An entirely gratuitous picture of the Doctor in a Santa hat.
According to the Radio Times, reporting on the preview screening of The Snowmen, "special episodes celebrating the Time Lord's half-century will be...". Special episodes? Plural? A typo - or are we going to get more than one anniversary special? Might Series 8 actually comprise a number of specials rather than a full series - as with Tennant's final year? The other day I mentioned Kasterborous.com's query about Series 8. Is this the answer?
In The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, the Doctor thought he had come up with the perfect Christmas present - a big blue box that was really the portal to an alien planet. He failed to reckon on the inquisitiveness of young Cyril Arwell, who couldn't wait until Christmas morning. Nor did he reckon on the fact that the apparently tranquil forested world which the box led to was populated by tree spirits with wooden monarchs, and about to be blitzed by Androzani tree-harvesters.
The moral of the tale: if the Doctor ever sends you a present, treat with extreme caution...
Do you remember all the talk about a spin-off series for Madame Vastra and Jenny after A Good Man GoesTo War?Now that Dan Starkey's Strax is back onboard, I think the idea should be seriously considered - and I'd like to see it on CBBC. A few days ago there was a news story about the BBC being encouraged to have a higher gay profile (mainly - but not exclusively - regarding presenters). It is all about promoting positive role models. Doctor Who was actually cited for its positivity in this area.
So, how about a lesbian couple fighting crime in the Victorian era - with added comedy Sontaran butler in tow? The Snowmen is going to be shown way before the watershed next week - so I don't see it being any problem for CBBC to have a programme featuring the exploits of the Paternoster Gang. If you look at the new clip released onto You Tube on Tuesday (below), the comic potential is obvious. By all means keep Wizards Versus Aliens, but let's have some more canonical Doctor Who CBBC spin-off material, now that SJA is sadly no more. If we can't get a series, then at least a one-off special in the Golden Anniversary year should be the order of the day. I want to see those automated laser monkeys!!!
Update - unfortunately the BBC have blocked this video (after half the planet has already seen it). The person who put up the BBC message seems to think that BBC Worldwide is a person - the poor deluded soul...
1969's The Krotons marks Philip Madoc's first appearance in Doctor Who. He plays the duplicitous Eelek, who is waiting his chance to usurp the leadership of the Gonds from Selris. He is villainous - but not a villain. Amoral might be a more apposite epithet. Eelek actually wants to change this corrupted world for the better - to overthrow the rule of the Krotons - but just doesn't want to get his hands dirty doing it. He surrounds himself - like a politician from any of the more extreme political parties - with young hot-heads who will do that dirty work for him. So what if they get hurt, killed, imprisoned? He'll eventually emerge as leader. When he hands the Doctor and Zoe over to the Krotons, he is just accepting the real-politik. On the DVD commentary for this story, Madoc bemoans the fact that Eelek doesn't actually get his comeuppance. We don't see it, but I'm sure it is young Thura who will actually replace Selris, with Vana by his side.
It is a strong performance - in a weak tale - for Madoc.
Philip Madoc was born on the 5th July, 1934, in Twynyrodin, Merthyr Tydfil - as Philip Jones. After studying languages at the Universities of Wales and Vienna (mastering seven of them) he grew disenchanted with having to translate the guff that politicians tend to spout. He therefore escaped to RADA.
Whilst The Krotons was his first television Who, it wasn't his first brush with the series. In 1966, he played the black-marketeer Brockley in the feature film Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD. This was the cinema version of the TV character Ashton. After selling out Dr. Who to the Daleks for a reward - he finds that he is no longer needed. Hiding in a shed is no protection from Dalek fire-power, and he gets blown to bits. Again, only an incidental role - but one that many people remember from the movie.
The director of The Krotons, David Maloney, was forced to cast the epic The War Games with not a huge amount of notice. For some of the shorter roles, he used actors he knew (and had employed recently) who could hit the ground running - people like Bernard Horsfall, and Philip Madoc. With just a change of haircut, a pair of glasses, and a totally different vocal performance, Madoc makes for one of the best of the 1960's villains. The War and Security Chiefs sometimes over-egg the pudding with their performances - lots of broad stroke acting - but Madoc is quiet, self-contained, watching, waiting... The War Chief only appears in the last few episodes - but he is a character you are compulsively drawn to, thanks to the actor playing him.
Madoc went on to become a regular on British television, and one role that really made an impact with the viewing public was as Magua, in the BBC adaptation of TheLast of the Mohicans in 1971. He found himself being offered mostly villainous parts. Director Christopher Barry obviously thought he was good at them, as he cast him as Dr. Mehendri Solon in The Brain of Morbius.
This is the role for which Doctor Who fans particularly love Philip. He could have been played as any old stereotypical "mad scientist", but Madoc again adds so much to the role he has been given. He is not just an ethics-free scientist, but an acolyte of Morbius - determined to bring his master back from the dead whatever it takes. And he does it with so much graveyard humour and charm. He even manages to take in the Doctor at one point. Just watch the business when the brain has been dropped on the floor. Terrance Dicks famously disowned this story - but I'm sure after watching Madoc he was secretly desperate to grab it back.
Philip Madoc's last appearance in Doctor Who was a bit of an anti-climax - in more ways than one. The story - The Power of Kroll - is undoubtedly the weakest of the Key to Time season, but the part Madoc plays in it isn't actually the one he thought he was up for. He wanted the chief villain role of Thawn - but ended up with the weaker part of Fenner.
In 2008, he returned to Doctor Who - and to Krotons - in the BF audio Return of the Krotons. Before that, he had played Prime Minister David Lloyd George to great acclaim and become well known as the dour Welsh detective Noel Bain in A Mind to Kill, amongst many, many other parts.
When he passed away on the 5th March this year, one particular role was highlighted on the news and in obituaries. In some ways he might have begrudged one comedy guest appearance as defining his life's work - but I think his sense of humour would have actually quite adored it...
A German U-Boat crew has been captured by the Home Guard of Walmington-on-Sea...
Personally, I've always preferred the fish & chips order sequence ("I don't want my chips soggy...").
Philip, we salute you.
The 2010 Christmas Special - A Christmas Carol - featured a big flying shark that liked mezzo-sopranos (to listen to rather than to eat. Then again...). Once pacified by music it would happily let its usual prey yoke it to a carriage and take them on a trip through the skies. What this has got to do with Christmas, I have no bloomin' idea...
A new prequel has been released today for The Snowmen - titled Madame Vastra Investigates. As the first prequel (The Great Detective) had snow on the ground, and this has snow first starting to fall, is it the prequel to the first prequel? It has also been announced that on Christmas Day, viewers will be able to see a new red button Vastra mini-sode - in which she investigates a bizarre murder. The murder, the conclusion of which, we see in today's new prequel? So, will that make it the prequel of the prequel of the prequel...?
I think I might have to go and lie down. Vastra seems to have picked up River Song's annoying habit of doing everything backwards.
It has also been announced that we are getting a new title sequence and substantial rearrangement of the theme music. (DWM did say that it was also getting a redesign from the January issue).
Here is the prequel of the prequel - but not the prequel of the prequel of the prequel...
