Fans are set to be transported back to 1972 with a newly re-edited version of the classic Doctor Who story The Sea Devils, airing on BBC iPlayer from 6am and BBC Four at 7pm on Sunday 7th December, ahead of the foes’ highly anticipated return in The War Between the Land and the Sea at 8:30pm on BBC iPlayer and BBC One.
Following on from the epic season two finale of Doctor Who, viewers were treated to a first look at the next chapter in the Whoniverse, The War Between The Land And The Sea, and new character imagery has been released of Russell Tovey as Barclay and Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Salt.
The wait is almost over… See the Doctor explore new worlds, meet new allies and face deadly forces from beyond this universe in the trailer for Season Two, the BBC released today.
Featured in the trailer is a first look at iconic special guest stars including Rylan Clark, who will play himself, the co-host of the Interstellar Song Contest. Also featured is Alan Cumming who voices the villainous cartoon character, Mr Ring-a-Ding.
It’s time to set your alarms! The BBC has annouced today that The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) is on his way back to our screens, this time with a new addition to the TARDIS, in the form of new companion Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu). Season Two will officially launch on Saturday 12th April at 8am on BBC iPlayer and later that day on BBC One in the UK. At the same time, those outside of the UK can watch the Doctor and Belinda on their epic adventures on Disney+ where available.
The BBC has released a first look at the cast of The War Between The Land And The Sea, Ruth Madeley and Colin McFarlane return to the Whoniverse alongside the previously announced Russell Tovey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jemma Redgrave, and Alexander Devrient, in photos from a table read that were released today.
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Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw lead the cast of new Doctor Who spin-off series for the BBC and Disney+, alongside Doctor Who alumni Jemma Redgrave and Alexander Devrient.
Today (Friday 26th July) the BBC and Disney Branded Television jointly announce their first brand new Doctor Who spin-off titled The War Between Land and Sea, during San Diego Comic-Con.
Following the Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary specials airing in November, all three episodes will be available for Doctor Who fans to add to their home entertainment collection in December 2023..just in time for Christmas!
The BBC have today announced that hit Sci-fi Show Doctor Who is set to return to BBC One and iPlayer on Saturday 25th November.
Review by Jacob Licklider
The UNIT range from Big Finish Productions’ latest story arc UNIT Nemesis has become the latest four box set miniseries to come to a close with UNIT: Nemesis: Masters of Time, a set that to properly review without beating around the bush, feels as if production issues and rescheduling caused the recording dates to be moved around and actor availability to cause rewrites, especially to the first three scripts. UNIT: Nemesis: Objective – Earth ended with the big reveal that Missy is behind everything and working with the Vulpreen to take over the Earth, a great cliffhanger but sadly UNIT: Nemesis: Masters of Time takes until the final episode for Missy to actually appear, having several mentions through the first three episodes. This is an issue that could be lessened by the use of the Vulpreen, who have been a major secondary threat throughout the miniseries, paired with the Eleven who was written out completely for Masters of Time. The issues here is that the Vulpreen never actually come together in this set as a credible threat to take over the Earth, the first three of the stories instead focusing on the UNIT characters and then the final episode being focused on Missy.
Review by Jacob Licklider
Mild spoilers
Let’s take a moment to discuss integrating a theme into a story and how an author’s intent may perhaps become muddled by a production. Once and Future is the overarching name given to Big Finish Productions’ 60th Anniversary miniseries, planning to release monthly installments until the anniversary month and a coda in 2024. Like all anniversary specials the announcement came with a slew of guest stars and returning characters, with the premise being some incarnation of the Doctor has been attacked and is degenerating into previous incarnations of themself. This is the overarching plot of the miniseries, established at the start of Past Lives, Robert Valentine’s introductory story.
With the title and behind the scenes interviews, Valentine lays out this idea about anti-nostalgia and the pain of nostalgia, which is a laudable idea to inject into an anniversary story, especially one for a franchise that has been going for 60 years and shows no signs of stopping. It is especially prescient for an audio drama which is supplemental to the main show and whose company has had criticisms for an over reliance on nostalgia in recent years to stay in business.
This could have been an interesting examination of the need to keep referencing things and drawing people in as Valentine clearly intended, however, Past Lives just doesn’t do anything to explore those themes in its hour-long runtime. There are hints, Sarah Jane, played by Sadie Miller, is brought in right at the end of The Hand of Fear and the UNIT characters of Kate Stewart and Petronella Osgood, played by Jemma Redgrave and Ingrid Oliver respectively, right before The Day of the Doctor, is a clear choice to parallel characters from after and before their involvement with the Doctor proper (though Kate had appeared in The Power of Three). The Meddling Monk being the antagonist of the story, played by Rufus Hound, also could have been a larger presence of preserving some sense of nostalgia but the script never crystalizes any of its ideas. As it stands, the plot of Past Lives is actually quite condensed, the opening and conclusion being dedicated to introducing the central idea and mystery box of Once and Future’s arc which means that Valentine only gets about 40 minutes to actually tell his story from front to back. A lot of the introduction feels incredibly rushed, with points where it feels as if Helen Goldwyn in the director’s seat has realized how tight the script needs to be to fit in the CD time limit and has some scenes just move quick. The recreation of the end of The Hand of Fear is perhaps the biggest example of this, Sadie Miller almost rushing through her lines before she is brought into the story. The conclusion is also just a lead in to the fact that the Doctor, played by Tom Baker here, is changing his appearance again and going off to find his daughter.
When the story is actually dealing with the Meddling Monk and the Hyreth invaders, crocodilian invaders whose leader is voiced by Ewan Bailey with aplomb, there’s a pretty fun story to be had there. Okay so it’s a bit standard but it genuinely feels like Valentine had a much bigger scope story to tell, but having only an hour means that a of the five major players of the Doctor, Sarah Jane, the Monk, Kate, and Osgood are competing for time in the spotlight while also exploring a new species of alien invaders and setting up a mystery box. The resolution of the story is great, with the Hyreth turning themselves into UNIT which indicates maybe there’s hope for peaceful existence with aliens which is nice. The downfall of the Hyreth feels like the point where Valentine meant to explore the idea of holding onto the past, but it just doesn’t get enough time to shine. Past Lives as a story is a perfectly fine story on its own, but as the beginning of a story arc it strays far too much into just setting up a basic premise, when more time should have been given to Valentine to actually tell the story he wanted to tell and expand on the themes that suffer from only being a small thread in the corner of the story. 5/10.
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