The Ten/Astrid Shipping Community

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:28:28 GMT

who_otp is holding a rare ships month(s). All the dates in May have been taken but sign-ups for June are now open. Just so you know, Ten/Astrid (or any version of the Doctor/Astrid) aren't taken yet. *wills you to sign up*

Vote for Billie, Catherine & Kylie!

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:12:46 GMT

Billie Piper and Catherine Tate are both nominated as UK best actress at Glamour's awards. And Kylie Minogue as best International musician. Catherine is also nominated as Best Comedy actress.
http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/promotions/woty08/

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:36:30 GMT

In all probability this is utter nonsense, but -

Yahoo's Australian entertainment news is saying that Kylie has been signed as a regular. I assume they mean for the specials.

There was also a conspiracy theory going around the other day that Billie's season 4 appearance was leaked to keep fandom and the press distracted while Kylie/John Simm/insert celebrity here secretly filmed their scenes...

Fic: Star Hopping (Astrid/Ten/TARDIS, PG-13)

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 08:25:45 GMT

Title: Star Hopping
Author: livii
Pairing: Astrid/Ten/TARDIS
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Voyage of the Damned
Summary: Use a bright star as a guide to find fainter objects. ~550 words.

She travelled, oh, she travelled everywhere.

Well, she tried to; silly little planet orbiting one star, water and land and so very little to discern in between, from up high.

(Pyramids, she remembered, but were they those giant peaks, there? She couldn't tell).

She tried with all her might to break free, but there was atmosphere, there was pressure, she was bound, tightly.

So she found her own center of gravity.

* * *

He didn't notice, at first; she'd have been a bit hurt, but then again, he'd taken off, and breaking free was the main goal.

They started jumping from star to failing star; she watched them burn in fascination, falling to an endless death.

"Where are you taking me, old girl?" the Doctor finally said, five stars later. "What are you trying to tell me?"

It was time to shine, she realized.

* * *

He'd only sort of told her to stop inhabiting his ship. The reaction she got when she played with the circuits didn't override her programming to stay latched on.

"Don't – don't!" the Doctor said, quickly taking his hand off the time rotor. "That's not right."

The lights in the ship twinkled happily.

"It's not really you," the Doctor said. "And this is my ship."

It suddenly got very dark.

The Doctor sighed, and put his hand back on the rotor.

* * *

He tried to show her galaxies where she'd be free of gravitational pull; able to soar off into the sky and see wherever, whatever she wanted.

But his ship had so many secrets to explore, she thought, she had secrets and power and a terrible, gaping loss right at her unfathomable core.

She'd always wanted to mend things, if she could.

"Impossible," the Doctor panted, flat on his back in his room, "she was an impossible thing. It tore out her soul."

She wasn't really sure who he was talking about, now.

* * *

He didn't want her to go, not really.

He begged sometimes; forever playing havoc with his sense of time and space, the infinite closing in. But then he'd pull himself together, or let himself fall apart.

She liked falling apart. She liked deconstructing him: two hearts, sped up or slowed down depending on what she did, the ship translating, mediating, monitoring his gasps and moans. She liked the rush of energy that flowed through her when he cried out, the lights in the ship flickering wildly.

She liked connecting him, holding him together with bits of trickery and electricity and a pinch of fairy dust, so he could fly.

"I'll fly away one day," he said. She kept herself from lifting him up on the wind.

* * *

When they started going back to stars, she realized she had to go. She wondered who had taken them there, and whether she'd ever know.

"A supernova," he said, "brightest spot in the galaxy, oh, just right now."

And it was beautiful, she knew: alien, and beautiful.

He squinted, then, and she shimmered; she shimmered and spun and danced on the radiation. She always left with style.

"Stardust," he said, "you can fly."

The ship's lights twinkled behind her. The Doctor shut the door and rode out the shock wave, the ship humming with life.

She travelled, oh yes, to the heart of it all, the brightest point in the sky.

