that, as they're in a monastery, the safest place to be is the chapel, and directs everyone there. As the gangers in acid-protection suits bear down on the chapel, Rory, responding to the sound of Jennifer screaming, deliberately separates from the group against Amy's wishes. In the chapel, a figure emerges from the shadows: it is a ganger of the Doctor. [edit] Continuity The Doctor is seen, for the third time this series, covertly consulting the TARDIS computers to find out if Amy is pregnant; as in previous episodes, the readout alternates repeatedly between positive and negative. Also, the "Eye Patch Lady" (Frances Barber) makes a brief non-speaking appearance through a sliding hatch, shocking Amy as she explores the castle looking for Rory. [edit] Production [edit] Cast notes Raquel Cassidy previously appeared in the Fifth Doctor audio drama The Judgement of Isskar where she played Mesca.[1] Cassidy also previously starred in the BBC TV series Party Animals alongside Matt Smith. [edit] Broadcast and reception The episode achieved an overnight rating of 5.7 million with an audience share of 29.3%.[2]
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TDP 177: The Doctors Wife (Fixed)
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 11 minutes and 41 seconds"The Doctor's Wife" is the fourth episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was broadcast on 14 May 2011, written by Neil Gaiman.[2] Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Synopsis 1.2 Continuity 2 Production 2.1 Writing 2.2 Casting 2.3 Filming 3 Broadcast and reception 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot [edit] Synopsis While in deep space, the Doctor, Amy and Rory receive a hypercube containing a distress call from a Time Lord. Tracing the source of the call to a rift leading outside the universe, the Doctor deletes part of his TARDIS to generate enough energy to cross through the rift. After landing in a junkyard on a solitary asteroid, the TARDIS shuts down and its matrix suddenly disappears. The three explore, and meet the strange inhabitants, Uncle, Auntie, a green eyed Ood called Nephew and an excited young woman named Idris who fawns all over, and then bites, the Doctor. While Uncle and Auntie lock up Idris, and Amy and Rory return to the TARDIS, the Doctor follows the distress signal and finds a cabinet containing a large number of hypercubes. Upon further investigation of Uncle and Auntie, he finds they are constructed of body parts from other beings, including Time Lords. They are controlled by the asteroid, called House, which is sentient and able to interface with other technology around it. House led the Doctor there and ripped out the TARDIS' matrix, initially in order to consume its Artron energy, but upon learning that the Doctor is the last Time Lord and that no more TARDISes will ever arrive, decides to transfer itself into the TARDIS and escape from the rift. Amy and Rory are trapped inside as the House-controlled TARDIS dematerialises. The Doctor learns that Idris contains the personality of the TARDIS' matrix. Idris, as the TARDIS, and the Doctor come to realise they selected each other hundreds of years prior when the Doctor fled Gallifrey, and have a personal chat. Without House's support, Uncle and Auntie die. Idris reveals that House had stranded many TARDISes before on the planet, and that this universe only has hours left before it collapses, and that Idris' body only has a short time before it also will fail. The Doctor and Idris work together to construct a makeshift TARDIS from scraps, and then pursue House. Aboard the Doctor's TARDIS, House threatens to kill Amy and Rory. He plays with their senses as they try to flee through the corridors, then sends Nephew after them. Idris makes a psychic connection with Rory to give him directions to a secondary control room, where he and Amy are able to lower the TARDIS shields without House's interference. This allows the Doctor to land the makeshift console in the secondary control room, which atomises Nephew. House deletes the secondary control room as he prepares to break through the rift, which the Doctor anticipates. The TARDIS safety protocols transfer them to the main control room, where the dying Idris releases the TARDIS matrix back to where it belongs, deleting House from the TARDIS machine. As the Doctor, Amy, and Rory recover, a remnant of the TARDIS matrix, still in Idris' body, sadly comments she will not be able to communicate with the Doctor after this but will be there for him. Idris' body disappears as the TARDIS matrix is fully restored. The Doctor installs a security field around the matrix to prevent it from being compromised in the future. Rory asks the Doctor about some of Idris' final words—"The only water in the forest is the river"—but the Doctor doesn't understand. After Amy and Rory leave to find a new bedroom, their original purged by House, the Doctor talks to the TARDIS, and, in response, a nearby lever moves on its own, sending the TARDIS to its next destination. [edit] Continuity This section may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources. See the talk page for details. (May 2011) This section describes a work or element of fiction in a primarily in-universe style. Please help rewrite it to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. (May 2011) "The Doctor's Wife" revisits many mythology elements regarding the Doctor and the TARDIS established from the original run of the show and continued into the new series. Idris, as the TARDIS, affirms that the Doctor left with her, a type 40 TARDIS, to flee Gallifrey more than 700 years ago, and the TARDIS' history of unreliability is explained as her taking the Doctor not where he wants to go, but where he needs to go. The Doctor has mentioned that the TARDIS is alive in previous episodes, including in The Five Doctors, and has referred to 'her' as "old girl" many times, and as "sexy" occasionally in his Eleventh incarnation, both of which Idris indicates she likes. The Doctor refers to altering the control room's appearance as changing the desktop, as the Fifth Doctor does in "Time Crash". Like the Third Doctor in Inferno, the Doctor and Idris operate a TARDIS control panel outside of an outer TARDIS shell. The Doctor also jettisons TARDIS rooms to create thrust, as in Logopolis and Castrovalva. The TARDIS is mentioned to have retained an archive of previous control rooms unbeknownst to the Doctor, including many he has yet to create; the one shown in this episode is the design featured between "Rose" and "The Eleventh Hour", used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. When speaking of his fellow Time Lord the Corsair, the Doctor implies that Time Lords can change gender on regeneration. The Doctor admits he killed all of the Time Lords, alluding to the events of the Time War and The End of Time. In The War Games, the Second Doctor contacted the Time Lords using a cube similar to those seen in this episode. The Doctor suggests visiting the Eye of Orion, which is seen in The Five Doctors. The Doctor again refers to himself as "a madman with a box", reprising Amy's and his own description of himself in "The Eleventh Hour". The Ood "Nephew" displays green eyes (indicating, as with the green-lit TARDIS, that he is possessed by House);[3] Oodkind's eyes also changed colour in "The Impossible Planet" / "The Satan Pit" and "Planet of the Ood". Alluding to the Ood controlled by the Beast in the former episodes, the Doctor refers to Nephew as "another Ood I failed to save." The Doctor states that the Corsair always put a tattoo of a snake eating its own tail on each of his new bodies; the tattoo is on the left arm of his final body, being worn by Auntie. The Third Doctor's body came complete with a snake tattoo on his left arm, as shown when he showers in Spearhead from Space. [edit] Production [edit] Writing "The Doctor's Wife" is Neil Gaiman's (pictured) first contribution to Doctor Who. The episode was written by Neil Gaiman. After Steven Moffat replaced Russell T Davies as the showrunner of Doctor Who, being a fan of Gaiman's blog, Moffat met with Gaiman and Gaiman asked to write an episode. In an interview Gaiman stated "I came up with something that was one of those things where you thought that nobody's done that before."[4] The episode was originally titled "The House of Nothing".[5] Gaiman suggested they make an episode which centres on the TARDIS itself, which was not done before for the entire series since it began in 1963. The central idea was a "what if" scenario to see what would happen if the Doctor and the TARDIS got to talk together. Head writer Steven Moffat liked the idea of featuring the TARDIS as a woman, believing this to be the "ultimate love story" for the Doctor.