When it comes Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, I have to say that I agree with Lawrence Miles's take on his casting. Is it really that surprising that they cast someone young. I mean, does Matt Smith look that much younger than David Tennant? He definitely doesn't to me. The decision to cast him would have been an incredibly bold decision a few years ago before they put David Tennant in the role. Now it just seems like the safe route to go. With Tennant we got a young looking, attractive (I tend to use the word dreamy) Doctor and it doesn't look like it is going to be much different with Matt Smith in the role. The decision doesn't really strike me as interesting or exciting and definitely isn't pushing the envelope at all. I think it was to please the new audience that has developed under David Tennant's tenure as the Doctor. This new audience wouldn't want an older Doctor, so Moffat obliged them. Obviously I could be totally wrong. To me, he seems to be taking the easy route as Miles says in his blog. I just hope that the stories he chooses aren't the safe choices, but the ones that are interesting and challenge the audience.

Now having said all this, I don't feel any hatred or anger towards the incoming Doctor (except that he is only a year older than me and that makes me jealous). I hope he is an awesome actor who brings some things that have been missing from the show during the Tennant era such as stability and less silliness. I also hope the writers create some interesting stories that don't resort to using technobabble and the sonic screwdriver as the answer. That's my take.

Just to rile (sp?) up some more controversy in regards to Doctor Who, I am going to suggest that some of my fellow Doctor Who fans check out Lawrence Miles' Doctor Who Thing and look at the stuff in the right hand column. I think the stuff is hilarious, but some of you might not thing it is so funny. Then again, I have made many of my problems with the new series known and they tend to mesh well with Miles' thoughts. So enjoy friends.

After reading Alien Bodies by Lawrence Miles (finished it today), I am officially a Lawrence Miles fan. Alien Bodies is definitely one of the better Doctor Who novels I have read (and I have read about 15). The plot of Alien Bodies is the kind of plot that I like. It deals with the Time Lords and other cool things in the Doctor Who universe. If you are a fan of Doctor Who, then you should definitely check out his books.

New Adventures
Christmas On A Rational Planet
Down
Dead Romance

Down and Dead Romance aren't Doctor Who books, but they involve characters from Doctor Who and are very good from what I have heard.

Eighth Doctor Adventures
Alien Bodies
Interference: Book One
Interference: Book Two
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street

Check him out. He may be controversial and an ass, but his books are awesome. And his ideas from Doctor Who aren't all that bad.

So, I've been slowly making my way through the Eighth Doctor BBC novels and I've been enjoying them. Even the ones that are said to be unenjoyable. In the past week or two I've re-read The Eight Doctors and Vampire Science, then devoured War of the Daleks and Alien Bodies shortly after.

I've read a few reviews of these online and am planning a brief review of the latter three soon. For now though, I just thought I'd ask what people think of Lawrence Miles.

Previously, I have been vaguely aware of his presence as a controversial figure, but not much else. Alien Bodies (which was excellent, by the way) is the first 'full-on' contact I've had with the man or his work, which led to me Googling his name and trying to figure out what all the fuss was about... maybe I'm not looking in the right places or something, but I can't seem to find out what led to his 'split' from the Doctor Who creative harem, as it were.

Looking briefly at his current Who-related blog, there does seem to be a fair amount of bitterness there, and I'm not entirely sure why. Is this one of those things that is well-documented in fandom, or up for lots of fan-fuelled speculation? Either way, I'd appreciate some info. Obviously having only read one of his few Who novels, I may not have the best handle on him as a writer, but it seems a shame based on Alien Bodies, that he has put himself (or been put?) in a position where it seems unlikely that his mind will ever be put to use on New Who.

Thoughts?

Hello everyone! Can someone tell me where this wonderful quote is from?
"I've done so much. Saved entire races whose names I can't even remember. And why? Because of reasons. Because of principles. Truth, love, and harmony. Peace and goodwill. The best of intentions. Whatever I've done, I've done for these reasons. And there's been a price to pay. Sacrifices. People close to me have died. Four of my companions, hundreds of the universe's supporting cast. I could fill whole volumes with their names. Bystanders who helped me, perhaps for just a moment or two, and suffered for it. I've died myself, six times over. I have a responsibility. To every one of them, the living as well as the dead."
– The Seventh Doctor

I have no idea, but it sounds like something out of the New Adventures. In fact, it sounds like something written by Paul Cornell. Love and War, perhaps? Go on, tell me how wrong I am :)
Cheers!

