The latest issues of the Doctor Who Figurine Collection feature two memorable foes from the Tenth and Twelfth Doctor eras, and there’s another fantastic special to collect.
Every two weeks, Whovians can enjoy an exclusive hand-painted and highly-detailed figurine and a magazine packed with info on its subject.
Check out the details and images below from Issues 113 and 114 and the fourteenth Special edition.
Robot Santa
Doctor Who Figurine Collection: Part 113 (available early Dec 2017)
From the 2006 Tenth Doctor Christmas Special, The Runaway Bride.
Working for the Empress of the Racnoss, the disguised ‘roboforms’ hunted for Donna Noble, who had vanished from her wedding and been transported into the TARDIS.
This highly detailed, hand-painted figurine comes complete with a magazine that looks at the making of this David Tennant-era tale and Doctor Who’s golden anniversary in 2013.
Doctor Who Figurine Collection: Part 114 (available late Dec 2017)
From the 2017 Eleventh Doctor episode, Empress of Mars.
The queen had lain dormant, deep under the surface of Mars, kept in hibernation for millennia. With the unwitting assistance from a 19th-century British Army platoon, however, Iraxxa finally stirred from her long slumber – and she had definitely woken up on the wrong side of the bed…!
This highly detailed, hand-painted figurine comes complete with a magazine that looks back at the making of this Twelfth Doctor tale and the series debut of Peter Capaldi.
Doctor Who Figurine Collection: Special 14 (available Dec 2017)
From the 1966 First Doctor story, The War Machines.
WOTAN, somehow becoming self aware, has immediately identified humanity as its greatest threat, and is now intent on making every person on the planet a slave to the machines…
This highly detailed, hand-painted model stands 11.5cm tall and comes complete with a magazine looking at the making of this unforgettable First Doctor adventure and the William Hartnell era.
“One or two of us lads thought we should do something over Christmas to mark the occasion. The Christmas decorations are going up and this is a Christmas decoration with a difference.”
Asked who else was behind the Tardis, Mr Gawthorpe said: “They don’t want a lot of publicity.”
Mr Gawthorpe confirmed it had been custom-built but when asked who had built it he said: “At this point I am a bit reluctant to say.
Dr Who’s Tardis appears in Jodie Whittaker’s home village of Skelmanthorpe.
“It’s a big mystery. Doctor Who is a mystery.”
Jodie, 35, will become the 13th Doctor Who when Peter Capaldi’s doctor regenerates in the BBC Christmas Day special.
Jodie was last seen in the BBC drama Trust Me and her biggest role came as Beth Latimer in Broadchurch.
The first picture of Jodie as the Doctor shows the Tardis in the background. The police box appears to have undergone a bit of a makeover with a new paint job, handles and sign on the front ready for its first female resident.
BBC America is getting a Peter Capaldi farewell special
BBC America has announced that it’ll be airing the Doctor Who Christmas special, Twice Upon A Time, on December 25th, a few hours behind the BBC One premiere of the episode.
The swansong for Peter Capaldi in the TARDIS will screen at 9pm (8pm/c), but along with the confirmation of that is news of a special that’s heading to BBC America.
Colin McFarlane is set to narrate a tribute programme entitled Doctor Who: Farewell To Peter Capaldi, that’s going to bring together archive footage of Capaldi’s first and final table reads. There will also be interviews with the cast and crew, and Steven Moffat chats in the special about his time on the show, and his favourite episodes.
Doctor Who: Farewell To Peter Capaldi is not in the UK schedules that we can see, and it’ll screen following the Christmas special in the US.
Season’s Greetings from everyone at BBC Worldwide for 2017. Join Duggee and the Squirrels to explore the adventures of the year including from Blue Planet II, Hey Duggee to Call the Midwife, Top Gear, Dancing with the Stars, The Great South African Bake-off, Peaky Blinders, Sarah & Duck and the forthcoming Doctor Who Christmas special.