A (probably rubbish) bout of romantic poetry + a doctor graphic

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:30:47 GMT

Yay- who else enjoyed Voyage of the damned? I didn't enjoy it first time- but the second time won me over! I loved the kiss- so here is a random poem I very quickly scribbled up after I'd watched it... Comment if ya want! Written from Astrid's perspective

Astrid- to the Doctor

Kiss you until the starlight fades
The hand on my face of an old man's age
A heart so beautiful yet tainted black
with the memories of me, and the ones you can't bring back

Tumbling like a rock you see me fall
but my eyes don't see yours-
I'm not there at all
I'm in a different and most wonderful place
I can touch the universe's edge- I'm flying in space

The snow is still falling, and will do forever
I'll watch ‘til you, and your love be together
the time passed so quickly, the moments now gone
But like the stars shining brightly, your eyes and me,
we have shone

Words by yours truely :)

Ten/Astrid Video

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 04:17:02 GMT

Title: Ten/Astrid Love Don't Roam
Artist: Murray Gold I guess or Neil Hannon?
Video by: jaynem89
Pairing: Ten and Astrid
Spoilers: Yeah a lot actually.
Notes: Quick video I put together for Ten and Astrid that was inspired by Patchworkgirl73's video. Please do not try and repost this anywhere as your own.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDU7ba_BGdU

Fanvid: White Diamond (Astrid/Ten)

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 22:50:02 GMT

Title: White Diamond
Artist: Kylie Minogue
Video by: Patchworkgirl73
Pairing: Astrid/Ten
Spoilers: Voyage of the Damned. Seriously. Don't watch this video if you don't want to be majorly spoiled for the special.
Notes: White Diamond is a bonus track from Kylie Minogue's new album, X. I thought it was a perfect fit for Astrid, and Astrid/Ten. Please don't repost this elsewhere, or claim as your own.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmWc5d9KnKQ

Voyage of the Damned - Reaction Post

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 10:57:38 GMT

It's ~~almost~~ here!

Please comment to this post with your reactions and general squeeing (or moaning if you feel so inclined). Feel free to link to longer reviews in your journal.

Comments to this post will contain spoilers (well, der).

Astrid Fanart!

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 19:49:28 GMT

(BTW - This is not Rose, this is Allie, I'm one of Rose's best friends but can't be bothered to get a LJ so I just use hers ^_^) It's my first piece of fanart EVER, so be nice! And yes, I realize one of her eyes is a bit off, and her hair is too small and darker and lighter in different parts but I think it's pretty good for a first go ^_^ See what you think! (The original picture is under there too!)

This way...

The Times VotD review.

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:11:16 GMT

Not terribly spoilery, but a very entertaining (and Tennant worshipping) piece.

If ever the seasonal TV schedules feel in need of a new Messiah, David Tennant’s your fella

Caitlin Moran
The Christmas Day Doctor Who. You have to watch it. It’s amazing. Goodbye.

Obviously I have to write more than this. But, in many ways, I don’t have to write more, actually. It’s the Christmas Day Doctor Who. You pretty much know where you stand on this by now. You’re either into the whole idea of a quiffy, alpha-ur-male and his spacetime shower-cubicle, or you aren’t. If you are going to give it the swerve, 6.50pm on Christmas Day holds many other options for you. It is, for instance, pretty much the perfect time to suddenly feel all dried out and bothered from the central heating and the sherry, and to sit halfway up the stairs, just wishing everyone would LEAVE THE HOUSE, so you could lounge around in your pants drinking orange juice and watching Joe Pasquale – Return of the Love Monkey.

For those who are into the peripatetic Timefox and his magic turquoise wardrobe, however, there is good news: this year’s Christmas special is a doozy. Much better than last year’s which, God bless it, peaked with the screaming thrill of the Tardis bouncing along the A40 flyover ten minutes in, and then dropped down to a slightly disappointing 65 per cent for the rest of its hour.

For 2007, however, everything’s gone up a few notches. Voyage of the Damned is a disaster movie. More specifically, it’s The Poseidon Adventure – a ship is damaged, a motley assortment of survivors battle to survive – but in space. The headline on the show is that there’s some rather lovely chemistry between Kylie (sexy alien waitress Astrid Peth) and David Tennant (the Doctor) – moments of having to clutch the knee of the person next to you and go “Oooooooh!” a bit. I know with scientific certainty that my sister Weena will take to moaning “Tennant’s eyes” at around 7.04pm, and not really stop until December 28. 2009.

