The Doctor and Rose arrive in an underground vault in Utah in the near future. The vault is filled with alien artefacts. Its billionaire owner, Henry van Statten, even has possession of a living alien creature, a mechanical monster in chains that he has named a Metaltron. Seeking to help the Metaltron, the Doctor is appalled to find it is in fact a Dalek – one that has survived the horrors of the Time War just as he has. And as the Dalek breaks loose, the Doctor is brought back to the b…
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The TARDIS lands in the Lancashire village of Bilehurst Cragg in the 17th century, and the Doctor, Ryan, Graham and Yaz soon become embroiled in a witch trial run by the local landowner. Fear stalks the land, and the arrival of King James I only serves to intensify the witch hunt. But the Doctor soon realises there is something more sinister than paranoia and superstition at work. Tendrils of living mud stir in the ground and the dead lurch back to horrifying life as an evil alien…
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In his first-ever Doctor Who novel, Tom Baker’s incredible imagination is given free rein. A story so epic it was originally intended for the big screen, Scratchman is a gripping, white-knuckle thriller almost forty years in the making. The Doctor, Harry and Sarah Jane Smith arrive at a remote Scottish island, when their holiday is cut short by the appearance of strange creatures – hideous scarecrows, who are preying on the local population. The islanders are living in fear, and the Doc…
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Hello gang! I've identified all of the mobile phones used in every single episode of Doctor Who! This bonus post looks at a very special entry from s01e01 - but feel free to rummage in the archives. A Rose By Any Other Name... The very first episode of New-Who has some lovely zeitgeisty phones. But there was one I MISSED! I'm indebted to James Sutton for pointing out something which was hiding in plain sight. Yes! That chunk of C4 explosive is controlled by a mobile phone! Here are some…
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As part of my silly floppy artwork, I wanted to find a retro computer font. Then I remembered that there's a 1960s Doctor Who serial with this beauty. The War Machines is a cracking slice of 60s sci-fi. It's very groovy. But what font is it? It isn't Westminster. The W is completely wrong. And the letter T is mirrored. Westminster has a surprising and interesting history. It isn't Data 70. Which, in any case, was released a few years after the episode. Time travel is complex though. …
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The Web Planet puts the first Doctor and his companions in the middle of a war between two alien races - the moth-like Menoptra and a hostile race of ant creatures known as Zarbi - for possession of the planet Vortis. With the help of a grub-esque people called the Optera, the Doctor discovers the Zarbi's hidden weapon; the seductively voiced spider creature the Animus, which plans to ensnare the Time Lord and thwart his assistance to the Menoptra. The Web Planet is a curio of a Doctor Who …
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This is a minor obsession of mine. The crew of JMC Red Dwarf are familiar with 20th Century pop-culture - but they never mention Doctor Who. Why? In various episodes they talk about The Flintstones, Casablanca, Marilyn Monroe, Laurel & Hardy, and all sorts of TV shows. But Doctor Who is strangely absent. There can only be one logical explanation. Lister and the gang exist the same universe as The Doctor. He has saved the Earth many times, and has deleted himself from their history. Now, I…
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To celebrate the upcoming series Doctor Who staring Jodie Whittaker, I'm attempting to chronicle all the mobile phones used in previous shows. If you think you've spotted something that's not listed here, or think I've made a mistake, drop it in the comments. You can follow along with all 10 series. Darkest Timeline Oh my friends and oh my foes, I have some tragic news! Series 6 of Doctor Who contains the least number of phones seen so far. Amy, bless her, is still rocking the same old…
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A few days ago, I posted this animated gif that I'd created from the 3D Doctor Who Special. I created that gif manually, but I wondered if it was possible to create such an animation in an automated fashion. Turns out, it's pretty easy! This relies on ImageMagick - which is a powerful image manipulation tool. All of these scripts work on Ubuntu - and they should work on any GNU/Linux disto as well as Windows and Mac. Get Your Image I just pressed "Print Screen" while watching a…
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The only jewellery it seems acceptable for a modern man to wear is a discreet wedding ring, and a corporate necklace. I've long since given up wearing a tie - why trust a man who voluntarily wraps a noose around his neck? - but as a sop to modern work-wear I have a security badge dangling from a lanyard. The lanyards that work hands out are unspeakably corporate - and the ones I've picket up at conferences are strewn with logos of companies who couldn't pay me to advertise them. I need…
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No spoilers, sweetie :-) This evening's Doctor Who - The Bells of St John - revolves around mysterious WiFi signals. Alien SSIDs which, if you connect to them.... well, watch the episode to find out! In the show, they look like these: So, can we do the same thing for our home WiFi network? Yup! There are some limitations though. SSIDs can only have a maximum length of 32 byte. Those are usually interpreted as 8-bit characters, so if you're using multibyte Unicode characters, you're…
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Having moaned that my TARDIS was too full, I set on a quest to find another. The cardboard one I had appears to be the last of its kind - but I did manage to snag this beauty on eBay. It's a Panopticon '93 Officially licensed TARDIS - similar to this one on RetroTrader. Click to embiggen images. It's a little scuffed, but nothing a lick of paint can't fix. Of slight - very slight - annoyance is that it's a fraction too shallow to hold standard DVD cases and have the doors tightly…
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