A Plethora of Who

All of our lives have undoubtedly become a lot less exciting in the past several months as everything has closed up due to the coronavirus. Speaking for myself, I'm kind of on an emotional tightrope at the moment as we drag into month 3 and every day off becomes an internal discussion about where I'm going to order takeout from. In my state, we're just starting to open up restaurants but only for outdoor dining (great! Just in time for 90 degree heat!) and only at a much smaller capacity which means everybody and their grandmother is out looking to eat lunch at Applebee's and for people like me who have social anxiety and don't like crowds and don't want to wait 3 hours for a subpar burger and fries it is probably going to be a different kind of painful in the next several months. I went to every local hair cutter today as well only to find that they were all booked up and I'll be fucking damned if I'm going to make an appointment 3 weeks in advance at Supercuts. That's like making a reservation at Burger King. Fuck that. In any event, I've been watching a lot of movies and tv and listening to a lot of music to ease my emotional state lately and one of my favorite shows, Doctor Who, has had a lot of activity in recent months as episodes were airing in the UK and now that the entirety of NuWho has come to HBOMax. I've posted a few of these little "Lockdown" specials already but I decided to compile a bunch more that I've enjoyed and share them here. They've warmed my heart maybe they'll do the same for whoever else finds this. Even this massive list isn't complete. There are lovely interstitials (dubbed "Subwave Network Announcements" in step with the episode "The Stolen Earth") by past actors and Lis Sladen's daughter and grandchildren  which I didn't include here and there are numerous other bits and bobs that I either couldn't find or didn't care enough about to track them down but I encourage you to find them if you're a fan. It's a great time to be a Whovian.


First we have 2 lovely little animated videos from a recent book entitled "Doctor Who: The Women Who Lived". The first is "The Story of Susan Foreman".

And the second is "The Story of Rose Tyler".

Next is "Pompadour", a short meant to fit into "The Girl in the Fireplace" featuring the last words to the Doctor that Reinette will ever write. Somehow, it makes the episode even more heartbreaking.

Next is "Fear is a Superpower", a comic strip meant to fit into the season finale of Series Eight, "Death in Heaven", which links Danny Pink in his half finished Cyberform back to the episode "Listen" when he first encountered the Doctor and Clara as a little boy.

Next is "Revenge of the Nestene", a narrated final chapter to the First Doctor and Rose's encounter with the alien race in NuWho's opener, "Rose".

Next is "The Zygon Isolation" which takes place sometime after but links back to "The Zygon Invasion"/"The Zygon Inversion" in Series 9.

Next is "Shadow of a Doubt" which takes place after Series 3's "Human Nature" 2 parter and features expanded universe character Bernice Summerfield (who has never appeared on tv) encountering Daughter of Mine trapped in the mirror where the Tenth Doctor left her.

Next is a fascinating sequel to the last short titled "The Shadow in the Mirror" which features the Thirteenth Doctor finally returning to the mirror and facing Daughter of Mine.

Next is a short called "The Descendants of Pompeii" which links back to the Series 4 story "The Fires of Pompeii".

Next is a beautiful mix of episode quotes and fanart called "Vincent and the Doctor's Gallery" based around one of the most touching NuWho episodes ever from Series 5, "Vincent and the Doctor".

Next is an absolutely beautiful version of "Long Song" by Murray Gold which is featured in the Series Seven episode "The Rings of Ahkaten" while the Eleventh Doctor is giving one of his most famous speeches. This version of the song was put together during quarantine and is sung by hundreds of fans.

Next is "Doctors Assemble!" which is an absolute delight as the Fourth Doctor is trapped in his TARDIS and must call on all of the other Doctors to help him escape. Voice actors take over the roles and for the most part they do a fine job. But the kick in this one is from seeing the Doctors play off of one another, something we will never get to see in the series most likely. My favorite, The Third Doctor, gets some brilliant lines. A joy.

Next is a lovely video of current Doctor Jodie Whittaker being surprised by Coldplay as she records a version of their song, Yellow, for a charity album. I love hearing Jodie's accent come out so heavily when she sings.

and next is a fanmade video incorporating some of the Thirteenth Doctor's scenes with Jodie's version of "Yellow".

Next is a hilarious video mixing my love of music with my love of Doctor Who. Jodie is guesting on the Graham Norton Show along with Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Lady Gaga when the subject of a theremin (one of the unusual instruments used to originally create the Doctor Who Theme) comes up and Graham brings one out. Enjoy!

Next is an appearance by both Jodie and David Tennant on James Corden's program. Most amusing to me is when Tennant bemoans the lack of real leadership in the UK right now and Corden has an apt reply.

Next is a second clip from the same program where Jodie and David interact with fans via Zoom and judge a Cosplay Contest.

And lastly is an extended interview with Jodie, David, and adding Matt Smith to celebrate NuWho moving to HBOMax. There are some great fan questions that I always love to hear the answers to (favorite story? what companion besides your own would you most want to work with?) and its lovely to see how each of them has taken on the mantle of being The Doctor in some cases long after their tenure is over. I hope these videos brightened your day! Enjoy!

