Doctor Who: The Rose-Tinted War - part two

 

Doctor Who: The Rose-Tinted War - part one

 

The Eleven Doctors - part two

 

Ed: not tomorrow, next Saturday!

Judgement of the Daleks

A little thread on twitter this week got me all nostalgic for the Dapol toys, so I decided to repost this from 2008.

Cast

This story exclusively uses Dapol figures. As well as the 7th Doctor (in season 24 beige jacket),  Mel (in blue "Paradise Towers" top) and Davros (yes, with two arms) you will spot Daleks in several liveries (grey/ blue, grey/ black, white/ gold, black/ silver, red/ silver and red/ black.) There's also the transparent "transmat" dalek.

Odd that for some reason I didn't use the other daleks I have, black/gold and red/gold Daleks. Maybe I felt it was already crowded enough.

Inspiration

In 2008, I decided to do a special commemorating the Dapol action figures which by then were twenty years old. The plan was to make three new stories showcasing the three Dapol doctors (3, 4 and 7) with selected monsters and companions. Pertwee would battle the Sea Devils and Silurians, Tom Baker would face the Sontarans while McCoy and Mel would face the daleks in a story that I always felt was missing from the Doctor Who/ Dalek canon: how did Davros go from being a prisoner about to stand trial (at the end of Revelation of the Daleks) to being Dalek Emperor (in Remembrance of the Daleks)?

This event is also covered by the Big Finish audio The Juggernauts as well as the DWM comic Emperor of the Daleks.

I had also considered a different story: Battlelines In The Stars which didn't feature the Doctor at all but showed the Time Lords and Daleks meeting to sign a non-aggression pact. The Time Lords have been betrayed, however (probably by the Master IIRC), leaving the universe on the brink of a Great Time War...

Shooting

All the Dapol Doctors episodes were shot on 4 Jan 2008. This one was a little more complex than the other two and began with the Skaro exteriors. 

The sets were made especially for the story and based loosely on the design of the Dalek city seen in the Dr Who and Daleks movie. It was shot on an opaque glass table with a light shone through from below to provide an eerie atmosphere. 

The upper and lower sections of the trial room were shot separately and put together in the edit.

Continuity

As a Davros retrospective, this story is quite continuity laden, referencing most of his four (at the time) appearances.

In the Doctor's personal timeline, this story comes somewhere in season 24 prior to Dragonfire where he meets Ace and Mel leaves.

For Davros, it comes between Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks where he is captured by the Supreme Dalek's forces and taken to Skaro for trial. 

Transmission

Judgement of the Daleks was first posted as part of The Dapol Doctors in January 2008. 

It was reposted here on 11 February, inspired by a twitter thread.

Let It Snow

 

So it has been a long time since I gave up the Action Figure Theatre (bar the 13th Doctor's lockdown adventure) for a proper career writing scripts for telly. But now 4 years on, the time felt right to have a little hobby again when downtime allows.

I must have been inspired by Power of the Doctor, because it was in the run up to that episode that I started to consider a Christmas AFT ep. Originally featuring the Doctor and Yaz, it was called Silent Night and featured, not surprisingly, the Silents.

But I had this creature. I'd made the model years back for a possible McGann series. Something about the shape of it kept coming to me in drawings and I finally made it in 3D. So looking again at this monster (later named the Shudder) I decided to use it.

The dark tone of the story I came up with then best suited the 7th Doctor and Ace. It may be a little bleak for a Christmas special but I hope the theme of hope does shine through. 

Irony Alert! As soon as I write "it doesn't snow at Christmas anymore", what does it go and do?

The cast is really minimal. The 7th Doctor (with serious head from the 11 Doctors set and smiley/ hat head from the TARDIS set). Ace from Silver Nemesis. And a Carl Grimes figure from The Walking Dead.

The Shudder has been made out of polymorph painted to look like bone and dressed in strips of black fabric.

Barely noticeable, the TARDIS outside the window is The Visitation, a colour scheme I prefer to the 7th Doctor TARDIS.

For the final shots, Liam uses a Primeval series 2 Connor.

The crowd consists of Primeval figures Cutter, Lester, Claudia, Abbi (series 2) and Jenny. Tosh from Torchwood and from Doctor Who Dr Constantine, The Master (series 3), Professor Braithwaite and Yaz.

The original storyline was completed on 18th October,  refined on the 19th and completed on 6 Nov. It was originally going to be a 2 parter, but there was far too much padding so I chopped it into 1 ep of 5 pages (rather than the usual 4)

All the house interior scenes were shot very quickly on 9th November using a stately home set I made during lockdown using card and coloured paper. Between lockdown and redecorating, my spare room/ studio is in disarray with lots of props and things temporarily inaccessible so it was very much a make-do-and-mend affair.

The remaining shots of older Liam giving his future lecture were shot on 21 Dec using some scenery I had in my box.

It can't really be seen in the finished comic strip, but on the Doctor's work bench is Ace's tapedeck from Silver Nemesis and the Doctor's tool kit, which I made years ago for my original 3.75" customs.

Editing started with page one (bar the opening frame) on 16th November using Pixlr X, a free photo editing web-based program that takes a bit of getting used to.

Everything stalled for a few weeks then as I became super busy. But in the meantime, I got a new whooshy laptop that could be capable of Photoshop. So! I bought the bullet and started a free trial. It's a little glitchy so we'll see how it goes.

But 

The external shots use photos I've taken.

Page 1 was edited on 16 Nov with text added on 22 Dec.

Page 2 on 18 Dec.

Page 3 completely done on 19 Dec.

Page 4, 19 Dec.

Page 5, 20 Dec.

Text was added to the remaining pages on 22 Dec.

The episode was posted online as planned on Saturday 24th December. It is my hope that the AFT will now run EVERY SATURDAY reposting the original episodes from the site with perhaps a few new ones thrown in as we go.

I'm not entirely set on when but the brown coat 7th Doctor places this after The Greatest Show In The Galaxy. Decide for yourselves.