The Ninth Doctor and Rose Back for New Adventures PLUS All the Who News

Garry: Hey, hey, hey Who fans and welcome to The Big Blue Box Podcast. My name's Garry and it's a solo show for me today and for this week's episode, which is 428. Welcome back, Doctor Who fans. I hope you are keeping well and safe. Hope you've had a cracking couple of weeks and that you've all managed to do something Doctor Who related. As I said, solo one for me this week. Normally I'm joined by my cohort, my co host, my co conspirator, Mr. Geek's Handbag Adam. God knows where he is. He's off doing something. The writing team, all those guys have got jobs and whatnot. They're all doing stuff. I mean, I have a job as well, of course, but yeah, those guys are off doing their thing. So there has been a few Doctor Who news stories that have dropped over the last week or two. Normally I don't jump on here. Those of you that don't know, sorry, if you're a long time listener, you will have known, of course, from an update a few months back that we were moving this podcast to a bit more of a seasonal format thing where new Doctor Who comes out or a spin off or something. Then we would hop on obviously and do the reviews as we normally do and all that jazz. But there has been some very cool news that's dropped over the last week or two. So I thought I'd hop on and just keep you guys updated with what's going on and just have a bit of a chat, really. I know that it's very quiet out there at the minute. In the world of Doctor Who, its news is a bit thin on the ground other than the few cool little nuggets that we've got to speak about in today's episode. But also just so you've got somebody in your ears to talk Doctor Who while you're going about your day. So I'm hoping while you're in the car, on the train, washing up, doing the vacuuming, going for a walk, whatever it is, I'm hoping I can bring you a little bit of Doctor Who company and, and we'll, we'll crack on with some news in a second. I mentioned the writing team. Make sure that you first of all are following and subscribing to the podcast because although we're not bringing out episodes like this every single week, we have got some cool stuff coming down the podcasting pipes, as it were. The every month we still do the roundtable with the writers, so we get all those guys together and we just chat about anything to do with Doctor Who. The the July Roundtable is going to land next week, so you won't miss those. And I've also got a series of interviews coming up later on in the year. Not too long, but in the next couple of months or so, where I've sat down with other Doctor Who podcasters, YouTubers, and we've just chewed the fat on what we feel is going on with Doctor Who at the moment, what our feelings are on the last couple of years, what where we feel the show is going and what should happen with it, blah, blah, blah. It's just a bit of a cool sort of mini roundtable with those guys, so that's they're going to come up as well. Plus we've got a couple of other bits for the Big Blue Box specifically, which I can't mention now, but those are coming down as well. So although we're not doing this weekly, there's lots to come. And also where Adam and I, we did our we kicked off our other podcast, All About Blake's 7 earlier on in the year, Federation Strike. So if you've not listened to that, if you're a Blake's 7 fan or if you want to get into Blake's 7, go and check that out. There's links in the show notes or just do a search for Federation Strike in all the podcast apps. We've also in return to that podcast, we've got the next season of that coming later this year as well. So the season two remastered Blu Ray set of Blake's 7 is dropping later on this year, so we'll obviously be going through that as well. So there's that stuff to go through. And on top of all of that, some of our writing team, I won't give too much away because we're sort of in the early stages of of this at the moment, but a couple of people on the writing team, they are in the the early throes of sorting out their own podcast. They're doing their own their own thing. So there's a couple of shows that are also going to drop into the network. So just very quick recap. This podcast, Big Blue Box, Federation Strike for Blake seven and a couple of other podcasts that we're working on, as in myself and Adam, plus a couple of podcasts that the writing team are working on are all going to drop into the Cosmic Echoes podcast network and there'll be some more deets coming up again in the next two or three months. Ish about what's going to happen with that. So, yeah, we're building a little bit of sort of podcasting empire, if you will, that's going to bring some, some, some podcasts that you really enjoy that we do already about sort of classic British sci fi and all that stuff, but also a bit of a turn to some other directions as well. Gonna have some, a couple of sort of fictional storytelling stuff going on. We're gonna have some, some other genres. So it's, yeah, it's an exciting time for us. So we're a little bit quiet at the moment, but we've got loads of stuff being worked on early stages and it's all going to drop as we go throughout this year and certainly going to ramp up into next year. So in a nutshell, make sure you're following or subscribing