Classic Doctor Who is on KBTC, the PBS station out of Tacoma! So, here is the KBTC Doctor Who schedule (as best as we can guess it), featuring Peter Davison as the Doctor.
It's back! It seems the CBC has some episodes to burn off, so series 4 is getting a late-night repeat run. Here's what's coming up:
The CBC's Doctor Who web page can be found at www.cbc.ca/doctorwho/. The CBC's website is also presenting a Doctor Who documentary, Planet of the Doctor, which can be seen at www.cbc.ca/planetofthedoctor/.
The Sci-Fi Channel bought the United States broadcast rights to the revived Doctor Who series. Here's the current schedule (dates in parentheses are the dates you would need to program into a VCR or other recording device):
Naturally, BBC America is showing Doctor Who. Here's their schedule, adjusted for Pacific Time:
Before "Childrenof Earth" starts, we're also getting three prelude stories on the radio. Starting July 1, BBC Radio 4, which is also streamed online, will broadcast on three consecutive days, and will also be available after broadcast to listen to or download for seven days. All are first broadcast at 6:15 a.m. (I think).
If you have a wide selection of on demand choices on your cable or satellite system, the Illusion TV channel carries classic Doctor Who episodes. For more information, check out www.illusiontv.com/classic-doctor-who.php.
Information about the show, including web editions of some out-of-print Doctor Who novels and new made-for-the-Internet stories, can be found at the BBC's Doctor Who website at www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/.
Want to see some of the websites shown or mentioned in the show, or that are otherwise part of the show?
The companion behind-the-scenes series, Doctor Who Confidential, broadcasts on BBC Three. The cut down abbreviated episodes are also being streamed on the web, so keep your eyes on the Doctor Who Confidential website at www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/confidential/.
The BBC's website has some made-for-internet stories. A new pre-Ecclesston ninth Doctor, played by Richard E. Grant, appears in the fortieth anniversary story, "Scream of the Shalka" (www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shalka/). The sixth Doctor meets up with the Cybermen in "Real Time" (www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/realtime/). The made-for-Internet version of "Shada," featuring Paul McGann as the Doctor, Lalla Ward as Romana, and John Leeson as K-9, is back, and can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shada/.
More Torchwood news: The BBC now has a window for its broadcast. BBC1 will show "Children of Earth" in Great Britain sometime during the week of July 4-10, which means we may get to sneak it in during our big July Androgums weekend in eastern Washington. And UKTV in Australia has this intriguing new trailer:
At KBTC on June 13, the pledge drive for "The Green Death" started off strong, but in the end it just didn't quite live up to expectations. However, the rest of the money is expected to trickle in over the following days (late pledges, corporate matches, online donations), and the station is already making plans for a January pledge drive. Oh, and as of the end of June, KBTC will be the only television station on Earth that shows classic Doctor Who. Let's hope BBC Americas still makes it available for us to show.
After many, many years, Outpost Gallifrey is all but shutting down at the end of July. They will revert to being just about the annual Gallifrey One conventions. But fear not! Others have already picked up the gauntlet and started up a new forum, Gallifrey Base, so Whovians will have a new place to meet online. Gallifrey Base has also aquired the doctorwhonews.com URL, and the current news editors at Outpost Gallifrey will be moving over, so the top source of Doctor Who news will continue.
Not only will we have a new Doctor, but also a new companion in 2010 — and now we know who will play her! Scottish actress Karen Gillan has been picked to play the new companion opposite Matt Smith's Doctor. No word yet on the character's name or origin yet, but we have seen Karen in Doctor Who before, playing a soothsayer in "The Fires of Pompeii."
Couldn't make it to London to see David Tennant playing Hamlet opposite Patrick Stewart's Claudius? Don't worry. A television version is going into production for BBC 2 with most of the original stage cast. We presume that it will eventually turn up on PBS or some other American broadcaster. If there's enough interest, we can even show it at an Androgums meeting.
Want another, extended teaser for the new Torchwood five-part story, "Children of Earth"? Okay, here it is!
We now know when the new Doctor Who specials will be on American television — and it's not where you'd think. BBC America is the new primary broadcaster for "The Next Doctor," "Planet of the Dead," and "The Waters of Mars," and will show them in the United States before anyone else. Keep an eye on the schedules (above) to see when they're on in your neck of the woods.
