Is there any science fictional vessel on TV that can possibly match the TARDIS?

Surely not.

[Via The Great Escapism]

Doctor Puppet promises to be one of the very best fannish celebrations of the Doctor's 50th anniversary year.

I do hope the BBC's lawyers don't squash it like a bug.

[Via MetaFilter]

The Big Whobowski.

How could I not link to "The trailer for The Big Lebowski re-imagined shot-by-shot (more or less) in the world of Doctor Who."

[Via Waxy.org: Links Miniblog]

Greg Kumparak has built himself a toy TARDIS. A toy TARDIS that's bigger on the inside.

I have just two things to say about this:

1. A quick note for the benefit of whichever BBC executive is responsible for enforcing the BBC's copyrights: it definitely would not be a worthwhile use of time and money to track Mr Kumparak down and demand that he take down this post.

   If anything, you should be getting someone to dig out whatever specifications you have for other versions of the TARDIS control room, so that enthusiasts with the requisite knowhow can produce downloadable alternative interiors¹ for those of us with fond memories of the Pertwee years.

2. To quote the first comment on the original post: "I don't know who you are, I don't know what you want, but I will find you, and SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!"

[Via MetaFilter]

1. Let's face it, we were all thinking it. And now I mention it, it goes without saying that the alternative interiors should permit us to specify which Doctor and companions are going to be hanging out in 'our' TARDIS. ↩

Javier Grillo-Marxuach brings us The Middleman and Wendy in …THE PARADOXICALLY FESTIVE MORTALITY:

HIGBEE'S CHRISTMAS PARADE – DOWNTOWN

STARDATE 1212.23

10:00 AM IN A CANONICAL, CREATOR-OWNED REALITY

[...]

Wendy disliked it when the people targeted by the many villains she and The Middleman were tasked with neutralizing blew their Huggies in the face of danger, but even she had to cut this kid some slack: not only had he been put in the crosshairs by a time-traveling superbeing from three hundred years in an alternate future, he had also seen his first day volunteering at the Higbee's Department Store Christmas Parade turn into a Grand Guignol of mayhem at the hands of a hundred foot long inflatable ferret. Also, he'd grown up with the incredibly misguided name "Tiberius Davis." Poor kid, his parents really should have shown him mercy. [...]

The only fault I can find with this epic crossover is that our heroes don't get to interact with the direct descendant of Tiberius Davis whose 5 Year Mission inadvertently caused such mayhem.

By contrast, last year's instalment – THE WIBBLY-WOBBLY, TIMEY-WIMEY JIGGERY-POKERY – spent quite a bit of time showing us how Wendy reacted to Eleven and letting us know which regenerations The Middleman and Ida had already worked with.

[Via MetaFilter]

Tonight's Children In Need show included the customary tidbits for Doctor Who fans.

The Minisode/Christmas Special Prequel:

And the trailer:

Scary snowmen. A Sontaran declaring war on the Moon. Madame Vastra and her beautiful assistant Jenny Flint. The Doctor, retired. A first (?) appearance for the new Companion. It all looks highly promising.

[Via feeling listless]

Doctor Who: P.S. is an unfilmed scene, depicted in storyboards with some voice work from Arthur Darvill, and written by Chris Chibnall, that acts as a neat coda to the story of the Ponds' departure from the show and their life in the 21st century. Filmed, it'd have made a lovely post-end title sequence for the latest episode. To my mind this latest mini-season was a bit lacklustre¹ so they shouldn't have squandered the chance to give us this one.

[Via feeling listless]

1. The first season since the show's return with not one episode I'd class as quite good, let alone excellent. All the leads were as good as the script allowed them to be, and obviously Mr Brian Williams was just outstanding, but it's no good having a season-long story arc about how the Doctor shouldn't travel alone when all that travelling alone happens off-screen. I know it's not fair to compare five episodes with a 12 or 13 episode season, but it all seemed to be a bit flat and uninspired and overwhelmed by the need to give Rory and Amy a big send-off. They'd have been better off just leaving the Ponds where they were when the Doctor caught a glimpse of them in the department store towards the end of the previous season, happy and healthy and living their lives. I just hope that the arrival of a new companion and the approach of the show's 50th anniversary season re-energises the show. ↩

If The Doctor had always been female.

