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Tag Archive: BBC America


Ultimate Doctor Who guide takes Whovians across the universe and back

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
January 1, 2018

Review by C.J. Bunce

Rarely does a book’s title so aptly describe its content.  Doctor Who: The Book of Whoniversal Records (Official Timey-Wimey Edition) is exactly right–a play on The Guinness Book of World Records–it is an ambitious achievement that could only be done for Doctor Who, a series whose time traveler hero has charted records across the universe like no other character in any franchise.  In this 55th year of the Doctor, Simon Guerrier (probably the person who knows Doctor Who front to back the best) combines a TV series encyclopedia and world almanac with the ultimate trivia source to create a worthy TARDIS ride with all the Doctors through their greatest feats, strangest encounters, their firsts, bests, biggests, and mosts.  It answers almost any question you could have about the last of the Time Lords and his (soon to be her) interesting adventures.

Guerrier, co-author of Whographica: An Infographic Guide to Space and Time and The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who for BBC Books, and one of our favorite writers of Doctor Who books, comics, audio plays (his new tales of the Doctors have been performed by Doctor Who actors including Sylvester McCoy and Freema Agyeman), and even documentaries, simply soars through the history of the 12 Doctors and the War Doctor, providing significant coverage of each Doctor, their companions, their greatest stories, and strangest encounters.  For the Doctor Who fan it makes for a great resource, too, complete with nicely indexed and detailed chapters and subjects to allow readers to easily jump back to topics of interest later.

Today is the last day to pre-order Doctor Who: The Book of Whoniversal Records (Official Timey-Wimey Edition) at a discount off the cover price–it arrives in bookstores and ships from online retailers tomorrow.

Check out this excerpt, courtesy of Harper Design:

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SDCC 2017–BBC panel previews a two-doctor Christmas special for Doctor Who

Filed under: Con Culture, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
July 24, 2017

Not to be outdone by the dozens of movie and television trailers released in San Diego at this weekend’s annual Comic-Con, BBC’s Doctor Who panel Sunday previewed “Twice Upon a Time,” the annual Doctor Who Christmas special–what will likely be Peter Capaldi’s last full episode of the series, plus a few surprises.  It was major international news last week that Jodie Whitaker will be taking over the reins from Capaldi to become the 13th Doctor at the end of this year’s Christmas special.  That is, unless her first episode is part of the next season premiere, expected to air either in the March-April 2018 timeframe or August-September 2018 depending on production schedules.  A new trailer has no mention of the Doctor’s regeneration into the 13th Doctor, but does show another Doctor will be appearing in the Christmas special, so plan to see at least two, and maybe three, Doctors on Christmas Day.

The panel was held at Hall H at the San Diego Convention Center on the last day of Comic-Con yesterday.  Doctor Who show runner Steven Moffat appeared with Capaldi, Mark Gatiss, 2017 season regulars Matt Lucas and Michelle Gomez, and 2017 season companion actress Pearl Mackie.  This may be the last Comic-Con appearance for Doctor Who for all of these creators as a new team takes over for 2018.

Best known as Filch in the Harry Potter movies, David Bradley will return for his third stint playing the First Doctor, originally played in 1963 by actor William Hartnell.  A ringer for Hartnell, Bradley previously played Hartnell and the First Doctor in An Adventure in Space and Time, a BBC drama about the First Doctor, and again in this season’s finale.  Also, Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat’s long-time production and writing partner in projects including the BBC’s Sherlock (and Mycroft on the series) will play a World War I captain in the special.

But that’s not all.  Doctor Who fans will be surprised to see Pearl Mackie’s Bill Potts one more time on the series, as she has an appearance in the Christmas special.  By all counts fans didn’t expect to see Bill return after this season’s finale.  It doesn’t look like Mackie will be back in 2018, so get ready for much speculation over the next year on the choice for the next Doctor Who companion.

Check out the Comic-Con preview of “Twice Upon a Time,” the Doctor Who Christmas special: Continue reading →

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Sci-fi fix–Doctor Who universe rejuvenated in new Saturday line-up

Filed under: Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
April 22, 2017

The one-two punch of the third season of the 12th Doctor on BBC’s Doctor Who plus the new spin-off Class is the two-hour TV block sci-fi fans won’t want to miss this season.  Last week witnessed the first episode of Peter Capaldi’s final season on Doctor Who, with Pearl Mackie as the new companion, a vibrant and refreshing character named Bill Potts.  It also saw the premiere of Class, full of intrigue, exceptional actors, and great characterization for an introductory episode.  Aliens and time travel fans should take note, as a fun ride is ahead this season.

It’s the 36th season for Doctor Who and tenth season since the 2005 reboot.  Whovians who have fallen in love with Karen Gillan and Jenna Coleman and their predecessors will find how easily Mackie slips into her role.  After the sweetness and syrupy music over the past few seasons that supported Clara Oswald, the series was due for some fun and a break from the weight of emotion that Oswald’s plight brought to the Doctor.  And Mackie’s Bill looks great, with a cool jean jacket full of flair and a wild shirts that fit in with the past styles of Doctor Who garb.  And that hair!  Bill provides a full character study in her first episode, “Pilot,” where an alien race of space oil beings seek out a star pilot in a woman who is the eye of Bill’s affection.  The result is another creepy and brilliant Doctor Who villain that will hopefully surface again.  Matt Lucas–who is hard to forget as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland–returns as Nardole, a part that is also quickly folding nicely into the show.

