Merrick here...
This week’s Docback features a quick round up of news from the WHOVverse, much of which transpired over the past week, or even the past few days.
A second Docback will open next week - on Monday (December 24) - devoted to The Snowmen - this year’s DOCTOR WHO Christmas Special, which transmits Christmas Day. It will be the only Docback for that week.
To date, the only DOCTOR WHO Christmas Specials I’ve completely fallen for have been The Christmas Invasion and The Runaway Bride (the later of which was instrumental on hooking me on nuWHO, so I have a special affinity for it). This said, every Yuletide-themed DW adventure has had something interesting to offer - even if the whole shebang didn't work out so well. Voyage of the Damned had Kylie Minogue and Bannakaffalatta and Wilfred Mott. The Next Doctor had a lovely performance by David Morrissey and that steampunk robonightmare machine jacking up a whole city at the end.
I thought A Christmas Carol was beautiful in many ways (I mean...it has a fucking FLYING SHARK - it can't be all bad, right?)...but that one didn’t do much for me on the whole...although Katherine Jenkins most certainly did. The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe...never seemed completely formed to me. It felt like a huge number of nice ideas whose packaging was not fully refined. I'm probably forgetting one or two of the specials in there, but you get the point.
On the whole, I found The Snowmen to be the most focused, most fully realized, most lavishly produced of this lot - perhaps because it’s a game changer in a number of regards. It’s not just a “Christmas Special” - by the time it's done it appears to be something of a show re-definer (not unlike Christmas Invasion). More on this when The Snowmen Docback opens Monday.
Until then...
HERE'S A BETTER LOOK AT THE NEW TARDIS INTERIOR (HIGH RES)!!!
On Wednesday, The Official DOCTOR WHO Facebook Page and BBC revealed our fullest look yet at the new TARDIS interior which will debut with The Snowmen (coming December 25).
The design offers a very interesting take on the vehicle's interior - hearkening back to the smaller and simpler interiors in which earlier incarnations of the Doctor traveled. There's also a slight FORBIDDEN PLANET sensibility here...which I can't help but love...
The image I initally ran was this size - but I've now made it VERY EMBIGGENABLE with a far higher res version that you can access simply by clicking the pic!
There's been some question about that costume. My UNDERSTANDING of the matter is that this costume does, indeed, represent a style/appearance which will persist on the show for some time. This "throwback" vibe will apparently be evident in several ohter facets of the show as it progresses (one of which is mentioend below).
Thanks to Aint It Cool readers John and Anglophile for initially calling this to our attention!
Vastra Investigates IN A NEW PREQUEL TO The Snowmen!!
Here's another prequel to The Snowmen. Both of the videos below very much put characters into place for the opening of next week's episode.
The last minisode found Vastra (Neve McIntosh) - the hottest lizard lady on or off this planet - encountering a rather Darkish Doctor, in a brief tale which brought us a now immortal line from Sontaran Strax.
This new installment, seen below, continues the set-up for the forthcoming Christmas episode.
GET READY FOR A NEW THEME ARRANGEMENT FROM MURRAY GOLD, TO GO ALONG WITH NEW OPENING TITLES!!
While they don't want to spoil the suprise, the BBC said the new look opening credits are "wonderfully dramatic and striking, with a couple of unexpected touches."
Dedicated fans of the series needn't worry though - we're told the new theme tune remains true to Ron Grainer's iconic original: "more thrilling and powerful but [it] retains that slightly scary quality."
...says Radio Times. The revamped opening, which you can learn more about HERE, debuts with The Snowmen.
THE MOFF SPEAKS!
WHOrunner Steven Moffat's recent disucssion with Vulture offers some interesting insight into what we can expect from the remainder of theDW's 7th Season/Series, which resums this April.
Regarding how the new companion (played by Jenna-Louise Coleman) will interact with the Doctor, Moffat says...
"For one thing, she's little and so Matt is suddenly terribly tall. It feels like a bigger age gap somehow. He suddenly is the irascible older man, which Matt does extremely well despite the fact he's 30."
This is interesting, and is yet another example of how the show appears to be acknowledging/circling back to its roots.
Referring to the Neil Gaiman's upcoming Cybermen episode, Moff stated...
"I wanted to make them creepier, and a bit more active. I thought we had gone as far as we could with the stumpy Cybermen. I wanted to do the colder, deadlierversion and I was interested in Neil giving it a ghost-story feel. Neil's a good ghost story writer."
There's a bit more, including an assessment of the impact (or lack thereof) of the delay in the next batch of SHERLOCKs, HERE!
Also, THIS piece at DoctorWhoTV offers some insight from Moff about the above-seen changes to the interior design of the TARDIS.
