After much discussion a more than a sizable amount of betting, the BBC have announced that the actor to play the 12th (that we know of) title character on Doctor Who will be introduced to the public this Sunday at 7PM in the UK. Titled Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor, and hosted by TV and radio show presenter Zoe Ball. The show will feature current Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith and showrunner Steven Moffatt, and the new actor will make their first appearance.
Revelation of the new Doctor has always been a media circus in England – bookies regularly take bets on who the actor will be, and stories rife with rumors and predictions will always draw eyes. Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith was introduced in a special episode of Doctor Who Confidential – this is seemingly the next logical step for dealing with the instantaneous dissemination world of just a few years later.
While this will answer the question that has been on fans’ lips for some weeks now, it’s only one of several that have cropped up since. The most immediate is how much of the new Doctor will we see in the last of this year’s episodes?
Matt Smith seemingly slipped a couple of times in panels at San Diego, saying that he had already filmed “his last episode”, namely the anniversary special. He followed up quickly that he’d be back for Christmas, and he promised it’d be “a real belter”, but considering there’s no guarantee when the regeneration will take place. They’ve made sure to select the new Doctor before the filming of the Christmas episode begins.
While it’s traditional to show the regeneration at the end of a season, that’s not how it started. William Hartnell regenerated into Patrick Troughton in the middle of the season, and Troughton got right to it the next week in Evil of the Daleks. David Tennant got his first full episode as The Doctor in the first Christmas episode The Christmas Invasion, after Christopher Eccleston left and regenerated at the end of his first and only series. Smith appeared for only seconds at the end of The End of Time, returning for his first episode the next Spring.
We’re already seeing a two-Doctor episode for the anniversary, namely Tennant and Smith. That’s with the potential of more – Moffatt claims to have been “lying through his teeth” about what’s in the special, and rumors of a brief cameo scene by Paul McGann have started popping up again. What, dare I suggest, if the Doctor regenerates at the end of the Anniversary special, and Smith only appears as an unseen Tyler Durden like advisor in the new Doctor’s mind?
For all the frenzy Sunday’s announcement will make, it will only be met with equal madness over the next few months until both remaining Smith episodes will bring.
How many books and DVDs do you have on your Amazon wish list? How often do you remember to look at it? I always forget to check it, but I took a look at it today, and there are 100 items.
No, I am not soliciting here. My birthday isn’t for another six months, Chanukah and Christmas are too far off to think about, and I’m not your mother, so forget about Mother’s Day, which is this Sunday, btw – although there is Alix, whom I always alert to her mom’s new column. Big Hint, Alix!
I do have to delete some of the books and DVDs; I’ve ordered them without looking at my wish list because, well, I forget to check the damn thing, but there’s still a lot there. The oldest item was added on June 11, 2006; it’s Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Complete Third Season (DVD, not Blu-Ray. I don’t have a Blu-Ray player.) I have no idea why I’ve never ordered this, why it’s languished at the bottom – maybe because I watch BBC America’s repeats of TNG on Saturday late afternoons (which lead in to Doctor Who) – since that season of TNG, as Bob Greenberger so excellently reviewedon ComicMix, was the season where the show really found its legs, airing such classics as Sarak(a Vulcan disease comparable to Alzheimer’s is destroying Sarak’s mind), Yesterday’s Enterprise (in an alternate timeline, the Federation is losing a war with the Klingons and Tasha Yar is still alive), Sins of the Father (Worf accepts disgrace and discommendation to prevent a Klingon civil war – the start of an outstanding seasons-long exploration of Klingon culture that carried over to Deep Space Nine – and save the Empire), and of course the season finale, Best of Both Worlds: Part I (“Mr. Worf….fire!”) Also of note, at least to me, are Who Watches the Watchers, (a pre-warp, pre-industrial civilization discovers they are being watched by Federation anthropologists), The Enemy (Geordi and a Romulan are marooned on a harsh planet and must work together to survive), The Offspring (Data creates an android daughter), and Deja Q (Q becomes mortal and is still a pain in the ass).
Apparently I was busy browsing on June 11, 2006. I also added Fagin the Jew by Will Eisner. I know I picked this one because of my dual love for Eisner and for Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist. According to Amazon’s description, Eisner first envisioned the book as an introduction to a graphic adaption of Twist, but “as he learned more about the history of Dickens-era Jewish life in London, Eisner uncovered intriguing material that led him to create this new work. In the course of his research, Eisner came to believe that Dickens had not intended to defame Jews in his famous depiction. By referring to Fagin as “the Jew” throughout the book, however, he had perpetuated the common prejudice; his fictional creation imbedded itself in the public’s imagination as the classic profile of a Jew. In his award-winning style, Eisner recasts the notorious villain as a complex and troubled antihero and gives him the opportunity to tell his tale in his own words.”