and we'll give you more deets for all that stuff that's going to come up. And lastly, before I get onto the news, don't forget to remember to check out my co hosts Adam's YouTube channel. It's called the Geeks Handbag. Again, there's a link in the show notes and just do a search for the geeks handbag on YouTube. Adam does loads of sort of on location merchandise hunts, he does unboxings, he does reviews, loads of cool stuff. As always, grab a cup of tea and go and check out Adam's stuff over on YouTube. Now, Doctor Who news, we've got about what we got here, about five or six stories, which are pretty cool. A couple of merch items that are coming up. So let's dive straight in. The first one is that Doctor Who for the. Quite incredibly, for the first time In Doctor Who 62 year history, it's gonna, it's been nominated for an Emmy award. You heard that correct. For the first time in over 60 years, the show has landed its first Emmy nomination, which is quite incredible. I was under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Doctor Who had just bagged loads of Emmy nominations over the years and just went under the radar. But no, it's never had one before. It's nothing, I'll be honest with you. It's nothing that you would expect the show to be announced, would get a nomination for. It's been announced that the, the nomination is for the choreography for the, the dance number. There's always a twist at the end, at the end of the Devil's Chord episode. You know, the whole 60s dance break and the original song and all that stuff. You know, the Beatles themed episode. So yeah, I mean it's. Yeah, so Jack Murphy, he was the choreographer for that whole routine and all that stuff. And again, quite incredibly, this must be a whole big thing in this whole world of sort of dance and choreography and so on. But Jack Murphy is up against himself in this category. So he did the choreography for some stuff in Bridgerton that's also been nominated as well as this. So there's a good chance that old Jack's gonna bag himself an Emmy, which is cool. But yeah, it's quite incredible. I honestly thought that Doctor Who had had loads of, of Emmys over the last few decades, but turns out that is not the case. So we wish Jack the best of luck on your, your Emmy nomination forum. What's the official title of it? I think it's oh yeah, Outstanding Choreography for Scripted Programming, AKA a banging dance number. So we'll see how that goes. We'll let you know if Jack got an Emmy whether for Doctor Who or not. Good luck. Next we have an interview that landed a couple of days ago with a guy called Tom Fussell, who is the CEO of BBC Commercial and he basically oversees the, the, the public, the UK stuff for the, for the BBC. And he was involved in one of the financial results calls and where they update all of the sort of top tier management and, and all that stuff and what's going on with BBC programming and all that stuff. And he dropped a little nugget about this was an interview, by the way, with Hollywood Reporter. Yes. Over in the us the BBC is a big thing apparently. But yeah, he was on, he was being interviewed and then he also did an interview with somebody else. There's a couple of different little nuggets of info here, but what it does do is for now, at least, and again, on the surface at least, it does give us Doctor Who fans a little bit of, a bit of a calming message in this kind of turbulent time that we're in with, with Doctor Who right now, because over the last month, I guess six weeks, we've had this real limbo effect where we have no idea what's going on with the show itself. We had Ncuti seemingly leaving earlier than was planned and he was a bit of elusive about that, blaming his knees and his old age. Yeah, okay. And then we had Billy Piper not credited as the Doctor or anything. So we don't know what's going on there. No word when the show's coming back. No word on the Disney plus deal. Nothing at all. So it's been a bit weird and a lot of people have said that the, that the show is officially on hiatus and we're about to go into sort of another wilderness years like we did back in the 80s when McCoy's era stopped. But. But Tom Fussell has said he was asked Doctor Who is such a big brand, but has been. It has been struggling as of late. Any thoughts on this? And this was just after he gave an answer about Bluey specifically, by the way. So Bluey, the animated show for kids, is apparently doing big business and he's very happy with that. But he was asked about Doctor Who. They said it's been struggling. What does he think? He went on to say that we are. We're really committed to Doctor Who. We really want to carry on looking at ways for fans to interact with the brand. We look after the brand, whether it's at Comic Con, merchandising or it's the distribution deal that we've done. The BBC and Disney haven't made any decisions yet. When they do, they'll announce it. There's no point me speculating on it. But Doctor Who is a much loved brand by everybody in BBC Studios. And, and we love being part of that stored. So essentially what he's saying is from his point of view and from the, from him and his team at BBC Commercial, they, they love the show, they want it to continue, they're committed to it, et cetera. And he mentions that it's a much loved