Hey, Who fans and welcome to Episode 415.
Garry is flying the TARDIS solo this week to catch you up on the latest Doctor Who news as well as the details for the first Big Blue Box meetup in 2025 at the Capitol Cutaway event in London. Enjoy!
Links to the stuff we mentioned:
Links to news and other bits we mentioned in this episode...
This is The Big Blue Box Podcast, hosted by Garry and Adam. We cover Doctor Who news, reviews, commentaries, general chat, plus our regular Round Table episodes with the full team.
All episodes are available for free on our website, alongside articles and reviews from the team.
Follow and join the conversation on X, Bluesky, Threads, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, or hop into our free Discord to chat Doctor Who with fellow fans.
Thank you for listening!
Thank you again for listening. For even more Doctor Who content, head over to our website and check out the blog, featuring articles from our writing team.
If you're listening in your podcast app of choice, then make sure you're following so you’re notified when new episodes drop.
Until the next episode, take care and... Aaaaaaaallons-y!
Hey, hey, hey. Who fans and welcome to the Big Blue Box podcast. My name's Garry and Welcome to episode 415.
Welcome back to another episode who fans, I hope you are keeping well and safe. I hope you've had a cracking few weeks while we've been away and that you've managed to do something Doctor who related.
Yeah, if you can tell, it's me running solo this week after we've had a couple of weeks break. It's just been a busy time here at the Big Blue Box, Just lots going on. I did have the writing team on a few weeks ago.
I cycled through those guys, which is very cool and I was meant to have Jordan on week before last, but our, our top big finish reviewer and all round cool guy. Jordan has recently started at university so he's a bit busy. He's a. He's a busy guy to pin down at the minute.
So we were meant to do it the week before last and we meant to do it last week and then he couldn't do it because he was busy and then this week has fast forwarded and his timetables all over the place and we were meant to do the round table but then a couple of people couldn't make it because they were busy. So yeah, apologies, Big Blue Box listener.
It's just been a bit of a busy time here at the Big Blue Box and alas, my cohort, my partner in Doctor who crime, Adam, my regular co host, is still in the US doing his travels, doing his thing and won't be back in the UK for another couple of weeks yet. So. Yeah, but I hope you've checked out some of his videos while he's been away in the US.
He's still done a couple of YouTube bids over on the Geek's Handbag, so make sure you check those out. Some very cool unboxings and other bits there. Some vinyl stuff, the Docs who calendar.
Yeah, some really cool stuff from Adam over on the Geek's Handbag, so I normally plug his stuff later on. But while I remember, while I'm not forgetting to remember now, I'm going to do that.
So there's not a great deal to talk about, to be honest with you.
I mean, that's the other reason why the episodes have slowed down for the last fortnight is because there hasn't really been a great deal of Doctor who news that's kicked up, I'll be honest with you, who fans. It's been a couple of bits and I'm going to go through, I'VE got about four or five stories to talk through, just very briefly.
This is more of an update show really. Just I'm not going to deep dive into anything and there's no, there's no episode review or anything like that.
But there are, there's about five or six stories to go through, things that have announced, been announced in the last week and a couple in the last couple of days.
So I will keep you up to date on what's happening in the world of Doctor who and regards to the roundtable that will drop next week or the week after now. So we're going to skip. We won't have time to do one for November. So the next roundtable will be December, the December slash Christmas roundtable.
So that will be dropping in the next week or two. And I'll, I'll free up some time with the guys to, to get that recorded, which will be good.
And also actually talking to the team and the guys next year is going to be our first proper big blue box meetup at One of the DWAs, the Doctor who Appreciation Society events they do. We're not going to the main event that they do, which I think is in. I think it's in January or February. I could be wrong.
I'm sure they do an event called the Capital, which is down in near London, near Gatwick Airport or maybe at one of the hotels at Gatwick Airport and that's called Capital. And that's normally a really good event.
