Greetings and salutations, fellow Fridge Nukers! Your Nuke the Fridge Whovian in Residence, Bradfield, here – reporting from a dollhouse in some screwed-up kid’s closet with “All the Who that’s fit to print” for the week ending June 8th, 2014…
Click through for more info. [Image property of Nerd Block. Doctor Who property of BBC WorldWide.Deja vu… [Image property of BBC WorldWide.]“New” Photo I’m not the kind of guy to look a gift image in the mouth, but BBC’s recently released still of Peter Capaldi from Season Eight is basically the opening still from the recently released teaser. So… Thanks?
A Rectangle That Isn’t the TARDIS Nerd Block is a unique subscription service that advertises itself as “Comic-Con in a box,” and they very well may be right. A monthly subscription – priced anywhere from $14-$20 – gets you a t-shirt and a whole boatload of swag. They are adding Doctor Who to their arsenal of franchises, and to that end, are holding a Doctor Who trivia contest starting tomorrow, June 9th, and ending June 13th. Winners get a t-shirt. They are also offering a special Doctor Who “Nerd Block,” as well as an opportunity to win a free Block. [More on Nerd Block and other geek swag subscription services coming soon.]
Photo Gallery: Guests of the Doctor
As I’ve mentioned before, in weeks where Doctor Who news is… less than abundant… I will be filling in the gaps with glimpses into the show that don’t necessarily involve the latest headlines. This week was really slow, so…
With over fifty years in production, and around 800 episodes aired, Doctor Who is a certified Guiness World Record holder – as both the longest running scifi program on television, and the most number of episodes aired. And in those 50 years, it stands to reason that many familiar faces have passed through the doors of the Cardiff Studios. Here is list of 15 actors and actresses who Fridge Nukers are sure to recognize from their favorite movies and TV shows.
1. Andrew Garfield. [Episodes: Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks.] Before he was nominated for an Oscar in The Social Network, and long before his turn as The Amazing Spider-Man, Andrew played Frank, a down on his luck worker in Depression Era New York. He aids Tenth Doctor, David Tennant, and Companion Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman) in foiling a Dalek plot to create human/Dalek hybrids… and turn other humans into pig people.
2. Simon Pegg. [Episode: The Long Game.] Simon Pegg is mostly known for his comedy work on such contemporary classics as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The End of the World. Of course, he also plays Scotty in the reboot of the Star Trek films. In DW: TLG, Pegg takes a darker turn as The Editor – a media monopolist that controls the citizens of a remote Earth satellite. Coincidentally, Penelope Wilton, who played Shaun’s mother in SOTD, has appeared on the show four times as ruthless politician, Harriet Jones.
3. Anthony Head. [Episode: School Reunion.] At some point while playing congenial mentor, Giles, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Head, very much wanting to be with his family in London, quietly moved into the background and recurring guest spots. One franchises loss was another’s gain when he played evil schoolmaster, Mr. Finch, in the third episode of David Tennant’s run, “School Reunion.” Head was also a front runner for the Eighth Doctor, but lost the role to Paul McGann.
4. Hugh Bonneville. [Episodes: Curse of the Black Spot and A Good Man Goes To War.] Bonneville, most recently seen by American audiences alongside George Clooney and Matt Damon in The Monuments Men, played pirate Captain Henry Avery, whose crew is saved by Eleventh Doctor. Matt Smith. Though their relationship started off rocky – Captain Avery made the Doctor walk the plank – the two became allies. He is another kind of “ship’s captain,” as the Earl of Grantham, Lord of Downtown Abbey.
5. Carey Mulligan. [Episode: Blink.] “Blink,” is not only one of the best episodes of the new Doctor Who series, it is one of the best written episodes of television I have ever seen. Though Martha is the Tenth Doctor’s companion at the time – neither of them appear for more than a few minutes – it is Sally Sparrow (Mulligan) who helps the two of them, from the present, as they are stranded in the 60s. The episode also marks the first appearance of the Weeping Angels.
