Russell collects OBE as the countdown to Christmas begins

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David Ross
on Monday 1 December
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On Friday, Russell T Davies, Executive Produducer, writer and re-inventor of Doctor Who collected his OBE from Buckingham Palace. The award, for Services to Drama, was presented to him by HRH The Prince of Wales. He told BBC News after receiving the award “Writers are the lifeblood of a lot of stuff that gets made… so I was really honoured to accept it on behalf of everyone slaving away at keyboards.”

Incidentally, it was Prince Charles who Russell referred to as ‘a miserable swine’ for turning down the offer to appear in the series; although a statement issued later from Clarence House said that the prince hadn’t even seen the offer as it was turned down on his behalf.

The countdown has begun for the Christmas Special - The Other Doctor. As in previous years, the BBC website has an advent calendar, each door leading to a video clip, photos, downloads and other sneak preview material for the Christmas Special.

Go to the official BBC Doctor Who website to see what’s behind the first door…

BBC Official Doctor Who website

Children In Need exclusive preview of Christmas special “The Next Doctor”

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David Ross
on Monday 17 November
in DOCTOR WHO, David Morrissey, Preview, Speculation, TV, Television, Video and doctor who news
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If you missed the BBC’s annual Children In Need fundraiser, the showed a short preview of this year’s Christmas special, The Next Doctor. The clip will probably throw more questions than it does answers…

There’s been a history of Doctor Who doing something special for Children In Need from the showing of the 20th Anniversary Special The Five Doctors to last year’s Steven Moffat mini season joiner Timecrash which starred both David Tennant and Peter Davison as The Doctor.

You can still donate to this year’s Children In Need appeal via the BBC Children In Need website.

And now for your enjoyment, here’s the clip!

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David Tennant explains why it’s time to go (aka another lazy YouTube embed)

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Jonathan
on Thursday 30 October
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Tennant’s TARDIS tenancy over - 2009 to be his last year.

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David Ross
on Thursday 30 October
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David Tennant announced at last night’s National Television Awards where he picked up the award for Outstanding Drama Performance that he is to quit as The Doctor after four specials in 2009. Tenannt started work on the show in 2005, replacing Christopher Eccleston in the the newly revamped series. He said that with Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner leaving it felt like a “natural stepping off point” but added that “What became very difficult was when it was announced that Steven Moffatt was taking over because I’m such a fan of his!” The BBC website carries the full interview.

The announcement can be seen in the following video, filmed at the National Television Awards.

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With the Christmas special being called The Next Doctor even more speculation is likely to arise in the coming months and with Russell T Davies having tipped both Russell Tovey who played Midshipman Frame in last year’s Christmas special Voyage of the Damned and Harry Lloyd who played Baines in Human Nature and The Family of Blood.

Doctor Who news update, musings and a Christmas special: The Next Doctor

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David Ross
on Thursday 23 October
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Firstly, we’d like to say congratulations to Billie Piper and Laurence Fox on the birth their first son, Winston James Fox on Tuesday 21st October. That should make their Christmas special!

In other Doctor Who news, in the TV Quick and TV Choice awards 2008, David Tennant was awarded Best Actor for the second year runninng and Catherine Tate was awarded Best Actress for her portrayal as Donna Noble. Best Loved Drama was awarded to the show for the third year running.

The BBC are giving viewers the chance to quiz director Graeme Harper, who has worked on Doctor Who over many years. Graeme worked in various capacities before directing his first show on Doctor Who; Peter Davison’s finale, The Caves of Androzani. Previously he’d worked on shows with Daleks and The Master in the Jon Pertwee Era, including Planet of Spiders; the finale in which Jon Pertwee’s Doctor gave way to Tom Baker. He also directed one of Colin Baker’s best stories, Revelation of the Daleks.

To my mind, some of the most visually creepy and best acted stories since 2005 have been directed by Graeme Harper from Rise of the Cybermen, Doomsday (a season finale) to last year’s three-part finale (Utopia, The Sound of Drums, Last of the Timelords) and this year’s Turn Left, The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End.

Turn Left blew me away, frankly. See the Turn Left live blog we did when the show was transmitted if you don’t believe me! Acting, script and direction. Amazing. Although if the direction had been ‘Turn Right” that may not have made such an interesting story.

To submit questions to Graeme Harper you need to go to the official BBC Doctor Who website. Questions need to be submitted by before 10th November at noon, GMT.

Back to Christmas, and Gloucester in Gloucestershire where filming took place for the Christmas Special.

Now, my parents live in the ’shire and had mentioned something about filming going on  near Gloucester Cathedral. It’s a quaint old part of town and a very good double for Victorian England.

