Doctor Who executive producer Caroline Skinner may have dropped a hint on one of the returning foes for Series 7.
As we've reported here, last year it was revealed that a couple of classic monsters from the 60′s and 70′s will be back.
In an interview with the producer, SFX asked if we might see the Zygons again and her answer was simple: “Wait and see.”
Skinner also teased that episode 1, written by Steven Moffat is, “going to blow everybody’s mind.”
She added that not all of Series 7′s scripts are written yet, “But we’ve got a lot of them and the ones that are written are really, really epic and very exciting.”
Source
Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts
Monday, 27 February 2012
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Monster ruminations
The other day we looked at the (usual) pre-season rumours of returning monsters. We've been promised a couple of classic who monsters from the 60s and 70s, and as season 7 goes into production shortly, and in the absence of any solid info, we may as well waffle on a bit about stuff. I tend to avoid all the speculation and spoilers which do the rounds as the show starts filming and reports start accumulating on stories and scripts, but there's no harm in a bit of rumour rumination.
As we said, strories of Yeti have been doing the rounds, and whilst I'd welcome the Great Intelligence returning, I think the Yeti themselves are past their use-by date.
My personal favourites to return would be the Ice Warriors, but again their backstory is weak (like the cybermen they may need reinventing), and like the Silurians their name is somewhat problematic. Ice Warriors are called Ice Warriors because we first encountered them frozen in a lump if ice. It's not like thus is one if their favourite places to chillout. And whilst everybody loves a good old Ice Warrior, we like bad, untrust worthy ones even better. But the biggest problem for me is we've just had humanoid reptilian type monsters returning with the Silurians, so I doubt we'll get the Warriors just yet, or the Draconians, which is another monster race deserving of a revist, although their unfashionable future space opera type scenario makes these guys even more unlikely to reappear any time soon. And they're green.
That's where I think Zygon's get the nod. At least they're orange, which would compliment Silurian and (in time) 'Ice Warrior' green when we get a great big monster mash-up which will now doubt be next year (and I think maybe the end of Moff and Smith). Again I see a draw back in the limited plot options with the ugly orange buggers - they're just suckers for an alien invasion of Earth story, duplicates and all, and not much else. But that didn't stop the Nestine/Autons returning, and they suffer from the same problem (as if being specifically evolved to invade Earth during the age of plastic, as we may as well call it).
The BBC website has recently reintroduced the Rutans, and as we've already got the Sontarians, so their epic war is an area of classic Who which really could be explored. Perhaps a god season finalae? I think they should be blue though, not green. Or perhaps orange. And blue. Perhaps they should change colour with their mood like squid and octopusses, that would be cool.
And I did wonder about the spiders... I love that idea if them being on your back, an idea already recycled with Donna and those beetle things. Lots of potential there, and scary stuff. I must admit I dislike spiders myself, dispite being a bit of an ecologist and general wildlife lover, but last year got bitten by poisonous spiders (twice!) whilst out in Africa. Now my irrational fear has been intensified and I can't even look at a picture of the horrible eight legged creepy-crawly things without getting the fear. They must die. All of them. And given the Moff treatment they could really be scary. We like scary. And we love really scary. All good stuff to terrorise a new companion with...
As we said, strories of Yeti have been doing the rounds, and whilst I'd welcome the Great Intelligence returning, I think the Yeti themselves are past their use-by date.
My personal favourites to return would be the Ice Warriors, but again their backstory is weak (like the cybermen they may need reinventing), and like the Silurians their name is somewhat problematic. Ice Warriors are called Ice Warriors because we first encountered them frozen in a lump if ice. It's not like thus is one if their favourite places to chillout. And whilst everybody loves a good old Ice Warrior, we like bad, untrust worthy ones even better. But the biggest problem for me is we've just had humanoid reptilian type monsters returning with the Silurians, so I doubt we'll get the Warriors just yet, or the Draconians, which is another monster race deserving of a revist, although their unfashionable future space opera type scenario makes these guys even more unlikely to reappear any time soon. And they're green.
That's where I think Zygon's get the nod. At least they're orange, which would compliment Silurian and (in time) 'Ice Warrior' green when we get a great big monster mash-up which will now doubt be next year (and I think maybe the end of Moff and Smith). Again I see a draw back in the limited plot options with the ugly orange buggers - they're just suckers for an alien invasion of Earth story, duplicates and all, and not much else. But that didn't stop the Nestine/Autons returning, and they suffer from the same problem (as if being specifically evolved to invade Earth during the age of plastic, as we may as well call it).