There's more to come of the tenth Doctor after all! David Tennant will be providing the voice of the Doctor in another animated story, "Dreamland," to be made available on the BBC's Red Button service and, eventually, DVD. Even better, the tenth Doctor will be making a guest appearance in a story in the upcoming third season of The Sarah Jane Adventures! Meanwhile, the BBC is talking about a Doctor Who movie, but this is still very early, and there are no guarantees of if or when it will happen, or who will play the title role.
BAFTA has handed out its awards for television, and Doctor Who won some hardware. At the BAFTA Craft awards, The Mill won for visual effects on "The Fires of Pompeii," and Phillip Kloss won for best editing in fiction or entertainment for all of his work on season 4. At the Welsh-only BAFTA Cymru awards, Kloss again picked up the editing award, for "Midnight," while Russell T. Davies' script and the sound team also won in their respective categories for "Midnight" as well. Euros Lyn won Best Director for "Silence in the Library."
PBS has just announced the new host of Masterpiece Contemporary, beginning in October: David Tennant! You can read the article on the BBC's website right here. (Thanks, Denise!)
As always, the BBC is holding their schedule close to the vest, so it's hard to know for sure until some sort of official announcement comes out. But it appears that the new five part Torchwood story, "Children of Earth," will debut on BBC1 in mid-June, then show up in July on BBC America. Keep an eye on the BBC America schedule (above), but if you don't get BBC America, don't worry. We'll show "Children of Earth" at an upcoming Androgums meeting as well, most likely in August.
Latest bizarre casting rumor, published in one of the British tabloids, from an anonymous BBC "insider": Gillian Anderson as the Rani!
Now that the BBC has shown the Easter special, "Planet of the Dead," we won't get anything new until this fall, with the next special, "The Waters of Mars." Here's the trailer for it they showed after "Planet of the Dead":
More award nominations: Doctor Who received three nominations for the BAFTA Television Craft Awards:
The 2009 Hugo Award nominations are out, and yes, there's more Doctor Who to root for. In the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category, the nominations from Doctor Who are Steven Moffat's two-part "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead," and "Turn Left" by Russell T. Davies. They are competing against the Lost episode "The Constant," the Battlestar Galactica episode "Revelations," and the internet supervillain musical, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog by Joss Whedon. Can Moffat win his fourth consecutive Hugo? We'll all find out during Anticipation, this year's WorldCon, August 6-10 in Montreal. For a complete list of all of the Hugo nominees, see www.thehugoawards.org.
It's all still up in the air, but it sounds like the last three specials, which are also the last three stories with David Tennant as the Doctor, will all air during the holiday season in Britain. But whenever they are shown, we'll have them as soon as possible afterwards at an Androgums meeting!
A special mini-episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures was part of this year's Red Nose Day for Comic Relief. It features an old enemy and the return of K-9, and a guest appearance by one half of The Two Ronnies, Ronnie Corbett. We'll have the whole thing at the next Androgums meeting, but here's a behind-the-scenes look:
Three words: New Torchwood trailer! (WARNING: Some post-watershed Torchwood-y grown-up type language, not for sensitive or very young viewers.) Take a look:
We may have yet another spinoff series to watch at meetings soon. The long-rumored K9 series, featuring an updated, future version of everybody's favorite robot dog, has finally gone into production in Australia, and will likely debut Down Under later this year. There will be twenty-six episodes, and the original K-9 will "regenerate" in the opening story. You can see a picture of the new K9 at Outpost Gallifrey. And here's a trailer for the show, designed to sell it to broadcasters:
Some casting news for the next special, "Planet of the Dead." Michelle Ryan, who appeared in EastEnders and played Jamie Sommers in last year's remake series of The Bionic Woman, plays Lady Christina de Souza. British comedy star Lee Evans will play Malcolm, and Noma Dumezweni will repise her role as UNIT Captain Erisa Magambo, first seen helping Donna and Rose fix history in "Turn Left." Production includes overseas location shooting in Dubai. "Planet of the Dead" will be shown on the BBC around Easter. Later on, Freema Agyeman will be back to reprise her role as Martha Jones in one of the other specials, as will Bernard Cribbins as Wilf, and possibly even Catherine Tate as Donna. The last two specials may make up a two-part story to be shown on Christmas and New Year's. This will also be the last regular story for David Tennant's Doctor, and the introduction of Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor.