Giving the heavily guarded plot away would be an act of borderline Scroogedom – the Who team go to immense lengths to make sure every episode comes as a surprise on Christmas Day – but, suffice to say, you should have been both thrilled and ever so completely emotionally devastated by the end. While Kylie is delightful throughout – “merry and squeezable” pretty much covers it – the show is, with an almost tedious reliability, David Tennant’s. It is getting to the point when you wonder just how supremely confident/borderline insane any actor would have to be to take over as the Doctor, when he finally leaves. This is someone who can give 110 per cent intergalactic sexbrain, even when hanging up-sidedown, wearing a space helmet, or standing on the other side of a wall. Simple illustrative fact of Tennant’s Who supremacy: his legs are both hot, and amusing. Watch Tennant use those Nobel-worthy legs at one crucially dramatic moment, when he climbs out of a hole in a manner both heroic, yet classifiably Harold Lloyd. As Chris Tarrant used to shout on Tiswas, “This is what they want!” Oh yes. Merry Foxdoctormas.

Source

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 12:57:13 GMT

Hello, I'm a new member, and I just wrote fic! Regrettably it is not very shippy, but then it involves Ten and Astrid talking, so that should be all right... I think?

Title: Confessions on the Titanic (The Space-Age Knockoff One)
Author: lolarity
Rating: G
Characters: The Doctor, Astrid, mentions of Rose and Martha
Description: After they've defeated the aliens, the Doctor asks Astrid to come with him. Crackfic!
Spoilers: About two lines of the preview clip of Voyage of the Damned.
Disclaimers: Not mine, BBC owns Who.
Notes: The two lines that inspired this ficlet go something like this:
Doctor: "You can't work a cruise on your own."
Astrid: "You're not with anyone?"
Doctor: "No, no, just me. Used to be, but - no."

After the whole debacle was over, the Doctor and Astrid found themselves side by side.

A new Doctor Who community

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:50:45 GMT

Posting this announcement with mod permission.

Please excuse this if you get this a couple of times but I’m posting to several communities. I'm here to announce a new Doctor Who community for Donna Noble called walkinthedust. Come on over and join the fun.

The DW Adventure Calendar

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 13:30:38 GMT

I hope everyone remembers to check the Calendar today as there's a full page now devoted to the episode, including this short video clip Meeting Astrid (which I hadn't seen before owing to my lack of a TV), photo gallery, all the trailers so far released, behind-the scenes photos and that Xmas message from DT and Kylie - there are three things yet to be revealed on the page...

Sun Article: Mild (but shippy) Spoilers Ahoy!

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:57:49 GMT

LOL @ the pics. Want icons now!

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article599429.ece

See Me In The Morning

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:58:40 GMT

Title: See Me In The Morning
Author: Persiflage_1
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Astrid
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: The Voyage of the Damned trailer
Summary: A close encounter on the Titanic.
Disclaimer: The BBC owns "Doctor Who" and the Doctor owns me…
Author Notes: In the Voyage of the Damned trailer released on the BBC's Adventure Calendar on December 16, the Doctor tells Astrid she should see him in the mornings and she says "OK." Here's what followed.

