Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: August 2015

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

“The Doctor reveals to Leela that they’re heading for the planet Telos. And K9 has new masters...

On Telos, in the past, the Second Doctor and Jamie are exploring the ‘tomb of the Cybermen’.

Meanwhile, the Cyber-Controller and Cyber-Planner consolidate their plans. Spare parts from Krelos are being used to construct a mighty Cyber army. The Doctor must be captured.

Out of control, the TARDIS tumbles down a chasm and the Doctor and Leela find themselves caught up in full-scale planetary invasion.”

There is a school of thought that says that big is better, and you can see that in work here: an adventure with the Cybermen! Ah, but let’s go one further: bring in an old companion! But we can do more: make it a sequel to a past adventure! Brilliant. But: no, let’s go further: we can set it during the past adventure! And let’s not just do any old story, no! Let’s set it during a much-loved classic: The Tomb of the Cybermen!

On paper, it probably sells: the Fourth Doctor and Leela meeting Jamie on Telos is a scenario which is going to get a certain type of fan tingling with anticipation, and it’s no great leap to put both Nicholas Briggs and David Richardson in that category seeing as they’ve gone ahead and made this tale.

It’s not the first time that this approach has been taken. We had The Five Companions by Eddie Robson taking place within another story, and it worked really well: it was a neat fit that took advantage of a period within the existing story when it could logically have taken place without too great a pinch of salt.  So, we have previous, and a successful example at that.  You can see why they felt confident enough to go down that road again.  Indeed, we’ve had mixed-up Doctor/Companion tales very recently, too, and sequels to popular stories in the past time and again.  How does it fare here, though?

First things first: the ‘fit’ between new tale and old tale is pretty sloppy, and I’m being generous here.  We get Frazer Hines doing his Troughton impression to try and help gel things, but… well, it sounds good in small doses, but often it just sounds like Frazer Hines pretending to be Patrick Troughton, so the effect is not as seamless as everyone seems to think it is if the Extras to this play are anything to go by.  The fit in with the plot of Tomb itself can conceivably work I suppose, but only at a push and certainly not as smoothly as Robson managed before.  This feels far more like someone desperately trying to squeeze something in than something that clicks; like someone pushing the incorrect part of the jigsaw into the wrong hole. You can make it fit, but it’s a clumsy mess.

Second up: Jamie in a Fourth Doctor story. Now, Jamie seems to continually bump into the ‘wrong’ Doctor whilst facing the Cybermen, so this feels less novel and more old and worn than it should do.  Sadly, again it’s a clumsy fit.  Quite simply, there is no need whatsoever for this tale to take place during Tomb beyond it being set on Telos, which it could be at any time.  It’s been done purely to try and shift CDs and with no regard to the story itself.  We’re looking at quantity over quality with regards to elements here.

Thirdly, the story. Again, it’s pretty poor. Cybermen are nasty to K-9, things happen, technobabble, reset, the end.  It’s dull at best, predictable at worst, and sadly as jaded and boring as the inclusion of Jamie and the notion of setting it within another story.  I understand that Big Finish tend to keep things as they are and the risks are normally minimal and then repeated– the four-by-four format was successful once and so we have it once a year now; a Northern companion worked well, so they’ve been aping Lucie Miller ever since; the false-departure for Charley worked well, so let’s do it again (and again and again…) with Hex! Heck, even the covers tend to stick to a type nowadays and take few risks– but this is about as boring an execution of old tricks that we’ve seen.

We need more, especially after a story in which nothing much happens whatsoever, but what we get here, though it has more incident than Krelos, shows less flair or innovation.  Not a good sign.

More than anything else, this feels like a huge disappointment after how strong this series of The Fourth Doctor Adventures has been.  We’ve had sparks and new things, and then… this.  A story so keen on continuity, it forgets to do anything interesting whatsoever. I really wish Big Finish would stop doing this; it’s utterly without point, and I can’t see who it appeals to.  Certainly not this listener.  I’m only giving it two out of ten because the Cybermen voices are at least pretty good. That’s overly kind of me, though.

