Fathom events will team with BBC Worldwide North America for a national broadcast of the Doctor Who series eight climax Dark Water/Death in Heaven this fall. Scheduled for September 15th and 16th, and presented in 3D, the event will also feature a new prequel teaser for series nine entitled The Doctor’s Meditation. In addition Wil Wheaton, former Wesley Crusher and now multiform internet sensation, will host a special interview with Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman.
The two-part season finale featured the return of The Master, in the form of Michelle Gomez, who has already been confirmed to re-appear in the two part series nine opener The Magician’s Assistant / The Witch’s Familiar, set to premiere several days after this presentation on September 19.
Fathom Events has had a several-year partnership with BBC, beginning with a national broadcast of the 50th anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor, which the company described as bringing the “largest surges of traffic ever” to their website. They’ve since broadcast the Series 8 premiere episode Deep Breath, as well as a presentation of the David Tennant two-parter Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel. Fathom have presented a number of genre-friendly events, including an ongoing series of science fiction films “commented on” by MST3K alumni at RiffTrax, and an upcoming return to theaters of the animated classic The Iron Giant.
Tickets go on sale July 31 – check the Fathom Events website for a list of participating theaters.
I’m back, ladies and gents, with more SDCC coverage! If you missed Part I(the con floor) or Part II (the Her Universe Fashion Show), don’t forget to check ‘em out. And now, on to Part III – party tiiiiiime!
So it’s no secret that I love a good party. And SDCC isn’t a bad place to find one. If you look (and there are some handy party guides put out ahead of each con by more enterprising souls than me to get you started, like this one from Variety and this one from The Hollywood Reporter), you can find events ranging from casual to fancy to star studded galas, and from free events to paid ticketed events.
Your party mileage may vary depending on what you’re looking for; but if you’re like me and like to have a couple of events per night on your radar (nothing worse than ending up at a lame party and not knowing where else to go for a good time when you’re all ready for a fun night), then it’s a good idea to have at least two to three places in mind per night (although it could actually be a good thing if you don’t get to them all – it might mean you were having so much fun at the first one that you didn’t want to leave; and that’s way better than making it to All The Parties).
As a side note before I move on: of course, a lot of the parties listed that feature A-list celebrities or whatever are going to be invite or RSVP-only; but honestly, in my experience of having been to everything from those parties to the come-on-in, it’s-free-for-everyone parties, it’s not celebs that make the fun. Those parties can be awesome; or they can end up being badly organized, long-wait-outside kind of things; and who wants that when you’re looking to get your dance or drink on? So if you end up invited or on the list for those parties, by all means give it a whirl; but if you don’t land an invite to something like that, don’t stress or feel like you’re missing out on life. There’s plenty to do at night for any con-goer.
And as a tip to organizers doing the celebrity-style parties – the most fun I’ve had at those are the ones where you don’t have to wait forever to get in, and where you can actually chat with the other guests, no matter who they are, or where it’s more about everyone dancing and having a good time than whether you’re standing next to so-and-so. The least fun are the ones where if you aren’t an A-list celebrity, you feel like you’re kind of just there, even if you were invited and on the list and everything. Totally lame; so try to strike a balance where everyone feels like they’re welcome and it’s their party. I’ve seen it done right many times, so I know it’s possible! Oh, and for heaven’s sake, don’t tell a press person (or any person) they’re on the list for a party you invited them to and then forget to add them. Trust me – it happened to me; and after wasting precious party time standing in line for a party we won’t see when we could be elsewhere, reporting and/or having a blast, reporters do not forget that shit. Ever.
Anyway; this year, I started poking around the party lists and invites fairly well ahead of time and by the time the Con rolled around, I had my party schedule together. I aimed for a balance of drinks-and-chats vs. club-like, casual vs. fancy, and free vs. ticketed or RSVP events; because hey – I like variety! Some of the potentials dropped off the schedule because I never made it to them, mostly because there’s only so much time in a night (and I heard that the aforementioned list-SNAFU party I also missed turned out to be pretty lame, so no loss there!), but here’s the round-up of the ones I hit, which were hella fun.
Wednesday
The Event: J!NX PRESENTS: Gabe Eltaeb’s Second Annual Comic Kickoff Fundraiser
Where I Found It: I knew about this one in advance because my friend and I stumbled on it last year in the course of meeting up to get dinner. It had a fun casual vibe, so I checked with the J!NX folks to see if they were hosting it again this year, and lo-and-behold they were! But if you don’t know the folks at J!NX, no worries, because this event was also listed on Facebook.
Open To: Anyone! I RSVP’d on Facebook.
The Experience: Like last year, this was held at BASIC Urban Kitchen & Bar. The pizza there is good, and there’s a bar area as well as a more restaurant-like area with tables. The get-together is actually a benefit for The Hero Initiative, which helps comics creators in need, so it’s for a good cause. This year it was sponsored by Razer, Dark Horse Comics, and Loot Crate, and had raffle prizes that included hand-drawn sketches donated by guest artists, Razer Gaming Accessories donated by Razer, and Loot Crates and free subscriptions donated by Loot Crate. The guest artists on hand were Gabe Eltaeb (Star Wars, Green Lantern Corps), Jim Calafiore (Exiles, Aquaman), Carlos D’Anda (Star Wars, Deathblow), Todd Nauck (Young Justice, Nightcrawler), Eddie Nunez (Fanboys vs. Zombies, Ben 10), and Doug Wheatley (Star Wars, Blade: The Vampire Hunter).
