Monster role for Young Ones star (Series Four spoiler!)
Christopher Ryan, best known for playing super-cool Mike in the classic comedy series The Young Ones, is set for a guest-starring role in an upcoming Series Four adventure.
Ryan will play a Sontaran leader in the story, due to begin filming in the next few weeks.
"I'm absolutely delighted to be appearing in this new Doctor Who," Chris revealed. "The last time I appeared in Doctor Who was in 1986, Colin Baker was the Doctor and I was still a Young One."
The story in question was the Trial Of A Time Lord, where Chris starred as the slug-like Mentor Kiv alongside Trevor Laird, who played Martha's dad in 2007.
If you know your Who lore, the Sontarans will need no introduction. If you're a newer viewer, however, you may not know that the Sontarans are amongst the greatest villains from the classic series of Doctor Who.
A military, warlike species, able to clone vast armies of themselves, the Sontarans are locked into an eternal struggle with their enemies the Rutans.
I know a few people will be pleased/concerned
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Cool, maybe we'll finally see the Rutans used well as well.
Dibs on them being the patsies/tools of the eventual BBEG
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Well I am happy, just as BBC are releasing the Sontaron story "The time Warrior" digitally remastered with special effects tidied up. Oh, its also the first appearance of Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and we see Jon Pertwee in fine form.
I have always felt the Sontarons were villains which could make for entertaining viewing if used right. Usually if you combine it with the shapeshifting Rutans and you can get a good story. But I will just wait and see.
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I have trimmed your title. Thanks for putting a spoiler in it 'spud heads,' that's hardly very cryptic.
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I now have an image of a Sontaran with his legs nailed to his command console.
It's a little strange.
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The BBC controller of fiction, Jane Tranter, has left the way open for a movie version of Doctor Who - despite film adaptations of existing BBC dramas not being part of her new strategy for BBC Films.
Ms Tranter told MediaGuardian.co.uk that the move of the BBC films department from central London to a new base inside BBC Television Centre was designed to "cross-fertilise" film production with the expertise from the comedy, natural history and news and current affairs departments.
"This move is not about making feature films about things that are on the television - those ideas are staring us in the face already and may seem too obvious," Ms Tranter said.
However Tranter pointedly refused to rule out the possibility of a film version of Doctor Who, the department's most successful drama series of recent years.
"I would not rule out a film version of Doctor Who, no," she said.
This could see a follow-up to the two previous Doctor Who movies: Dr Who and the Daleks, and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD. Both of these films starred Peter Cushing as the doctor - a part he never filled for television.
Ms Tranter also hinted that actor David Tennant, who plays the current doctor, was likely to return to the role for a fifth series, even though he has agreed to play Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company next year.
His decision means that the fifth series will not be shown until 2010, two years after the fourth series airs next year, effectively creating a "gap year" filled by three Doctor Who specials starring Tennant and overseen by head writer and executive producer Russell T Davies.
Ms Tranter also refused to be drawn on speculation that Steven Moffat was being lined up as a replacement for Davies - who is believed to be on the verge of leaving the show - or that actor James Nesbitt was being lined up take over from Tennant.
"All we can say is that David is a fantastic doctor and that he is doing Hamlet," she said.
Doctor Who's last series ended in July with 8 million viewers, a 39% share of the audience.
Interesting, A possible DW film in the future? Might work.
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DEATH wrote:Cool, maybe we'll finally see the Rutans used well as well.
Dibs on them being the patsies/tools of the eventual BBEG
Didn't we already see one in 'Horror of Fang Rock'?
Indeed and it was harldy the stuff of Horror. It reminded me of "The Creeping Terror" Dangeorous only if you decied not to run from it
In seriousness, we never got much of any explanation of what the Rutans are like (much) and I am curious about seeing them as much as the Sontarins.
Another question is that the Sonatarins we're very heavy players in Dr.Who. One would expect the Time War to affect them in some way...
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DEATH wrote:Cool, maybe we'll finally see the Rutans used well as well.
Dibs on them being the patsies/tools of the eventual BBEG
Didn't we already see one in 'Horror of Fang Rock'?
Indeed and it was harldy the stuff of Horror. It reminded me of "The Creeping Terror" Dangeorous only if you decied not to run from it
Except the Rutan did most of its kililng when in its far more mobile human form and did so by infiltration.
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DEATH wrote:Cool, maybe we'll finally see the Rutans used well as well.
Dibs on them being the patsies/tools of the eventual BBEG
Didn't we already see one in 'Horror of Fang Rock'?