 “You will be like us,” say the Cybermen. If that entails being anything like this play, then that is a threat indeed.

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Nicholas Briggs

RRP: £10.99 (CD) / £8.99 (Download)

Release Date: July 2015

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

“There are dark skies on Krelos… and something gigantic is descending.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Leela set off for some fishing in the mountain pools of Krelos. K9 has interfaced with the TARDIS and has reactivated the architectural configuration from the days of the Doctor’s second incarnation. In passing, the Doctor notes it could do with a good clean. And there’s a familiar piece of material snagged on the console.

Far up the mountain, an aged explorer is in trouble. Will the Doctor and Leela be able to save him and his planet? And what is it that K9 has discovered in the TARDIS?”

The Doctor gets up to an awful lot of things when we’re not looking.  We know this from various sources: the Doctor himself, glimpses of downtime in stories such as Midnight, The Romans, Army of Ghosts and Turn Left (it all goes to pot there, but to start with at least, Donna and the Doctor are just having fun exploring an alien market), companions reciting stories not seen on screen (Rose in Boom Town, for example), and the nagging sense that it can’t all be continual peril for the Doctor and his friends, or you wouldn’t go travelling, would you? There are definitely times when the Doctor and his entourage take a break and simply have a good time.

Why, then, have we not seen this in full before? The argument will no doubt be that if nothing much happens, then it’s not going to be the most exciting of tales, but as if that were a gauntlet thrown on the table, Big Finish have decided to try and prove us wrong and The Fate of Krelos is the result.

What happens in this story, then? Well, Leela and the Doctor wander around the TARDIS for a bit and decide to go fishing whilst K-9 is on the blink. They meet the locals and have a jolly.  And that’s it.

It’s a strange tale in that the format actively fights against the story being told.  We need a cliffhanger midway through the tale, one at the end, and a healthy dose of leading-into-the-final-play-this-series-style plot for Return to Telos to work properly. Because Nicholas Briggs, the story’s author, wants to tell a tale where the Doctor and Leela just relax instead of rush around, there is an inherent wrestle between these necessities and Briggs’s desires. So, K-9 is not how he should be but everyone ignores it uncharacteristically because that would kickstart a story.  Likewise, we get a truly horrendous and cringeworthy bit of info-dumping early on where Leela learns about Jamie purely so that she will know who he is come the final play this series. It’s a scene that exists purely to push things forward and stands out all the more than it usually would, such is the lax pace and absence of event surrounding it all.

Things suddenly whirl into action right at the end, again because it is needed by the demands of both Doctor Who as a series and The Fate of Krelos’s position in the running order of this season of adventures. Maybe placed somewhere else other than the penultimate adventure, a tale like this one could have worked, but as it is, we have what would struggle to fit a standard twenty-three-minute-long episode stretched beyond breaking point.

In spite of all this though,I cannot help but admire Briggs for giving this a shot in the first place. Does it work? Not really, but as a one-off experiment, it is at least worthy of merit. The use of Michael Cochrane in the guest cast is a nice touch, too, giving The Fourth Doctor Adventures a sense of continuity with its past (he was brilliant as Colonel Spindleton in the first series) in much the same way that repeated appearances of Bernard Horsfall and his ilk used to do on screen.

Telos beckons now, so hopefully this is but a blip in what has been the best series of adventures for the Fourth Doctor from Big Finish so far. At least Leela knows who Jamie is now… 

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Nicholas Briggs, Alan Barnes, Matt Fitton, Simon Barnard and Paul Morris

RRP: £40.00 (CD) / £20.00 (Download)

Release Date: August 2014

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

“A very special story which at last provides a heroic exit for Colin Baker's much-loved Time Lord. Four hour-long episodes, connected by the presence of the Valeyard, the entity that exists between the Doctor's twelth and final incarnations.”