6. Sir Michael Gambon. [Episode: A Christmas Carol.] Three words: Dumbledore plays Scrooge. Well, Gambon plays a miserly character who controls the weather on a planet where a ship Amy and Rory are travelling on is doomed to crash – unless of course, the Doctor can pull off a Christmas miracle in the current series’ sixth holiday special. Speaking of royalty…
7. Sir Derek Jacobi. [Episode: ] Jacobi is one of those actors that you’ve seen in many, many films, but unless you are a film buff, you may or may not know him by name. He’s been in Gladiator and The King’s Speech, however, Kenneth Brannagh’s Cinderella (due out next year) is sure to bring him to the attention of a new generation of movie lovers.
8. Bill Nighy. [Episode: Vincent and the Doctor.] The Scourge of the Seven Seas in the Pirates of the Carribean films, Davy Jones, played by veteran character actor Bill Nighy, makes a cameo as the curator of the Van Gogh Museum. After van Gogh helps the Doctor in a monster mystery in his time, the Doctor and Amy take the despondent Vincent to the present, so he can see how influential his art became.
9. John Cleese. [Episode: City of Death.] As a critic, Monty Python funnyman (and co-author of the graphic novel Superman: True Brit) John Cleese was another cameo role from the world of art.
10. Timothy Dalton. [Episode: The End of Time.] Like James Bond, renegade Time Lord, Rassilon, is a man with a complex backstory. In a nutshell, Rassilon sought to avoid his inevitable death in the Time War by changing the prophecy that the War Doctor would destroy Time Lord home planet, Gallifrey, to defeat the Daleks once and for all. He was eventually sucked into a time lock, and last we saw him, he was being attacked by… The Master.
11. Eric Roberts. [Episode: the 1996 television movie, Doctor Who.] The Master is a classic villain whose enmity with the Doctor goes back to Third Doctor John Pertwee’s run in the early 70s. Roberts is not only one of two well-known actors to inhabit the role, but the only American to play it as well. Those who haven’t seen the (unfairly maligned) attempt at a Who reboot in the mid-90s starring Paul McGann (of the cult classic Withnail and I) can compare Roberts’ not-so-subtle performance to his character in Machete. To be clear, this incarnation of The Master didn’t attack Rassilon. Rather it was Sir Derek Jacobi, who was in both Gladiator and The King’s Speech. [And the Secret of Nimh.]
12. Toby Jones. [Episode: Amy’s Choice.] Jones’ take on classic Marvel villain, Arnim Zola (in both Captain America and Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier), and even Claudius Templesmith in The Hunger Games, have nothing on The Dream Lord – who in an attempt to kill both Amy Pond and the Eleventh Doctor, traps her in her own dream of a normal life.
13. Richard E. Grant. [Episode: ] Paul McGann is not the only Doctor Who/Withnail and I connection. As The Great Intelligence (well, the dead human husk inhabited thereby) he was last seen, he was kind of deastroyed(ish), but really, aspects of himself were scattered throughout the Doctor’s timeline. So while we probably won’t see him/it soon, TGI is likely to appear, sooner or later.
14. Paul Morrissey [Episode: The Next Doctor.]Where Blink is surely my favorite episode, Morrissey’s character in “The Next Doctor,” Jackson Lake is surely my favorite [human] character. The Tenth Doctor lands in 1800s England and meets Lake, otherwise known as The Doctor. He’s got a TARDIS and Without the eyepatch, it might be difficult to recognize him, but Morrissey is best known in the States as The Governor in AMC’s The Walking Dead. Jackson Lake is much nicer.
15. Peter Capaldi. [Episode: (DW) The Fires of Pompeii (Torchwood): Children of Earth.] Before he was the Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi was a guest-star on Doctor Who – as Lucius Caecilius, head of a family rescued by the Tenth Doctor during the destruction of Pompeii – and had a role on the DW spinoff, Torchwood, as Permanent Secretary of the Home Office, John Forbisher. These apparent inconsistencies are not lost, according to rumor, on Showrunner, Steven Moffat, and will be addressed throughout Capaldi’s run.
