Some News

Hi Guys...

Just a quicky...

Da Vinci Live, by Eddie McGuigan
The Many Deaths of Jo Grant, by Reilly2040
Big Finish Stuff, by Reilly 2040, friendsofderek, Nic Ford and Eddie McGuigan
Christmas In July - a reminder of the toys this festive season, by Nic Ford
BBC Audio Stuff, by Eddie McGuigan
James Moran's Severance on telly! It's brilliant!
An Appeal from friendsofderek

Happy times and places

Eddie McGuigan
TWITTER

The Next Few Months...

Hi Guys

With the end of Series 6 of Doctor Who now upon us, and SJA and Torchwood also finished  - and in Torchwood's case for a goodly while - and new Who, with the exception of The Christmas Special - a wee while off (we're hearing September/October next year), I think now has come the perfect time for me to take a well earned break. My other series - Spooks - is gone too now, and Hustle, which will also be the final series of that, not transmitting til next year, I think I'll back out of the blogging business for a while and concentrate on family, friends, and those all important exams.

I do have one goody coming up, which will appear quite soon, but it's a surprise, so sshh, spoilers!, but apart from that, your best bet at getting news and reviews - especially all the Big Finish latest - which we're now actually going to be getting before release, it was confirmed to me on Friday - and all the other stuff we get from every media outlet going - is to go along to Outpost Skaro where people far cleverer and much better writers than me will be furnishing you with Things Yet To Come as well as their lively forum. As I said before, I'm just a small cog in that very big - and growing - wheel, so I'm pretty sure I won't be missed.

Before I do go for my Christmas Break - and I will be back as they say "sometime in the New Year" - I'd just like to thank the 11,000 odd readers of this blog, and for the myriad of messages and notes of kindness and goodwill I get daily, and for the support I get from you guys, especially in the wake of some nastiness elsewhere. It's heartening to know that insanity doesn't particularly spread, and to all the companies I've spoken to, all the readers of this blog who've emailed me - and again, it would be churlish to publish all those, but you know I get them - to everyone who has given me words of encouragement and support, thank you. It means a lot. Words fail me sometimes at the level of nastiness on the Web, but for every rambling nutter there are, it seems thousands of decent people who aren't stupid or gullible and are as appalled as you'd expect a decent person to be. I will pop on from time to time and update you with links to Outpost Skaro when they have news for you. So once again, friends, thank you. I'll leave you - and Skaro - in the capable hands of Derek and the lads over there and wish you, a slightly early, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Happy Times and Places

Eddie McGuigan
TWITTER

An Idiot Abroad

Whoops, almost forgot... we've had a look at the series An Idiot Abroad on Outpost Skaro, and we thought you might like to know what we thought of it.

Best

Eddie McGuigan
TWITTER

New Outpost Skaro News

Hi Friends

Just in case you missed it over on Outpost Skaro here are some interesting pieces of news we've managed to glean from around and about - feel free to have a look.

The Cartoon Museum, by Eddie McGuigan
AudioGo Halloween Releases, by Eddie McGuigan
Little Crackers on Sky, by Eddie McGuigan
Latest News, by Eddie McGuigan, Shinyford, Friendsofderek and Reilly20140
Eddie McGuigan recommends - The Treatment, on Sky
Talking Who News, by Eddie McGuigan
Doctor Who Puzzles, by Eddie McGuigan
Character Build Rares - Second Wave - by Eddie McGuigan - these are great. A set of the first wave sold on eBay recently for £600! Blimey!
This Is Jinsy Review, by Friendsofderek
The Silver Turk Review, by Nic Ford
Sarah Jane Adventures Finale, Reviewed by Eddie McGuigan
Most Haunted Information for Halloween, by Eddie McGuigan - review to follow this week.

Just some of the goodies over on Outpost Skaro. I hope you get yourselves along, folks. Everyone is welcome.

See ya soon

Happy Times and Places

Ed
TWITTER

Sky Box Office Movies

There's some great stuff coming up on Sky in the next month or so - here's a link to everything that's going on on Sky Movies!

Sky Movies Box Office

Best

Ed

Twitter

Experience Halloween Fear!

