The Figures Mash (part 1)

There is a book on my shelf that makes the list of Brilliant Charity Shop Finds of 2017. Entitled Figure Fantasy, it celebrates the work of Daniel Picard, who has turned the careful posing of costumed action figures into what is quite literally an art form. Here’s the Man of Steel etching “BRUCE WAYNE IS BATMAN” onto a wall with his heat vision. Here’s the Hulk bending a tree. Here’s Darth Vader propped up at a urinal, the toilet walls lined by stormtroopers anxiously trying to incline their heads in the opposited direction. Look him up; the guy’s a genius.

I do not have Picard’s photographic skills, swanky lighting or creativity. I also don’t have the time or the patience. I have trouble enough getting the ruddy things to stand upright on concrete without wobbling in a summer breeze. However, I do have a decent-sized garden and the occasional good idea. Which has meant that as the children have got older, and the tendency to re-enact the finale of ‘Blink’ recedes somewhat, our playtime sessions have been replaced by impromptu photos in the garden. “Give me a Capaldi,” I’ll say in the manner of a concentrating surgeon or experienced mechanic, not taking my eyes from the scene I’m semi-meticulously assembling. “Dalek. Cybermen. Damn, we’ve got a wobble. Blu-tac, quick! CAN I GET SOME HELP IN HERE PLEASE?!”

Look, Doctor Who toys deserve to come out of their plastic packaging, all right? I can’t understand – truly I can’t – the mentality of people who buy them simply to have them, in order to build up a collection that does nothing except gather dust, a factory line of plastic David Tennants that sit permanently bubbled in cellophane, their tiny arms and legs bound with those irritating little cable things. Oh, they’re worth more, are they? What’s worth? How do you measure that?

So one of my Angels is missing a wing and Morbius’s leg has a tendency to drop out of its socket unannounced, but at least they get used. And such is the extent to which I have neglected this blog this year that we have a whole stack of unposted pictures, enough for a small exhibition, all hastily composed and all equally ludicrous. So this week and next, while you’re all drumming your fingers waiting for ‘The Halloween Apocalypse’, I’ll stick them all out here.

We’ll start with this one.

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“Oh great. We’re back on Trenzalore.”

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Unused Fourth Doctor stories.

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“Right. I don’t want to panic anyone, but there’s a leek in the boat.”

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“Interesting look, Frobisher.”

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Now showing on Britbox: Doctor Who and the Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes.

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“Hello, old friend. And here we are, you and me, on the last page.”

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“Seriously. You’ve been out for like a month and a half. Don’t you think you can stop doing that now?”

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“When this baby hits eighty-eight miles an hour, you’re – GREAT SCOTT!”

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“I’m sure you’ll get the…point, Doctor. He. He he he he.”

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The Doctor and Graham get caught up in a game of Tetris.

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“Hey, anybody seen a – you know what, never mind.”

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“So. We meet again, Great Intelligence.”

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“Uh…she did it.”

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More of the same next time! Enjoy your week.

Papa Louie Pals Presents: The Companions (Part 2)

Ah, Papa Louie Pals. How do I love thee, and thy sandbox of delights? Let me count the ways. There are twenty-eight of them in this particular edition, mostly taking the form of Classic (pre-2005) companions. The list is extensive but not necessarily exhaustive (Grace, for example, isn’t featured, but I may save her for an odds and ends feature somewhere down the line). Some of these are better than others; a few of them are so generic they could probably be anyone, but if I tell you who they’re supposed to be, and if you squint, then perhaps you might just about manage to make out the superficial resemblances. Others will be fairly obvious from the get-go. None of them is perfect, but some are quite good. And, of course, if you missed the first part of the companion run, or even the Doctors I did a couple of years back, you’re welcome to go and check out both.

Right! Onwards. First, here are two that didn’t make the cut from the previous batch – Doctor Ruth, as I like to call her, and Sacha Dhawan’s Master. One of them looks just a little happier.

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In keeping with the ‘newer characters I haven’t done before now’ theme, here’s Wilf. He’s standing next to Susan, who is wearing her classic stripy ensemble, as seen in ‘An Unearthly Child’ (that’s the final broadcast edition, as opposed to the pilot). Fun fact: she also wore stripes in her final story, when her grandfather threatened to smack her on the arse before abandoning her in a toxic wasteland with a man she scarcely knew.

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Ian and Barbara next. Barbara’s hair is, I think, not quite right. But Ian’s quiff is right on the money, and the outfits are a reasonable match.

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Here’s Victoria Waterfield, in a crudely rendered edition of the explorer’s outfit she wore while hiking around Wales the Himalayas in ‘The Abominable Snowmen’. She’s accompanied by Steven Taylor, who looks like he’s off to a Where’s Wally? convention.