And a couple of the guys from the team, normally Maria and Jordan, those guys attend that and they said it's a great event. I've sadly not been before.
But it's one of those things where Adam and I have said for years, like there's, there's two or three events in the UK that we've really must go to and one overseas which we must go to at some point. One of them is the Capital Event run by the DWAs. The other one is Hooverville up in Derby, I believe.
And then the third one in the UK is an MCM event because we typically favor. I don't know why, because they're terribly run these days. But we favor the Showmasters event at the Olympia 2, the London Film and Comic Con.
I personally haven't been to that in about two or three years now for that very reason. I won't get into it now, but it's just, it's not the most organized or well run event these days.
But the MCM events, they do that at the Excel, much larger Venue loads more space and a bit more, from what I've been told anyway, a bit more well organized. So we need to check that out. So they're the three events that we must get to. I'm hoping to check off two of those next year.
I'm hoping to go to Hooverville next year and an MCM event. So that's on the list, that's on the spreadsheet, on the geeky. The very geeky geek events spreadsheet.
So I'm gonna hope to get to at least those two next year. And then the other one which is overseas, which we've been talking about again for years, is Gallifrey One over in.
I think it's Chicago, I think it's Chicago or in la, one of the two. But that always looks like a really good event. So we're going to hope to get to that at some point again in the near future. But anyway, I digress.
The. The event that we're hoping to meet up to, where we are going to meet up next year, is another event run by the DWAs. It's called Capital Cutaway.
correct info. Capital Cutaway:So we're going to use that as an excuse to do our first proper big blue box meetup. So the entire team will be there.
So if you want to come and hang out, we're going to be there from Saturday evening, the night before, we're going to, we're going to grab some food, go to a few pubs, grab some drinks. So if you're in London, who fans. First of all, this looks like a really cool event. So get your tickets booked for that.
So far they've announced Peter Davison, Joe Martin, Sarah Sutton and Susan Twist and they've got more guests that they're going to announce over the next few months. It looks really cool, the venue looks really nice and yeah, it looks very cool. So get your ticket for that.
I'll put a link in the show notes so you can take a look. So that's on the Sunday, but like I said, the big blue box team. So we'll all be there.
You can be a good chance to just have a pint or two, chat Doctor who if you've listened to the podcast for a while and you thought actually, yeah, it would be cool to meet up with those guys and have a point and chat about all the Things that you wish we spoke about on the podcast or you want to correct us on something, or you just want to have a, you know, a chat about our review score. Maybe you don't agree with a review score.
Maybe there's something that you, that you want to have a chat about or maybe one of the writing team, you've read one of their reviews and you thought actually that's really good. I want to chat some more about that stuff. Anything you want to talk about.
We'll be in London on Saturday 5th April in the evening and then attending the event on Sunday the 6th. So get your ticket booked or just head down to London. It'll be a good who a good who meetup for that stuff.
Right before I crack on with some stories to update you on.
This is just your friendly nudge and reminder just to make sure that you are following or subscribing to the podcast in whatever podcast you listen to your your podcasts on. We're on all the major podcast networks and apps, whatever you want to call them.
So Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, all that stuff and then just, yeah, just do a search for us. Just do a search of the Big Blue Box. You'll find us on there.
Especially if this is your first time listening to the Big Blue Box, we'd love to have you as a regular listener. So make sure you follow or subscribe. That way you won't miss an episode when they drop, usually every Friday.
And you can also listen to each episode on the website which is Big Blue Box Podcast Co uk. They're all on there. Plus you can check out the reviews and all the articles from our awesome writing team.
Tons of big finish reviews, tons of event roundups, editorials, opinion pieces, loads of really cool articles on there. So go and check that out as well.
And we are also on the socials, there's links on the website or just do a search for us and we have a very cool free Discord server. The links on the website just hop in there and loads of other very cool who fans.
We've got a really cool community there chatting about all sorts of stuff to do with Doctor who. So get involved over there.
