Category: News

Irish-based roleplaying game developers Cubicle 7 have announced the upcoming release of the Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition.

The multi award winning team behind Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Roleplaying Game, Warhammer 40,000 Wrath and Glory Roleplaying Game and the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fourth Edition, announced the new edition on Monday.

Established in 2007 they have grown organically and now have relationships with some of the most-loved brands in fantasy and a team of more than 15.

In making the announcement, the team also shared the cover image designed by renowned digital artist Will Brooks, whose Doctor Who work has been used by Big Finish and Titan Comics.
A spokesman for Cubicle 7 said the award-winning Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game had regenerated into a new Second Edition that was now “faster, easier, and even more exciting”.

“This book presents all the rules and background you need to voyage across space and time with the Doctor, or as new characters experiencing brand new epic adventures.”

The Core rulebook includes: Complete character creation rules to allowing players to bring to life a new time travelling adventurer to explore space and time aboard the TARDIS. Players have the chance to be companions to the Doctor or even a new Time Lord, Time Agents or investigators or defenders of Earth.

The rules also include a complete revised set of rules for the game and advice for
Gamemasters old and new as well as an expansive look at the history of the Universe, detailing many of the aliens and creatures the Doctor has encountered over the years.

Find out exactly what is included in the core rulebook here: https://bit.ly/2TZJvdw.

It seems being a Doctor Who fan makes you a hot commodity.

Not only are “nerds” trendy and Geek is the new cool these days but it seems our members are in demand particularly if you are a putting together a television series.

In the space of just a few days the Doctor Who Club of Australia received two requests from production companies looking for people to take part in their programs.

And they were polar opposites with the first request coming from Endemol Shine – who were casting Beauty and The Beast and just a few days later the BBC approached us for interest in Mastermind.

“The timing was quite bizarre from Mastermind to Beauty and the Geek,” Casting Supervisor, Mike Searle from Endemol said.

“We produce quite a lot of shows at Endemol and the more and more shows we produce, the more and more and people that we cast the more we realise that it is actually up to us going to people who haven’t applied for these shows, which often give you the best cast,” he explained.

“We always have a list of name every single show – the same people apply – and often the people who don’t think they want to be on the show or don’t actively go out looking are the most natural and that’s what people want to see on the screen.

“When the first reaction by someone is “I don’t know about that – I’ve never thought about it – it’s a good thing because if they have thought about it probably for the wrong reason.”

So why did these two groups specifically reach out to the Doctor who club?

Mastermind Casting AP Alisha Davies said it was all about size and finding people who were passionate about their favourite subject to appear in series three of the SBS program.

“We decided to contact the Doctor Who society as it has a large fanbase and we would love to have members of your society apply for the show,” she said.

“We found the Doctor Who society through Google search.

“We are looking for fun and vibrant contenders who passionate about their subject and have a good level of general knowledge.  So whether your subject is Picasso or Potter, Basketball or Brazil – we’d love to hear from you!

“Mastermind is returning for its third series, and it’s great- everyone has so much fun when they come to the studio to film.

“We are filming between January-March 2021, the air dates are unconfirmed right now, but will air sometime in 2021.

“We would love to hear from everyone from across Australia. We are hoping the borders will open soon and we can have contenders from all states and territories.”

Entry time for the Channel 9 series Beauty and the Geek is closing very soon and Mike is hoping that our members would either be interested or would know someone who would be.

“There is not one type of person we’re looking for – so the cast isn’t going to be made up of all of the same kids of people,” he said. “So we’re kind of focusing our research on reaching to various different groups, various different organisations that I guess still come under that  in quotations “geek sub-culture” and we Doctor Who aligned perfectly with that. We’d love to find someone who knows everything there is about Doctor Who that can come on and teach these beauties a thing or two about that.

“I guess the good thing about Beauty and the Geek is that it’s a fun show, family friendly and the content isn’t based upon the drama. There are shows out there on TV at the moment which kind of need people not to get on – they need that to feed the content where this show is a fun show – we don’t need any drama. It’s about both the Beauties and the Geeks coming away with something they didn’t have before. So we’re hoping the Beauties use their confidents and their charisma and charm to pass that on to some of the geeks and equally we’re wanting the Geeks to bring some of their knowledge and facts – because they look at the world in such different ways, we’re trying to make sure both groups come away with something from the experiments.”