[Via The Medium is Not Enough TV blog]

Art imitating life.

Wouldn't it be great if they're saving David Tennant for the opening ceremony.

The Doctor Who theme as played on eight floppy disk drives.

[Via The Great Escapism]

As far as I'm concerned, CollegeHumor's Dr. Who RPG video wins the internet this week.

[Via The Medium is Not Enough]

Stu finds echoes of Doctor Who in the strangest places.

Doctor Whoville. Too cute for words.

[Via pie ninja, commenting at MetaFilter]

The 48th anniversary of the broadcast of the show's first episode seems as good a reason as any to link to this video of every Doctor Who theme from 1963 to 2010.¹

It's probably not the longest-running theme tune in British popular culture – I'd imagine that that The Archers probably holds that prize – but for a lot of people of my age it's surely the most evocative.²

[Via MeFi user piratebowling, commenting here]

1. For a slightly less trippy video presentation, see the YouTube version here. ↩
2. Similarly, the sound of the TARDIS engine is surely the most thrilling sound effect on TV. Nothing else comes close. ↩

Apparently, Martin Belam found the experience of editing a compilation of the Guardian's articles about NuWho a tad unnerving:

I'm terrified of errors. Not formatting errors – because it seems to me the process of publishing ebooks has been carefully calibrated to maximise the chance of errors creeping in. They are just a given.

No, I'm terrified of Doctor Who errors.

[Story about the process of deciding how many actors have portrayed The Master on-screen. It turns out that the answer is six. Or possibly seven.]

You see how tricky it is? Neither number is satisfactory. For a bunch of people ready to suspend disbelief to the point that a 900 year old Time Lord can travel anywhere in time and space in a battered old police box, Whovians can be incredibly pedantic about the show. Me included.

It's an interesting look at the challenges of filleting more than half a decade's coverage of the show to produce an ebook of around half that length whilst ironing out odd little stylistic inconsistencies.

I've bought a copy. No doubt I'll have read a significant portion of the material when it was first published, but I'm willing to spend £3.45 to enjoy it again and catch up on what I missed. Also, if this project is a success Martin Belam would like to do a similar compilation of the Guardian's coverage of ClassicWho: I'd very much like to read that.

The sole positive xonsequence of the news that Harry Potter director David Yates wants to make a big-screen reimagining of Doctor Who is that it prompted the creation of the hashtag #drwhomovietitle.¹

Seriously, though, didn't we learn anything from the TV movie? Having more money to spend on special effects does not good Who make. Unless this is the BBC's sly way of telling us that they're going to wrap the TV show up when Matt Smith moves on in a year or two, I suspect the idea will languish in development hell for a couple of years then slip quietly into oblivion.²

[Via Bunny Ultramod, posting to this MeFi thread]

1. I'm pretty sure that Army of Harkness would be vastly superior to Torchwood: Miracle Day in every way. ↩
2. Looking on the bright side, perhaps the BBC could give Hollywood the rights to the iDaleks so they can be kept well away from the small screen version for a few years. ↩

Muppet Doctor Who. And why not?

[Via The Medium is Not Enough]

One for those of us still pining for Lost: a clip shown at Comic Con 2011 finally reveals the Man in Black's name.¹

[Via The Medium Is Not Enough]

1. Talking of time travel, here's the BBC America trailer for the return of Doctor Who, also via The Medium Is Not Enough. ↩

A Doctor Who Tube Map. And why not?

[Via currybetdotnet]

You're a good Time Lord, Charlie Brown!¹

[Via feelinglistless]

1. See the originals here. ↩