And if you like the podcast, if you've listened for weeks, months, years, whatever, or even just one episode and you think actually yeah, that's a very cool doctor episode.
It would be great if you could spend just a minute to give us a review or a rating in in the podcast apps that support that on Apple Music, sorry, Apple Podcasts, you can leave an actual review and a star rating, I think on Spotify, it's just a rating, whatever. So, yeah, that would be awesome. And to those of you that have left very, very nice comments and reviews so far, thank you so much.
That means the world to us. So thank you very much for all of that. Right, I'm going to land the Tardis and let's go through the latest Doctor who.
Alrighty, first up, let's go through some bits and bobs, some bits and bats for the upcoming Christmas special, Joy to the World. So we've got some info on the broadcast times. Now. This was this for me, slept on Earth. This for me. Slipped under the radar a little bit.
This new story. I hadn't clocked this one. It was.
I actually found it on a blog called bleedingcool.com, which normally does, as far as I'm aware, general sort of horror and sci fi stuff. I haven't seen much Doctor who from those guys over the years. I could be very wrong with that. They could do a ton of Doctor who content.
So apologies if you do cover that stuff, but they reported on this story about the, the streaming time and the broadcast time and all that stuff.
Typically what's happened is Doctor who will go out on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and then it will just get syndicated to whatever overseas channels are, are playing that.
They changed up though, with season one or season whatever you want to call it when, when Shooty debuted as a Doctor with Shooty's era and because we now are in this new kind of streaming era with Doctor who, which we weren't into before. So prior to this, we didn't have Doctor who, of course on anything like Disney plus or Netflix, anything like that.
It was just iplayer and then terrestrial TV channels. Now we're in the streaming age and we have a partnership with Disney plus, as you guys know, throughout season one, the.
In order to sort of compensate for the time zones around the world, we had the, the episodes in the UK here land at midnight on BBC iPlayer and then later on in the day on Saturday. So Friday night slash, Saturday morning BBC iPlayer and then later on on BBC One, the normal ish kind of time.
What that enabled was the, that enabled viewers around in overseas territories to watch the debut at a more sensible time rather than the other way around. So that was kind of cool.
I remember there was a lot of, a lot of voices on Twitter that were very, very unhappy about it and got their knickers in a twist about that. But Alas, here we are. No one's died. Everyone's enjoying Doctor who. I say enjoying. Everyone's watching Doctor who and everything's fine.
So Christmas special, slightly different. Just to throw a bit more of a confusing spanner in the works, they are not doing the midnight debut on BBC I Player or BBC One.
They are going to just simultaneously put this out at the same time all over. So what's going to happen is on Christmas Day, on Disney plus BBC iPlayer and BBC One, it will all go out at the same time.
So what that means is we think there's no.
I don't think so anyway, yet, at least we think that it's going to go out roughly around 6 or 7pm here in the UK, which is GMT, and then that will go out at roughly 1 or 2pm over in the US Eastern Time. So what that means is we're no go. We're not going to have this.
We're not going to have this kind of disparity between people staying up at midnight in certain places, spoilers going out, people having rucks and all that stuff. That won't happen this time. Simultaneous broadcast of the Christmas special. And I think that's a cool thing, actually.
I think that's a pretty cool thing. So the reason why they've done this, no one's. No one said anything. Presumably it's to just make it more of a fair game as it's Christmas Day.
I guess they don't want some parts of the world having to stay up at midnight and then being absolutely knackered on Christmas Day and vice versa in other territories. So there you go. Joy to the world. The upcoming Christmas special, we'll go out everywhere at the same time.
We think it's roughly 6, 7pm if you're a UK listener.
If you're in the US, we think 1 or 2pm on the Eastern Eastern time, and then just adjust your times accordingly, wherever you are in the world for that. So that's kind of cool.
And then moving on, we've got this other little snippet from the Christmas special, which is a lot of people picked up in the trailer that the mothbag has seemingly included a. A thing that he's. He's.