The BBC website has recently reintroduced the Rutans, and as we've already got the Sontarians, so their epic war is an area of classic Who which really could be explored. Perhaps a god season finalae? I think they should be blue though, not green. Or perhaps orange. And blue. Perhaps they should change colour with their mood like squid and octopusses, that would be cool.
And I did wonder about the spiders... I love that idea if them being on your back, an idea already recycled with Donna and those beetle things. Lots of potential there, and scary stuff. I must admit I dislike spiders myself, dispite being a bit of an ecologist and general wildlife lover, but last year got bitten by poisonous spiders (twice!) whilst out in Africa. Now my irrational fear has been intensified and I can't even look at a picture of the horrible eight legged creepy-crawly things without getting the fear. They must die. All of them. And given the Moff treatment they could really be scary. We like scary. And we love really scary. All good stuff to terrorise a new companion with...
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Monster rumours....
Towards the end of last year, Who producer Marcus Wilson revealed that a couple of classic Doctor Who monsters from the 60s and 70s are set to reappear in Series 7...
“We’ve got a couple of returning monsters, some old fan favourites, but we’re going to move them on a bit,” Wilson was quoted in Doctor Who Magazine. “‘That’s how they were done in the 60s or 70s. Here’s what we can do with them now.’
“Kids these days are really good at spotting bad CGI or prosthetics, so we can’t do anything substandard. One flick of the remote and you go from Doctor Who to Harry Potter. We’ve got to compete at that level, on a hundredth of the budget.”
Wilson also spoke about the Daleks multicoloured misstep: “I don’t think any of us would say that the multicoloured Daleks quite worked, but you’ve got to try new things. If you just repeat and repeat the show is in danger of stagnating.”
The early word is that one of them is in fact the Yeti... again.
This is not the first time the monsters have been rumoured to return. Back in 2010, a piece of Yeti artwork from concept artist Peter Mckinstry spread the net with many believing it to be for the Christmas special. But it turned out this was actually for the Doctor Who DVD Files magazine.
It's fair to say that a lot of traditional Who fans would welcome this, but, how exactly do your bring back the Yeti? Bring back the Great Intelligence, which controlled the Yeti robots, by all means, but the form of the Yeti was adopted for the particular setting of their first story, the Himalayas. A follow up story based in London was nicely fitted in (with a reactivated Yeti robot kicking it all off), but let's be honest, surely if the Great Intelligence was to return, it would shape a new form to do it's dirty work? All that time floating about in space with no physical form, you're bound to come up with something better than giant fluffy robots... surely? I like the idea of some crazed religious TV preacher in the States (you know, like Tom Cruse) getting possessed and becoming the GI figurehead... so I guess we could have an army of Sasquatch... or giant fluffy robots.
Other monsters often rumoured to return? Zygons? I'd love to see the Zygons done again, and they do make a nice change (of colour). And considering their success as a monster, and that they only appeared in one original TV series, they did quite well (I can still remember them being on the back of my (sadly thrown away) Wheetabix packet). I say bring back both... but please, get someone good to write the stories!
“We’ve got a couple of returning monsters, some old fan favourites, but we’re going to move them on a bit,” Wilson was quoted in Doctor Who Magazine. “‘That’s how they were done in the 60s or 70s. Here’s what we can do with them now.’
“Kids these days are really good at spotting bad CGI or prosthetics, so we can’t do anything substandard. One flick of the remote and you go from Doctor Who to Harry Potter. We’ve got to compete at that level, on a hundredth of the budget.”
Wilson also spoke about the Daleks multicoloured misstep: “I don’t think any of us would say that the multicoloured Daleks quite worked, but you’ve got to try new things. If you just repeat and repeat the show is in danger of stagnating.”
The early word is that one of them is in fact the Yeti... again.
This is not the first time the monsters have been rumoured to return. Back in 2010, a piece of Yeti artwork from concept artist Peter Mckinstry spread the net with many believing it to be for the Christmas special. But it turned out this was actually for the Doctor Who DVD Files magazine.
