NEW DOCTOR'S COSTUME REVEALED

A new look TARDIS exterior and the long-awaited costume for its 

occupant's next incarnation were both revealed today. 

Jodie Whittaker's Doctor sports the traditional long coat over a 

stunning, modern ensemble, incorporating braces and boots again

- courtesy of designer Ray Holman.

A new sonic screwdriver is promised too.

Vintage 'Doctor Who' Scripts Discovered

The Radio Times website has reported that a collection of the earliest Doctor Who scripts has been unearthed in Kent by local prop maker and researcher, Jason Onion.

Six documents, hidden for fifty years, were loaned from Joan Coburn Moon - the widow of writer Anthony Coburn - and include two versions of the first episode, An Unearthly Child, an alternative draft of The Cave of Skulls, and the complete scripts for The Masters of Luxor. This 'lost story' was ultimately replaced by Terry Nation's The Daleks but was eventually dramatised last year by Big Finish.

Tom Cole writes: "You can see that the template for the Daleks came from [Coburn]... these episodes [see] a device to unlock TARDIS, which became the sonic screwdriver, and the science [of] regeneration" said Onion. “This find completes the genesis of [the show] from Coburn's imagination. The drafts explain the mystery of Doctor Who, his origins, his people and all the background.” 

Meanwhile, Rob Leigh of the Daily Mirror stated that Coburn was inspired by the sight of a real Police Box outside Televison Centre to devise the TARDIS exterior, and that the scripts provide the original names of the ship and the Doctor's planet. Susan (originally Suzanne) is also revealed as "a princess saved from another world" and Coburn is hailed as creator of "the cornerstones of Doctor Who that have been expanded on.. ever since".

Australian-born Coburn, a writer and producer at the BBC from the 1950's, lived in Herne Bay, and died in Canterbury in 1977, aged just 49.

Doctor Who Gets the Stamp of Approval

All eleven actors to have portrayed the Doctor on television since 1963 are featured on First Class stamps next year. The Royal Mail today unveiled their Doctor Who 50th Anniversary collections, which presents every incarnation of the Time Lord, whilst the Second Class set showcases the programme's greatest monsters and the iconic TARDIS (pictured below).

Andrew Hammond of the Royal Mail said that the commemorative stamps paid "tribute to the brilliant actors that have played the Doctor over the years, as well as the adversaries that helped make the show so popular".

Meanwhile, current Doctor Who show-runner Steven Moffat has promised "tremendous surprises" for the golden anniversary year.

Both William Hartnell (pictured above) and David Tennant have already appeared on a postage stamp - when celebrating the Carry On films (Carry On Sergeant, 2008), and the RSC (Hamlet, 2011) respectively. The Daleks were first honoured with a celebratory Millennium stamp in 1999.
The new stamp sets are available in March.

Great Doctor Who Quotes #40

"This is Emergency Programme One. Rose, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing - we must in danger, and I mean fatal. I'm dead, or about to die any second with no chance of escape... And that's okay. I hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home... And I bet you're fussing and moaning now, typical. But hold on, and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Programme One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do - let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it, no one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on, and the box will be buried. And if you wanna remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life."

- The Doctor, The Parting of the Ways (June 18th 2005)

Written by Russell T Davies 

The Doctor Who Experience: A Review

I was lucky enough to visit the UK's latest Doctor Who exhibition recently. Situated at Olympia Two in Kensington, I had quite a trek from Earl's Court station, but did get to see a real Police Box which is stationed just outside. A more direct route is offered from Hammersmith tube station.

Visitors first walk into the 'vortex' and enter a waiting area, which holds some Series 5 props: a Smiler, a Winder, Silurians, and an Ironclad Dalek. You are then ushered into the first viewing room (basically benches facing a wall-screen). In specially shot footage, the Doctor (Matt Smith) here delivers a lengthy "mad man in a box" commentary to what is effectively an extended trailer to his first season. As the music fades, a huge crack-in-time becomes vertical, flares white, and slowly opens to form a darkened doorway, through which you are guided. You now find yourself in the National Museum aboard Starship UK, and monitors flicker on to reveal the Doctor, again trapped inside the Pandorica! Using his sonic screwdriver, he summons the TARDIS, which actually seems to materialise in front of the visiting 'shoppers'. Passing through those famous double doors into the impressive console room, the Doctor now appears on the scanner, and instructs his new companions to pilot his ship. Leaving by the 'back door' takes you into a control room where three paradigm Daleks threaten you with extermination, until the Doctor intervenes and you move on again.

