Classic series actors likely not involved in Doctor Who 50th

As the Doctor Who 50th anniversary is currently filming, fans are anxious to learn more. David Tennant has already confirmed that he will be a part of the program while his predecessor Christopher Eccleston has confirmed that he will not. However, what about the Doctor of old? Many are hoping to see the surviving actors who have played the adventuring Time Lord Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann alongside the new versions of the Doctor, but it seems that is not to be, at least for Doctors 6-8.

Former Doctor Who stars Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann have revealed that they definitely won’t be appearing in the BBC sci-fi drama’s upcoming 50th anniversary episode, largely because they’re currently in the wrong hemisphere.

The anniversary special is being filmed in this country as we speak, but seeing as the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Doctors are all in Australia attending sci-fi conventions at the moment, they won’t be able to take part. (via RadioTimes)

While this isn’t exactly definite word that the previous Doctors will not be seen in the special (perhaps CGi will be used), it isn’t a good sign for anyone looking for a proper celebration as we had back in 1983 when Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee returned to play the part.

Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann, Doctor Who 5-8

 

The 50th anniversary is currently filming, as is evidenced by this image of David Tennant, Matt Smith and a Zygon that was leaked recently.

Doctor Who star Colin Baker’s gag backfires, but he’s still the king of audio

The erstwhile and verbose colorful action man, Colin Baker may no longer look like his TV counterpart from the 80′s, but he is still a strong actor on stage and screen, appearing as Inspector Morse in House of Ghosts and currently playing an abandoned husband obsessed with listening to cricket matches in the garden in the production of The Final Test.

Baker is possibly the most enthusiastic actor to have ever played the role of the Doctor and was unceremoniously rousted from the part. We can talk about this in a new light these days as he has won over fans as the Doctor in the Big Finish audio range and is even the acting president of the Doctor Who fan club, a mantle he has taken over from Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney.

But a recent joke regarding a return to Doctor Who may have back-fired… if the 50th anniversary will feature any of the classic Doctors at all. It’s rather sobering to hear Baker state that the new series ‘doesn’t need him’ and yet he seems to say so without any venom in his heart.

Sixth Doctor Who Colin Baker

At that event [all five classic Doctor appearing at Milton Keynes] you said you wouldn’t be interested in getting involved with a 50th anniversary special next year. Really?

I said it purely to irritate. ’Cos they’d all said: ‘yeah yeah, I’d be interested’ so to provoke a reaction I said: ‘I wouldn’t’. And nobody took me up on it! I thought they’d ask me why and I’d say: ‘Well I might if they were nice to me’, but I never got the opportunity. So it was a gag that fell like a lead lump and didn’t go any further!

So if Steven Moffat calls, I’ll tell him you’re available?

Do you know, it’s not going to happen. They don’t need us – the programme is doing extremely well without us. Also, every time someone asks me that question I hold up a photograph of myself when I played the part, compared to what I look like now, and say, ‘OK, how do you deal with that?’ With four of us, all of whom have moved on – some less gracefully than others. You know, Peter still looks a bit like what he looked like, but I’ve changed.

Doctor Who (Colin Baker) in 1986′s Terror of the Vervoids

It’s Doctor Who – I’m sure they could get round that.
I suppose they could. And in theory, I’m neither for nor against it. There would be two big questions I would ask: The first is, is my Doctor going to get a fair crack of the whip in the story, and not be eclipsed by anybody else? Because you want parity. And the other one is, what vast fortune are you offering me? I’d be quite brutal about myself and say, if they offered me a million quid, I’d go on and say one line for them. If they offered me a tenner, I wouldn’t.

It’s the apple of the BBC’s eye now, isn’t it, which is the exact opposite of your day.

I know, I do envy the three most recent Doctors because the BBC have suddenly realised they’ve got a golden egg in their hands. And they had it then, but the BBC back then seemed to be almost embarrassed about having popular programmes. Now, with all the reality television, they’re falling over themselves to reach the lowest common denominator. So it’s quite nice that a programme that actually does have high production standards like Doctor Who is extremely successful.

(more at CambridgeNews)

56 Stupid Things About “The Trial of a Time Lord” (And 44 Cool Ones)

When reviewing Doctor Who stories, it is often difficult to retain a grasp of reason and logic as absurd ideas are alternately presented as laughable and serious often in the same episode. There is the added problem of creative issues, budgetary constraints and a lack of communication between the actors, directors and writers. 1986′s Trial of a Timelord has all of these problems and more, resulting in a bloated epic that teeters on the brink of classic and dross every few minutes.