On that same day I also added Drums Along the Mohawk, starring Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert (and directed by one of my all-time favorite directors, John Ford), When Worlds Collide, based on the book by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer, which I read years ago in my Introduction To Science Fiction class at Quinnipiac back when it was just a college and not a university – and talking about it now makes me want to reread it, so I’m going to add the book to my wish list, and Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen, a 2005 Masterpiece Theatre mini-series, because of my passion for all things Tudor ( and yes, I already have The Tudors boxed set).
Moving forward, I kept up with my Tudor passion in 2011, adding a shitload of novels and non-fiction about that dynasty, including The King’s Pleasure, a novel about Katherine of Aragon (Henry’s first wife, she whom he dumped for Anne Boleyn) by the late and great British author Norah Lofts, and two histories by another Brit, famed historian and author Allison Weir: The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn and Henry VII: The King and His Court. I also listed Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Armgrin, Prairie Tales: A Memoir by Melissa Gilbert, and The Way I See It: A Look Back at My Life on Little House by Melissa Sue Anderson just because I always loved Little House on the Prairie. C’mon, who didn’t?
In November 2011 I added William Shatner’s Up Till Now: The Autobiography. Bill, I love ya!
2012 additions include Among Others, by Jo Walton. The Hugo and Nebula Award winner for that year is a brilliant coming-of-age story that mixes young adult literature, magic, and science fiction into a read for all ages. I also found Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, by John Scalzi (which was reviewed by ComicMix’s John Ostrander), a spin on the classic Star Trek’s law that new ensigns, i.e., red shirts, always get killed on away missions.
Being a fan of Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow and its sequel Children of God, I also added Doc, Russell’s take on Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and the events that occurred at the O.K. Corral. And I really must move up to the top of the list Alice Hoffman’s The Dovekeepers, the story of four women who are among the 900 Jews holding out against the superior Roman army at the siege of Masada, the mountaintop fortress in the Judean desert.
Just a few months ago I added Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which the New York Times Sunday Book Review just, well, reviewed, and which has garnered much press and praise. It’s the timey-whiney story of Ursula Todd, who is born, dies, and lives again, is born, dies, and lives again, is born, dies, and lives again…each time taking making choices that affect not only Ursula, but her family, friends, and even the world. It’s a story that especially relevant to me these days.
It’s been a tough time for me since last Christmas, when my father first became ill, and watching my mother slowly slipping into elderly dementia. My life has become a cacophony personal and professional turmoil, a symphony of wishes and “if onlies”; I lie in bed at night unable to sleep, with all the different “roads less travelled” in my life teasing me with alternate possibilities, alternate lives. I am adrift at sea, questioning my choices and wondering, no, all too often, fearing the future.
Altus Press has announced the release of The Secret 6 Classics: Blood, Sweat and Bullets by Emile C. Tepperman.
Press release:
Another day, another new release!
The Secret 6 Classics: Blood, Sweat and Bullets by Emile C. Tepperman
The Suicide Squad returns in six more adventures:
Coffins for the Suicide Squad: Boldly, New York’s crime czar flung bis challenge before the F.B.I., daring the full might of America’s prize crime-fighting machine to a finish war! And Washington answered with the Suicide Squad—three grinning, fighting Volunteers of Death—to tame a murder empire!
The Coffin Barricade: Eight young special agents went out to get the Undertaker, unknown Czar of the Corpse Bazaar. Eight came hack—in caskets and embalmed! So the Chief sent out the Suicide Squad—Murdoch, Kerrigan and Klaw. He figured they’d lived close enough to Death to be able to find the Undertaker—and put him six feet under!
The Suicide Squad Meets the Rising Sun: We are all engaged in the defense of our great nation. But, in one of the most amazing chapters of this war, it became the grim task of Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw, three lone champions of democracy, to find and destroy a Japanese Army of nine thousand brutal fanatics—who were hidden here in the United States!
So Sorry, Mr. Hirohito!: Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw, the famed Suicide Squad, had always fought side to side, welcoming any odds. But on that nightmare night in Valparaiso, Johnny Kerrigan stood alone against the Jap horde, while Steve Klaw went to wrest the great ship-building works from the Axis—with a thirteen-year-old girl as his only ally!