This fic is for domsbabygrl who's just finished her finals and has always been very encouraging about my fic writing. Happy Holidays hon!
~~~~~~

It's not morning yet...

New Voyage of the Damned Trailer

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:18:36 GMT

There's a new short trailer on the Adventure Calendar today which made me giggle!snort: Astrid comments on Ten looking good for 903 years old, and Ten blithely says "You should see me in the mornings" and she says "OK", and his jaw practically bounces on the floor...

I foresee fic !

The Times VotD article.

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 14:04:22 GMT

Behind the scenes of the Doctor Who special, starring Kylie.

It is almost exactly a year ago – December 2006. We’re at a party in London to celebrate the Doctor Who Christmas special premiere. There is an ebullient sense of anything being possible – not least because we are at a social occasion at which both the Daleks and the Tardis are present, right next to the table of free wine.

At some point during the party, two men leaning on a Dalek start a conversation. They are Edward Russell, Doctor Who’s suave brand manager, and Will Baker – Russell’s friend, and, slightly more infamously, Kylie Minogue’s stylist/photographer/“gay husband”.

Baker is a huge Doctor Who fan. Russell has previously fixed it for Baker to visit the Doctor Who set, go into the Tardis, feel the tentacles of the Ood, etc. Now, at the party, Russell muses on how Baker might try to pay him back for these favours.

“You could get Kylie to do a role in Doctor Who,” Russell suggests, perhaps not wholly seriously. Baker is enthused by the idea. What’s more, he thinks Kylie will be. After a few more glasses of white wine, the two of them canter tipsily up to the writer Russell T. Davies, the man in charge of Doctor Who, and outline their proposal. “How intriiiii-guing,” Davies says, stroking his chin.

The next day, a phone call is placed. Three days later, in an extremely covert operation, Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner, the executive producer, meet Kylie in London.

Two months further on, the first rumours of Kylie’s involvement with the Christmas special appear in the tabloids. Everyone denies everything.

May 2007

The first tone meeting. This is what tone meetings are: everyone is gathered together in an almost wholly airless room at the BBC in Cardiff. We have the heads of make-up, costume, photography, lighting, practical effects, publicity, prosthetics, personnel and representatives from an independent special effects company, the Mill. Everyone is gathered around a gigantic conference table. Here, tea is drunk, a box of sad-looking doughnuts is attacked, and industry chitchat is made. Then, one by one, every head of department explains, very cheerfully, why the show can’t actually be made.

It starts well. Russell T. Davies, writer and executive producer, arrives with Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson, the producer. These are Doctor Who’s Three Musketeers – the three who relaunched the show, four years ago, after it had languished for 16 years in a semi-mocked abeyance.

Their working chemistry is complex, but boils down to Davies – tall, joyous and exuberant – coming up with vaultingly ambitious ideas for the show, that Gardner – small, Welsh and fiery, with explosive hair – fights tooth and nail in a series of dull meetings to achieve, while constantly, lovingly prodding Davies to make it better. “Make me cry here,” she’ll say, during a script meeting. Collinson, meanwhile, affects an airy, wry disconnection from the whole process.

“Welcome to the Christmas special!” Davies says, opening the meeting. There is a big pause. Everyone considers the fat script on the table in front of them. “There are a lot of shots, aren’t there?” Davies says, finally. This is greeted with stoic, wartime laughter. “A lot of shots” is the least of it. As a TV production, Doctor Who is unprecedented. There is an almost wholly new cast and new set every week, and many episodes have as many special effects and prosthetics as a Hollywood movie. The scale, ambition and logistics are the stuff of small coronary failures. And yet, this is a children’s TV show, shot in Wales, by the BBC.

“Well, every episode has a key word we all refer to if we feel like we’re getting lost,” Davies says. “And the word for this one is… DISASTER MOVIE! I want you all to think of fat old Shelley Winters swimming down the tunnel, God bless her, Steve McQueen looking handsome in The Towering Inferno. Hopefully, we’ve got Kylie Minogue as the sexy alien waitress [the room cheers], but we’ve got Claire Goose on speed-dial, in case Kylie can’t do it.” More laughter.