brand by everyone in BBC Studios. So BBC Studios, most of you obviously know this, but in case you don't, the BBC Studios is not the BBC. So BBC Studios is an arm of the BBC or a division of the BBC, which is responsible for making sort of fictional TV and TV and films and stuff like that. It's like their own entity sort of thing. And it's. And it's BBC Studios who work with Bad Wolf Studios who actually make the show. It's those guys that make Doctor Who. This guy is from the commercial side of that, so deals with all the sort of advertising merch, as he said all that. All that jazz. So that's cool to hear him say those. Those things, which is good. And then he did go on to say that, that obviously fans love the Doctor Who brand still. And he said it's been that way since before I was in short trousers. And he praised. He goes on to praise Disney as a. As a crucial partner to BBC Studios as a whole. He said that we share a lot of the same values, so I'm really proud of the way that relationship has worked out. And he said this is an extremely exciting opportunity. We are all looking forward to welcoming companies to pitch for, for the new project as we continue our commitment and investment into UK's animation industry. So he was touching on somebody that asked him about the upcoming CBeebies Doctor Who animated show and he said that, Yep, everyone at CBeebies, including is welcome, including the Doctor. He said, this much loved franchise entertains millions around the world. So it's only right that our younger audience get to experience the wonder and magic of the Doctor in a brand new format. And so that was his thoughts on that as well. So overall, when he's talking about the sort of short term future of Doctor Who, he didn't really have anything concrete to say, which we kind of expected anyway in terms of the Disney deal and how that's going to pan out. But he did go on to say that he was very committed and they all are committed to Doctor Who, which is good to see. So that was Tom Fussell from BBC Commercial. Well, I don't think he's going to elaborate on any of this, to be honest with you. I can't see any big follow up interviews. Normally when the big execs and all the CEOs and everybody get together to do these earning calls and report on all the financial stuff and the future and whatnot, it's usually a one and done deal. They'll talk about it and then. Yeah, and then they'll leave it for a while. So if anything pops up, I will let you know, of course. But not, not amazing, enlightening news, but at the same time not terrible. So I think that's calmed everybody just a wee bit to know that they're committed to that stuff in terms of contributing to the show. Not from a commercial point of view, but from a, certainly a writing and acting point of view. Mark Gattis has been interviewed recently over at the Radio Times writers room and it wasn't about Doctor Who specifically, it was just about, it was just about his kind of process for writing and stuff that he's been involved in and all that stuff. But the subject of conversation obviously went on to Doctor Who and they asked him about what his approach to writing for Doctor Who was when he did. I think he's written seven, eight, possibly nine episodes for the show over the years. So he's had a wee bit of experience. He's not like showrunner level. But yeah, as we know, he's written some, some, some okay stuff for the show. And he goes on to say that there's it a reasonably long answer. So I'LL pick out some key bits here. But I thought what was kind of cool is his thoughts about the nostalgic element of writing for Doctor Who, which is, I think, is a. A really important and interesting subject. Because over the last whack of episodes in Ncuti's era, one of the things that's been a real talking point is why they. Why they keep bringing back these big, arguably important and sort of nostalgic characters in the show, just to kill them off very, very easily or just have them sort of appear almost as a cameo and have no weight about them. So I'm talking about Sutek Omega, those sorts of characters. And, and a lot of people have said whenever you see conversations about this happening on. On Twitter or Reddit or whatever it might be, it's. It's one of those things where some fans, typically the sort of younger generation, are like, well, I didn't mind it, you know, it's kind of cool. I was one of the interviews I did recently with another Doctor Who YouTube podcast. Sorry, he does a podcast with his son and he was saying that his son really, really enjoyed Shoot his era. Loved it, didn't, you know, didn't want him to leave. And so the younger generation, it seems, for obvious reasons, don't seem to have much of a complaint with how the show treated Omega and so on. And Mark Gatiss in this interview says this is a quote from him. He says the actual process of trying to make it for a modern show, for a new audience is not about nostalgia. And I think that's the great difference. You have to get right. Why is this going to work now? It doesn't really matter what worked for John Pertwee or Tom Baker. It's about now. So if we try to get an audience now, the show is the same, but different. So for me, the show was always a combination of those things. He then goes on to say, it is strange because