Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Greg]

[hallhotdogma]

[Ace]

Ah yes, but they were never made, so do they count???

Nightmare Fair did turn up as a novel though and I'd forgotten about that one

An audio with the Toymaker would be awesome. It would be great if he did one. After all, he did Batman, surely he can do something more worthwhile like Doctor Who? *grin*

Ace

[Theta Sigma]

[meglos]

What was with bumping into the guy with the fruit. I thought I was watching the Goodies or something. Maybe the Doctor could have slipped on a banana peel

[Ace]

Does fan stuff count? I mean, I've yet to see anything actually remotely good,

Ace

[ark76]

I agree with all the criticisms of Arc of Infinity so far, but on the plus side, episode 4 contained my all time fave moment in Doctor Who.

Its the moment where Omega was initially on the run (before his anti-matter shield starts to break down), and he stops to watch a barrel organ. A small kid barges into him, and Omega glowers at him, before breaking into a smile and continuing to watch the organ - a glimpse of what Omega might have been like if it hadn't been for the the initial accident that trapped him in the black hole (and perhaps Omega could have been like this again if his transfer had been successful).

A rare moment where Dr Who goes beyond the good guy/villain stereotype.

[Kerr Avon]

I don't know how I'd describe my personal vision of what Gallifrey should be like, but I'm always a little disappointed when I watch it on screen (or indeed when I listen to it on audio, The Apocalypse Element being one of my least favourite BF productions*)

it has been said before but why does Borusa keep regenerating into old bodies?

a not-so-great (though not terrible) beginning to a season I have fond memories of...

*hopefully I'll get more from their Gallifrey series which I'll be starting on soon...

[SharazJek]

[SharazJek]

Does anyone have a theory as to why the Omega in this story is so different to the omega in the 3 docs?

ie. This one has a physical body whereas the original only had and insubstantial 'will' left. To quote the Doctor, under the mask 'there was nothing left of him'.

[Greg]

[Wester]

Greg, well done - I cant think of anything wrong with your theory. So I think it MUST be correct!

[Tom N.]

I've seen Arc of Infinity bagged a fair bit on other sites, but I actually didn't mind it. Omega looked way cool and I loved Peter Davson's brief dual role. I also enjoyed seeing Colin Baker strut around the place with his elaborate helmet, trying to steal Davison's job, and generally looking pompous.

[Ickabod]

Quote:

As far as I know Michael Gough is still alive, so they could do a Celestial Toymaker story I suppose.

l'm glad Michael Gough is still alive.....but to go off on a different track.......why didn't he keep his role in the new batman movie as Alfred????.......he was good as Alfred........

[SharazJek]

[Ickabod]

Quote:

Warner Bros are rebooting the Batman franchise, so I gather that means a full recast with no connection to the previous movies.

thank you SharazJek

[Theta Sigma]

Finished Part 1 of Arc of Infinity on DVD. The notes on the episode states that Max Harvey (Cardinal Zorac) died in January 2006. Interestingly when DWM reported on his death via the Beyond The TARDIS page by Dominic May it was some 15 months after his death. DWM states the report of his death came from IMDb. This means that either Dominic May or someone else stumbled upon his passing when browsing through the IMDb almost year and a half after Harvey died. Shame that it took this amount of time for his passing to be noticed.

Before he became the Sixth Doctor, Arc of Infinity provided Colin Baker's debut on Doctor Who as Maxil. In a somewhat cheeky manner, the DVD notes says that Maxil was his most significant contribution to the world of Doctor Who, with the Sixth Doctor coming in second. There are two reasons for this the notes says - his costume as Maxil is better the Sixth Doctor's and the other reason is Maxil's hat.

During the episode in a scene in the TARDIS the recall circuit was used summoning the Doctor back to Gallifrey in which the Doctor says to Nyssa that the recall circuit was used twice before in the history of the High Council of the Time Lords. As the notes correctly pointed out the Doctor really refers to the his own (televised) personal history with the High Council. Since the Doctor is preoccupied with his travels he can't really take into account every single time that the recall circuit has been used in situations that did not involve him at all.

[Theta Sigma]

The DVD notes for Part 2 profiled Michael Gough's career. It mentioned that he was born in 1917 but neglected to mention the exact date of his birth that year and that is November 23 which is the same date that Doctor Who was born exactly 46 years later.