In 1985, Doctor Who had come under fire from the BBC as being in need of a rest, After 22 years on the air, the series had become far too violent and lacked a certain quality that many had associated with the program. In some ways, Doctor Who was exactly the same TV series it had always been while the rest of TV had progressed and was receiving higher budgets, better actors and stronger scripts. In 1986, Doctor Who returned with a challenge to better itself. To reflect the challenge, The Doctor himself was placed on trial and asked to defend his behavior. The adventure spanned 12 episodes with four distinct arcs separating inter-linking scenes set in the court room where the Doctor and his prosecutor exchanged insults.

The folks at Kaldor City have compiled a list of the stupidest and best moments in the 12-part story. Here are a few of my favorites:

Episodes 1-4/The Wasteland/Robots of Ravolox/The Mysterious Planet/That Thing with Joan Sims in It

6. There are no animals on Ravalox. This flies in the face of everything we know about how ecology works.

13. Confronted with the accusation that he is breaking Time Lord rules by interfering with the affairs of others, the Doctor fails to respond with “oh yeah? How about your involvement in ‘Genesis of the Daleks’, ‘Attack of the Cybermen’, ‘The Mutants’, ‘Colony In Space’, ‘The Brain of Morbius’, ‘The Three Doctors’…” and thus deserves everything he gets in the courtroom scenes.

15. “All that is known is within the Matrix.” “Oh, a micro-organism in a drop of water might think it knows the universe, all it knows is that drop of water.” One of the best exchanges in 1980s Who, but unfortunately it was cut.

Episodes 5-8/Planet of Sil/Mindwarp/Vengeance on Varos II: This Time, it’s Thoros Beta/That Thing with Brian Blessed In It

39. The effect of the pacifier appears to be to make the Doctor very suggestible, acting like Yrcanos when he’s around Yrcanos, and like Sil when he’s around Sil. However, the question remains as to at what point said effect wears off.

40. The Doctor’s behaviour in the story is cleverly written so as to leave it ambiguous as to whether his turning to the bad is faked evidence, the result of the influence of the pacifier device, or, perhaps, proof that the Valeyard is right about him, or a bit of all three. Complaints that it is confusing miss the point– it’s clearly supposed to be.

41. And anyone who thinks the Sixth Doctor is generally a nice, stable, unselfish chap should go and watch “The Twin Dilemma” again.

42. Philip Martin, on the DVD commentary, indicates that he sees the Sixth Doctor as “a bad guy pretending to be good.”

Episodes 9-12/The Ultimate Foe/The Vervoids/Terror of the Vervoids/John, Here’s That Thing You Commissioned From Us In A Lift At The Last Minute, Love Pip and Jane

57. The Doctor tells the courtroom that his evidence comes from his own future. We know from Episode 4 that the evidence presented in the courtroom is material recorded by his TARDIS, so how the hell can it record things it hasn’t been through yet?

67. JNT’s character description of Mel runs in part “one of those annoying young ladies, who is a ‘woman’s libber’ at all times, except at moments of great stress, when she relies heavily on playing the hard-done-by, down-trodden, crocodile-teared female.” Issues much?

73. The Vervoids originally killed their victims by strangling them with vines, and it was John Nathan-Turner who suggested the poison dart idea. Which makes rather less sense; who goes around genetically engineering servant races with a built-in weapon?

81. “I’m always serious about murder,” the Doctor says. Well, perhaps, but judging by earlier stories he’s not above having a laugh over GBH, manslaughter (or Raakslaughter) and accidental homicide.

82. Why are the Vervoids upset about humans eating plants? Generally, the consumption of part or all of the plant is crucial to its reproductive cycle, without which the species could not survive.

83. How do they even know that humans eat plants? Have they been reading books about gardening?

More here:http://www.kaldorcity.com/features/articles/trial.html

Thanks to http://doctorno1.amplify.com for posting the link to this list as well!

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/hr7o

Doctor Who – Loose Ends

With the current Doctor entering his 11th lease on life, I have to wonder if the program will attempt to tie up all the loose ends that lay dangling. Some of these are rather petty plot threads that may or may not occur to even a die-hard fan while others are quite important or just bug me. Some may seem obscure, but for a TV program that revived a monster that has not even been seen since 1966 and will likely never bee seen again (The Macra), I’m not really sure where to draw the line.