[6] Gaiman began writing the episode before Matt Smith was even cast as the Eleventh Doctor; Gaiman envisaged David Tennant's performance in the first draft, knowing Smith would play the Doctor differently. Despite this he had no issue writing the dialogue. The episode was originally slated for the eleventh episode of the fifth series. However, it was delayed to the sixth because of budget issues; the eleventh episode would be replaced with "The Lodger".[4] Even so, Gaiman was forced to operate with less money than he would have liked; for instance, he had to scrap a scene set in the TARDIS' swimming pool.[7] The move to the sixth series also meant Gaiman had to include Rory, who ceased to exist in the original slot in the fifth series. With Rory included, Gaiman had to "reshape" much of the second half of the episode, featuring Amy being on the run in the TARDIS. In the original draft where Amy was the only companion, Gaiman added a "heartbreaking monologue" by the character, further stating "you get to see what it's like to be the companion from the companion's point of view, and she got to talk about essentially in that version how sad it is, in some ways. One day something will happen to her, she'll get married, she'll get eaten by monsters, she'll die, she'll get sick of this, but he'll go on forever."[4] At a certain point, Gaiman had tired of re-writing drafts and asked Steven Moffat for help. Moffat wrote in what Gaiman called "several of [the episode's] best lines" and rapidly rewrote several scenes when budget problems harmed filming locations.[8] [edit] Casting In September 2010, Suranne Jones announced she was cast a guest spot on Doctor Who as Idris for an episode of the sixth series of Doctor Who. Jones previously played Mona Lisa in The Sarah Jane Adventures episode Mona Lisa's Revenge.[9] Sometime after appearing on The Sarah Jane Adventures, Jones was contacted to appear on Doctor Who at Gaiman's request, because they were looking for an actress who "is odd; beautiful but strange looking, and quite funny."[10] Moffat meanwhile described Idris as "sexy plus motherly plus utterly mad plus serene."[6] During a read-through of the script, the producers asked her to "neutralise [her] a bit," because they did not want Jones to "be a Northerner" or have a standard accent, but to act "kinda like the Doctor."[10] Later, in March 2011, Gaiman confirmed Michael Sheen would also guest star in the episode to voice a character.[11] Adrian Schiller previously appeared in the Eighth Doctor audio drama Time Works where he played Zanith.[12] [edit] Filming It was planned as the third episode in the 2011 series but the order was changed during the production process.[13] Filming took place in August 2010,[5] although during a 10 October 2010 appearance on Daybreak, guest star Suranne Jones stated that she had been filming green screen special effects only the night before.[14] The scenes where Amy and Rory are on the run allowed the audience to explore the TARDIS outside the control room, something the producers had wanted to do for a while. A series of corridors was constructed and retained for future use. [15] The episode also featured the return of the older TARDIS control room from the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant era. Gaiman had originally wanted to reconstruct a console room from the original series, but the cost proved prohibitive. [16] The set was retained after filming for "The Eleventh Hour", but has since been removed.[17] Arthur Darvill noted the floor of the older set had a cheese grater-like quality to it, so when the scene called for the cast to fall on it, they found it uncomfortable to stay down for a long period of time.[6] "The Doctor's Wife" features a make-shift TARDIS console, which was piloted by the Doctor and Idris. The console was designed by Susannah Leah, a schoolgirl from Todmorden, who won a competition on Blue Peter, a children's creative arts program, that challenged its viewers to imagine a TARDIS console based on household objects.[18][19] Leah's design was selected by Moffat, Edward Thomas, a production designer for Doctor Who, and Tim Levell, a Blue Peter editor, along with final input amoung the three age-group winners from Smith.[19] Michael Pickward, the production designer for the series, commented that Leah's design captured the nature of "bits and pieces" of what TARDIS consoles have been in the past, as well as the nature of the makeshift console needed for this episode.[19] The drawing was redesigned faithfully by the production team into the prop for the show, including the use of a coat hanger to start the makeshift TARDIS.[19] Leah was brought by Blue Peter to see both the set under construction and on location during filming of the makeshift TARDIS scenes, meeting Smith and the other actors and production crew.[19] Character Options will release a toy playset based on Leah's console later in 2011.[19] The House planetoid in the pocket universe was filmed on location at a quarry outside Cardiff.[6] [edit] Broadcast and reception After its original broadcast, "The Doctor's Wife" received overnight figures of 6.09 million viewers, with a 29.5 per cent audience share. It became the third highest broadcast of the night, behind Britain's Got Talent on ITV1, and the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest, which was shown later on BBC One.[20] The episode recieved a final BARB rating of 7.97 million with an audience share of 34.7%.[21] The episode was positively received. The Guardian's Dan Martin said: "With so many wild ideas at play, this would have been so easy to get wrong...yet in every sense it was pitched perfectly".[22] The AV Club gave the episode a score of "A", saying it was a "pretty terrific [episode]...a brisk, scary, inventive adventure filled with clever concepts and witty dialogue. And a lot of heart when in the way it deals with an important relationship rarely addressed on the series".[23] [edit] References ^ "Matt Smith Video and New Series Overview". BBC. Retrieved 5 May 2011. ^ "Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife". Radio Times. 4 May 2011. Retrieved 4 May 2011. ^ "Monsters: The Ood". BBC. Retrieved 2011-05-18. ^ a b c Brew, Simon (9 May 2011). "Neil Gaiman interview: all about writing Doctor Who". Den of Geek. Retrieved 16 May 2011. ^ a b Masters, Tim (24 May 2010). "Neil Gaiman reveals power of writing Doctor Who". BBC News. Retrieved 6 May 2011. ^ a b c d "Bigger on the Inside". Doctor Who Confidential. BBC. BBC Three. 14 May 2011. No. 4, series 6. ^ Martin, Dan (14 May 2010). "Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife – Series 32, episode 4" (in English). The Guardian. Retrieved 15 May 2011. ^ "Adventures in the Screen Trade". Neil Gaiman. 2011-05-17. Retrieved 2011-05-21. ^ Jeffery, Morgan (23 September 2010). "Suranne Jones cast in 'Doctor Who'". Digital Spy. Retrieved 15 May 2011. ^ a b Martin, Will (14 May 2011). "Suranne Jones ('Doctor Who') interview". Cult Box. Retrieved 20 May 2011. ^ James, Richard (21 March 2011). "Michael Sheen to appear in new series of Doctor Who". Metro (Associated Newspapers). Retrieved 20 May 2011. ^ "Doctor Who - Time Works". Big Finish. Retrieved 15 May 2011. ^ "Episodes shuffle for the 2011 series...". Doctor Who Magazine (430): 7. 9 Feb 2011 (cover date). ^ "Broadcast of 10 October 2010". Daybreak. ITV. ITV. 10 October 2010. ; YouTube video, accessed 20 May 2011. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/may/16/neil-gaiman-doctor-who-doctors-wife?commentpage=1#comment-10775927 ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/may/16/neil-gaiman-doctor-who-doctors-wife?commentpage=1#comment-10775927 ^ "Coming to America". Doctor Who Confidential. BBC. BBC Three. 23 April 2011. No. 1, series 6. ^ "Blue Peter awaits for our Susannah". Todmorden News. 5 May 2011. Retrieved 18 May 2011. ^ a b c d e f "TARDIS Console Competition". Presenters: Helen Skelton,Barney Harwood, and Andy Akinwolere. Blue Peter. BBC. 10 May 2011. ^ Millar, Paul (15 May 2011). "Eurovision TV ratings reaches 11-year high". Digital Spy. Retrieved 15 May 2011. ^ "Final BARB-Rating". Broadcasters' Audience Research Board. BARB. 9 May 2011. Retrieved 9 May 2011. ^ "Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife – Series 32, episode 4". The Guardian. 2011-05-14. Retrieved 2011-05-21. ^ "The Doctor's Wife". 2011-05-14. Retrieved 2011-05-21.
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TDP 176: Mane... Manaq.... Auton Box Set
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 8 minutes and 36 secondsinfo to follow
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TDP 175: I talk about Ben Cook talking about Moffs Spoiler Rant
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 9 minutes and 48 secondsDoes what it says in the title. Rant from Moff included!
