Ahead of The Witcher season 2 resuming filming in August, Netflix has announced a new series called’ The Witcher: Blood Origin’. It’s a six-part prequel spin-off set 1200 years before the events of The Witcher. We haven’t heard much about this series recently but today it was announced that Jodie Turner-Smith (Queen & Slim) will join the series in a leading role.
TV
Review: The Fourth Doctor Adventures Series 10 (Vol 1)
Review by Michael Goleniewski
Seventh Doctor season 24 ‘The Collection’ BluRay announced
The BBC have announced that Sylvester McCoy’s first season as the Seventh Doctor, featuring a full season of Bonnie Langford as Melanie Bush, is the next release to come to Blu-ray with Season 24 as part of their ‘The Collection‘ range.
Big Finish Return of the Cybermen trailer released
One of Doctor Who’s most famous unmade stories will finally see the light of day courtesy of audio drama producers Big Finish.
As part of their Lost Stories range, Big Finish is adapting Return of the Cybermen – an unused script by the monsters’ co-creator Gerry Davis.
Review: Doctor Who – Colony of Fear
Review by Jacob Licklider
As we move into the final three months of Big Finish’s oldest Doctor Who range, we begin to see releases which were essentially reactions to the current situation. Whatever original plans were made to end the Monthly Range had to quickly be scrapped due to the pandemic as recording moved to remote sessions in home studios and a specific Fifth Doctor release delayed indefinitely. There are only 3 releases planned for 2021, one Sixth Doctor for release 273, one Fifth Doctor for 274, and one final multi-Doctor extravaganza to say goodbye to the range at release 275. Release number 273 has now been released, the day this review is being written, and with it comes a Big Finish story that feels like it’s taken a page from Chris Chibnall’s book, but then improved it greatly. Colony of Fear is a story which relies on its twist which decontextualised what the audience knows about the Doctor in a lot of ways, and as such reviewing this story will contain spoilers concerning the twist. If you are simply wishing to know if Colony of Fear is worth your money, this review will end with the line: Colony of Fear may not be the absolute best story from Roland Moore or Big Finish Productions, it is a fascinating time that begs to have a sequel if only to get these characters back to listeners, giving this final trilogy a great start. Right now that that’s out of the way on to the review with full spoilers in effect.
Doctor Who ‘Missy’ comic series announced
Titan Comics are announcing the launch of a brand-new Doctor Who Comics series and the comic debut of one of the Doctor’s darkest nemeses this April with Missy #1.
‘The Muppet Show’ coming to Disney Plus
After teasing a major annoucement – Disney Plus have announced today that all five seasons of the classic The Muppet Show will be added to their streaming service February 19th 2021.
Ethan Hawke to star in ‘Moon Knight’ series
It has been confirmed that Ethan Hawke will appear as the main villain in the new Marvel show ‘Moon Knight‘ which is coming to Disney Plus. He will appear opposite Oscar Issac who was previously confirmed to be playing the titular charecter.
Upcoming Doctor Who Target book range includes Thirteenth Doctor adventure
Seven Doctors in seven unforgettable adventures join the Doctor Who Target book range, all publishing on 11th March 2021, each with newly commissioned cover artwork by Anthony Dry.
These latest novelisations, almost all written by the original writers of the TV episodes, will help Target fans finally complete their classic-era collection, and take the Target range into its next incarnation.
Review: Bernice Summerfield – The Big Hunt
Review by Jacob Licklider
Over the past two years, Big Finish Productions have been rereleasing their out of print Bernice Summerfield books as audiobook readings for the low price of $10 a book with the first five full length novels already being released (interestingly they haven’t done any of the anthologies or novella collections yet). A surprise December 2020 announcement gave listeners the opportunity to add three new Benny books to their audiobook collections: The Big Hunt, The Tree of Life, and The Two Jasons, all set for release in 2021 and 2022. The Big Hunt by Lance Parkin leads these audiobooks, released this month and available for download right now. Now, it is important to note that this is not a new release, nothing has been changed from the text of the 2005 book release, just put into an audiobook reading with Benny herself, Lisa Bowerman. Perhaps listeners were spoiled by Terror of the Master in Masterful, but going from that right into The Big Hunt, the lack of music and sound effects in the audiobook may detract. Potential listeners shouldn’t go in expecting them in any way as this is a release. The Big Finish website shows this as being recorded completely remotely in November and December which is confirmed by the included Q&A. Bowerman, as always, is an excellent narrator using her impressive range to bring to life several characters, only one of which actually appeared previously (that being Benny).
