Kopic's Doctor Who & Torchwood News |
- Doctor Who's Hamilton connection - Stuff.co.nz
- THE RATINGS RACE: From China Beach to Desperate Housewives to Body of Proof - Sydney Morning Herald (blog)
- Torchwood Fails to Pull Off a Miracle Ending - TV.com (blog)
- 'The Complete 6th Series' Bonus Material and Final Box Art for DVD, Blu-ray - TVShowsOnDVD.com
- TV Review: DOCTOR WHO – Series 6 – “The Girl Who Waited” – Review #1 - Assignment X
- Doctor Who complete reviews: The Next Doctor - Shadowlocked
- 'Doctor Who' blogging: “The Girl Who Waited” - Flick Filosopher (blog)
- The God Complex Pics
- Doctor Who's Hamilton connection - Waikato Times
- Complete Torchwood Series 1-4 set on the way
- Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology
- Interview : Mekhi Pfifer on Torchwood : Miracle Day - End Of Show
- Cumberbatch on The Jonathan Ross Show
- SAINTS ROW: THE THIRD Deckers Trailer - WhatCulture!
- Watch ELDER SCROLLS SKYRIM E3 Demo - WhatCulture!
- Review: Fright Night - Northern Weekly
- 6.11: The God Complex - DWO Spoiler Free Preview
- Review: Fright Night - Banyule and Nillumbik Weekly
- Shada: The Levine Remix
- Post Game TV Recap: DOCTOR WHO S6E10 'The Girl Who Waited' - Newsarama
- John has “fingers crossed” for more Torchwood
- "True Blood" Episode 412 Recap: The "Fork You" Finale - AfterElton.com
- David Tennant in This is Jinsy
- Doctor Who - The Girl Who Waited - TV Pixie
- Torchwood S4E10 Review - Shadowlocked
- DOCTOR WHO 6.10 'The Girl Who Waited' - Crave Online
- Ratings Update
- Benedict Cumberbatch Rejects Doctor Who Talk - Gigwise
- Captain Jack Wants to Be Part of TARDIS Birthday Bash - Escapist Magazine
- 'I've Never Slept With A Doctor Who Groupie' Says John Barrowman - Gigwise
- Sky's the Limit
- The God Complex Teasers
- Dr Whooligan: On the Road, Dragoncon, Day 4: McCoy Dazzles, Red Dwarf & Rain - Anglotopia.net
- Exclusive: "Jane's Take" on "Torchwood" Episode Ten: The Blood Line - AfterElton.com
- Fancy Captain Jack on your face in the morning? - Gay Times Magazine (blog)
- Destination: Nerva
- Arthur says the finale is as “epic” as series has got
- Final ratings for Series 6's Night Terrors released
- The Girl Who Waited: Appreciation Index
- Benedict Cumberbatch says no to 'Doctor Who' - NME.com
- The Torygraphed Torchwood
- Worldcon: A Love Story
- David Walliams: busiest man in showbusiness - Telegraph.co.uk
- Barrowman Reiterates Return Wish
- John Barrowman Exclusive Interview - FemaleFirst.co.uk
- John Barrowman: 'I've never slept with a Doctor Who groupie' - Digital Spy
- John Barrowman: 'I've never slept with a Doctor Who groupie' - Digital Spy UK
- New Guardian ebook charts revival of Doctor Who - seenit.co.uk
- Firth drops down best looking poll - expressandstar.com
- Firth drops down best looking poll - shropshirestar.com
| Doctor Who's Hamilton connection - Stuff.co.nz Posted: 12 Sep 2011 11:58 AM PDT
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| Torchwood Fails to Pull Off a Miracle Ending - TV.com (blog) Posted: 12 Sep 2011 11:13 AM PDT
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| Posted: 12 Sep 2011 10:54 AM PDT
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| TV Review: DOCTOR WHO – Series 6 – “The Girl Who Waited” – Review #1 - Assignment X Posted: 12 Sep 2011 10:39 AM PDT
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| Doctor Who complete reviews: The Next Doctor - Shadowlocked Posted: 12 Sep 2011 10:35 AM PDT
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| 'Doctor Who' blogging: “The Girl Who Waited” - Flick Filosopher (blog) Posted: 12 Sep 2011 10:20 AM PDT
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| Posted: 12 Sep 2011 10:00 AM PDT Promotional pictures for The God Complex are now available courtesy of the BBC. We've also included screen grabs from the next time trailer. Featured in order of appearance Lucy Hayward (Sarah Quintrell), the Clown, Gibbis (David Walliams), Howie Spragg (Dimitri Leonidas), the ventriloquist dummies, the Doctor, The Weeping Angels, Amy, Rory, the Minotaur, Rita (Amara Karan) and Joe Buchanan (Daniel Pirrie). Click the thumbnails to enlarge. | ||
| Doctor Who's Hamilton connection - Waikato Times Posted: 12 Sep 2011 09:27 AM PDT
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| Complete Torchwood Series 1-4 set on the way Posted: 12 Sep 2011 09:12 AM PDT A complete boxset containing Series 1 to 4 of Torchwood will be released in time for Christmas! The collection will go on sale from 14th November, with the DVD (17 discs) priced at £44.99, and the Blu-ray (15 discs) edition going on sale at around £48.69. On the same day, the new series, Miracle Day, concluding on [...] | ||
| Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology Posted: 12 Sep 2011 09:00 AM PDT  A new study of Doctor Who is looking for contributors. Edited by Dr. Lindy Orthia, lecturer at the Australian National University, Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology is likely to be published by Intellect sometime in late 2012 or early 2013. Any era of Doctor Who can be covered by contributors, though the TV series will be the book's primary focus. Work on non-TV Doctor Who may be considered "depending on space".The book will be aimed at a mixed readership (academics and non-academics), and will include academic-style essays of 5000-7000 words as well as personal-style reflections of up to 1000 words. Under the scope of the concept 'race', contributors may discuss (but are not limited to) any of:
The deadline for expressions of interest is December 15th 2011. Full details on how to submit these are available at the Doctor Who and Race blog. Dr. Orthia completed her PhD on the subject of Doctor Who and science communication in 2010. Entitled "Enlightenment was the choice: Doctor Who and the Democratisation of Science", it is available online here. | ||
| Interview : Mekhi Pfifer on Torchwood : Miracle Day - End Of Show Posted: 12 Sep 2011 08:14 AM PDT
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| Cumberbatch on The Jonathan Ross Show Posted: 12 Sep 2011 07:51 AM PDT While rumours of Sherlock star Cumberbatch took time out from promoting the Hollywood adaptation of the BBC's adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy to correct the rumours of surrounding him taking over the role of the Doctor from his friend David Tennant and any future appearances on the show… see 2:25 onwards. It's a fair argument for not getting involved in the other industry that comes with being the Doctor (something that former Doctor Christopher Eccleston had great difficulties dealing with) but wouldn't we all like to see Cumberbatch Doctor Who? If not for the brief fangasm of seeing Sherlock and the Doctor sharing the screen together but to see such a good actor play a role a million light years from the Great detective of Baker Street? | ||
| SAINTS ROW: THE THIRD Deckers Trailer - WhatCulture! Posted: 12 Sep 2011 07:07 AM PDT
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| Watch ELDER SCROLLS SKYRIM E3 Demo - WhatCulture! Posted: 12 Sep 2011 06:59 AM PDT
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| Review: Fright Night - Northern Weekly Posted: 12 Sep 2011 06:14 AM PDT
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| 6.11: The God Complex - DWO Spoiler Free Preview Posted: 12 Sep 2011 06:08 AM PDT DWO have seen 6.11: The God Complex and have put our spoiler-free preview together: The God Complex is one of the most grown-up Doctor Who stories to date, quite literally taking the word complex and running with it. It forms an important part of a season that has forced the viewer to evolve with a new, more intelligent way of story-telling. A way that pays the loyal and casual viewer in dividends...as long as you stick with it, and pay attention. The adventure kicks off with the TARDIS team arriving in an alien hotel, where everything is not as it seems, where nightmares come true, and where a mysterious creature hunts its prey in the maze-like corridors. David Walliams guest stars, and although we're fans of his previous work, the best thing about his character in this story is the amazing prosthetics. Walliams turns in a Little Britain-esque performance here, complete with a voice that could be compared to many of his characters from that said show. There are a few nice little moments from his mole-like Gibbis, but on the hole, his portrayal feels somewhat misplaced. Emotions run high at various points throughout this episode, and by the end you will feel quite drained (in a good way) - one particular scene springs to mind that's totally unexpected, totally genius, and utterly heart-breaking - made even more poignant thanks to a perfectly placed piece of scoring from Murray Gold. Writer, Toby Whithouse, once again pulls out all the stops and raises the stakes on both his previous Doctor Who outings and the momentum of the series so far. His scripts are incredibly distinctive whilst having the ability to slot in seamlessly with Moffat's tone for the season. There are some great moments too for Classic Series fans, as well as fans who have watched the New Series of Doctor Who from the beginning. Subtle and not-so-subtle nods to the past make the viewer feel like they are part of this ever-growing show that's constantly changing and evolving. This is Doctor Who at its very best. Surely it can't get better than this...can it? Five things to look out for... 1) Cat Nun! 2) The Doctor has a degree in cheese-making! 3) Angry Doctor! 4) Nimon! 5) The Doctor finally gives Amy a key!
