Doctor Who Project

Its been an interesting 12 months for Doctor Who. We've had the departure of Matt Smith, we've had the debut of Peter Capaldi and we've even had a female version of The Master. With that said I am in the process of converting a little box room in my flat to a sort of tribute to Doctor Who. It will house all of my Doctor Who collection and memorabilia. I understand that whilst my collection might be relatively small compared to some people's, it will be added to over the coming months.

I will be posting updates (hopefully) on a weekly basis,  with photos etc. At the moment the room has been painted Tardis blue (or as close to). 

I will also be posting updates when I add to my collection. Any suggestions would be welcome and I cannot wait to share with all of you this little journey as it unfolds. Its been a long time coming and to be honest I should have done it when I moved in, but hey ho that's the way the cookie crumbles. My wife thinks I'm mad, but I'm not. I'm just passionate about Doctor Who and want to share my passion with other fellow Whovians.

Until next time.

Andy

The End of Doctor Who!!!

So with the finale of series 8 of Doctor Who airing yesterday I give my thoughts on the episode and the series as a whole.
Were you satisfied with Death in Heaven or do you wish Doctor Who would just die a death? I thought that Death in Heaven left more questions than it gave answers. Why did the Master regenerate? How did Danny Pink get converted in to a Cyberman when he was lying on a morgue table? Since when do the Cybermen fly? The list could go on and on.
I thought the episode was a train wreck. I wasn't at all emotionally engaged. I was like a Cyberman, no emotion what so ever. I've been on the edge of my seat with previous series finales. Take Army of Ghosts and Doomsday for example. I was gripped from start to finish. With Death in Heaven I could care less. It is my opinion that it was a badly written episode that trampled over Doctor Who lore and history. It was a disrespectful attempt to try and freshen up the show. Steven Moffat turned the Brigadier into a Cyberman. He gave the Cybermen the ability to fly (and by the way I am now dubbbing them Cyironmen).
This has been by far the weakest series of Doctor Who since it returned to our screens nearly 10 years a go, but Peter Capaldi is an absolute fantastic incarnation of our favourite Time Lord. Its just a shame that he didn't get many good episodes. I think Steven Moffat should pass the Doctor Who head writing duties over now and let somebody else have a crack at the whip (I'm hoping its Mark Gatiss). The stand out episodes for me were Into The Dalek, Robots of Sherwood, Listen, The Caretaker and Flatline. Lets hope that series 9 (that is rumoured to start filming in January) is much better and returns Doctor Who to its former glory.
Let me know your thoughts. What did you think of series 8? Are you looking forward to the Christmas special? And what do you want to see in series 9?

Until next time

Andy

The Master Returns (sorry I meant Mistress)

Hopefully you've all seen the 1st episode of the 2 part finale to series 8 of Doctor Who? Guess what? The Master has returned, albeit as a female version of the fan favourite villainous renegade time Lord. So how did you react to this revelation? The majority of Whovians had already sussed this out right from the start, myself included. Am I glad the Master is back? Well yes I am, but am I happy that The Moff has tampered with the fabric of reality and turned the Master into a female? The answer would be NO as it happens, I'm not.
Let me explain. The Master is a well established character and has been played by 6 male actors.

In my mind male time lords shouldn't be able to regenerate in to female time lords. It should be anatomically impossible. Maybe I'm reading too deep in to this and maybe I should just get over it.  Now this isn't anything to do with being sexist etc and I'm all for change, but what gives Steven Moffat the right to change the history of Doctor Who? In 50 years of Doctor Who no other time lord has changed gender, so why start now?
This was the perfect opportunity to bring back The Rani. She was another renegade time lord/time lady and hasn't been seen since the Children In Need charity special Dimensions In Time. Even better The Moff could have created a new character to pit against The Doctor.
I'm hoping that this is a double bluff, but I have a feeling that it wont be. What are your thoughts? Are you happy The Master is now female? Let me know in the comments section below. I will definitely be doing a complete series 8 round up next week after the finale so stay tuned.
Until next week folks.

Andy

Fact About Fiction - Who-ology

I'd like to share with you all a fantastic purchase I made over the weekend and if your a fan of Doctor Who (which you clearly are as you wouldn't be reading this article) this is an essential purchase. I purchased a book called Who Ology - Doctor Who The Official Miscellany. Its got everything and anything you ever wanted to know about Doctor Who. I bought it from a book store called Waterstones and it cost £12.99 ($19.99). So if you've ever wondered what the best way to kill a Dalek is or what the Doctor has used his sonic screwdriver for then this is the book for you. It covers everything from the conception of Who up to The Snowmen and when I say it covers everything I mean it does actually cover everything. So what are you waiting for? Go and buy it and quench your thirst for Doctor Who Knowledge. 

Until next time.