EDIT: Answered, merci! It's the NA "Christmas on a Rational Planet" by Lawrence Miles if you were interested.

This is good for a larf, folks...massive Lawrence Miles grudgewank/bootyhurt at:

http://beasthouse-lm2.blogspot.com/2008/05/week-eight-my-life-with-new-god-king.html

with accompanying LJ thread at:

http://community.livejournal.com/sf_drama/1044811.html

Warning: probable spoilers for Silence in the Library and some serious tealdeer in the Miles entry.

eliazar

And this isn't like a fan-fiction exercise, this is full-on. It's available for one week only, with explanation behind it, here.

I've downloaded my copy...have you?

His most recent post is a fantastic idea, by the way, taking CGI set-pieces from adverts and wondering what they might be like if worked into a Doctor Who plot. He is a bit harsh about The Unicorn And The Wasp though, and his "as we've covered", "as you'll recall" tone is annoying. Still, nobody's perfect.

Hi fellow Doctor Who fans, this is my first time posting here, and I'm not really very practiced at posting in LJ communities, so if there are any problems, just let me know. 

A couple of months ago or so I started to watch through the stories that make up the beginning of all that is Doctor Who, starting with An Unearthly Child. As I sit here writing this now, I can't quite recall what my original intention was when I sat down to watch AUC on this time around. I think there was a little bit of curiosity in me to understand some of what the Lawrence Miles and Tat Woods' About Time series described, when talking about what Doctor Who was before many of the series' mysteries had been explained. I think I may have wanted to see if my mind could approach the beginning of the Doctor's journey and concoct a third explanation for what The Doctor and Doctor Who is all about (or could have been about). I think some of the wild notions that the About Time books postulated may have taken root too strongly, and influenced how I would responded to the experience overall. I'll start with a brief mention of a line of dialogue Ian Chesterton says near the beginning of the trip; he speculates that if they know the Doctor's name, or understand his identity, they will be able to unlock the entrapment of circumstances he and Barbara Wright have found themselves in.  

I know there's a few folk on here who enjoy Lawrence Miles ramblings, so here's a link to his latest (before it disappears):

http://beasthouse-lm2.blogspot.com/2008/04/doctor-who-2008-week-one-big-russells.html

There's also a "Things to Come" season preview (based on the RT article) down the right hand side, it's occasionally interesting but not up to his usual standard.


On an entirely different and arbitary note, under the cut is a Doctor Who -related flyer for a clubnight, for your entertainment!
( Rose flyer )

There is a campaign to get LEGO to produce Doctor Who themed LEGO.

Currently, LEGO doesn't seem to think that there is an international demand for the product. So if you're a non-UK type (or even if you aren't), let LEGO know that you want to see official LEGO Daleks.

You can contact them here:

http://www.lego.com/eng/service/contactusform.asp

and the facebook group is here:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=7622621011&topic=3602

Lawrence Miles returns. And this time it's about merchandising.

A new entry has appeared on The Beasthouse, website of Lawrence Miles saying

"This journal won't be here much longer. Please take this opportunity to copy the best bits, paste them into a Word file with a possible view to using them as sig-files one day, then store it in your "unused porn that seemed much more interesting eight months ago" folder and see how long it stays there before you forget what the file called "beast.doc" is and have to open it just to make sure it's not what it sounds like."

Does anyone have an email where Lawrence Miles can be contacted? I think this is a real shame as, oddly, I have found reading his thoughts, rants and problems rather strangely therapeutic and want to implore him to keep updating.

Lawrence Miles has his own Celebrity DeathMatch : Catherine Tate VS. Bonnie Langford



the rest of his recent doctor who musings are neatly collected here.

A couple of nights ago, I was monitoring recent changes to Wikipedia when somebody made an odd edit to a Doctor Who article -- a rather mad claim about series 4 casting. And so I, of course, deleted it, and started to look into whether the editor concerned was going around vandalising articles, only to immediately find a story from the BBC which backed that news to the hilt.