Now let’s remind you of the very latest trailer, because the countdown starts soon…

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And yes, that’s David Morrissey as…

The Cybermen are back for Christmas and they’re quite big

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David Ross
on Friday 19 September
in DOCTOR WHO, Earls Court Exhibition and TV
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Okay, I’m five foot ten and that’s pretty much an average height, but Cybermen are a fair bit bigger. You can walk amongst the Cybermen at the exhibition but beware, when you enter the Cyberzone, you will be noticed! The one I stood next to was slouching somewhat but soon moved. It’s rumoured there’s going to be another kind of Cyberman we haven’t seen before in the Christmas special. Google is your friend for that kind of thing if you wish, we at The Web of Fear don’t do spoilers!

Me and the Cyberman

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Don’t touch the exhibits!

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David Ross
on Monday 15 September
in DOCTOR WHO, Earls Court Exhibition, Photos and Pictures, TV and Television
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blaithdrrwg.jpgAs you can clearly see, you’re not meant to touch things here. This is the model of the Blaidd Drwg power station, proposed for Cardiff by the Mayor, who just happens to be Margaret Blaine, who’s actually not human, but an alien of the Slitheen family from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius

Now, the model as you’ll know, is not actually a model of the Blaidd Drwg power station, but in fact, a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator Or Pan dimensional surfboad, if you like.

We didn’t get to try it out unfortunately as there was a Slitheen at close quarters at the time. Suffice to say there were plenty of other things we did get to see and there were an alarming number of big red buttons that you could press. “A Great Big Threatening Button Which Must Not Be Pressed Under Any Circumstances”.

Don’t blink, whatever you do, don’t blink!

Published
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David Ross
on Sunday 14 September
in DOCTOR WHO, Earls Court Exhibition, Photos and Pictures and TV
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Stone Angel at the Earls Court Doctor Who exhibitiondont_blink.jpgangel.jpg

Further to yesterday’s events, David Ross will no longer be posting to Web Of Fear. Unless there’s an explanation involving a bit of wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

Time for a bit of Exhibitionism

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David Ross
on Sunday 14 September
in DOCTOR WHO, Earls Court Exhibition, Photos and Pictures, TV, Television and Video
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When I was nine years old I remember being driven along Blackpool promenade at night when the ‘illuminations’ were on and it didn’t excite me that much. Until I saw a Police Box down a side street. A TARDIS! That was the entrance to a Doctor Who exhibition as I later found out. I didn’t get to go to it and we didn’t drive past it again despite my “Dad, can we go back” pleas.

So, scarred for life and scared on a weekly Saturday night basis I finally got to go to a Doctor Who exhibition at Longleat on my 13th birthday. At the time I was a member of DWAS and got the regular Celestial Toymaker newsletter. My paper round money didn’t make it to a further subscription but I’d seen the news item about the Longleat exhibition and bleated significantly to my parents that they took me there for my birthday; if only to shut me up.

I’ve got pics from my visit, all with camera flash reflections off the glass around the exhibits; somewhere in a box in the basement. I’ll scan them and upload here at some point. I remember being really excited when I went around and could see Sea Devils, Silurians (actually, probably only one of each) and a wobbly Dalek that moved back and forth. Oh, and there was a TARDIS console. To be fair it was a good day out (lions are quite friendly and won’t normally eat irritating kids); I did leave feeling underwhelmed though. I wanted to go back to the exhibit and make it mean something, make my connection with The Doctor. Which of course would not happen as it was a collection of props with the occasional clunky moving creature.

So, the point I’m getting to is this: went to the Earls Court Exhibition Centre yesterday and took some pics. I’d been there last month and my camera had no charge so no pics but a friend got tickets for this weekend so I went again.

Going around the exhibit again was amazing. I’m 22 years older than I was when I went to Longleat. Seeing kids who are the age I was at the time, thoroughly enjoying it was just great. And… you get to take photos.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be posting the pics that we took, on Web Of Fear, with a topic to discuss.

Steven Moffat wins third Hugo award for Blink

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David Ross
on Monday 11 August
in DOCTOR WHO, authors and writers
. 1 Comment

Whatever you do, don’t blink!Following hot on the heels of our various Doctor Who writer debates, incoming show runner and series authour Steven Moffat has just capped his two previous Hugo Award wins for The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances and The Girl in the Fireplace with a win for Blink.

Steven won in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category.

Nominees were:

  • Battlestar Galactica “Razor” Written by Michael Taylor Directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá and Wayne Rose (Sci Fi Channel) (televised version, not DVD)
  • Doctor Who “Blink” Written by Steven Moffat Directed by Hettie Macdonald (BBC)
  • Doctor Who “Human Nature’ / “Family of Blood” Written by Paul Cornell Directed by Charles Palmer (BBC)
  • Star Trek New Voyages “World Enough and Time” Written by Michael Reaves & Marc Scott Zicree Directed by Marc Scott Zicree (Cawley Entertainment Co. and The Magic Time Co.)
  • Torchwood “Captain Jack Harkness” Written by Catherine Tregenna Directed by Ashley Way (BBC Wales)

The awards, announced last Saturdayare the most prestigious in the field of Science Fiction and Fantasy. First awarded in 1953, and every year since 1955, The Hugo awards are run by and voted on by fans and the gongs are awarded each year at the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon).

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