Magpies Electricals

Ten years ago today, The Idiot's Lantern first aired in the UK. To celebrate, I thought it would be fun to see all the times Magpie Electricals popped up throughout time and space.

The Idiot's Lantern: Magpie Electricals was the name of the shop owned by Mr. Magpie up until his death in 1953. At some point Mr. Magpie was contacted by the alien entity which called itself the Wire and was instructed to sell television sets cheaply ahead of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. It was all part of the Wire's plan to reconstitute its corporeal body. Mr. Magpie was killed by the Wire but somehow his business survived long into the future.

The Runaway Bride: When the Tenth Doctor flicked through various websites on a mobile phone, Magpie Electricals briefly makes an appearance.

The Sound of Drums: Martha Jones' television was made by Magpie Electricals.

Voyage of the Damned: The space cruise-liner the Titanic had a Magpie Electricals microphone. Wilfred Mott also had a Magpie Electricals television on his newspaper stand.

The Mark of the Berserker: Sarah Jane Smith's PC was made by Magpie Electricals.

The Eleventh Hour: Various aspects of the Eleventh Doctor's first console room were branded Magpie Electricals including the monitor, the typewriter and the keyboard.

The Beast Below: Magpie Electricals still seemed to exist in a similar form to it's original aboard Starship UK as there is a Magpie Electricals store on the ship.

Day of the Moon: River Song's scanner was made by Magpie Technology. She used the scanner a number of times during her adventures with the Doctor.

The Magician's Apprentice: The Twelfth Doctor owned a Magpie Electricals guitar amp which he used in Essex in 1138 on a tank. He kept the amp in the TARDIS and continued to use it (like in Before the Flood).

I am fairly sure that's the lot but there may well be some I missed. The Doctor Who team have a few of these ongoing jokes and I guess it's also a handy way to cover up brand names on electrical items!

Tooth and Claw "in real life"

This is the latest in a series of Doctor Who in “Real Life” posts. The idea is that I discuss how episodes work from a real world perspective. To celebrate it’s ten year anniversary, today I am looking at the Series Two episode Tooth and Claw. 

 

This image comes from a book called It's a Mystery by T. Wilcox. It is from a story called "Terror From the Sky". Here's an extract:

"In the year of our Lord 1540, under the reign of King James the Fifth... an almighty fire did burn in the pit."

 In October, 1540, the monks at the Glen of Saint Catherine Monastery were going about their daily business. A simple diet of haggis and water, prayers, a vow of silence, charity work. Little did they know that their lives were about to change forever! Nobody knows for certain what fell to Earth on that fateful night. Was it a meteorite or something... worse? 

Torchwood House dates back to the fifteenth century. It was extensively rebuilt in the 1600s and then again in the 1800s by Sir George Macleish who was good friends with Prince Albert. Sir George also built the famous Torchwood Observatory.

After the death of Sir Robert Macleish in 1879 the house was purchased by the Crown. Queen Victoria is known to have stayed at the house and you can still see her room today.

  

Torchwood House is now a visitor attraction and is open to the public between April and September. One of the most popular exhibits is the House of History Exhibition, opened by Prince Charles in 2006, which charts the history of the house through photographs, personal accounts and newspaper extracts. 

The house is also now a wedding venue. A banquet of local delicacies is put on for wedding parties and an experienced photographer will capture the day. Some couples choose to stay at the nearby Glen of Saint Catherine Monastery. 

 

For more information about Torchwood House, you can visit their website here.

[The content of this posts come from the Torchwood House website, part of the promotial material for Tooth and Claw. I'm not sure why there was a picture of Bernard Cribbins on the wedding page, nor where that photo originally came from!]

Lethbridge-Stewart: The Black Eggs of Khufu

Candy Books have been generously giving away free short stories to people who pre-order the Lethbridge-Stewart book and this is their Easter free story, although other than the eggs connection it has nothing to do with Easter.

Lethbridge-Stewart arrives at the Great Pyramid in Egypt where ancient alien activity has been uncovered. There's an alien body and mysterious black eggs but when a group of Russians get involved Lethbridge-Stewart finds himself racing across the desert on a camel. 

It's a decent story and I liked the alien explanation for the pyramids. It certainly made good use of the locale although it's never really explained how on Earth Lethbridge-Stewart ending up going there. 

As is often the case with Doctor Who short stories though, this is limited by it's length. We get little explanation for the aliens and I couldn't really work out what the Russians were hoping to achieve. I hope that at some point Dexter gets to write a full-length Lethbridge-Stewart novel because he brings some great ideas into these short stories but doesn't have the time to expand upon them. 