He's sprinkled over his previous episodes of Doctor who over the years, and you might recognize the name, you might not, but the. The villain Guardian will make some kind of return for his story.
So, as we know, Stephen Moffat has written the upcoming Christmas special and he's included the villain Guard. Now the villain Guard is been referenced in Doctor who before. Not just in some, in some like little, little nuggets, but actually in a.
Quite an important event.
So in the, in the Great Time War, I guess you can call it the Great Time War still, the War Doctor was supposedly responsible for destroying the villain Guard during the Time War.
And he, he blew up all the factories there and essentially put a blocker in the Daleks being able to use the Villain Guards facilities because the villain Guard have these like that in enormous like weapons production factories that, you know, so that the, the Daleks were. After that the War Doctor blew that up and, and stopped the Daleks from doing that. And then that's. That was in a comic book.
So they kind of filled in the gaps a little bit with that. But then in terms of on screen stuff, we've seen it a couple of times before.
So in Twice Upon a Time, when Capaldi's Doctor met up with Hartnell's Doctor, played by David Bradley in that episode or that story, him and Bill Potts, they go to Villengard and they just find the whole place in ruins. So, you know, all the factories have been destroyed, all of that stuff.
And that's what prompted the writers of the comic to fill in that little gap because, you know, on screen we didn't know, you know, what happened to all of that. So, yeah, so on screen, it was never explained how Villain Guard was destroyed and everything like that.
And then we got the comic and then fast forward to the. To season one, the shooty in the episode. Boom.
You know, obviously the villain Guard was mentioned a few times in that and as the weapons manufacturer for those guys and some other bits. So. So the mothbag obviously likes bringing this, this, this back in in his stories of Doctor who.
And then in the trailer, we thought for the upcoming Christmas special, we did get, I guess you could call it a throwaway line or whatever. And he mentions the name Villengarde again in the trailer. So we don't know at this point exactly how deep that will go.
We don't know if it's, you know, again, just a bit of a throwaway thing as a little Easter egg, a little nugget from the mof. We don't know. But a lot of fans have picked up on this. Some fans I've seen are like, yeah, here we go again.
It's the moth, you know, bringing back stuff and, and, and all that stuff. Some fans are really up for it. They're like, you know, we like this stuff. We like this interconnectivity between.
e that. So I guess it's. It's:This is nothing to do with upcoming episodes or anything like that, but we have an updated escape room. So the escape room stuff for Doctor who has been really popular the last few years.
I think there's about two or three of them in here in the UK and they always do really well. Seen loads of people tweet about this stuff and put their pics on social media and say how good the experience was. It sounds very cool.
So the latest one which opened so the.
hey opened the escape room in:It basically says the new newly regenerated escape room called a Dalek awakens. And it's a Dalek that basically says, you think you can defeat the Daleks?
And then we hear the Doctor's voiceover saying, oh, honey, finally you are here. Right, so introductions on board this ship with you is a Dalek. And as they close in, they say, without your precious Doctor, humanity is helpless.
Exterminate, as you'd expect. And then that's it. That's the only bit of info we get. It's a very cool little teaser video, actually.
And those of you that have done escape rooms before, you'll know exactly the deal with this.
There's a group of you in a room and you have a time limit and you have to solve certain clues, investigate what's going on in order to, as the name suggests, escape from the room. And, and this one actually looks kind of cool.
So yeah, so the, the escape room itself has been open for a few years, but they've just sort of updated it for. For newer Doctor who stuff. So if you've been to. I'd love to hear from you guys if you've been to the reading based escape room.
If you could give me a before and after.
So if you could let me know what the, the previous Doctor who experience was like and then if you've been back and you've done this updated version with shoot his Doctor involved, that would be really cool. And let me just find my geeky spreadsheet and add this to another event to check out for next year and we'll see if we get to that one.
