With Matt Smith’s final episode (well, until the hundredth anniversary, anyway) imminent, the cast (and showrunner Steven Moffat) sat down to talk about their thoughts about the Christmas adventure. Guest Orla Brady (Tasha Lem) also discusses her experience with the show, and her experience with new Doctor, Peter Capaldi. Read on for the juicy details.
Doctor Who isn’t the only show that finds lost episodes. Earlier this month, WPIX, channel 11 in New York City, announced that they they had unearthed the long-lost Magic Garden Christmas Special, which will be broadcast today for the first time in 32 years. (more…)
Yes, I know, they already released a trailer for The Time of the Doctor, but this is the BBC, they run on the tears of their viewers.
This new trailers features a look at Clara‘s family, more villains in action, and the return of an old acquaintance of The Doctor that we’ve never met.
Also…how do you only have a phone OUTSIDE the TARDIS? That’s shoddy design, that.
The Time of the Doctor, this year’s Christmas special, and the final episode to star Matt Smith, has only become more tantalizing not that the BBC has released its first trailer.
Hello ComicMix readers! My name is Jen, and I’m really excited to be joining the fold here so I can expand the arenas in which I nerd out about comics, movies, TV, books, and any pop culture ephemera that strikes my fancy. I host a podcast to dive into stuff that’s under the radar, take a look at how things in popular culture now got there, and muse about where trends may go in the future. But exploring pop culture in the written word is another beast entirely, and it’s one I’m pumped to tackle! So let’s get to it!
My favorite TV show is Doctor Who. I embrace every opportunity to talk about it, and have maybe, possibly, sometimes (read: definitely, absolutely, often) turned conversations about entirely unrelated things toward the Doctor, and why the person I’m talking to really should give him a shot. In fact, I’m such a big Whovian that I’m part of a show that does an improvised episode of Doctor Who twice a month! All this being said, I’m sure you can imagine that I had no shortage of invitations to viewing parties for “The Day of the Doctor,” my beloved series’ 50th anniversary special. Yet I didn’t say yes to a single one. Because I hate the group watch.
In the past few years, “event TV” has been making a concerted effort to regain the time-of-broadcast viewership it lost to DVRs. And of course, the fear of encountering spoilers on Twitter or Facebook before getting to view an anticipated show has also helped to draw audiences back to consuming TV at broadcast rather than after the fact. With more people consuming event TV as it airs, maybe it seems natural that viewing parties would become more common. If we’re going to be watching something we enjoy, and our friends are going to be watching the same exact thing at the same exact time, why not do it together? A lot of people I know not only embrace this philosophy, they take it a step further: if we all love Doctor Who or Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, then why get together only for the anniversary special, or last episode, or season finale? Why not group watch every episode to maximize the amount of shared enjoyment?
I’ll tell you why not: because other people are distracting! I don’t want to sit next to a fidgety person while I’m trying to keep the myriad of characters in Westeros straight. I don’t want to miss the second step of one of Walt’s plans because someone in the room with me starts commenting on the first step. And I definitely don’t want to pause for someone to go to the bathroom just as things are getting really timey-wimey. When I love a show, I become pretty OCD about preserving the dramatic flow and catching every detail, and I just haven’t found these things to be possible in a group watch environment.
That being said, the distraction of other people isn’t even the largest deterrent to the group watch for me. The biggest reason I don’t like to view my favorite shows with other people is the fact I tend to react… let’s be generous and just say strongly to the shows I love. “The Red Wedding” made me cheer loudly (feel free to call me a monster, but I think they had it coming), it’s hard for me to think of an episode of Doctor Who that didn’t make me cry, and the penultimate episode of Breaking Bad filled me with a mix of emotions so intense I was literally shaking. I love that TV shows can move me to such extremes, but I’m not exactly dying for other people to see that happen, nor do I want to struggle to hold in my reactions for the sake of not embarrassing myself and distracting people around me.
So for the sake of everyone involved, I’ve gotten in the habit of declining invitations to group watch. But even though I don’t like viewing parties, I still feel bad turning them down. After all, I like my friends – I just don’t want to watch TV with them. Conveniently, I spent the day of “The Day of the Doctor” traveling, so I could truthfully say I wasn’t able to watch with anyone rather than having to fess up to the fact that I wouldn’t want to even if I could. But the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced my dislike of the group watch is defensible. If my friends like a show enough to get together to watch it, I don’t think they’ll blame me for liking it so much that I want to relish every second of it. After all, they already know what an OCD nerd I can be.
And now you do too.
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis
WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold
Doctor Who has gotten a number of videogames in the last couple of years, from games for the Playstation 3 to a Nintendo 3Ds version of the card game Top Trumps. Doctor Who: Legacy is the latest in the series, a game for iOS and Android tablets and phones that packs a great deal of addicting gameplay into a simple mechanic.