Another decent freebie that adds to the growing Lethbridge-Stewart series.

The Legends of Ashildr

This book gives us four stories featuring the virtually-immortal Ashildr, as played by Maisie Williams in Series 9 of Doctor Who. 

The Arabian Knightmare by James Goss: The least enjoyable of the collection in my opinion but not awful by any means. It sees Ashildr, here known as Ash El Dir, tell a version of the Arabian Nights which she was part of. The framing was awkward and I'm not sure the concept totally worked. I think if you are going to re-tell a known story in the Doctor Who universe you need to add at least a sci-fi twist, like in Time Lord Fairy Tales.

The Fortunate Isles by David Llewellyn: Ashildr stows away on a ship in 1485 as a way of escaping from a robbery. It turns out the ship is going on much longer voyage than expected. It starts as a great tale of explorers and has a massive twist where suddenly it becomes very science-fiction.

The Triple Knife by Jenny T. Colgan: Colgan has yet to write a poor Doctor Who story so far and this doesn't break that rule. Ashildr brings her three young children from France to London in 1348. But she brings the plague with her and only the mysterious scientists, based on the bird-like costumes plague doctors wore, might be able to help. The most emotional story here which is truly gut-wrenching. 

The Ghosts of Branscombe Woods by Justin Richards: It's gone 1600 and Me finds herself in the village of Branscombe somewhere near London. There ghosts haunt the local woods and Me decides to investigate. I liked the idea of the ghosts themselves but the lack of explanation for the ship that caused them was disappointing.

A good collection of stories featuring an enigmatic character. Lots to enjoy. 

The Doctor's Yo-Yo

Richard Bignell is the editor of Doctor Who research magazine Nothing at the End of the Lane. His Twitter feed (he's @NothingLane) is an absolute goldmine and earlier he shared a fascinating story about the Fourth Doctor's Yo-Yo which I felt I just had to share. Everything here comes directly from Bignell's tweets, I've just expanded things so they are a little easier to see.

This is a Louis Marx Lumar 99 Competition yo-yo- the type used by the Fourth Doctor, certainly from Genesis onwards:

Requiring reliable, quality yo-yos, BBC Enterprises sent Philip Hinchcliffe some Lumars to test.

They sent them to the wrong Phil Hinchcliffe:

 

When the correct Philip Hinchcliffe eventually got them, he sent back an equally tongue-in-cheek reply:

Time Lord Fairy Tales

"When I was your age — about, ooh, a thousand years ago — I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans. The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes. Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday, eh? All the classics."- The Eleventh Doctor. 

The idea of fairy tales with a Doctor Who twist seems a ridiculous idea at first but the brilliant Justin Richards makes it wonderful. In this collection are fifteen fairy tales that are mostly based on our traditional fairy tales, only with a sci-fi twist and a Doctor Who alien as the villain. 

The Garden of Statues: The least fairytale like story of the lot, this is a creepy Weeping Angel story which is great. 

Frozen Beauty: Sleeping Beauty except with space travel cryogenesis and the Wirrn. A particularly clever idea. 

Cinderella and the Magic Box: This one is closer to the original fairy tale than most here. The big difference is that the role of the fairy godmother is filled by the Eleventh Doctor. Oh, and there's vampires too. It works very well. 

The Twins in the Wood: An odd one this where two royal twins escape execution from a rival to the throne and hide in the woods on Gallifrey. It managed to have a real fairy tale feel to it despite not being based on an actual fairy tale. 

The Three Little Sontarans: It's the Three Little Pigs only with sontarans. A rutan plays the role of the big bad wolf. It's quite silly but it's a lot of fun. 

Jak and the Wormhole: A wormhole instead of a beanstalk and Nimon instead of a giant. It strays a little far from the original tale but just about gets away with it. 

Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday: Clearly only existing because of the quote above, this was my least favorite of the collection. It had to somehow get that title to actually work within the Snow White story and what we're left with is a story that isn't really much like Snow White at all. 

Little Rose Riding Hood: A young girl called Rose visits her Grandmother only to find she has been replaced by a zygon. The Ninth Doctor plays the role of the woodcutter. It makes excellent sense for the wolf to be a zygon. It's hinted that this is meant to be a young Rose Tyler but if so it conflicts with the history of the character on the show. 

The Gingerbread Trap: Hansel and Gretel, with the witch being a Krillitane. Another excellent use of a Doctor Who alien. 