I've revived so many things, but I think nostalgia is a great enemy and we have to all be careful of it. It's part of the reason we're in the mess we are, I think, weaponized nostalgia. Nothing as good is as good as it used to be, and yet people can't see that. People have always thought that, even when it used to be better. It's a dangerous thing. And is there much more to this? There's one more bit. He says, I think that the job of the show constantly is to regenerate itself. You know, and sometimes when I meet grumpy old doctor Who? Fans. And there you've just fallen into the same space time trap and that it's not as good as it used to be because it's not for you anymore. If you still like it, that's great. It's great, but it's not for you. So he kind of. So that was a very interesting little nugget in that interview. And I thought one key takeaway was the sentence where he says, it's part of the reason we're in the mess we are. Weaponized nostalgia. So a bit of a candid response there and a bit of a, an enlightening one from somebody like Mark Gattis, who we know is very, I'm assuming, very, you know, on best buds terms with people like Phil Collinson, Russell T. Davis, all those people. So I imagine those people reading that would. Or watching his interview with the Radio Times would be like, huh, Cheers, Mark. We're out here trying to, trying to keep the ship steady and, and you go and drop something like that. So, yeah, a real interesting little nugget there. Again, every. All of these stories, there'll be links in the show notes. Go and watch this interview with Mark Gat. It's pretty cool and it's. Yeah, I just think he makes a fascinating and very, very good point. We do have to be careful of like, looking at things through the nostalgia goggles and treading that fine line between coming up with things that are fresh and new, new adventures, new things to do for the Doctor and the companions and. But at the same time acknowledging the history of Doctor Who. And I think that's a very difficult line to tread for a writer and producer and so on. So anyway, Mark Gattis is very in the know, should we say about. Even though he hasn't been involved with the show for a little bit, he's very in the know on, on what's happening with Doctor Who. He's very aware of it. So that's. That was a really interesting interview. From one interesting interview to another sort of interesting one. This was over at The Independent. They're reporting or they're rounding up an interview that they did with Ncuti and, and this was initially going out in the Guardian newspaper and he was saying that he was at Glastonbury and bumped into Matt Smith in a nightclub and so basically said, yeah, I was just at Glastonbury and bumped into Matt Smith in a club. And we had great deep chats about that job and how there'll never be another like it in our lifetimes. We'll Never work that hard again, never be as stimulated and stretched. It's also very exhausting. So it's lovely to delve into other projects. So it's no secret that the actor taking on the role of the Doctor is typically up for a bit of a grueling schedule. There's no. They've never hidden that fact or, or said anything to the contrary. It's always been, yep, we're fully aware that Doctor Who is a. Is a very intense program to make. It's full on. It's. Yeah, it's just an intense thing. It's not like it's not your average role in tv, put it that way. And that first part of the interview alludes to the fact that, yep, they both acknowledge that it was an exhausting time for them and it was nice to go into other projects where they're not required to be as, as full on. He then goes on to say that the, the toll of the job. That despite the toll that the job took, he is still grateful to Doctor Who's passionate fan base. He said, it's an absolute gift of a job and a gift of a community. The Whovians are so deeply in my heart, I can't tell you. And then goes on to say, it's the most amazing job in the world, a job that any actor would dream of. And because it's so good, it's strenuous, it takes a lot out of you physically, emotionally, mentally. And so it was time. That was when they asked him about, you know, why he left the show at that time. He's basically saying, look, I loved it, Dream job, an absolute dream. But it took its toll on me, both mentally, physically, etc, so I, I felt it was time to go. Now, do we, do we take that as Red, do we take that as. Yep, that's confirmation that Ncuti was saying that it was his decision to leave the show at that time for these reasons. Who knows? There's always been this weird cloud of uncertainty when any actor leaves Doctor Who. There's always this conspiracy theory around why they're leaving. Were they fired? Were they written out for some reason? Was there a change of plan or anything like that? Anytime an actor says, I just wanted to go, fandom never accepts that. It's always a conspiracy theory of some kind. So the only reason, I think, why people buy into that in this case is because there were a couple of little slip ups along the way, if you remember. So we had the, the interview on the Graham Norton show with Ncuti that they edited out, quote, unquote, not on purpose to balance out the interview and the runtime of the show, etc. They, they cut his answer out