Our wonderful Sous Chef, Lisa Dunham, is biking 150 miles this fall to help raise money and awareness for multiple sclerosis. Her goal is $500. If you can help, please feel free to donate right here.
Classic Doctor Who is on KBTC, the PBS station out of Tacoma! So, here is the KBTC Doctor Who schedule (as best as we can guess it), featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor:
You can help keep Doctor Who on the air! You can donate at KBTC's website. If you want one of the thank you gifts from the latest pledge drive, look for these items in Option 2: Ahistory book, Autographed poster, New Beginnings DVDs, Phone charm... set, Sonic Screwdriver, or TARDIS Mobile Phone Charm.
The CBC is currently between seasons of both Doctor Who and Torchwood. Once word gets out of when they're showing them again — or new seasons — you'll see it here. Season 4 of Doctor Who starts on the CBC September 19.
The CBC's Doctor Who web page can be found at http://www.cbc.ca/doctorwho/, and their Torchwood page is right here. CBUT is available in the Puget Sound area on channel 99 on Comcast cable, and (I presume) other channels in areas served by other cable carriers. The CBC's website is also presenting a new Doctor Who documentary, Planet of the Doctor, which can be seen at http://www.cbc.ca/planetofthedoctor/.
The Sci-Fi Channel bought the United States broadcast rights to the revived Doctor Who series. Here's the current schedule (dates in parentheses are the dates you would need to program into a VCR or other recording device):
Doctor Who is now playing on BBC America. Here's their schedule, adjusted for Pacific Time:
If you have a wide selection of on demand choices on your cable or satellite system, the new Illusion TV channel carries classic Doctor Who episodes. For more information, check out http://www.illusiontv.com/classic-doctor-who.php.
Those who get hi-def channels on your cable or satellite system may be able to get HDNet, an all-high definition channel, that includes Torchwood. Here's their schedule (all times are Pacific time):
Billie Piper stars in The Secret Diary of a Call Girl, her post-Who ITV series, running uncut in the United States on Showtime. For details, check out the show's website. (WARNING: It's a show about a prostitute on premium cable. Yeah, it's going to be naughty. Don't watch it if you would be offended.)
Information about the show, including web editions of some out-of-print Doctor Who novels and new made-for-the-Internet stories, can be found at the BBC's Doctor Who website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/.
Want to see some of the websites shown or mentioned in the show, or that are otherwise part of the show?
The companion behind-the-scenes series, Doctor Who Confidential, broadcasts on BBC Three. The cut down abbreviated episodes are also being streamed on the web, so keep your eyes on the Doctor Who Confidential website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/confidential/.
The BBC's website has some made-for-internet stories. A new pre-Ecclesston ninth Doctor, played by Richard E. Grant, appears in the fortieth anniversary story, "Scream of the Shalka" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shalka/). The sixth Doctor meets up with the Cybermen in "Real Time" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/realtime/). The made-for-Internet version of "Shada," featuring Paul McGann as the Doctor, Lalla Ward as Romana, and John Leeson as K-9, is back, and can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/webcasts/shada/.
Torchwood will be back for a third season, but it will be shorter than in the past. It will be only five episodes long, but they will make up one complete story. John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Gareth David-Lloyd are all returning, but no word yet on who else will be joining them. Freema Agyeman will, however, join them for a radio story set at CERN in Switzerland this summer. The Sarah Jane Adventures, at least, is still going strong, and will have a new season of twelve episodes (six two-part stories) this fall. A new neighbor is moving into Bannerman Road, a girl named Rani (no, not her!), who gets sucked into the fun. Also appearing this season: Clyde's parents, the Sontarans, and Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (Ret.)!
The final ratings are in for the season on the BBC, and the last two episodes did a spectacular job. "The Stolen Earth" tied the show's all-time highest rank for the week at #2 (the other #2 was "Voyage of the Damned"). But that record was broken a week later when "Journey's End" did what no episode of Doctor Who has ever done before: It ended up at #1, as it was the most watched show for the week in all of Great Britain. Yes, that includes every one of that week's episodes of Coronation Street and EastEnders.
