Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Look Who's Talking...

Walking around Bury's WHSmith store before I spotted a magazine on their shelves that isn't officially supposed to be out until tomorrow (naughty naughty!). The magazine in question? DWM's "In Their Own Words Volume 3", which at a very decent £5.99 was just waiting for me to snap it up - and that's just what I did!

The "In Their Own Words" series began back in 2005, and it's basically reprints of old interviews that Doctor Who Magazine has conducted with the series cast and crew over the years. Each volume covers a specific era of the show (volume one was the black and white years,1963 - 69, for instance). The latest volume covers 1976 until the dying days of Tom Baker's era in 1981.

It talks about the casting of Louise Jameson as Leela, the replacement to Elisabeth Sladen - and goes on to explain that producerswanted to move away from the 'traditional' comapnion (a la Sarah) into new territory. And hence, the warrior Leela was born, and a million dads across the nation suddenly started watching the show again...

Volume Three then goes onto discuss the arrival of K9, and the stir that he caused. Honestly, you should hear some of the things Tom Baker has to say about the metal dog! And all these years I've been pretending to myself that K9 was actually popular. Still, it's clear that John Nathan Turner had some balls to write K9 out of the series...

But as we all know, K9 wasn't gone for very lon, and cropped up again at Christmas 1981 in "K9 and Company" - which is also covered in the mammoth volume three. Lis Sladen, JNT and other members of the K9 and Company cast and crew are at hand to discuss the metal dog's return, and Lis Sladen's show stopping performance.

To cap the magazine off for us Smithies, there's a neat "afterword" by co-creator of "The Sarah Jane Adventures", Gareth Roberts! He discusses just how great Doctor Who was, and still is - and looks like he's having the time of his life. Which is great for him(now get back to writing those scripts Gareth, or we'll have you!).

You can catch "DWM: In Their Own Words" at newsagents now, priced £5.99. Of course, back in 1979, it would have cost more like 12p. But those days are long gone now...

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