It mentioned him playing Alfred in the Batman movies back in the last decade. However it did not get the wording right about his involvement in those Batman movies. It said that he played Alfred in the first four Batman movies between 1989 and 1997.
I am not going to go through the entire history of Batman in the movies here but the 1989 movie which began a Batman film series was not the first Batman movie ever. As to him being Alfred in the first four Batman movies in the aforementioned period those four movies is actually all that makes up of that series.
The Batman film series which began with Batman Begins and the sequel The Dark Knight (currently in cinemas which I mentioned at the Relative Dimension section featured Eric Roberts and Matt Rippy) is a separate series from the one Gough was in. It is a case of the mistake of meshing these two Batman film series together.

A correct way of writing Gough's involvement in Batman movies would have been something like this:
"He played Alfred, the butler in a series of Batman movies between 1989 and 1997."

[Theta Sigma]

Part 3 DVD notes:
Arc of Infinity was not the only story that was considered to open season 20. Other storylines includes one from Rod Beacham entitled Poison (funnily enough The Poison Sky is on tonight on ABC1) and one from Bill Lyons (story is unnamed in the notes). Funnily enough both had written for the final season of Blake's 7. Rod Beacham had written the episode Assassin and Bill Lyons wrote the next episode Games.
Neither Beacham nor Lyons' stories for Doctor Who were ever made but they did appear in the programme itself a lot of years earlier. Beacham had played Corporal Lane in the Second Doctor story The Web of Fear and Lyons played the guard on Denes in the previous Second Doctor story The Enemy of the World. Quite a remarkable coincidence that two consecutive stories/episodes of Doctor Who and Blake's 7 happened to involved each of them along with their written Doctor Who stories being considered to open the 20th season.

The notes list other actors who were considered but did not get the characters in the story-
Among those considered for Lord President Borusa was Geoffrey Bayldon. It would have been quite interesting if he had been cast as Borusa and got to play alongside Elspet Gray (Chancellor Thalia) since they were both in Catweazle with Bayldon playing the title character. Having the President and Chancellor who used to be in another TV series would have been something.
Also considered was Peter Cushing who was the Doctor in the two 1960s Dalek movies. If he had been cast it would have been appropriate if one particular person considered for Thalia had been cast for the character instead of Elspet Gray. That person was Jennie Linden who was Peter Cushing's co-star in the first of the two Dalek movies playing Barbara. As I have said about Bayldon and Gray it would have been something to have seen Cushing and Linden together again in Doctor Who as President and Chancellor.
Among those considered for the Castellan was Patrick Stewart and the notes mentioned him being the future captain of the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Stewart had earlier been considered for the part of Professor Watson in the season 14 story The Hand of Fear. In contrast to the Arc of Infinity notes, The Hand of Fear notes did not mention Stewart's name at all when the Professor Watson character was being cast. It just simply says that an actor considered for the part later became a star of an American TV series.
Actors considered for the part of Robin included Jason Carter. Carter later became Marcus Cole in Babylon 5.
For Maxil, eventually played by subsequent Sixth Doctor Colin Baker, included a pre-James Bond Pierce Brosnan.
Omega was originally played in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctor by Stephen Thorne. In Arc of Infinity he was played by Ian Collier who had previously appeared in Doctor Who as a different character in The Time Monster which preceded The Three Doctors in transmission (again with the coincidence with consecutive stories).
From reading the notes it would appear that Stephen Thorne may not have been approached at all in reprising the character as his name was not mentioned at all for the casting process. Among other characters considered to replace Thorne as Omega was Martin Jarvis. Jarvis previously appeared in Doctor Who in The Web Planet (1965), The Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) and would return in 1985 as the Governor of Varos in Vengeance on Varos. In recent years he made another appearance on Doctor Who but on audio and with his wife Rosalind Ayres in 2003's Jubilee which became the basis for the TV episode Dalek. Again with the theme of coincidence I saw Jarvis a couple of days ago in the Stargate Atlantis episode The Seer playing the episode title character and tomorrow August 4 is his 67th birthday.

[Theta Sigma]

Part 3 DVD notes addendum:
As well as being on the list of potential Borusas, Geoffrey Bayldon and Peter Cushing have one thing in common - they both played an alternative version of the First Doctor. Bayldon, who had been in Doctor Who, years earlier in the season 17 story Creature from the Pit and has said to been the first person ever to have been asked to play the Doctor, finally got to play the Doctor in Big Finish's Doctor Who Unbound audio series.

If Cushing or Bayldon had been cast as Borusa playing alongside Peter Davison as the Doctor and Colin Baker as Maxil, the story would had three actors who had played the Doctor at different points in time.