[Source: Doctor Who Online]
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| Review: Fright Night - Banyule and Nillumbik Weekly Posted: 12 Sep 2011 05:21 AM PDT
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| Posted: 12 Sep 2011 05:13 AM PDT Shada – once the holy grail of Doctor Who episodes – is now something of a cottage industry. For an episode whose run was curtailed by industrial action it has had an active afterlife: it has been adapted into abridged video only episodes, books, audio plays, ebooks and in 2012 a novelisation by current Who writer Gareth Roberts (The Lodger). Sadly, original writer and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy creator Douglas Adams had refused to grant the novelisation rights to Target – making it one of only a handful of serials never to receive a print counterpart. However according to Starburst Shada has now finally been 'completed' – only there's a catch. Using a combination of animation and voice over from the actors involved the once lost serial is now ready to be shown to the outside world. Only you can't see it. The production is neither a BBC funded exercise nor even a venture from 2|entertain for a DVD release. The animation was a privately funded venture by record producer, Doctor Who fan and once continuity consultant on the show in the 80′s, Ian Levine. Now Levine isn't Kazran Sardick (although their were rumours that the Abzorbaloff monster in the 2006′s Love & Monsters was modelled on Levine's own position in fandom and he did once work with Take That) and he is hopeful that an agreement can be made to see this animated adventure released into the public domain. So do we really need another version of Shada? Or would you like to see the Levine Remix?
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| Post Game TV Recap: DOCTOR WHO S6E10 'The Girl Who Waited' - Newsarama Posted: 12 Sep 2011 05:07 AM PDT
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| John has “fingers crossed” for more Torchwood Posted: 12 Sep 2011 04:35 AM PDT John Barrowman has told Female First that he has got his "fingers crossed" for another series of Torchwood following the international success of Miracle Day. "In the States it's gone down really well," he explained. "We have to keep fingers crossed to see if there's another series on the cards. But that is not my decision. [...] | ||
| "True Blood" Episode 412 Recap: The "Fork You" Finale - AfterElton.com Posted: 12 Sep 2011 04:11 AM PDT
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| David Tennant in This is Jinsy Posted: 12 Sep 2011 03:58 AM PDT On Monday 19th September, David Tennant can be seen in Sky Atlantic's new comedy; This is Jinsy. Packed with surreal sketches and infectiously catchy songs, each episode follows the adventures of the island's pompous arbiter Maven (Justin Chubb) and his beleaguered assistant Sporall (Chris Bran) as they enforce the wishes of The Great He, and generally find trouble at every turn. Featuring a who's who of comic guest stars including Peter Serafinowicz, Simon Callow, David Tennannt, Harry Hill and Catherine Tate, the eight-part series is set to bring bags of off-kilter charm to British screens. In the first episode, it is wedding lottery time again on Jinsy and residents are making frantic last-minute preparations before being randomly assigned new partners for the next three cycles. Over-seeing the proceedings is local celebrity Mr Slightlyman (David Tennant), an outrageously camp wedding planner with a penchant for plastic surgery. Fans can catch a glimpse of Tennant camping it up on the hilarious clip below: [youtube:8UbkmxpXLUE] + This is Jinsy begins on Sky Atlantic on Monday 19 September at 10:10pm. [Source: DWAS]
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| Doctor Who - The Girl Who Waited - TV Pixie Posted: 12 Sep 2011 03:41 AM PDT
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| Torchwood S4E10 Review - Shadowlocked Posted: 12 Sep 2011 02:56 AM PDT
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| DOCTOR WHO 6.10 'The Girl Who Waited' - Crave Online Posted: 12 Sep 2011 02:16 AM PDT
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| Posted: 12 Sep 2011 02:03 AM PDT  Figures released by BARB show Doctor Who: Night Terrors, was the 19th most watched programme of the week. The episode was the 7th most watched programme on BBC Television. ITV1's HD ratings helped Red and Black edge slightly ahead of Doctor Who, although Doctor Who outrated the game show for the period the programmes were in direct opposition The figures do not include those watching on iPlayer.  Meanwhile episode eight of Torchwood, End of the Road had a final UK rating of 4.64 million viewers. It was the 39th most watched programme of the week. The AI score for Episode Nine of Torchwood, The Gathering, was 85. | ||
| Benedict Cumberbatch Rejects Doctor Who Talk - Gigwise Posted: 12 Sep 2011 02:02 AM PDT
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| Captain Jack Wants to Be Part of TARDIS Birthday Bash - Escapist Magazine Posted: 12 Sep 2011 02:02 AM PDT
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| 'I've Never Slept With A Doctor Who Groupie' Says John Barrowman - Gigwise Posted: 12 Sep 2011 01:56 AM PDT