As with last year, the vibe was again casual and cool. It was, again, a good place to have dinner with a friend, and more. Although I didn’t opt to participate in the raffle, there were some great pieces available, as well as the merchandise prizes. It was awesome to be able to be in amongst the party while still able to sit down and grab a bite to eat after the hecticness of Preview Night. All-in-all, it was a perfect, relaxed way to do something fun while still easing into the Comic-Con mood on the first night.
But of course, it wasn’t all I did that night. I soon headed over to my next event of the evening…
The Event:Wooden Wisdom (Elijah Wood & Zach Cowie DJ Set) at Bang Bang
Where I Found It: Twitter. I came across this purely by accident on my Twitter feed. Not knowing (as I do now) that Elijah Wood has been into DJing for a long time, my main thought was, “this is the weirdest evening event I’ve encountered at Comic-Con. I must go.” Given that tickets were only $15 when I looked it up, and after learning the venue had a bathroom devoted to Ryan Gosling, I was totally sold. I had to see this.
Open To: Anyone who wants to pay between $5-25 to go to a club and dance the night away with a hobbit co-helming the turntables!
The Experience: The website said the club closed at midnight on Wednesdays, and listed Wooden Wisdom as going on at 10, so I headed over around 10:30 to see what it was all about. As it turned out, for Comic-Con week the club was open until 2, and Wooden Wisdom was starting at midnight (that’s more like it!). That was perfect since I’d wanted to see a few friends for drinks first – so I got my stamp and headed to the Marriott for a drink, heading back to the club a little after midnight for the main event. I was prepared for anything – crowds, no crowds, terrible music, awesome music – and was pleasantly surprised to discover that (other than a sticky floor) this was a rockin’ experience.
Wooden Wisdom is good, you guys! Like, I-wish-they-hadn’t-had-to-go-in-two-hours, I-could-have-danced-a-lot-more good. Both Elijah Wood and Zach Cowrie were awesome up there. Plus, the weird bathroom didn’t disappoint (if you don’t mind a life-sized Ryan Gosling staring at you while you use the facilities); the bartender was extra-nice; I met a couple of new friends on the dance floor; and the giant disco ball and lighting was also pretty darned cool. And, I mean, there was the whole Elijah Wood is DJing (and havin’ a drink) a few feet away thing going on. That was fun. And a kick-ass way to start off the con weekend! I didn’t leave until they pushed us out the door.
Where I Found It: Long story short, I know a guy. Sometimes it does help to have those connections, and this year, I checked in with a friend who had, last year, hosted several Comic-Con panels and an associated rockin’ Robot Rendezvous Party, complete with technological demonstrations and special guest Brent Spiner, to see what he was up to this year. As it turned out, this year he was all about virtual reality, and was planning three panels, including a “Building the Holodeck” panel and an associated “VR Lounge” party. After last year? I was so there!
Open To: Everyone, with a ticket purchase via EventBrite. Even though I know a guy, you don’t have to in order to attend his parties.
The Experience: Like last year, it was geeky-cool, and a place to play as well as eat or drink. Held at the Stone Brewing Tap Room, the party featured complimentary appetizers and three different VR demonstrations. I got to try out two of the three before having to run off (I wanted to stay the whole time, but I couldn’t miss the Her Universe Fashion Show!) and they were super cool. For one, from the Emblematic Group, you put on some tech gear (a bag, headphones, and a viewing thing) and could walk around a room in the pub, while experiencing the room as a replica of the Star Trek: Next Generation bridge. It was pretty cool; and you could even sit down in chairs that now looked like holodeck chairs. (Or you could walk around looking like a badass Red Son Super(wo)man in a cape, like my friend Amy.)
The next, from Qualcomm, was Vuforia, which is essentially a modern-day, VR View-Master (man, I loved my View-Master), and is super-cool. The way it works is that by looking at a reel while using the viewer, you can enter the “experience” on that reel, and look around a VR version of different scenes. I looked at a space one, and it was super cool (and if you look down, it will say on the “floor” what experience you are in). You can also look around and see different reels within the reel you are in; and if you click on one of those, can jump into another experience. Let me tell you…it is neeeeeaat. I definitely want one; at the very least for my little nephew and nieces, if not also for myself! The third experience, which I didn’t have time to try but also looked rad, was NASA’sPhobos Hopper project. If only I’d had a little more time to play! But even though I had to dash, it was a super-cool party.
