A Blast from the (Recent) Past…

…and hope for the future.

Remember when friends could meet without masks? Here’s a couple of photos from Guardian events pre-pandemic.

First, wrestling over the Kerblam pinata at the 2019 Wholiday Party (it turned out so well, I couldn’t bear the thought of it being smashed.)

Next, a White Elephant gift exchange done at the January 2020 meeting. We ran out of time to do it at the previous month’s party, which had a theme of “Presents!”

 

Hang in there fans, better times are coming back. Until then,

Stay safe,

Stay strong,

Stay home.

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Bits that didn’t make it into the Newsletter (including Spoilers)

GENERAL NEWS

Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks had a final official rating of 6.25 million viewers. (The final rating takes into account all those who recorded the program and watched it within one week.) The rating confirmed Doctor Who as the top-rated BBC One program for New Year’s Day, beating EastEnders which had 4.36 million watching. Overall on all channels Doctor Who was second for the day, with Coronation Street claiming the top spot with 6.39 million viewers.

On BBC’s The One Show, Russell T Davies announced that the first Doctor Who script he ever wrote will be adapted into a Big Finish audio adventure. Davies told how he found the 1985 script, a Sixth Doctor story now called “Mind of the Hodiac,” in a box full of old papers. He even tweeted several pages of the script during a watch-along of The Runaway Bride.

SERIES 13 NEWS (INCLUDES SPOILERS – this is your second warning!):

The BBC ran a short trailer after Revolution of the Daleks aired, introducing The Doctor’s newest companion, Dan, played by comedian and actor John Bishop (Little Crackers, Three Little Words podcast). The clip can be accessed here: Introducing John Bishop | Doctor Who: Series 13 – YouTube Bishop called the role “an absolute dream come true…” And said, “If I could tell my younger self that one day I would be asked to step on board the TARDIS, I would never have believed it.” Showrunner Chris Chibnall said the character of Dan was made for Bishop, and he had been in talks with him since before the pandemic. Dan is due to appear in the series from the first episode.

According to The Mirror, the thirteenth Doctor will regenerate at the end of Series 13. One insider said, “It’s all very hush-hush but it is known on set that Jodie is leaving and they are gearing up for a regeneration.” It is believed she intends to stick to the traditional three seasons. Apparently Jodie Whittaker is interested in taking on other roles, although in an interview with The Telegraph shortly before November, she indicated she wasn’t eager to leave Doctor Who. When contacted by Digital Spy, the BBC refused to either confirm or deny the report that Whittaker would be leaving.

And now, photos from January filming:

    

…and video!

Elliott Jedras on Instagram: “BREAKING NEWS! SPOILER WARNING! Sontarans spotted on filming in Cardiff! A big thank you to a friends of mine for filming these He told…”   

Thanks to my online sources: DoctorWhoNews.net and Cultbox.uk

Another Doctor Who reference

Once again, a short message, and with a quote from The Librarians (yep, I’m still working my way through the series, roughly one episode per day). The mother of one of the librarians, on being taken through the magic door into the library, says, “Our shed is bigger on the inside?” Now I want to discover the writer for the series who is the Doctor Who fan. Reminds me of an article I wrote many years ago pointing out Doctor Who references in Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Hmmm, if I can just find it before my next GoG Blog post…

 

Doctor Who Drabble (yes, another one)

Here’s a Drabble previously published in the October 2020 issue of the Gallifrey Guardian.

1814

“Goodbye, Tiny.”

“Where will she go, Doctor?

“Somewhere cold, I imagine.”

Tiny glided past, sank out of sight, and headed north. She made a brief stop in Scotland, where she met a distant relative inaccurately named “Nessie.” Their joy at having found another of their kind led to a union blessed by several offspring.

The children scattered around the globe, sometimes achieving legendary status of their own. Coastal dwellers from Maine to Japan, San Francisco, Victoria, Nova Scotia, and the Cape of Good Hope have tales of local sea serpents. (Natives of St. Simons Island, Georgia, call theirs Altamaha-ha.)

A Word About Drabbles:  Drabbles are short (100 words or less) stories; those you read on this blog are all set in the Doctor Who universe.

The 4-part Drabble I posted December 20^th through 23^rd, 2020 was obviously inspired by The Doctor’s farewell remark to Rose in Doomsday, showing it had been simmering in my mind for quite a while. Nergal, mentioned in part 2, was an ancient god of Mesopotamia. The inspiration for Part 4, which tied it all together, was an article carried in a local newspaper about Victor Buso, an amateur astronomer who did witness the birth of a supernova.

Likewise, my Drabble “1814” was based on Thin Ice, but was inspired by information I came across about a ‘sea serpent’ while researching St. Simons Island, Georgia prior to a visit there. All of the locations mentioned at the end of that drabble do have their own sea serpent legends.

My point being, inspiration is out there! Below are more headlines that could inspire a Doctor Who Drabble.

• Science reveals the answer to the Yeti mystery: Bears
• NASA: Cause of ISS mystery hole will be determined
• Tiny mystery skeleton was human girl
• Temperate planet (Ross 128 b) could meet requirements for habitability
• Saturn moon rings with possibilities of life
• Mysterious asteroid the size of a dwarf planet is lurking in our solar system
• Radio signals detected from the direction of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our own sun
• Astronomers see possible hints of life above Venus

That last article has already been refuted, but it did include a phrase that left me smiling: “After three astronomers met in a bar in Hawaii…” Doesn’t it just beg for a punch line? “Three astronomers walk into a bar…” Can you finish the joke?