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TDP 174: Curse of the Black Spot Smith 2.03
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 11 minutes and 46 secondsThe TARDIS crew, following a distress call, lands aboard a 17th-century pirate ship stranded in the middle of the ocean due to the lack of wind. Its captain, Captain Henry Avery, and what is left of its crew fear a seductive siren-like creature that marks those injured with a black spot on the palm of their hands, then appears and apparently destroys them. In a tussle with the crew, Rory receives a cut on his hand, and also receives a similar black mark. The Doctor orders everyone inside the ship, believing them to be safe away from open water, but the siren appears through seeped water and takes another crew member. The Doctor, Amy, Rory, Captain Avery and the remaining crew secure themselves in the ship's dry magazine. There, they discover Captain Avery's son, Toby, who had stowed away aboard the ship, unaware of his father's illicit deeds. Though uninjured, Toby has come down with a fever, and shares a similar black mark on his palm. The Doctor and Captain Avery, after a brief conflict over who is in charge, leave the others to try to bring the TARDIS to them. They make it inside safely, but the Doctor finds the TARDIS is acting haphazardly and they are forced to evacuate it before it dematerializes to an unknown location. As they return to the others, the Doctor realizes that the siren is using reflections to appear to them, such as that created by still water. They race back to warn the others, and destroy any reflective surface on the ship. A storm begins, and Captain Avery has Amy, Rory, and the Doctor help him to hoist the sails to allow them to leave. In the chaos, Toby, while trying to bring his father his coat, drops a polished crown from it. The siren emerges from it and appears to disintegrate Toby. Soon, Rory falls into the ocean, and the Doctor rationalises that the siren has shown intelligence and will likely get to Rory before he drowns. The Doctor convinces Amy and Captain Avery to prick themselves to allow the siren to take them as well so they can negotiate with it. They soon find themselves aboard an alien spaceship, its crew long dead from exposure to an Earth virus. The Doctor surmises the spaceship, the source of the distress signal, is trapped at the same time-space coordinates as Captain Avery's ship. Furthermore, the siren uses mirror-like portals to travel between the two ships. Further exploration reveals a bay where all of Avery's men, including Toby and Rory, are in medical care, along with the TARDIS; they were taken by the siren, the black spot being a tissue sample for reference. When they try to rescue them, the siren appears and turns violent on them. The Doctor realises the siren is a medical program, seeking to heal the injured crew. The Doctor and Amy convince the siren to turn Rory over to their care, while Avery decides to stay with his son and his crew in the ship, unable to go back to England himself while the ship will care for his crew. Using Rory's nursing knowledge, Amy and the Doctor are able to revive Rory after he is removed from life support. The Doctor teaches Captain Avery enough of the spaceship's controls to allow him, Toby, and his crew to explore the stars. In the epilogue, the Doctor and Amy talk about mutual trust; Amy confides to Rory that they still cannot talk to the Doctor about his future death, while the Doctor secretly finds his pregnancy scan on Amy remains unresolved. [edit] Continuity "Eye Patch Lady" (Frances Barber) appears for the second time in this episode. Similar to her first appearance in Day of the Moon, she appears to be looking through the other side of a small sliding window in a door despite the fact that the window is actually in the solid timbers of the ship and disappears when it is closed. [edit] Production [edit] Writing and casting Lily Cole was cast as the Sea Siren in the episode. The episode was written by Stephen Thompson. The producers wished to develop a Doctor Who episode set on "the high seas."[4] The episode was also made to allow the Doctor and his companions to "kick back and have some fun."[4] As the episode was pirate-themed, the producers wanted to fit in as many elements from pirate fiction into it, including treasure, mutinies, a stowaway boy, walking the plank, storms, swords and pirates with a "good heart" and "not really evil."[4] However, Arthur Darvill noticed that a parrot was not included.[4] "The Curse of the Black Spot" was originally planned to be ninth in the series but the order was changed during the production process.[5] Hugh Bonneville plays Captain Avery. Matt Smith and Karen Gillan described Bonneville as "great fun."[4] Bonneville previously played Sir Sidney Herbert and Tzar Nicholas the 1st in the Seventh Doctor audio drama The Angel of Scutari[6][7]. Lily Cole was cast as the Sea Siren. The producers were looking for an actress who is "beautiful," "striking," and yet somewhat "spooky."[4] Cole came early into suggestions, and she accepted the role.[4] [edit] Filming and effects Filming took place primarily in Cornwall and the Upper Boat Studios in Wales. The exterior of the pirate ship was filmed at a dock in Cornwall, while the lower decks were built from a set at the studio. The principal challenge to film at the dock was to ensure the audience would not see it. The crew set up smoke machines to simulate fog. To create the storm the crew used wind and rain machines, the latter of which went through 15,000 litres. The loud noise from the wind machines caused communication difficulties during takes. Anticipating they would get soaked, the cast present on the deck wore dry suits underneath their clothes. Before filming the storm sequences began, Darvill heard that he would perform the stunt where he is thrown into the sea, and was willing to perform it. However, the stunt would later be performed by a double.[4] The scenes in which Cole appeared on the ship was done by using a harness as if she was flying. Because the actress wore green dress and makeup, the conventional greenscreen was replaced by bluescreens in the studio. Cole felt it was fun to fly on the harness, but found it painful after a few hours. Gillan was allowed to perform several of her own stunts in the episode. She was excited to learn that her character would fight pirates with swords, and was taught how to handle one with basic moves.[4][8] Gillan was also allowed to swing across the ship. However, a stunt double was required to film the sequence where Amy is thrown across the deck by the Siren.[4] [edit] References ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0110g4b ^ "Matt Smith Video and New Series Overview". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_110411_01/Matt_Smith_Video_and_New_Series_Overview. Retrieved 15 April 2011. ^ BBC. "BBC Week 19: Saturday 7 May". Press release. http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/proginfo/tv/2011/wk19/sat.shtml. Retrieved 22 April 2011. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Ship Ahoy!". Doctor Who Confidential. BBC. BBC Three. 7 May 2011. No. 3, series 6. ^ "Episodes shuffle for the 2011 series...". Doctor Who Magazine (430): 7. 9 Feb 2011 (cover date). ^ "Doctor Who: The Angel of Scutari". Big Finish. http://www.bigfinish.com/122-Doctor-Who-The-Angel-of-Scutari. ^ "The Angel of Scutari". Hugh Bonneville online. http://www.hughbonneville.co.uk/past-hugh-bonnevilles-previous-projects/item/the-angel-of-scutari.html. ^ "Gillan enjoyed sword fight scenes". This is Croydon Today. 21 April 2011. http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/news/Gillan-enjoyed-sword-fight-scenes/article-3475495-detail/article.html. Retrieved 28 April 2011. "The Curse of the Black Spot" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
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TDP 173: Day of the Moon - Smith 2.02
