Category: News

The team behind the recent animation of The Power of the Daleks has been commissioned to animate Shada, the legendary “lost” Fourth Doctor story.

Shada has a long and complicated history in Doctor Who circles. Initially planned to end the seventeenth season of the programme, the scripts were completed by then-script editor Douglas Adams, now best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Unfortunately, due to a strike at the BBC in November 1979, the final studio recording sessions were cancelled, and the story was never completed.

BBC Worldwide released the story on VHS in 1992, with Tom Baker providing linking material to camera for the missing scenes. A full-length web version, using basic Flash animation and a new cast lead by Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, was produced to celebrate Doctor Who’s 40th anniversary in 2003.

A novelisation was published in 2012, while 2013 saw not only a remastered edition of the VHS release on DVD but also an unofficial fan version, using animation to fill in the missing scenes. Whilst a number of the original cast re-voiced their parts, the role of the Fourth Doctor was recast.

Now, thirty-eight years after it was originally filmed, BBC Worldwide is releasing a new official version of Shada. This will combine the original, remastered footage with new colour animation. The animation will feature newly recorded dialogue by the original cast, including Tom Baker as the Doctor and Lalla Ward as Romana.

Australian release dates are yet to be announced.

To whet your appetite for the new version, check out a teaser trailer below:

The DWCA is sad to report on the passing of Trevor Martin.

Martin first appeared in Doctor Who, playing a Time Lord in the Second Doctor story The War Games. However, he is probably best known as playing the Doctor in a stage play: Doctor Who and the Daleks in the Seven Keys to Doomsday.

The play, written by Terrance Dicks, was set after the regeneration of the Third Doctor, with Martin playing an alternative version of the Fourth Doctor. Tom Baker made his TV debut whilst the play was running.

In 2008, Big Finish adapted the play for audio, and Martin returned to the role.

Martin was 87.

Issue 236 is hot off the presses and on its way to DWCA Members!

This bumper packed edition of the Doctor Who Club of Australia’s magazine contains an interview with Joshua Campbell, who works at Planet 55 Studios and was involved with the animations of The Reign of Terror, The Tenth Planet and The Moonbase. There’s also a tribute to Rosemary Howe, who was instrumental in getting the club up and running. We also continue our reviews of episodes from Series 10 and much, much more.

We also want to make special mention of Katie Yu’s amazing artwork for the story Origami, written by Darran Jordan. We accidently omitted crediting her for the illustrations provided for this story. We’re sorry Katie!

If you’re not already a member, stop missing out on this publication and other fine things the DWCA does, and sign up today!

http://dwca.org.au/membership

Big Finish Productions have confirmed that they are set to release a new volume of audio adventures featuring David Bradley returning to play the First Doctor.

Joining Bradley will be his co-stars from An Adventure in Space and Time, reprising their roles as the iconic first TARDIS team: Jamie Glover (Elizabeth, Waterloo Road, Holby City) plays Ian Chesterton, Jemma Powell (Alice in Wonderland, Angel, Foyle’s War) plays Barbara Wright, and Claudia Grant (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) plays Susan – the Doctor’s granddaughter and the original ‘Unearthly Child’.

Powell currently plays Barbara in Big Finish’s Early Adventures range.

Executive Producer Nicholas Briggs is quoted as saying:

“What’s fascinating about the cast and their performances is that they’re not impersonating William Hartnell and his TARDIS crew. They’re playing those parts as written in the scripts. No one can replace the brilliance of those original performances. What we’re presenting here is a kind of reinvention of that era, completely in the spirit of the original. They are new but entirely faithful interpretations of these characters.”

Volume 1 of these adventures will be available from the DWCA in early 2018 and will feature:

1.1 The Destination Wars by Matt Fitton
1.2 The Great White Hurricane by Guy Adams

Later in the year, Volume 2 will consist of:

2.1 The Invention of Death by John Dorney
2.2 The Barbarians and the Samurai by Andrew Smith

Also in these adventures, the First Doctor will encounter his greatest foe, with the first incarnation of the Master to be played by James Dreyfus.

Overnight, Class has been officially cancelled by the BBC.

This is confirmation from the BBC, after Patrick Ness posted in June that he would not be writing any more episodes.

The BBC3 controller,  Damian Kavanagh has been quoted as saying:

“No, [we’re not bringing it back]. There was nothing wrong with it – I thought Patrick did a great job, he explored an amazing world.

In honesty, it just didn’t really land for us on BBC Three. Things sometimes don’t, and I’ve got to make decisions about what we’re going to do from a drama point of view.

“There’s always times when you do something and you have to decide that it’s not going to come back. Class is just one of those things.”

Ness, added on Twitter

“I’m not an unopinionated man, but all I’ll say re the Class news is how proud I am of that show & how lucky I am to have had the opportunity

What a great experience to make it. And SUCH a great cast. And thank you for all the love for it, too! Would that things were different…”

Over the weekend, at San Diego Comic Con, lots of details were dropped about this years Christmas special.

The special, entitled Twice Upon a time will see Peter Capaladi’s Twelfth Doctor team up with the First Doctor played by David Bradley.

There is also the return of Bill Potts, played again by Pearl Mackie.  Doctor Who writer and actor Mark Gatiss will also return to the show playing a character known as ‘The Captain’ at this point.

To view the trailer that was shown, click below!

It is with sorrow, that we have to report the passing of Deborah Watling.

Watling first joined Doctor Who in 1967, playing the second Doctor’s companion Victoria Waterfield. She, along with Frazer Hines (Jamie) would battle along with the Doctor, Cybermen, Daleks, Ice Warriors and of course, the Yeti.

She was born on the 2nd of January 1948.

It is well known that the team of Troughton, Watling, and Hines got on extremely well with Watling often the butt of the boys jokes. Many of her stories have been wiped since transmission, and the return of two to the archive a few years ago, The Enemy of the World and most of The Web of Fear brought her considerable delight.

She left Doctor Who in April 1968, at the end of Fury from the Deep.

She briefly returned to the character of Victoria in 1993, for the Children In Need skit, Dimensions in Time before recreating Victoria in a number of audio plays for Big Finish.

Deborah Watling was diagnosed with lung cancer six weeks ago. She was 69.

As per the end of The Doctor Falls we saw that the first Doctor (played by David Bradley) has returned to team up with the twelth Doctor in his final story before his regeneration.

The BBC has released the following promotional image:

This isn’t Bradley’s first time in Doctor Who, or indeed playing the first Doctor. He was previously in season seven’s Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and he also played the Doctor/William Hartnell in the Docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time

The Christmas special is as yet untitled.