David Bradley has enjoyed a lifetime of Doctor Who – now he’s bringing the classic series back to life
“I don’t think it’s too scary for a three-year-old, is it?” David Bradley asks, worried that having watched his appearance in the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special, his granddaughter might spend the rest of the day hiding behind the sofa.
He pauses, concerned. “It’s the Cybermen… I mean, they freak me out!”
Bradley’s own Doctor Who journey began at a more mature age, when as a 21-year-old he watched William Hartnell emerge from the Tardis for the first time back in 1963.
“You’d have your tea, watch Doctor Who and then go out on the town when you were in your early 20s,” the now 75-year-old actor recalls. “I’d never have dreamt of being in it because at the time I was an engineer.”
“So I would have had to seriously question the sanity of anybody who suggested that it might be a possibility.”
Of course, it was still a long road before Bradley took his first steps into the Tardis. After leaving engineering for drama school in 1966 (coincidentally the same year William Hartnell left Doctor Who due to ill health), Bradley went on to rack up an impressive theatre CV, winning an Olivier Award for a production of King Lear in 1991 and also taking on roles in TV and film.
It was in later life, though, when Bradley became more well-known after being cast as malicious school caretaker Argus Filch in the Harry Potter film series and evil Lord Walder Frey in Game of Thrones – villainous roles that led to his first Doctor Who appearance in 2012, where he played a vicious space trader called Solomon who clashed with Matt Smith’s Doctor in an episode penned by Chris Chibnall (who takes the reins of Doctor Who entirely next year).
“That was going to be my once-in-a-lifetime Doctor Who experience,” Bradley says of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (above), which at the time he counted as a career highlight. “And then what happens?”
Well, what happened was that while watching the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee flotilla in 2012 Bradley found himself tapped on the shoulder by Mark Gatiss, who was working on a drama about Doctor Who’s founding for the series’ 50th anniversary and needed an actor to play the late Hartnell himself.
That story became 2013’s An Adventure in Space and Time, with Bradley’s performance as the sometimes irascible and increasingly frail Hartnell attracting praise – and so when series writer Steven Moffat decided the perfect goodbye to Peter Capaldi’s incumbent Doctor would be to bring back the very first version of the Time Lord, Bradley got the call once more.
“It’s part impersonation, part capturing some of those mannerisms — but not just a direct mimicry,” says Bradley of playing Hartnell’s Doctor, rather than the man himself. “I wanted to make it my own, while honouring his performance.”
The end result sees Bradley’s slightly more serious Time Lord clashing with Capaldi’s ragged, punk-like Doctor, while the current Doctor’s more PC attitude puts him at odds with some of Bradley’s Doctor’s 1960s attitudes.
“There’s a lot of fun to come out of that dynamic, between the two of them,” Bradley says.
“Hopefully, it’s kept a kind of lightness of touch and has a comic energy, although there are sometimes some dark moments in it.”
Of course, the elephant in the room for this year’s Christmas Special is that many fans will be most looking forward to the episode’s final moments, when Capaldi’s Doctor regenerates into Jodie Whittaker’s new female Time Lord — and Bradley, who worked with Whittaker on ITV’s Broadchurch in 2013 (alongside Chris Chibnall, who cast them both) is as excited as anybody.
“When I heard it was Jodie I thought, ‘Well, that’s perfect’ — because she’s got the range and she’s funny,” Bradley says.
“They just need to keep that sense of fun and not forget the comic energy – no matter how dark the situation is in the story. And just enjoy it, and keep that sense of fun. She’s got that, all she needs to do is tap into it, and I’m sure she’ll do the biz.”
For now, though, Bradley gets to enjoy being the Doctor himself – which also means he has the ideal present for his two grandkids.
“I’m looking forward to receiving my figurine, so I can officially say I’m Doctor Who,” he says. “Part of a pantheon. If my grandkids want one I’ll treat them.