From a dark and dry-iced corridor, the Weeping Angels menace your passage to the next level of the interactive Experience. Now provided with 3D glasses, 'shoppers' stand in a mock Underhenge chamber (complete with stone Dalek), and watch a brilliantly effective short film that features more monsters, like the Cybermen. The Doctor is then freed from his prison and banishes his enemies back into the swirling vortex.

The second stage of the Experience is more akin to the traditional Doctor Who exhibitions, such as Blackpool, which I last visited shortly before it closed it's doors permanently in 2009. On exiting the 3D show, visitors are now permitted to use their cameras as you start to view props, costumes, monsters, sets, and even workshops, from the 'revived' then 'classic' eras.

All eleven of the Doctor's costumes are displayed near the current TARDIS prop, and a (rather poor) Matt Smith waxwork. The outfits are complete originals, except those of the First and Second Doctors, which no longer survive (McCoy's jacket and later, Captain Jack's coat, are quite tatty). The Tenth Doctor's regeneration scene is played on a loop on a large, reconstructed and very impressive 'old' TARDIS set (last seen in The Doctor's Wife). Another console room (introduced in The Five Doctors) is presented nearby, with recent companion and TimeLord costumes, K9, the Melkur, and the Tom Baker era TARDIS prop. Another extensive hall displays a collection of Cyber-heads, and Davros here presides over the 'evolution' of his creations, from a 1963 Dalek to a paradigm Eternal.

Also present are the Abzorbaloff, a Slitheen, an Ice Warrior, a Zygon, a trio of Sontarans, Cat nuns, the Empty Child, Robot K1, the Silents, the Hath, Judoon, the Face of Boe, a Ganger, a Sycorax, an Ood, and even Idris' costume with the 'junk' TARDIS. One of the best concepts here is a documentary that examines Delia Derbyshire's legacy, and other workshops include choreography in NuWho.

The Experience has just extended it's residence in London to next February, then it moves to Cardiff as planned. For visiting times and ticket prices see here.

Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife Preview

Neil Gaiman's Doctor Who episode, The Doctor's Wife, is probably the most anticipated script of Series 6. This acclaimed writer (pictured left) has hinted that his character Idris (Suranne Jones, pictured centre) is an "old acquaintance with a new face" and the story is a "love letter to the fans". Gaiman also told DWM that his adventure begins with something or someone we have not seen since The War Games (1969). The official BBC press release provides this synopsis:

"The Doctor receives a distress signal from an old friend. Could there really be another living Time Lord out there? Hopes raised, he follows the signal to a junkyard planet sitting upon a mysterious asteroid in a Bubble universe, populated by a very strange family, as the time-travelling drama continues.
The Doctor, Amy and Rory are given the warmest of welcomes by Auntie, Uncle and Nephew. But the beautiful and insane Idris greets them in a more unusual fashion – what is she trying to tell the Doctor? As the Doctor investigates, he unwittingly puts his friends in the gravest danger."

So who or what is Idris, and can she really be the Doctor's wife? In Welsh mythology, King Idris was a giant whose seat was Cader Idris, a mountain ridge in Snowdonia. He was an astronomer who had the power to mete out madness, death, or even poetic inspiration. Idris was also an Islamic prophet (known as Enoch to Christians).

The name itself is of Celtic origin (Latin=Idrus, English=Ider), meaning "ardent" or "righteous". Of most interest to Whovians, is the literal interpretation of this boy's name: "running lord" could easily apply to the Doctor himself. Indeed, at the top of the new season opener, The Impossible Astronaut, the Doctor declares that he's been "running" all his life.

There has been much speculation that Idris is a TimeLady. Then who, or how? Or is she in fact a manifestation of a/the TARDIS? Remember the proto-TARDIS travel machines employed by the WarLord's race for their War Games? The acronym SIDRAT was used just once in that mammoth story, and it's meaning was only revealed 10 years later in Malcolm Hulke's novelisation: Space and Inter-Dimensional Robot All-purpose Transporter.