DOCTOR WHO’S SCARIEST EVER MONSTERS SPOTTED IN CHILDEN’S PLAYGROUND

Doctor Who’s adversaries The Peg Dolls, notoriously branded the scariest monsters ever to appear in the series, were spotted on a rare trip outside their house at Brook Green Children’s Playground in London last night.  The Peg Dolls were en route to their new home at London’s Doctor Who Experience where they will be displayed in the exhibition area.  The Doctor Who experience has a host of scary surprises in store throughout the Half Term week and Halloween weekend.  For more information visit www.doctorwhoecperience.com

DOCTOR WHO EXPERIENCE GEARS UP FOR

A MONSTER HALLOWEEN

·         Come face-to-face with Cybermen and Scarecrows as live Monsters enter the Doctor Who Experience for the first time

·         Learn to ‘Walk Like A Monster’ with Doctor Who Choreographer Ailsa Berk

·         Get made up like a Monster with special Doctor Who Experience face painters

·         On Friday 28^th October children dressed as Doctor Who characters go free

The Doctor Who Experience is preparing for October half term with a whole host of Monster themed activities to thrill visitors. On Friday 28^th October children aged 5 – 16 dressed head-to-toe as Doctor Who characters and monsters will be given free entry to the Experience when accompanied by a full-paying adult. To get ready for Halloween, Doctor Who choreographer Ailsa Berk will be at the Doctor Who Experience in person on Friday 28^th October giving visitors a chance to perfect their monster impersonation skills with special lessons on how to walk like real Doctor Who monsters. 

The Halloween treats continue on Saturday 29^th with face painters onsite to give visitors Doctor Who makeovers allowing fans to be turned into some of the shows scariest monsters! On Sunday 30^th October live monsters will enter the Doctor Who Experience for the first time. Visitors will have a rare opportunity to come face- to -face with the Doctor’s terrifying adversaries the Cybermen and the Scarecrows.

The Doctor Who Experience allows visitors to join the Doctor on a journey through time and space, encountering some of the best-loved and scariest monsters from the hit international television series. Special scenes filmed with current Doctor Matt Smith combine with amazing special effects and the chance to enter a recreation of the modern TARDIS interior topped off by a breathtaking 3-D finale.

The exhibition element of the Doctor Who Experience charts the success of the show from the first series in 1963 to the most recent episodes starring Matt Smith and Karen Gillan.  Displays include items never seen before including original costumes, the Tom Baker TARDIS police box and two authentic TARDIS sets from the eras of David Tennant and Peter Davison.  The public are also able to get up close and personal with iconic sets from recent series, including the Pandorica Box and Chair and confront numerous monsters including several generations of the Daleks and Cybermen as well as Silurians, an Ice Warrior and The Silence. 

Cyber Bullying and Stalking

Hi Guys

I'm being bullied, it seems, online. Stalked too. See, I have my own personal stalker, a fellow called Mr Dark, and what he does is he writes as nasty, and inaccurate, and as foul things about me as he can. Why? Well, the actual reason is jealousy. He was booted off our forum, Outpost Skaro a couple of years ago for doing this very thing to other people, so decided it was my fault - I didn't even boot him off, someone else did - and has spent the last couple of years creating ever-increasing nastiness about me in his horrible little blog. Ironically, no one follows it - not the 59 people he claims do - those are all dummy accounts to bump him up the google rankings - but he's getting increasingly desperate for some reason to try and hurt me.

His problem is obsessiveness. He calls my psychopathic. Sociopathic. It's ironic really, as he portrays all these traits himself. He says I hide behind a facade of lies and masks, which, is, amazing, exactly what he is doing, and, in his argument, he claims I am things I am not, or, sometimes, not things I am. He's used google to try and find me - and he has indeed found "bits" of me - and created a character who doesn't exist. And for some reason this no-faced, no-brained, backstabbing and insidious self named "sinister fellow" thinks he is the bastion of morality.

Let's look at his lies. He says I've never been to University. Really? I'm there now, old chum. Right now. He says I pretend to be a teacher. He then goes on to say it's to get close to vulnerable groups. Don't worry, that one has been reported to the police, but again, he misses the fundamental problem with that. He doesn't know which kind of teacher. Do I teach? Yes I do? Children? Nope. He says I run a website called Outpost Skaro. Do I? Nope. I'm not owner of or do I run Outpost Skaro. I set it up about four years ago now, but I don't own it, nor do I run it. People far cleverer than me do that. I just write the odd review. In fact, even that is paired back a bit due to my own personal work load recently. What else? Oh, he says I work with "big companies" because I went to them and said "hey, I know famous people and I have worked with them all." Another lie. Never once said that. Not once. That's why "big companies" still work with Outpost Skaro - despite the fact that Dark occasionally sends really weird and creepy emails to them. They let me know about those things, and we all shiver a bit that there are people like that out there, then we carry on.

