The latest in television news, gossip, rumours and analysis from Sun Media's greatest couch potatoes.
If you’re beside yourself waiting for tomorrow’s Doctor Who Christmas Special, this fan-made Christmas minisode should satisfy your blue-box cravings for now.
“How The Doctor Puppet Saved Christmas” is written, directed,and animated by New York City artist Alisa Stern, who runs a painfully adorable Tumblr documenting the adventures of her beloved creation, Doctor Puppet.
Via Tor.com
“How much trouble are we in?”
That question is asked of the Doctor, played by Matt Smith, in the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who.
“Out of 10?” the Doctor muses. “11.”
Any time you can combine Doctor Who with an indirect Spinal Tap reference, it’s a good day.
Doctor Who returns Saturday on Space, lifting off the seventh season of the current version of the decades-old British science-fiction series. The new episode is called Asylum of the Daleks, and it’s equal parts intriguing and entrancing, charming and alarming.
Kidnapped by his oldest enemies the Daleks – who look like R2-D2 from Star Wars but are dramatically more shrill – the Doctor (pictured above) is forced into a mission from which he is not expected to return. He must travel to the place where even Daleks are too afraid to go, namely the Dalek Asylum, a planetary prison where in past years the Daleks sent the most terrifying and insane of their kind.
So it’s EXACTLY like present-day Australia.
Accompanied by fellow kidnap victims Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), the Doctor must do what the Daleks have tasked him to do, while at the same time engineering an improbable escape for himself and his friends.
This Doctor Who-done-it definitely goes to 11. Hey, maybe the Dalek Asylum is some sort of Sex Farm.
bill.harris@sunmedia.ca
@billharris_tv
Capt. Jack Harkness, bisexual superhero.
John Barrowman — known for playing Captain Jack Harnkess, possibly the first and only queer sci-fi hero on a children’s TV show — says LBGT people deserve to be represented on television all their diversity.
Capt. Jack originated on BBC’s Doctor Who and later got his own spin-off, the more adult-oriented Torchwood. The roguish, bisexual con man-turned-hero with a flirtatious charm that rivals James Bond’s is one of the best things to come out of the Russell T. Davies’ run on Who.
In response to question about queer representation in science fiction at a Fan Expo panel in Toronto on Sunday, Barrowman admitted mainstream TV has more gay characters. But those characters, unlike Jack, tend to be reduced to stereotypes.
My big this is — and this is where I’m so proud of Capt. Jack and proud of what Russell and Steven and July Gardner and the BBC allowed me to help create — was the fact that I’m a hero. I’m not a flouncing queen — and there’s nothing wrong with that, don’t get me wrong — but there’s a very diverse group of gay men and women out there. And we need to be represented on television in the proper way. We don’t need to all be stereotyped on television.
That’s what happened in the mainstream. And unfortunately, certain audiences around the world only identify with types. For writers and people that are creating new shows and doing things differently and not just writing stereotypes, those are the shows we should stand up for and watch and be proud of.
There’s no doubt that Capt. Jack has been a huge role model for many a young LBGT geek. Take this blogger who says watching Jack on Doctor Who as a teenager helped her feel OK with who she was. Or the fans at Barrowman’s panel, many of whom stood up to identify themselves as queer and thank him for his portrayal of Jack.
But Barrowman himself is also a role model, putting a bit of himself into Jack and never shying away from his own sexuality in the spotlight. He speaks often about his longtime partner Scott Gill, despite industry pressure to keep quiet.
In fact, someone said to me, and this producer was gay himself, and he said to me, “You can’t say ‘your partner’ and you shouldn’t talk about this you shouldn’t do that and you shouldn’t be who you are.” And I went back to Scott and I said, “Look what should I do?” And he said, “Well, what do you want to do?” And I said, “Well, I’m not gonna ask you to hide and pretend, and go to a function and then pretend to have a girl on my arm because some people aren’t comfortable with it. That’s not my problem. So I’m gonna be who I am.”
You can catch Barrowman this fall on Arrow, which premiers Oct. 12 on the CW and CTV 2.
Not everyone is lucky enough to have a TARDIS steal them, transport them through time and space and always take them where they need to be. Some people have to build their own.
That’s what the talented, creative and meticulous folks who populate TARDIS Builders do. The site is dedicated to documenting and showcasing fan-made Doctor Who props. The blue police-box TARDIS seems to be favourite among crafty Whovians, but the site also features of other props from the show, including TARDIS consoles, gadgets and more.
Aside from pictures of their incredibly impressive final products, many of the the hobbyists who make these props also keep detailed build-diaries. Click on the pictures below to find out more about how they were made.
Life-sized TARDIS on display at an airport. Why would anyone take a plane when there's a TARDIS available?
Long before the debate over whether a woman will or should ever play the Doctor, the iconic space and time traveler from BBC’s Doctor Who, we already had a powerful Time Lady whose wit matched his own.
Mary Tamm, who played the first incarnation of Romana, a hyper-competent and by-the-books Time Lady companion to contrast Tom Baker’s carefree portrayal of the Doctor, died today of cancer. She was 62.
The news comes just over a year after Elisabeth Sladen, who played investigative journalist Sarah-Jane Smith on the series, died of cancer at 63.
Here’s what Whovians are saying about the Time Lady’s legacy.