If they survived the fate of the unnamed Aliens, did the SIDRATs end up on Gaiman's scrapyard planet? Or did the TimeLords confiscate the rogue time capsules and augment them with TARDIS technology to create an advanced, organic version (akin to the Type 102, see below), codenamed Idris? Why bother? Did they just scrap these inferior models, which were the result of stolen tech, and short-lived anyway?

The BBC Books' Eighth Doctor adventures (EDA) range (1997-2005) featured a companion, called Compassion. She was born on 26th century Earth as Laura Tobin, and her race, the Remote, were originally human. Compassion first met the Doctor in Interference: Book One, and by the time of her final story, The Ancestor Cell, she had evolved into a living TARDIS (the Type 102). The Doctor and Fitz even used her to flee the TimeLords via her own Randomiser, and built-in weapons system.

The revelation that Idris is in reality a time-machine in humanoid form (or even a reengineered stellar device) doesn't seem so outlandish then (what became of the Hand of Omega after destroying Skaro)? However, in Rise of the Cybermen, the Doctor says that his was the only surviving TARDIS in the universe, and we last saw secret TimeLord tech when the Daleks stole the Genesis Ark.

The Doctor's Wife is broadcast on BBC1, on Saturday May 14th, and features the return of the Ood.

The cast also includes Big Finish co-star Adrian Schiller (Uncle), Elizabeth Berrington (Auntie), and Michael Sheen (voice of House), who also appeared in The Deal (2003, Channel 4) as Cherie and Tony Blair. Their co-stars were Who guest actors David Morrissey, Ian Hanmore, John Normington, and Clare Clifford.

Doctor Who: Ripper's Curse #1 Preview

Story - Tony Lee

Artwork - Richard Piers Rayner

Cover - Tommy Lee Edwards

Issued - February 2011

Published - IDW (Idea and Design Works), USA

(http://uk.io9.com/5781994/its-jack-the-ripper-vs-the-11th-doctor-in-this-exclusive-preview-of-the-doctor-who-comic)

The ongoing Doctor Who comic-book series from IDW presents part 1 of Ripper's Curse (Vol. 2, Issue 2): The TARDIS lands in the East End of London in 1888. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory soon become embroiled in the hunt for history's most infamous murderer, Jack the Ripper!

The Doctor has investigated the Whitechapel Murders before, in Matrix (BBC Books, 1998). Here, the Valeyard travels to Victorian London and assumes the identity of Jack. He uses the killings to power the Dark Matrix (a computer store of the TimeLords' evil impulses), and plans to unleash it's contents into the universe and gain himself a true body. The Seventh Doctor escapes the Valeyard's influence by sealing his conscious mind in the telepathic circuit of the TARDIS, and regains control in time to prevent Ace from becoming the Ripper's sixth victim.

Radio Times Doctor Who Poll

Weekly TV listings magazine Radio Times has today released the results of it's latest Doctor Who poll, and listed the Doctor's most popular travelling companions. Unsurprisingly, NuWho's first (and to date, the longest serving) companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) heads the survey. Runner-up, and old fan favourite, Sarah Jane Smith (played by Elizabeth Sladen since 1973) is the most loved Classic series assistant, closely followed by the ever popular K9 (voiced by John Leeson), both highly placed no doubt due to the success of CBBC's The Sarah Jane Adventures. Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), newest TARDIS crewmember Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), and (thanks to Torchwood), Captain Jack (John Barrowman) complete the Top 6 positions. The full listing can be found at http://http://www.radiotimes.com/blogs/1103-doctor-who-billie-piper-rose-tyler-voted-best-companion/, and even includes the Doctor's helpers from the Specials. Guess who's ranked last at number 48? Anyway, here's the top 10:

1) Rose Tyler

2) Sarah Jane Smith

3) Donna Noble

4) K9

5) Amy Pond

6) Capt. Jack Harkness

7) Ace [McShane]

8) Leela of the Sevateem

9) Jo Grant

10) The Brigadier