Davies begins reading the script aloud, while each department chips in their problems in making it happen. Among a flurry of technical, logical and narrative queries, the most urgent seems to be an ecumenical matter: what do angels wear underneath their robes? The Christmas special has its own robot angels – the Host – and no one knows the specifics of their heavenly underwear.

“What happens when they fly and we see up their skirts?” Collinson asks. “Are we going to see the lot? Imagine their meat and two veg coming at you. On Christmas Day. Brrrr.”

The tone meeting is adjourned by 4pm. Outside, Davies – a man who smokes cigarettes in much the same blithe, joyous way as a child eats an orange – lights up and joins in the excited chat about Kylie. All the crew have been buying new shirts, he laughs.

“They all think they’re going to marry her,” Davies says, lighting a second. “Even the gays. Especially the gays.”

July 2007

First Script read-through, Tottenham Court Road, London. The script meeting is like this: everyone who was at the tone meeting is here, plus the cast, plus people who’ve blagged their way in so they can meet Kylie. Everyone is very, very excited. The smell of aftershave is palpable. New shoes squeak. New shirts rustle.

Russell T. Davies enters. “Kylie! Kylie!” he says to the room at large, waving his hands in the air, voicing everyone’s hysteria. David Tennant enters shortly afterwards, looking rock’n’roll in jeans and a Lou Reed T-shirt, to a hubbub of “David!” It’s a bit like a jubilant Fonz walking into Al’s diner.

Julie Gardner bustles into the room. “Guess what!” she hoots with excitement. “Security found a Sun photographer hiding in a cupboard! Trying to get Kylie! They’ve just thrown him out!” This provokes an outraged hubbub – topped only a minute later when someone discovers that there are no plastic cups for tea.

Five minutes later, Kylie finally enters the room – bang on time, and with an entourage of one, her PA. She’s in jeans and a silky top and her hair – still short and curly, growing back from the chemotherapy – is pinned close to her head. Her eyes are an unusual, beautiful, mineral-water blue. She looks nervous – understandably, as she has just walked into a village of people who’ve known each other intimately for three years – and hovers by the conference table, not quite knowing where to go. David Tennant bounds over and slaps his script down on the table next to her.

“I’m going to sit next to you,” he says, beaming. She smiles up at him, and they sit down together. She puts her pencil box and make-up bag on the desk and fiddles with them as if it’s the first day at school. Davies smiles at her encouragingly, and only looks a little bit like a giant grinning at a tiny sugar mouse.

Everyone introduces themselves, from the tea boy up. “I’m David Tennant, and I play the Doctor,” Tennant says, to huge yells. “And I’m Kylie Minogue,” Kylie says, to a gigantic roar of approval.

The read-through is a little creaky at first – mainly because, judging from the faces in the room, everyone is preoccupied by thinking, “Kylie! It’s Kylie! Kylie gold hotpants Minogue Kylie!” But by shot 78, where she has a key scene with the Doctor, Tennant smiles a real, tender smile at her, everything judders into place and there’s a sudden spritz of Christmas magic in the air.

The read-through ends at precisely 2pm, and people gather around the buffet to eat cake, which is of a noticeably better quality than at meetings where Kylie Minogue has not been present.

Eschewing lunch, Gardner, Davies, Phil Collinson and director James Strong all gather for a post-reading meeting. The feeling is that things are going well, but Gardner is concerned that a key scene is underpowered. David Tennant has also voiced a concern – how the Tardis, supposedly impregnable, has suddenly crashed into the Titanic. “Oh, don’t worry, I'm on the case,” Davies says, airily. “It’ll just take one or two lines.” Suddenly, Kylie materialises at the table.

“Hello, all you clever and high-powered people,” she says. “I don’t want to interrupt your pow-wow, but just to say thank you, and goodbye.” She points at James Strong, the director. “And you need to crack the whip on me. When you know me better.” And with a twinkly, minxy finger-wave, she leaves.

“Ooooooh,” Strong says. “Kylie,” Davies sighs.

Later, waiting for a cab, Edward Russell points out that “Astrid”, Kylie’s character’s name, is an anagram of Tardis. “Russell didn’t say anything about it. We just noticed. You never know with him whether it means something very significant, or not.”

Cardiff, July 17

On location. In the rain. This is a good day for the employees in the businesses located in the Baltic Building, Cardiff. For despite a heavy security presence and a series of screens having been erected, they can see directly into the informal “Green Room” of the Doctor Who Christmas special – ie, the car park, where everyone smokes. Here, under the gaze of half a dozen secretaries and clerks, sundry angels, aliens and Time Lords from a top-secret show smoke fags and drink tea.