when he basically said, look, we're back. X time to start filming series three. And then lo and behold, he. He leaves. So, yeah. And there was something else. Well, wasn't there? There was something to do with Millie Gibson. She was meant to be. She was meant to be having a much larger part, having all the storylines that. That Belinda had, that character in the latest season. But shoot, he made this, Made this big complaint that he felt like Millie Gibson was becoming more popular than him and didn't want the companion to be a bigger part of the show than the Doctor. And she was sort of kind of just upstaging him a little bit because fans were very, very unanimously, almost keen for her character to. They wanted to see more and they praised that performance, etc. And fandom was very divided about his performance and him as the Doctor, whether at. Whether you buy into that or not. That's the thing there. So there was a couple of little things along the way that I think fuels the fire for this conspiracy theory. But according to Ncuti, he, you know, that was why he left. They asked him if he would come back to the show. He said, never say never. He said they asked him about the mystery surrounding his withdrawal from Eurovision. That was another thing that kicked off, if you remember, the media spun that as the Doctor. He pulled out at the very last second and then with some backlash and all that stuff, he. He then said that one was handled very interestingly. I pulled out of it a long time before it was announced and it was announced when it was announced. I don't know why, but I was just very busy. I had a lot of work schedules, a lot of press around his new comedy film the Roses, and around Doctor Who. So, yeah, he just had. It was just a lot of press. So what he's saying there is basically, he doesn't know why it was announced when it was. According to him, he had canceled his appearance, you know, a long time before they announced it. And because of when they announced it, fandom leapt on that, as you'd expect, and then away we go. So, again, nothing sort of groundbreaking in this interview, nothing that's going to put fandom straight 100% on things. But it was a nice little insight into what Shoot is thinking post Doctor Who and obviously the chat with Matt Smith. You can just imagine those two having a couple of. I don't know what you reckon they would Drink on a night out, those two, I'm guessing Ncuti would probably have. Is he. Is he wine, do you reckon? Do you reckon shoot his wine? Is he a bit of a moth bag or is he a bit something a bit harder? I don't know. Tequila slammers. Matt Smith. No idea. No idea. For Matt, I'm in two minds. Not that I've given this much, much thought, of course, not at all. But I think Matt Smith's either a bit of a geezer at times when he's out and he'll just go for a good old pint, a pint of something, or he strikes me as a bit of a cocktail dude. I'm thinking like an Old Fashioned, a Negroni, something like that, who knows? But can you imagine being sat at the next table and you're at Glasow and you're in a club and you just. And you see Matt Smith and Ncuti together. Crikey. Anyway, that was a Ncuti. The Ncuti interview. Moving on. The spin off the. The. The War between the land and this bloody title. Honestly. The War Betwixt the Land and the sea. We still don't know when that's coming. We've had the trailer for it, of course. There's been lots of talk about it dropping this year, dropping early next year. We don't know. There may have been a potential leak, unintentional leak, as to when this is going to drop. Not from the BBC or anybody, but from a latest TV news outlet called TV Zone. So this is over@tvzoneuk.com and they've got a post that they put out a couple of days ago and it's titled BBC Drama and Comedy Autumn Programming Highlights Revealed. And the subtitle is. The new and returning drama and comedy titles airing this autumn on the BBC have been revealed and you have to sort of dig a little bit for this one because it's got a couple of, I guess high, high level shows, potential for high viewing figure shows. I guess there's stuff. There's something called the Night Manager, Wild Cherry, the Guest, Shetland, Waterloo Road, all these things. What else have we got? How are you with Alan Partridge? That's going to be good. New documentary series and did those Feet with Alan Partridge. We follow the beloved and to be fair, revered broadcaster as he reintegrates into life in Britain after a year working in. I'm a massive Alan Partridge fan. Sorry to go off on one different tangent here. Who fans. But that's going to be pretty cool. Anyway, Alan Partridge and all the other things Aside, you just keep scrolling through all the programs that are coming and then boom, you get to the War between the Land and the Sea and it's labeled up as a brand new series. When a fearsome and ancient species emerges from the ocean, dramatically revealing themselves to humanity, an international crisis is triggered with the entire population at risk and UNIT step into action as the land and sea wage war. So there you go. According to this website, the spin off is coming in autumn this year. So I guess this is kind of confirmation, right? It hasn't come from the BBC. I think those guys are probably a little bit like