After the Fashion Show on Thursday, I had a friends-and-family type invite-only dinner thing that I go to every year, so I knew where most of my evening was going to be spent (with awesome ComicMixers and the likes of Len Wein and Don McGregor!). But it’s always good to have something on the list for after, just in case…
Where I Found It: On the website, word-of-mouth, and in the party round-ups. Even though this was my third year attending Nerd HQ (which, if you haven’t encountered it, is an amazing all-weekend event started by actor Zac Levi to benefit the important charity Operation Smile, and which I will cover in much more detail in another column), and I’d heard of the parties before, I hadn’t managed to make it to one in the other years. This year, I bookmarked the Nerd HQ party as the next place I’d hit on Thursday if there was time. As it turned out, dinner didn’t wrap until midnight, and I was already super tired after a busy day at the con; but I did swing by Nerd HQ with someone else from the dinner to see what the party was all about in this year’s new setting, The New Children’s Museum.
Open To: Anyone who has registered for Nerd HQ (which is free)
The Experience: This party is funnnnn, y’all. Remember how I was talking about celebrity parties that strike a balance and make everyone feel like it’s their party? Nerd HQ does it right! Even though it’s a draw to know that Zac Levi (and possibly famous friends) are going to be there, hosting the party, interacting with the crowd, etc., the party is still, first and foremost, a party with a bunch of nerrrrds. Albeit a party with Zac Levi and a Wookie on stage. On Thursday around midnight, there was no wait to get in – they just scanned our RFID bracelets, and in we went. The setting this year was pretty good, with a dance floor area set in front of a raised platform where the DJ and Zac and friends could hang out, and they had a really fun mix of music, and great lighting, to set the mood. Zac was totally into the party, singing, dancing, and saying hello to people in the crowd. There was a good crowd, clearly having a great time dancing and chilling, and there were also two bars (indoor and out on the patio) for drinks, although I didn’t get a drink Thursday, since I was just swinging by to scope the scene before dropping like a dead thing into my bed, to prepare for…
Friday
The Event: The Fashionably Nerdy Cocktail Hour
Where I Found It: Facebook, and friends mentioning it.
Open To: Everyone! I RSVP’d on Facebook.
The Experience: This was Fashionably Nerdy’s first year hosting this event; but from the minute I saw it, I was excited to attend. As you can probably tell from my coverage of the Her Universe Fashion Show and more, I am all about nerd and geek fashion for women; and the ladies hosting this party are, too! So it was a total match. The event was hosted at the Manchester Grand Hyatt Grand Lobby Bar, and advertised as a way to meet the Fashionably Nerdy team and some great geek chic designers. Swag bags were promised for the first attendees, along with a raffle, and prizes for the best-dressed. Press commitments elsewhere kept me from arriving when it started, so I didn’t land a swag bag, but their list of designers and prizes was very impressive!
Given that this was a fashion party, I dressed in my geek best with the Loki dress from the Her Universe Hot Topic line, designed by the winners of last year’s SDCC Her Universe Fashion Show. I swung by after the party had been going for an hour, and the place was pretty packed! I somehow immediately honed in on and met the Fashionably Nerdy gals (it’s like a geek fashionista sixth sense!) and chatted with them, as well as with some of their friends, one of whom is a designer who had made one of the great geek dresses being worn, and had actually been one of the Fashion Show models as well. We all bonded over our shared love of geek fashion, and kept running into each other for the rest of the weekend after that, which was fun. Yay, new friends!
Speaking of the Fashion Show, the Loki dress a good choice of attire, because I got many compliments! Despite the fact that the line was on my radar from the get-go, several people at the party had never seen the dress and wanted to know where I got it. I was happy to be able to tell them Ashley Eckstein had just announced that the sold-out line is coming back; and this was clearly the right crowd to be interested in news like that. After I met a few folks, I settled in for some food and drink, because whoo, I was starving! Over shrimp tacos I made friends with other like-minded geeks, chatting about, e.g., some of the difficulties and discrimination we’d encountered as women who are into video gaming; and the fun we have in sneaking geek couture into our daily work wardrobes. As the event wound down, I was happy to unexpectedly get one of the cute prizes they were handing out to some attendees – a great glittery Flash hairclip from Accessories by Nerd Girl Britt that I’ll surely wear somewhere. All-in-all, it was a really fun event! I hope to go again next year, and have been assured that planning is already in the works! As this year’s event wrapped up, I headed over to…
Where I Found It: Ah, I have been a Sherlockian for yea, these many years, and had many friends (particularly from the yearly NYC BSI Weekend, and from my personal scion group, The Red Circle of DC) who were going to this party! So I heard about it from several folks.
Open To: Everyone who buys a ticket! Although this one always seems to sell out pretty fast.
The Experience: This was an all-around great party in a great setting, put together by The Baker Street Babes, Being Geek Chic, The Nerdy Girlie, SherlockDC, and more. Held on the 9th floor of the San Diego Public Library, the room had a glassed-in view of PETCO Park and downtown San Diego (which was especially cool when we unexpectedly partook second-hand in the Star Wars Celebration fireworks!), as well as a patio outside. There was a great spread of food (both hot food and a fruit and cheese table), and a cash bar. Everyone who went got a cool swag bag with Sherlockian-themed items like exclusive prints and Sherlock-themed tea. There was also an impressive raffle with lots of themed prizes, as well as a selection of merchandise to browse.
