Out last week, and available in a few good newsagents across
the UK, the latest issue of Doctor Who
Magazine has a couple of articles by me in it. Firstly, there’s another
instalment of The Blogs of Doom,
commemorating one of the most-loved characters of 1980s Doctor Who.
And secondly, I’ve written an article exploring what we
know about Time Lords and ‘regeneration energy’. This all culminates in a bonkers
theory which fits all the facts and will hopefully surprise and delight.
Those of you with long memories may recall that I wrote
another article about regeneration for Doctor
Who Magazine over ten years ago, which I’ve archived here. So when I was
asked to write this new article both I and the editor were very keen that it
should not cover anything covered in
the previous article. Because readers would notice! Can I just say how
remarkable it is for a magazine to work this way; how many other magazines
would go out of their way to avoid repeating content from over ten years ago?
Even when they interview people they’ve interviewed before, it’s to get new
stories or updates on what they’ve been doing. Compare this to, oh, music
magazines where they ask Paul McCartney questions he’s been asked a hundred
times before and where he gives the same answers he’s given a hundred times
before. So, anyway, before writing my new article I went through the old one to
make sure I didn’t repeat myself. I even cut a line about the eighth Doctor’s
regeneration giving him super-strength because I’d mentioned that in 2009. So,
yes, while it could be argued, “Oh no, they’ve got Jonny to write about regeneration
again”, that means they’ve picked the one person who is determined not to repeat
anything Jonny has said.
After all, the whole fun of writing (and hopefully reading)
these sort of articles is to take a fresh look and come up with new ideas. And,
of course, since 2009 there have been however-many Doctor Who stories giving us new information about regeneration. We’ve
seen the Doctor regenerate four* times since then, and we’ve seen other
regenerations and learned new information about Time Lord physiology and life
on Gallifrey. There’s even been some stuff in The Sarah Jane Adventures and
Torchwood which I didn’t pick up on last time. So there’s a lot of new
stuff to look at, and so my article is deliberately skewed towards the last ten
years, all the way up to last year’s Rosa.
In other news, I got the chance to listen to Rose Tyler: The Endless Night last week,
and thought it was amazing. My writing aside, the cast were all great, the
music was gorgeous, the sound design was marvellous, and everything just came
together beautifully. It really recaptured the feel of the era while also
feeling modern and new. Some real chills and tears in there. So all credit to the
director, Helen Goldwyn. I couldn’t be more delighted and proud. Let’s hope
there are many more adventures in store for Rose, Clive, Pete and Jackie!
The Rose Tyler:
Dimension Cannon box set can be ordered from Big Finish here.
* Plus a recap of the first Doctor regenerating!