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| Posted: 12 Sep 2011 01:44 AM PDT So... It's been a while since my last regular post. How's everybody been? This coming Friday sees the BFI screening of Sky - the first adventure of the SJA's final season. I'll be in attendence - and seeing as though this will likely be one of the last screenings of its type, it'd be great to see as many SARAH-JANE.tv readers there as possible. Can anybody think of an appropriate way for us all to celebrate the occasion? Of course, several recognisable faces are confirmed as going. Yep, for Tommy Knight, Daniel Anthony and Anjli Mohindra will all be there to support the screening, and answer audience questions afterwards. On top of that co-producer and head writer for the series Phil Ford will be joing them... along with new girl, child star Sinead Michael! It's still strange to think it's been a full year since we all sat down to watch the BFI screening of Death of the Doctor - with Lis Sladen in the audience along with us. I still remember waiting back afterwards with fellow fans - including the likes of Nabu San and Ian Levine - for a glimpse of her leaving the venue. We weren't to know it'd turn out to be her final public appearence for the show. Let's do our best to honour her this Friday night, hey? *** For those that can't make it the CBBC SJA site is offering fans the chance to quiz the young stars of the series here. *** Once series 5 has concluded its run on CBBC, SARAH-JANE.tv will look back and celebrate the entire history of the show, and Lis' involvement in Doctor Who (old and new) with one final "Readers Awards". Check back for more details on when and how you can get involved.  | ||
| Posted: 12 Sep 2011 01:30 AM PDT | ||
| Dr Whooligan: On the Road, Dragoncon, Day 4: McCoy Dazzles, Red Dwarf & Rain - Anglotopia.net Posted: 12 Sep 2011 01:12 AM PDT
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| Posted: 12 Sep 2011 01:11 AM PDT
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| Fancy Captain Jack on your face in the morning? - Gay Times Magazine (blog) Posted: 12 Sep 2011 01:01 AM PDT
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| Posted: 12 Sep 2011 12:45 AM PDT Recording is underway today (Monday 12 September) on Destination: Nerva – the first release in the eagerly awaited Fourth Doctor Adventures. Following immediately on from The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the story finds the Doctor (Tom Baker) and Leela (Louise Jameson) discovering an alien visitation in London – which will lead them to the far future and a battle for their lives on Space Station Nerva. Guest starring as Dr Alison Foster is Raquel Cassidy, whose TV credits include starring roles in Lead Balloon and Teachers, as well as a memorable guest part as Cleaves in Doctor Who's The Almost People and The Rebel Flesh. Raquel's previous Big Finish work includes two Doctor Whos, The Judgement of Isskar and Recorded Time and Other Stories. The cover has been designed by the artists at Amazing15. The series is available for pre-order now. | ||
| Arthur says the finale is as “epic” as series has got Posted: 12 Sep 2011 12:19 AM PDT Newsarama.com caught up with Arthur Darvill recently, and during the interview the actor revealed that the Series 6 finale is "about as epic as Doctor Who has ever got". "The finale just blew my mind," he teased. "I can't say too much about it, but it's about as epic as Doctor Who has ever got. It [...] | ||
| Final ratings for Series 6's Night Terrors released Posted: 12 Sep 2011 12:01 AM PDT The official viewing figures for the ninth episode of Series 6, Night Terrors, have now been released. The episode, shown on Saturday 3rd September, was seen by an audience of 7.07million people. It was written by Mark Gatiss, and saw the Doctor respond to a distress call from a child's bedroom, the scariest place in the [...] | ||
| The Girl Who Waited: Appreciation Index Posted: 11 Sep 2011 11:40 PM PDT  Doctor Who: The Girl Who Waited had an Appreciation Index, or AI score of 85. The AI is a measure of how much the audience enjoyed the episode. The score puts the programme just inside the excellent category. The score was the second highest on either of the main two channels for Saturday evening, with the Last Night of the Proms scoring highest. With overnight figures now available for the whole week, Doctor Who finished 21st in the overnight charts. It should finish well within the top twenty when official ratings are issued next week. | ||
| Benedict Cumberbatch says no to 'Doctor Who' - NME.com Posted: 11 Sep 2011 11:02 PM PDT
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| Posted: 11 Sep 2011 10:44 PM PDT
That's right: in a cock-up of remarkable ineptitude, a review "written" by Gavin Fuller (him again…) revealed various finale related information including whether or not the likely-to-die-thanks-to-his-chest-wound Rex would survive or not. On the right you can see the entire "review" (Fuller's not known for his ability in this area, regardless of regular work at the Telegraph) in reduced form. To be able to read it, you will need to click the image and view the linked JPEG, which also features a couple of comments from this very website to the effect of "WHAT?!" (Note that viewing the article WILL spoil the final episode). To their credit, the Telegraph eventually removed the offending post, but not after various Twitter comments and feedback left below the article itself had drawn attention to it. What is more baffling than the fact that the review was published after the penultimate episode (as this piece was described in the heading) is that the Telegraph managed to run it before the episode had even been seen in the USA, where Torchwood is running a week ahead of the UK. It's a poor showing from a supposedly "quality" newspaper. | ||