“Unless it’s a bit too early to be thrusting replicas of myself at them…”
This interview appeared in a condensed form in the 9th-15th December edition of the Radio Times magazine
Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time airs on BBC1 on Christmas Day (Monday 25th December) at 5:30pm
“No-one else is going to be Bill Potts, ever!” – Pearl Mackie looks back on her Doctor Who journey
“I think one of the best things about Doctor Who is you never really truly say goodbye to it,” Pearl Mackie tells us, a few weeks before she’s due to appear in one of the biggest farewell episodes the BBC sci-fi series has ever produced.
“It sort of lives on forever. I won’t always be the companion, but I will always have been a companion to the Doctor at a certain time. No-one else is gonna be Bill Potts, ever!”
The same can’t be said for her Time Lord co-star. Our conversation is taking place mere weeks before Christmas Day audiences will see current Doctor Peter Capaldi regenerate into the character’s first female incarnation, played by Jodie Whittaker.
“I think it’s fantastic that they’re having a woman as Doctor Who, and I think it’s fantastic that it’s Jodie, I think she’s brilliant,” Mackie says. “Yeah, I think it’s gonna be a great new energy and dynamic for the show.”
But in all the excitement over Whittaker’s arrival and Capaldi’s exit, it feels like Mackie’s own farewell is being a little overshadowed. Normally the official departure of a series companion would inspire a huge amount of attention and coverage from fans and media – the possibility of Jenna Coleman’s exit was discussed and speculated upon for years before it actually happened – but this year, nearly all the coverage has (understandably) focused on the slightly more momentous fact of Whittaker’s debut or, failing that, the last episode of a long-serving Doctor.
In a way, though, Mackie’s Doctor Who tenure has always been marked by similar upstagings. The 30-year-old actress was cast in the sci-fi series in 2016 at an odd point in its life, a few months after showrunner Steven Moffat had announced he was leaving the programme and handing over operations to Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall.
The last time such a handover was attempted on the modern series (between Russell T Davies and Moffat), the entire cast changed too – so many viewers assumed Mackie was already leaving a year before she’d even started. Throw in lead actor Peter Capaldi’s announcement of his own departure back in January, months before her first episode had aired, and Mackie’s days on the series always seemed numbered.
“I mean I think Bill and Jodie’s Doctor would have had great adventures, but I feel very lucky to have done one series of Doctor Who,” she says when I ask if she had any wish to stick around. “I don’t want to be greedy, y’know?”
It was an inauspicious start, not helped by an introductory video for her character Bill that some fans found annoying (writer Steven Moffat later described it as a “slightly caricatured” version of the final version of Bill) – but then when her first official appearance actually aired in April, Mackie confounded her critics.
Her performance as Bill was near-universally praised, with some calling her the best companion since Billie Piper’s beloved Rose Tyler, and as the series progressed the mood didn’t dampen.
“I think Bill and the Twelfth Doctor’s partnership, it seemed to be so well-received,” Mackie says now. “It was lovely watching it onscreen – it was lovely filming it – but it was really lovely to feel their dynamic and sort of watch them together.
She adds: “And you know, what’s great about the Christmas special is you get to see them together again! One last time.
“It’s so sparky. So… real. It’s great, and I think people will really like how they interact in the Christmas special.”
Exactly how Bill returns this Christmas remains a closely-guarded secret – Mackie will only say “there’s a bit of a mystery” about how she re-encounters the Doctor after being reborn as an immortal creature at the end of the last series – but she’s happy to talk more generally about festive episode Twice Upon a Time, which also sees the Doctor encounter his former self, David Bradley playing original star William Hartnell’s First Doctor.
“David is wonderful, he’s a brilliant actor, and his First Doctor is incredible,” she says. “It’s uncanny!
“I think the interactions between him and Bill are quite interesting, and potentially not what the First Doctor would have experienced before.”
Of Bill herself, she adds: “What kind of journey does Bill go through in her last adventure? Well it’s a very exciting one, and it’s a very snowy one! It’s Christmassy, which is very fun and there being two Doctors, and meeting the Doctor at the point of him not wanting to regenerate is quite exciting.
“And you know, seeing his dynamic with the First Doctor is great. When do you get to see Two Doctors together? That’s fantastic. And when, as a companion, do you get to experience two incarnations of the same person that you know?