If you’re looking for a success story with regards to Big Finish, then the Sixth Doctor is it. On TV, he was trapped at a time when there was chaos behind the scenes and whilst very few have anything bad to say about Colin Baker, who gave it his all regardless of what he was given (whatever people say about The Twin Dilemma, Baker himself is magnificent in it through and through), it’s arguable that poor Sixie, as he’s affectionately known, deserved better. The books which followed gave it a good shot, as did the comics, but it was the creation of Big Finish and getting Baker himself back into the driving seat that really worked wonders. Hearing him get his teeth into some fantastic scripts, and then being paired with Evelyn and Frobisher as well as Peri and Mel, thrust him back into the limelight and created a massive reappraisal for that most criticized of incarnations.  It was long overdue and much deserved, so it seems fitting that it’s Big Finish who are telling the story of Sixie’s demise.

Well, telling one version of it, anyway.  The novelisation of Time and the Rani threw some tumultuous buffeting our way (… no, me neither), Gary Russell had a go in Spiral Scratch and then we have Time’s Champion as well, bobbing around in the background.  The good thing, then, is that if people aren’t too keen on this version of The End of Colin, we have others to dip into, even those with tumultuous buffeting. (Whatever happened to the seatbelts seen in Timelash? There’s a story for another day…)

Big Finish’s approach to Sixie’s end (stop laughing at the back) is to give us four, hour-long stories (give or take. The final play clocks in at under sixty minutes whilst the first is closer to seventy-minutes-long). They’re set in various places in The Doctor’s life and have one link beyond the Sixth Doctor himself: the Valeyard. Considering what he was set up to be, it’s amazing really that nothing more was ever done with him on screen, so it makes sense to explore that here instead and it’s fitting that it’s the Sixth Doctor once more doing battle with him.

Sadly though, whilst all this looks good on paper, it doesn’t entirely translate well when listened to. The main issue really is one of connectivity.  This release is called ‘The Last Adventure’, so it’s not unfair to have an expectation that everything is going to slot together neatly, but no. Only the final play can in any terms be labeled a ‘last’ adventure, and it only really fits in with one other play in the release, leaving one wondering why they bothered listening to the other two.  As one-offs, they’d be fine, but as a build-up to the final hour, they fall massively short as they don’t actually build much.

Let’s look at the plays themselves in their own rights though.  We begin with The End of the Line by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris, a ghostly tale of mysterious trains and even more mysterious deaths. The mixture of trains, abandoned stations and Colin Baker cannot help but bring to mind In Memory Alone, the third story in the Stranger series, Bill Baggs’s straight-to-video series which found its lead writer and plot visionary in… Nicholas Briggs! You do wonder if the inclusion of this tale here is a nod to the roots of Briggs’s working relationship with Baker, but I am probably reading too much into things.

The story itself is fine, but nothing new.  We’ve had ghost stories in this manner in the past and the twists are, again, nothing Big Finish haven’t done before.  It’s not to say that the play is bad per se, just a bit… underwhelming.  We’ve been here before and will do again.  Likewise, one of the big selling points for this tale is something the Sixth Doctor specifically, and arguably uniquely (sorry, Clara), has experience of: the introduction of a new companion some way into their friendship.  wap Mel for Constance, and hey presto.

Again, I imagine that the parallels here between Constance and Mel both getting introduced in ‘final’ stories for the Sixth Doctor are intended, but whereas Mel came with a fully kitted-out character, Constance here is the ultimate definition of generic.  Miranda Raison is a fine actor, but she is given nothing to go with here. Her character is blander than any of the support and you wonder just why they bothered.  I imagine someone at Big Finish said “Hey! Now here’s a good idea!” and then went ahead and commissioned this without actually working out what her character is. I hope so at least, or her forthcoming trilogy is going to be painful.

