Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: William Hartnell The First Doctor

“It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard, and now it's turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure.”

William Hartnell was the first man to carry the mantel of The Doctor and the one who got this 50 year phenomenon started.  It was because of him and his wonderful portrayal of The Doctor that we have the show we all know and love today.   We owe a lot to the man who donned that white wig and opened the TARDIS doors for the first time. 

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: The Ark

Doctor Who:

The Ark
By Paul Erickson & Lesley Scott

“The success of all we stand for, everything aboard this spaceship is suddenly endangered by the strange fever. A fever brought by these strangers in our midst!”

The Doctor and Steven and new companion Dodo arrive on a strange place which doesn’t make much sense with the types of animals living together.  Dodo has a cold and is sneezing all over the place. The problem is its 10 million years into the future and the Earth is falling into the sun.  The ark is the last survivors of earth and they have cured the common cold and have no immunity to fight it off.  So it’s up to the Doctor to make the cure and save the humans and The Monoids.  After saving everyone TARDIS lands them 700 years into the future but on The Ark.  This time things are different as The Monoids have enslaved the humans.  The cold and remedy somehow mutates The Monoids and they have a higher intelligence and a very evil persona at that. As they want nothing more than to have the planet to themselves and wipeout the humans forever.

Synopsis For Destiny of The Doctor - Shadow of Death

The next part in the 11 part Destiny of The Doctor is The Shadow of Death and features a 2nd Doctor story performed by Frazer Hines.  Frazer Hines does a great Patrick Troughton impersonation so this one should be pretty good to listen to. You can order it at the link below.
 http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/shadow-of-death-849


Following an emergency landing, the TARDIS arrives on a remote world orbiting a peculiar star – a pulsar which exerts an enormous gravitational force, strong enough to warp time.

On further exploration the Doctor and his friends, Jamie and Zoe, discover a human outpost on the planet surface, inhabited by scientists who are there to study an ancient city. The city is apparently abandoned, but the scientists are at a loss to explain what happened to its sophisticated alien architects.

The Doctor discovers that something dark, silent and deadly is also present on the world - and it is slowly closing in on the human intruders...

Written By: Simon Guerrier
Directed By: John Ainsworth

Cast
Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon), Evie Dawnay (Sophie)

Pilots Given the Green Light

Oxygen - a story about a teenage girl who falls for a boy, who happens to be an alien.  Before you say "Roswell!!"  this time it seems the aliens might be known to Earth and this is the earliest stage of integration into society.  CW has ordered this pilot which is created by Meredith Averill (The Good Wife and Life on Mars - the American version).

The Hundred - another post apocalyptic tale about 100 juvenile delinquents given the task in repopulating the long abandoned Earth. Wow, there are certainly a lot of post apocalyptic movies and TV shows going around these days.  This is another CW pilot.

Believe - A Bad Robot project with writer and director Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men) that follows a young girl who will develop superpowers over a seven year period and an ex prisoner who is set to protect her from a group trying to hunt her down. This is an NBC project.

Untitled Pilot about android cops in L.A. - Bad Robot is working on another pilot about the L.A. Police Force teaming up with androids.  Sounds like this idea is along the lines of this series -




Well, maybe not......

X-Men: Days of Future Past Cast Shapes Up

The cast for the next X-Men movie, which features a story about X-Men from the past meeting X-Men from the present (Days of Future Past) is growing to include many more characters from both time periods.  Anna Paquin (Rogue), Ellen Page (Kitty Pride) and Shawn Rashmore (Iceman) are joining Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Ian McKellen (Magneto), and Patrick Stewart (Professor X) in reprising their roles for this temporal crossover story that sounds like it will be very crowded and potentially story hurting (IMHO).

Synopsis For Blakes 7 - The Liberator Chronicles Vol 3

Big Finish continues it run with Blake 7 audio adventures with this latest 3 disk box set The Liberator Chronicles. This time instead of three separate stories we are treated to a 3 part story The Armageddon Storm.  Available for order at the link below.
http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/the-liberator-chronicles-volume-3-737


The Armageddon Storm - Parts One, Two and Three

When mercenary Del Grant alerts the Liberator crew to the existence of a new Federation super-weapon, Avon leads an epic battle to avert catastrophe...