Targets for the Flaming Arrow: They had no clues, nothing but the charred arrow which had snuffed out the life of the American diplomat. But more important, Kerrigan, Murdoch and Klaw had almost no time at all in which to work, for within four days, the Flaming Arrow’s medieval minions were scheduled to destroy America’s vast war effort. Could even the famed Suicide Squad stop this Axis grand coup—before they too became living targets for the Flaming Arrow…?
Blood, Sweat and Bullets: The Ox had America neatly packaged to deliver to Hitler on Christmas morning. And, with only five shopping days left to Christmas, Kerrigan and Murdoch bartered their partner’s life as the price of her freedom. But Steve Klaw found that he had to chase death three thousand miles to seal his bargain—while Kerrigan and Murdoch were helpless save to rush him to his doom!
305 pages, approx. 6″x9″
Order the paperback from Amazon: $24.95 Order the limited edition hardcover: $34.95 (only 100 made)
How many times have you been told not to use wifi you don’t recognize? This week’s episode takes the threat of identity theft to an all new degree. And the only reason The Doctor found out about it at all is cause he got a call from a lady who said she couldn’t find the Internet. Spoiler shields up, watch for falling planes, and listen for…
THE BELLS OF SAINT JOHN
By Steven Moffat
Directed by Colm McCarthy
The Doctor is in the early 13th century, meditating over the living (well, living somewhere) mystery that is Clara Oswin Oswald. So when he’s told “The Bells of St. John are ringing”, he races back to his hidden TARDIS, (with its “St. John’s Ambulance” label) where the phone in the door is ringing. He’s getting an impossible call from modern day, from the impossible Clara Oswald, who thinks she’s calling tech support. In London, people are mysteriously dropping dead shortly after using a rogue wifi feed. Clara is having trouble with her wifi, and even after The Doctor comes to help, the troubles only get worse.
A great start to the series, with another trademark move of Moffat; take something common place, and make it terrifying. He’s done it with shadows and statues, and now he’s made wifi something to be feared. Jenna-Louise Coleman makes her (official) debut as the new companion Clara
THE MONSTER FILES – The Spoonheads are another example of a new monster that don’t actually get to do much. Like the antibodies of Let’s Kill Hitler, they’re a physical effect that doesn’t even get to move. The CGI head-spin thing is wonderfully unnerving, and it’s a great visual cue that something creepy is about to happen. We’ve had any number of robots masquerading as humans, including the Teselecta from the aforementioned episode, the titular creations from The Android Invasion, not to mention The Androids of Tara.
The episode has clear similarities and parallels to Mark Gatiss’ episode The Idiot’s Lantern – an unseen force stealing people’s minds via new technology, faces trapped on TV screens, even The Doctor and his companion tooling about on a motorbike. Many (myself included) expected to see a return of The Wire, the energy-based being from that episode, only to be happily swerved by the actual baddie.
GUEST STAR REPORT
Celia Imrie (Miss Kizlet) worked with Jenna on the recent Ttianic mini-series, appeared as the matron in both recent St. Trinian’s movies (films which have reached Kevin Bacon levels for Doctor Who connections), and was Lady Gertrude in the Gormenghast adaptation. She brings a quiet menace to her role, and the final twist was quite tragic.
Geff Francis (George Maitland) actually does spell it like that. He was a regular in the Life on Mars spinoff Ashes to Ashes, as well as on the The Singing Detective. Doctor Who is not afraid to get very good actors for even the smallest parts, but I’m rather hoping that the Maitland family appears again before the end of Clara’s story. There’s a lot of story going on here, and each of the three actors had clear emotions built into their portrayals. Eve De Leon Allen (Angie), star of Nuzzle and Scratch, did particularly well at playing a young girl who has lost her mum, even in the brief moments she had on screen. Eve is the actor whose copy of the Neil Gaiman script was lost in a cab, which suggests that she, and hopefully the rest of the family will indeed be back, at least in that episode.
BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details
CREDITS WHERE CREDITS ARE DUE – The credit sequence is largely unchanged from the Christmas episode, but the theme has undergone another slight tweak. the strings are pushed to the background, possibly gone altogether, and the four-beat theme has been pulled more to the front. The song is a lot deeper, more in the bass range. Some of the sound effects have been edited – the electric twinkly bits have been softened as the Doctor Who logo disintegrates. It’s been shortened slightly – a couple of the motifs are missing as the sequence races to the episode title and the opening of the TARDIS doors, which I must say I love.
SET PIECES – We get a longer look at the new TARDIS in this episode, including the space under the main control floor, which has a wooden storage chest that resembles the design of the short-lived wooden TARDIS set first seen in The Masque of Mandragora. We’re supposed to see a great deal more of the ship’s interior in an episode later in this series.
