Season 14 of Doctor Who: The Collection is the next Blu-ray title to be re-issued in standard packaging after Season 26. The set is due for release 26th Feb 2021.
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Review: Doctor Who – Watchers
Review by Jacob Licklider
The Audio Novels range is the newest Doctor Who range from Big Finish Productions, essentially taking over from their original printed short story collections which ran until 2009 when they lost the license to print Doctor Who books. Several of the short stories would find their way as Subscriber Short Trips, four released a year, but with the ending of The Monthly Range and the normal Short Trips range being moved to box sets 2021 saw the introduction of The Audio Novels with Scourge of the Cybermen, essentially released every six months in January and July. The second installment is also an interesting contribution as it isn’t from an established writer, but an actor. Matthew Waterhouse wrote Watchers, a seven-hour audiobook set after The Keeper of Traken and exploring the final days of the Fourth Doctor, in universe, bridging the gap to Logopolis. It is an interesting look at the end of the Tom Baker era from a meta-textual standpoint as Waterhouse uses it to ultimately comment on how each of the three producers during the run produced the show, and especially how stark a contrast Season 18 was in respect to the end of the Graham Williams era. Gone was the previous era’s characteristic humour, brought into stark contract as Season 17 was script edited by Douglas Adams and was an out and out comedy.
BBC America to stop funding of Doctor Who ‘lost’ stories animations
The Daily Mirror reported today (12th January) that the BBC plans to no longer animate anymore ‘lost’ Doctor Who episodes due to funding issues.
British actor Gary Waldhorn dies
Actor and comedian Gary Waldhorn, known for playing Councillor David Horton in TV sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, has died at 78.
Review: Bernice Summerfield – The Weather on Versimmon
Review by Jacob Licklider
As The Two Jasons was brought forward from its initial January 2022 to October 2021, Big Finish Productions commissioned two further Bernice Summerfield audiobooks to replace that slot plus an additional slot for February 2022. The January slot was taken by The Weather on Versimmon by Matthew Griffiths, a novel released during the box set era of the Bernice Summerfield range to coincide with the release of Road Trip, the second box set. Luckily, unlike the initial five Bernice Summerfield novels, while plot points are referenced, but not integral to understanding that box set or the events of this book. This is essential as I have not heard any of the box sets yet. The plot sees Benny with Ruth searching for her son Peter who has gone missing. They find themselves on the planet Versimmon which is essentially a world of ecological artists, but the weather seems to be going haywire. There’s a hailstorm as climate change begins to ravage the planet for reasons that nobody is entirely sure of why as fauna has begun to join the flora.
‘Dexter: New Blood’ Limited edition SteelBook, Blu-ray and DVD release date announced
Following the shocking conclusion of Dexter: New Blood, CBS Home Entertainment has announced the upcoming release of a limited edition steelbook. This release will accompany a general Blu-ray and DVD release of the limited miniseries developed by Showtime as a continuation of the series Dexter.
Audio Review: Survivors – Ghosts and Demons
Review by Ian McArdell
Ghosts and Demons is the latest story from the world of Terry Nation’s Survivors. While the audio dramas have pushed the timeframe on to the late 1990s with New Dawn, this story is firmly lodged within Series 1 of the television show (set around the time of the episode Something of Value). Indeed, the challenges our heroes face during the story are rooted in the events of that episode. As with some of the best of the full-cast range, Ghosts and Demons offers us multiple ways into the story by following the experiences of the characters through the early stages of “the death”. In most cases, it’s tragedy; for others, it’s freeing.
Prime Video cancels ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
Prime Video has opted not to order a second season of I Know What You Did Last Summer, a modern take on the 1973 novel by Lois Duncan and the 1997 film adaptation.
The YA horror series, produced by Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures TV, debuted Oct. 15 to mixed reviews with the first four episodes, followed by a weekly releases capped by the season finale on Nov. 12.
Koch Media announces new classic Doctor Who ‘behind-the-scenes’ releases
The latest Doctor Who ‘behind-the-scenes’ release from Koch Media has been announced, focusing on the second and third Doctors.
These sets offer the definitive interviews with the production team who brought Doctor Who to life and sent you “behind the sofa”!
Review: Doctor Who – Forty
Review by Jacob Licklider
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic making time feel incredibly compressed, it is now 2022, and with 2022 comes Big Finish Productions’ new format for release, something that had been slowly introduced throughout 2021. Everything’s a three-disc box set and the first release of the year, like the first release of 2021, is a celebratory anniversary set, this time celebrating Peter Davison’s 40th anniversary as the Fifth Doctor with the first of two box sets under the umbrella label Forty. The premise of what is essentially the Fifth Doctor’s consciousness being catapulted across his timeline in no particular order, both forwards and backwards from his second story, Four to Doomsday, to Season 20, and as the brief for the second set implies, Season 21. Unlike last year’s Masterful, Forty isn’t a single story, but a series of interconnected stories with this volume containing the four-part Secrets of Telos and the two-part God of War with the second not currently having all of its story details announced (only one story has a title, The Auton Infinity). The story arc of the sets doesn’t actually get close to an explanation, ending with the Doctor still being catapulted around his timeline. There is a nice thematic through-line for the first set with the Doctor being taken in the first story to a time after Earthshock where he finds out Adric’s fate while going back in the second story to several stories below the young companion’s demise meaning the Doctor has to face the fact that he knows where Adric is going and actively has to move him towards that fate.
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