Doctor Who 2008: Sontarans cometh, RTD Ood 'ave 'im etc.

Dom I hope you made some money off the hack feeding him false information

Dubai? fuckin hell

The upcoming Easter special of Doctor Who has been rewritten at the last minute after a double-decker bus was damaged during production.

Writers had to alter the script after the top deck was "badly damaged" as the show was being filmed in Dubai, the BBC reports.

Executive producer Russell T. Davies and co-writer Gareth Roberts were forced to change parts of the script as there was not enough time to fly out a replacement bus.

Show producers would not comment on future storylines, but a spokesperson confirmed that shooting is "continuing as normal".

It was recently revealed that former EastEnders star Michelle Ryan and comedian Lee Evans will star alongside David Tennant in the special, which will be called 'Planet of the Dead'.

A double deck bus crashes into us?

posting these here, we'll no doubt find good uses for them on other threads:

http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/7020/saxonaj3.gif

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6645/cybermanvx4.gif

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45404000/jpg/_45404743_006764291-1.jpg

Having an episode called "Planet of the Dead" after a season with both "Planet of the Ood" and "Forest of the Dead" is really annoying me for some reason.

new thread anyone?

nah, keep this one going until the first special actually airs

Is this the first time Who's been shot outside of the UK?

Aside from the McGann one I suppose.

There are some bits in Paris in one old-school episode, I'm sure.

Oh yeah, City of Death.

Two Doctors entirely in Spain. Was supposed to be New Orleans.

(sorry, was supposed to have been filmed in New Orleans, that should read.)

Doctor Who 2009: Vacant Tennant, see?

Did anyone watch the cop show with Matt Smith last night?

Is this the first time Who's been shot outside of the UK?

Part of the Fires of Pompeii was filmed in Rome.

And I think part of Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks was filmed in New York but not much.

Oh, just hearing those episodes brought up makes me cringe.

1.21 jigawatts!

No, they weren't. I remember commenting at the time that the BBC sent the entire Confidential team to NYC to do a puff piece on the story, but wouldn't even send the director on factfinding (it was all in DWM).

Pretty sure I remember that they shot exteriors on Liberty Island and greenscreened everyone into them back in the UK. Although I'm not sure why I care.

I watched a Davison story recently which had bits shot in Amsterdam. Arc of Infinity, maybe?

Yes, there's that one too.

Did anyone watch the cop show with Matt Smith last night?

Yeah. Not much to say - his character was pretty unremarkable.

tonight's score:

http://www.linkandpinhobbies.com/Graphics/bk_who%20file.jpg

$20 at powells in hardback!

I had a copy of that! Kept it around the office when I was editor of the uni paper to scan photos and stuff, forgot to take it with me when my year was up. Bugger! From memory, the essay/memoir by Robert Holmes was very funny.

There are some bits in Paris in one old-school episode, I'm sure.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 12:03 (2 days ago) Permalink

That was the Jagaroth one - City of Death - penned by Douglas Adams. Although in retrospect it's one of the more playful and comic ones, this story terrified me more than ANY other. According to my mum anyway. I was having nightmares about the Jagaroth for some weeks after.

UH

That's actually pretty amazing (Pertwee's Venusian Aikido! lol at the busty anime companion tho).

Big Finish is going to make some audios this year out a few of the 'lost season' of scripts from 1985.

http://www.bigfinish.com/images/news/DSC02313-for-web.jpg

That io9 link adds this comment:

...Most of all, I'd caution the Big Finish people to be very careful if they decide to adapt Robert Holmes' lost Singapore story. Holmes may have been the greatest Doctor Who writer of all time, but he's also known for including bizarre racist caricatures of Asian people in his story "The Talons Of Weng-Chiang." And if it's true that Holmes' story set in Singapore was supposed to be called "Yellow Fever And How To Cure It," then that script may just deserve to sit in a drawer forever. (Not to mention the fact that it reportedly includes the Master, the Rani and the Autons, making it another overstuffed nostalgia-fest like his "Two Doctors" script.)