we'd like to have been able to announce this, but kind of knew that all the outlets are going to get all of it, so we'll just let them do it. Who knows? But I imagine we're going to get something from the Beeb reasonably soon. They'll probably re release the trailer and then at the end they'll add coming this autumn or whatever the date is. So there we go. Looks like the spin off is going to land this year, not next year. I'm not sure if that's a good decision or not, I'll be honest with you. I think that because. Because of the, the sort of limbo that the main show's in at the moment and production absolutely not happening at the moment, nothing is happening with, with Doctor Who. The earliest that we're going to get any new Doctor Who is probably going to be like the very like the back end of 2026 to mid-2027. That's probably the earliest we're going to get it. So I would have thought that to fill the gap a little bit and space this out, that the spin off would have landed next year at some point. Maybe sort of a, an April, Easter or summer release date for this next year I think would have been all right. But apparently it's going to drop this autumn. So I think this is confirmed. There's no reason why they would add this in here for no reason, you know, if it wasn't, you know, they rounded this out with all the other shows that are dropping in autumn. So yeah, I don't see any reason why they wouldn't, would not put this in if it wasn't coming. So again, as with everything, if this turns out to be untrue or different or whatever, then we will update you of course with what's going on. But the War between the Land and the Sea coming this, this autumn. Alrighty, let's finish up with a couple of merch stories. Remember we used to do Merch Corner back in the day. Back in the day when we had loads of Doctor Who merch coming all the time and we needed to dedicate an entire segment of the podcast to it, no less. With old Dalek Tat. Do you remember he used to come in with the hump, the right royal hump, and just throw the thing down for us to look at and wander off and oh dear, oh dear, what do we Dalek Tat is these days? Wonder what's going on with Dalek Tat? Maybe we'll get some updates on what he's up to in the near future. Who knows? Anyway, first bit of merch is last couple of weeks we've had. I think it was a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, a couple of weeks ago. Today, in fact, the Beeb have announced the latest Blu Ray Special Edition box set and it is season 13, which is Tom Baker's. Tom Baker's second season with Sarah Jane. And to be honest with you, this one looks absolutely amazing. Like they've the. The last three and now this, the fourth one first. I don't know if you guys have noticed if you. If you pick these up, but there's definitely been like a slight shift up in the quality of the picture, the sound mix, the number of special features and so on. It feels like they're really on a roll. And with every episode, Sorry, with every box set release, they seem to just go up a notch in terms of those things. So this one looks like an absolute banger. The season 13 stories themselves are some of Tom's best in, in my opinion. And it's going to come across eight discs in the box set and they've all been. Every episode has been remastered from the best available sources apparently that they could find. And the stories are. There's six in this. In this season. We've got Terror of the Zygons, Planet of Evil, Pyramids of Mars, the Android Invasion, the Brain of Morbius and the Seeds of Doom. And it's also jam packed with the following special features. We've got Worlds within, which is a profile of actor Ian Martyr, who played Harry. We've got return to 13, which Phil Hinchcliffe returns to the locations of several stories and is reunited with old friends. Matthew Sweet's doing another interview in conversation with Matthew Sweet, which is director Graham Harper chats about his life and career and all things Doctor Who. Tom talks. So Tom Baker, they've interviewed him, his thoughts and everything on season 13, the Doctor Who escape room, the fourth Doctor team attempt their escape. We've got the usual behind the sofa brand new episodes and it's going to feature Colin Baker, Maureen o', Brien, Katie Manning, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding, Sophie Aldridge, Sadie Miller and comedian Toby Haydock. They're going to be very cool. We've got brand new audio commentaries. So Tom Baker is going to do a commentary on Terror of the Zygons, Pyramids of Mards and the Android Invasion. Can't wait for those. And we've got updated special effects on Terror of the Zygons. We've got omnibus editions. So we've got HD recreations of the Pyramids of Mars and the Brain of Morbius, repeat screenings, plus a brand new edit of the Seeds of Doom. We've got Tales of the TARDIS, a 2024 edits of Pyramids of Mars with updated effects and appearances from Ncuti and Millie Gibson. You guys probably would have seen that already. That's already been released, but that's on the set. We've got archive treat, never before seen footage from Math Show, Disney Time and more. Loads of interviews, unreleased footage with Elizabeth Sladen and Michael Sherd, who was Scarman in Pyramids of Mars, the 5.1 surround sound mix, brand new for