Second up, we have Alan Barnes in the writing seat and The Red House. Reuniting the Doctor with Charley, it’s a tale of werewolves, scientists and afflicted villagers. It feels similar to The Doomwood Curse in that respect, with a clash of science fiction and folktale trappings, but whilst The End of the Line felt overly recognizable, Barnes’s script here feels fresh and fits in with Charley perfectly, maybe because of the familiarities. (If you’re the sort of fan who is kept awake at night by the thorny issue of continuity and placements, then fret not: we get a very clumsy introduction where Charley reels off a list of previous adventures and where this one falls. It’s painful, but is going to satisfy a certain type of fan, so it’s probably best to have it in here than not!)

This play actually ties in to what’s to come, and as such has more merit in this box set than others. It also uses Charley and her relationship with this particular incarnation of the Doctor intelligently, and at over an hour doesn’t outstay its welcome, telling a decent story in its own rights whilst also moving pieces forward in anticipation of the finale.

Sadly, the same cannot be said for Stage Fright by Matt Fitton, which reunites the Sixth Doctor with Jago and Litefoot whilst Flip is in tow.  It’s not a bad story in itself, but what Red House gets right, this gets wrong.  It barely touches upon the final installment at all, and lovely though it is to have Jago and Litefoot present and correct, there is no reason for it whatsoever other than it being a selling point for the box set. Flip, meanwhile, seems to be here purely to give us contrasts between the time period and our own (“Oh! It’s just like The X Factor! Star Wars! Other-Franchise-That-Is-Popular!”) and little else. She’s also responsible for a dénouement which makes the oft-criticized schmaltz of Fear Her look subtle.  Surely Peri, being an American in a time of colonialism and the Empire, would have been a better/more interesting fit, especially now we know that she carries on travelling with Sixie after the events of Trial? It feels like a wasted opportunity.  Indeed, the exclusion of Peri from proceedings, given how integral she was to the Sixth Doctor’s era on screen and indeed Trial of a Time Lord, feels like a massive oversight, and makes this whole set seem more a celebration of Big Finish and its various creations than representative of the Sixth Doctor’s tenure, really.

This is very apparent in the final story of this set, Nicholas Briggs’s entry, The Brink of Death, in which Mel is mostly ignored in favour of this set’s Not-Lucie-Miller-Companion, Genesta the plucky Time Lord. Ever since Lucie was a hit, Big Finish have been trying to ape her success (again, see Flip), and this is but the latest effort. No spoilers here, but it doesn’t work and she has ‘Disposable’ written all over her from the word ‘go’, and I wish they’d stop doing it.  It’s getting tedious now.

There is an attempt to use her fate to compare attitudes to death and life between the Doctor and Valeyard, but nothing really comes of it. For all the talk of the two Time Lords being Yin and Yang/one and the same, you never get the impression that they are actually the same person. You’d think there would be an attempt to show the Sixth Doctor being tempted down that path but it never materializes.

So, with Mel put to one side and a substitute companion in place, this play harkens back to The Red House and works its way towards the end.  We know from the very off that the end is approaching, so much of this is painted as a race against time: or would be, if time wasn’t continually extended and frozen all over the place, ruining any sense of pace.  No matter though, what about the plot itself?

Well, it’s reliant on two things: the Doctor having no real sense of curiosity (“Oh! So that explains that thing that happened ages ago that I probably should have looked into but didn’t because Reasons”) and the Valeyard being nigh-on omnipotent.  A big point is made time and again of the Valeyard thwarting all of the Doctor’s plans because he knows exactly what he did before and what he’s thinking, which only makes the ending– the Doctor does something that all logic and story suggests the Valeyard should see coming but, erm, doesn’t because it’s the end of the story– all the sillier and frustrating.  It’s lazy and, more importantly, at odds with everything we’ve been told so far, so what, I wonder, was the point of it all.  It certainly makes little more sense than tumultuous buffeting: arguably, that makes a smidgeon more sense than what we get here.