Per Sir the Moff...
“I thought we’d been getting progressively whimsical with the interior of the TARDIS. And I started to think, ‘Well, why is that? It’s not a magical place. It’s actually a machine.’
“And actually potentially, as you’ll see more spectacularly later, quite a scary place sometimes. We make a lot of use of that.”
Regarding the show's upcoming 50th Anniversary, he says...
“[Plans] are immense, they are considerable. They will be full of tremendous surprises. But they wouldn’t be surprises if I accidentally said them now, would they?
All of this and more can be found HERE!
More on Monday...
PREVIOUS DOCBACKS
[Season / Series Seven Docbacks - MOST RECENT DOCBACK IS HIGHLIGHTED]
[SEASON / SERIES SIX DOCBACKS]
"The Impossible Astronaut"
"Day of the Moon"
"The Curse of the Black Spot"
"The Doctor's Wife"
"The Rebel Flesh"
"The Almost People"
"The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe" (2011 Christmas Special)
[RETRO-WHO DOCBACKS ]
"An Unearthly Child" (Story #1)
"The Daleks" (Story #2)
"The Edge of Destruction" (Story #3)
"Marco Polo" (Story #4)
"The Keys of Marinus" (Story #5)
"The Aztecs" (Story #6)
"The Sensorites" (Story #7)
"The Sensorites" (Story #7 - full DVD release)
"The Reign of Terror" (Story #8)
"Planet of Giants" (Story #9)
"Planet of Giants" (Story #9, full DVD release)
"The Dalek Invasion of Earth" (Story #10)
"The Rescue" (Story #11)
"The Romans" (Story #12)
"The Web Planet" (Story #13) / SHERLOCK - "A Scandal in Belgravia" (Story #4)
"The Crusade" (Story #14)
"The Space Museum" (Story #15)
"The Chase" (Story #16)
"The Time Meddler" (Story #17)
"Galaxy 4" (Story #18)
"Mission to the Unkonwn" (Story #19)
"The Myth Makers" (Story #20)
"The Gunfighters" (Story #25)
"The Tomb of the Cybermen" (Story #37)
"The Mind Robber" (Story #45)
"The Krotons" (Story #47)
"The Seeds of Death" (Story #48)
"Spearhead from Space" (Story #51)
"The Abassadors of Death" (Story #53)
"The Claws of Axos" (Story #57)
"The Colony in Space" (Story #58)
"The Daemons" (Story #59)
"Day of the Daleks" (Story #60) + Preview of the DotD Special Edition
"The Three Doctors" (Story #65)
"Carnival of Monsters" (Story #66)
"Death to the Daleks" (Story #72)
"Invasion of the Dinosaurs" (Story #71) and SHERLOCK: "The Reichenbach Fall" (Story #6)
"The Claws of Axos" (Story #77)
"The Android Invasion" (Story #83) and SHERLOCK: "The Hounds of Baskerville" (Story #5)
"The Face of Evil" (Story #89)
"The Robots of Death" (Story #90)
"The Talons of Weng-Chiang" (Story #91)
"The Sun Makers" (Story #95)
"The City of Death" (Story #105)
"Nightmare of Eden" (Story #107)
"Kinda" (Story #118)
"Snakedance" (Story #125)
"The King's Demons" (Story #128)
"The Five Doctors" (Story #129)
"The Awakening" (Story #131)
"Frontios" (Story #132)
"Resurrection of the Daleks" (Story #134)
"The Caves of Androzani" (Story #136)
"Vengeance on Varos" (Story #138)
"Time and the Rani" (Story #144)
"Paradise Towers" (Story #145) + New WHOvian Documentary / Newsbits
"Dragonfire" (Story #147)
"The Happiness Patrol" (Story #149)
"The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" (Story #151)
"Doctor Who: The Movie" (aka TVM) - McGann)
DOCTOR WHO: THE COMPLETE SIXTH SERIES
Merrick's Personal Journey With The Doctor (How Merrick Got Hooked On DOCTOR WHO)
DOCTOR WHO Title Sequences & DW At Comic-Con 2011
"The Crash of the Elysium" (Manchester version - interactive DOCTOR WHO adventure)
Why Eccleston Left, Here Comes Caroline Skinner, And Season/Series Six Part 1 on Blu-Ray And DVD
New Trailer For Season/Series Six Part 2
The Companions of DOCTOR WHO + New Trailer & Artwork For Season/Series 7
Impromptu Docback!! + Galaxy 4 'Airlock' Coming to DVD, Christmas Special 2012, And More!!
The Friday Docback Mulls The 50th...
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