“He’s definitely not a monk” – The Meddling Monk was the first Time Lord other than The Doctor seen in the series, way back in the Hartnell days, even before the term “Time Lord” had been coined. The Doctor also disguised himself as a monk, a headless one, during the Battle of Demon’s Run in A Good Man Goes To War, and briefly at the end of The Wedding of River Song.
“Eleven’s the best – you’ll cry your eyes out” – The book Summer Falls is written by Amelia Williams, AKA Amy Pond. This is a further clue into her life in New York after the events of The Angels Take Manhattan – she clearly got into both writing, and later publishing, as she was also responsible for publishing the Melody Malone adventures.
Summer Falls will be made available as an e-book tie-in as the Melody Malone adventure was, via BBC E-books on April 2nd.
“That is NOT supposed to happen!” – The Doctor does get calls in his TARDIS, but usually on the phone on the console. The phone on the outside door is not supposed to ring. The last time it did was in The Empty Child, when the mysterious young boy was able to communicate through it. I hasten to add that the young Melody Pond had the same ability to communicate through any phone, as seen in The Impossible Astronaut. I also love the fact that the handset’s cord is comically long.
“You know, I never realized how much I enjoy hering that said out loud” – The Question, “Doctor Who?” has been a recurring theme since the very beginning of the series. It’s become an important plot point since the end of The Wedding of River Song, when it was connected to The Question, asked on the Fields of Trenzilore, at an event know eerily as The Fall of the Eleventh. There have already been teaser ads suggesting that in the anniversary episode, we would learn The Doctor’s true name. Fan rage has risen to high levels over that, and we shall have to wait till November to see how that works out.
“Fine, let’s do it together” Fans of Douglas Adams will recognize that gag from The Hitchhiker’s Guid to the Galaxy as Zaphod and Ford attempt to pilot the Disaster Area sun-dive ship (Or if you’re a REAL fan, the Captain of the Haghunemnon fleet).
“I never take the TARDIS into battle” – The Doctor is driving a Triumph motorcycle, a brand as beloved to the UK as Rolls Royce. The “Trusty Triumph” was the model of choice for soldiers in World War II. Plus, now we know the TARDIS has a garage as well as a swimming pool.
Old friends…very old friends” – UNIT was founded after the second televised appearance of The great Inteligence, thought its leader, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was instrumental in its defeat in the Underground in The Web of Fear. Presumably it kept tabs on The Doctor and his friends in any way it could.
“You don’t run out on the people you care about…wish I was like that” – I’m starting to get actively annoyed with this idea that The Doctor is such a horror to be with. It’s become a recurring idea since The Stolen Planet, and it flies in the face of the experiences of very nearly all of his friends. Yes, the ends have been tragic for a small few, and the rest leave his company as far better people, who go on with their lives doing all they can to make the world a better place. The level of guilt he feels is out of place. He feekls bad about losing Amy and Rory to the Angels, but he knows for a fact they ended up fine.
BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – This may be the fastest reveal of the Big Bad in the new series’ history. The Great Intelligence, generally suspected to be making a quick return after the Christmas episode The Snowmen, were revealed as the mysterious “Client”. It had been announces that Richard E. Grant would be appearing in the series again, tho the BBC was quite mum as to exactly who he would be playing. We can see why.
“The Girl Twice Dead” – Clara’s story is clearly and obviously going to be the biggest puzzle of the series. The three iterations of her we’ve seen so far have delightful parallels, and surely more will be found as the episodes roll on.
We already have more than a few Clara-parallels…Clarallels, if you will:
She was a governess in The Snowmen, with a penchant for helping others. She’s helping a family cope with the loss of their mother in present day, and while her title was “Junior Entertainment Manager” on the Starship Alaska, that could be read not as an assistant to the manager, but the person in charge of entertaining the “juniors” as in, watching the children on the ship.
“RYCBAR123” – Aside from the fact that Whovians everywhere are updating their wifi network names and passwords, this was modern Clara’s inspiration to repeat the phrase across time “Run you clever boy and remember”, uttered by both past and future Clara at their passing, and get him interested in her.
“I call him Nina” – The pet name Oswin gave Rory, after a past paramour (“I was going through a phase”) pop’s up again, as the name of one of Angie’s friends. Yes, it’s a common name, but this is Doctor Who – there are no coincedences.
Just Clara Oswald, what was that middle one?” – Clara comes up with the name “Oswin” as a username when she starts hacking Miss Kislet’s network, but it’s the same name the other two versions of her has.