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 17 minutes and 13 seconds"Day of the Moon"[2] is the second episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The second episode of a two-part story written by Steven Moffat, it was broadcast on 30 April 2011 in the UK on BBC One, in the U.S. on BBC America, and in Canada on Space. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Continuity 1.1.1 Outside references 2 Production 2.1 Cast notes 3 Broadcast and reception 4 References 5 External links [edit] Plot In the three months since the end of "The Impossible Astronaut", the Doctor, Amy, Rory and River Song have been attempting to track the Silence, an alien race who cannot be remembered after they are encountered. Reunited at Area 51 with Canton Delaware, who had been pretending to work against them, the Doctor plants a communication device in each of the group's hands to record audio of meetings with the Silence. Amy tells the Doctor she was mistaken and is not pregnant. While the Doctor alters part of the command module of Apollo 11, Canton and Amy visit an orphanage, hoping to find where the girl in the spacesuit was taken from. Amy discovers a nest of the Silence, and a photograph of her and a baby amongst pictures of the little girl from the space suit. The girl enters with the Silence, and Amy is abducted and taken to their time engine control room. Arriving too late to help Amy, the Doctor and his allies find her recording device. Canton is able to shoot and wound one of the creatures, and from it the Doctor discovers the creatures are the Silence, a group he was warned about by several of his foes in his recent adventures. Analysing the now-empty space suit, River realises that the girl possesses incredible strength to have forced her way out of it, and that the suit's advanced life-support technology would have called the President as the highest authority figure on Earth when the girl got scared. The Doctor realises why the Silence have been controlling humanity — by guiding their technological advances, they have used humanity to build a spacesuit, which must somehow be crucial to their intentions. Meanwhile Canton interrogates the captured Silent in the Area 51 prison, who mocks humanity for treating him when they should "kill us all on sight". Canton records this using Amy's mobile phone. The Doctor uses Amy's communication chip to track her location, and lands the TARDIS in the Silence's control room five days later. As River and Rory hold the Silence at bay, the Doctor shows them the live broadcast of the moon landing. As they watch, the Doctor uses his modification of the Apollo command module to insert Canton's recording of the wounded Silent into the footage of the landing. Because of this message, humans will now turn upon the Silence whenever they see them. The group frees Amy and departs in the TARDIS, while River kills all the Silence in the control room. Amy reassures Rory that the man he overheard her speaking of loving through the communication chip was him, not the Doctor. River refuses the Doctor's offer to travel with him, returning to her Stormcage prison in order to keep a promise. She kisses the Doctor goodbye, and as the Doctor has never kissed her before deduces that this is her last kiss with him. In the TARDIS, Amy appears unable to remember seeing her picture in the orphanage and claims that she told the Doctor, rather than Rory, when she believed she was pregnant through fears that travelling in the TARDIS might have affected her child's development. As the trio set off, the Doctor discreetly uses the TARDIS scanner to attempt to determine if Amy is pregnant. Six months later, a homeless man in New York City comes across the young girl, previously seen in the astronaut's suit. The girl says she is dying, but can fix it; before the man's eyes, she appears to begin regenerating. [edit] Continuity The Silence's 'time engine' set was previously used in "The Lodger".[3] The Doctor describes it as "very Aickman Road", a reference to the house the ship occupied in that episode.[4] When the Silent reveals his species' name to the Doctor, the Doctor has flash-backs to "The Eleventh Hour" and "The Vampires of Venice", the first mentions of the Silence.[4] The Doctor is held captive in Area 51, which he had visited previously in the Tenth Doctor animated story Dreamland. The Doctor and Rory discuss both being present at the fall of Rome. As an Auton, Rory guarded the Pandorica from the Roman era to the present day in "The Big Bang", and the First Doctor indirectly instigated the Great Fire of Rome in The Romans. "Eye Patch Lady" (Frances Barber) briefly appears to Amy in the orphanage, and will return in a later episode.[4] The Doctor is imprisoned within walls of "zero balance dwarf star alloy, the densest material in the universe..." Dwarf star alloy first appeared in the 18th season Tom Baker story "Warriors' Gate", forming the hull of a slave ship capturing time sensitive Tharils. The density prevented the Tharils (who possessed the ability to go out of phase with time) from escaping. [edit] Outside references Near the end of the episode, President Richard Nixon asks the Doctor if he will be remembered by future generations. Amused by the question, the Doctor coyly remarks that the American people will never forget Nixon, a reference to the Watergate scandal that effectively ended Nixon's presidency. The Doctor also tells Nixon to record every word spoken in the Oval Office, another reference to the Watergate scandal (which revolved around the Oval office secret taping system). The Doctor also tells Nixon to say hi to David Frost. Frost is a British journalist, who had a famous interview with Nixon. During his conversation with the president, Canton confirms that his lover (whom he wishes to marry) is black. Interracial marriages had still been banned in certain states as recently as 1967. This revelation seems to explain Canton's previous statement about being fired from the FBI for "wanting to get married" in "The Impossible Astronaut" until he clarifies that his lover is a "he". Same-sex marriage was not legal in the United States in 1969. [edit] Production Steven Moffat, head writer of the new series, said before broadcast that this would be one of the darkest openers to a series ever done for Doctor Who.[2] Director Toby Haynes believed that the darker episodes like "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon" would allow the series to get into "more dangerous territory."[3] The creation of the Silence was partly inspired by the figure from the Edvard Munch painting The Scream.[2] Introducing the alien villains became a "big challenge" for the producers; it would tie in with the loose "silence will fall" arc that carried through the fifth series. Moffat did not wish to end the arc in the previous series, as he felt it would be "more fun" to continue it. Elsewhere in the episode, Delaware was written to be deceptively antagonistic towards the protagonists, which was based on actor Mark Sheppard's past as villains for his work in American television. Moffat was also keen on the idea of having the Doctor imprisoned with a beard in Area 51.[3] Many of the opening scenes of the episode were filmed on location in the United States. The sequence where Delaware chases Amy was shot in the Valley of the Gods in Utah. Gillan found it difficult to run because of the altitude. The sequence where Delaware chases Rory was shot at the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona. The Dam sequence was the final scene to be shot in the States. The sequence where Delaware chases River in New York was in fact shot in central Cardiff. A set was later constructed in a studio for the jump sequence, and Kingston was replaced by a stunt woman to perform the jump. The scenes set in Area 51 were filmed in a large disused hangar in South Wales.[3] The Florida orphanage was filmed at the abandoned Troy House in Monmouthshire, which many of the cast and crew believed is haunted. To add the effect that a storm is outside the building, the production crew placed rain machines outdoors and flashing lights to simulate lightning. The Silence were portrayed by Marnix van den Broeke and other performers. The masks caused vision difficulties from the performers, who had to be guided by two people when they have to walk. Broeke does not provide the voices of the Silence, as it would be replaced during post-production. The control room set used from "The Lodger" was used again for this episode. Moffat wanted the set to be used again, feeling it would be a suitable Silence base. The set was adapted to give it a darker, evil feel.[3] [edit] Cast notes Ricky Fearon who played the tramp previously played Foreman in the Torchwood episode To the Last Man. [edit] Broadcast and reception "Day of the Moon" was first broadcast on 30 April 2011 at 6 pm.[5] The episode received preliminary overnight ratings of 5.39 million viewers, equalling a 30.5 per cent audience share. The episode was down by 1.1 million from the previous week, but was still the second most seen broadcast for the day, behind Britain's Got Talent on ITV1.[6] Dan Martin of The Guardian liked the episode for its "action, tension, horror and River Song in a business suit," but felt it "sags a little around the middle."[7] Martin believed the scenes with Amy and Delaware in the orphanage was the "fear factor" of the episode.[7] [edit] References ^ "Matt Smith Video and New Series Overview". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_110411_01/Matt_Smith_Video_and_New_Series_Overview. Retrieved 15 April 2011. ^ a b c "Doctor Who boss says season start is 'darkest yet'". BBC. 5 April 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12969897. Retrieved 7 April 2011. ^ a b c d e "Breaking the Silence". Doctor Who Confidential. BBC. BBC Three. 30 April 2011. No. 2, series 6. ^ a b c BBC - BBC One Programmes - Doctor Who, Series 6, Day of the Moon ^ "Doctor Who, Series 6, Day of the Moon". BBC Online. BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010y5l3. Retrieved 2 May 2011. ^ Millar, Paul (1 May 2011). "'Doctor Who' audience slips to 5.4m". Digital Spy. http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/s7/doctor-who/news/a317300/doctor-who-audience-slips-to-54m.html. Retrieved 2 May 2011. ^ a b Martin, Dan (30 April 2011). "Doctor Who: Day of the Moon — Series 32, episode 2". The Guardian (Guardian Media Group). http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/apr/30/doctor-who-day-of-the-moon. Retrieved 2 May 2011.
