When they run Doctor Who on the BBC, they always have that companion piece; Doctor Who Confidential. Finally they have it on BBC America, although it is not on the channel proper, but relegated to their web site. Still, it means those of us in the US have access to it the same day as the new episode, and now that the episode airs here the same day it does there, I feel quite a bit better about how my Doctor fix gets delivered.
My favorite BBC Radio station was always BBC7’s 7th Dimension, their science fiction and fantasy showcase which sadly got shut down a while ago, at least as a separate entity. It didn’t just go away, though; they folded it into BBC Radio 4Extra, where it joined up with some other quality radio plays and book readings. Last weekend, they aired Terry Pratchett’s Only You Can Save Mankind, and they are running J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World this week, James Follett’s The Destruction Factor, and the outer space comedy The Laxian Key. While the Pratchett episodes have mostly evaporated (just one left at the moment), you can still listen again to the others. But the exciting bit is what is coming, starting with a brand new Doctor Who radio play, Cobwebs, which begins Monday at 6PM (GMT/UT, adjust for your local time zone) and runs each day for 4 episodes through Thursday. This one stars Peter Davison as The Doctor, Janet Fielding as Tegan, Mark Strickson as Turlough, and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa; I can’t wait. While I am still heartbroken that the Tom Baker/Elisabeth Sladen new radio plays will now never be made since we lost Lis (Tom will still be doing new ones), it is good to know there continue to be new Who stories being created by our old friends.
Nor is this phenomenon unique to Doctor Who. According to this SFX story, they are wrapping up production on Torchwood this week, and are about to go into the studio to record three new Torchwood radio plays. The first one they did, Lost Souls, was aired on the day CERN fired up its super collider in September of 2008, referred to as Big Bang Day by a lot of people who wondered if they would blow up the planet (and don’t you feel silly now?). Then in 2009 they did three more, called Asylum, Golden Age, and The Dead Line. These stories took place between seasons two and three, airing consecutively on July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of 2009, followed immediately by season three, Children of Earth, which ran for 5 consecutive nights, July 6th through the 10th. These are all excellently done radio dramas, and if you haven’t heard them yet you can buy the disks from Amazon or download them from iTunes, and they are worth every penny. The three new episodes will be broadcast on BBC4 sometime this summer, which you can listen to online.
As we all know, the new season of Doctor Who starts this Saturday on BBC America, just a few hours after it airs on the BBC UK. And today, BBC America has announced it is getting two more new shows as well as another season of Being Human for its Supernatural Saturday lineup. The Outcasts is a colonization story on another planet, where humanity gets a shot of starting over (more details on the UK official site). Bedlam is the story of people living in an apartment complex that was an insane asylum a century ago, and the interesting ghosts who haunt them. This one is from Sky TV rather than the BBC, which I find promising. Perhaps they will bring more Sky programs over, such as the Terry Pratchett specials they do each year; coming up next is Going Postal, besides Going Postal previous outings have given us Hogfather and The Color Of Magic.
Sadly the reports have come in today that Elisabeth Sladen, the actress who played Sarah Jane Smith, has died at the age of 63. She was without a doubt the longest running companion, working with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker in the 1970s and 1980s, then returning several years ago to partner up with David Tennant, and finally getting her own series, the Sarah Jane Adventures. There is one more season of that in the can ready to be broadcast, so there are still new adventures waiting. The most moving tribute I have seen so far came from Russell T. Davies, although another really nice one came from Airlock Alpha. It is fitting that the BBC announcement was a part of the Doctor Who News segment of the site, and includes Steven Moffat’s reaction. And BBC Worldwide put together this YouTube collection of some of Sarah Jane’s finest moments.
It has been a bit of a fight today trying to find something to blog about. One of my favorite stories, and I really hope it is true, is about Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner-like TV show. The only other Philip K. Dick TV series I know about was the wonderfully done Total Recall 2070 made in the ’90s and run on Showtime in this country. It is a bit hard to find the series on DVD (mostly because they haven’t released it except for the pilot), but you can always watch it on Hulu. This being April Fools Day, however, I am not going to trust any source posted today. Luckily, yesterday it was announced that the BBC has ordered more Dirk Gently episodes. So far they have only aired the pilot episode of this dramatization of everyone’s favorite Douglas Adams detective, and the new order is only for three more of them, but that is still four more than I had expected to see. Now to start the letter writing campaign to BBC America to get them to pick it up.
The first full length season 6 Doctor Who trailer went online very shortly ago (it had 302 views when I got to the web page, so its fresh!). It looks like its going to be another exciting season, and thanks to io9 for the heads up on this one.