It's fair to say that a lot of traditional Who fans would welcome this, but, how exactly do your bring back the Yeti? Bring back the Great Intelligence, which controlled the Yeti robots, by all means, but the form of the Yeti was adopted for the particular setting of their first story, the Himalayas. A follow up story based in London was nicely fitted in (with a reactivated Yeti robot kicking it all off), but let's be honest, surely if the Great Intelligence was to return, it would shape a new form to do it's dirty work? All that time floating about in space with no physical form, you're bound to come up with something better than giant fluffy robots... surely? I like the idea of some crazed religious TV preacher in the States (you know, like Tom Cruse) getting possessed and becoming the GI figurehead... so I guess we could have an army of Sasquatch... or giant fluffy robots.
Other monsters often rumoured to return? Zygons? I'd love to see the Zygons done again, and they do make a nice change (of colour). And considering their success as a monster, and that they only appeared in one original TV series, they did quite well (I can still remember them being on the back of my (sadly thrown away) Wheetabix packet). I say bring back both... but please, get someone good to write the stories!
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Here be Monsters
I've just read an interview with Stephen Moffat, Who exec producer, 'The man with a monster of a job', from about a month ago in The Guardian (here - I've back-posted it as well). It's an interesting read if you hadn't found it before.
One line particularly caught my attention.
"If anyone said to me 'invent a new monster so we can sell more toys', I'd kick them out of my office."
So we can rule out the idea that the new Dalek design, and colours, had anything to do with marketing merchandise and making money! Thank goodness, and I should apologise to you all for having previously suggested it.
I've grown quite cynical of the marketing machine which has grown up around Who. There's just so much of it. It's become the monster that stalks the show. Back in the day (long ago!) when I started collecting Who stuff you didn't have much to fork out on. Just a fairly reasonably priced Target book, once a month, and the good old Who monthly magazine (as it had just become), and you were more or less done. OK, there was more than that, much more in fact, but anyway, I'm trying to make a point!
I've always been a bit of a collector of stuff, so naturally began to collect the books, magazines and occasional bits and bobs which came my way. But the appeal to me was (and still is) hunting out and finding second hand items, things you couldn't get in the high street shops, old things which might one day even become worth something. Although I found myself buying more and more stuff new as it came out. Typically nothing I have is especially rare, as I have never had the cash to invest in any serious collecting, as much as I would have liked.
Even when the videos started coming out I tried to resist, until of course they deleted half the titles and they became 'collectable'... and I suddenly found myself paying twice the original shop price (or more) for some titles. I really should have looked into DVD's... especially as the videos are hardly worth squat anymore.
Nowadays it's almost impossible to keep track of items released, especially stuff relting to new Who, and surely none but the most serious of collectors buys all this stuff new, when it first comes out, when it's top dollar price. Or do they? I guess they (you?) must. I suppose it keeps the wheels of the economy turning! I'm just too much of an anti-captialist anti-consumerist anti-everythingist.
Now I know there are lots of serious collectors out there with huge collections of stuff... have a look at the collector site RichardWho if you doubt me. But how many buy everything religously when released (CDs, DVDs, books, games, toys...). Seriously, that's an obsession! Perhaps even a monstrous obsession. (I'm just jelous, I want to buy it all...!!!)
And hunting down second-hand stuff isn't what it used to be... ebay has reduced the chances of finding Charity Shop bargins to zero, as they nearly all check the stuff they have online. But ebay also opens up a window on whats out there, and gives any collector the opportunity to get the items they want, instantly in many cases.
Luckily for me, or more to the point my wallet, I've not been based in the UK for the last five years, so haven't had that gravitational urge to pull money out of my pocket for all the new series stuff. Thank god. A man my age shouldn't really be buying action figures anyway. I've even weaned myself off my old favourite DW magazine, and given up on filling the gaps in my collection (for now, anyway!). There's just so much information online, that for me the magazine has become a bit defunct. Mind you, I've not looked at a copy for five years, so don't take my word for it!
However there's quite a bit of 'classic' who spin off stuff that I have my eye on (a never ending quest). So how to justify the expense?
And here be the real monster of this tale. I'm a smoker. Have been for most my life, and I hate it. So... time to give up... and just think of all that Who stuff I can buy with the money I save! Truth is it's the cost of the damn things back here in the UK which is forcing the issue, but anyway.