Indeed and it was harldy the stuff of Horror. It reminded me of "The Creeping Terror" Dangeorous only if you decied not to run from it
In seriousness, we never got much of any explanation of what the Rutans are like (much) and I am curious about seeing them as much as the Sontarins.
Another question is that the Sonatarins we're very heavy players in Dr.Who. One would expect the Time War to affect them in some way...
The horror theme was that the monster could be any one of us, as the Rutan used its shapeshifting ability to copy the light house keeper.
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I even suggested about bringing back the Sontaran Empire and Rutan Host last year. This is very good news and now we've got much more of a buget to flesh out these two interesting races that are less iconic than the Daleks or Cybermen, but can be widely used in many stories without seriously cheapening them greatly and could reliably be used as a long term medium rung "baddie" factions like the Peackeepers or Gou'ald (they are powerful but not as absurdly powerful as the Time War Daleks). Likely have strong links to the Judoon, due to the Judoon wearing similar looking uniforms and being heavily militaristic.
ER, Sontarons aren't exactly tall. As mentioned in the Time Warrior they are from a heavy gravity world, making them stronger than humans but also stocky.
In the Sontaron experiment, Tom Baker towered over the Sontaron facing him in battle.
I think its just a matter of using the armour to bulk him up. I really hope they show the Sontaron armour actually, wait for it acting like armour since in the old series it could resist K9's energy blasts, and in the novels a Sontaron could jump in front of a laser cannon and still be in one piece, albeit critically injured.
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Dartzap wrote:
I'm fairly sure that a large amount of prosthetics and CGI will be involved. It may be that he just provides the voice.
Put a slight man who is 5ft tall in lumpy prosthetic, then slap on a good costume and he would look the part. I'm more looking forward to seeing a massive fleet of Sontaran "golf-ball" ships realised with CGI and model work.
Granted most of Doctor Who races aren't written such that they would fit into the space battle mould, but the Sontarons and Rutans who had been at war with each other for goodness knows how long fits the mould. And their tech isn't that advanced to render ship to ship engagement redundant.
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"I would not rule out a film version of Doctor Who, no," she said.
This could see a follow-up to the two previous Doctor Who movies: Dr Who and the Daleks, and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150AD. Both of these films starred Peter Cushing as the doctor - a part he never filled for television.
Ms Tranter also hinted that actor David Tennant, who plays the current doctor, was likely to return to the role for a fifth series, even though he has agreed to play Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company next year.
His decision means that the fifth series will not be shown until 2010, two years after the fourth series airs next year, effectively creating a "gap year" filled by three Doctor Who specials starring Tennant and overseen by head writer and executive producer Russell T Davies.
Interesting, A possible DW film in the future? Might work.
My question is What are these 3 Doctor Who Specials?
Im Kind of bummed about the gap though.... This is why we need Torchwood
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Granted most of Doctor Who races aren't written such that they would fit into the space battle mould, but the Sontarons and Rutans who had been at war with each other for goodness knows how long fits the mould. And their tech isn't that advanced to render ship to ship engagement redundant.
I'm willing to bet that the massive fleet battles between the Sontaran Empire and Rutan Host would mainly be implied (but not as annoyingly implied as nearly all the major battles in HBO's Rome), having a tight focus on smaller groups of warships and soldiers duking it out instead - you can only fit so much into a couple of 45 minute episodes, but hopefully we would still see much more of these two underexposed DW factions.
I imagine we would only see a few ships, sort of like how St does it. The writers can simply state this was just a small battle in the greater scheme of things, which would most probably help their budget, but also allow them to keep the sense of scale. After all, according to the Doctor's intelligence, Sontaran as of "Invasion of Time" were capable of churning out millions of troops every hour or some such number.
Never apologise for being a geek, because they won't apologise to you for being an arsehole. John Barrowman - 22 June 2014 Perth Supernova.
Countries I have been to - 14.
Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA.
Always on the lookout for more nice places to visit.
Considering the decent special effects in even fairly minor episodes like "New Earth", it is well within The Mill's means to depict a city sized Sontaran cloning plant built within the bowls of a hollowed out moonlet and a big space fleet of thousands of ships jumping into hyperspace...
This is very good news and now we've got much more of a buget to flesh out these two interesting races that are less iconic than the Daleks or Cybermen, but can be widely used in many stories without seriously cheapening them greatly and could reliably be used as a long term medium rung "baddie" factions like the Peackeepers or Gou'ald (they are powerful but not as absurdly powerful as the Time War Daleks). Likely have strong links to the Judoon, due to the Judoon wearing similar looking uniforms and being heavily militaristic.