The Geeks don’t have male – they were asking everyone to apply. He said the boundaries are thin between both sides and some people who apply might fall into both.

“We áre encouraging everyone to apply and then through the casting process that’s when we would decide what side will fall on,” he said.

“Eighteen will be the youngest and there’s not a hard cut off, it’s not a love show, but we’re hoping they will form connections so because of that we don’t want the age range to be too wide so I guess the sweet spot is above 18 to around the 30 mark but if they’re a little bit over 30 it’s still doable.

”We’re looking for the weird and wonderful – the quirky.”

For Beauty and the Geek – More details, and the opportunity to apply online if they’d prefer, at www.BATGcasting.com.au )

If you want to take part in Mastermind visit: https://go.mycastingnet.com/Apply/Show/Mastermind.

• You must be an Australian citizen or permanent resident (have the right to live and work in Australia).
• Are at least 18 years of age at the time of applying.

DWCA Publishing is back in action, following some unfortunate COVID-19 delays, with Data Extract #246 shipping next week. This latest release kicks off the celebrations for the publication’s 40th anniversary. It was November 1980 when a two-page newsletter was sent to Australian fans, leading with the shocking headline “Tom Baker Quits!”. Not even called Data Extract yet, headlined instead simply as the Australasian Doctor Who Newsletter, none could have known it would still be going strong four decades later. In fact, creator Dallas Jones started the premier editorial with the words: “This will be my first and probably last editorial”. Far from prophetic, the journey from 1980 to 2020 has seen the publication grow into a fully-fledged magazine and become the flagship publication for the DWCA.

This latest issue starts the countdown to #249, which will coincide with the release of the first issue 40 years earlier. Over the next four issues there will be various features and articles to celebrate, including a four-part series kicking off in #246 that counts down the publication history decade by decade. Artist Jason Towers will also be providing a full-colour serialised comic telling the true story of what happened to Colin Baker when the club forced him to climb the Harbour Bridge during his Whovention visit. Issue #246 has interviews with Whovians host Rove McManus and Doctor Who comic artist Stewart McKenny, followed by future issues featuring Doctor Who Brand Manager Edward Russell, a behind the scenes look at the Lockdown Season, news, reviews and the latest releases. Plus, the next four issues are running a new four-part serialised fiction piece titled War of the Valeyard. Ever wondered where the Valeyard came from or what he did during the Time War? Well, wonder no more as shocking answers are revealed about everyone’s favourite dark-side amalgamation. Plus, we road-test the strangest fan conspiracy theories with the Boffin in Theoretically Speaking, report on the latest local fan news with Regional Transmissions and dredge the lake of public opinion for new points of discussion and digression in the Junkyard.

Issue #246 starts the celebrations with designer Alan Russell’s cover reinterpreting the classic cover art of Chris Hale from DE’s milestone 200th issue. Plus a look at the history of Doctor Who in electronic gaming from Gemma Styles, a dive into the psychology of the Master by Seth Lukas Hynes and Tim Darby’s Countdown!

Data Extract is published exclusively for DWCA club members, so the only way to ensure you get a copy is to become a card-carrying member and join/subscribe today!

That’s far from the end of the celebratory releases from DWCA Publishing this year though, with numerous new releases currently in the works, some highlights of which are included below…

The Adventures of Eleanor Chaplette

The Eleanor saga continues from the pages of Data Extract (as collected in Zerinza Volume 4) in a series of new novels, the first of which is Trash Island by Dom Kelly. Twenty years after the attempted darkness invasion of Atlantis, Eleanor is still saving people from across time and space. While rescuing the doomed Chinese sailors of the Whitebelly however, she comes across something unexpected, an island of refuse displaced in time and space and laced with human skeletons. The search for answers will lead her across the stars and over acidic oceans to the corporate island of Polystrata and a world with no future!

