The Many Video Formats of Doctor Who

Doctor Who, being around for so long, has gone through a format change or two. Here are some of them!

The God Damballa Gives Orders: "Harness The Blood, Chucky" | Chucky (S3 E7) | SYFY & USA Network

Charles Lee Ray faces the god Damballa in the form of Chucky in this scene from Chucky Season 3, Episode 7: "There Will Be Blood."

Stream the Chucky TV Series from the beginning on Peacock.

In Chucky’s unending thirst for power, season 3 now sees Chucky ensconced with the most powerful family in the world — America's First Family, inside the infamous walls of the White House. How did Chucky wind up here? What in God’s name does he want? And how can Jake, Devon, and Lexy possibly get to Chucky inside the world’s most secure house, all while balancing the pressures of romantic relationships and growing up? Meanwhile, Tiffany faces a looming crisis of her own as the police close in on her for “Jennifer Tilly’s” murderous rampage last season.

The series is produced by UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, and executive produced by Don Mancini, Nick Antosca, Alex Hedlund, David Kirschner and Jeff Renfroe.

Happy Birthday to Actress, Author, and Horror Icon Kathryn Leigh Scott

On ABC’s “Dark Shadows” she was Josette - the bride of the vampire Barnabas - and an endless variety of women who resembled her throughout time. Scott recreated the character for the feature film House of Dark Shadows (1970) and has also appeared on genre favorites from Star Trek: The Next Generation to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. She’s also a prolific author and publisher.

Happy Birthday to the Mighty Tom Baker!

Happy Birthday Tom, here’s to plenty more years of traveling in space and time!

The British character actor Tom Baker, best known as the fourth incarnation of The Doctor, was born in 1934 in Liverpool, England, to Mary Jane (Fleming) and John Stewart Baker. His father was of English and Scottish descent, while his mother’s family was originally from Ireland. Tom, along with his younger sister, Lulu, and younger brother, John, was raised in a poor Catholic community by his mother, a house-cleaner and barmaid, who was a devout Catholic, and his father, a sailor, who was rarely at home. At age fifteen, Baker left school to become a monk with the Brothers of Ploermel on the island of Jersey. Six years later, he abandoned the monastic life and performed his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps., where he became interested in acting. Baker then served on the Queen Mary for seven months as a sailor in the Merchant Navy before attending Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in Kent, England, on scholarship. Baker acted in repertory theaters around Britain until the late 1960s when he joined up with the National Theatre, where he performed with such respected actors as Maggie Smith, Anthony Hopkins and Laurence Olivier, who helped him get his first prominent film role as Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971). His performance in this film earned him two Golden Globe Award nominations, one for best actor in a supporting role and another for best new star of the year. A couple of years earlier, Baker had made his theatrical film debut in The Winter’s Tale (1967).

Despite appearances in a spate of films, including Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Canterbury Tales (1972), The Mutations (1974), The Vault of Horror (1973) and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), Baker was working as a labourer at a building site when he landed the role of the main character in the popular, long-running British television series Doctor Who (1963), a role that brought him international fame and popularity.

His period of starring in the series was distinguished by high viewing figures and many stories which became regarded as classics. He remains one of the most instantly recognisable incarnations of the character.

After his seven-year stint as Doctor Who from 1974 to 1981, Baker returned to theatre and made occasional television and film appearances, playing Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982), Puddleglum in The Chronicles of Narnia story The Silver Chair (1990) and Hallvarth, Clan Leader of the Hunter Elves, in Dungeons & Dragons (2000).

Throughout his career, Baker’s acting style has been to portray his characters with a “larger-than-life” air.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE MUNRO! 

Caroline Munro (born 16 January 1949 in Windsor, Berkshire) is a British actress and model best known for her many appearances in science fiction and action films of the 1970s and 1980s. According to Munro, her career took off in 1966 when her mother and photographer friend entered some headshots of her to Britain’s The Evening News “Face of the Year” contest.

“I wanted to do art. Art was my love. I went to Art School in Brighton but I was not very good at it. I just did not know what to do. I had a friend at the college who was studying photography and he needed somebody to photograph and he asked me. Unbeknownst to me, he sent the photographs to a big newspaper in London. The famous fashion photographer, David Bailey, was conducting a photo contest and my picture won.” 

This led to modelling chores, her first job being for Vogue Magazine at the age of 17. She moved to London to pursue top modelling jobs and became a major cover girl for fashion and TV ads while there. Decorative bit parts came her way in such films as Casino Royale and Where’s Jack? (1969). One of her many photo ads got her a screen test and a one-year contract at Paramount where she won the role of Richard Widmark’s daughter in the comedy/western A Talent for Loving (1969). 

1969 proved to be a good year for Munro, because it was then that she began a lucrative 10 year relationship with Lamb’s Navy Rum. Her image was plastered all over the country, and this would eventually lead to her next big break.