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In the United States we had been offered up only the briefest teaser preview for the new Doctor Who spinoff TV series Class. With two stars of the Jeremy Piven star vehicle Mr. Selfridge in lead roles–the brilliant actress Katherine Kelly and the up-and-coming actor Greg Austin–the series was primed to be good, and episode one, “For Tonight We Might Die,” did not disappoint.  As we had speculated earlier this year, the series seemed to be revealing what Doctor Who would look like with a woman playing the lead role.  Katherine Kelly went head-to-head with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor and proved she has the right stuff for the part.  She’s perfect as a headstrong leader, and the younger leader played by Austin fills the niche that the companion would serve in the Who-niverse.

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Will Doctor Who spinoff “Class” have a chance to be the next Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Filed under: Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
February 27, 2017

class-kelly

What if your planet was massacred and you were the sole survivor?  What if a legendary figure out of space and time found you a place to hide?

In the United States we have been offered up only the briefest teaser preview for the new Doctor Who spinoff TV series Class.  With two stars of the Jeremy Piven star vehicle Mr. Selfridge in lead roles–the brilliant actress Katherine Kelly and the up-and-coming actor Greg Austin–the series was built for success.  We are hard pressed to come up with an actress who might make a better first female Doctor than Kelly.  Maybe Sherlock’s Lara Pulver?  So getting Kelly into this universe is great for Whovians everywhere.

Class is the second spinoff series of Doctor Who, following the successful Torchwood, which sparked new phases of the careers of John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Burn Gorman.  Class is steeped in good British and Doctor Who tradition: For 54 years viewers have heard of the school at Coal Hill.  So who are the students attending classes there these days?  Class is going to show us just that, including one student who is an alien.  Class is a teen-centric series, not aimed at the typical young end of the Doctor Who audience.  So this series is for a wider audience and is to explore broader themes.  The several BBC trailers that so far have only aired in the UK are exciting and fun, dotted with fun characters, and even a fan favorite villain from Doctor Who.  

class-show

Class, written by A Monsters Calls’ Patrick Ness and executive producer Steven Moffatt, follows Katherine Kelly’s Miss Quill and four students, played by Austin and newcomers Sophie Hopkins, Vivian Oparah, and Fady Elsayed.  Even Peter Capaldi’s Doctor makes an appearance at the beginning of the first season.  Moffat called the series dark and sexy and has labeled it a British Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Ness agreed, saying, “Adults watch Buffy because it’s a great show, but the POV and the agency are all teenage, and that’s what we want to do with Class.

Unfortunately, Class may not make it to the States before being cancelled back home.

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Preview–New Doctor Who Christmas Special coming to theaters

Filed under: Movies, Sci-Fi Café, Superheroes, TV — Leave a comment
November 25, 2016

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It has been a Christmas tradition in the UK on and off again for more than fifty years.  The Doctor Who Christmas Special returns for another episode this Christmas Day, available in the states on BBC America.  This year Fathom Events has teamed up with BBC to bring the show to movie theaters, for two days only.  So you can watch it in television in traditional style and/or see it a few days later on the big screen.  One of several Doctor Who screenings held by Fathom Events over the past three years, it’s as close as Doctor Who fans can get to experiencing a full-fledged Doctor Who movie.

Superheroes is the theme of this year’s entry, as revealed in the trailer below.  “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” features the 12th Doctor played by Peter Capaldi, but without his normal companion Jenna-Louise Coleman.  The good Doctor teams up instead with a journalist played by Charity Wakefield (Wolf Hall, Sense & Sensibility, Jane Eyre), and the duo teams up with a new superhero to defend Earth from another alien threat.  The show co-stars Justin Chatwin (Orphan Black, War of the Worlds), Matt Lucas (Alice in Wonderland, Doctor Who, Galavant, Community), Adetomiwa Edun (The Hour, Bates Motel, Law & Order UK), and Aleksandar Jovanovic.

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The theater screenings will take place at 7 p.m. local time December 27 and 29, 2016.  Check out the Fathom Events website here for theater locations and to purchase tickets.

Here is a preview of “The Return of Doctor Mysterio:”

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Want to appear on an episode of the last season of Orphan Black?

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
November 23, 2016

Orphan Black Season 4 Four

So are you a big fan of the BBC America’s sci-fi series Orphan Black?  Do you consider yourself a card-carrying member of the Clone Club?  Have you ever wanted to see how they film Tatiana Maslany playing several characters in the same scene?  Now BBC America is giving Orphan Black fans a chance to win a walk-on role in next year’s Season 5–the final season of the series.