Written By: Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
Directed By: Ken Bentley

Cast
Paul Darrow (Kerr Avon), Michael Keating (Vila Restal), Jan Chappell (Cally), Tom Chadbon (Del Grant)

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: The Time Meddler

Doctor Who:
The Time Meddler
By Dennis Spooner

“That is the dematerializing control, and that over yonder is the horizontal hold, up there is the scanner, those are the doors, and that is a chair with a panda on it. Sheer poetry, dear boy. Now please stop bothering me.”

It’s 1066 and The Doctor and Vicki are trying to convince new companion Steven that they have indeed traveled back in time.  They even show him a Vikings helmet to prove their point but when they come up across a wristwatch from modern times they are starting to doubt they are in 1066.  The Doctor wanders off to the monastery where he finds tons of anachronistic stuff that should not be in 1066. But there is someone else lurking in the shadows. It’s The Meddling Monk who is someone with a sinister plan to change history and who the Doctor also knows from his own planet.

Stretching Exercise With Catwoman!

I came across this video at http://www.geeksaresexy.net/ and thought that it would in the best interest of our blog to share this exercise video in order to promote health and fitness.  It also fit right in with our blog because it involves Catwoman!  This video certainly was helpful and after watching it for the 3rd time I noticed there is even some instructions on how to do these warm-up instructions.  Anyhow, here we have Superhero Boot Camp Episode 1.  Remember to watch it in full HD!

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: The Chase

Doctor Who:
The Chase
By Terry Nation

“I shall miss them. Yes, I shall miss them, silly old fusspots.”

Imagine being chased through space and time.  Imagine the ones chasing you are your most hated enemies The Daleks.   The Daleks have discovered time travel and are now hunting The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki all through time. The TARDIS crew is being chased all around to the Mary Celeste, to a monster themed fun house, to The Empire State Building in New York City USA.  The Daleks are relentless in their pursuit until the final showdown on the planet Mechanus with the Mechanoids.

The Chase isn’t one of my favorite Dalek stories.  Even though it has a good ending as Barbara and Ian finally get home the whole story could have been better if it was shorter.  Coming in at 6 episodes it does contain a lot of filler.  In my opinion it would have been better served as a 4 part story as the first two and last two episodes were done really well and I found to be very entertaining. It’s just the middle two stories were just bland and well stupid. I know they needed to create the illusion of a chase but some of the scenarios were quiet stupid. Mainly the Empire State Building scenes with future companion Peter Purves doing a really bad impression of someone from Texas.

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child Event Panel

BFI is coming out with a series of taped panel discussions on Doctor Who and the first one centers on the creation of the very first Doctor Who story, An Unearthly Child.  The panel includes Mark Gatiss (writer of Victory of the Daleks), Waris Hussein (Director of An Unearthly Child), Carole Ann Ford (Susan) and William Russell (Ian).

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Merchandise

No doubt among all the news, publicity and such there will be a slew of merchandise released for Doctor Who.  To start with here are some examples of items to be available later this year shown at the recent Toy Fair in London -

http://merchandise.thedoctorwhosite.co.uk/doctor-who-character-toys-2013/

Included in the photos are some more action figures including the Clara figure (Yes!) and some cheap looking playsets.

Being Human Series 5 Trailer

Being Human returns to BBC 3 on Sunday February 3 at 10PM.

OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN - Official Trailer - In Theaters 3/22

J.J. Abrams To Direct New Star Wars Film

The Wrap broke the news that J.J. Abrams will be directing the new Star Wars film - see the story here.

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/jj-abrams-set-direct-next-star-wars-film-exclusive-74596

I know Abrams has his critics but he can breathe new life into this franchise and so it is a good choice.  I thought that there would be many other better choices but I am happy with the decision.

Here are other news sites breaking the news -

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/j-j-abrams-to-direct-next-star-wars-movie/

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2013/01/24/j-j-abrams-star-wars-director/

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2013/01/24/j-j-abrams-set-to-direct-star-wars-episode-vii/

New Space: 1999 Novel

Johnny Byrne's Children of the Gods is the latest Space: 1999 novel to come out from Powys Media. The story was originally conceived by series writer Johnny Byrne and has been adapted by William Latham.  The book is an all new original story based on the 1974 Gerry Anderson TV series, Space: 1999.

Powys Media has produced many novels from the show already including several reprints of some novels that came out in the 70's.  Several novels have addressed continuity issues in between seasons 1 & 2 of the series including the disappearance of several characters.  Another series of novels wrapped up the series in an epic story that was highly ambitious.

http://www.powysmedia.com/