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TDP 171: Smith 2.01 The Impossible Astronaut
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 16 minutes and 48 seconds"The Impossible Astronaut" is the first episode of the sixth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Written by show runner Steven Moffat, and directed by Toby Haynes, the episode was first broadcast on 23 April 2011 in the United Kingdom, as well as the United States and Canada. It will also air in Australia on 30 April 2011. The episode is the first of a two part story, which will conclude with "Day of the Moon". The episode was seen by 6.52 million viewers in the United Kingdom, the lowest rating for an opening episode since the show's revival, but received positive reviews from critics. This episode was dedicated to Elisabeth Sladen who played The Doctor's former companion Sarah Jane Smith, who died of cancer earlier in the week of broadcast. Contents [hide] 1 Plot 1.1 Continuity 1.2 Outside references 2 Prequel 3 Production 3.1 Writing 3.2 Cast notes 3.3 Filming and effects 4 Broadcast and reception 4.1 Broadcast and ratings 4.2 Critical reception 5 References 6 External links Plot An astronaut from the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. A replica of this suit was created for the episode. Amy and Rory, not having seen the Doctor for two months but aware of his recent exploits in history, receive a "TARDIS blue" coloured envelope. The envelope contains a date and time along with a set of physical coordinates that lead the couple to Utah, where they rendezvous with the Doctor and River Song. From the Doctor's perspective, it has been nearly two centuries since his last adventure with Amy and Rory (he left them when he was aged 908 and is now 1103). The Doctor now carries a diary identical to the one carried by River Song, and it is apparent that River and the Doctor have shared many adventures together as the two time travellers compare notes at a diner. The Doctor takes the group on a picnic at a nearby lake where he tells them he is taking them on a trip to "Space 1969". There, Amy sees a mysterious figure in the distance, but it then vanishes and Amy appears to immediately forget what she saw. The picnickers are soon joined by an older man named Canton Everett Delaware III, who had also received an envelope. Suddenly, a figure in a space suit emerges from the lake, and the Doctor warns the others to stay back and not interfere while he goes forward to talk. The Doctor appears to recognize the person in the suit when it raises its visor. They talk for a while, after which the Doctor stands still, his head bowed. Before anyone can react, the astronaut raises an energy weapon and twice shoots the Doctor, who begins to regenerate. A third shot disrupts the regeneration process and kills the Doctor. The astronaut then retreats back into the lake, leaving the Doctor's companions stunned and horrified. Assured the Doctor is dead, they give the Doctor a Viking-style funeral using a can of gasoline Delaware brought. Regrouping at the diner Amy, Rory, and River discuss the sender of the envelopes when the Doctor—a younger version of himself now aged 909—emerges from the restroom, revealing he also was given an envelope. Hesitant to tell the Doctor of his pending death, they explain the situation so far, and the Doctor uses Delaware's name and "Space 1969" in the TARDIS, ending up at the Oval Office of the White House in 1969. They watch as President Nixon takes a call from a mysterious young girl named "Jefferson Adams Hamilton" asking for help while a younger Delaware looks on. The Doctor reveals himself and gains Delaware's trust, convincing Nixon to give him a few minutes to locate the child. While he works out her location, Amy again sees a mysterious figure, and excuses herself to the restroom. There the figure, a Silent,[2] waits for her, and destroys an innocent woman despite Amy's pleas. Amy realizes the alien figure is wiping her memory of her encounter when she looks away, and takes a photo of the alien on her mobile phone. By the time she returns to the Oval Office, having no recall of the events, the Doctor has found the girl's location —a building near Cape Canaveral, Florida at the intersection of streets named Jefferson, Adams, and Hamilton. The Doctor and his companions leave in the TARDIS, followed closely by a curious Delaware. In the building, they find pieces of a space suit as well as ancient alien technology. Alone, River warns Amy that though they may encounter the astronaut that killed the future Doctor, attempting to stop the astronaut now may create a time paradox. River and Rory explore a vast network of tunnels under the building and spreading throughout the planet, encountering and forgetting other Silence. They eventually come on a control room similar to the one seen in "The Lodger", unaware that they are being surrounded by more Silence. Behind Rory, there is a flashing similar to the flashing a Silent had made as it was killing the woman in the bathroom near the Oval Office. River turns to see him, and shouts his name. We do not see what has happened. Above ground, the Doctor, Amy, and Delaware hear the cries of a girl. Delaware gives chase, but Amy, suddenly in pain, realizes she must tell the Doctor something as they follow. They find Delaware nearby, unconscious, and Amy finally lets the Doctor know that she is pregnant. Before they can react, the astronaut appears. Amy reaches for Delaware's gun, while the astronaut lifts its helmet, revealing the face of a young girl. Before she can stop herself, Amy fires upon the astronaut. Continuity The envelopes each contain the date 22 April 2011 (the day prior to the first broadcast of this episode), and coordinates (37°0′38″N 110°14′34″W / 37.01056°N 110.24278°W / 37.01056; -110.24278). River Song tells Rory that she and the Doctor are travelling through time "in opposite directions." She comments that a day is coming when "he'll look into my eyes, and not have the faintest idea who I am. And I think it's going to kill me." In the Series 4 episode "Silence in the Library", the Tenth Doctor meets River for the first time (from his perspective); at the conclusion of that story, River is killed saving people trapped inside the Library's core. The control panel River Song and Rory find in the underground tunnels is the same control panel that was found in the upstairs flat in the Series 5 episode "The Lodger".[citation needed] The TARDIS had been previously turned invisible in the Second Doctor story The Invasion. When Canton first leaves the TARDIS, the Doctor remarks, "Brave heart, Canton." This is a reference to the Fifth Doctor's recurrent statement to Tegan, "Brave heart, Tegan." [3] The older Doctor is seen with a diary similar to River Song's at the beginning of the episode, swapping notes with River. Outside references In Amy and Rory's home, Rory is watching the Laurel and Hardy film The Flying Deuces. The Doctor then runs up and waves at the camera. In the White House toilets scene, Joy believes the alien to be something from Star Trek. River notes that the Easter Island statues were created in the Doctor's honour, laughing and talking about Jim the Fish. The Doctor calls River Song Mrs. Robinson. That is a reference to a book called The Graduate from 1963 by Charles Webb. In the film from 1967 Anne Bancroft plays the older Mrs. Robinson. She seduces the young Dustin Hoffman. Prequel On 25 March 2011, a short exclusive scene serving as a prequel for the first episode was released on the show's official website. The prequel depicts Richard Nixon[4][5] (Stuart Milligan) receiving a recorded phone call of a girl's voice while sitting in the Oval Office. The girl, whose voice the president appears to recognize from a previous call, begs him to "look behind you", warning him that there is something there. The president angrily refuses and the line goes dead; the camera then pans around him to show an out-of-focus, inhuman figure standing to the president's right. Production Writing Show runner and episode writer Steven Moffat (pictured) created the Silence to compete with other creatures in the past in terms of "scariness." The episode was written by Steven Moffat, who took charge as show runner since 2010. Having also written the following episode, "Day of the Moon", Moffat wanted the 2011 season to start with a two-part story in an attempt to begin with more gravity and a wider scope in plot. In the Doctor Who Confidential episode following the broadcast of "The Impossible Astronaut", Moffat states it was one of the darker episodes of the series, but it still maintained the same level of humour. The inclusion of the Doctor getting killed felt like a series ender for some of the producers, but was actually there to "kick it off."[6] In writing the death scene of the future Doctor, Moffat wanted to acknowledge to the audience that Time Lords are not invincible, and could still die permanently if killed before regeneration, a fact the series previously acknowledged in The End of Time. In creating the Silence, the alien antagonists of the episode, Moffat wanted them to challenge other monsters in past in terms of "scariness."[6] He felt these creatures are a "much bigger deal."[6] Amy Pond's pregnancy will be involved in a story arc as the series progresses.[6] Cast notes In October 2010, it was announced that Mark Sheppard, who appeared in other past science fiction series including Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural and Warehouse 13, would make a guest appearance on the series. Sheppard described playing Canton as a "dream job," and wished to appear in another of Moffat's works, including Sherlock.[7][8] Even though Sheppard is an English actor, it was his first appearance on British television.