“It’s a wonderful kind of finale, for the Twelfth Doctor and for Steven [Moffat] as a[departing] showrunner.”
And post-Who the actor isn’t resting on her laurels, soon to return to the theatre (her main credit prior to Doctor Who was the stage production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) for a starry production of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party alongside Stephen Mangan, Toby Jones and Zoe Wanamaker (in typical British acting tradition, two of her co-stars are also Who veterans).
“It’s really nice, and we actually had our first day of rehearsals for the Birthday Party yesterday. It’s a brilliant play. Pinter’s fantastic, I think he’s possibly one of the best writers that we’ve produced.
“If I’m able to continue working onstage and in front of a camera, and behind a microphone, for the rest of my career, then lucky me.”
Still, no matter what else she works on going forward, Mackie is certain that Doctor Who will always hold a place in her heart.
“One minute you’re on a flipping hill in the middle of the Welsh countryside, shivering, huddled inside the Tardis for warmth, and the next you’re in the studio, on a wire being flown horizontally,” she says.
“And there’s a wonderful kind of familial feeling about Doctor Who. Meeting previous Doctors and previous companions, while they’ve done many many things since being on Doctor Who, they still talk about it and they still feel like a part of it. And even though you’ve never met you have that thing in common, and you can talk about it.”
Now, she’s just waiting for the day her casting in the series starts to feel real…
“I’m still waiting for that!” she laughs. “Getting the job and not being able to tell anyone, and then going and filming the little trailer in secret, and then going and doing it, and being kind of thrust into this amazing juggernaut of all of space of time – it’s so big, it doesn’t ever really seem real.
“I don’t know when it’ll feel real. I think maybe watching the Christmas special.”
She laughs again.
“It still feels like a dream – I’ve said that a couple of times before I think. I haven’t woken up yet. Nice dream though!”
For more exclusive Doctor Who Christmas content, including behind-the-scenes pictures of Peter Capaldi’s last day on set, check out the legendary Radio Times Christmas issue, on sale in certain areas now and nationwide from Tuesday 12th December
Twice Upon A Time – Trailer 2 Just Released By The BBC
This month’s Doctor Who audiobooks from the BBC give us the very first regeneration story with the First Doctor and, for the very first time, a collection of classic adventures from Doctor Who annuals.
Both releases are available now, check out the details and artwork below.
The Tenth Planet
By Gerry Davis
The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Ben and Polly to a space tracking station in the Antarctic – and straight into trouble. A space mission is going badly wrong, and a new planet has appeared in the sky. Mondas, ancient fabled twin planet of Earth, has returned. Soon its inhabitants arrive. But while they used to be just like the humans of Earth, now they are very different. Devoid of emotions, their bodies replaced with plastic and steel, the Cybermen are here.Humanity needs all the help it can get, but as the Cybermen take over, the Doctor is dying…
Gerry Davis’s novelisation of his own 1966 TV serial describes the lead-up to the Doctor’s first ever regeneration.
This is an unabridged reading of this classic novelisation featuring the First Doctor’s original encounter with the Cybermen by Anneke Wills, best known for playing companion Polly, with Cyberman voices by Nicholas Briggs.
Duration: 4 hours (approx). Purchase here.
The Doctor Who Audio Annual
For two decades, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, every fan of the Doctor hoped to find The Doctor Who Annual in their Christmas stocking. Larger than life and twice as colourful, the stories within were exuberant — and often charmingly naive — in their take on ‘the children’s own programme which adults adore’.
In The Sons of Grekk, the First Doctor is held prisoner in a brutal, otherworldly society. The King of Golden Death finds that the Second Doctor, Polly and Ben have materialised inside an Ancient Egyptian pyramid. The Third Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier confront a familiar adversary in Dark Intruders, whilst in Conundrum the Fourth Doctor, Adric and K9 experience warped physics in the corridors of the TARDIS. FacingThe Penalty, a delirious Fifth Doctor finds old friends and adversaries ganging up on him, and the Sixth Doctor and Peri plunge into a dangerous period of British history in The Real Hereward.