Who’s Your Own Adventure

This is no ordinary book! Within these pages you must make the decisions that guide the story. You might choose to turn left and end up saving the world or instead turn right and create an alternate reality where everything falls apart – the choices will be yours! The Choose Your Own Adventure format of multiple-choice narrative is blended with the history of Doctor Who in this new series of books, that allow you to step into the real life history of your favourite show and experience it as never before. The first book delves into the little-known history of the Australian protest to stop the national broadcaster from dropping Doctor Who from its schedule. The protest ensured the show continued in Australia and was the event that formed the Doctor Who Club of Australia. Or did it? Every choice you make as reader will have a consequence and the very future of Doctor Who itself may be changed forever if you stray too far down the wrong path!

Zerinza Volume 5

With its usual eclectic mix of articles, interviews and fiction, the next volume of Zerinza will continue to deliver exciting long-form written pieces on Doctor Who.

Digital Comics

The DWCA will also be releasing another digital comic, following in the tradition of past comic specials Liberation from the Daleks, Wrath of the Cyber-Spider and Pyramids of Mars. The next comic special will feature Doctor Who stories alongside true tales of fandom, all brought to life in comic book format with stunning art from Australia’s best Whovian artists.

DWCA Publications are produced for club members, so the best way to ensure you get a copy is to join the club today!

And They’re Back!

Shut down at the height of the pandemic in the UK, Big Finish have returned to shipping collector’s edition CDs and box sets to clear the backlog of orders. Big Finish warehouse staff returned to work on June 8 – with the company taking steps to protect workers including providing safety equipment and a regular schedule of deep cleaning. Big Finish company chairman Jason Haigh-Ellery thanked customers for their patience.

“Our listeners have been extremely patient over the past three months, while our warehouse staff have been furloughed, and as we operated a digital-first release schedule,” he said. “I would like to thank all our customers for their understanding during this time; we really couldn’t have done it without you. We are now delighted to be in a position to begin shipping the orders for physical products we have taken since 24 March. The team has put procedures in place to ensure the continued safety of our staff. However, we naturally have a lot of pending orders to work through, and our warehouse is not yet back to full capacity, so we ask that customers continue to bear with us as we start to clear the backlog. To make it fair for everyone, outstanding orders for collector’s edition CDs and box sets will be fulfilled on a ‘per month’ basis; so, orders placed in April will be batched up and mailed out first, followed by those placed in May and June. Please note we are still awaiting the delivery of some stock from our pressing plant and we cannot guarantee the status of local mail or postal services. We expect there to be continued delays, particularly for overseas customers.”

The DWCA Shop will be stocking all the latest releases as they become available. Make sure you check out the shop section of this website regularly to keep up with the latest Big Finish releases as they arrive from the UK.

The new Doctor Who: The Thirteeth Doctor comic has a new-look for a good cause.

Brisbane Comic store Comics Etc have asked well-known local artist Stewart McKenny to put his spin on the issue – producing an exclusive variant cover for their store.

Limited to 500 copies world-wide the comic will support the NSW RFS as they battle with battle the on-going bushfire crisis.

It is the second time comic store owner James Jagic has arranged for McKenny to produce a variant cover. Last year McKenny supplied an alternate image for the landmark #1000 issue of Detective Comics – the longest running, continuing published comic book in the US.

The new collaboration is available only through Comics Etc, in Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, and features David Tennant with a trio of Weeping Angels. The comic is a cross-over with current Doctor Jodie Whittaker (who features on the main cover) and Tennant.

For Mckenny, one of Australia’s most prolifically published comic book artists and illustrators and a darling of the Supanova Popculture Conventions artists, it’s a bit of a dream come true.

“I can’t tell you how excited I was to be asked to draw this cover – I’ve been a huge fan of Doctor Who ever since I was a kid, and the opportunity to create official Doctor Who artwork is something I have always wanted,” he gushed.

“Tom Baker was my first Doctor, and I’ve been an avid fan of the show ever since.