What happened when the Mandragora Helix tried to take over the Earth again?

In the 1976 adventure, the Masque of Mandragora, it is established that the villain is far from dead and will return to conquer the human race once more in the future at the tail end of the 20th Century. I know that there is a comic book story that addresses this, but there could be a cracking good tale for the new series here.

Is the Doctor really Merlin?

In the 1989 adventure ‘Battlefield,’ it is stated that the Doctor plays the role of Merlin on an alternate Earth in his own future. This could fall in the ‘yeah, but ___ is a terrible story, so who cares?’ category but again… remember the Macra and the current popularity of fantasy. Tennant’s Doctor was practically Harry Potter so it’s not a major leap.

Just what is the Valeyard?

What’s the deal with the Valeyard?

In the 1986 adventure Trial of a Timelord, audiences who stayed with the exceedingly long mult-part courtroom drama learned that the prosecuting attorney known as the Valeyard was actually the Doctor. A stunning and original idea it is also one of the most convoluted due to the explanation that the Master provides, describing the mincing lawyer as the distillation of all that is evil in the Doctor somewhere between his 12th and final regeneration. This could be one of the only real moments where as a viewer I bolted into attention to hear what was going on in 80′s Who. Since it was also intended to be the final Doctor Who adventure, it’s not surprising that this one is a tangled mess.

The role of the Valeyard was dealt with in the Virgin series of novels in the 1990′s and in audio adventures, but given the fact that one of those books (Paul Cornell’s ‘Human Nature’) was adapted into a televised adventure and head writer Russel T Davies disdain/pandering relationship with Who fandom it is very unclear if they are ‘canon.’

I’m still not sure if the Master’s dialog in The Trial of a Timelord implies that the last incarnation of the Doctor is the Valeyard or what… or if this will ever be addressed (or even if it should be).

Doctor #8 - Paul McGann

How did the Eight Doctor regenerate?

The 1996 TV movie had many flaws but Paul McGann was not one of them.  An excellent choice to play the role, he remains the only Doctor without a death scene. When the new series began in 2005 this wasn’t really an issue as it was unclear if it was a revival or continuation of the classic Doctor Who, but now that it has been confirmed as part of the 26-year long program, this detail really bugs me. I’d also love to see McGann get a chance to play the role again. Given his devotion to Doctor Who extending to a series of radio dramas (a fourth season is on its way on Big Finish!), I’d like to think he would be keen.

This could also be bundled into the ‘what happened during the Time War’ loose end but I think that is more of a plot convenience (similar to ‘the rift’ in Torchwood that spawns plot contrivances) rather than an actual event.

What is this?

What was in ‘The Pit’?

I know that the Doctor hints that the creature in ‘The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit’ is the Devil, but given that even the author and producer are unclear on what was in the pit, I feel this could be addressed better. Seeing as how well received the first part was, I’d love to see the new series team tackle this one.

What sent ‘The Wire’?

Not one of the better stories, but the Wire from ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’ wasn’t really the enemy, more of a weapon aimed at the planet Earth by some unnamed alien race. It seems strange that this was never investigated by the Doctor, but just looking at the number of loose threads I can think of off the top of my head, the new program isn’t really interested in closure.

What was the Shade that killed Elton’s mum?

The only interesting part of ‘Love & Monsters’ involves the fact that Elton’s mother was killed by an alien shadow that the Doctor was chasing. What was this thing and what was all that about? There’s a cracking story there and I’m surprised that it was never addressed.

What’s the deal with the Doctor’s ‘Daughter’?

Last seen in the eponymous episode, the soldier cloned from the Doctor’s DNA named Jenny was last seen miraculously recovering from a deadly wound only to jump into a spaceship and launch into a series of adventures. Jenny’s resemblance to the character of Rose (because RTD has a very limited view of character types) and the rumor that the actress (daughter of Doctor #5 Peter Davison) dated Tennant still creeps me out.

It’s also very bizarre that this episode feels like the pilot for a spin-off that never happened.

Like many of RTD’s dangling plots, I fully expect Jenny to have a large role in the last RTD story. However, remember that the idea of the Doctor’s daughter’s survival was Steven Moffat’s, so this may not be addressed until next year.

These are just a few, but there are many more.

Can you think of any?