Pyramids of Mars. A ton of HD photos in the galleries, loads of info text and a massive PDF archive that goes into. So like a ton of details. So there you go, season 13. It's gonna be just amazing. Absolutely. A real good. And this is gonna be a real time suck this one as well because after you've gone through and you've re watched the stories from the Blu Ray set, you're then going to dive into all the special features. But then you could. Well, I certainly am. I'm going to go back and watch the Tom Baker commentary ones from those three stories, Zygons, Pyramids of Mars and Android Invasion. So that's. You have to rewatch them again with Tom Baker's commentary and so on. So yeah, should be a good one this. Really looking forward to it. And, and Lee Binding's done awesome work as always on all of the. The artwork and everything. It looks very, very cool and you can pre order it now from the usual suspects. I think in the UK they do like the four main ones. So you've got hmv, Zavi, Amazon and a smaller independent place I think it's called Rare Waves, I believe. But anyway, if you've not pre ordered it yet, as we always say, make sure you do because these typically go out of stock reasonably quickly and Our friends over in the us, North America and other parts of the world just keep an eye on like your local sort of online orders and stockists and whatnot for when that lands wherever you are. So that's season 13. Looking forward to that. And lastly, Chris Eccleston is back with Billy Piper for the ninth Doctor Adventures over at Big Finish. So we've already had Chris Eccleston back doing his thing as a kind of a solo Adventures almost for Big Finish. Up to now, I think he's done three, three series or three seasons with Big Finish with him sort of being a bit of a solo Doctor for a while. But Billy Piper is back in brand new audio dramas and these are going to land August this year. So they've already. These were probably recorded a while ago, but they're coming August this year. And Big Finish say that after the Doctor and Rose took a whole new generation of who fans on the trip of a lifetime in time and space. Twenty years later, the trip continues as they're set to start in a brand new series of 12 hour long, full cast audio adventures released from August 2025. Chris Eccleston says, I am so happy to be back recording more adventures for the ninth Doctor with Billy. I don't think my Doctor exists without Rose. He's a one man, one companion kind of alien. We've explored him on his own at Big Finish as a loner, but there's a resilience and a bravery and a deep empathy to Billy as Rose. That's why I do this. They complete each other. Awesome. Billy Piper says, I can't think of a better time for Rose to reunite with her first doctor than now, 20 years after she first ran into the TARDIS and towards adventure. Here we are again, me and Chris, ready to have fun facing the universe and the monsters together. So, yeah, those two are obviously very happy to be back making new Doctor Who stories together. The producer Matt Fitton says, 20 years after the Ninth Doctor and Rose burst onto our screens, they are back with that brilliant dynamic. The Doctor showing Rose the universe and Rose showing him the best of humanity, goes on to say that across 12 episodes, slotting neatly into that 2005 series, we have more Jackie Tyler, more power state, plus friends and enemies old and new through time and space. Our writers have done an amazing job recapturing the spirit of that very special season and Chris and Billy have embraced these scripts with delight and gusto. They're having a blast back on that trip of a lifetime and they sound fantastic. So this does sound rather Cool. Now, Big Finish is a bit of a big beast. I'll be honest with you. Anyone that's just done a search for Big finish in, in YouTube or something like that, you will see a million videos that are all titled with things like what stories to listen to to get into Big Finish, like. Or what are the jumping on points for Big Finish or how do I get into listening to Big Finish, etc. So I think with the. The first Doctor Adventures. First Doctor. Come on, Garry. With the ninth Doctor Adventures, the first Doctor for the show's comeback. There we go. That fits a bit more neatly. It's a bit of a. You don't need to have listened to tons of Big Finish before that. As Chris Eccleston said when he was being interviewed about this, he says that the Doctor's done this as a bit of a loner for a while. Etc. There's nothing really big sort of law or canon that's massive, that carries over, that you need to have gone on and listened and so on. So I think I could be wrong, but I'm 99 sure that this series, this new series of stories with Rose, you can just jump in fresh. So don't worry about having to listen to three complete box sets and stories of this Doctor before. Of course you can, and I do recommend that you do that, but you don't have to. So if this has piqued your interest, then you can dive straight in. So as mentioned in the synopsis and the details, it's going to be 12 stories, they're all an hour long and Big Finish are going to be rolling these out from. From the autumn and all. Each story is 9.99. So what they've done is instead of just putting a big box set together and saying you have to