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Vicki and Katarina. For some reason I really struggled with these two. They’re both so…I don’t know, nondescript when it comes to outfit choices. I’m still not convinced I really nailed it. (Katarina’s dress is purple because I found an interesting piece of fan art where she was wearing purple, and besides, it’s my wife’s favourite colour…)

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Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart. That moustache is a little too Air Force for my liking, and the hat is completely wrong, but at least it’s military. For Peri, I went with the pink outfit she wore in ‘Attack of the Cybermen’.

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Dodo and Zoe. Dodo’s singlet is so near, and yet so far – what I’d have given for one with a donut! – but other than that it’s a reasonable likeness. Zoe is wearing the silver jumpsuit she wore when splayed over the TARDIS in ‘The Mind Robber’, where the camera lingers over her buttocks for far longer than is necessary. That may be why I picked it.

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You couldn’t not put these two together, could you? I wanted a sailor outfit for Ben, but they didn’t have one. As a result he’s a bit nondescript – but stick him next to Polly, and they’re peas and carrots.

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You’re spoilt for choice with Jo Grant – so many cracking outfits! – but in the end I plumped for the cowgirl ensemble she wore in ‘Day of the Daleks’, although mercifully you are unable to see up her skirt. I feel like Sarah Jane rather drew the short straw – she was the epitome of working chic for most of her run, right until that last story. But honestly, how could you not use it?!?

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It’s a kilt, not a skirt, and I think I got the colours more or less right. Jamie is joined by Liz, who is in her Silurian outfit, and probably just about to run across a weir.

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This was an easy one. All you need is the hair and it’s instantly Bonnie Langford, even without the deckchair polo shirt. Next to that, Ace looks positively Goth-like.

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Tegan’s top is a little more strappy and a little less abstract than I’d have liked, but it’s a reasonable approximation and it does at least have that 1980s vibe about it. Inevitably, Turlough looks miserable. Well you would too if you went travelling in space and the only clothing you brought was your school uniform.

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Both Romanas. Mary Tamm is a little..what’s the word…dull, and I’d have liked to do that rather splendid mauve thing she wore in ‘The Androids of Tara’, but there was nothing that matched, so the white gown won the day. Her later counterpart is dressed for running from Daleks.

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Last but not least: Nyssa, wearing something that looks a little bit like a New Romantic cosplay on her ‘Keeper of Traken’ outfit. She’s in the company of Adric, who even has his badge for mathematical excellence, even if it has been placed rather awkwardly around his neck like an Olympic medal. He’s still a dick, anyway.

And that’s your lot. I’d love to do a monsters edition, but I don’t think they do sink plungers…

Have I Got Whos For You (Seasonal Edition)

We’ve got something quite special turning up here at Brian of Morbius over the next day or two, but right now it’s half past six in the morning and I’m just taking a few minutes to do a meme catchup before these go completely out of date. In culinary terms, this is the blogging equivalent of that thing where you get all the leftovers out of the fridge and whisk them into a soup. I suppose. Sorry if that doesn’t work, I’ve not had coffee yet…

We open with a deleted scene from the recent finale to The Mandalorian, indicating that the series’ big reveal was originally planned much, much earlier.

I don’t know what it is; I tried every which way but when you paste it onto Matt Smith’s body it just doesn’t look like Luke Skywalker. Is this because it never did? And we simply bought it because the he had a lightsaber in his hand, had just jumped out of an X-Wing and the whole thing bore an uncanny resemblance to the ending of Rogue One? Or is my Photoshopping off this week? I’d say I think we should be told, but I can’t help thinking it’s not important in the grand scheme of things.

In any case, it’s not the first time I’ve done a Doctor Who / Mandalorian crossover and I suspect it won’t be the last.

<coughs>

Elsewhere, in a TARDIS somewhere in England, the rollout of the much-anticipated Covid vaccine is not going down with everyone, in a quite literal sense.

There are complaints when it’s revealed the Brexit Deal wasn’t quite as oven-ready as we were told.

And having nothing else to do, movie fans have launched into an epidemic of overreacting to unnecessary changes and miscast musical roles.

“AND THAT’S FOR RUINING THE PROM, YOU TWAT!”

We couldn’t end without doing something Christmassy. So here’s an unused still from series 12, part five.

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Trouble looms when Clara pops round to Matt Smith’s TARDIS to ask whether he’s got the turkey on.

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And trouble also looms beneath a Christmas tree in Oxfordshire when two unsuspecting action figures come up against a deadly enemy.

“Run, Bill! It’s Santa Claws!”