Doctor Who Social Club

Access to the library costs £149 at full price, although there as introductory offer of £119 that will run until 17th March – you can access it now.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/24377249

The BBC has assured Doctor Who fans that the sci-fi drama has not been cancelled, following an "incorrect" tabloid report.

The Sun stirred up concern that the long-running series was to go dormant again for between five and ten years, as it previously did after Sylvester McCoy's final season – and once again after Paul McGann's 1996 standalone film.

The speculation comes after perceived disappointment over Doctor Who season 14's viewing figures, although the BBC and showrunner Russell T Davies have previously drawn attention to the show's strong engagement from younger viewers.

The Sun's anonymous source claimed that star Ncuti Gatwa was eyeing a move to Los Angeles to pursue Hollywood work – and that he had filmed a regeneration sequence for the end of the current run.

However, a spokesperson for Doctor Who commented: "This story is incorrect, Doctor Who has not been shelved. As we have previously stated, the decision on season 3 will be made after season 2 airs.

"The deal with Disney Plus was for 26 episodes – and exactly half of those still have to transmit. And as for the rest, we never comment on the Doctor and future storylines."

Today would have been Elisabeth Sladen’s 79th birthday. She always has, and always will be my favorite companion.

No celebrity death has ever come close to hitting me as hard as hers. Almost 14 years later and I still tear up.

Propstore proudly presents an exclusive charity Doctor Who auction to benefit BBC Children in Need with over 150 lots from the beloved British TV show.

I'm not kidding, it doesn't feel like we had a years-long pandemic in between...

Fingers crossed Jo Martin will be back on screen before another five years pass!

Tickets for the highly anticipated U.S. premiere of the Doctor Who Worlds of Wonder: Where Science Meets Fiction exhibit are on sale now, which will take up residence in San Diego’s Comic-Con Museum from March 15, 2025.

Returning to the show is Pete McTighe, who previously wrote the episodes Kerblam and Praxeus during Chris Chibnall's era as showrunner and is also a co-writer and producer for upcoming spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea.

Meanwhile, Juno Dawson – who created the first official Doctor Who scripted podcast, Doctor Who: Redacted – will make her debut writing for the television show, which she described as a "dream come true".

Also making their Doctor Who scriptwriting debut is poet and playwright Inua Ellams, who said he had been a fan of the series "for as long as I can remember television".

Finally, Sharma Angel-Walfall – who has been involved in writers' rooms for several major shows including Supacell, Renegade Nell, and Noughts & Crosses – will also be writing an episode, and said she was "buzzing" to be involved with "such an iconic show".

If you start the third episode of "Nightmare in Eden" at 23 minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve, the clock on the screen changes from 20:24 to 20:25, and Romana presses a button on the spaceship's dashboard to set the midnight bells tolling.

When the Tardis lands in the horrors of World War I, the Doctor uncovers a threat spanning galaxies and history itself. But this time, saving the day might doom the Doctor forever.

These are my thoughts on the colourised, re-cut version of the War Games serial released on December 23 2024: https://bw.artemislena.eu/tardis/wiki/The/_War/_Games/_in/Colour/(TV/_story). It had been edited down from 10×25 minute episodes to one 90 minutes special, with new material added in, including score.

Surprisingly enough, the cuts for (much shorter) airtime worked quite well. Some parts of the plot were lost, and people were inexplicably saved from certain pickles to appear unharmed — but that was to be expected. I enjoyed the edit more than I thought I would. There were more exterior shots added than strictly necessary, and I guess they were often used to disguise cuts. They did seem a bit too frequent in the second act, but that could be just my preference.

The colourisation was pretty loyal to the colour film of the time, I thought. Especially for the genre and target audience. Quite bright, but with all the earth tones required for the initial World War One setting. The recovery of 16mm location recordings made some scenes stand out even crisper than they ever looked on screen!

I did have issues with the hamfisted way the War Chief was retroactively confirmed as an earlier incarnation of the Master, with the much later Saxon Master’s theme inserted into the soundtrack, and a sound effect of a beginning regeneration after the War Chief’s demise. That seemed an unnecessary indulgence of old fanboys’ head canon.

The reason to race through most of the serial, of course, was to get to the Time Lord trial and the Second Doctor’s [edit: previously unseen] regeneration into the Third — canonically eliminating another ambiguity from the Whoniverse that had until now allowed for ample Season 6B theorising.

The trial had some fun, 21st century additions that I rather enjoyed — if you know you know, I'm not going to spoil those — but the added regeneration sequence (pasted from this fan video) didn’t just fill a gap where fans’ imaginations had run creative for 55 years. It also gave us an absolutely atrocious CGI rendered closeup shot of “Jon Pertwee”.

Is anybody happier and better off that we have this new end to War Games? I doubt most viewers are more than indifferent to those superfluous, dreary last minutes. And I’ll definitely remember season 6B fonder than I will this ending.

Thoughts, fellow viewers? Did you watch this hour and a half more charitably?

Written by: Steven Moffat

Directed by: Alex Pillai