One of my favorite bits was a photo booth where you could get a set of four pictures done in quick succession, with silly props supplied for you. My friend Lacy and I had a total blast with that. It was also cool to run into great friends from the BSI, like Les Klinger of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes and Curtis Armstrong of Supernatural and King of the Nerds. And, of course, any party where you walk in and Steven Moffat is hanging out doing a Q&A is pretty darned cool. Really, this party wasn’t missing any ingredients of success; and a good time was had by all. Which brings me to the final party night…
Saturday
The Event: The Nerd HQ Nerd Army Party
Where I Found It: See above. I was determined to actually have time to hang out at this party Saturday night, after being too tired to stay long on Thursday.
Open To: All registered Nerd HQ attendees
The Experience: The vibe and setting was similar to Thursday, although there was a line to get in. Still, it moved fairly quickly (unlike most party lines) and soon I was nerding out inside with the rest of the Nerd Army. At first, I’ll admit I was a little cranky, because I really, really wanted a water and could not figure out how to efficiently obtain one. After waiting in a long bar line, realizing near the front that I had to buy tickets in a separate line for drinks, and then buying those and getting back in the bar line, I was a bit frustrated – and I definitely think that process needs to be streamlined (why did there need to be drink tickets at all?) and clarified for next year (at the very least a complimentary water station, or a separate line for just water, would probably work wonders).
But once I got some water in me, I was more than happy to party like the rest of the crowd. And also, to take a couple of pictures with their free photo set-ups, which were still available during the night-time fun. (Fun side note: I pinned one copy of my party picture to the photo clotheslines just for fun; and the next day, a friend who I didn’t actually get to see in person the whole contweeted it at me, all, “found you!” Haha! Friends seeing friends via Nerd HQ.) The dance floor was a good time; I got into the crowd for a time, and actually ran into and said hi to Zac as he was making his way back to the raised area after he’d been dancing in the middle of the crowd for a long while; and when I took a break from dancing, I ended up meeting and hardcore nerding out with a new friend in conversation on the sidelines of the dance floor. And although I personally didn’t run into any of the other celebs who might have been there, I know that, e.g., Yvonne Strahovski was there at least one of the nights; so you never know who you might see at Nerd HQ! And either way, it’s a hoppin’ party!
But eventually, I needed to slow it down a little; so I headed over to my last party of the weekend…
The Event: SlamCon
Where I Found It: Twitter. You have to follow @Slam_Con on Twitter to find out the location of this party each year. On the day of, they tweet the location a few hours before (they tweeted it at 5, and the party started at 8, this year).
Open To: Everyone! And you never know who you might see there, from friends to celebs to who-all-knows. Last year half the cast of Supernatural apparently showed up.
The Experience: SlamCon is another example of a good way to mix some celebrities or con guests with con-goers without it feeling weird. Although the venue and feel might change a little from year to year, this party, organized by Todd Stashwick, Dennis Calero, Brea Grant, and Deric Hughes, is a great way to hang out, have some drinks, and wrap up a con weekend. This year, the event was at the Hilton Bayfront Pool Club; but then moved to the Odysea because the crowd got so big.
Although, alas, I headed over pretty late and missed a fair bit of it, as well as Deric, who I would have loved to catch up with, even just walking in I ran into the awesome Brandon Auman, writer for the current fantastic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show on Nickelodeon (and funnily enough, earlier had run into the just-as-awesome Greg Cipes, voice of Michelangelo, out on the street – Turtle Power and Turtle friends!) and was introduced to another writer for the show. And I also got to say hi and thanks for organizing to Todd Stashwick, who is a delightful human being (and a great actor!). And I ran into one of the great Fashionably Nerdy gals again, too! So even though I didn’t get to stay too long, it was nice to go and see some old friends or meet new ones! And next year…well, I’m definitely going to try to get there sooner!
UNIT scientist Osgood, played by Ingrid Oliver, returns to Doctor Who for season nine. Having been killed by Missy (Michelle Gomez) in the show’s season eight finale ‘Death in Heaven’, Steven Moffat decided to bring back the Doctor’s biggest fan.
Steven Moffat, lead writer and Executive Producer, said: “Osgood is back, fresh from her recent murder at the end of last series. We recently confirmed that Osgood was definitely dead and not returning – but in a show about time travel, anything can happen. The brilliant Ingrid Oliver is back in action. This time though, can the Doctor trust his number one fan?”
This time she’s back in action and comes face-to-face with the shape-shifting extra-terrestrial Zygons, as they also return for the new season. They last appeared in ‘The Day of the Doctor’ for the show’s 50th anniversary episode.
One of the most popular fan theories about Osgood’s not-deadness involves the events of the anniversary episode. She was impersonated by a Zygon, but as the episode progressed, they seem to achieve some sort of mutual understanding. Many have clung to the hope that the Osgood we saw reduced to particulate matter was the Zygon duplicate.
Of course, we also saw Missy’s device perform a number of functions – who’s to say one of them wasn’t a teleporter, like the shredders in Time Heist? How will she ever come back?