buy the lot, you don't have to do that. You can do. There's going to come on that in a second. But if you just want to cherry pick some stories, then, then you can do that. And the. The downloads are 9.99 each. If you want to buy the entire thing. The. The Ninth Doctor Adventures, this is series. This is his fourth set. You'll get episodes one through 12. If you want the downloads only, then that will be 102 pounds. And that gives you. Yeah, it sounds a lot. But if you want, if you want, if you know that you're going to like these stories, if you're a big Chris Ecclestone fan and you've been excited at the news that he's going to be back with Rose, you will not be disappointed. Big Finish, they do such fantastic jobs with every doctor, in my opinion. There isn't. Not every saw is a complete banger, but very, you know, seldom will you. Will you dive into a doctor's era and not like any of it. So from Big Finish. So if you know you're going to get this, 12 hours worth of content is not, you know, I don't think that's bad value at all. So £102, that gets you the downloads for the entire series. If you want the CDs as well, then that's going to be 126. So you're essentially paying an extra £25, I think it is to get your. To get your box set cd. The shipping is free, so don't worry about delivery costs on top of that. And one thing to bear in mind, though, I think they mention it on a few pages at Big Finish, is that these days, and I have done for a while now that they operate as a digital first company. So if you bought this set for £126, which is the downloads and the CDs, you'll get the downloads immediately. On launch day you'll get those, but the CDs will follow just a little bit later, the physical side of things. But you'll get the. The download stuff straight away, so sounds really good. I'm personally up for this person going to. Well, me and the writing team, the rest of the team here at Big Blue Box will definitely give this a good listen and we'll give you our thoughts and reviews at the time of or shortly after when these are released. So stay tuned for that stuff and that's going to conclude the news. There was a bit more to talk about there than what I thought. There was quite a few good stories there, so I'd love to hear what you thought of some of these stories. Hit us up on the usual social channels. You can find us on xigblueboxpcast, also on Facebook, Instagram, bluesky. There's links to this on the website, which is bigblueboxpodcast.co.uk links off to the various channels there. So go and find us and let us know what you thought of some of these stories. Do you think that it was a good old chin wag with Ncuti and Matt Smith as they spoke about their sort of war stories, as it were, when they were playing the Doctor? Do you agree with Mark Gattis with his interview about being, you know, having to be very careful with relying on nostalgia and that sort of thing. When you're creating new Doctor Who, do you think that Tom Fussell's thoughts are to be believed? That him and and his team are, are fully committed to Doctor Who and they want to carry on looking at how fans can interact with all that stuff. You're looking forward to, to the CBB drama. Are you looking forward to the War between the Land and the Sea? All of that stuff. Let me know your thoughts. I'd love to chat with you and all that stuff. You can do that. As I said over on all the socials and I think on that note, let's wrap it there for episode 428. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much for coming back and listening to another episode of the Big Blue box podcast that was 428 and a bit of a news roundup to let you guys know what's happening in world of Doctor Who, what's coming, what's being spoken about and and some cool merch. Make sure you pre order the Season 13 box set. Those things do sell out sometimes just before they're released via all the pre orders or just after. So you don't want to miss out, especially if you've been collecting them all so far. You don't want a gap on the shelf. That'd be terrible. Nobody wants that as Doctor Who collectors. And yeah, Land Between. Oh my God, that's this bloody title. The War between the Land and the Sea is supposedly dropping this autumn and we'll be tuning in for that and giving you our thoughts, of course. And, and we'll let you know, like sort of future news. Just to recap at the very beginning of the episode, I told you some future plan to the podcast and related podcasts and what's going to happen with the Cosmic Echoes Network. So stay tuned for that over on the socials and all that stuff and we'll chat to you more about that soon. Make sure you're following and subscribing. We're on all the major podcast apps. Just do a search the Big Blue Box. And if you've got a second, if you want to leave us a review and a rating on something like Apple Podcasts or Podchaser or rating on Spotify, that sort of thing. That'd be amazing because that really helps us, you know, in the algorithm to sort of surface us when people search for Doctor Who and whatnot. So thank you so much to those of you that have done that so far. Very much appreciated. And lastly, my co host Adam's YouTube channel, get over there and subscribe The Geeks Handbag. Until next time. My name's Garry. And remember Aaaaaaaaaaaaalons-y!.