| Posted: 11 Sep 2011 10:17 PM PDT I want to write this down before it slips out of my memory. I sometimes feel that a lot of my occasional horrors are down to the fact that I find it hard, caught in deadlines, to remember the good times. And travelling to Reno, with my wife Caroline, for Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention, was a really good time. In fact, it was a whole row of them, going off like a chain reaction, producing a lot of happiness. Mixed in with that there were a lot of other emotions: anxiety and anger and doubt. As in any love story. Because me being part of science fiction fandom is a love story, of a rather troubled and difficult love. Hopefully the following will demonstrate some of why that's so. I'll describe it in snapshots, because I hate convention reports that start 'we left the house...' and because that's all I've got left in my head. That's Lee Harris, the Angry Robot editor, on our first night, in a diner by the Peppermill Casino Hotel, exclaiming, wide-eyed, that he's just used his first American bathroom! He's flown over with us, and this is his first time in the USA, and he keeps noting the firstness of things. Caroline and I have just walked over from the Atlantis Casino Hotel, a twenty minute hike between two enormous neon monoliths. We enjoy the heat of the night, but aren't so keen on the True Blood tang of Reno. The diner seems like an oasis of wonderfully normal America. But then we see it has slot machines at every seat on the bar, driving us away from sitting there. (Never again for a casino hotel. Never again, please, Worldcon. Yes, we all thought beforehand: hey, kitsch; charming; could be fun! But it's just grinding grimness, a cloud of cigarette smoke across breakfast, fruit machines growing everywhere like ugly coral, at the airport, between reception and the elevators. There were lost people doing evening things at every time of day. We walked through it all, we never touched it. We went into Reno too, and found there was no town there, just parched streets between casinos. All this is the opposite of what Worldcon is. At least, what it is to me.) 'No!' I'm saying that rather too loudly to James Bacon and company when someone tells me that the writer of the (great, but initially a bit buggy) Renovation iPad app has been getting flack from people who are treating his software as something produced as a professional product, 'no, we should be after people treating us like that, we should aspire to professionalism!' And I've only just walked into the convention hall, two days early, to, you know, walk the ground. I never like to see fans giving themselves the excuse that we're just hobbyists. Because that displays a chasm between fandom and how every author I know drives themselves. And there are plenty of fan organisations that drive themselves that way too. Like James and his gang, who do amazing things for the comics presence here, to bring in young fans, to promote the UK Worldcon bid. There's just something about a certain sort of SF fandom that... likes shoddiness... but no, let's put that aside, enough of that. That emotion came boiling to the surface just like that, bloody immediately. (Professionalism is, to a large extent, the order of the day at this Worldcon, though. The convention committee and the hotels have done great things in terms of organisation, with registration opening early (!), SF-related specials like the 'There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch' massage (with free lunch) and even... banners at the airport!)  Photo by John Picacio. (It's like we're a real event that makes waves in the world, outside our little bubble. And just like that, by doing it, by believing in it, we are it.) Relax. Relax. Here's Bill Willingham, creator of Fables, lounging in the seat next to us at the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. Gypsy Kings music is playing during the interval of Twelfth Night. Bill was given some free tickets and wanted company, so was kind enough, on our free night before the convention starts, to drive the two of us and Lee up to this most gorgeous lake, with rocks to stumble about amongst and crevices to watch birds hop into, with an open air stage in front of it, to the front of which we made our way as the sun went down. It's like the antidote to the city of Reno, helpfully nearby.  Bill is possibly the most sociable man I know, and he's content right now. He seems to love the mass of people for their own sake, his defining characteristic, I think, being his unwillingness to judge them. We've just seen the first half of a brilliant production of Twelfth Night, which centres on Maria's cunning, and makes the trick played on Malvolio seem just the latest chapter in an ongoing below stairs conflict that's light-hearted enough not to be cruel. It made me hopelessly wish for another episode, Thirteenth Night. (Somebody's probably written it. No, I don't want to know.) This play seems designed to say 'we're all here to have fun, and nothing bad is going to happen' and it once again does. And that's what I need to hear. Bill sits there delighted, the opposite of entitled, not expecting anything from the world, wanting others to expect just as little. It's not where I am, ever, but being near it always makes me feel good. I'm sitting on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones. Though George R.R. Martin isn't a Guest Of Honour here, he's a pretty formidable presence. (George himself would say, I'm sure, being as he's a stickler for the wonderfully socialist traditions of Worldcon, that he was just another badged attendee.) From this viewpoint, I can see a laughing security guard, the Drawing Of The Dark fan bar, people wandering past the Hugo Awards displays, heading for the nicely large dealer area (this time at least dominated by booksellers).  Look at that guy, there's someone who has too many opinions. I'm heading into a panel I'm moderating. I run into John Scalzi, who's doing a presentation in the room next door. 