The Doctor Who Audio Annual features classic adventures, from the first six incarnations of everyone’s favourite Time Lord, read by stars of the show: Peter Purves (who played companion Steven), Anneke Wills (Polly), Geoffrey Beevers (The Master), Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) and Nicola Bryant (Peri).
Also included are two vintage essays on the character of our favourite Time Lord: Who is Doctor Who? from 1966 and The Phoenix in the TARDIS from 1968.
Duration: 2 hours (approx). Purchase here.
Both titles are available now
The War Master unleashed for new adventures in December
As always, Big Finish have some big stories for Doctor Who fans and in December you can find the return of the War Master, as played by Sir Derek Jacobi, and stories for the First, Second and Sixth Doctors.
Check out all the details and artwork below.
The War Master
Beneath the Viscoid by Nicholas Briggs
On the ocean planet Gardezza, deep beneath the Viscoid, a mysterious capsule is recovered from the Time War, and an equally mysterious stranger found within. The Doctor’s reputation precedes him, even here… but can he be trusted?
The Good Master by Janine H Jones
The Time War rages around Arcking – a planet serving as a sanctuary for the sick and injured. But Arcking is protected by a mysterious, powerful force: a force the Master will stop at nothing to harness… even if time itself is against him.
The Sky Man by James Goss
When his new companion decides to save a planet, the Master indulges this most futile of requests. Materialising on a primitive, agrarian world, both the strangers quickly find their place in it… until fallout from the War invades their happy paradise.
The Heavenly Paradigm by Guy Adams
With his plans approaching fruition, the Master travels to Stamford Bridge in the 1970s: a location he believes might hold the key to his success. But what terrible secret lurks under the stairs of No. 24 Marigold Lane? And what sacrifices will the Master make in the name of ultimate victory?
The War Master Series 1 is a 5 CD set starring: Sir Derek Jacobi (The War Master), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks), and many more. This title goes on general release from Feb 28, 2018.
Deep in the heart of nowhere, near a place called Abbey Marston, there’s a caravan site. The perfect place to get away from it all. Close by, there’s a stone circle they used for human sacrifice in olden times. A little further afield, there’s an old RAF research station, where they did hushhush things in the War.
There’s only one rule: the use of radios, cassette recorders and portable televisions is strictly forbidden.
People come here to get away from it all, you see. No-one wants to hear the noise. No-one wants to hear the voices in the static…
No-one wants to hear the ghosts.
Static is a 2 CD set starring: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Miranda Raison (Mrs Constance Clarke), Lisa Greenwood (Flip Jackson), and many more. This title goes on general release from Jan 31, 2018.
Undergoing repairs in deep space, the TARDIS is caught in a collision with the huge, decaying wreck of a starship. Zoe, spacewalking, is separated from her companions in the crash, and the Doctor and Jamie wake to find the TARDIS fused to the side of the ship.
Venturing inside to rescue their friend, they discover that they are on board The World, the very first colony ship to leave Earth, lost mid-voyage under unknown circumstances.
And they are not alone. A terrible suspension chamber is filled with dead, withered human bodies, and a team of gun-toting astronauts are stalking the corridors. But a far greater threat lurks deep inside. The terrifying force responsible for the scuttling of the ship is active once more – and if it can’t be stopped, it won’t just be the end of this World. It’ll be the end of all of them.
The Wreck of the World is a 2 CD set starring: Wendy Padbury (Zoe Heriot/Narrator), Frazer Hines (Jamie McCrimmon/The Doctor), and many more. This title goes on general release from Jan 31, 2018.
It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid…
The TARDIS has landed in a winter wonderland and the weather outs ide is frightful. A world of dread and fear and it’s not just the frost that is cruel… It’s Christmas Eve, but will the Doctor and Steven get to see another one? And of all the trees in the wood, who really bears the crown?
O Tannenbaum is narrated by Peter Purves (companion Steven Taylor) and will be available exclusively on the Big Finish website.