The end is here though, and Time And The Rani approaches. The plot of this dovetails neatly into that story (sort of. It’s never explicitly stated that it’s the Rani firing beams at the TARDIS here, but it surely has to be, or else she’d die on Lykertya or at the very least not look like Kate O’Mara).  Colin, of course, gets some final words.  Well, several.  He has a brilliant last line when talking with the Valeyard, but sadly then waffles on for a whole other scene and gets a line that is in no way as memorable or satisfying. It’s a shame that they sacrifice less for more, but that is perhaps indicative of this set overall. We could have got a series of episodes that builds up to the final end, but instead we get an advertisement for Big Finish Productions.

Final thoughts then? Tricky.  It’s an ending for sure, and the final episode isn’t awful, just illogical.  What’s most trying with this release is that you can easily see where things perhaps should have gone: a set leading to a finale, rather than a finale with almost no build-up. A set absent of Peri and largely ignoring Mel in favour of Big Finish’s own creations.  An introduction to a new assistant, but one without any characteristics whatsoever. A set that doesn’t know when to stop or, really, start.

The Sixth Doctor is surely still Big Finish’s success story, and Colin Baker still a star, but for such a flagship release, we should have got something far better than this. This is in no way the best this incarnation has to offer or even close to the best Big Finish and Baker have given us. Call this a last adventure if you will, but I’m hoping for far better to come. 

Manufacturer: Big Finish Productions

Writer: Eddie Robson

RRP: £14.99 (CD) / £12.99 (Download)

Release Date: June 2015

Reviewed by: Nick Mellish for Doctor Who Online

“The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Steven and Vicki to the Italian city of Ravenna in the year 540 – besieged by the army of the celebrated Byzantine general Belisarius. Caught up in the fighting, Steven ends up on a boat bound for Constantinople, the heart of the Roman Empire.

Rescuing Steven, however, is the least of the Doctor's problems – because he shouldn't be mixed up in this particular adventure at all. Someone has sabotaged his own personal timeline, putting him in the place of his First incarnation... but who, and why? The truth is about to be revealed – but at what cost to all of the Doctors, and to the whole future history of the planet Earth?”

It’s been a bumpy old ride, but finally here we are: The Secret History, the final story in Big Finish’s latest trilogy. We’ve had the more-Fourth-than-Third-Doctor story The Defectors and then, sadly for us all, Last of the Cybermen, which is about as awful a play as we’ve ever been given by Big Finish, even if it did try to explain away the photograph-roundel-walls in the TARDIS. (I begrudgingly give it a nod for that.)  This has been a pretty lackluster trilogy so far then, but thankfully they’ve gone and saved the best ‘til last.

For a start, this feels just like a First Doctor story. Put William Hartnell in the title role instead of Peter Davison and it would feel just right in the way the other two plays would not have done.  Eddie Robson has easily written the most successful play for this different-Doctors remit, no question about it.

It perhaps also helps that Steven and Vicki, the two companions in this tale, fit in perfectly with the story being told, too, and gel with the Fifth Doctor in a way that makes you long for this troop to have further adventures. Peter Davison, Peter Purves and Maureen O’Brien are all class acts and they milk Robson’s brilliant script for all it’s worth.

The story itself takes place in the year 540 CE: Ravenna is under the control of the general Belisarius, Steven has been whisked off to fight, and someone is in the shadows, manipulating the Doctor’s personal history and timeline… but who? And why?

The question of who is a thorny one, really. It should be a big secret, and indeed if you simply downloaded the story and seen the cast list as put on the Big Finish website, it would be. However, if you get the CD, then there is a whacking great spoiler on the cover, clearly showing you the name of the actor playing the antagonist, a character that actor is associated with. Added to that is the CD artwork which decides to place an image representing the antagonist in the centre of it all: why that and not, say, a generic roman soldier or even Belisarius? It seems odd that Big Finish have gone to great lengths to hide the identity of the Doctor’s foe and then place them smack-bang in the middle of the cover.  It’s a pity as it would have been a nice surprise otherwise.  Instead, having seen the cover and then received the CD, I met the revelation of the baddie with a shrug instead of the shock I should have felt.