“We’re also hoping that the money donated as a result of the sales of this comic will, in some way, make a difference, and bring some hope to our country during this desperate time – after all, what is Doctor Who if not a symbol of hope?”

Comics Etc. is the last remaining comic book store in the Brisbane city centre, and has always been a major supporter of the local arts community.

Stewart McKenny has worked for major publishers both in Australia and in the US, including Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, IDW and Titan Publishing. His credits include artwork for Star Wars: Clones Wars Adventures and Batman: The Brave & The Bold. He has also worked on DC Super Friends, Captain America, My Little Pony and Star Wars Tales.

And they’re baaaack – Whovian’s returns to the ABC on January 9.

Host Rove McManus made the announcement on his Twitter earlier this week.

“We can confirm times for the return of #WhoviansAU *deep breath*,” he said

“Join us at 8:55pm on Thursday 9 January because ep 2 of #DoctorWho drops on iview Monday 6 January at approx. 7am (AEDT) and airs at 8pm on Thursday 9 January on @ABCTV””

Rove and his team of super fans are also back, with Whovians, the show that asks the what, where and why of Who.

Airing Thursday nights after the ABC’s broadcast of Doctor Who, Rove will be joined again by Tegan Higginbotham, Steven O’Donnell, Justin Hamilton and guests.

Filmed in front of a live studio audience, the 12th series of Doctor Who offers a galaxy of things for Rove and the panel to dissect, delve into and celebrate.

Doctor Who fans in Australia now have twice as many reasons to rejoice as 2020 dawns – a new season with Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor launches on New Year’s Day, followed soon after on the 9th of January by an all new season of fan show Whovians! Host Rove McManus shared the news with a new video, promising more fun to keep the Doctor Who love rolling for as long as possible.

Since its launch in 2017 Whovians has seen the arrival of Bill Potts, the departure of Peter Capaldi and the advent of the first female Doctor, all with commentary landing firmly on the side of fun and laughter as Rove McManus and his team of “super fans” find new ways to look at a show that truly is bigger on the inside.  The show’s head researcher, actor and comedian Patrick Magee, reflected on the show’s humble beginnings, recalling: “We had our first rehearsal, we watched Hell Bent, and we realised that everyone in it was really on board, everyone had a different role to play. So you had Bajo, who was just very strangely excited by weird things; Tegan was really good at getting jokes that would appeal to non-Doctor Who fans, which was really important; Adam was great with his theories and stuff; and Rove was great at keeping them all together. So originally I liked the idea – I thought it would be a fantastic thing for me to do, and I was really excited to be part of it – but I wasn’t sure how well it would go. And then the first episode went out, and it just went gangbusters. We were trending on Twitter, it was great.”

Actor, comedian and panellist Adam Richard shared the joys and horrors of getting to see the latest episodes before anyone else, recalling: “We would get a copy of the episode usually about a week, a week and a half before. That became less and less as we went on. Like, the copy of the final Season 10 episode that we saw had no effects in it. There were just very disgruntled-looking stagehands holding green screens, while Bill the Cyberman is crying over the Doctor’s body and a car goes by in the background. That makes it very hard to get emotionally involved. Also, the music wasn’t finished yet, so they just had music from The Dark Knight. And the final scene, which obviously was from the Christmas special, had only been delivered the day before. So there was a person standing next to a snow machine in the shot.”

The real joy of Whovians though comes from watching a group of friends nerding out over a shared love. As Adam Richard himself remembered of past seasons: “We’d always kind of geeked out. Back then, Rove was way into wrestling. We’d go out to lunch, and we’d be in a food court somewhere, and he would just rip open these wrestling toy packets and start making them fight. He’s always been deeply, deeply nerdy. He doesn’t care about the sanctity of the packaging – he likes to play with the toys, rather than keep them in there. And before this even came up, he’d started listening to the Big Finish audios, which I’m obsessed with. So we’ve always had fairly nerdy conversations about all sorts of stuff.”

Here’s to more geeking out and irreverent commentary on all things Whoniverse related when Whovians returns in 2020!

Fury From The Deep is the latest missing Patrick Troughton story to receive the animated treatment and will be released next year.