'You'll hear the enormous roars of continuous laughter through the wall,' he tells me. So I ask, when they're good and warmed up, for our audience (and panelists Melinda Snodgrass, A.C. Crispin and Dean Wesley Smith) to make just such a roar artificially. There's a moment of stunned silence from the room next door. Then we get a roar back. The panel is about 'working in other people's universes', something I've done too much. Ann Crispin has an enormous Pirates of the Carribean prelude novel out, The Price of Freedom, that bestrides the spinoffery/literature boundary and has a cover to match, and is, I think, a new thing in the world. She also runs the fabulous Writer Beware website that aims to warn prospective writers of who lies in wait, aiming to take their money. Dean is a bestselling thriller writer under another name that he won't tell us. Melinda is a good friend who, like me, doesn't want to be known for just her TV work. We have a lot of fun. It's not a panel with a row built in. We're having dinner with Tor and Locus editors (including ladies and gentlemen the fabulous Liza Groen Trombi, pronounced with an i she keeps telling me and I keep getting wrong), John Picacio, Lou Anders, Jon Strahan and Gary Wolfe (because I always run while listening to their podcast I tell them I now have a Pavlovian urge towards exercise at the sound of their voices), Alistair Reynolds, Ian McDonald, and Tara O'Shea, who's vibrating in fear because of her Hugo nomination for Chicks Dig Time Lords (while the others nominated vibrate more stealthily, but yes they do vibrate, apart from Ian who just laughs heartily but a lot) in a steakhouse that's in one of the minor plush purple organs of the body of the casino, for your convenience. We return to the only good night of everyone in the same bar, where we can look around and feel the warmth of our peers until the early hours. (The next night, the Atlantis realises their mistake and shuts this bar at 10pm, leaving Worldcon with no central bar, and peers scattered into casino corners, annoyed and still not playing any slot machines.) I meet, stumble into conversation with, Robert Silverberg, for the first time. I'm nervous, because I'm on a panel with him in a couple of days that is an invitation to a row (about the generation gap in fandom, whether or not many different fandoms have evolved 'by cohort' of age, without reading each other's texts). This is one of the many emotions of a Worldcon: there is a quiz, you know, between the drinking. You will be marked in front of your potential and actual audience. You will be asked to perform a dance. You will be judged by and against your peers. So I take a deep breath and I put forward the core of my argument: 'I feel sometimes like this movemenent, this fandom, is dying of old age! Have you seen some of the Hugo nominations?! Some of those could have been written in the 1940s! And where are all the kids?! At other conventions, that's where!' Ah, but, actually, that wasn't the core of my argument at all. Not for that panel, that's only slightly related to that. That was a nightmare I have about losing the thing I most love: the Hugo Awards. No, sorry, of course, I mean Worldcon. No, sorry, I mean SF Fandom in general, of which Worldcon and the Hugos are a part. I think. So it's just as well that actually I don't say any of that at all. I just say 'Mr Silverberg' a lot. He's been at every Hugo ceremony. He talks about watching Asimov, Heinlein and Clarke walking across a Worldcon floor and wishing to be with them, and then being with them and seeing some kid author across the way watching and being his younger self, and I think here's someone who knows something about time that I'm only just getting to the fringes of understanding. What will I actually say to him on that panel? What's the way to pass that test? Would someone who'd bought into amateurism care about that test as much as I do, as much as any pro would? Later. The later early hours. You have to understand: we spend most of our working lives alone. To be with our peers feels so exciting that sleep would be a waste. I'm wandering with a whole gang of folk trying to find Lauren Beukes and Lee (who we find out the next morning were actually tweeting their locations at the other hotel, which made the whole walkabout eerie in a parallel universe casino sort of way). I'm with Mary Robinette Kowal and Stephen Segal and Lou Anders and Mary's puppet troupe, who are going to actually perform a show at Worldcon, twice in one day. We find one of the many isolated bars amidst the casino and it's miraculously empty of gamblers and smokers, and we settle and talk loudly into the night, and at one point I find myself a side of one against everyone else on the table about some fan debate or other, and there are suddenly raised voices, that uncovering of the emotion and tension that puts the spice into why we're all here, and Mary, always the peacemaker, waits until I've fought for a while and finds a compromise and buys me drinks. And then we all keep talking for another few hours and the sides change and change and change as we all keep on figuring out, every moment, who we are and what we stand for. Caroline and I are marching across the 'skybridge' that separates the Atlantis from the Reno Convention Centre with Sheila Williams, the editor of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. We're going to lunch with her in the same bar as we were all in last night, but we discover that it's now closed for lunch too, as if it's still hurting from too many guests last night. So we sit down outside it and talk about how the magazine is booming, how Sheila deals with her massive reading pile for every issue, and how she 'wants more action adventure' like the Hamilton stories, aware with every choice she makes that she may be limiting the magazine's style as well as defining it. I like her a lot, and I'm glad there's such a kind but steely hand on the tiller at my favourite fiction magazine. She has never won the Hugo, and is, annoyingly, still regarded in some quarters as being in the shadow of her predecessor, Gardner Dozois. We talk about how Carol Emshwiller is emerging as the new Bradbury, a genre of her own, mostly through Asimov's. I tell Sheila I'll send her more stories. I'm reading the prologue of my forthcoming novel, Cops and Monsters, and the first part of 'The Copenhagen Interpretation' to a room with, surprisingly, quite a lot of people in it. I do voices. Which is new for me, and something I surprise myself by trying, and the opening of the book seems to do okay under this test, because, for the first time, there's nothing I find myself editing out of the reading. 