So there we go. The escape room over in Reading has been updated for the 15th doctor. So go and check that out.
If you are in the area or if you've not, just travel over there and then once you're in Reading, you're not too far from London. Pop into London and go and check out some, some who stuff there. Right. Action figures or toy figures from. For B M. These bloody things. Yeah.
Another set or another couple of sets are going to be doing the rounds pretty soon at B M stores. And listener, you'll know of our adventures with BM over the years.
My, my regular co host, if he was here, he'd be chomping at the bit for these Adam's. Adam's one of those people that as you know, has to have these exclusive B and M sets. It's a, It's a non negotiable thing with Adam.
I'll take them or leave them. It's like, yeah, okay. If I happen to see them, which is very rare because they tend to be snapped up very.
That's the controversy around these B and M sets over the last couple of years is that they're very exclusive. So what happens is the scalpers go and buy them all and then they sell them for triple the price on ebay.
It's pretty sucky thing to do, but that's, that's the world we live in, I guess. But a couple of them have been okay. I did want to get the previous sets actually, the ones that came out a couple of weeks ago.
I think there was a really cool history of the Daleks set. I think there was two or three of the old gray, gray Daleks, gray and silver ones which are really cool. But my local B M, they didn't have them.
And I recalled a very funny story on the last roundtable actually where I went into the B M store and ended up just confusing the hell out of the people that work there because they had no clue what I was talking about, let alone if they had any stock. So that's quite funny. But fast forward to now. Announcement.
Two new sets from Character Options exclusively for B M and there's no definitive date on this. They're. They're normally a little bit sort of cagey on there on when these figures are going to be announced.
Sorry when they're going to be available in stores. So you just kind of have to keep. Keep tabs on what's going on. If you just keep an eye on.
There's one particular website which is really cool, which is called, it's just called the Doctor who site. If you head over there and go to their merchandise tab, they have a very cool map. So fair play to those guys, actually.
That's, they go above and beyond that. They, they post a map with all the B and M stores which they are aware of, that have stock and which ones are likely to have stock and so on.
So go and check that out or just keep an eye on Twitter or bluesky, whatever. Just do a search of B M, Doctor who and you'll see what's going on there.
So there's no definitive date yet, but we think that these are going to drop at some point early December. So first or second week of December, that's when we think these are going to drop.
The first set is called Friends and Foes of the Doctor and it is a three part set.
And by the way, these are all 14 centimeter, the 5.5 inch scale figures, all the usual stuff from all the previous character options that you've seen before. And this one includes River Song in her cat burglar outfit from the Pandorica opens.
It's got the Cyber leader with the black handlebars and the, and the circular chest piece and whatnot. So that's in there as well.
And then the clockwork droid from the gun in the fireplace, you know those creepy looking droids with the, with the weapons as the hands and the masks as the faces and so on. That's the first set. And then the second set is called History of the Daleks. Number 19. I think it was number 17 or 18 I wanted to get before.
en in predominantly since the:And the other one is the Imperial Guard Dalek and that was that. It was in the parting of the ways, I believe Eccleston's finale.
And, and they took inspiration from the Imperial Guards, the evil of the Dalek story, when those Emperor Daleks first appeared. So that's more the black and bronze looking Daleks, which looks kind of cool.
So two new sets, Friends and Foes of the Doctor, River Song, Cyber Leader Clock, the Clockwork Droid from the golden fireplace. And then the second one is History of daleks. That's number 19. And that's a two pack set. The usual Run of the Mill Dalek and then the.
The Emperor, the Imperial Guard Dalek.
So again, just keep an eye on Twitter, see when these are dropping and again, hit us up on the Twitter or Blue sky, let us know if you pick up these sets and what you think of them. Penultimate news story is Jody Whittaker has been interviewed recently about her return as the Doctor.
Not on screen, of course, but in the audio stories from Big Finish. She was on a program here in the UK called Morning Live on the BBC where she was interviewed about her return as the Doctor.