Speaking on set, Ingrid Oliver commented on her reappearance: “As every actor who’s worked on Doctor Who will tell you, there’s always the secret hope you’ll get the call asking you to come back. To actually receive that call is both unexpected and brilliant. The word ‘honour’ gets banded about a lot, but it really is, it’s an honour. Especially because I was so sure Osgood was a goner after the last series!”
The two-part episode is currently being filmed in Cardiff, Wales, and is written by Peter Harness (Doctor Who – ‘Kill the Moon’, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Wallander), produced by Peter Bennett and directed by Daniel Nettheim (Line of Duty, Glue).
Also joining Peter Capaldi (The Doctor) and Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald) and confirmed for guest roles in the double episode is Jemma Redgrave, Jaye Griffiths, Cleopatra Dickens, Sasha Dickens, Abhishek Singh, Todd Kramer, Jill Winternitz, Nicholas Asbury, Jack Parker and Aidan Cook.
After breaking new television ground with projects like TORCHWOOD, QUEER AS FOLK and of course DOCTOR WHO. Russell T. Davies is back with a pair of new shows for Logo TV. It’s a unique concept he details in our exclusive talk, plus is there a future for TORCHWOOD and what got him to DOCTOR WHO in the first place? Plus TBS revives the domestic sitcom with YOUR FAMILY OR MINE boasting an amazing cast of TV veterans. Kat Foster and JoeBeth Williams talk about how the show is a new twist on the familiar concept.
We are back in just a few days with an exclusive look at the new season of SYFY’s werewolf drama, BITTEN (this time we mean it!). Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
This week I’ve got a bunch of different topics and themes but none of them seem to be developing into a coherent column. So I think I’ll take parts of all of them and just stitch together into a hodgepodge column. It’s the end of the year so maybe I can get away with it.
If you’re doing a SF tent pole movie, you want to hire Zoe Saldana and use her prominently. She played Neytiri in Avatar, Uhura in the two latest StarTrek films, and Gamora in Guardians Of The Galaxy and she’s going to be in the next installments of all these films. They all made what is technically called a shitload of money. Coincidence? I think not. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t be cast as Amanda Waller. (Sorry, Oprah.) I really want the upcoming Suicide Squad movie to sell like hotcakes and spawn sequels and Amanda Waller related merchandise. Okay, I’m crass. Still, think about it. . .
Peter Capaldi has finished his first season as the new Doctor and I like his Doctor McCrankypants. It’s a nice variation of the past few Doctors. Not as crazy about all the writing, tho, and I really am beginning to feel it’s time for showrunner Steven Moffat to move on. When Moffat is good, he’s really good and he’s rarely outright bad but he’s often becoming mediocre. He seems, to me, to not always think things through. Or he gets clever for the sake of being clever.
Best Animated Film I Saw This Year – How To Train Your Dragon 2. The animation was better than the original and the story wasn’t a re-hash of the first but actually advanced the characters. It was fun but also had real emotional depth and impact. In fact, it was a better film than many live action serious movies I saw. It took chances.
Best Marvel Film I Saw This Year – a lot of people would say Guardians Of The Galaxy and I loved it too. It was just wonderfully entertaining. However, I liked Captain America: The Winter Soldier even more. Chris Evans is to Steve Rogers/Captain America what Christopher Reeve was to Superman. Why doesn’t Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow have her own movie? How the hell did they get Robert Redford go play the main villain? (Oh, right – money.) And Samuel L. Jackson just has deep reserves of cool to call on. The movie also had a major impact on Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. which was an added bonus.
Just finished reading Alexander Mcall Smith’s latest installment (number 15!) in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, titled The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café. The series is set in Botswana, Africa, and features Precious Ramotswe, her partner Grace Makutsi, and their friends, co-workers, and clients in and around the city of Gabrone. The characters are all African and the author is white, born in Rhodesia, now living in Scotland. He writes the characters with great love and understanding, along with a great love for Africa in general and Botswana in particular. Reading each new book is like visiting old friends. The mysteries are mostly small matters and not really the focus of the series. It is the people. I recommend the series and, while I suggest starting at he beginning, each book is admirably written to be accessible even if you haven’t read the others. I will warn you that they are quiet books, slow paced, but wonderful reads.
Final note: just an update since so many of you expressed concern following my recent triple bypass. I’m healing nicely and recovering well. My general practitioner, on my last visit, pronounced me “medically boring.” I’ve never been so glad to be called boring.
Well, that’s 2014. Drive carefully, drink responsibly, party carefully, and we’ll all reconvene in 2015.
In a recent interview with Steven Moffat, I had the opportunity to discuss The Doctor’s companions with him. He shared his opinions on whether or not we always need to have a dramatic departure for his friends, and whether or not we couldn’t see a more polite and happy departure where his friend says “Thanks for the fun, I’m off to buy new sheets now”. His response was rather emphatic:
“Yes that would be the least talked about moment in television history wouldn’t it? I mean really if you did a scene ‘I’m going to buy some sheets now,’ no one is ever going to write a fan letter about that one. So no, we’re not going to do that”.