'You started too fast,' says my wife afterwards, 'but you slowed down and got there.' I normally read everything too fast, like I'm aware there's only so much time to pack everything in. Like I treat life. I even did my Nicol Williamson impersonation, because the Smiling Man in the novel should have his voice. A man in the audience of the ebook cover art panel is shouting 'fuck off and die, asshole!' It's that low serotonin time in the afternoon, and Twitter is showing me comments from other fractious panels across the convention. That emotional experience again. I don't think people who haven't been to Worldcon or the San Diego or New York Comic Cons understand it: how forward should you be, in representing yourself? Did you really find a whole you somewhere in all that lonely writing, who's now ready to strut like a character amongst all these thousands of people? You could create that character, sure, but they're going to be tested. This is an assault course as well as a holiday. Honesty might be the best policy. That acid test applies to everyone in different strata: authors; artists; singers; fans. John Picacio, whose passion can be set to hard when needs be, is suddenly very calm on the panel, and offers to 'see him outside'. The man marches out. He was trying to argue that mainstream publishers offer no publicity to authors, a claim which is both vastly untrue and possibly the product of his own life experience, and not much to do with anything on a panel that's got a very obvious row written into it (the one about ebook pricing, the one that most underlines to gap between fans and pros), one which isn't being had. It's like the elephant in the room suddenly decided to trumpet, but came out with the wrong noise. Lou starts meandering in his fun way, something about socks in a dryer, nothing to do with anything, and the panel becomes fun. And the afternoon becomes evening, and everyone eats some sugar, and the coffee wears off, and it's time for the beer again. (The other lows I hear reported from that moment in the afternoon include a couple of reports from media panels where the panelists were presumably mainstream SF fans who knew a bit about Joss Whedon and presumably thought, not unreasonably, that it might be fun to chat happily on a panel about him, and had therefore signed up, only to be met by an audience who really knew about Joss Whedon, and came along, again, not unreasonably, expecting panelists who were more expert than they were. 'I think,' said one tweeter, 'you should at least stop calling him Josh.' Perhaps in future there should be some sort of quiz. 'What's the correct surname of the man who played the Fifth Doctor?' Damn it, how about 'What's the production code of 'Face Of Evil'?' We sit in at the back of the 'which Doctor was most influential?' panel, and there's only a little of that, but there is some, with the audience bellowing the answers to some gaps in the panelists' knowledge, and absolutely stunning them with an audience vote that concludes it was Pat Troughton. Caroline tells me some of the anime panels were a bit like that too. It's difficult to find experts outside of a fandom's tradition, but it sometimes feels that Worldcon thinks it's graciously kneeling when it deals with the popular, I mean young, I mean media fandoms.) It's night, and we're hauling ourselves through the corridors upstairs at the Atlantis, pushing past body with a plastic cup of merlot after body with plastic cup of merlot. There were queues for the lifts. It isn't just the room parties that are full, the corridors between them have become one big, packed, room party. It's been like this, on and off, at several Worldcons now. Fans like to come and (hide?) in this warren, pros like a big central bar. Because the warren may be 'ours' and it may be free but it doesn't work so well any more. We just pop in to offer support to the parties run by Tor (my publishers), the London 2014 Worldcon bid (because it's London and they're doing a great job and they've put up fictional tube map destinations round the walls) and Texas in 2013 (where I can't yet say why I'm hanging around, keeping the secret until my Toastmaster status is revealed on the Saturday morning). Unlike almost everything else at a Worldcon, the room party crush feels like something only a teenager could love. I think it's at the Texas party where I run into Tor editor Liz Gorinsky, a fiercely intelligent academic who's hosting that panel with Silverberg that I'm now very nervous about, and I start talking to her, and I say: 'I feel sometimes like this movemenent, this fandom, is dying of old age! Have you seen some of the Hugo nominations?! Some of those could have been written in the 1940s! And where are all the kids?! At other conventions, that's where!' And fuck, this time I actually say it. She starts defending Worldcon. I start immediately agreeing and backing off. I realise, I realise every time I say this or even think it, that if someone else said it to me, I'd reflexively start defending Worldcon. (It's like this is the nightmare and we mustn't give voice to it, or people will start believing it. I think there's some truth to it. But only some. There's