RIP Chris Trousdale

Covid has fucked up a lot of things in the world, not the least of which is our economy, our daily lives, and our sense of "normal". It's also killed over 110 thousand people in the United States alone. That's a staggering number and by doing this little post I don't want to take anything away from the other victims. John Prine was among their number for Christ's sake. That dude is like musical bedrock. Seeing as I'm so in to bubblegum pop music though and since he was a part of my community, Chris Trousdale's death seemed like something I should post about. Chris got his start in the boyband Dream Street with future hitmaker Jesse McCartney. They never racked up any major hits, but their album is certainly a bubblegum popstravaganza and they toured for several years before fizzling out. There's more to the story though I'm not up on the details. I think Chris' Mom might have wanted him to front the group a la Diana Ross and the Supremes and that led to tensions within the band but I could be wrong. In any event, the group disbanded and the boys all went on to try solo careers of varying success with the most notable being Jesse. But Chris never left the industry. He was always plugging away, either on an album or a guest appearance on Shake It Up or auditioning for The Voice or giving dance classes. Anytime a former boybander comes out as gay its a win for the community so when Chris came out I was thrilled, and he always seemed happy and proud to be gay. Even when Aaron Carter came out as bisexual a few years back and admitted to having sex with one of his former tourmates and people deduced that it was Chris he fully admitted it and said he was happy that Aaron had taken the plunge. I can think of so many other ways that incident could have gone. He seemed like a really genuine guy, and I don't want some of the thirst pics I've included in this post to take away from him in any way but honestly I think he would have been happy that he looked good in them and let's be honest he was a pretty damn good looking dude. I've included some of Chris' songs along with a very cute video of Chris giving a dance class and finally the former members of Dream Street reuniting to serenade the memory of Chris. They sound amazing. I'm sure he would have been touched. You will be missed Mr. Trousdale.

Doctor Who: The Best of Days

Stephen Moffatt has written a new lockdown special starring Matt Lucas and Pearl Mackie (audio only). It's short but sweet and features a great last line regarding the Doctor's current form.

Destino

Way back in 1945, Walt Disney wanted to make an animated movie with artist Salvador Dali. They actually built up quite an impressive array of ideas and pages, but could never seem to get the project off the ground and then both of them died leaving the movie forever in limbo. Finally completed in 2003, Destino won an Oscar for animated short and was certainly a testament to the brilliance of both Dali and Disney. But recently, someone has synced it up with Pink Floyd's Time and it's actually become even more of a revelation. Enjoy.

Sismo Rides Again

Fuck I love him. Nuff said lol.

The Only Way

I'm already on an emotional tightrope after being quarantined for 2 months so I've been crying a lot over what the country is going through. We really are at a powder keg moment. I decided to post some positive videos about the protests going on. I've already heard criticism of some of these. That the police are pandering to the protesters just to silence them. But I don't think so. I prefer to believe that the police and protesters and all of the rest of us will have to work together to move forward. And that the police know this, and those of them who are on the right side of history are honestly looking to connect and bring about change. Love, peace, unity. They might be laughable to some but it's certainly what I hope for. Bottom line is, everybody has to work at erasing systemic racism together. It's the only way.

Getting the Gang Back Together....

Josh Gad has a wonderful web series temporarily (maybe not if we're lucky?) while we're all quarantined called Reunited Apart. He's already reunited the casts of The Goonies, Back to the Future, and Splash. I guess those were too few people for him, because now he's taken on the unenviable task of bringing together the massive cast of The Lord of the Rings (Not to mention the director and his wife the co-screenwriter and composer Howard Shore). This was an amazing video. Those who know me know how much I love this film trilogy. It is an utter thing of beauty on all fronts: acting, directing, writing. And beyond the second (IMO inferior) film trilogy, something like this will probably never happen again. But particularly as a gay fan, I think Ian McKellan hit the nail on the head once when asked why he thought this series was so important to the queer community. I'm paraphrasing because I couldn't find the clip when I searched, but essentially he said queer people love the movies so much because they're about family but not just any family a chosen family who will support each other to the death, and sadly so many queer people cannot rely on their birth families to support them so, much like the fellowship in the movie, they find their own families. Watching this video brought all those emotions up again for me. It's lovely to see how close all of the actors still are. And the line readings and prop reveals were great. But the tattoos fascinated me the most (and let's be honest watching Elijah Wood lift his shirt to show what amounts almost to a tramp stamp was pretty hot lol). But it was just so nice to see the gang back together again. I didn't want to cost the video any donations so if you see this here and not on YouTube and can donate please do so here is the link: https://www.nokidhungry.org/ . I donated to both this organization and the Minnesota Freedom Fund this week and next week will probably be more resources. We need to all stick together now more than ever. Videos like this help. My heart was lifted. Enjoy.