[9] For the scene depicting the older Canton Delaware, it was planned that Sheppard would appear older using makeup effects; he successfully suggested instead that his father, William Morgan Sheppard, play the role. American actor Stuart Milligan was cast as President Nixon, which he found exciting, having played other presidents in the past including Dwight D. Eisenhower. Prosthetic pieces were applied on his cheeks, nose and ears to resemble Nixon as much as possible. He also practiced how Nixon would speak, but initially found it difficult since he had to wear fake teeth.[6] Milligan previously appeared in the animated Tenth Doctor special Dreamland as the voice of Colonel Stark.[10] Filming and effects Karen Gillan (centre) was genuinely upset filming the death scene of the future Doctor. This pair of episodes marks the first time that Doctor Who has filmed principal photography footage within the United States;[11] the American-produced TV movie of 1996 was filmed in Canada. Some second-unit establishing shots of New York and the Statue of Liberty were filmed on Liberty Island for the episode "Daleks in Manhattan", but none of the cast of the episode were involved in the shoot.[12] Filming took place in the state of Utah. For the opening shot for the location, director Toby Haynes wanted it to be epic so that the audience could recognise where the episode was set. The crew wanted to add as many American icons as they could into those shots, including a Stetson hat, a 1950s Edsel Villager and a yellow school bus. Moffat, having enjoyed writing episodes featuring River Song, wanted to give her an impressive entrance. Haynes had Alex Kingston block the Sun light from the camera angle and blowing smoke from her revolver. The scenes involving the picnic and the future-Doctor dying took place on the shore of Lake Powell. The suit worn by the future-Doctor's killer was a fabricated replica of an Apollo space suit. It was waterproofed as the killer came out of the water, and in real life space suits were not designed to be used in water. In filming the death scene the filming crew noticed that Karen Gillan was genuinely upset and "was acting her heart out."[6] In filming the "Viking funeral" scene, Haynes wished to film it during the sunset. However, the sun set over the desert, so was instead filmed during sunrise, as the sun rose over the water.[6] Kingston had to genuinely slap Matt Smith several times in a scene because it was difficult to fake. Kingston recalled that after a few takes, Smith got red cheeked and grew frustrated at having to do the sequence over and over again. The Oval Office set was constructed at Upper Boat Studios in South Wales. Because the production crew had access to several pictures and plans of the real office, they were able to replicate it in almost every detail. The main problem for building the set was the plastering; the crew normally plaster one wall at a time for normal rooms, but because the Oval Office was round, they had to do the entire set at once. The American-style diner scene when the companions reunite with the Doctor in this episode is actually located in Cardiff Bay.[13] The Laurel and Hardy film the Doctor intruded was done by Smith dancing in front of greenscreen.[6] The episode opens with a still-caption tribute to actress Elisabeth Sladen, who died from cancer on 19 April 2011. Sladen had previously appeared in the series as companion Sarah Jane Smith, and as the same character on the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures.[14] Broadcast and reception Broadcast and ratings "The Impossible Astronaut" was first broadcast on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 23 April 2011 at 6 pm.[15] The episode also aired on BBC America in the United States and Space in Canada on the same day.[16][17] It aired on ABC1 in Australia on 30 April.[18] After its original broadcast in the United Kingdom, "The Impossible Astronaut" received preliminary overnight ratings of 6.52 million viewers, a 36.7% audience share in its timeslot. Despite winning its timeslot, ratings were down by 1.2 million from the previous series premiere "The Eleventh Hour", meaning it has the lowest ratings of all the opening episodes of the series since the shows revival in 2005. The episode became the second highest rated programme of the night, behind Britain's Got Talent, which attracted 8.99 million on ITV1.[19] Critical reception The episode was met with positive reviews from television critics. Dan Martin of The Guardian reacted positively towards the episode, believing the cast performed better than the previous fifth series. He stated "Steven Moffat has thrown away the rule book and made Doctor Who as, you imagine, he's pictured it should be his whole life. Killing the Doctor leaves the shape of the series mapped out, raises the bar so that no one is safe, and sees Amy, Rory and River facing a terrible dilemma."[20] Martin liked that "Amy's numbed horror ramps things up to a series-finale level on intensity from the off," and then switches "into an Oval Office comedy of manners," and "morphs into gothic horror and finally flings you to the ground with its cinematic cliffhanger."[20] He was also positive towards the American setting, and "our eccentric British foursome bumbling through it," believing the series raised its game with this."[20] With regards to the Silence, Martin believed it was "a standard Moffat psychological trick, but the most refined to date."[20] Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy called the episode "a fantastic launch for the sixth series," adding "the Doctor Who team's US location shooting has certainly paid off, lending these early scenes a grand scale that the series could scarcely have expected to achieve in 2005, let alone in 1963."[21] Commenting on the future-Doctor's death, Jeffery said "seven minutes in, a nation's collective jaw dropped as The Doctor — this show's lead — is mercilessly gunned down. This plot twist is simply stunning, and it's difficult to imagine even casual viewers not sitting up to pay attention at this point."[21] Jeffery also believed that the series regulars were on "top form," adding "the more abrasive aspects of Amy Pond's personality seem to have been toned down this year, and Karen Gillan responds with her best, most sympathetic performance to date. Arthur Darvill also lives up to his recent promotion to full-time companion. His comic timing is simply superb, but he excels too in the episode's darker moments."[21] Jeffery rated the episode five stars out of five.[21] Gavin Fuller of The Daily Telegraph believed it was "a cracking start to the first part of the 2011 series, with the shocking ending of Amy seemingly shooting a girl making one keen wait for the conclusion next week to see how it all resolves itself," as well as enjoying the concept of the Silence.[22] Rick Marshall of MTV believed that "Steven Moffat and the Doctor Who crew offer up yet another great episode," but also said the "big cliffhanger will likely cause more than a few fans' heads to explode."[23] In addition, Marshall believed the alien antagonists "give the Weeping Angels a run for their money in scare factor."[23] Simon Brew of Den of Geek thought the episode was "a triumphant return for Doctor Who, bubbling with confidence and throwing down story strands that hint at an engrossing series."[24] Brew liked Sheppard's performance as Delaware and Darvill's increasing presence as Rory. Brew also complimented Haynes' work in the United States, saying it was an improvement from "Daleks in Manhattan", which featured British actors attempting to play with American accents.[24] Tom Phillips of Metro said the 1969 US setting were "beautifully used," and enjoyed the "spookiness" of the Silence. However Phillips felt the episode would be "a bit hard to get into" for new viewers.[25]
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TDP 172: Lis Slayden a collection of tributes
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 26 minutes and 41 secondsElisabeth Claira Heath Sladen[2] (1 February 1946[3][4][1][5] – 19 April 2011) was an English actress best known for her role as Sarah Jane Smith in the British television series Doctor Who. She appeared as a regular from 1973 to 1976, opposite both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and reprised the role many times in subsequent decades, both on Doctor Who and its spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures. Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Early career 2.2 Sarah Jane Smith 2.3 Other work 3 Personal life 4 References 5 External links [edit] Early life Sladen was the only child of Tom Sladen, who fought in World War I and served in the Home Guard during World War II.[citation needed] Her mother Gladys' maiden name was Trainor,[3] which is a Northern Irish name commonly seen in Liverpool.[citation needed] Sladen developed an interest in performing at an early age, beginning dance lessons when she was five, and dancing in one production with the Royal Ballet. She was a primary school contemporary of future politician Edwina Currie (née Cohen), appearing in at least one school production with her; and a grammar school contemporary of Peter Goldsmith, the future Attorney-General, when both attended Quarry Bank School (now Calderstones School).[6] [edit] Career [edit] Early career After attending drama school for two years, Sladen began work at the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company as an assistant stage manager. Her first stage appearance was as a corpse. However, she was scolded for giggling on stage, thanks to a young actor, Brian Miller, whispering the words, "Respiration nil, Aston Villa two" in her ear while he was playing a doctor. Sladen was so good as an assistant stage manager that she did not get many acting roles, a problem she solved by deliberately making mistakes on several occasions.