And she says that we've recorded three. I think there's quite a few in the season. It's been amazing. It's the dream scenario. I'm playing the Doctor without learning the lines.
It's my favourite part. I adore playing the Doctor. On the first day, I said to Mandip, I don't know if I can remember how to do the voice. I was like, what voice did I use?
And then she said, that one, and I thought I couldn't do it.
So what she means by the lines is that obviously playing the Doctor on screen, you have to learn the lines, you have to go through your scripts and do all that and then perform it in front of the cameras. With Big Finish, it's the opposite. So you have the scripts there in front of you and you are.
Yeah, I would imagine that a lot of actors read through it a few times before they record in the studio at Big Finish, just so they don't have that nervous coming up to the end of sentences and stuff like that.
But yeah, with Big Finish, in the audio booth or the audio studio, you've got your lines and your script there in front of you and you're going through it, you don't have to. You don't have to memorize them to recall later. So that's kind of cool. So she's up for it. She's sounds like she's.
She's loving, as she's always said, to give her credit, whether you liked Jody's era or not to give her a credit, she did throw everything she had into being the Doctor. And she's always said from day one that she's absolutely loved being the Doctor and playing that part.
And she doesn't seem to have deviated from that. So respect to Jody for that.
She then goes on to say, they gave me a chair and I said, I can't sit down and play the Doctor, even if it's not on tv, I've got to be manic and fidget. I can't sit down, so they give me a little space. And physically it is exhausting as doing it on film because I can't sit still.
It's the dream scenario. You play the Doctor and with Mandip and no freezing cold fields, just a warm studio. And then finish.
She finishes up with Doctor who has been a huge part of my career and personal life and I'm looking forward to seeing how I can further enrich my character through this exhilarating series. To be able to work. So this is Mandip Gill saying to be able to work with Jodie getting his dream come true. And we have such a special friendship.
I'm sure the recordings will be filled with laughter, which is really cool. So that's the upcoming.
So this was announced a while ago actually, that she was returning to play the Doctor at Big Finish and they're obviously having a blast recording that stuff. So there's three stories down and recorded so far.
At some point, I think this is at some point next year we're going to get these land from Big Finish and we'll keep you up to date on what's happening with that.
And then lastly, the last story is, as you would have known, dear listener, over the last few weeks, that the War Games is coming back colorized for Christmas.
And the deets that you've probably picked up on if you've been hovering on the Socials for a week or two, is that the two things really, for me, the best thing about this is the. Is the colorization. If you look at some of the screenshots that they've put out, the publicity shots, it looks amazing.
They've done such a great job on colorizing this. I think they've done a better job than they did with the Daleks in color, if I'm honest. That was cool. Don't get me wrong, that was good.
But this does seem to be just look a little bit more natural to me. I'll have to see when we check it out.
But the two things that you've probably picked up on is, number one, they've edited the story down to a 90 minute cut, so it's more like a. More like a feature film, I guess, an hour and a half.
And then the second thing is that we're going to see the regeneration from Patrick Troughton into John Pertwee, the third Doctor, which we didn't see, obviously, at the end of the War Games, we just saw Patrick Troughton doing all Those weird faces. And that was, that was the thing. And then fast forward to Spearhead from Space. We just saw the Doctor fall out of the Tardis and that was it.
So we, we knew that the transition happened, we just didn't see it on screen. So what they've done is they've gone back and cleaned up the picture obviously, and they've, they've, they've enhanced that and colorize.
It all looks fantastic. The edit, obviously we can't comment on that because no one's seen it.
A lot of fans are up in arms about it, saying it's not the real war games, what are they doing, blah, blah, blah. But just, just realize that this is not a replacement for the War Games itself.
This is not meant to, this is not meant to be the thing that you now watch. So, you know, if somebody says, you know, what's the War games like? You don't, you don't have to turn around and say, oh, it's rubbish.