“The girl at the shop gave it to me, said it was the best help line in the universe” – With the announcement that David Tennant and Billie Piper are returning to the series for the anniversary, Clever Theories are running amuck that Rose was the aforementioned girl in the shop. It might be, and it might not be, but the point is, SOMEONE gave her the number to the TARDIS, and helped her get found.
“101 Places to see…” Even thought the book is designed to resemble The Daring Book for Girls (a sequel to The Dangerous Book for Boys), the traditional end of that title is “…before you die”. Also, if you look about her room, ALL her books have to do with traveling and foreign lands. Many brain cells have been spent on the significance of both the 16 and 23 being skipped in the years in the book. It could be waved off as simply a brief lack of interest in the book those years; last year would have been the time her friend died, and she may have been distracted, for example. But the 23 is a significant number – it’s popped up as Victorian Claras’s birthday (specifically, Novenmer 23rd, the date of the show’s first broadcast) and she mistypes “123” earlier in the episode. And of course, since by delightful coincidence November 23rd is a Saturday this year, the anniversary episode will screen on the exact right day.
Page One may contain a leaf (Maple, I believe – are there many maples trees in England?), but page two contains a letter appearing to be from something or someone named “Delsa”. No ideas who that is yet, but again, they don’t put things in by mistake.
NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – The Doctor is SICK of…well, no, he seems quite excited by the idea of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Lestrade finds his division, Ron Weasley’s did is also Rory’s dad (so…related?) and also Queen Nefertiti. Seven days away…you busy?
Getting this book was pretty much like getting an extra Christmas gift for this reviewer. Go through these archives and you will discover we’ve been reading Van Plexico’s Sentinels series since day one; and applauding all of them. Of course the inherent danger with any long running series is that the writer will become tired of the concept and characters and begin to offer up deluded stories missing the verve and punch of his or her earlier entries.
Well, rest easy, Sentinel fans old and new, “Sentinels – Metalgod,” is another top notch chapter in the saga of Earth’s mightiest super-heroes. Without skipping a beat, this new book picks up where the last story arc end; the cataclysmic battle between the Sentinels and a trio of super beings all bent on the complete destruction of our planet. (Note, if you haven’t read those books yet, you have some serious catching up to do.)
So in the wake of the Sentinels miraculous victory over these outer space threats, the team finds itself divided. With their leader, super powerful Ultraa, locked in stasis in a giant red gem, Pulsar (Lyn Li) returns to Earth with the remnants of the team minus scientist Esro Brachis who has opted to visit the alien worlds of Kur-Bai Empire with Mondrian, a beautiful Captain in the Kur-Bai Starfleet with whom he is infatuated. They are traveling with aboard a fleet starship commanded by Devenn, leader of the Kur-Bai super warriors known as the Elites.
No sooner does Pulsar and company return to Sentinels HQ then a new super being calling himself Law appears and, taking control of the Earth’s communications satellites, broadcast a warning that the Kur-Bai areactually planning to an invasion the Earth. It falls squarely on Pulsar’s shoulders to deal with this mysterious new character while at the same time trying to recruit new members to help bolster the team’s decimated ranks.
At the same time the Elites, nearing their home world, are attacked by a Kur-Bai starship crewed by powerful robots called Eradicators. Esro and the Elites discover a military junta has taken over the governing body of the empire and they have been labeled outlaws to be captured and imprisoned. Barely managing to foil the Eradicators, they make their way to a Kur-Bai space station and there learn the full extent of the events that have befallen their people. A power-hungry admiral of the fleet has successfully orchestrated a coup, killing thousands of loyal citizens in the process. A full scale civil war is about to erupt throughout the empire and Devenn and his Elites are caught right in the middle.
Those of you who are fans of this series understand itshomage to Marvel Comics’ Avengers. “Sentinels – Metalgod,” now tips its literary inspiration cap to that classic sci-fi TV series, Babylon 5. Filled with political shenanigans, outer space battles, empire civil wars this book catapults readers into a whole now universe of action and adventure while at the same time injecting it with a marvelous wry commentary on today’s shallow attitudes about fame and popularity. The scenes of Pulsar meeting her German based fan club had this reviewer in stitches. Plexico’s enthusiasm for this series has never been stronger and that is evident on every single page. If you aren’t a Sentinels fan yet, it’s high time you checked it out. This kind of reading fun doesn’t come along every day.
Several years ago a very good friend gave me two paperback novels for Christmas. They were “The Cabinet of Curiosities” and “Still Life with Crows,” both by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. They were my first introduction to Special FBI Agent Aloysius Pendergast and one I’ve been most grateful for ever since.
