Saturday 21 May 2022

Zygon Outer-Space Diaries!

If you haven't already, check out Zygon Outer-Space Diaries, available HERE, with proceeds going to Cancer Research UK.

It's a gorgeous hardback book in the style of 1970s Doctor Who annuals, with almost 200 pages of Zygon stories (both text & comic), artwork, games, features, and puzzles!

Just to give you an idea of what a labour of love and titanic effort the book has been by Paul Cooke - because he's too modest to blow his own trumpet! - Paul first mentioned his idea to put this together to me in October of 2017(!)

It's never been a secret that Terror of the Zygons is Paul's favourite Doctor Who story, so I always knew he was going to pull off something special, but seeing what he's achieved with the book has totally blown me away.

Obviously, being a contributor, I'm a bit biased! But I can hand-on-heart say that the finished product is such a super high quality collection of work (plus my scribblings!) that if you're a fan of Doctor Who and the Zygons you absolutely won't be disappointed. 

Paul's really done the Zygons justice and then some, marshalling top drawer talent to flesh out a whole history, culture, and mythology for the alien shapeshifters and their fearsome cyborg, the Skarasen.

The book is also a beautiful love letter to the '70s Doctor Who World annuals, with stories, art, puzzles, games, fact files, and adverts evoking the style and feel of those books in a way that's so alive and joyful that it's anything but a mere exercise in nostalgia. Every page has so much thought and detail put into it, it repays countless re-reads. Special shout out on that front to Andrew-Mark Thompson's wonderful pieces that smuggle in so many wicked jokes while you're too busy marvelling over his super artwork!

In the now distant past I had aspirations to be a novelist and I was halfway decent at drawing but I never really put the hours in through a combination of laziness and just being tired enough from a 9-5 day job. Seriously, artists and writers, I don't know how you do it.

So it was quite a privilege to be asked to contribute to this, especially knowing some of the other names involved! Paul obviously knows I like to dabble, I think he'd caught a few bits and pieces I'd done for a mate's fanzine and asked if I'd have a stab at a story.

Obviously I bit his hand off! Without giving away any secrets, Paul's brief gave us an overview of the over-arching themes for the book & a choice of writing a story that fit into 1 of 3 areas: (1) legends of the past (2) struggles within the fleet (3) away missions. (That's a massive over-simplification, but I don't want to give too much away!)

I fancied the legends option, and Paul was really patient and helpful giving guidance and answering questions about the kind of look and feel he was imagining, the touchstones and influences, massive, crucial details really nailed down and crystallized.

I bashed together the rough outline (including the title of "The Curse Breaker's Tale", which I had right from the start) in a few days, and luckily Paul liked it enough (subject to a few tweaks!) to give the green light!

I definitely wanted to tap into that 40s/50s Flash Gordon style for the actual adventure, so the whole 'different world' underwater setting, with the 'fight a big monster in a gladiator pit' was very much that.

The framing narration is supposed to evoke a more mystical, mythic, vibe that (hopefully!) had more in common with Beowulf and the Herne the Hunter stuff in Richard Carpenter's Robin of Sherwood...

...but very much narrated by a Zygon who is basically John Hurt in Jim Henson's "The Storyteller" series, so you should try to imagine his voice when reading!

The underwater kingdom allowed me to use an idea I'd already had floating around in the back of my mind for quite a while, which was to have an offshoot of the race of Zygons we all know and love: Sea Zygons!

Obviously this is a riff on the Sea Devils being the aquatic cousins of the Silurians, so not all that original, and the Zygons were supposed to be native to a more aquatic world already (at least in Terror of the Zygons their plan is to melt the Earth's polar icecaps to raise the planet's temperature and create a world of lakelands), but this was for a truly underwater kingdom, where the Zygons would have evolved slightly differently.

So the "Sea Zygons" are basically a cross between the Zygons we know and a Great White Shark. Here's my original concept drawing for the Zygon goddess of death, Helka:

The description from the story is as follows:

"At first glance, the Zygons of the under-realm could pass for blue-green hued counterparts of their orange-red skinned land and marsh dwelling cousins, or their slate-black mountain relations. On closer examination, however, the conditions of the hellish depths had twisted their forms to be more savage and cruel. Aside from the dorsal fin at their backs, their mouths were filled with row upon row of serrated hooks. In truth it was the mouth of a shark, and like a shark, their nostrils seemed to be constantly sniffing out for the merest particle of blood, for their next kill. The skin around their eye-sockets and cheekbones had crusted around into a stony-looking mask that sat on their faces like a spiny crab formed of bone. Barnacles ran down the lines of their arms and legs and congested around their thick shoulders and necks, which were gashed by the slits of blood red gills."