Just in case you haven’t put two and two together though or been spoilt, I’ll refrain from naming them here. Suffice to say that they fit perfectly though, with both the story and the notion of incorrect Doctors across this trilogy. The actor in question works brilliantly with Davison, and again, you would gladly see more of them in the future if possible. It’s also a welcome return to their character; a nice continuation of their story which adds some genuine sadness to proceedings. Yes, they’re doing the wrong thing, but you can see why and it is heartbreaking in many ways, as is the implication that they’ve tried to carry out this plan time and time again, forever caught in a loop of revenge and upset and rage.

The use of this character proves a smart one for this, the 200^th ‘main range’ release from Big Finish, as it ties in with one of their other most successful runs: a celebration, and rightly so, of some of the company’s most popular outputs.  It’s nice to see Big Finish approach this milestone with some subtly and restraint as it’s not something they’ve been doing as of late, and as such it makes for one of the most satisfying releases from the company for a long while.

Two hundred releases though: an impressive milestone.  Not every release is a gem, and there is a strong argument to be made that quality has suffered as of late due to the vast quantity of output, but the importance, and indeed at times genuine brilliance, of Big Finish is not something to be sniffed at. The world(s) of Doctor Who, and indeed my own world, would be far poorer without them.

Just think of three things they’ve given us off the top of your head: the Eighth Doctor’s adventures through time and space, the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher, the Companion Chronicles.  Impressive, and one can easily pluck out three more: Dalek Empire, Charlotte Pollard, the magnificent Jago and Litefoot series. And more still: Melanie Bush and the Sixth Doctor and Adric all being given stories arguably far better, and certainly far better received, than they had on screen. And then there is the array of brilliant writers: Eddie Robson and Joseph Lidster and Rob Shearman and Uma McCormack and Jacqueline Rayner and Andrew Smith and John Dorney and… and…

And one could go on.  This has not been an especially good run of stories, but The Secret History itself is a fantastic play that richly deserves the full marks it’s been afforded below.

The not-so-secret history of Doctor Who will sing highly of Big Finish in years to come, and rightly so.  Here’s to more adventures… 

Doctor Who Actress, Georgia Moffett is starring in an upcoming proudction of Joe Orton's play; What The Butler Saw.

The actress, who previously starred as The Doctor's Daughter in the 2008 episode of the same name, will be playing the role of Geraldine Barclay and will be starring alongside fellow Doctor Who actor, Tim McInnerny (Mr.Halpen in 4.3: Planet of the Ood), Samantha Bond (Ms.Wormwood in The Sarah Jane Adventures), Omid Djalili, Nick Hendrix and Jason Thorpe.

Previews for the production begin from 4th May 2012, and ticket prices begin at just £15.

Show Synopsis:

When psychoanalyst Dr Prentice instructs his new secretary to undress, little does he expect to be interrupted by his wife, her blackmailing lover, a meddling government inspector and an inquisitive policeman. But hiding a naked woman is the least of his worries, as libidos run riot, identities are swapped and social decorum is buried. Madness and mayhem mock morality, and laughter reigns supreme. What the Butler Saw is the last and arguably the finest work of one of this nation's most celebrated playwrights. A gloriously witty and shockingly hilarious comedy, you'd be mad to miss it!

A trailer for the production can be viewed below:

[youtube:IpdU8dyEPBg]

+  Book Tickets for What The Butler Saw via the Nimax Theatres website.

[Source: Vaudeville Theatre]

Doctor Who Script Editor, Author, Ex-DWM Editor and Ex-Big Finish Producer, Gary Russell will be taking part in a signing at Cardiff's Comic Guru store this Saturday.

The event, which kicks off from midday on Saturday 21st April, will be held at The Comic Guru, 13 Wood Street, St.David's House, Cardiff (Next to the Millennium Stadium).

The Comic Guru team have also recorded a 9-part video interview with Gary Russell, the first video of which can be viewed below:

[youtube:QcLHmF0zlso]

+  Check Out The Comic Guru website.

[Source: Andy Frankham-Allen]

BBC Worldwide invite you on a journey of a lifetime. Step inside the TARDIS this spring to take a starring role in your very own Doctor Who adventure at the Doctor Who Experience.