The Pendergast books are the epitome of modern pulp thrillers harkening back to the grand old hero magazines of the 1930s and they clearly evoke the same escapist fare prevalent in those series. Upon becoming a fan of the tall, gaunt Southern bred Pendergast, it soon became clear to me that he was the true heir to famous pulp avenger of old. For if Clive Cussler’s sea-going hero, Dirk Pitt, can be called the modern day Doc Savage, something many of his ardent followers still claim, then Pendergast is our new Shadow. Like that black clad nemesis of evil who “knew what lurked in the hearts of men,” Agent Pendergast is a most unique and extraordinary character. He is wealthy and thus his career is an avocation of personal interest. He is learned with several degrees, skilled in both philosophical and martial arts while a crack shot with most weapons. Add to this the fact he also has knowledge of obscure and ancient arcane practices and rituals while possessing certain uncanny abilities which border on the supernatural and you have a genuine pulp hero for our times.
Since discovering this series, I’ve relished each new entry and have never once been disappointed by authors’ efforts. Along with such an unforgettable main character, the books feature many truly amazing supporting characters from Pendergast’s allies ala New York Lt. Detective Vincent D’Agosta to his exotic young ward, Constance Greene who, though she appears to be in her early twenties, is actually over a hundred years old because of a strange elixir that has prolonged her youth. The genius of Preston and Lincoln is how they make the fantastic elements of each book as believable as the normal ones.
Now “Two Graves” ends a trilogy story arc begun in “Fever Dream” and continued in “Cold Vengeance.” For twelve years, Agent Pendergast believed his beloved wife, Helen, had been killed by a lion on their honeymoon safari in Africa. When evidence surfaces that proves her death was faked and that she might still be among the living, it propels Pendergast on the most important case he has ever confronted. To say the story has been a roller coaster of action and suspense would be a truly gross understatement and the revelations in this final chapter are mind-boggling. From a psychotic serial killer in Manhattan to a hidden Nazis eugenics camp in the jungles of Brazil, “Two Graves” is hands down the best Agent Pendergast novel ever written and this fan would never make that claim lightly. Were the series to end at this point, I would hazard most readers would be content with the established canon as it now stands.
Of course, being fans, we will always want more; lots more. But being a somewhat discriminating reviewer, it is difficult for me to imagine Preston and Child topping this book. It is clearly their Agent Pendergast masterpiece.
In the first event in association with Doctor Who‘s fiftieth anniversary, Puffin Books will be releasing eleven e-books in 2013, one a month, each dealing with a different Doctor. Writer of the Artemis Fowl series Eoin (“Owen”) Colfer has written the first, starring the first Doctor, played on TV by the late William Hartnell. (more…)
Book Cave hosts Bruce Rosenberger and Ric Croxton start off the show chatting about all things digital for reading. Later, co-host Art Sippo was able to hide from the villagers for a few minutes and chatted with Ric as Bruce had to leave to help with the holiday party at his home. The villagers must have found him at the end and was on the run from them with their torches and pitchforks.
You can listen to The Book Cave Episode 211: Year End Special here.
Here we are again: Christmas Eve, and I had an idea for a column – a kind of story/parable that would culminate in a macabre image involving the season’s most prominent icons. The Scrooge in me thinks the piece might be pretty cool, but there’s another me that doesn’t want to perpetuate ugliness of any kind. This second me believes in the season – or, to be exact, the need for the season.
I’ve never wrapped my head completely around Claude Levi-Strauss’ contention that ritual precedes mythology. But the Christmas frolics might give me a clue. Begin with this: outside, it is cold and bleak and the days are very, very short. We glimpse the coming void and we are afraid. Not panicky, just feeling a quiet dread. And we rally – we gather together where there is light, and we sing, and we dance, and we exchange gifts and festive foods. We defy the darkness, the dread. The days will get longer, and warm: this we proclaim, and we are comforted. Deep inside, we share with our ancestors.
We accept the stories that arose in them to answer the brain’s need for structure and logic – the world must make sense! – we must be able to explain.
We conflate ritual and myth and – behold! A holiday!
So no ugliness from me today. Nor tomorrow. The next day? Who knows?
The Weather Channel predicts snow tonight. Tomorrow we will waken and perhaps the world outside the window will be lovely. Later, Larry and Perri will come up from Brooklyn and we will share a meal and exchange tokens and that will be fine, just fine – exactly as we want it to be.