Having many writers and artists to wrangle Paul was trying to build in fairly long deadlines, I think, so while we vaguely aiming for around Xmas time, we'd talked about maybe going as far as February. So I managed to get the story done and back to him in, er, February.

So now I just had to hope Paul liked what I'd come up with! Luckily he did, and I must have done something right, because he then asked me to have a go at a follow up...! But as they say, that’s a tale for another time!


Dave

Wednesday 4 August 2021

Who's Next

"Well," as the Brigadier once said, "here we go again..."


Yes, it's that time again. Doctor Who will shortly be undergoing one of its periodic upheavals, both in front of and behind the cameras at the same time.

On Thursday 29th July 2021, just four days after announcing the format of its 13th Series and releasing a teaser-style trailer alongside a pre-recorded panel interview for Comic-Con 2021, the BBC announced not only that Jodie Whittaker would be bowing out with the 3rd of 3 'Specials', but that showrunner Chris Chibnall would also be leaving at the same time.

Hence, as with David Tennant and Russell T. Davies in 2009, and with Peter Capaldi and Steven Moffat in 2017, there'll be another changing of the guard before Doctor Who returns in time for its 60th anniversary in 2023.

Unlike with other shows, however, this changeover is not actually indicative of, nor the cause of, any sort of crisis. It's a feature, not a bug, and one that's baked in to the format of the continuing series, precisely so that the show can undergo a natural renewal and soft reboot every few years. Each new iteration is tasked not just with giving the show a fresh lick of paint, but with restating and redefining the tone and content of the show for the next few years.

The biggest and most obvious change, at least in front of the cameras, is of course in the recasting of the show's main character. Each new actor is cast to be as unlike their predecessor as they were from theirs.

Each such change is always accompanied by a frenzied flurry of speculative guesses and suggestions, often with the same few names circling the rumour mill, even when the actors in question never end up in the role, and in many cases, were never likely to.

Fan choices for the actor to play the 14th Doctor are all depressingly predictable, unimaginative and unrealistic, especially the choices that are rooted in zeitgeisty point-scoring, which are equally as bad as the arse-clenchingly trad choices their champions decry.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge is on Netflix money, so's Michaela Coel (who is also in Marvel/Disney's orbit). Richard Ayoade's range stretches as far as playing Richard Ayoade (truly the Paul Daniels of casting picks du jour). Gemma Whelan, Kelly MacDonald and Vicky McClure are all fine actors, but no more than a stone's throw from the outgoing Doctor.

Jo Martin's 'fugitive Doctor' may be crying out for more screen time before the Chibnall era is out, but give her the job full time and where's your bold new era, distinct from the last, free to enjoy the inherent soft reboot that each behind the scenes changing of the guard could - and should - bring?

For the sake of the show, we have to 'kill our darlings' and that means we have to let go of the fugitive Doctor when the 13th Doctor and her showrunner leave. If Chibnall were staying, maybe Jo Martin would be in with a shout, but he's not staying. Fact is, you don't bring in a fresh new production team and shackle them to their predecessor's leftovers.

Here we've hit on why it's pretty impossible - and therefore pointless - at this stage to meaningfully suggest who should or could be the next Doctor: we have no idea who the next showrunner, or showrunners, will be. We don't even know whether the same production team structure would be used.

It may be more likely that the BBC would want a Lead Writer/Executive Producer split instead of putting all their eggs in the basket of working one person into the ground.

Frankly we don't even know who they'd be working for.

Co-Production isn't a dirty word

Far too many Doctor Who fans, divorced from the realities of modern TV production and consumption, have a reactionary and Pavlovian aversion to the merest suggestion of any sort of co-production arrangement.