[citation needed] This got her told off again, but she started to get more on-stage roles. Sladen made her first, uncredited, screen appearance in 1965 in the film Ferry Cross the Mersey as an extra. Sladen eventually moved into weekly repertory work, travelling around to various locations in England. Sladen and Miller, now married, moved to Manchester, spending three years there. She appeared in numerous roles, most notably as Desdemona in Othello, her first appearance as a leading lady. She also got the odd part on Leeds Radio and Granada Television, eventually appearing as a barmaid in 1970 in six episodes of the long-running soap opera Coronation Street. In 1971, Sladen was in two episodes of Z-Cars. Then, in 1972, she was appearing in a play that moved down to London, and they had to move along with it. Her first television role in London was as a terrorist in an episode of Doomwatch. This was followed by guest roles in Z-Cars (again),[7] Public Eye, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Special Branch. [edit] Sarah Jane Smith In 1973, Doctor Who actress Katy Manning, who was playing the Third Doctor's assistant Jo Grant opposite Jon Pertwee, was leaving the series. Producer Barry Letts was growing increasingly desperate in his search for a replacement, when Z-Cars producer Ron Craddock gave Sladen an enthusiastic recommendation. Sladen arrived at the audition not knowing it was for the new companion role, and was amazed at Letts's thoroughness. She was introduced to Pertwee, whom she found intimidating at the time. As she chatted with Letts and Pertwee, each time she turned to look at one of them the other would signal a thumbs-up.[8] She was offered and accepted the part of investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith. She stayed on Doctor Who for three and a half seasons, alongside Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Tom Baker as the Fourth, receiving both popular and critical acclaim for her role as Sarah Jane. When she left the series, in the 1976 serial The Hand of Fear, it made front page news,[citation needed] where previously only a change of Doctors had received such attention. In October, 2009, Sladen paid tribute to her boss and friend, Barry Letts, after he died. She said Letts was her closest friend on Doctor Who. Sladen returned to the character of Sarah Jane Smith on numerous occasions. In 1981, new Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner asked her to return to the series to ease the transition between Tom Baker and new Doctor Peter Davison. She declined but accepted his second offer of doing a pilot for a spin-off series called K-9 and Company, co-starring K-9, the popular robot dog from Doctor Who. However, the pilot was not picked up for a series. Two years later Sladen appeared in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors. She reprised the role in the 1993 Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, and in the 1995 independently produced video Downtime alongside former co-star Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield. This was her last on-screen appearance as Sarah Jane Smith for some time. Sladen played Sarah Jane in several audio plays. Two of them were produced for BBC Radio, The Paradise of Death (Radio 5, 1993), and The Ghosts of N-Space (Radio 2, 1996), together with Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney. Big Finish Productions has also produced two series of Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures set in the present day, released in 2002 and 2006. Her daughter Sadie has also appeared in the audios. In later years, Sladen had also participated re-visiting a few classic Doctor Who serials on DVD in doing audio commentaries and interviews (in the stories she starred in), but as of 2008 she stated in an interview that she was no longer doing them due to "contractual reasons with 2entertain".[9] Following the successful revival of Doctor Who in 2005, Sladen guest starred as Sarah Jane in "School Reunion", an episode of the 2006 series, along with John Leeson, who returned as the voice of the robot dog K-9, and David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Sladen was ever faithful to the character and worked a lot of the characterisation herself, in the lead-up to the broadcast of "School Reunion" she was quoted in The Daily Mirror as saying: "Sarah Jane used to be a bit of a cardboard cut-out. Each week it used to be, 'Yes Doctor, no Doctor', and you had to flesh your character out in your mind — because if you didn't, no one else would." She also spoke favourably of the characterisation in the new series.[10] Following her successful appearance in the series, Sladen later starred in The Sarah Jane Adventures, a Doctor Who spin-off focusing on Sarah Jane, produced by BBC Wales for CBBC and created by Russell T Davies. A 60-minute special aired on New Year's Day 2007, with a 10-episode series commencing broadcast in September 2007. The programme was nominated for a prestigious Royal Television Society award[11] and was recommissioned for a second 12-episode series which was broadcast in late 2008.[12] The third series was broadcast in Autumn 2009, and again achieved audience ratings well in excess of the usual average figures for the time slot (sometimes even double). A fourth season began airing in October 2010. Sladen also read two original audio stories for The Sarah Jane Adventures,[7] which were released in November 2007 on CD: The Glittering Storm by Stephen Cole and The Thirteenth Stone by Justin Richards. This was the first time that BBC Audiobooks have commissioned new content for exclusive release on audio.[13] Two new audio stories ("Ghost House" and "Time Capsule") were released in November 2008, both read again by Sladen.[14] Sladen appeared in the final two episodes of Doctor Who’s 2008 series (season 4) finale "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" and was credited in the title sequence of both episodes.[15] Her final appearance in Doctor Who was a cameo in the concluding part of "The End of Time", Tennant's last episode as the Doctor.[16] [edit] Other work After Doctor Who, Sladen returned to Liverpool with her husband and performed in a series of plays. This included a two-hander with Miller in Moonie and his Caravans. Notable appearances following that include a two-year stint as a presenter for the children's programme Stepping Stones, a lead role with Miller playing her husband in ITV drama Send In The Girls, a BBC Play For Today, a role as a stand-up comic's spouse in Take My Wife, and a small part in the movie Silver Dream Racer as a bank secretary in 1980, only her second motion picture appearance. In 1981, former Doctor Who producer Barry Letts cast her as the female lead in the BBC Classics production of Gulliver in Lilliput. She continued to appear in various advertisements and in another Letts production, Alice in Wonderland (playing the Dormouse), as well as attending conventions in the United States. After the birth of her daughter Sadie Miller in 1985, Sladen went into semi-retirement, placing her family first, but finding time for the occasional television appearance. In 1995, she played Dr Pat Hewer in 4 episodes of Peak Practice. In 1996, she played Sophie in Faith in the Future, and appeared in 15 episodes of the BBC schools programme Numbertime, which was repeated annually for around ten years. This was her last television acting appearance until the 2006 Doctor Who episode "School Reunion". In 1991, she starred as Alexa opposite Colin Baker in The Stranger audio adventure The Last Mission for BBV Audio. Sladen also appeared in a Bernice Summerfield audio drama, Kate Orman's Walking to Babylon. In 2008–09, Sladen appeared in a panto production of Peter Pan at the Theatre Royal Windsor, playing Mrs. Darling and a beautiful mermaid.[17] [edit] Personal life Sladen married actor Brian Miller in 1968 in Liverpool;[18] the marriage lasted until her death. Their daughter, Sadie Miller, appeared with her in the range of Sarah Jane Smith audio plays by Big Finish Productions. As a child, Sadie appeared alongside Sladen in the 1996 documentary, Thirty Years in the TARDIS, wearing a replica of the Andy Pandy overalls Sladen wore in The Hand of Fear. Sladen died early on 19 April 2011,[19] after having cancer for several months.[20][21][22] The first episode of series six of the revived version of Doctor Who "The Impossible Astronaut" aired on the Saturday following Sladen's death. The episode started with a screen announcing that it was dedicated to the memory of Elisabeth Sladen. Straight after 'Doctor Who', a special tribute called 'My Sarah Jane: A Tribute to Elisabeth Sladen' was aired on CBBC.[21] Sladen had also been interested in being involved in the Doctor Who Fourth Doctor Big Finish series.[23] [edit] References
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Elisabeth Sladen has died
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 1 minutes and 27 secondsTwitter and Facebook are alight with rumours that Elisabeth Sladen has passed away.The Doctor Who star, who is best known as Sarah Jane Smith and also stars in the spin off CBBC show The Sarah Jane Adventures, is said to have passed away earlier today.Sources say the 63 year old star died because of complications arising from a battle with cancer.The actress was a regular on BBC’s Doctor Who with both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and has reprised her role many times. She first joined the sci-fi show in 1973 and stayed on for three and a half seasons, before leaving in 1976.After numerous appearances through the 80s and 90s, Elisabeth returned in 2006, acting opposite the then Doctor David Tennant in an episode titled “School Reunion”.Following her successful appearance in the series, Sladen was then asked to front The Sarah Jane Adventures, written by Russell. T Davies for CBBC. The show ran for four series, with a fifth scheduled to air later in 2011.Sladen was amazing on screen and a real fan favourite, she was welcomed back for two episodes of Doctor Who’s 2008 series finale “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End” and was credited in the title sequence of both episodes. She also had a cameo in the concluding part of The End of Time, Tennant’s last episode as the Doctor. This was her last appearance on the show.This has not yet been confirmed, so more news to follow.