Hammer Films CEO Sir James Carreras spotted Munro on a Lamb’s Navy Rum poster/billboard. He asked his right hand man, James Liggett, to find and screen test her. She was immediately signed to a one-year contract. Her first film for Hammer proved to be something of a turning point in her career. It was during the making of Dracula AD 1972 that she decided from this film onward she was a full-fledged actress. Up until then she was always considered a model who did some acting on the side.

A string of fantasy and horror roles followed, including starring turns in Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1973), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), At the Earth’s Core (1976),  The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), StarCrash (1978), Maniac (1980), The Last Horror Film (1982), Faceless (1988), and The Black Cat (1989).

By the 1990s Munro had decided to focus more on her family, daughters, Georgina and Iona, and husband George Dugdale. However, since 2003 Caroline has renewed her interest in acting and has appeared in a number of film and audio productions. Since 2021 Caroline has been presenting the hit television series The Cellar Club for Talking Pictures TV.

The title First Lady of Fantasy was given to Caroline by journalist Steve Swires, who wrote many Starlog and Fangoria (@FANGORIA) articles on the actress in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Happy Birthday Caroline!

Official Website:  http://www.CarolineMunro.org

Representation: Thomas Bowington/Bowington Management

Some of her credits include: Dracula AD 1972 (1972), Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1973), The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), At the Earth’s Core (1976), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), StarCrash (1978), Maniac (1980), The Last Horror Film (1982), Faceless (1988), The Black Cat (1989), Flesh for the Beast (2003), Turpin (2009), Midsomer Murders (2013), The Landlady (2013), Crying Wolf (2015), Vampyres (2015), Cute Little Buggers (2016), Frankula (2017), End User (2018), House of the Gorgon (2019), The Haunting of Margam Castle (2020), Ulalume - A Ballad (2023), The Pocket Film of Superstitions (2023), and the upcoming The Presence of Snowgood (2024).

Happy Birthday Barbara Steele

Barbara Steele (born 29 December 1937) is a British film actress and producer. Famous for her starring in Italian Gothic horror films of the 1960s, her breakthrough performance was in Black Sunday (1960), where she played the dual role of Asa and Princess Katia Vajda.

Additionally, Steele had supporting parts in Federico Fellini‘s 8½ (1963), and appeared on television in the 1991 miniseries Dark Shadows. Steele has appeared in several films in the 2010s, including a lead role in The Butterfly Room (2012) and supporting role in Ryan Gosling’s Lost River (2014).

Steele was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England. She studied art at the Chelsea Art School and in Paris at the Sorbonne.

Steele guest starred on various British television shows including the spy drama, Danger Man (aka Secret Agent) starring Patrick McGoohan. She made her American television debut in 1960 as Dolores in the “Daughter of Illusion” episode of the ABC series, Adventures in Paradise, starring Gardner McKay. In that same year she was replaced by Barbara Eden in the Elvis Presley film Flaming Star after a disagreement with director Don Siegel. In 1961, she appeared as Phyllis in the “Beta Delta Gamma” episode of CBS‘s Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She also had an important role in Federico Fellini’s celebrated 8½ in 1963, and in 1966 appeared in the second-season episode of NBC‘s I Spy, “Bridge of Spies”.

During the 1960s, Steele starred in a string of Italian horror films, including Black Sunday (1960), The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962), The Ghost (1963), The Long Hair of Death (1964), Castle of Blood (1964), Terror-Creatures from the Grave and Nightmare Castle (both 1965). She also starred in Roger Corman's 1961 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Pit and the Pendulum and the British film Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968).

Steele returned to the horror genre in the later 1970s, appearing in three horror films: David Cronenberg's Shivers (a.k.a. They Came From Within) (1975), Piranha (1978), and Silent Scream (1979).

Steele served as associate producer of the 1983 TV miniseries, The Winds of War, and was a producer for its 1988 sequel, War and Remembrance, for which she shared the 1989 Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special with executive producer Dan Curtis.

Steele was cast as Julia Hoffman in the 1991 remake of the 1960s ABC television series Dark Shadows. In 2010, she was a guest star in the Dark Shadows audio drama, The Night Whispers.

In 2010, actor-writer Mark Gatiss interviewed Steele about her role in Black Sunday for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror. In 2012, Gatiss again interviewed Steele about her role in Shivers for his follow-up documentary, Horror Europa. In 2014, she appeared in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, the drama-fantasy thriller film Lost River, in which she portrayed the character Belladonna in a supporting role.

Celebrating Jacqueline Pearce

Jacqueline Pearce is a British actress best know for playing Servalan in all four series of Blake's 7.

Born in Woking in the south of England, Jacqueline Pearce trained at the British stage school RADA and at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio in Los Angeles. 

Her TV career began in the 1960’s with regular roles in the ITV Play of the Week as well as appearances in shows such as The Avengers and Armchair Theatre.

She starred in two Hammer horror films, The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile, filmed simultaneously in 1966. Other film roles include Sky West and Crooked, Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River and How to Get Ahead in Advertising.