So, his basic arguments against me hold absolutely no water. Apart from the fact that there are, what, eight people in the Skaro backstore who all know my name, address, telephone number, are on my facebook account etc I'm not hiding from anyone. I'm not keeping myself shadowy and in the dark. I'm not a sinister fellow.

So that's me. Let's look at him. Who is he? Well, we don't really know that much to be honest, so as a bastion for morality it would probably help a little to know about his own past, eh? I challenge him, here and now, to reveal himself. Show us a picture. Give us a name. Maybe then you'll be taken seriously, eh? Don't hide behind that silly picture with the mirror eyes and the collar up and pretend to be a knife thrower, just say who you are. Go on. I did. I dare you.

But what DO we know? Well, we know he's got a history of cyber-bullying, and that I'm just his latest victim. Luminaries in fandom like Steven Hill, Arnold Blumberg and Shaun Lyons have all been targeted by him in the past. Don't take my word for it, just check out his earlier blogs. They are full of them. Or, better still, check out everyone who "follows" him. Each of those is a dummy blog with a link to his own and a wee swipe at someone. That's how he gets up the google rankings. Anyway, have a look at those, and you'll see he's been doing this for years. Again, this is why we threw him out of Skaro. He made a clown of Angry Who Fan - sending comments from multiple accounts out getting increasingly and increasingly vile - about me, and everyone else (and these were in the days when he was being a FRIEND!) - and his reasoning for sending these comments? "I wanted everyone to see how far AWF would go." Really? Well, enough was enough for us, so we threw him out. Actually, that's not actually true. The head of Skaro at the time demoted him, then he decided to have an ego-boosting section in Skaro called Ask Mr Dark and when things didn't suit him he used that to have a pop at Lee Mansfield and I - then the head of Skaro (not me, again) banned him.

He disappeared for a few months then reappeared as The Comedian on Gallifrey Base. Again, arguing, and googling, and basically being a bit passive aggressive. He plucked up the courage one drunken night (he likes the booze, does our Dark) to change his name back to Dark, and that lasted ten minutes, because he googled some dodgy historical facts about the Byzantiums and was called on it by an actual historian. His response was deleted... and so was he.

Since then he's decided that I'm the man that caused all his woes. I'm the reason he can't play nicely with others. He began following my own Twitter account as Gerry Christmas, then started first a racist blog - degrading the Scots language - and then a similar Twitter account pretending to be me. That lasted a fortnight before Twitter, well aware of the real me and equally aware of his email and IP address, deleted his account. Don't believe me though - check out his own blog, at the side of his main one, where he slags off the Scots and pretends to be me. Honestly, as if one of me isn't enough.

Now though, well, he's taken the biscuit. But, well, it's his own downfall. He can claim I don't know "famous people" all he likes, I don't give a shit, because, frankly, I never once got an interview or a preview or an advert because I said I did. But his comments about vulnerable groups and the like is slander, pure and simple, and is at this moment in the hands of the police. The police who, incidentally, are speaking to Twitter about emails and IP addresses. Just this week, a man in Scotland was jailed for doing a similar thing to a football manager. In many ways, it wasn't as bad. Apparently judges are cracking down on cyber bullying and  comments on the internet.

Don't take my word for Mr Dark's obsessive compulsive cruelty. Go and look for yourself. Check out the blogs he follows. They're all me. Check out the people who follow him. They're all him, linking back to himself. Check out his earlier blogs, they're all about bullying other people, with big quotes they've allegedly made and him moralising from behind his silhouette. His "followers" too are all links back to bullying other people. Just to push him up those google rankings.

It isn't very nice to be stalked and bullied, I have to say. It's horrible in fact. It's worse for my children, of course, and perhaps that is the worse part of it. Mr Dark is targeting a man he doesn't know, but the fall out from it goes further than he cares to think. His assumptions and revelations are provably wrong - not on here, of course, but to the authorities - which is why Twitter deleted him - and that is ultimately what takes any legitimacy away from his ramblings. A sinister fellow? Most definitely. A bastion for morality against a man he doesn't know - and plenty do - well, come out from the shadows, maybe, and discuss it. But he's wrong.

Happy times and Places

Ed

It's The End of the Road

Hi Guys

It's a bit of a sad blog this time round, as two stalwarts of BBC telly end this week, one by design, and the other, sadly, not so much.