John Scott Martin, one of the most frequent and experienced of Doctor Who guest stars, passed away on January 6 at the age of 82. He first appeared in the show as a Zarbi in "The Web Planet," then made the first of many appearances as a Dalek operator a few weeks later in "The Chase." After that, he became most associated as a Dalek, appearing in every Dalek story up through "Remembrance of the Daleks" except for "Destiny of the Daleks." In addition, he also played the IMC robot in "Colony in Space," a Mutt in "The Mutants," "Fronier in Space," and "The Brain of Morbius," a Gell Guard in "The Three Doctors," and the Nucleus in "The Invisible Enemy." He also appeared without make-up or a mask in "The Dæmons," "Robot," and the doomed miner Hughes in "The Green Death." Outside of his many Doctor Who roles, he appeared in such shows as Z Cars, Upstairs Downstairs, The Duchess of Duke Street, I, Claudius, The Good Life (The Good Neighbors in the United States), and The Tripods, as well as movies such as Pink Floyd The Wall, Little Shop of Horrors, Young Sherlock Holmes, and as a crazed financial pirate in the opening short of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. He also appeared in the music video for Peter Gabriel's "Steam," and while playing the rabbi in a stage production of Fiddler on the Roof, welcomed a member of the chorus to the Doctor Who family when Sophie Aldred got her first television role, as Ace. As recently as 2004, he played a man who inherited all of the Welsh town of Swansea in Russell T. Davies' Mine All Mine.
The Sarah Jane Adventures has been picked up for a third season. Like season 2, this one will have twelve episodes, making up six two-part stories. One character who is going to have a much bigger part? K-9!
The January 17, 2009 pledge drive on KBTC was not quite as successful as hoped for, but in the current economy, it will do, and it was enough to keep the show going for another six months. If you missed it and still want to give, you can go to the website at kbtc.org/donations.php. The Doctor Who thank you gifts should be available there soon.
The actor taking over and playing the eleventh Doctor has been revealed: Matt Smith, who at twenty-six becomes the youngest actor ever to play the Doctor on television. He's already had several big parts on television (including oppostie Billie Piper in both the Sally Lockhart mysteries and The Secret Diary of a Call Girl) and on stage, but this will be his first leading role. Here's an interview with him:
Big — and do I mean BIG! — news out of the National Television Awards. Yet again, Doctor Who won for Best Drama, and David Tennant won for Best Dramatic Performance — and then dropped a bomb: He's leaving the show after the current set of specials is over. That means a new Doctor to join the new showrunner (Steven Moffatt) in season five in 2010. So, why is he leaving? Tennant explains in this video interview:
David Brierley, the actor who filled John Leeson's shoes and provided the voice of K-9 during season 17, passed away in June. Born in 1935, he appeared in such British television shows such as Z-Cars, Arthur of the Britons, Coronation Street, Juliet Bravo, Threads, The Tripods, and Howard's Way. For Doctor Who, he provided the voice of K-9 in "The Creature from the Pit," "Nightmare of Eden," "The Horns of Nimon," and the aborted "Shada." He also gave voice to K-9 on an edition of Blue Peter, and returned to the part in 1992 to complete "Shada" for its video release that year.
We have our own domain! So now androgums.org will be the place to come for all the latest on our little enclave of Seattle-area Doctor Who fandom. But the domain does cost us a little bit of money, so if you can help out with a donation, just click here:
The latest news about the new show can be found at Outpost Gallifrey's news page.
The Emerald City Androgums are a fan club devoted to Doctor Who, and to having as much fun as unhumanly possible at our meetings. We meet every other month for an Androgum potluck. Members are encouraged to eat, drink, and be merry, and we watch whatever shows tickle our fancy. We try to include at least one selection of the good Doctor himself.
In addition to semi-regular parties, we also had a newsletter that tried to keep the more isolated-from-fandom members up-to-date on the latest Who happenings and rumors. It also served as a creative forum for any Androgum who felt like writing a story or drawing a picture.
The newsletter is no more, however, and all newsletter activities will soon move on-line. So if you want to contribute something, here's the place to do it!
We can scan art, so if you'd like to help us create an on-line Androgum gallery, please feel free to send the art to us!
And coming soon: Club T-shirts and aprons!
Looking for that perfect Doctor Who item? Want to relive some of the Doctor's greatest adventures or experience some of his new ones? Try these links for new Doctor Who books, videos and DVDs, audio stories, and other merchandise.
Send e-mail comments about the Androgum club via this e-mail link.