He also called foul on the popular thought about The Doctor’s companions always ending up worse for the wear. “I mean, that’s not true about all the Doctor’s companions. It’s maybe what the Doctor thinks in his darker moments and when he’s dying in “Let’s Kill Hitler.” He worries that he might’ve done them terrible harm. But Rose is off in a parallel universe. She’ll be with her – with a human version of the Doctor. She’s fine. Martha learns to stand up for herself and got over her crush on the Doctor and she soars off. Yes Donna has a more miserable thing. But she doesn’t know she’s miserable. She ends up actually quite happy and married to a good bloke. Rory and Amy are perfectly happy in New York. They’re dead, but, you know, everyone from that year is dead so that’s all right. They lived to a ripe old age and had a lovely time.
“The Doctor – so he’s not – they all don’t leave under terrible circumstances at all. I think the tragedy when Amy and Rory went was the Doctor lost them not – and that in the end they, you know, of course that, you know, Amy would choose Rory over the Doctor in a heartbeat. And he actually had some trouble quite dealing with that. But the fact is, no he doesn’t ruin their lives. He can induce a certain amount of trauma, it must be said. But no they’re not all destroyed by any means. And no, every time, every time the Doctor loses a regular character from this show it will happen in a moment that makes people talk. Because the episode that you described no one would talk about that. That wouldn’t be thrilling.
“If a friendship is severed for good or for bad reasons, that’s a big moment in your life. And if you walk away from a great friend but then you’re not crying a little then you’ve not been reading the memos frankly. You’ve not been paying attention. So, no, Doctor Who will not take the un-dramatic path because we’d like to stay on television and popular.”
So far in the new series, all the Companions have been from modern day Britain. That wasn’t always the case in the old series. You’ve got Leela. You’ve got Dodo. You’ve got folks from different places, different times. Still human looking so you save money on the makeup. But how likely or how perhaps harder or different to write is it to write for a companion that isn’t just from modern day Earth?
“Well if we found that difficult,” he replied, “then we’d have tremendous difficulty writing the main character wouldn’t we? It’s not a question of whether it is difficult to do or not. It’s a question of whether it’s the right thing to do or not. Now in fact, the old series doesn’t do a hell of a lot of it. If you looked at the vast majority of the companions come from contemporary era. Even the ones who don’t come from contemporary era are pretty much normalized ones like with Jamie and Victoria. Then it’s hardly any time at all before Victoria is wearing short skirts. No Victorian would actually do that. You know, so the problem is – and I don’t say it’s an unsolvable problem, but the majority solution will always be a contemporary companion. But the problem is you need an anchoring point for the audience. You need someone who represents their world and their point of view. And the simplest, purest and best answer to that is somebody from their world.
“Now somebody who’s watched Doctor Who for an unseasonably long time like I have, like possibly you have, I don’t know, might get bored of that and say ‘I wish it was, you know, a two headed alien from the planet Prang’. The new audience don’t think that. They want an anchoring point on that mysterious alien the Doctor. Doesn’t mean we’ll always do it this way. But the reality is it’s always going to be somebody from contemporary era or somebody who ends up being very like somebody from contemporary era.
“I think it was great – the one that broke the mold really I would argue was Leela. We actually went for somebody who was quite different. I would sort of say that Jamie and Victoria ended up – when I was a kid watching I wasn’t particularly aware that they were historical characters. And I do remember watching them. And Romana just came across as, you know, in the end like a very, very clever young woman. She wasn’t that different from Liz Shaw. It’s going to be – it’s going to be the relatable half of the partnership. Keep in mind Doctor Who has to not just appeal to sci-fi fans, it has to appeal to a huge mainstream audience who dwarf the sci-fi audience. You sort of need that way in for them. Having said that, you know, who knows maybe there’ll be a robot dog next. I don’t know.”
One thing that has changed about the companions in the new series is we’ve seen much more about their family lives. Time was they’d be whisked away and dropped off with nary a word about who they left behind, save for the odd joke about a maiden aunt of perhaps a pot on the stove. Clara doesn’t even travel with The Doctor full time. Is that the “New Normal” as Peter Pachal from Mashable asked, or will we see a more traditional companion relationship in the future?
“Well, I mean there’s never going to be a ‘new normal’. Everybody who comes aboard the TARDIS will have a different story and do it a different way. You know, it’s not a dictate of any kind it’s just – Clara’s personality did not suit the idea of simply abandoning everything else she does and running off with the Doctor. I mean you wouldn’t believe it if I wrote that scene. Yes I’ll just go move into the TARDIS with you and I’ll keep in the spare room and you tell me where to go and you drive. That’s just – Clara’s never going to do that in a million years, just wouldn’t.
“But Amy the night before her wedding, all anxious about whether she’s getting married too young. She can run away from awhile. But once she gets married of course she’ll do that. I think you’ve got to look at the Doctor as somebody who’s got a fantastic car that likes to take you for a spin now and then. That doesn’t mean you move in. Now Rose was in a very different place, wasn’t she? She lived in a council estate. She didn’t like her job. She had a vexed relationship with her mother. She had a, you know, she had a boyfriend she wasn’t sure of. She ran away because that was right for her character. It’s purely whether or not you want to run away. And whether or not you might need the idea that you might be number two in this particular relationship.