About the ToWC thing, wasn't the "white guy dressed up as asian guy to fool clueless white people at a magic show" a pretty established trope back then and went on for a few decades on both sides of the pond?

I know full well that this next bit could cross into all sorts of well-worn ILX tropes and we could very well have gone over all this before years ago, but perhaps by having this convo in a Doctor Who thread we can hide from the usual clusterfuckery: was the brouhaha over the ToWC story focused on a particular aspect, or just the whole "sinister oriental mage is sinister" bit? Was the problem just that the story showed all the bad stereotypes("orientalist?") that were associated with asian people at the time by white folks and had the villain being a chinese magician portrayed by an white guy? But weren't there plenty of white guys putting on make-up and affecting those same stereotypes back then to fool other white folks? Is it that there was no distinction made in the story as to the character's actual race?

In other news, bleah to more Colin audios with Peri. Having Charley around is much more interesting.

http://www.digitalspy.com/cult/a139069/dr-who-boss-discusses-new-companions.html

"We’ve got a young female companion at Easter, and then a much older woman next Christmas - someone in her fifties or sixties. I love that."

so, old companion or new companion? Katy Manning, Caroline Shaw, Janet Fielding, Carole Ann Ford, Wendy Padbury, Deborah Watling, Louise Jameson, Mary Tamm, and Lalla Ward all qualify. And even Maggie Stables, for that matter.

I don't have much of a problem with the character of Li Hsen Chang; he seems like a guy who's knowingly playing into the stereotypes as part of his act. The sinister silent Chinese henchmen, however, are a lot more questionable.

and that answers that

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7897518.stm

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45489000/jpg/_45489816_006889682-1.jpg

Duncan will play Adelaide, the Doctor's cleverest and most strong-minded companion yet in the unnamed episode.

"strong-minded", huh? Like Tegan or more like Evelyn?

Who Evelyn?

irritating old biddy companion from the radio plays

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Smythe

'Bizarre and racist cariacatures' seems a little bit much. They weren't bizarre at all in fact, they were well-established (Sax Rohmer was it, who came up with the Yellow Peril stuff in his Fu Manchu stories?). And they were racial cariacatures rather than, I think, racist.

I'm pretty certain the fuss centred around the Victorian-in-spirit as well as Victorian-in-context depictions of Chinese. Li Hsen Chang's stage presence is similar to that of the actual Chung Ling Soo - on stage Chinese bullet catching magician, but actually American William Robinson (who nicked the Chinese persona from genuine Chinese magician Chung Ling Foo. Li Hsen Chang actually does a bullet trick with Tom Baker in a particularly good set piece. There is precedence and what could be seen as deliberate reference.

However Li Hsen is genuinely Chinese and also, by the end genuinely sympathetic - in fact his type is not a racist type at all, but a generic Dr Faustus type - over reaching himself with the aid of supernatural/alien powers (if you'll pardon the crude backslash)

General henchmen somewhat problematic (and what feeble ninja skilz). Imbecile British bobbies don't show up too well either.

Robert Holmes probably wanted to do an old style early 20th century romp and didn't care too much about niceties. Personally I love it.

That season + Key To Time season = my favorite seasons

And they were racial cariacatures rather than, I think, racist.

That was over-casual, as well as being mis-spelt but I just felt that 'racist caricatures' rather belaboured the point.

FUCKING ZIMBABWE FUCKERS
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/a147355/zimbabwe-hoarding-lost-who-episodes.html

Time to invade.

Also I would like to see the new doctor and companion get involved a la Tennant and Piper.

No, really.

robert mugabe ruins the fun for everyone.

You mean the new companion gets involved with Mugabe?

there must be 'she'll turn out to be The Rani' rumours by now

the rani and robert mugabe: 2010 series finale.

That article's priceless.

Do you think Iran might have them as well?