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TDP 169: Planet of the Spiders
Episode Duration: 0 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes and 59 secondsPlanet of the Spiders is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from May 4 to June 8, 1974. It was Jon Pertwee's last serial as the Doctor and marks the first, uncredited appearance of Tom Baker in the role. It also marks the last appearance of Mike Yates. Contents [hide] 1 Synopsis 2 Plot 2.1 Cast notes 3 Production 4 Continuity 5 In print 6 Broadcast, VHS release & DVD Release 7 References 8 External links 8.1 Reviews 8.2 Target novelisation [edit] Synopsis Mysterious goings-on at a meditation retreat run by Tibetan monks are linked to the blue planet Metebelis III, and a colony of monstrous, evolved spiders. The Doctor must reflect on his past and reconcile with his present to defeat a deadly and possibly fatal challenge... [edit] Plot Following the events of Invasion of the Dinosaurs, Mike Yates was discharged from UNIT and is now attending a Tibetan meditation centre in rural England. He is visited by Sarah Jane Smith and they witness some curious happenings at the centre, seemingly organised by a resident called Lupton, a middle aged former salesman, and his cronies. Mike and Sarah stumble across Lupton performing an incantation, which conjures up a giant spider into the middle of the basement room. It jumps on Lupton’s back and then disappears. The spider manifests itself in Lupton’s head, telling him to seek out and locate a certain blue crystal. The Third Doctor has developed an interest in psychic ability, but his testing of a clairvoyant called Professor Clegg backfires when his subject has a heart attack. It is triggered when Clegg comes into contact with a blue crystal from Metebelis Three (sent back from the Amazon by Jo Grant), which caused him to see the image of deadly spiders. Sarah returns from the retreat, having left Mike to watch things there, and she and the Doctor swap spider tales. Meanwhile Lupton has also arrived at UNIT HQ and steals the crystal from the Doctor’s laboratory. A multi-vehicle chase ensues which Lupton escapes by teleporting himself back to the monastery. Once there, the spider reveals that it is plotting against some of its sisters back on Metebelis Three. The spiders and the crystal originate from the same blue planet in the Acteon Galaxy, which was none too hospitable to the Doctor the last time he visited (during The Green Death). The Doctor and Sarah now make for the monastery and tell the deputy abbot, Cho-Je, that something is very amiss. The crystal now strays again when it is taken by Tommy, the simple-minded handyman of the retreat, whose mind is opened and improved by the power of the crystal. Lupton is teleported to Metebelis Three, unconsciously allowing Sarah to follow him. She soon meets the human slave inhabitants of the planet, a generally dispirited bunch, other than the rebellious Arak, who flees to the mountains. The planet is ruled by the Eight-Legs or giant spiders, and their Queen is the supreme ruler. They govern using guards chosen from among the planet's Two-Leg (human) population and their own phenomenal mental powers, amplified by the blue stones of the planet. The Doctor arrives on the planet and he makes contact with Arak, who explains that the Metebelians are the descendants of the crew of an earth space ship, which crashed hundreds of years before. A spider on board found its way to the Blue Mountains where, through the effect of the crystals, its progeny grew larger and larger and cleverer and cleverer. The Doctor works out that a “negative” stone can absorb and reject the power of the blue crystals and starts a revolt among the humans, but this is defeated and the Doctor ventures to the Blue Mountains. There he encounters the Great One, a giant spider which controls the world of Metebelis and desires power over other domains too. She knows the crystal is still on Earth and sends the Doctor there to get it for her. He flees back to Earth with Sarah – not knowing the Queen spider has now implanted itself in his companion's mind. Tommy has given the crystal to the abbot, K’anpo Rinpoche, who is an elderly Time Lord and the one-time hermit mentor of the Doctor. He now lives in peaceful exile on Earth. He tells the Doctor of Sarah's control and they work together to expel the Queen Spider. A fight breaks in the monastery between Lupton’s cronies and the Abbot’s men. The Abbot advises the Doctor to take the crystal to the Great One: the Doctor started this chain of events by removing the crystal in the first place, and it is up to him to put it back. He departs in the TARDIS with the crystal. On Metebelis Three, Lupton has been killed by the spiders after falling out with the Spider Queen. When the TARDIS lands, the Doctor heads to the cave of the Great One and gives her the crystal, which she uses to complete a lattice that begins to magnify her mental powers. However, the forces unleashed are too strong for the Great One and the positive feedback kills her and the other spiders. A vast wave of deadly radiation floods the cave. The Doctor, now very weak, staggers back to the TARDIS and teleports away. Three weeks later, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Sarah are in the Doctor's laboratory when the Doctor returns and promptly collapses, and the Doctor dies. The abbot K’anpo arrives in his new body, having regenerated into the form of Cho-Je, who was a sort of forward projection of his soul. He tells them that the Doctor will change too and before their eyes the Doctor starts to regenerate into the Fourth Doctor. [edit] Cast notes This story marks the final appearance of Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates. Franklin would reprise his role in The Five Doctors (1983) and Dimensions in Time (1993), although on both occasions they were illusory versions of Yates. After his departure from the series, Franklin would go on to become a stage and television director. Kismet Delgado, the widow of Roger Delgado, who had played the Master during the Third Doctor's era, was one of the voices for the Spiders. Gareth Hunt, who would go on to play Mike Gambit in The New Avengers, appears here as a human rebel on Metebelis III. Carl Forgione would later play Nimrod in Ghost Light. [edit] Production Serial details by episode EpisodeBroadcast dateRun timeViewership (in millions)Archive "Part One" 4 May 1974 (1974-05-04) 24'40" 10.1 PAL 2" colour videotape "Part Two" 11 May 1974 (1974-05-11) 25'02" 8.9 PAL 2" colour videotape "Part Three" 18 May 1974 (1974-05-18) 24'58" 8.8 PAL 2" colour videotape "Part Four" 25 May 1974 (1974-05-25) 23'53" 8.2 PAL 2" colour videotape "Part Five" 1 Jun 1974 24'01" 9.2 PAL 2" colour videotape "Part Six" 8 Jun 1974 24'43" 8.9 PAL 2" colour videotape [1][2][3] The final story of Season 11 (to have been titled The Final Game) was originally intended to write out the character of the Master, with the villainous Time Lord sacrificing his life to save the Doctor's. Due to the death of actor Roger Delgado, script editor Terrance Dicks abandoned the project in favour of a new story, which eventually evolved into Planet of the Spiders. Coincidentally, Kismet Delgado, Roger's widow provided her voice to one of the spiders. The train station Sarah Jane arrives at in Part One is Mortimer railway station, near Reading. [edit] Continuity This story was the second and last appearance of the "Whomobile". The character of Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan, the UNIT medical officer, is referred to by the Brigadier who calls for him when the Doctor falls into a daze after staring into the crystal. Sullivan would not actually appear on screen until Robot, where he was played by Ian Marter. The Spiders of Metebelis Three make further appearances in the short story "Return of the Spiders" by Gareth Roberts (in the collection More Short Trips) and a brief appearance in the Eight Doctor Adventure The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks. They also have a full encounter with the Eighth Doctor in the Big Finish audios The Eight Truths and Worldwide Web by Eddie Robson. The Eighth Doctor Adventures novels Interference: Book One and Two by Lawrence Miles has the time-travelling voodoo cult Faction Paradox changing history so that the events of this story never happen and instead having the Third Doctor regenerating on a planet named Dust after being shot. A later novel in the series, The Ancestor Cell by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole, resolves this paradox and restores the Doctor's timeline to its previous state. The canonicity of the novels is unclear. It is unclear how long it takes the Doctor to return to Earth in the TARDIS from Metebelis Three, although three weeks have passed for Sarah and the Brigadier. Paul Cornell in the Virgin New Adventures novel Love and War established that the TARDIS was lost in the time vortex for the equivalent of ten years. This is revealed during a sequence in cyberspace where agents of the alien race called the Hoothi are attempting to trap the Seventh Doctor in a virtual recreation of the worst moments of his life, of which this regeneration is the most painful for the Doctor to re-live. This story includes the character of K'anpo Rimpoche, the previously unnamed Time Lord hermit from the Doctor's childhood, first mentioned in The Time Monster. K'anpo has the power to travel through time without the use of a TARDIS, to make a corporeal projection of a potential future incarnation (Cho-Je) of himself, and to stimulate the regeneration process of another Time Lord. K'anpo was referenced again in the Fourth Doctor serial State of Decay as the man who told the Doctor about the legends of the Great Vampires. The Doctor regenerates due to radiation poisoning a second time when the Tenth Doctor allows himself to absorb a lethal dose of radiation to save his current companion Wilfred Mott in The End of Time. [edit] In print Doctor Who book Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders Series Target novelisations Release number 48 Writer Terrance Dicks Publisher Target Books Cover artist Peter Brookes ISBN 0-426-10655-5 Release date 16 October 1975 A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in October 1975 as Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders. The novel's prologue shows Jo Grant and her husband Professor Jones in the Amazon jungle following the events of The Green Death. Harry Sullivan is referred to as Doctor Sweatman. [edit] Broadcast, VHS release & DVD Release This story was repeated on BBC One as a 105-minute omnibus on 27 December 1974 at 14:46.[4] The serial was released on VHS in April 1991 as a double pack. It will be released on DVD in the UK on DVD on 18 April 2011.[5] It will be released in the USA and Canada on 10 May 2011.[6] [edit] References ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (2007-03-31). "Planet of the Spiders". Outpost Gallifrey. http://gallifreyone.com/episode.php?id=zzz. Retrieved 2008-08-30. [dead link] ^ "Planet of the Spiders". Doctor Who Reference Guide. http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_3z.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Sullivan, Shannon (2007-08-07). "Planet of the Spiders". A Brief History of Time Travel. http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/zzz.html. Retrieved 2008-08-30. ^ Howe, David J.; Walker, Stephen James (1996). "Planet of the Spiders (ZZZ)". Doctor Who The Handbook - The Third Doctor. London: Doctor Who Books. p. 162. ISBN 0 426 20486 7. ^ "April 2011 DVD - Planet of the Spiders". Doctor Who Online - Release Guide. 17 February 2011. http://www.drwho-online.co.uk/releases/#dvd-planetofthespiders. Retrieved 18 February 2011. ^ Lambert, David (26 January 2011). "Doctor Who - BBC Announces 'Terror of the Autons' and 'Planet of the Spiders'". TVShowsOnDVD.com. para. 3. http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/n/14960. Retrieved 27 January 2011.