“Clara is never going to – from the first moment you meet her she’s never going to be somebody who thinks that they live in the spare room while his nibs drives the TARDIS. That’s just not what she’s like.
“Doesn’t mean that the next one won’t be like that. Who knows?”
Confirming recently circulating rumors, the BBC announced today that Nick Frost will guest-star in this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special.
Nick comments: “I’m so thrilled to have been asked to guest in the Doctor Who Christmas special, I’m such a fan of the show. The read-through was very difficult for me; I wanted to keep stuffing my fingers into my ears and scream “No spoilers!” Every day on set I’ve had to silence my internal fan boy squeals!”
Nick’s frequent partner in crime Simon Pegg appeared in the Eccleston adventure The Long Game as the Editor of Satellite Five, and servant of the Mighty Jagrafess of the Editor-in-Chief, the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe (And yes, I used cut and paste, there’s none of us perfect). Other members of the Pegg / Frost / Edgar Wright repertory company who have appeared on the series include Michael Smiley in Into the Dalek and Jessica Hynes as Verity Newman in Human Nature, and again as Verity’s descendant Joan Redfern in The End of Time.
Michael Troughton, son of Patrick (a.k.a. Doctor Two) will appear in the special as well, making a return to a long acting career after a break from 2002 to care for his wife, who suffered from MS. During the break he also earned a degree in science. Michael may be best know in the US for his role in The New Statesman against former Young One Rik Mayall. This marks his first on-camera appearance on Doctor Who – he drove a Dalek in one of father’s adventures. Michael ‘s brother David has made a number of appearances on the show, most recently as Professor Hobbes in Midnight.
They will be joined by Natalie Gumede (Coronation Street, Ideal, Strictly Come Dancing), Faye Marsay (Pride, The White Queen, Fresh Meat) and Nathan McMullen (Misfits, Casualty).
Steven Moffat, lead writer and executive producer, says: “Frost at Christmas – it just makes sense! I worked with Nick on the Tintin movie many years ago and it’s a real pleasure to lure him back to television for a ride on the TARDIS.”
The Doctor Who Christmas special will air on BBC America. Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Paul Wilmshurst (Strike Back, Combat Kids), it will be shot in Cardiff at BBC Wales Roath Lock Studios.
Peter Capaldi is off and flying in the role he’s been practicing for since he was four years old. The Paternoster gang is here to cushion the blow of the wild turns in tone and character, there’s a well-hidden piece of chalk, and a dinosaur explodes.
Mind your handles, watch the spoilers and take a…
DEEP BREATH
By Steven Moffat
Directed by Ben Wheatley (more…)
While most of us were going about our days, living our lives, the prevailing culture has become progressively nerdier. I don’t mean that there as been a renewed interest in science and math, because that would imply that we would exert ourselves mentally, and, as Americans, we don’t like to exert ourselves. What I mean is that there is more attention paid to comics, science fiction and fantasy, and that a lot of us know who Steven Moffat is.
In general, I think this is great. As more people celebrate their love of the more nerdy aspects of popular culture, more people might find out about them and find enjoyment as well. I’m all in favor of more pleasure in life. That applies to food and music and gardening as well as entertaining. In these specific case, I’m also pleased because a bigger audience means more job opportunities for me and for people I like.
However, it also means some of the less savory aspects of nerd culture are becoming commonplace. As this woman notes, women who express an opinion online are often insulted in ways that demean them sexually and violently. This is something that has been all too common in comics, where women had traditionally been treated as if we were a different species.
I’ve talked about this before, and yet, somehow, that didn’t seem to fix it. Maybe having stories like these publicized in The New York Times and other media will make a difference. Maybe having more women in all fields talk to each other will make a difference.
Why do some men think it is acceptable, when they disagree with a woman on some subject, to write comments that threaten her physically? Why do they think it’s acceptable to use her appearance to discredit her thoughts? Yes, I know that not all men make these comments, but they are so prevalent that one can only assume the perpetrators consider this to be reasonable discourse.
I mean, there are all kinds of men with whom I disagree, and I have never, not even in the heat of the moment, felt I could say, “You don’t know anything because you have a tiny tiny dick, and I’m coming to cut it off and shove it up your ass so you can see how little it really is.” Until I tried to imagine a parallel threat to those of the commentators, I never even thought of such a thing. And I have really sharp knives in my apartment.
Internet threats are mostly empty, but that doesn’t mean they are harmless. They have an inhibiting effect on discourse, which is a threat to our democracy. In many cases, such as those in which physical violence is threatened, they are actually illegal. I have a bigger problem, though, in that, as nerds and geeks, we should know how painful insults can be. We should be especially resistant to replicating these tactics precisely because we’ve felt it ourselves.
On Monday my pal Jason Scott Jones used his Facebook page to link to an incredible article about what it meant to be black before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He describes a culture in which African Americans lived literally in fear for their lives every time they went out in public – and sometimes when they stayed home. I’m not kidding when I say that this made my head metaphorically explode. I mean, I knew it wasn’t easy, but I had never before thought about how it felt to walk around with that level of threat and dread.