Firstly, it's the end for Sir Harry and the guys and girls of the Grid in Spooks. This series has centred firmly on Sir Harry and his past life as an active spy during the cold war and, despite a cursory foray into some Middle East politics it's mostly been one long arc. But, for me, it's been all too short. New characters Erin and Cal haven't had time to bed in in the six short episodes, and show great promise as being really good additions, despite my initial worry about them being too complicated or unlikeable, but it has to be said, despite some fabulous guest appearances - particularly by Star Trek's Alice Krige - it's all been about Harry and Ruth.

The ending is strictly embargoed - I can't say nuffin guv - but rest assured there are plenty of twists and turns, a fabulous stand off and some unbearable tension. All the players get a proper slice of the finale pie, with perhaps the underused Dimitri coming off worse. The final few moments will have you simultaneously wiping a tear away and punching the air as an old face returns, however briefly, in a fitting finale for Sir Harry and the boys and girls of Section D. Spooks has been consistently classy through it's ten series - especially under the head-writership of Ben Richards - and this series only flaw is that it's way too short. Still, some lovely little nods to the past may slake the fanboy thirst, at least for a while. I can't help thinking though that perhaps, despite it's end, we may not have seen the end of Spooks after all.

More sadly, of course, this week sees the end of The Sarah Jane Adventures, a series cut short by the all too soon and heartbreaking death of Elisabeth Sladen. Despite rumours that this series may continue under a new leading girl - Jo Jones for instance - it seems by the finale, and a tastefully tacked-on ending - that they're are no current plans to spin off with Clyde and Rani for instance.

The Man Who Never Was is a good solid ending to go out on, written by stalwart Gareth Roberts, fresh from his success with Doctor Who's Closing Time. It takes themes that we are all familiar with - just as last week's The Curse of Clyde Langer dealt with bullying, homelessness and rejection of peers - this one deals with consumerism, and the need for the latest gadget, The Serf Board - a sort of tacky looking iPad and deals quite openly with slavery and torture. It uses ideas gleaned from The Last of the Time Lords in typical Masterly style, and shows some great themes very typical to the world of Doctor Who and Sarah Jane - never judge a book by its cover for instance, and helping rather than interfering and boasts a pretty top notch cast including Peter Bowles and James Dreyfus - neither of whom overplay the part for children, as can be the  instinct with some actors - giving it class and believability. It's also fitting that Luke makes a return in this one, although along with newbie Sky they could make a formidable team. No K9 though, although his dog whistle comes in handy.

There's no big fanfare at the end of this - no return for the Doctor, although it was considered - and it leaves the series upbeat and open ended, with Sarah Jane Smith out there, doing was she does, from Bannerman Road. A fitting legacy for Elisabeth Sladen and another series, like Spooks, that may have a future in some form further down the road.

At the end of the month 2Entertain release Series 4 of SJA on DVD, and, despite the lack of commentaries - although a frustrating miss from DW S6 Part 2, released soon too - there is the rather wonderful addition of the full story The Pyramids of Mars as tribute to Elisabeth Sladen, which I'm personally thrilled about. There can be no better story to show Sarah in her hayday with the Doctor, or to introduce kids perhaps used to Matt or David a look at an earlier, classy story. A great idea.

We'll be discussing The SJA's in our latest podcast so we hope you tune in to that.

Happy Times and Places

Ed

Doctor Who - The Experience - An Update

Hi Guys

We talk about this here but I thought it would be a good idea to put this up for others on my blog...

BBC Worldwide is delighted to announce that the critically acclaimed and award-winning Doctor Who Experience will be extending its run at London’s Olympia Two until February 22nd 2012 due to huge public demand. Since opening the Tardis doors in February this year and becoming one of the capital’s premier tourist attractions, over 155,000 excited visitors have had the chance to star in their very own Doctor Who adventure as the Doctor’s companion.

The attraction, which is regularly updated with the latest monsters and artifacts from the show, has been described as ‘the nearest thing to actually being in the TV show itself’ – allowing visitors to join the Doctor on a journey through time and space, encountering some of the best-loved and scariest monsters from the hit international television series.


Further details are available in the full article.

Happy Times and Places

Ed

The Sarah Jane Adventures

Hi guys

Caught me on the hop, this one, but I've managed to see Episodes One and Two of the new series of The Sarah Jane Adventures - and I've reviewed them here.

Of course, it would be a mean reviewer who went on about anything other than the fact it was wonderful to see Elisabeth Sladen doing her thing one last time, so the review isn't a big indepth one like the ones you are maybe used to for Doctor Who and Torchwood, but, for the Spoiler hounds, there is a run down of the plot and discussion of the new regular.

I'll be back later in the week with Episode Four of Spooks and Episode Two of Merlin.

Happy times and places

Ed