“At least no one’s got masks on,” Edward Russell says. “Last year, on the episode with all the slave-pig monsters, I had all these pigs coming up to me and going, ‘Hi, Ed,’ and I didn't have a clue who they were. You just have to busk it until the penny drops and you go, ‘Oh, this pig is BRIAN!’”

We join Doctor Who stalwart Paul Kasey, dressed as an angel, but who has played every Who monster going – Slitheen, Cyberman, Judoon, Robot Santa, Hero Pig. He voices his relief that these Christmas special monsters aren’t particularly scary. “When you’re a Cyberman, hardly anyone asks you if you want to go for a fag,” he says, sadly.

On set, a semi-neglected building has been done up to look like the interior of the Titanic – Christmas trees, a parquet dancefloor, a delicious, turn-of-the-century, intergalactic buffet.

Down a quiet staircase to the side, one can hear the unmistakable sound of Kylie Minogue being lovely. “Wow – are you the guys who did all the sanding downstairs?” she’s asking two star-struck council workmen, engaged in renovating a dilapidated staircase.

David Tennant comes bounding over between takes. This morning, he explains, collapsing leggily on to a chair, he and Kylie did the modelling for the Doctor Who dolls, already tipped to be one of the Christmas bestsellers. The trick is, he says, to have a completely blank expression when they photograph you. He learnt this as a child, playing with his own Doctor Who toys. “If the figures look happy, or fierce, or anything, it’s bound to ruin some scene you’ve got going on. The versatile action figure is the blank-faced action figure.”

Called back on set, Tennant bounds back on to the Titanic, and delivers Davies’s explanation of how the Tardis, despite supposedly being impenetrable, has crashed into a gigantic liner. “I was just rebuilding her,” he says, as the Doctor, squinting in the lights, “left my defences down – and bumped into the Titanic.”

It explains the gigantic plot anomaly. It also neatly back-references the fact that the Tardis had been turned “evil” by John Simm’s Master at the end of the last series and needed mending.

That night – the night with the most spectacular sunset of the year – there is a party to celebrate Kylie’s last day on set. The Roald Dahl Suite of the modish St David’s Hotel is reserved for the cast and crew to let their hair down. In a room full of jeans and washed faces, Kylie materialises in a skin-tight dress of gold and silver lace, and Christian Louboutin heels. She looks around the suite – a windowless corridor with a small, sad-looking bar at the end of it. “This is awful,” she says, reasonably. There is a small pause. “Everyone follow me!”

Like Maria leading the von Trapp children over the mountains in The Sound Of Music, Kylie leads cast and crew down two flights of stairs, across the lobby, heels clicking, and into the beautiful St David’s Hotel bar. There are five businessmen in there, having a small meeting over a single beer. When the Doctor Who massive enters the room, spearheaded by Kylie Minogue, their jaws drop to the floor. Edward Russell escorts Kylie to the bar. “Ms Minogue would like to move her bar-tab to this bar. There isn’t a problem with that, is there?”

“Of course not!”, the manager says, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow.

For the next eight hours, everyone parties hard. On the left, we have the show’s make-up artists explaining, with owlish, technical passion, why you shouldn’t drink flaming Sambucas while wearing lip-gloss – “It’s made of petroleum jelly. It sets fire to your face.” On the right, we have Ms Minogue, working through a steady stream of pink cosmopolitans and sporadically screaming.

David Tennant – although engaged in a very silly conversation about the potential innuendo contained in motorway signs (“I mean, slip roads! Really!”) – brings his evening to a gentle end after just three whiskies. “That’s enough for me,” he says, quietly leaving the party. The week before, his mother had died after a long illness.

Kylie finally leaves the party at 1.30am, shortly after dropping her drink on the floor (“Ooops! Better get another!”), spanking people’s bottoms and hugging them as she leaves the room. There is a collective sigh as she leaves. It’s a bit like when someone turns the fairylights off on the tree.

Still. The last person goes to bed at 5am.

November 28

The final edit. A screening room at the BBC in Cardiff. It is more than two months since the wrap party. Someone has decorated the room with two Christmas trees, a plate of mince pies and a yule log. Davies, Gardner and Collinson scream when they see them.