Whilst this is far from being the only way to produce Doctor Who, and is by no means without its drawbacks and challenges, it's also probably inevitable (all drama production must be outsourced by 2027 under latest Charter renewal edicts, and it's not clear that just using BBC Studios will necessarily cut it) and it's also probably the only answer to some otherwise insurmountable problems in terms of budget.

So without wishing to go with a "if not now, then when?" argument (🤮), the timing of the show's latest regeneration may present an opportunity that it would be negligent to ignore. At least, if the BBC fail to make plans for a smooth transition, another hiatus, possibly a lengthy one, could be a very real possibility as their funds are whittled away by a UK Government determined to do them down.


The most common objections are that "giving" the show to a streaming platform such as Netflix will mean:

1. It gets cancelled after one or two series, never to return.

2. It'll be made by (gasp) Americans, or at least people who don't 'get' the show.

3. It's a betrayal of licence fee payers / will breach the BBC's charter.

Firstly, let's correct the entire premise there. There's never been any suggestion of selling off the whole kit and caboodle. That's just not what co-production means.

Co-production would mean another investor stumping up the cash to get the show made, for a return on their investment, if only in broadcast rights.

Bear in mind this doesn't even necessitate the actual hands-on making of the show to go outwith BBC Studios (at least at this stage), though that's possible too.

There are in fact clear precedents for this, with the likes of Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman's Good Omens being a co-production between BBC Studios, Amazon Studios and others, and His Dark Materials being made by Jane Tranter & Julie Gardner's Bad Wolf Productions with New Line Productions (a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment) for the BBC and HBO.


So let's look at those objections -

1. A quick cancellation

Whilst this may happen quite commonly at Netflix, there's no real reason to fear that that would really be likely if the co-funder is HBO or Amazon. The latter has just shelled out $465m for one series of their Lord of the Rings show, and acquired MGM Studios for $8.45bn, so they're not short of a few bob and like a bit of proven IP.

Amazon also streams Star Trek: Picard, not in fact a co-production, but exclusively broadcast in the US on Paramount+ and then streamed on Amazon Prime Video within 24hrs in over 200 other countries and territories around the world.

This objection seems to mainly derive from anxiety over the original cancellation of the 1963-1989 Series, and the collapse of the subsequent TV Movie co-production deal after Paul McGann was flattened by Roseanne. In both those cases, the BBC was simply unable to afford to make the show to a standard of production values that could hold up to the likes of contemporary US sci-fi shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files.

Since 2005, the BBC has managed, but with diminishing episodes per series, and with a UK Government continually seeking to greatly reduce their licence fee income, imposing conditions on the charter renewal that will require all BBC shows to be made by external production companies by 2027, and waging a culture war that attempts to normalize the frequent cries from lunatic right wing fringes to "defund the BBC".

If Doctor Who doesn't move to a co-production model sooner or later, then exactly how many more series do people think the BBC will be able to afford to make anyway?

The major case for moving to a co-production model is of course financial. Despite initial rumours that the BBC had been unhappy with lengthier-than-before delays between series under Steven Moffat, and that Chris Chibnall was hired as a 'closer' to guarantee a series every year like clockwork, it now seems apparent that (even allowing for the filming delays caused by Covid-19) Chibnall and his BBC paymasters only ever intended to make 3 series over 5 years.

In reality, even with Covid, this is still what's happening in practice, with that third series just split up differently, into 6 episodes, 2 standard specials and a lengthier one, as the equivalent of the 10 episodes in each of Chibnall's first two series.

Admittedly we've not had any repetition of the year long gap in 2016 between Series 9 and 10, but not only did the BBC not get a series per year from Chibnall, they clearly didn't want it, apparently not being able to afford it, or at least to afford to make it with that kind of turnaround in terms of how and when budgets were allocated.

The BBC may now count itself rather lucky that many of the Disney+ MCU and Star Wars shows favour 6 to 8 episode runs (a comparison you can surely expect them to employ soon and often the closer we get to the broadcast of Series 13), but let's see whether what we get really stacks up against the likes of The Mandalorian and the very Doctor Who-like Loki. We know not to expect movie-level budgets and effects, but even Doctor Who's production values don't come cheap.

If the BBC leave it too late to set up a co-production arrangement of some sort, there will eventually come a point where production grinds to a halt with no-one ready to pick up the reins. Sadly, operating hand to mouth and failing to future-proof itself does tend to be a hallmark of the BBC, another unwelcome effect of tight budgets and bureaucracy.