I’m not comparing to being threatened on the Internet to living in constant fear of being lynched. Instead, I’m using my experience to get a feeling for what that felt like. I hope, if I had been in those communities, I would have stood up for those being threatened. I hope I would have rooted for the underdog.
As River Song is want to warn: Spoilers!There’s going to be a lot of talk in this column about what happened on this year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special, ”The Time of the Doctor.” There’s no way around critiquing the show without talking about what happened in it. If you haven’t seen it but intend to, you may want to avoid this column.There are plenty of other fine columns here at ComicMix so you can read them instead if you like.
The Doctor is dead; long live the Doctor. Matt Smith’s tenure as Doctor Who has given way to Peter Capaldi’s. It all happened in this year’s Christmas Special, The Time of the Doctor. I wish I could tell you it was wonderful but, in truth, I was underwhelmed.
Steven Moffat, the showrunner and the author of the episode, is a very clever writer. Sometimes he’s too clever and sometimes he’s not as clever as he thinks. For the Fiftieth Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor, he was wonderfully clever with deeply felt emotional moments, a thrilling climax, and a special appearance at the end which just knocked my socks off and dangled them from my ears. In this episode, Moffat was very clever and very good as he so often is. All of which made my dissatisfaction with the Christmas Special so much the greater.
The Time of the Doctor had two important issues to settle. It was to mark the regeneration, the transition, of the Doctor from Matt Smith to the new Doctor, now played by Peter Capaldi. Having now established that Matt Smith’s Doctor was the final one in the Doctor’s regeneration cycle, it had to establish how Capaldi’s Doctor was possible. Moffat decided also to bring together dangling threads from previous episodes. That makes it a very busy episode and one of its narrative problems.
One of the problems is a prophecy that occurs in an earlier episode, The Wedding of River Song, it says that on “the fields of Trenzalore, at the Fall of the Eleventh, when no creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never ever be answered: Doctor who?” Problem: Matt Smith’s Doctor is no longer the Eleventh Doctor. “The Day of the Doctor” introduced John Hurt as the War Doctor, who was now the Ninth incarnation and that made Matt Smith the Twelfth Doctor. If he isn’t the Twelfth Doctor, then all the hoohah of this being his final incarnation is just blather. The plot hinges on it.
There are a lot of problems with this story. Early on, it has his companion, Clara, frantically asking the Doctor to come to her apartment and pretend to be her boyfriend for a Christmas dinner she’s cooking for her parents and grandmother. This makes no sense to me. Clara is gorgeous and she can’t get a local guy to do the part?
When the Doctor and Clara get to Trenzalore, there is a small farming community of humans and the town is named Christmas. I guess we’re in the future. Beaming down, they find some Weeping Angels buried in the snow. The Weeping Angels were really creepy the first time I saw them; now they’re just annoying. Their powers change to whatever Moffat wants them to be. One touch and you’re dead. Or tossed back in time for some reason. One grabs Clara’s boot so she should be dead or tossed back in time or something but she’s not. The Weeping Angels then do not figure into the rest of the story.
All of the Doctor’s foes are gathered around the planet (been there, seen that in The Pandorica Opens) and we have the Daleks who were made to forget all about the Doctor except now they don’t anymore.
There is a crack in the wall that is a crack in space and time and the Doctor supposedly closed all that off in The Big Bang but, no, there’s one conveniently left. On the other side are the Time Lords who were frozen into a single point of time in a pocket universe in order to save them in The Day of the Doctor, except they’re broadcasting a message to the Doctor to see if its safe for his home planet, Gallifrey, to come back. This would evidently re-ignite the Time War and destroy the Universe. Not to mention Trenzalore and the human colony. The last time Gallifrey appeared out of its usual spot, it was going to destroy and replace the Earth (The End of Time). What’s a little consistency among friends?
The Doctor spends 300 years on Trenzalore (Clara is sent home but comes back in what, for her, is the same day.). The Daleks want to kill him before he dies of old age. Defiant, the old boy goes out to meet them. Clara convinces the Time Lords on the other side of the time/space crack that they need to save him so the they send him a new batch of regeneration energy, enough for a whole new cycle of lives. Never mind that, the last time we saw them, the High Council of Time Lords were trying to kill the Doctor. The Doctor focuses the excess regeneration energy to wipe out the Daleks and regenerates, after a soulful monologue and a nice cameo from a much loved companion, into his new self. Yay.
I could go on at even greater length than I have but the episode was simply too busy by half. New characters and concepts are tossed in and there’s a lot of explaining away of what we previously thought and, along the way, invalidates an episode that occurred at the end of the previous season. Things are shoehorned in and continuity is changed or disregarded where it’s not convenient. That’s bad writing and that’s disappointing when it’s from someone as gifted as Moffat and who told such a wonderful story just one episode earlier. This Doctor Who Christmas Special was coal in the stocking and it’s a damn shame it came on the 800th episode and such an important moment in the history of Doctor Who.