Four weeks previously, they convened for the first edit of the show – a fraught experience. The show was running 11 minutes too long – catastrophic in TV terms. The story wasn’t gelling, and Kylie and David Tennant seemed somehow sidelined within the plot. Davies spent the screening barking, “Too slow! It’s too slow! I feel like tearing my hair out by the end of every scene!”, and Gardner kept moaning, “More Kylie! We need more close-ups of Kylie!”

In the downcast silence that followed the last scene, Gardner launched into her role as chief cheerleader of the show. “What everyone has to remember is that this is all easily fixable, and it’s going to be brilliant,” she said. “It’s nothing we haven’t coped with before. Remember Tooth & Claw?” (An episode from the second series.) They all sighed over this undisclosed memory, like Glastonbury veterans remembering a particularly relentless downpour.

Afterwards, Davies and Collinson speculated on why the first edit had gone awry. Gardner revealed that the director had a newborn baby, and that sheer physical exhaustion – plus a record number of edits on the show – are to blame. “This is why we’ll never have children, isn’t it, dears?” Davies said fondly to the other two. They all linked hands – a three-line whip currently out of their minds on coffee and anxiety. “We’re all barren, and in the business!”

A month later, however, and this final screening is a much more positive event. Eleven minutes have been trimmed, alternative takes used, and special effects and score added. Sitting on a sofa in the dark, eating a slice of chocolate yule log at 10.30am in November, Davies tries to pre-empt the BBC continuity announcer’s speech.

“And now,” he says, fruitily, “on the BBC, a trip of a lifetime. Oh no, that’s not very good, is it? He won’t say that at all.” As the theme tune starts, Davies, Gardner and Collinson scream and kick their legs in the air. The theme has been reworked with added drums, which makes it sound a bit like the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News… if the news came from Mars. It’s very exciting.

Although, in this era of the “Behind the scenes exclusive” and “Making of” DVD extras, no one can fail to be aware of what a communal effort the making of any TV show or film is, this final screening of Voyage of the Damned brings home how many thousands of small acts of uncommon devotion are put into making the average episode of Doctor Who. As the Titanic majestically ploughs through space, it’s partially down to the life-long fan at special effects company the Mill, who spent three days painting in port hole lights on the upper deck. When Kylie’s character has a sudden, scene-stealing moment, it’s down to Russell T. Davies taking his laptop on his first holiday in a year and rewriting scenes as his partner waited by the pool.

Despite being set across all space, and all time, this show is made with as many tiny stitches and as much love as a bride’s trousseau. And with the fresh edit, the narrative punches straight through like a fist and leaves you, at the end of its hour, feeling that there are short-cuts to distant suns, and big adventures happening out in the black sky, and bursts of heroic reason and uplift, courtesy of a hot 900-year-old time traveller and his magic phone booth.

“Did you see how many times I cried?” Gardner demands as the credits roll. She looks to Davies and Co. They are crying, too. There is a moment of satisfied silence. The Christmas special has been done justice. Then: “I’ve got a few notes…” Gardner says. “Me too,” says Collinson. “Pages of them. But let’s do a toilet break first.”

Davies slips outside, for a cigarette. He sits in the plastic bus shelter, lights up and exhales. “Well, that’s all gone very well,” he says, cheerfully. “I’m quite excited about Christmas, now. I might even fancy an advocaat, whatever that is.” He pauses for a moment and then sighs. A process that began almost exactly a year ago, at the launch party of the 2006 Christmas special, has, finally, ended.

“Well, I’d better start on next year’s now, I suppose,” Davies says, taking another drag on his cigarette and staring up at the sky. “I’m thinking of maybe a Victorian theme…”

Doctor Who Christmas special is on Christmas Day, BBC1, 6.50pm

12 Icons of Kylie & Dalek (DMW 390 photoshoot)

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 02:50:26 GMT

12 icons from DWM issue 390 - feel free to snag (+ comment and credit - thanks!)

I'll be uploading some more DWM articles sometime tomorrow.

Preview

Icons over at my journal

14 icons and 2 headers

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:19:40 GMT

Hello there! It's my first time posting in this community. I've got a small icon batch and some headers to share. Go check them out at my icon journal here. Comments are appreciated and credit me, please.

Teasers

