Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)

A couple of my upcoming projects have been announced in different places. The latest issue of the Big Finish magazine Vortex includes a little feature about The Space Race, a story due for release in October this year. It’s the middle instalment of a trilogy of stories set in November 1963, and takes as it inspiration the competition between the USA and the USSR to be the first into space. It’s set at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and I can’t really say any more than that without spoiling any of the surprises. But tonally it’s quite a modern, punchy, hard-science fiction, rather than being an attempt to recreate any previous TV era. So place your orders for that now.

The other thing that’s just been announced is a Tom Baker story for release in May 2014 (if we’re all still here) called Last of the Colophon. It also features Louise Jameson as his companion Leela, Gareth Thomas as Morax, Jessica Martin as Sutton, and Blake Riston as Kellaway, amongst others. Again, it would probably be unwise to go into too much detail now, it’s over a year away (and was written over a year ago!) but, well, it’s intended as a kind of homage to Robert Holmes, an attempt to capture his style. Before writing it, I not only re-absorbed his Doctor Who works, but got a friend to lend me all his Blake’s 7 episodes too, not so that I could include references or repurpose particular lines, but just to pick up a few pointers. So the fact that it included the actor who played Blake of Blake’s 7 was a pleasing irony. Unlike The Space Race, it was very much an attempt to recreate that era of Doctor Who, even down to imagining what the sets would look like and how they would have been lit had it been made back in 1977. They would probably look much like the one you see above. So place your orders for that now too.

Deeper Shade Of Blue

The latest Doctor Who Magazine and the Big Finish website have both announced that 2013 will see a second series of Tom Baker audio adventures, two of which are written by yours truly. They are ‘The Auntie Matter’, where he is joined by his companion Romana, portrayed by Mary Tamm, and ‘Phantoms Of The Deep’, where they are also joined by K-9, the adorably prissy robot dog portrayed by John Leeson.

Both stories were written earlier this year, in June and August respectively. I was lucky enough to attend both recordings and on both occasions at the end of the day my jaw was aching from constant grinning. To hear Tom Baker performing my words, and doing it so well, with such attention to detail, with such irrepressible humour and with such panache! Many times I closed my eyes and it was like being transported back to 1978, or sticking on a DVD of a Doctor Who from 1978. I count myself inordinately fortunate to have been given such an opportunity; even it retrospect I still can’t quite believe it happened. It will be a memory to treasure for the rest of my life. I’ve written two stories for Tom Baker’s Doctor (three if you count the adaptation of The Valley Of Death). That’s just mind-boggling.

My favourite moment was the first TARDIS scene from Phantoms Of The Deep (I wrote a TARDIS scene!). The Doctor and K-9... together for the first time since 1980. It was utter magic.

I can’t tell you much about the stories, because I’ll get into trouble with Big Finish, and because they won’t be released until 2013. (Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary year! No doubt Moffat’s TV show will be doing some sort of 3-D live spectacular with Jeff-Bridges-in-Tron-style CGI reconstructions of the deceased Doctors, but at least I’ll be contributing in my own modest way.)

‘The Auntie Matter’ stars Julia McKenzie, who I’m sure you know from Marple, Cranford, Fresh Fields and numerous Stephen Sondheim musicals. It’s a Doctor Who story written in the style of PG Wodehouse, a deceptively light comedy. ‘Phantoms Of The Deep’ stars Alice Krige, of Spooks and Star Trek: First Contact. It couldn’t be more different from ‘The Auntie Matter’; it’s a claustrophobic hard-sci-fi blockbuster. The sort of story that would be advertised by a poster that is mostly black but with a hint of dark blue. This might give you some clues as to the subject matter.

They can be pre-ordered; click on the names on the list of Things I've Written on the right. I also script-edited one story for the same season, 'The Justice Of Jalxar' written by John Dorney, in which the Doctor is reunited with Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago of The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. It's a terrific story for which I can sadly take very, very little credit.

It’s a little strange, having these things announced so far in advance. I mean, where will we all be in 2013? What will the world be like so far in the future? The Olympics, the Diamond Jubilee and Ed Miliband’s leadership of the Labour Party will all be distant memories by then. And I’ll be nearly 40.

Happy New Year

So farewell 2009. A very good year. I got married, that was the main thing. From this year on, I’ll be checking my age, deducting 36, and adding one month to find out how long I’ve been married. To a marvellous, lovely girl, and I’ll shut up about it now.

I seem to have been working pretty much constantly. Doctor Who things, mainly. It’s kept me busy, and I think I’ve done some good work. I hope people aren’t getting sick of my name appearing on things; I suppose I could always use a pseudonym. Most of my things seem to have gone done very well, for which I am extremely grateful but not prepared to take an ounce of credit. 2009, the year of the Hothouse, Cannibalists, Company Of Friends, The Eternal Summer, The Glorious Revolution, The Mists Of Time, and Space Vikings!. And I’ve got, er, three or four or five things long-since written but due out next year, Deimos with Paul McGann, which I think is the strongest story I’ve written, certainly in terms of plotting at least, and a Peter Davison adventure which I also think is one of my more accomplished efforts. I get the feeling I’m improving; trying not to rely upon technique, trying to surprise myself, leave the comfort zone. I’m certainly getting faster.

Not so much other stuff, sadly. No time. Attempted another sitcom script but kind of lost interest half-way through. Had an idea for a film but, as films don’t seem to get made, left it to ‘mature’ in a bottom drawer.