We can now make this announcement official: Your Head Chef and his lovely Sous Chef are moving, as he's gotten a job in the Yakima area. This will make hosting Androgum events much more challenging for them, as they doubt many members want to drive three hours just to watch some silly old British television show. So we're going to try rotating hosts, starting with the Sous Chef's family in October. With no regular new Who until 2010, we'll go back to bimonthly meetings for the foreseeable future, and see how things work.
If you saw the very end of "Journey's End," you know who's coming up in this year's Christmas special: The Cybermen!
The June 21 Doctor Who pledge drive at KBTC raised a lot of money, but may have still fallen short of the station's goal. The night wrapped up with $11,600, short of the $15,000 needed to keep Doctor Who on the air for another six months. It's possible that online pledges, matching gifts, and just delayed pledges will make up the difference, however.
David Brierley, the actor who filled John Leeson's shoes and provided the voice of K-9 during season 17, passed away in June. Born in 1935, he appeared in such British television shows such as Z-Cars, Arthur of the Britons, Coronation Street, Juliet Bravo, Threads, The Tripods, and Howard's Way. For Doctor Who, he provided the voice of K-9 in "The Creature from the Pit," "Nightmare of Eden," "The Horns of Nimon," and the aborted "Shada." He also gave voice to K-9 on an edition of Blue Peter, and returned to the part in 1992 to complete "Shada" for its video release that year.
The honorees on the Queen's birthday list this year include Russell T. Davies, who was made a member of the Order of the British Empire for his contributions to drama. So now he's Russell T. Davies, OBE.
In case you haven't already heard the news as it was plastered across just about any news site or blog across the internet: Russell T. Davies is stepping down as executive producer and chief writer of Doctor Who. His successor will be Steven Moffatt, the BAFTA- and Hugo-winning writer of "The Empty Child," "The Doctor Dances," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Blink," and this year's two parter "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead." He also created the children's show Press Gang, the original British version of Coupling, and the acclaimed miniseries Jekyll, so he's no stranger to running a show. Also, Piers Wenger will be taking over from Julie Gardner as an Executive Producer. Both Moffatt and Wenger officially start their new jobs with the fifth season of the new show in 2010, but they're already working together to get off to a running start.
The show took a week off on the BBC so as to show the Eurovision Song Contest, but to make up for it, they showed a trailer for the second half of the season — which looks an awful lot like this:
This year's Nebula award for best script went to Pan's Labyrinth. Among the other nominations was "Blink."
The new season began on the BBC on April 5. Take a look at this trailer for all kinds of juicy tidbits:
The Hugo Award nominations are out, and yes, there's not only Doctor Who to root for, but now also Torchwood. In the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category, the nominees are the Doctor Who stories "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood" by Paul Cornell, and "Blink" by the winner of the last two Hugos in the category, Stephen Moffat; the "Captain Jack Harkness" episode of Torchwood, written by Catherine Tregenna; the television version of the Battlestar Galactica movie "Razor"; and the online Star Trek New Voyages episode "World Enough and Time." Also of interest to Whovians, long-time fan Lou Anders has been nominated in the Best Professional Editor, Long Form category. The Hugos will be awarded during Denvention, this year's WorldCon in Denver, on August 9. For a complete list of all of the nominations, see the list at http://www.denvention.org/hugos/08hugonomlist.php.
Season 4 of the new Doctor Who launched on the Sci-Fi Channel April 25, after "Voyage of the Damned" showed on April 18. The Sci-Fi Channel has also bought The Sarah Jane Adventures, which started on April 11 and has already wrapped up its initial run. Keep an eye on the schedules!
Doctor Who is losing another producer. Phil Collinson, one of the co-executive producers, will be leaving as soon as he's done with the current season to take the job as the new Head of Drama at BBC Manchester. This comes on the heels of another executive producer, Julie Gardner, leaving to become Head of Drama for all of the BBC. So there will be some new faces behind the scenes as Doctor Who goes into its off year.
The Androgums and various other Seattle/Tacoma-area Doctor Who fans flocked to KBTC on January 26 for the latest semi-annual Doctor Who fundraiser (pictures and video may be coming soon). And while we didn't quite make the $15,000 goal then and there, it looks like late arrivals, online pledges, and matching gifts will push that number over the top.