The Scruffy Piper: My favorite of the collection, it's the Pied Piper with the Second Doctor and his recorder and the rates being cybermats. So ridiculous but so good.

Helana and the Beast: A Beauty and the Beast-esque story where the Twelfth Doctor makes an appearance. It loses the magic of the original tale. 

Andiba and the Four Slitheen: Another that isn't based on a traditional tale, this is set in the fairy tale feeling location of a distillery. A decent story. 

The Grief Collector: A take on the rumpelstiltskin story, with the Tenth Doctor helping sort things out. One of the best stories of the collection. 

The Three Brothers Gruff: The billy-goats are made to be humans and the troll is a sontaran on this take on the classic. It sort of loses the wit of the original tale but worth reading just for the idea of a sontaran being confused for a troll. 

Sirgwain and the Green Knight: Presumably based on the Arthurian story, one I am not familiar with, this sees the role of the green knight taken by an Ice Warrior. The Ice Warrior is less villainous than we often see.

All in all, this works excellently. Doctor Who often has a feel of fairy tale about it and here Richards takes that further than ever. They are written in the style of fairy tales and the book itself is beautiful, with a great cover, thick pages and lovely illustrations. It all comes together to be a wonderful thing

The Future of Who

As I'm sure you are aware by now, Steven Moffat is leaving Doctor Who to be replaced by Chris Chibnall. I thought I would discuss what this means for the next few years of the show.

First off, there will be no series of Doctor Who in 2016. The only episode will be a Christmas special. This is of course sad news and means 2016 will see the least Doctor Who since before the show's revival in 2005. There are some good things about this though. For a start it's hard to deny that Series 9 did see a dip in the viewing figures, even if scheduling had large part to play in that. It will certainly do no harm to rest the show for a year on that side of things.

Steven Moffat

It will also mean that Doctor Who will go back to airing in the spring. This is where the show has worked best in the modern era but fell apart when Series 7 didn't start to air until the autumn. It should also be good for scheduling. Part of the problem of Autumn scheduling is that the show has to fit in alongside another BBC Saturday night show, Strictly Come Dancing. With the BBC losing the rights to The Voice, Doctor Who will likely be the main feature of Saturday nights on BBC1, which means the scheduling is likely to be more favourable.

The next thing for Doctor Who to do is introduce a new companion. It's still unclear at this point whether that will happen in the 2016 Christmas Special or the start of Series 10. If it isn't the 2016 Christmas special then we would have an episode of a solo Doctor or a one-time companion. Might I suggest it would be the perfect time for Moffat to bring back Captain Jack Harkness for an episode? There will still be some new Doctor Who content in 2016 in the form of new spin-off Class of course.

In the news of his resignation Steven Moffat suggests that the third series of Broadchurch, written by the incoming showrunner Chris Chibnall, will be the last. The crime drama starts filming in May so might just make it onto ITV by the end of 2016.

Broadchurch

In Spring 2017 a 12-episode series 10 will air, Moffat's last as showrunner. There's been no mention of a 2017 Christmas special as yet which is interesting. Chibnall is clearly stated as taking over from the start of series 11 in 2018 so it looks like Moffat will still be in charge for Christmas 2017. I suspect this is when we will see Peter Capaldi regenerate. He's likely to leave the show at the same time as Moffat, a la David Tennant, and would certainly have done the traditional three series tenure by then. It's plausible that we may even get more than one episode of Doctor Who over Christmas 2017, like we did with the The End of Time.

The Twelfth Doctor regenerates (from The Witches Familiar)

This would mean that when Chris Chibnall takes over in 2018, Series 11 will begin with a new Doctor. It's all speculation really but given the timings and what happened at the last handover this makes the most sense.

I'm intrigued by the sort of Doctor Who Chibnall will bring us. He's not written for the show since 2012's The Power of Three. It seems clear he is more character-driven that Steven Moffat so I would guess the next era will be closer to the RTD era than the Moffat one. So far I would say five of his six Doctor Who episodes are underwhelming (the other, The Power of Three, being certainly his best). It is a little worry that he hasn't yet written anything stunning for the show like Moffat had before his time as showrunner.

Chris Chibnall

It is worth remembering though that Chibnall was effectively the showrunner at Torchwood during it's first two series. I would say of his eight Torchwood episodes only one of them wasn't great and he wrote the excellent closing episodes of both the first two series and the opener to series two. Then there's Broadchurch which is fantastic, especially the first series. There's is certainly potential in Chibnall and I am cautiously optimistic about the show's future under him.