Andy

Regeneration

So we haven't got long to wait now until the newly regenerated 12th Doctors first adventure and I thought that seeing has he has just regenerated I thought that this would be a good opportunity to talk about the regeneration cycle. This was going to be a four part series, but due to time constraints I'm (unfortunately) going to have to make it just one post.
What does regeneration actually entail? And Why does The Doctor or any Time Lord for that matter need to regenerate? Well when a time lord comes to the end of their life (whether that be old age or being mortally wounded) the cells in there body repair themselves, but by doing so they have to change the way they look. So as the cells change, so does their appearance. As the 9th Doctor said "its sort of a way of cheating death".  A time lord has 13 lives, so can only change 12 times (as confirmed by the 8th Doctor), but alas rules can be broken because the Time Lords gave the 11th Doctor a new cycle of regenerations. This also happened to The Master.
Below is a list of The Doctor's regenerations and why he needed to, plus the episodes that they occurred.

1st Doctor = old age. (The Tenth Planet)

2nd Doctor = forced to change by the Time Lords. (The War Games)

3rd Doctor = poisoned. (The Planet of Spiders)

4th Doctor = fell from a radio tower. (Logopolis)

5th Doctor = poisoned. (Caves of Androzani)

6th Doctor = severe head trauma. (Time and the Rani)

7th Doctor = shot several times and surgeons not understanding Time Lord biology when trying to remove the bullets. (Doctor Who The Movie)

8th Doctor = drank the elixir of life to save himself from permanent death from a crash thus needing to regenerate. (The Night of the Doctor)

War Doctor = old age. (The Day of the Doctor)

9th Doctor = absorbing the time vortex. (The Parting of the Ways)

10th Doctor = shot by a Dalek (healed himself, but didn't change as he transferred the remaining regeneration energy in to his severed hand). (The Stolen Earth)

10th Doctor = radiation poisoning. (The End of Time part 2)

11th Doctor = old age and got a new set of regenerations. (The Time of the Doctor)

If you want to learn more about each regeneration please go and watch the episodes that feature the regenerations as you won't be disappointed. You can buy a limited edition coffee table book style box set called 'Regeneration', but it is limited edition and I think theres only 10,000.

What are you thoughts? Drop me a comment and until next time.

Andy

Deep Breath

So we are less than a week away from Peter Capaldi's first full length outing as the Doctor. It seems like only yesterday that Doctor Who materialised back on to our television screens and yet nearly 10 years later its still here going strong with the next incarnation of everybody's favourite Time Lord.
From all the trailers that have been released and all the interviews with the cast and crew it sounds like this new series is going back to its roots. Its going to be darker in tone and less light hearted and more scary. Only time will tell, but to be honest I think its going to be brilliant and I certainly think Peter Capaldi is the right man for the job.

The first episode of series 8 is called Deep Breath and it is on this Saturday (26th August) at 7:50pm UK time on television and in cinemas all around the world. I will be doing a full review once the episode has aired. Let me know your thoughts below.

Andy

Mondas vs Cybus

Wouldn't it be great to see a Doctor Who story with two factions of Cybermen fighting against each other?  That kind of reminds me of Rememberance of the Daleks, with the renegade daleks fighting the imperial daleks. 

I had the idea ages a go for a story like this and I wouldn't mind seeing it come to fruition, but I'm no writer. Maybe we'll see something like this in the future, who knows. For now we can only dream about things like this. What are your thoughts? What kind of stories would you like to see in the future? Let me know in the comments.

Andy

New Doctor, New Post

My god its been a long time since I've posted a blog. In fact the last time I posted a blog I was talking about Matt Smith's first episode. We are now only about 3 weeks away from Peter Capaldi's first full length episode and I can't wait.

I'm so excited. All the recent trailers have been awesome. The overall tone looks darker than previous series and its going to be interesting to see how Capaldi handles the role of The Doctor. Now take a 'deep breath' people (see what I did there?), not long to wait. I think this could be the best series yet.

I just want to say to all those people out there that think its cool or awesome to post spoilers all over the interweb that it is in fact NOT cool and NOT awesome at all. It just ruins it for everyone else and not only does it upset TRUE Whovians, but it also upsets the writers too as they spent a lot of time and effort coming up with the ideas for these episodes. So please please please, for the sake of the interweb, try not to spoil Doctor Who for everyone.

So recently the BBC has announced plans to release a 50th Anniversary DVD/Blu Ray collection. You really need to pre order as the DVD collection is limited to 6000 copies and the Blu Ray collection is limited to 4000 copies and from what I've read are selling quite fast. The collection will be released on the 8th September and the contents of the collection is as follows.

•  The Name of the Doctor

• The Night of the Doctor
• The Day of the Doctor
• The Time of the Doctor

• An Adventure in Space & Time
• The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot
• Doctor Who: The Ultimate Guide
• The Science of Doctor Who
• Doctor Who Proms 2013

• The Last Day
• The Day of the Doctor Readthrough
• The Day of the Doctor Cinema Intros

• Deleted Scenes
• Behind the Scenes videos (Name, Day & Time)

BBCA Documentaries: Tales from the Tardis & Farewell to Matt Smith

I've pre ordered my copy on Blu Ray and will be doing a full review as soon as I get it.

Well thats it for now fellow Whovians. I promise I will make more of an effort to post more blogs and updates on the Whouniverse to try and keep people as up to date as possible, so please check back soon. Chow for now.

Andy