More casting news for the new series: David Troughton, son of second Doctor Patrick Troughton, and Georgia Moffatt, daughter of fifth Doctor Peter Davison, will both appear (but probably not in the same story). Both have previous Who experience: David Troughton appeared as a Civil War soldier in "The War Games" and King Peladon in "The Curse of Peladon," while Georgia Moffatt worked alongside her father in the Big Finish audio adventure "Red Dawn."
This year's Christmas special, "Voyage of the Damned," did a spectacular job in the ratings. It was the most watched episode of Doctor Who since the revived series began. The last story to get more viewers was "City of Death" back in 1978, when the BBC's competition, ITV, was shut down due to a strike. It was also the highest rank for the week Doctor Who has ever received (up to that point), coming in at number two!
Verity Lambert, OBE, the original producer of Doctor Who, passed away on November 23, 2007, the forty-fourth anniversary of the debut of Doctor Who.
For the third year in a row, Doctor Who won Most Popular Drama at the National Televison Awards in Britain, and the lead actor won Most Popular Actor (making this David Tennant's second year, after Christopher Eccleston won it in 2005). Freema Agyeman was up for Most Popular Actress, but lost to Lacey Turner of EastEnders. The Catherine Tate Show, starring the actress who will play season 4 companion (and former "Runaway Bride") Donna, won for Most Popular Comedy Programme.
It's been confirmed: A fifth season! But (you knew there had to be a catch, didn't you?) it won't be shown until 2010, a year later than expected. The show is taking a year's break so that David Tennant can do other things, notably playing the lead in Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company (with Patrick Stewart playing Claudius!). However, that doesn't mean there won't be any new Doctor Who in 2009: the BBC is going to make three specials during the year, in addition to the traditional Christmas specials.
The Sarah Jane Adventures has wrapped up its first season, and did very well in the ratings. The series kicked off with a sixty minute special on New Year's Day 2007, and the regular series of five stories, each told over two weekly episodes, was shown this last fall as part of the CBBC block for children on BBC One, and on the CBBC cable channel in Britain. K-9 appeared in the pilot, but wasn't part of the regular series, as his creators are developing his own series. For details on Sarah Jane Adventures, see the BBC's website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/sja/. There's also a behind-the-scenes blog, at http://sarahjanetv.blogspot.com/. And the second season has now started filming!
Not only has Doctor Who done it again, but so has writer Stephen Moffat. For the second year in a row, he has won the Hugo Award, presented this year at the Nippon 2007 WorldCon in Yokohama, Japan, for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form. His script for the Doctor Who episode "The Girl in the Fireplace" beat out two other Doctor Who scripts, "School Reunion" and the two-part season finale, "Army of Ghosts" and "Doomsday," as well as the Stargate SG-1 script "200" and the Battlestar Galactica episode "Downloaded." Check out the complete list of Hugo winners at http://www.nippon2007.us/hugo_winners.php and http://www.thehugoawards.org/?p=134.
We have our own domain! So now androgums.org will be the place to come for all the latest on our little enclave of Seattle-area Doctor Who fandom. But the domain does cost us a little bit of money, so if you can help out with a donation, just click here:
The latest news about the new show can be found at Outpost Gallifrey's news page.
The Emerald City Androgums are a fan club devoted to Doctor Who, and to having as much fun as unhumanly possible at our meetings. We meet every other month for an Androgum potluck. Members are encouraged to eat, drink, and be merry, and we watch whatever shows tickle our fancy. We try to include at least one selection of the good Doctor himself.
In addition to semi-regular parties, we also had a newsletter that tried to keep the more isolated-from-fandom members up-to-date on the latest Who happenings and rumors. It also served as a creative forum for any Androgum who felt like writing a story or drawing a picture.
The newsletter is no more, however, and all newsletter activities will soon move on-line. So if you want to contribute something, here's the place to do it!
We can scan art, so if you'd like to help us create an on-line Androgum gallery, please feel free to send the art to us!
And coming soon: Club T-shirts and aprons!
Looking for that perfect Doctor Who item? Want to relive some of the Doctor's greatest adventures or experience some of his new ones? Try these links for new Doctor Who books, videos and DVDs, audio stories, and other merchandise.
Send e-mail comments about the Androgum club via this e-mail link .