BBC Studios made the announcement on the Animations Panel at the London Comic Con at the weekend and a teaser has since gone up on the Doctor Who YouTube Channel.

All six missing episodes of Fury from the Deep, the penultimate adventure from season five, will be animated in high definition in both colour and black and white. The release will also include the surviving clips from the serial, a new Making-Of, and other features still to be announced.

The story will be released on DVD and Blu-ray (including as a steelbook edition) next year and follows on from The Faceless Ones announced earlier this year, which will also be released in 2020.

This year’s Adelaide and Brisbane Supanova Pop culture conventions are set to have a little flavor of Who to them with the announcement that Mark Strickson is coming for both events.

Strickson, who played Fifth Doctor companion Vislor Turlough in the 80s, is set to join Eleventh Doctor companion Canton Delaware (Mark Sheppard- who told the DWCA this week that two episodes and travelling in the TARDIS makes him a companion).

The duo joins the likes of pop culture icons John Travolta and Jason Isaacs for the conventions to be held at the Adelaide Showground November 2-3 and the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, November 8-10.

Unique in so many ways, this episode of Doctor Who has been missing from the BBC archives for years, with fans trying very hard to plug the gap. The DWCA tried to reconstruct it as text in their Zerinza special back in 1980, when Rosemary Howe novelised it as part of her adaptation of The Daleks’ Masterplan. In 1989 John Peel crafted an official Target novelisation, incorporating it into his two novel adaptation of The Daleks’ Masterplan.

In 2000 the amateur video production company Loose Cannon created their own reconstruction of the episode using the audio soundtrack along with available images. The Loose Cannon reconstruction was also supplemented by a specially filmed introduction by the original production’s lead actor Edward de Souza, along with an interview with him and reunited cast members Jeremy Young and Barry Jackson. In 2003 they even returned to this territory by creating a reconstruction (or rather construction) of a touted but never made classic, Terry Nation’s The Destroyers. Based on Nation’s pitch for a Dalek spin-off show, which was proposed following Mission to the Unknown, the Loose Cannon featurette and mini-construction were both narrated by Edward de Souza.

Then in 2010 animator David Busch, production manager for Adult Swim’s Metalocalpse and producer on Marvel’s Black Panther cartoon series, amongst other things, was commissioned by fan Ian Levine to produce an animated reconstruction of the episode. “From start to finish, the project took about eight months to complete and deliver,” Busch stated. “It was produced and composed in 16×9 widescreen HD, although since Ian preferred to see it in the 4×3 ratio that the original episode would have been made in, the version I sent to him was cropped on either side… I am very proud of the finished episode, and I cannot give enough praise to the team of artists who worked on it with me.”

The original episode itself was never screened in Australia, as the ABC deemed it too violent, and not without reason. It is a bleak tale of terror in the jungle, at the end of which the Daleks (without the Doctor there to challenge them) appear to have won. It has remained a long sought after treasure, lost in time but never forgotten, so it was only a matter of time before someone else found a way to bring it back to life. This latest incarnation is something quite unique though, as a team of students, graduates and staff from the University of Central Lancashire, led by Andrew Ireland, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Digital and Creative Industries there, remade the entire episode from scratch, utilising the same techniques that would have been used during the filming of the original story to recreate the episode as faithfully as possible.

The production caught the attention of a number of Doctor Who luminaries including actor Nicholas Briggs, who provided the Dalek voices for the production, as well as actors Peter Purves (who played classic companion Steven Taylor) and Edward de Souza, who dropped by the set during the filming of this new production. It also caught the attention of the BBC, who will be releasing the reconstruction through the official Doctor Who YouTube channel, exactly 54 years after it was first screened in the UK. Make sure you tune in at 5.50 pm (UK time) on 9 October to see it. “I hope audiences around the world can imagine that it’s tea time on the 9 October 1965 as they rather excitingly watch a black and white episode of Doctor Who premiere on their television sets, mobile phones and tablets,” stated Luke Spillane, Digital Publishing Manager for Doctor Who at BBC Studios. No doubt fans worldwide will all be doing exactly that!

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