Oh, Steven Moffat, you magnificent bastard. The return of a villain before it and The Doctor have ever met, a reunion with a character The Doctor’s never actually met, the team-up of three characters, one of whom died in the far future, and a couple of surprise guests. A nice little Christmas present, and what’s Christmas without…
THE SNOWMEN
By Steven Moffat
Directed by Saul Metzstein
A young boy is met by a talking snowman, one who promises he can help him. Fifty years later, and Dr. Walter Simeon has become quite a successful man, head of a prestigious institute, and still working with the sentient snowstorm to prepare for a coming assault on the earth. Madame Vastra and Jenny are curious as to Dr. Simeon’s plans, but get nowhere. Meanwhile, a young barmaid named Clara has noticed a snowman pop up out of nowhere, and though the man she asks randomly about it seems disinterested, his curiosity is piqued, something The Doctor has been trying to avoid.
Clara is quite a mystery – she’s living a double life as the Governess for two young children. Their previous governess drowned in a pond outside their manor last winter, which froze over so quickly and thickly they never even found the body for a month. During that time, the Snow had time to analyze her DNA, providing them a perfect blueprint with which they plan to use to create more sturdy and permanent forms for itself. The challenge is not for The Doctor to defeat the Snowmen and its secret leader…but to get The Doctor interested enough to care.
Brilliant episode from head to toe. The chemistry between Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman is positively captivating, as we saw in Asylum of the Daleks, but here, with both on screen at once, it’s explosive. Dan Starkey pulls in a leaves-you-breathless comedic performance as Strax, one so good it’ll be hard to take him seriously if (when?) he appears again. Unlike most of the previous Christmas specials, this one has a more direct connection to the narrative of the show. They’re usually a rather done-in-one story that can be enjoyed on its own. But here, as with The Christmas Invasion, the story leads right into the start of the new semi-season this Spring/Summer.
Once again, Moffat has created a character rippling with mystery. Why was she working for Captain Latimer, and more importantly, why does her face seem to be spread across time?
THE MONSTER FILES
The Great Intelligence has been rumored for a return to the show for at least two years. Of course, so has damn near every other villain. Appearing twice during the Troughton era, it was a disembodied consciousness that was able to remotely animate constructs, created with the help of wiling human compatriots. Its favorite form in past battles have been giant robotic Yeti, also know as Abominable Snowmen, which was also the title of their first adventure. It appeared again in London in The Web of Fear, the adventure that also introduced us to then-Colonel Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, who would soon receive a promotion, and assignment to U.N.I.T.
The prose novels added a great deal to the history of the Intelligence, as it did for many of the villains of the series. In them it was revealed that it is in fact Yog-Sothoth, one of the Old Ones chronicled in the H.P. Lovecraft stories. Neil Gaiman revealed in an interview that he had initially intended House, the villain from his previous episode The Doctor’s Wife, was to have been the Great Intelligence, or at least was to have been heavily hinted as such. While none of those allusions remained, its modus operandi is sufficiently similar as to still make the connection possible.
Madame Vastra is a Silurian, an ancient lizard race who escaped under the Earth’s crust to save themselves from what they saw as an extinction-level threat in the form of an asteroid heading for the planet. When the asteroid was instead captured by the Earth’s gravity and became our moon, it allowed other races to rise to planetary dominance, namely Humanity. The Doctor has faced the Silurians several times both in the new and original series. Madame Vastra and her human partner Jenny, were introduced in A Good Man Goes to War, as was Strax, the Sontaran clone warrior, sentenced to the ultimate shame, to serve as a nurse.
GUEST STAR REPORT
Richard Grant (Dr. Simeon) has been a staple of British comedy and drama for years. He first came to note in Withnail and I, co-starring with the future Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann. He’s been in mad satiric comedies like How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Hudson Hawk, has played the Scarlet Pimpernel, starred in the underrated Warlock, and been in far too many more to list. He has also had quite a history with Doctor Who. He’s played The Doctor twice, once in Moffat’s oft-referenced Comic Relief sketch The Curse Of Fatal Death, and once in an animated adventure The Scream of the Shalka. That had been intended as a sort of pilot for a new Who series that never materialized. It was quiet shuffled out of continuity when the new series started with a different ninth Doctor.
Ian McKellen (voice of the Intelligence) is Magneto and Gandalf. Get Over It.
Juliet Cadzow (voice of the ice governess) has had a long career on British television and on film, but is likely best known as Edie McCredie from the cult favorite children’s show Balamory.
BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details
CREDITS WHERE CREDITS ARE DUE – New credit sequence, and a new mix of the theme, but even then, a return of some old motifs. The Doctor’s face has been missing from the opening sequence ever since the new series began, but its made a happy return here. Also, The TARDIS seems to traveling through space for more of the sequence than through time. The vortex has gone through some changes as well. In the initial credits sequence it seems made of energy, much resembling a “laser tunnel” effect. In the first Matt Smith sequence, the vortex took on a more smoky look, one that became progressively more violent in the episodes of this season. Now it’s taken a look of a column of flame. One theoy has suggested that the change represented a change in The Doctor’s mood and experiences, rather than mere a change in the vortex itself.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION – The episode was filmed in Bristol, which features a number of Victorian style locales, and makes for easy conversion.
THE ROSE AND CROWN – well, “Rose” is rather obvious, but one could also argue that a Crown is worn by someone who is…Noble.
YOU DON’T NEED THEM, YOU JUST THINK THEY MAKE YOU LOOK CLEVER – The Doctor is wearing Amy Pond’s glasses, last seen in The Angels Take Manhattan. It’s the only bit of clothing or accessories remaining from his previous costume. Even the bow tie is different.
DON’T KNOW WHERE, DON’T KNOW WHEN… Note Clara’s birthday – November 23rd, same day Doctor Who premiered in 1963.
“Those were the days” – What’s interesting is that we have NO clue exactly how long The Doctor has been out of the Saving The Universe business. Take a look at the TARDIS – the exterior is a weather-beaten mess. And even though the interior has a brand new design, I’ve already suggested that it is in fact the ship’s “default” setting, indicating that he didn’t care if it had any character anymore.
‘You realize Dr. Doyle is almost certainly basing his fantastical tales on your own exploits” – And that sound you hear is reality folding in upon itself. Moffat is, of course, also the showrunner on the new Sherlock series starring Smaug and Bilbo Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and fans have been doing crossovers between the two series for some time now.
“And remember…” Clara is another woman that The Doctor is meeting out of order. Like River Song, there’s clearly much more going on with her than any average woman. Unlike Amy Pond, she’s got a very inquisitive nature, and was involved in her own little mysteries before the Doctor even arrived. She lives a double life, as the governess of the two children, who just happen to be in the middle of a dangerous situation. Rather like how Sarah jane and Donna Noble were inspired to investigate and help people after they met The Doctor. But Clara hadn’t MET The Doctor yet. Or has she?
BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – There’s two possibilities here. Rumors abound that the Great Intelligence will return throughout the back end of the season as the Big Bad. This story works perfectly as a stand-alone origin story for the entity, but could also serve as the start of a “You created me” story that could wind up in the season finale.
It seems very clear that one theme of at least the beginning of the semi-season will be the search for Clara. The clips in the Coming Soon teaser show that Clara’s influence is all across time – note the painting, and the fact that she seems to be wearing many different outfits. Yes, she could certainly be just changing clothes…but who’s to say it’s not a different Clara in each episode?
NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – As is traditional at these points, that’s quite up in the air. We know we’ll be seeing…
A Cyberman episode by Neil Gaiman
Diana Rigg and her daughter in another Victorian era adventure
In the first event in association with Doctor Who‘s fiftieth anniversary, Puffin Books will be releasing eleven e-books in 2013, one a month, each dealing with a different Doctor. Writer of the 
series Eoin (“Owen”) Colfer has written the first, starring the first Doctor, played on TV by the late William Hartnell. 
A young boy is met by a talking snowman, one who promises he can help him. Fifty years later, and Dr. Walter Simeon has become quite a successful man, head of a prestigious institute, and still working with the sentient snowstorm to prepare for a coming assault on the earth. Madame Vastra and Jenny are curious as to Dr. Simeon’s plans, but get nowhere. Meanwhile, a young barmaid named Clara has noticed a snowman pop up out of nowhere, and though the man she asks randomly about it seems disinterested, his curiosity is piqued, something The Doctor has been trying to avoid.
Richard Grant (Dr. Simeon) has been a staple of British comedy and drama for years. He first came to note in Withnail and I, co-starring with the future Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann. He’s been in mad satiric comedies like How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Hudson Hawk, has played the Scarlet Pimpernel, starred in the underrated Warlock, and been in far too many more to list. He has also had quite a history with Doctor Who. He’s played The Doctor twice, once in Moffat’s oft-referenced Comic Relief sketch The Curse Of Fatal Death, and once in an animated adventure The Scream of the Shalka. That had been intended as a sort of pilot for a new Who series that never materialized. It was quiet shuffled out of continuity when the new series started with a different ninth Doctor.