some evidence that the size of the SF Fandom community has remained stable always. That people come to it in their thirties and forties, so the influx is never obvious. It's a terrifying situation, but it always has been. There are parallels with the Anglican church. That's the rational part of me talking now, and talking then as I back track. I let the blasphemy out because I don't want what I love to end, and because in that arrogant moment of characterising myself I'm thinking of myself as delivering a dire and urgent warning to my friends, so proud, this someone who has too many opinions. But in letting it out I know, always, that I'm also that thing I hate, someone who's bought into the apocalypse, who's started to desire the end of something that's flawed. But everything is flawed. And only depressives desire the end of love.) We've hauled our way out of the sweat and the pressure of the party floor, and found the big spaces of the dealers' room after hours, the Drawing Of The Dark bar. Me, Caroline, Lee, podcaster Mur Lafferty and her friend Mignon Fogarty (who podcasts as Grammar Girl), are playing Apples to Apples. Mur is wonderfully drunk and fighty. 'You're actually arguing that "Pocahontas" was "less intelligent" than "an amoeba"?' I say. 'Listen!' growls Mur, 'she made some really bad choices!' I wonder about having an arm wrestle with her, but I suspect I'd lose. I tell her she should really record an edition of I Should Be Writing while intoxicated, and the next day she says she's up for that. We're having breakfast with Melinda and a movie producer who not only knows and loves the ways of the SF fan, but takes a turn around the bars later in his steampunk duds, with ornate mock steam powered watch. Here's someone who knows who we are, who's happy to come play in our world. I've said, earlier this weekend, that it's notable that 'the fangirl and fanboy' have just lately become an utterly reasonable lifestyle option to mainstream folk, a badge, these days, actually of attractiveness, rather like 'the hippie' once swiftly infiltrated the norm(s). One no longer has to be an outsider to be one. Or is it that, since we won the culture wars (please, please, fandom, realise that we won), mainstream kids are now enjoying expressing our central brand idea: everyone is a fan of something? Our ghetto walls must really be pretty strong to keep so many interested young people out. But no, but no, no, I don't believe that, not entirely. I'm interviewing Brother Guy Consolmagno, popularly known as 'the Vatican astronomer' (though he's one of several) on a panel. Earlier, he met me in the Green Room, and got me to sign Xtinct and Dark X-Men (so yes, there are now copies of those in the Vatican). He impresses me hugely. He's clearly a media pro, with finely-tuned stories that make the audience laugh. He makes much of his ironic intellectual freedom as the only astronomer in the world not limited by the quest for funding. He won't accept a 'God of the gaps' (something cosmology gives me some hope for) but instead insists that God is absolutely outside the universe, can only be found in intuition, in our feeling for subtle patterns. He's a champion in the fight against creationism and literalism. He insists that science and religion being at odds is a very modern and limited concept with specific historical roots, one that doesn't and shouldn't apply. I try to push him to reveal his own religious experience | ||
| David Walliams: busiest man in showbusiness - Telegraph.co.uk Posted: 11 Sep 2011 09:16 PM PDT
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| Barrowman Reiterates Return Wish Posted: 11 Sep 2011 08:54 PM PDT Who would you like to see appear in Doctor Who's fiftieth birthday bash in 2013? Along the way, the Doctor has met some pretty interesting characters that could come back to either help or hinder him in his travels across the Universe. One such character is Captain Jack Harkness, who is surely the twenty first century equivalent of the Brigadier, would be a welcome guest star to help out the Eleventh Doctor when the time comes. Doctor Who fans last saw the good Captain in The End of Time, Part Two, when the Tenth Doctor set him up with Midshipman Frame as a goodbye present. Since then both the Doctor and the Captain have had more than enough fish to fry saving Earth and the Universe. But as the time draws nearer and the Doctor is due to celebrate one of his biggest birthday's ever, what can we expect? When the series was running during its 10th and 20th anniversaries we were treated to some very special stories. On its 30th and 40th we were not (oi, what about Scream of the Shalka?! – Ed) But we're going to have the show operating at maximum capacity during the big five-oh so it's guaranteed that there will be something very special, something that actor John Barrowman wants to be a part of:
Our thoughts exactly! | ||
| John Barrowman Exclusive Interview - FemaleFirst.co.uk Posted: 11 Sep 2011 08:49 PM PDT
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| John Barrowman: 'I've never slept with a Doctor Who groupie' - Digital Spy Posted: 11 Sep 2011 08:26 PM PDT
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| John Barrowman: 'I've never slept with a Doctor Who groupie' - Digital Spy UK Posted: 11 Sep 2011 08:25 PM PDT
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| New Guardian ebook charts revival of Doctor Who - seenit.co.uk Posted: 11 Sep 2011 07:49 PM PDT
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| Firth drops down best looking poll - expressandstar.com Posted: 11 Sep 2011 07:36 PM PDT
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| Firth drops down best looking poll - shropshirestar.com Posted: 11 Sep 2011 07:34 PM PDT
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