2. Makers who don't 'get' or respect the show

Highly unlikely. Whilst (e.g.) HBO/New Line/Amazon would likely insist on installing some Executive Producers to look after their investment and they could have some editorial style input, it's unlikely we'd really notice any difference between that and how things already work within the BBC.

Remember, if this is still BBC Studios involved in production, they already know the show. If it's e.g. Bad Wolf Productions, then yes, that's the same Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner that were instrumental in bringing the show back with Russell T. Davies in 2005. You couldn't actually wish for better keepers of the flame.

In any event, the BBC would be fiercely protective of their Intellectual Property, and would surely make keeping tight editorial control over it a main pillar of any deal.

Again, this anxiety seems rooted in the conflicting priorities of the TV Movie's co-producers. Don't forget that nonsense like a rapping TARDIS console with lips was exactly the kind of thing that the BBC vetoed out of hand in the past. It seems far more likely that any co-producer this time round would very much be buying into Doctor Who, not seeking to reinvent it.

3. The Licence Fee

Mostly this is just about the fear of others seeing it before you, but also a legitimate point that if the show is being made with licence fee payers' money then licence fee payers do need to get the bang for their buck.

This is where the example of Star Trek: Picard seems most salient. Provided first broadcast on BBC One, HBO, Amazon or whoever can broadcast or stream it outside the UK within 24hours and honour would be satisfied.

It should perhaps be noted, however, that this was not the case with Good Omens, where the BBC Two broadcast came after the show being streamed on Amazon, and no-one batted an eyelid about the licence fee or BBC Charter there.

On a similar theme, though, other commercial aspects could be a potential sticking point, for example in terms of merchandising rights. If the BBC retain control over their IP and can therefore continue to issue licenses as they see fit then no problem, but what if a co-producer (or at least investor) wants a piece of the action? Perhaps there's an easy enough solution in deeming everything pre-2023 as the 'legacy' version of the show, and the subject of total BBC control, and everything 2023 onwards, whilst a continuation of the existing show, is subject to different licensing agreements. Would this necessarily need to impact the likes of Big Finish, Character Options, Titan Comics and Panini?

Which Who?

There's just no way to predict what kind of Doctor Who the BBC intend to make following Chibnall and Whittaker's exits.

If it's business as usual - the same production hierarchy, with production entirely from BBC Studios - then it may be likely that the next showrunner is a relatively conservative pick, though perhaps the BBC will want a non-fan this time, and maybe it's even likely they'd want the first female showrunner.

The actor chosen to play the Doctor would likely be the more radical choice, although even then, the BBC will not want to risk being accused of painting the first female Doctor as a failure, and will be mindful that Jo Martin's casting a 'pseudo incarnation' of sorts doesn't really mean that the show has had a 'proper' non-white lead. Without any direct need to satisfy non-UK investors, there's not the same kind of pressure to cast a 'big' name actor. So your Doctor likely ends up being a female POC who's relatively unknown (think Matt Smith's pre-Who career), and they star in a series that is 6 episodes long, no more.

If there's an Anglo-centric co-production, possibly with a partner investor such as HBO, then the imperative for more of a star name as the show's lead raises its head, as does the question of what kind of production team runs the show - and in fact where.

You've got the likes of Nicola Schindler's Red Production Company with previous links to Russell T. Davies, Bad Wolf Productions with similar, and Lookout Point, in fact a part of the BBC Studios Group, whose CEO Faith Penhale has previous with Doctor Who (and Sherlock), and with links to the likes of Sally Wainwright and Mike Bartlett, who would both be seen - at least by the BBC - as the kind of prestige "Lead Writer" they'd be happy to have on board.

In that scenario, the Doctor is less likely to be an 'unknown' without at least one major hit under their belt, but still doesn't need to be 'internationally big', so the pond you're fishing in contains British actors who nevertheless would, on past form, be likely to bring in ratings of 6m+ week in week out for the BBC, and may be recognisable outside the UK for being in something else British.