All you need to do is film yourself conveying how much you love the series in 30 seconds or less.  The Grand Prize winner will be randomly chosen–so don’t worry too much about the video quality.  The winner will receive a four day-three night trip for two to the set of Orphan Black in Toronto, Canada, including airfare, hotel, ground transportation, and $500 spending money.

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But you must act quickly to be considered–you must submit your video by November 29, 2016, at 11:59:59 a.m. Eastern.

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Fifty-year-old “The Power of the Daleks” comes to America for the first time

Filed under: Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
November 13, 2016

power-daleks-clip

In the 1960s it was not unheard of that television stations like the BBC in the United Kingdom did not retain footage of television series.  Film reels were thrown out instead of storing shows for archival purposes as we do today.  The greatest volume from one series is probably from Doctor Who, where nearly 100 episodes were lost.  But thanks to fans recording the audio of the shows at home, plus film stills and the odd found footage, the stories themselves remain.  In the case of one legendary tale, The Power of the Daleks, the BBC decided to animate the tale and distribute it for a new generation of Doctor Who fans.  Premiering in full this Saturday, November 19, and beginning November 20, on BBC America, viewers can stream the entire six-part series, and tomorrow night you have one chance to view the new animated version in theaters.

Thought to have been lost forever, The Power of the Daleks is the missing third serial of the fourth season of Doctor Who.  No complete film recordings or master negatives of The Power of the Daleks are known to have survived an archive purge in 1974.  This brand new animation is recreated from original audio, photographs, and surviving film clips.  The Power of the Daleks has never been shown in North America in any form.

powerdaleks

An original clip of the lost Doctor Who serial “Power of the Daleks.”

Fans of any iteration of Doctor Who will want to see this series for two key reasons.  First, it is the first rejuvenation of a Doctor, here showing Patrick Troughton transform into the Second Doctor.  Second, fans first realized the true darkness behind the Daleks, who would remain the greatest foes of the Doctor and his companions to this day.  Also featured are companions Polly (Anneke Wills) and Ben (Michael Craze).

Check out this quick preview:

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Thirteen–New BBC America series gritty and familiar

Filed under: TV — Leave a comment
June 27, 2016

 

jodie-comer-thirteen

Review by C.J. Bunce

Thirteen–a moody and creepy new suspense mystery series is now airing on BBC America. It’s become a strangely familiar, recurring trope among the modern mystery tale–especially among British television: The lost girl, and more to the point, the lost girl found. Think The Revenants (and the English version The Returned) but without the supernatural. But flip the gender of the victim and it’s another take on the Starz Brit import The Missing, BBC’s less than stellar Broadchurch, or BBC’s brilliant Marchlands.

Like Elizabeth Smart, Johnny Gosch (and all of those missing milk carton kids of the 1980s), Ivy Moxam (played hauntingly by Jodie Comer) was snatched from her neighborhood at age 13.  She now finds herself walking out of the house she has been held hostage in, 13 years later at age 26.  In her own neighborhood all these years.  And the detective story begins as we meet Ivy and sympathize with her struggle to return to a world outside the walls of her captivity, an enormous gap of time lost.  In episode one she tries–and fails–to take up life where she left off, calling her old boyfriend (now married thirteen years later) and doing anything to avoid what has happened to her.  The series, which already aired in the UK, is only five episodes, so we learn the kidnapper midway through episode one and a manhunt begins.

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Because of the serious nature of the subject matter these series are usually gut-wrenching. The closer you get to the truth, the closer the stories seem to mirror real-life crime horrors.

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Artist challenge–One path to international recognition for your work

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
January 11, 2016

Orphan Black Season 4 Four

Hello, artist friends! (You know who you are).  It’s time for your to bring it.

Whether or not you’re a member of Clone Club–the fans of BBC America’s Orphan Black–a new contest announced this weekend may be something for you.  One artist’s work will be selected as the new season’s official poster for the show’s international release.  It’s one way to get international fame fast.

Artwork submitted could become Orphan Black’s Season 4 advertising poster.  It’s a chance to win a grand prize of $10,000 and a private screening of the Season 4 premiere for you and your friends.

The selected winning artwork will be featured as part of Orphan Black’s Season 4 marketing campaign, with a print ad in Entertainment Weekly, featured on billboards, and featured on-air and online.

Orphan Black art Bunce

Twenty finalists will also receive a custom print of their artwork signed by the Orphan Black cast.

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Doctor Who, Cybermen coming to theaters in 3D in September

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Movies, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
July 30, 2015

Doctor Who in 3D

Doctor Who fans get to catch 2-part finale of Doctor Who Season 8 in theaters across the country in RealD 3D plus a never-before-seen prequel to Season 9 in a special two-night event hosted by Fathom Events.  It all happens Tuesday, September 15, and Wednesday, September 16, leading up to the Season 9 premiere Saturday, September 19, 2015, on BBC America.

You can check local listings or sign up here for an email reminder or text TVRADIO to FATHOM (328466) for updates.

Tickets will go on sale Friday, July 31.

Doctor Who Fathom Events Dark water 3d 2015

Wil Wheaton will host an interview with stars Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman as part of the show.

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