Opening in London on Sunday 20th February 2011 at London’s Olympia Two venue, the Doctor Who Experience promises to be an unmissable adventure featuring an exhilarating and unique walk-through experience and an awe-inspiring exhibition.

Visitors will be invited to step through a crack in time to become the Doctor’s companion on an adventure. Their challenge will be to reunite the Doctor with the TARDIS whilst fending off threats from a Dalek spaceship and Weeping Angels along the way, before exploring the wonders of Doctor Who at an out of this world exhibition.

The Doctor Who Experience allows visitors to join the Doctor on a journey through time and space, encountering some of the best-loved and scariest monsters from the hit international television series. Special scenes filmed with current Doctor Matt Smith combine with amazing special effects and the chance to enter a recreation of the modern TARDIS interior topped off by a breathtaking 3-D finale. The walk through experience is a fully contained interactive Doctor Who adventure, which puts the public at the heart of the action.

The exhibition element of the Doctor Who Experience will chart the success of the show from the first series in 1963 to the most recent episodes starring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Displays will include items never seen before including original costumes, the Tom Baker TARDIS police box and two authentic TARDIS sets from the eras of David Tennant and Peter Davison. The public will also be able to get up close and personal with iconic sets from recent series, including the Pandorica Box and Chair and confront numerous monsters including several generations of the Daleks and Cybermen as well as Silurians an Ice Warrior and a Zygon.

Steven Moffat, Executive Producer and show runner for the hit television series comments: "The Doctor Who Experience is a fan’s dream come true - a fully interactive adventure that will allow viewers of the show to get as close as possible to some of the scariest monsters from the series. It will also be the first time that Doctor Who artefacts from all the show's 47 year history - classic and new - will be on display together, many of them being seen for the first time. And never mind that, this is the day the Doctor teaches you how to fly the TARDIS through time and space, and takes you into battle with all his deadliest enemies in a brand new adventure. So steady your nerves and bring your own sofa - the Doctor needs you!"

Doctor Who star, Matt Smith, who has recorded a series of special, new scenes exclusive to the Doctor Who Experience comments: ‘The whole concept of the Doctor Who Experience, which will give fans a chance to star in their very own Doctor Who adventure, is massively exciting! I hope as many people as possible enjoy boarding the TARDIS next year to embark upon an exhilarating and sometimes terrifying adventure through time and space‘.

BBC Worldwide is pleased to announce that it is planning to relocate the Doctor Who Experience to a long term home in Cardiff in 2012.

The Doctor Who Experience promises to be an unmissable adventure for the whole family to enjoy.

The Doctor needs your help – are you brave enough to step in to the TARDIS and join the adventure?

Tickets go on sale at 9am on Thursday the 18th of November 2010.

Door Price / Advance peak / Advance off-peak

• Adult: £20.00 / £18.00 / £15.50

• Child (5 to 16): £15.50 /£14.00 /£12.50

• Under 5’s are free 

• Family of 4: £62.00 / £52.00 /£46.00

OPENING AT LONDON’S OLYMPIA IN FEBRUARY 2011

 Check Out the Doctor Who Experience website.

[Source: Taylor Herring]

DWO are thrilled to announce a specially recorded 'Will it Blend?' episode coming soon to both the DWO site and the Blendtec YouTube Channel.

Whilst on location filming our next documentary in Utah, the DWO team lined up a filming session with the Will it Blend team, which will see an object from Doctor Who blended in a forthcoming episode of the popular YouTube, viral sensation.

Fans wanting to find out more can view our teaser trailer below:

[youtube:atcDS8Cf_7M]

 Check Out some of the previous blends on the Will it Blend? YouTube Channel.

[Source: Doctor Who Online]

Radio Times has produced some limited edition Doctor Who lenticular posters that create a 3D effect.

There is a Tardis poster with Matt Smith and a Dalek poster. These collectable posters are only available through Radio Times. Image and printable form can be found to the right.