At its core, Legacy is an iteration of the “Line up three jewels” game as seen in the many variations of Bejweled. The big different is the player is not limited to moving an “orb” only one spot, but anywhere on the screen, within a number of seconds. With orbs sliding out of its way as you go, this simple change allows a deft player to set up a number of combos in one play. It’s s skill that takes a bit to get used to, but opens up a great deal of strategy.
In the game, you play The Doctor and his companions, each of whom are assigned one of five orb colors on the game board, with a sixth (pink) for restoring hit points.. You are presented with wave upon wave of villains who attack you with energy blasts and special attacks, shaving down your health. When you line up three or more of one color, the character assigned to that color attacks the enemies, or the pink orbs restore health to the team. Combos allow more than one character to attack at once, and multiplies the total damage. Your characters have varied attack and hitpoint values they add to the team, and each has special powers that become available every few rounds – change orb colors, increase damage, or restore health. Combining that with the flexible orb placement on the field, the game keeps itself fresh, more than simply swapping jewels endlessly.
Like all free-to-play games, there’s an option to buy items, represented here by Time Crystals, which allow you to continue playing if you’re well into a long level, are used to rank up your characters for greater power and strength, and to buy packs of extra companions. The game is exceedingly fair about making the crystals available in the game as well, and with patience, you can score all the companions as random rewards for completing levels. As a thank you for buying, the game allows you access to the “fan area” after your first purchase of 5 or more Crystals. The fan area offers extra levels, special “fan versions” of companions, and more bonuses to be added later. It’s a fair value for at least that first five bucks; indeed the game itself would be worth that if they had chosen to charge.
One caveat – the game needs an internet connection at startup to sync with the servers and download updates, so have one ready before you play. Right now the developers are running a special “Advent Calendar” promotion via their facebook page – Liking their page gives you access to promo codes for extra companions and outfits for your characters. There’s a lot of value packed into the game, and it’s a welcome addition to your portable device.
The game is free for Apple and Android devices.
TNT’s MOB CITY not only brings to TV a stylized, noir look at a crime ridden Los Angeles, but it also signals the return of acclaimed show runner Frank Darabont. Franks talks about what hooked him on the project and how he chose the cast that fit the era just right. Plus DOCTOR WHO scores big and Warren Ellis takes a crack at MOON KNIGHT.
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“Great men are forged in fire.
It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.
Whatever the cost.”
The Warrior Doctor (John Hurt), The Day of the Doctor, November 23, 2013
After all the press, after all the hype, after a week of BBC America’s Doctor Who Takeover, I was really afraid that actual episode was going to suck, that I was going to be miserably let down, wretchedly disappointed.
I. Was. Absolutely. Completely. Totally. Utterly. Positively.
Blown. Away.
The whole wide world became the whole wide Whovian world yesterday, as the BBC simulcast The Day Of The Doctor in over 75 countries – Angola, Australia, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde Islands, the Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, the Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Russia, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, South Sudan, Sudan, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania & Zanzibar, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
I mean, seriously, has the United Nations ever been able to bring about such a coalition? I mean, seriously, I think the last time so many countries and their citizens came together to celebrate and raise a glass or two as they did on Saturday was for the end of World War II 68 years ago.
I mean, seriously, think about it, people. So many of these nations are embattled and torn apart by violence and terror and war—and yet the Doctor, fictional character though he may be, hits such a powerful chord of hope and peace and unity among the peoples of this Earth, is it possible that even in places like Somalia and Myanmar and Colombia and the Congo that a truce was called for one hour and twenty minutes on Saturday, November 23rd, 2013?
Once before has the world been stopped on this date. 50 years ago President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot dead in Daley Plaza, Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, and the world held its breath for the next four days as his body was returned to Washington, where it laid in state, first in the White House and then at the Capitol Rotunda, to finally come to rest in Arlington Cemetery across the Potomac River in Virginia – and so in England no one, or very, very few, saw the BBC’s debut, on November 23rd, 1963, of a science fiction television show about a grandfatherly man and his niece and her two teachers adventuring in time and space in a contraption called the TARDIS, which was an acronym, the niece informed us, for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, and which looked like an English 1950’s police box.
But the BBC reran the premiere episode of Doctor Who and its ratings took off, and when William Hartnell, the first actor to play the Doctor, became too ill to continue, an innovative idea was born to explain the introduction of Patrick Troughton as his replacement—regeneration.
And now Doctor Who, the series, has regenerated.
I won’t go into depth, so as not to spoil it for those who were unable to see The Day Of The Doctor this past weekend, but I will say this – the driving force behind the Time Lord has been changed.
It was quite a day.
TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten
TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis
Rule One: The Moffat Lies.
Rule One-a: So Does The McGann.
After nearly a year of what showrunner Steven Moffat described as “lying through my teeth”, the prequel to the Doctor Who anniversary episode “The Day of the Doctor” reveals that the one fact that upset people the most is the one that was the biggest lie.
Watch, and squee with me. (more…)
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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