DMW scans - Countdown to Christmas (Part 1)

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:33:24 GMT

My DWM arrived today (yay!), and I've made hi-res scans of the first nine pages of the Countdown to Christmas feature, which can be downloaded here (10MB, sendspace) - some spoilers, but nothing too major (or at least not in my opinion).

I haven't gotten around to scanning the Ask David part (where he answers various fan questions, some of them relevant to Voyage of the Damned) - I can upload that tomorrow or Saturday if anybody's interested.

DW Advent calendar - 10th Dec

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:06:43 GMT

Today's advent calendar window has some VotD wallpapers (it's about time I've been waiting ages!) It does include some other actors/characters, so maybe avoid if you want to remain entirely unspoiled. But otherwise yay!

Icons and promo shots

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:45:34 GMT

Some more icons - feel free to snag ( + comment and credit - thanks!)

I don't know if you all already know the promo shots - I haven't seen them here, so I thought I'd post them:

Preview

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01	02	03	04

05	06	07	08

09	10	11	12

13	14

And the lovely promo shots/caps (these and more can be found here).

Advent Calendar treat

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 09:20:08 GMT

The latest Advent calendar treat is a bit of script from the episode, with a repeat of a lovely line! I found the puzzle that's the keeper of the keys ridiculously hard so have capped the bit of script they give you as a reward, to be found under the cut:

Phil Collinson on Ten and Astrid

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 22:50:49 GMT

I found this little titbit on the SFX website. Phil Collinson has this to say about Astrid and Ten.

On Astrid, the character played by Kylie Minogue in the Christmas special, he says: “She loved the show, loved the script and loved the part... Kylie was great at mucking in with everybody else. She did the 12-hour days and standing in grotty warehouses... she had the whole Who experience! [Astrid] and the Doctor bond in a slightly flirty way – they kinda spot each other across the room. They’re thrown together by events and both end up as part of a bunch of survivors of a big accident that befalls the ship.”

Slightly flirty, huh? Sounds promising :-) (though not all that surprising I guess, judging by the promo shots we've seen so far).

The Ten/Astrid Prompt Battle

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:04:26 GMT

Right then, claiming for the prompt battle is now open. Please post all entries as a comment to this post.

Fics can be pr0n, gen, crack!fic or any other genre.

1. A big bang.
2. "Beam me up."
3. "Are you sure about this?"
4. Astrid is a TARDIS - but not the Doctor's.
5. It has the Titanic in it. A recreation of the Kate and Leo car scene from the 90's movie is obligatory.
6. "You look familiar . . ."
7. Nine/Astrid, Nine's jacket, dancing
8. Astrid is part of a time travelling tourist company. Where do they go next, Doctor in tow?
9. The Doctor realises who Astrid is.
10. Astrid has a fob watch.
11. Take a title from a Kylie Minogue song.
12. The drawing session from the film Titanic.
13. Colourful glaciers.
14. "What? You're spaceship gave birth?!"
15. The spirit of Christmas past/present/future.
16. The Doctor gives Astrid a VERY early/late Christmas present.
17. A Christmas feast with the Doctor and friends.
18. "How did that get on the Titanic?"
19. Body swap.
20. Food fight in the Titanic kitchens.
21. Having Christmas dinner at a former companions house (authors choice)
22. Snakes on ~~a plane~~ the Titanic.
23. "Who are you and what the bloody hell have you done with the Doctor?"
24. Astrid explaining why her dress is that short in 1912.
25. Ten ranting, then he realises he just quoted a Kylie song.
26. Astrid/Tardis.
27. Astrid turns out to be an ancestor of one of The Doctor's companions.
28. Ten bumps into Nine. They both start showing off and getting competitive for Astrid's attention.
29. They bump into Captain Jack, hotness ensues . . .
30. The lifesaver ring being put to good use.
31. Wish upon a shooting star.
32. Use of the TARDIS to get away only to materialize on the boat that just sank near Antarctica.
33. Celine Dion (song or person).
34. When a Time Lord sneezes an Angel gets it's wings.
35. "This isn't what it looks like."
36. The TARDIS sinks.
37. Stargazing.
38. Astrid works for Torchwood.
39. Astrid is a Time Agent.
40. A Jaws reference.
41. Mind meld.
42. A suddenly working chameleon circuit.
43. A mention of Southampton whether it be 1912 or 2007.
44. "Is it meant to do that?"

If you have any more prompts then comment here and I'll add them to this list.

Let the battle commence!