With the BBC theoretically still the bigger dog in the partnership at least on the creative front, again, they're not going to paint a target on their back by casting a male, but they could feel it was possible to cast another white female if they're of BAFTA-winner/national treasure standing. If there's HBO money on the go, 6 episodes is still likely, but 8-10 may also be possible.

If you get the 'Hollywood' scenario - Amazon backing, first broadcast for BBC One, 24hrs later for Amazon Prime outside the UK - then almost certainly the RTD-style "auteur" driven production model the show has stuck with between 2005 and (at least) the end of 2022 is likely done with.

A team of Consulting style Executive Producers for the BBC and Amazon would oversee hands-on Executive Producers operationally showrunning with a Lead Writer, and possibly a small writer's room, the likes of which apparently didn't really come off for Chibnall, and which is pretty unaffordable with the BBC going it alone.

Here, your Lead Writer could be practically anyone, with the choice to go with someone that's still perceived as being a prestige name in UK circles, or a suitably impressive young gun that doesn't have (nor need in this scenario) show-running experience, or even a 'name' from outside the UK provided the BBC are comfortable with their command of and affinity for the IP.

Your star would most likely have to be instantly recognisable to international audiences, likely with some film career and acclaim - but someone who is not unaffordable nor committed to Marvel or any other property with similar clout and cash reserves. It could in theory be possible that Amazon may overrule any BBC concerns about the gender of the casting, and that perhaps the BBC could be persuaded if a male of sufficient star standing were in the frame (a non-white male could be a compromise if so) but this is not to say that they'd be averse to casting another female Doctor by any means. Perhaps however, it's possible to say that at least the likelihood increases that in this scenario, the Lead Writer could be the more radical choice, and the lead actor the more conservative.

So what next?

Until the BBC make any sort of announcement or proof one way or the other leaks, all we can know is what we don't know. At time of writing, this includes:

1. What kind of Doctor Who the BBC want to make next.

2. How they want to make it (including how they intend to fund it).

3. Who they want to make it.

4. Where they want to make it.

5. Who they want to star in it.

Personally, until I know who's writing it, for whom, and how much is getting spent on it, I just find it really impossible to say what kind of actor (in terms of their personal characteristics and the standing of their career) it's sensible to think could end up in the role.

All we can do, is sit back, hope for the best, and see what the future brings!

Tuesday 3 August 2021

Timeless No More?

Much as I love Jo Martin's Doctor Who, I go back and forth as to whether the Timeless Child stuff is generally A Good Thing or A Bad Thing, and as things stand I'd be happy enough for it to go the way of "half human on my mother's side", to be honest.

Some days I think it's absolutely the clever 'having your cake and eating it' move - expanding to almost allow a multiverse style approach where anyone can be the Doctor in movies or future takes on the show and you can just say they're pre-Hartnell and other days I think it actually ties everything else to a single backstory and that having every other character be a pre-Hartnell Doctor actually lowers the stakes and makes the Doctor less unique and basically invincible.

As I say, I go back and forth on it, and am basically at a Schrodinger's Cat place with it, where I love Jo Martin's Doctor, but would happily see the whole Timeless Child thing just quietly forgotten about in subsequent eras.

All this is assuming Chibnall doesn't perform another rug pull with it before he's out the door; he may well wrap the whole thing up in S13 and the 2022 Specials.

There's still the mystery of where the child originally came from. I could be way off, but that has timeloop/ouroboros written all over it to me.

I think I'd get on with it better if it was something along the lines of "the Doctor" being a branch out of the Timeless Child cycle, the one that got away, and broke the loop to then become the Doctor, with the Timeless Child effectively a closed loop the Doctor isn't a part of.

Jo Martin's then the S6B/Division Doctor during that period they were recaptured, and pre-Hartnell they're all just Brendans. But really this is just me retconning the whole thing away, to be honest, so I guess overall I'm just not that keen on Chibnall's Morbius Doctor trolling.

I do get - and like - the intent that "anyone can be the Doctor" as a ramping up of inclusivity. In a lot of ways, it's a retcon to say 20th Century Who always had that potential for anyone to be the Doctor (it just, er, didn't show it?) but the accidental payoff seems to be that, well, "just any old f*cker with an equity card" can be the Doctor, and William Hartnell's original Doctor is just a sequel to anyone's fanfic.