I checked the date -- definitely not April -- took off my glasses, rubbed my eyes and then reinserted the text, making sure it was properly referenced. And then proceeded to weep like a man at his own funeral.

Here be Lawrence Miles. I don't often agree with him, but on this occasion it's difficult not to: ( Mad Larry tells it how it is )

Odd how both of Paul Cornell's stories for the new series have been followed by a Steven Moffat one.

Reminds me of the BBC novels a bit: for a while there, Lawrence Miles' novels were being immediately followed on by one by Paul Magrs. Interference was followed by The Blue Angel, whereas The Adventuress of Henrietta Street was followed by Mad Dogs + Englishmen.

The comparison even works when you consider Moffat had one between the sets, "The Girl in the Fireplace," whilst Magrs had a novel in-between the matching pairs as well with Verdigris.

Funny that, eh?

Coming off Lawrence Miles's post linked to on a post I didn't have time to respond to when it appeared...

Miles really does have a point when it comes to New Who as a competent version of S24, or at least RTD's personal episodes of New Who. I thought myself that Gridlock had quite a conceptual and tonal similarity to Paradise Towers but it's wider than that. New Who and S24 have the really comically bizarre concepts that you wouldn't expect in any other periods of the old series. I can't imagine any other Classic Who season including the concept of the rock'n'roll loving alien tourists from Delta and the Bannermen, for instance, but it would fit right into an RTD episode.

But there are significant differences - for a start Davies thinks that viewers need regular contemporary Earth stories so as not to be disconnected from the show, but S24 is one of the few Who seasons to have no contemporary-Earth-set stories whatsoever. (Delta and the Bannermen is mostly set on Earth within living memory but is made as a historical about a weird past era.) So S24 plus character arcs plus modern Earth stories?

It is a pity that Miles has joined RTD in becoming a person whose first resort in rhetoric is to accuse anyone who disagrees with him of being a pathetic cripple-geek Cat Piss Man, though. Glass houses, mate, you're writing in-depth criticism of Doctor Who!

The ever self-aware Mad Larry Miles really goes to town on this one. Did anyone see where his rattle landed?

Buckle up.

crudely stolen from loz miles's blog, i give you:

the seal of rassilon

You absolutely must read Mad Larry's latest blog entry, '81 Things About April' (the title alone tells you all you need to know about Mad Larry). I should say that large chunks of his very, very long entry are insightful, persuasive and extremely funny. However, it just wouldn't be our Larry if he didn't go stark bonkers from time to time.

Big Finish writer Dave Bishop's latest blog entry references a TVS₁ round-table discussion between himself, Paul Cornell, Andy Lane and one Stephen Moffat, from way back in March 1995, before the brief hope offered by McGann's casting was even announced.

I went along to the article out of historical interest, to see what these young innocents (plus Moffat, who was already an award winning television professional) had to say. And I found Moffat to be rewardingly brutal in his assessment of the old series:

• 'Nothing I've seen of the black and white stuff - with the exception of the pilot, the first episode - should have got out of the building. [...] you've got Patrick Troughton, who was a good actor, but his companions - how did they get their Equity card? Explain that! They're unimaginably bad.'
  
  
• 'Peter Davison is a better actor than all the other ones, that's the simple reason why he works more than all the other ones. There is no sophisticated, complicated reason to explain why Peter Davison carried on working and all the other Doctors disappeared into a retirement home for lardies.'
  
  
• 'I think the actual structure, the actual format is as good as anything that's ever been done. His character, his TARDIS, all that stuff is so good it can even stand being done not terribly well - as one has to concede it was done.'

He even takes a swipe at Bob Holmes! Plus there's this choice moment from Cornell:

'Female fandom in all its forms has been consistently more intelligent than male fandom across the globe.'

(And a trace of common sense tells me not to comment on that.)

I haven't enjoyed an article this much since the Lawrence Miles interview in which he calls Gary Russell 'a talentless w***er'. You can get the full text of Four Writers, One Discussion here.


[1] The NZ based Time/Space Visualiser was one of those things Doctor Who fans had before the internet became so widespread (ie. a fanzine).