Since they replaced it with the 90 minute cut, nothing's being replaced. The War Games, as you know and love, will still be available on dvd, Blu Ray when it finally lands I player. I think it's still on itvx, still.
All those places that's never, that's not going away anywhere. You can still enjoy the War Games in black and white over 10 episodes. You know, no worries there.
This is just, I guess this is to kill two birds with one stone. Number one, in terms of colorizing old black and white tv. It's not a quick job.
It's not a, it's not something that you just knock out in a couple of months. It's a, it's a very long, arduous, specialized thing that you have to do.
So having the 90 minute, 90 minutes worth of content to colorize is a lot more, is a lot more achievable and timely than having to colorize the entire thing of 10 episodes. So that's, you know, that's a bonus by proxy, if you like, of the 90 minute cut just being something that new audiences can dip into.
tched Doctor who either since:So it can seem quite intimidating to a, to a fan of Doctor who or just science fiction. Have never watched it. And I think, crikey, you know, this is 10 episodes. This is a lot, you know, this is a lot to sit through.
So having a 90 minute cut is more of a friendlier introduction, if you like, to arguably one of the best stories in Classic who, and arguably one of Troughton's best. It's certainly up there in my top five for classic here. And it's, it's a very, very loved story.
And yes, you know, when, when we reviewed it here on the very. On this very podcast. Let me find out what score we gave it.
I'm pretty sure we scored it quite highly, but we did say back then that, that, that there is some padding in there for sure. Absolutely. You know, we're not denying that at all. Yeah, so the War Games, that was back in episode 100. Crikey.
Back in:There is a little bit of stuff going on that's, you know, you know, capture and escape and back and forwards and all that stuff. Personally, that doesn't bother me too much. I think that's a very cool part of it.
I think the pacing, although it is reasonably slow in some places, it's. I know, it's just got such a great. It's an amazing story. Right.
However, you can see that someone that's never watched it before, it just might feel a little bit intimidating. So anyway, for new viewers of Doctor who, or people who want to check out some classic who with the added bonus of it being in color, this is a.
This is cool.
And just to reiterate, this is not the BBC or Russell or Bad Wolf or Disney or anyone is saying that this is our recommended way that you watch the War Games in order to try and phase out the original one in black and white and all 10 episodes. It's not that at all. I've seen that mentioned so many times on socials where people are up in arms about this.
That's not, that's not the motive for doing this. Okay? It's not. If you want to watch the War Games in all its glory, fine. Nothing's changed. You know, it's. It's all good.
However, if you want to check out this very cool experiment for Classic Coup, where they are clearly doing more colorizations and you feel like, you know, you want to, you know, you've got, you've got a couple of hours to spare on the weekend before you get dragged out by your other half to go and do some shopping or to visit fam over Christmas. And you haven't got time to watch 10 episodes of classic Doctor who, but you have got a couple of hours spare, then you know, this is all good.
But the reason why, getting back to the whole point of doing this story, is that the Radio Times have actually got a cool little article on this.
Now with the Radio Times, I normally take their articles with not a pinch of salt, but I find their articles to be very generic and slightly derivative because generally the Radio Times, all they'll do is they'll just report on everything that is already out there anyway.
They don't really come out, they don't really come out with anything that's like groundbreaking or, you know, is like have Doctor who fans like, slapping their cheeks with like amazement, like, oh my God. But this article by Rihanna Evans is actually kind of cool.
She basically says that the title is Doctor who Will Gain More than It Loses by remastering the War Games.
She goes on to say that I won't read the entire article, but the crux of the article is she says that significantly, it revealed a level of darkness, unseen, of a show that was loosely dubbed as a children's program back in the day. She basically, you know, she wins. She wins who fans over straight away. She says that the War Games is a stone cold classic.
A brutal final blow, final bow for Patrick Troughton, second Doctor. And she goes on to say later on that, in short, it's perfect. She says that's the one thing that's holding it back. The War Games is long. Really long.