I probably won't give a monkey's after decades of living with it - I mean, this is just a new Deadly Assassin "what has happened to the magic of..." to a large extent, I recognize that absolutely. I'm probably just in a grumpy mood that'll pass.

But at the moment it feels like a very closed off and limited story (achieving the opposite of the intention) that's very dependent on viewers caring more about long term Who continuity than being entertained.

I guess to me, Doctor Who's future is the blank slate to forge ahead with, the limitless potential of what comes next being more exciting than constantly rewriting the past.

Wednesday 23 December 2020

A Christmas Story

4 Parts (8 pages) Art by Bill Mevin
TV Comic 732-735, 20th December 1965 to 10th January 1966, Reprinted in Doctor Who Classic Comics 15



Dr. Who and his grandchildren, John and Gillian, visit Christmas-land.










They follow a mysterious sleigh to a house in the forest, where they meet none other than Santa Claus himself!










Santa has had to relocate from the North Pole due to it being along noisy flight paths! This year's must-have item is a (model) TARDIS, but he's behind on the toy production front because "the Demon Magician" has been interfering with his operations.









Luckily, Dr. Who has a magic box that can create many copies instantaneously!












Dr. Who goes on ahead as John and Gillian start on Santa's deliveries, but when they find their grandfather's sleigh abandoned, they fear the worst!
























Turns out Dr. Who has been cornered by a grumpy Polar Bear! John is able to follow his grandfather's instructions to cut the bear down to size.










The Demon Magician appears to tell them that their efforts are in vain...














When he steals all Santa's toys and throws up a giant wall all around them, Dr. Who spots Chekov's Squirrel...
























Sure enough, with the Squirrel embiggened, they're able to hitch a ride (or leap) to clear the wall.










They make it back to the TARDIS, but Santa has been and gone, leaving them a note explaining that the TARDIS models are a roaring success and he's headed straight out to deliver them. 











But the Demon Magician is still at large, and has laid a trap - a Snowman that imprisons John and Gillian in a vice-like grip!















Dr. Who uses his magic box to recreate the heartbreaking final scenes of Raymond Briggs' timeless classic, The Snowman. 












The Demon Magician comes thundering down the mountain in the form of a snowball, hoping to destroy Santa's workshop in an avalanche.









But Dr. Who uses his magic box to shrink him in his snowball form...








...and John traps him in a toy rocket, which they fire into space!








Santa shows his gratitude with a huge message that lights up the sky as they leave: "HAPPY JOURNEY TO TARDIS!"




















2020 and all that...

Just wanted to say a great big thank you to everyone who follows our tweetalongs with @tygerwhocame2t, or gives us a signal boost with a retweet now and then. We don't have celeb connections, mad video editing skills, or anything like that, it's just us muddling away in what we like to think of as the old 90s UK Gold Omnibus slot! It's very much appreciated.

It seems more and more people are running and joining in with tweetalongs nowadays, which is fantastic, if a bit crowded! It takes a while to prep tweets and screencaps etc. so we know how much work (and time!) goes into them, and these days if you're not careful checking what stories others are doing you can end up clashing and having to change your plans. Nevertheless, it's always nice to be able to give a signal boost to others even if you're not going to be able to join in yourself - like evenings are not always very good for us but it's nice to boost others, and always appreciated if the favour's ever returned.

It did get to a point where it felt a bit like we'd been steamrollered out of the way in amongst all the lockdown enthusiasm for this "new" idea (that was old hat when we started 7 years ago!), and that there wasn't much consideration for daft low-profile accounts like ours from what you might call the in-crowd, but none of that really matters at all, it's just been so wonderful to see so many people getting into it, enjoying themselves, being positive, and so creative!

What we do is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things but we'll keep going for as long as it's fun and people are enjoying it. It was actually quite nice to have a bit of a break over the Spring and early Summer and just enjoy things, but we've been back in full swing since the end of July. We'll have another little break after Christmas, and then make plans for 2021, so do let us know if there's any particular stories you'd like us to cover in future (revisits welcome as long as we've not done them too recently!).

Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties, just go forward in all your beliefs, take care of yourselves and each other, wash your hands, keep a good distance, wear a mask when you can or should, and here's to happier times and places in 2021! Oh, and incidentally, a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!



















TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... 2021!