The price is just £15 for the pair, and includes FREE delivery. To order, call 0844 543 9812 or fill in the coupon to the right, and send it along with a cheque, made payable to Radio Times, to: Radio Times Doctor Who 3D poster, PO Box 4445, Colchester CO2 8GD. Offer closes on 12th November 2010.

[Source: Radio Times]

2|Entertain recently announced at the DWAS Time and Space convention in London, that the Day of the Daleks: Special Edition DVD is in production. Attendees were treated to a short promotional trailer for the release, which DWO have permission to show our visitors:

[youtube:0Rlss3Krt7g]

The release promises to have optional CGI effects as well as new Dalek voices, in addition some fantastic new features which will be announced in due course.

 Check Out the DWO YouTube Channel.

[Source: 2|Entertain]

The sixth series of Doctor Who will open with a two-parter set in the US, the BBC has announced.

Scenes will be filmed in the Utah desert for a story set in the late '60s in which the Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves on a secret summons to the Oval Office.

The episodes have been written by new series boss Steven Moffat and co-produced with BBC America.

Production starts in Cardiff this month with Matt Smith and Karen Gillen.

Alex Kingston will reprises her role as River Song.

Moffat said: "The Doctor has visited every weird and wonderful planet you can imagine, so he was bound get round to America eventually.

"And of course every Doctor Who fan will be jumping up and down and saying he's been in America before. But not for real, not on location - and not with a story like this one."

It has been announced previously that series six has been split into two blocks, with the first airing on BBC One in spring 2011 and the second block showing in autumn 2011.

** DWO will be flying out to Utah this Tuesday (long before filming begins) to record a short documentary in the Utah Desert itself. If you have any recommendations on places we should visit, email us: films@drwho-online.co.uk.

[Source: BBC News]

2|Entertain will be exclusively revealing a forthcoming DVD title at this weekend's Time & Space convention at London's Riverside Studios, hosted by our friends at the Doctor Who Appreciation Society.

To whet your appetite in the meantime, 2|Entertain have very kindly given DWO permission to air a teaser trailer to tie-in with the announcement, which we can include below:

[youtube:RIDJB7yA0cM]

Don't forget to swing by the DWO stand at the event as we will have a wide range of Doctor Who merchandise for sale, as well as opportunities for you to appear on our podcast which will be recorded on the day. Oh..and a FREE jelly baby for our first 100 customers!

 Book Your Tickets for the DWAS Time & Again Convention.

[Source: 2|Entertain]

DWM have sent DWO the magazine cover and details for the Series 5 Doctor Who Companion.

The Doctor Who Companion - The Eleventh Doctor: Volume 1

Your complete guide to the award-winning BBC One series!

Written and researched by Andrew Pixley.

2010 was a landmark year for Doctor Who. Matt Smith and Karen Gillan appeared on television as the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond for the first time, in a series of incredible adventures. From the Doctor's crash landing in sleepy Leadworth, through to his arrival at Amy's wedding in a rebooted universe, the last of the Time Lords faced many monsters during the course of his travels, including Weeping Angels, Silurians, Autons, Cybermen, Smilers, Venetian Vampires, Prisoner Zero... and, of course, the Daleks!

Now, Doctor Who Magazine takes you behind the scenes of the Eleventh Doctor's first six episodes with an in-depth episode guide – including original storylines, deleted scenes, media appearances, ratings information and thousands of facts about the day-to-day life of the making of Doctor Who – all illustrated with gorgeous, never-before-seen photographs. This collectors' edition examines The Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below, Victory of the Daleks, The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, and The Vampires of Venice, as well as the specially-made 3D cinema trailer.

This is your essential guide to worlds of Doctor Who.

Get ready to discover a wealth of information – but watch out for the cracks...

 The Doctor Who Companion - The Eleventh Doctor: Volume 1 is Out Now, priced £6.99.

 Buy Now at CompareTheDalek.com.

[Source: Doctor Who Magazine]