More Doctor Who Goodies

Character Options have are set to release another wave of classic Doctor Who figures.

On Monday 10th August there is a Tom Baker set featuring the 4th Doctor, a Dalek from Destiny of the Daleks, including bombs attached around its rim, a robot mummy from Pyramids of Mars complete with canopic jar and SV5 from Robots of Death, this now makes 3 robot figures from this story.

On August 12th they will release a 3rd Colin Baker figure which is taken post regeneration from the Caves of Androzani, the 6th Doctor wears the 5th Doctors costume which is also covered in dirt.

At the end of  October, Charater will release what I at least have been waiting for, 2 3rd Doctor figures featuring Jon Pertwee in 2 costumes. Set 1 will feature a long frock coated 3rd Doctor and a Sea Devil from the story of the same name.

The second set will feature a silver dalek with black sensor nodes, from the story Death to the Daleks (1974).  The 3rd Doctor wears a blue dinner jacket with red trim and high boots.

Finally a second trio Dalek set will be available featuring  a Saucer Pilot Dalek from ‘Dalek Invasion of Earth’ (1964), an Emperor’s Guard Dalek from ‘Evil of the Daleks’ (1967) and Supreme Dalek from ‘Day of the Daleks’ (1972) all ready to bother Jon Pertwee.

This set is available from August 10th.

Classic Doctor Who Action Figures

Continuing their release of classic Doctor Who action figures, Character Online are due to release figures of the 1st, 2nd and 6th Doctors in July this year. The sets will comprise of the following:

William Hartnell action figure with Supreme Controller Dalek as featured in the Dalek Invasion of Earth. It has to be noted that I refer to the tv story not the movie version featuring Peter Cushing. The cool thing about this set is that it’s also available in black and white as it would have been seen in 1964 when it was first aired.

The 3rd and 4th sets of colour and black and white figures feature Patrick Troughton and a cyberman from the 1967 story, Tomb of the Cybermen. I’m not 100% certain if this cyberman will be a re-release of the Age of Steel build an collect figures released earlier this year. {Note! I’ve checked, it is a re-release and not a new version!}

These double figure sets are expected to retail around £24.99. Pre orders can be placed at Forbidden Planet‘s website.

Finally a second 6th Doctor is to be relased without his usual harlequin costume. This figure wears a blue costume as featured in the BBC webcast ‘Real Time’, and a few book covers. It’s a toned down version of his normal bright attire, now reproduced as this great action figure.

This now only leaves the 3rd Doctor (Jon Pertwee), the 7th Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and the 8th Doctor (Paul McGann). Will we have to wait until 2010 for these? Only time will tell.

Attack of the Cybermen – Episode Guide

Whilst travelling alongside Halley’s Comet, the TARDIS picks up an alien distress call from Earth.

In the sewers below London’s Fleet Street, a small gang of petty criminals – Griffiths (Brian Glover), Payne (James Beckett) and Russell (Terry Molloy), with their boss Lytton (Maurice Colbourne), ex-commander of the Dalek task force [Resurrection of the Daleks] – are apparently attempting to pull off a jewellery robbery.

DVD Release – Attack of the Cybermen

DVD extras for this release include:

• Commentary with actors Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Terry Molloy and Sarah Berger.

• The Cold War (dur. 27′ 26″) – cast and crew look back at the making of the story in this documentary from John Kelly. With actors Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Terry Molloy and Sarah Berger, writer Eric Saward, director Matthew Robinson, continuity advisor Ian Levine and film cameraman Godfrey Johnson. Narrated by Stephen Greif.

• The Cyber Story (dur. 22′ 49″) – Brendan Sheppard gives us a brief history of the Cybermen in the classic series. With director Morris Barry, writer Eric Saward, costume designers Sandra Reid and Dinah Collins, Cyberman actor Mark Hardy, voice artiste Roy Skelton and Professor Kevin ‘Human Cyborg’ Warwick.

• Human Cyborg (dur. 8′ 07″) – an interview with Professor Kevin Warwick, who has used himself as a human guinea pig for cybernetic implant experimentation.

• The Cyber-Generations (dur. 7′ 48″) – a gallery of Cyberman through the history of the series, set to music from their stories.

• Trails and Continuity (dur. 3′ 09″) – BBC1 trails and continuity announcements from the story’s first transmission.

• Isolated Score – option to view the episodes with isolated music soundtrack.

• PDF Material – Radio Times listings for ‘Attack of the Cybermen’ and ‘The Invasion’ (previously missed from that story’s DVD release), plus a 1969 article from ‘The Listener’ magazine by Cyberman co-creator Kit Pedler in Adobe pdf format for viewing on PC or Mac.

• Plus of course the usual Coming Soon Trailer, Programme Subtitles, Subtitle Production Notes and Photo Gallery.

6th Doctor – Opening Title Sequence

Colin Baker played the Doctor from series 21 onwards as brash and colourful, so Sutton was instructed to make the titles brash and colourful. He animated the Doctor’s face by dissolving from a frown photo to that of a beaming grin – possibly the friendliest that Colin Baker ever looked during his short tenure! Plus, rather than forming from stars, the neon logo now zoomed into place via DVE, bent down at the edges and tinted purple. The old saying suggests that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” a saying that John Nathan Turner cheerfully ignored. For series 23 in 1986, he dropped Peter Howell’s fantastic theme arrangement, in favour of Dominic Glynn’s less-than-pleasing “bedroom bontempi” version.

SFX Magazine celebrates 45years of Doctor Who

This months issue of SFX magazine features a 45th anniversary celebration for Doctor Who. To celebrate they have released no fewer than 10 different covers for the December issue.

Their website boasts “The main attraction in our celebration of Doctor Who is our enormous retrospective feature, where we ask Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, Stephen Fry, Clive Barker, Paul Cornell and Mark Gatiss to talk about their love for the show. We have the world exclusive first word on this year’s Christmas special, too, and to top it all off, we’ve got a great competition where you can win all four series of Doctor Who on DVD!”

You can see all 10 covers above, click on the thumbnails for larger views. Which one would you buy? I bought the Jon Pertwee version.