Doctor Who Club of Australia

[Theta Sigma]

For those who do not know what Shakedown is, it is an independent spin-off film released direct-video in 1995 and here is the Wikipedia article of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakedown:_Return_of_the_Sontarans

After years of knowing about it, I finally saw it, having finished it on my birthday Sunday December 9. What a nice birthday present.

I got to see it as a result of someone uploading it on YouTube. It was divided into six parts so for those who did not know about it before or had trouble getting it click here:
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Doctor+Who+Sontarans+Shakedown

The cast has a mix of Doctor Who and Blake's 7 alumni. The Doctor Who alumni being Carole Ann Ford, Sophie Aldred and Michael Wisher.

Blake's 7 alumni are Brian Croucher and Jan Chappell. Brian Croucher had appeared in old TV Who in the 1977 serial Robots of Death but for Jan Chappell this has been the only Who related project that she done to date. It is for the latter reason that I had wanted to see Shakedown as I have always liked Jan and having her in a Who related project was something I wanted to see.*

I found Shakedown enjoyable and Jan was certainly a good lead for the film.

The Doctor is mentioned but not by name due to the obvious copyright issues with the BBC and it was cute how he was mentioned.

The film was written by Uncle Terrance who later novelised it but this time featuring the Seventh Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz as part of the New Adventures series of novels published by Virgin Books. I haven't read the book (in fact I completely forgotten about it until after I finished the film) but as stated in the Wikipedia article: "Dicks novelised the Doctor-less events of the script in the middle section of the book, with the new plot of the novel taking place around it." Be interesting to read the book if I ever get my hands on it.

*In fact a few years ago when I had virtually no hope of ever seeing Shakedown I made a suggestion at the Gallifrey forum that Jan should do a Big Finish but as far as I am aware this has not yet happened.

[Sulp Niar]

Happy Birthday, by the way!

[Theta Sigma]

Thank you.