So, inspite of my 'no new who' rule (well, rules are made to be broken, and the sooner the better), my first target will be all the new Radio Times Who covers which I've missed. I'm a 10 a day smoker, so for every two days I can survive without buying a packet of fags I'm hitting ebay to buy one issue!
Now I doubt I will be able to give up flat. In fact, I'm finding it hard to imagine how I can do two days... and this isn't the first time I've tried this! But it's the first time I have confessed here, in public. Sort of. (As if anyone reads this!)
All I have to do now is decide is when. Surely tomorrow is too soon! Perhaps Wednesday and Thursday...
One line particularly caught my attention.
"If anyone said to me 'invent a new monster so we can sell more toys', I'd kick them out of my office."
So we can rule out the idea that the new Dalek design, and colours, had anything to do with marketing merchandise and making money! Thank goodness, and I should apologise to you all for having previously suggested it.
I've grown quite cynical of the marketing machine which has grown up around Who. There's just so much of it. It's become the monster that stalks the show. Back in the day (long ago!) when I started collecting Who stuff you didn't have much to fork out on. Just a fairly reasonably priced Target book, once a month, and the good old Who monthly magazine (as it had just become), and you were more or less done. OK, there was more than that, much more in fact, but anyway, I'm trying to make a point!
I've always been a bit of a collector of stuff, so naturally began to collect the books, magazines and occasional bits and bobs which came my way. But the appeal to me was (and still is) hunting out and finding second hand items, things you couldn't get in the high street shops, old things which might one day even become worth something. Although I found myself buying more and more stuff new as it came out. Typically nothing I have is especially rare, as I have never had the cash to invest in any serious collecting, as much as I would have liked.
Even when the videos started coming out I tried to resist, until of course they deleted half the titles and they became 'collectable'... and I suddenly found myself paying twice the original shop price (or more) for some titles. I really should have looked into DVD's... especially as the videos are hardly worth squat anymore.
Nowadays it's almost impossible to keep track of items released, especially stuff relting to new Who, and surely none but the most serious of collectors buys all this stuff new, when it first comes out, when it's top dollar price. Or do they? I guess they (you?) must. I suppose it keeps the wheels of the economy turning! I'm just too much of an anti-captialist anti-consumerist anti-everythingist.
Now I know there are lots of serious collectors out there with huge collections of stuff... have a look at the collector site RichardWho if you doubt me. But how many buy everything religously when released (CDs, DVDs, books, games, toys...). Seriously, that's an obsession! Perhaps even a monstrous obsession. (I'm just jelous, I want to buy it all...!!!)
And hunting down second-hand stuff isn't what it used to be... ebay has reduced the chances of finding Charity Shop bargins to zero, as they nearly all check the stuff they have online. But ebay also opens up a window on whats out there, and gives any collector the opportunity to get the items they want, instantly in many cases.
Luckily for me, or more to the point my wallet, I've not been based in the UK for the last five years, so haven't had that gravitational urge to pull money out of my pocket for all the new series stuff. Thank god. A man my age shouldn't really be buying action figures anyway. I've even weaned myself off my old favourite DW magazine, and given up on filling the gaps in my collection (for now, anyway!). There's just so much information online, that for me the magazine has become a bit defunct. Mind you, I've not looked at a copy for five years, so don't take my word for it!
However there's quite a bit of 'classic' who spin off stuff that I have my eye on (a never ending quest). So how to justify the expense?
And here be the real monster of this tale. I'm a smoker. Have been for most my life, and I hate it. So... time to give up... and just think of all that Who stuff I can buy with the money I save! Truth is it's the cost of the damn things back here in the UK which is forcing the issue, but anyway.
So, inspite of my 'no new who' rule (well, rules are made to be broken, and the sooner the better), my first target will be all the new Radio Times Who covers which I've missed. I'm a 10 a day smoker, so for every two days I can survive without buying a packet of fags I'm hitting ebay to buy one issue!
Now I doubt I will be able to give up flat. In fact, I'm finding it hard to imagine how I can do two days... and this isn't the first time I've tried this! But it's the first time I have confessed here, in public. Sort of. (As if anyone reads this!)
All I have to do now is decide is when. Surely tomorrow is too soon! Perhaps Wednesday and Thursday...
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