In fact, it's historically, infamously, notoriously long. But it's perfect. And she says that it's getting the 20th century makeover, colorization, 90 minute edit.
She then goes on to say that the War Games survives the walk. The fact that the War Games has survived. Survived all 10 missing episodes. Sorry, all 10 episodes. Not being missing is a blessing.
It's just that it's beautifully directed and full of dark corners and foreboding tension. And she basically says that, yeah, it's on the surface, it's kind of got this generic science fictiony feel to it.
You know, as she mentioned, it's back in the day, it was loosely dubbed as A as a children's show at various points, but it's got some darkness to it. At first. She goes on to say that appears they've landed at some point during the First World War. However, things are far from how they appear.
Dark forces are operating from the sidelines and and she then goes on to say, sorry, I'm scanning the article to find a bit once she goes on to say about the new regeneration scene, etc. Some fans, she goes and say that say it's heresy. Others just want to see Jamie screaming Krakatoa in vibrant hd.
It's fair to say that early Doctor who fans suffer from the problem, and that is the accessibility for the casual viewer.
This is largely because so many episodes were missing from Troughton's tenure and vital stories such as the handover from the first Doctor to the second were wiped after the initial broadcast. And again, just to reiterate that the War Games, the fact that all 10 episodes survive are a blessing.
She then finishes by saying that while many fans have said that the colorization and hefty edit should not be happening, I say that if it makes just one person reconsider who might never have given the early years of Doctor who a chance, then it's more than worth it.
And that's, that's the, that's the second thing that's that I said before, you know, we got into this article was that, you know, for purists and those dudes who, you know, fine, you're not going to check this out. That's all cool. You know, like I've said, the original WarGames is there to enjoy.
But and I agree with Rihanna on this point, I haven't agreed with everything she said in her previous articles, but on this one I do.
And that is if just, you know, one who fan checks out this 90 minute colorization and then thinks, crikey, that was a bloody good story of Doctor who. I'm going to check out some more then. That's only a good thing. So there we go. There's a link to this article in the show notes. Check it out.
It's a cool little article and essentially summarizes that there is more to the War Games than that's on the surface. It's not just about the Doctor and and those guys landing in seemingly World War I and being captured and then having to escape.
There's a lot more to it. There's a darkness to it, which is often some of the best Doctor who stories, especially in the classic era anyway.
So yeah, that is the article over on the Radio Times and Big Blue Box here.
So thank you very much for sticking with me as we went through the latest stories of what's happening in Doctor who and let's stick a pin in it there and finish up for episode 415. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the Big Blue Box podcast for another episode which is 415.
Hit me up on the socials if you are checking out the Escape Room over in Reading, if you're picking up the BM figures and what your thoughts are on the wargames. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. We're also on Blue sky now having some decent conversations over there.
Or hop into the Discord server, there's a link on the website. Come and chat about it over there as well. Would be fascinated by your thoughts on the upcoming War Games colorized and the 90 minute edits.
As I mentioned earlier, make sure you are following or subscribing in your preferred podcast app of choice.
Just do a search for the Big Blue Box podcast, especially if you're a new listener and if this is your first time listening or you've checked out the last few episodes.
It's awesome to have you here aboard the TARDIS as we talk through all the Doctor who things typically and if you are a new listener, typically myself and my co host Adam or somebody from the writing team, we normally recap the news and then go straight into a review of Doctor who so and you can check out all the previous reviews on the previous Epps.
Also check out the website Big Blue Box Podcast at Code uk the writing team put out all the reviews there for big finish editorials and events and all that stuff.
And yeah, we're on the socials too, just hit us up on there and and if you like the episode or this podcast, give us a rating or review on something like Apple podcasts or Spotify or Pod Chase or something like that. And thanks to those of you who have left review so far. Thank you very much.
Until the next episode which is 41 6, take care of yourselves and remember a.