Did You Catch This?

(Probably could have worded that title better, considering we are still in a pandemic!)

On a recent episode of The Flash, an injured Ralph (Elongated Man) is recuperating in a BCU Suit, which alters the sound of his voice. The newest member of Team Flash says to him “You sound like a Dalek.”

The BBC Shop’s Holiday 2020 catalog mixed-up two 7^th Doctor stories, describing the settings of The Curse of Fenric as “an alien world populated by Cheetah People” and Survival as “a 1940’s army camp under siege from monstrous vampires”—and repeated the mistake in the Spring 2021 issue. I just sent this message to shop.bbc.com:          Can’t believe no one else pointed this out, but both your paper catalog and this website have an error in a description of a Doctor Who item. I first noticed it with the Holiday issue, but expected it to be corrected by now. For the Sylvester McCoy Complete Season 3 dvds, the settings of the episodes “The Curse of Fenric” and “Survival” are switched. Love your company and I hope this has been helpful.

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News from the Gallifrey Guardian (slight Spoiler ahead)

All the submitted News made it into the Gallifrey Guardian this month, so I’ll just repeat a couple of my favorite bits (original sources cultbox.co.uk and doctorwhonews.net):

Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins is a found-phone mystery thriller developed by Maze Theory and Kaigan Games. Players search through messages, emails, videos, photographs and more to uncover clues, solve puzzles and reveal the truth. The game features ex-UNIT scientist Petronella Osgood (Ingrid Oliver), Weeping Angels, Larry Nightingale (Finlay Robertson) and the voice of the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker). The game will be available on the Apple App Store, Google Play, and Steam beginning March 19, and can be pre-ordered. A trailer for the game can be seen here:

Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins Pre-Registration Trailer – YouTube

In An Evening with John Bishop, a small, exclusive, paid Zoom event, Bishop praised Jodie Whittaker’s skills as both a lead actor and an ambassador for Doctor Who. Bishop described Whittaker as very warm, welcoming, and generous with all her fellow actors. “She’s running a global franchise. She’s carrying it. She’s lovely,” he explained with a grin.

He parodied the type of technical lines Whittaker has to speak as the Time Lord: She’s got to do a scene where she has to explain the transformation of time and space with an alien from another dimension. So she’d be saying things like, “The quarks haven’t worked because the fundamentals of time and space have been erased and corrected by the Planedium of Light. And the human race needs to survive, because if it doesn’t, time and space will forever be in another quantum and the seriousness of time away from a cup will be lost forever!” [The CultBox reporter who posted the above quote did not guarantee its accuracy, noting: “It’s not easy to transcribe technobabble spoken with a thick Liverpool accent…”]

Learning lines weren’t the only challenges Whittaker faced. Stunts and wire work were also required, as shown in an Instagram post (since removed) of Jodie hanging from a harness in front of a green screen while filming at Roath Lock Studios the first week of February.

The Search Begins

After an earlier post mentioning the article in an old Gallifrey Guardian about Doctor Who references in Star Trek, I decided to look for it in my collection of past issues. Of course, that meant organizing 30+ years of issues, which over the years have been scattered and put out of order during previous searches.

It’s slow going, mostly because I keep getting sucked into other articles not relevant to my search. But who could resist a Classic Who Word Search, Who-cups (a series of one-panel cartoons), a review of the long-ago local attraction Starbase Omega, and question-of-the-month answers called GoG Talk? I even came across a submission of my own in answer to the question, “Besides Doctor Who, what sci-fi show would you like to see on local TV? – Quark (anyone else remember that show?).

In my trip down memory lane were articles on Doctor Who’s missing episodes, “Rediscovering Jon Pertwee,” asking readers to help save Doctor Who from Cablevision, and hooking up fans with global penpals. And that’s just 1987 through 1989! I will post the article about Doctor Who in Star Trek once I work my way up to it, but in the meantime, you may see some other new/old posts on the Classic Guardians page soon.

Doctor Who mentioned

A late night comedy host, poking fun at someone who made a point of mixing genres (Star Wars, Star Trek, Ghostbusters) in a speech last weekend, said “Stay with me here–We’re Doctor Who, but not the lady one, and we’ve got the Infinity Stones, but not the Sorcerer’s Stone…” then mixed in several more sf/fantasy references.

So Doctor Who was top of his list!