I did write my own original, hour-long, family sci-fi drama, as a demo thing, and if I do say so myself it was a bloody good script, I certainly put a lot of effort into it, but trying to get people to bother to read the thing has proved to be a real bugger. I sent it to my agent earlier this year, and after three months it hadn’t even been read, so I decided to change agent. And try to take my career more into my own hands (as I seemed to get further that way). But if anyone out there wants to read my marvellous family sci-fi drama script, please get in touch. Cue: tumbleweed.

2010 looks promising. I’ve got a regular writing gig, fingers crossed, touch wood, that is if they don’t see sense and fire me. And I really should try writing another sitcom, as I’ve had another Idea So Good No Sane Commissioner Could Ever Turn It Down. And being married has turned out to be wonderful, but I said I’d shut up about that.

Oh, and 2009 was the year I did a daily blog. Except in November, but I’ll go back and fill in the blank days with stuff from my ‘rainy day blogs’ folder. It started out as being strictly under 300 words; now I don’t bother with a wordcount. Not sure if I’ll persevere into 2010. Probably not on a daily basis. It’s been fun, but my fingers are tired.

The Heat Is On

Let us, for the sake of amusement, pretend the Climate Change sceptics are right.

Maybe the Earth’s climate is changing – but not as a result of man’s activities. All the coal power stations, all the cars, all the cows, don’t make the slightest difference. It’s all a natural process. If there are more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to global warming, then it’s due to them being released from peat bogs.

Well, if this is the case, then isn’t that EVEN MORE CAUSE TO PANIC?

I mean, if it’s a man-made problem, then at least we are in a position to mitigate it at source. If it’s a natural problem, then all we can hope to do is to alleviate the effects.

It’s the difference between your house being on fire, because you’ve left the gas on, and your house being on fire, even though you don’t have gas. In the former case, at least you have the hope that if you switch off the gas off the fire might not increase.

But in both instances, you still have to fight the fire.

If climate change is a natural process – it isn’t, but just for the sake of amusment let’s pretend – then Carbon Capture technologies are even more essential.

Of course, the argument is that if it’s a natural process, then the Earth will sort it out of its own accord, just as it has done in the past. Which is sort-of true, if you overlook the fact that the ‘sorting out’ took millions of years. In the short-term, the only way the planet will deal with the problem will be by increasing the frequency of droughts, floods and hurricanes. Which, admittedly, will help to reduce the source of global warming, over-population, but in a rather unpleasant fashion.

The Wedding March

Sorry I’ve been away for a couple of days. I’ll go back and fill in yesterday’s and yesteryesterday’s blogs with some nonsense after I’ve written this one. Basically, I had a thing which was overdue, and I wasn’t going to waste time writing blogs until it was down and delivered.

Random thought. Always hearing about TV fakery, yet they never mention the breakfast TV (or local news) convention of a reporter going to a school at about 7.30 in the morning to discover a room of pupils doing an activity; or they’ll be in a field with some kids learning about worms or whatever. I know, you know, everyone knows that it’s all put on for the benefit of the TV crew. Still winds me up though; it’s so naff and patronising.

Yesterday was the run-through of the wedding, making sure the venue is still in the same place, making sure there’s breathable oxygen in the atmosphere, making sure there are no man-traps on the dance floor, that sort of thing. What’s so stressful about weddings, above and beyond any other sort of event organisation, is that the goal is to end up with an occasion which runs so smoothly the organizers have nothing to do on the day but enjoy the ride. When, with any other sort of event, the organizers would expect to have to do a bit of last-minute trouble-shooting. It’s that element of precariousness which is the problem. But things will go wrong, it’s inevitable, but nothing significant, and so long as me and my girl are there to do the ‘I doing’ that’s all that matters.

And then we have a big party to celebrate – not so much celebrating having got married as celebrating not having to worry about the wedding any more.

Closer Than Most

Can’t quite see the point of getting a HD television. Oh, I can see the point of HD; it may not actually make the acting or writing any better, and it may make programme-making even more expensive and time-consuming, but it’s fine if you’re watching a movie or a programme about brightly-coloured tree-frogs on jungle leaves glistening with rain-drops.

It’s just that, if those who are to believed are to believed, 3-D telly will be following shortly afterwards, so one might as well skip a generation and wait for that.

Not sure about 3-D stuff, myself. It’ll make a huge difference to action movies and CGI kids movies, all those blockbusters where they are desperate to make the cinema going experience bigger, louder and more jaw-dropping than the downloaded-off-the-internet experience. And 3-D will no doubt add another dimension to nature documentaries – as you already find in the IMAX shows where you snork with the fishies or flotate over the space shuttle.

I can imagine 3-D being a ‘plus’ for porn, though apparently, I am told, HD has not been such a great development, as there are some things you don’t want to see in vivid detail and HD has a habit of revealing blemishes and how much wake-up people are wearing.

But for comedy? Well, we can expect a few years, before the novelty wears off, of all sorts of gruesome bodily substances being splattered towards the viewer in order to solicit a groan of ‘ugh’. But after a few years of having people sneeze over you – or worse – I can imagine it will get pretty old pretty fast. What’s more interesting is that 3-D tends to mean longer, continuous wide shots – which may mean that comedy becomes closer to live theatre, just as it was in the 70’s.