Roles in the 1970’s included Rosa Dartle in David Copperfield, Claudia Haswell in Couples, and Anna Rupius in Vienna 1900. But it was in 1978 that she was cast in the role for which she would be ever known.

Servalan was the Supreme Commander of the Terran Federation in Blakes 7, the TV drama devised by Dalek creator Terry Nation. The character was only expected to appear in one episode of the saga, but Pearce’s electrifying performance ensured the character would survive far longer than the title character, appearing in all four series.

A cold, calculating, ruthless sociopath Servalan’s main aim was to destroy the crew of the Liberator and the relish with which Pearce played the character ensured she would remain a fan favourite for the series duration. 

Her Doctor Who appearance came in 1985, playing Chessene of the Franzine Grig in the Colin Baker story The Two Doctors. She later appeared in a slew of Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who audio adventures for for Big Finish Productions.

In 1991 she played Miss Pendragon in the Russell T. Davies series Dark Season. She also appeared in series such as Casualty, Doctors, Daniel Deronda and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Her theatre work included West End appearances in Harold Pinter’s Otherwise Engaged (Queen’s Theatre) and JB Priestly’s Dangerous Corner (Garrick Theatre); Shadowlands; Tom Stoppard’s Night and Day (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry) ; and her one woman show A Star is Torn.

Jacqueline relocated to South Africa for several years, initially to care for orphaned monkeys, before recently returning to the UK. Her autobiography, From Byfleet to the Bush, was published in 2012. 

Jacqueline Kay Pearce, actor, born 20 December 1943; died 3 September 2018

Wild Blue Yonder: Behind the Scenes | Doctor Who

"A story designed to push them as far as they can go" 💥 Go behind the scenes of 'Wild Blue Yonder'...

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The Star Beast: Behind the Scenes | Doctor Who

From comic strip, to script, to screen! Go behind the scenes as the cast and crew adapt 'The Star Beast' for TV 🎬 #DoctorWho

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Flashbacks with David and Catherine | Doctor Who

What will happen next?... 😱 Catherine Tate and David Tennant give you the rundown on all the Doctor and Donna's past adventures!

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Celebrating 60 Years Of Doctor Who With The Iconic Time-Travelling Sidesicks | This Morning

Grab your sonic screwdriver and get ready to travel back in time. As Doctor Who celebrates its 60th anniversary, we’re joined by two of the iconic sidekicks from the 60s and 80s - Wendy Padbury and Nicola Bryant - as they recollect their time in a true British institution and to look ahead on the next 60 years. 

 Broadcast on 24/11/2023

Doctor Who on BBC Breakfast 23rd Nov 2023 | 60th Anniversary Celebration

A couple of items celebrating Doctor Who's 60th anniversary from BBC Breakfast on 23rd November 2023. Includes and interview with Nicola Bryant also interviews with Russell T Davies, Waris Hussein, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and David Tennant.

Celebrating Ingrid Pitt

Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov; 21 November 1937 – 23 November 2010) was a Polish-British actress and writer best known for her work in horror films of the 1970s.

Ingoushka Petrov was born in Warsaw, Poland, one of two daughters of a father of German Jewish descent and a Polish Jewish mother. During World War II, she and her mother were imprisoned in Stutthof concentration camp in Sztutowo, Free City of Danzig (present-day Nowy Dwór Gdański County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland) but escaped. In Berlin, in the 1950s, Ingoushka married an American soldier, Laud Roland Pitt Jr., and moved to California. After her marriage failed she returned to Europe, but after a small role in a film, she took the shortened stage name “Ingrid Pitt”, keeping her former husband’s surname, and headed to Hollywood, where she worked as a waitress while trying to make a career in films.

In the early 1960s, Pitt was a member of the prestigious Berliner Ensemble, under the guidance of Bertolt Brecht’s widow Helene Weigel. In 1965, she made her film debut in Doctor Zhivago, playing a minor role. In 1968, she co-starred in the low-budget science-fiction film The Omegans, and in the same year, played British spy Heidi Schmidt in Where Eagles Dare opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.

Her work with Hammer Film Productions elevated her to cult figure status. She starred as Carmilla/Mircalla in The Vampire Lovers (1970), based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s novella Carmilla, and played the title role in Countess Dracula (1971), based on the legends about Countess Elizabeth Báthory. Pitt also appeared in the Amicus horror anthology film The House That Dripped Blood (1971) and had a small part in The Wicker Man (1973).

During the 1980s, Pitt returned to mainstream films and television. Her role as Fraulein Baum in the 1981 BBC Playhouse Unity, who is denounced as a Jew by Unity Mitford (Lesley-Anne Down), was uncomfortably close to her real-life experiences. Her popularity with horror film buffs had her in demand for guest appearances at horror conventions and film festivals. Other films in which Pitt has appeared outside the horror genre are: Who Dares Wins (1982) (or The Final Option), Wild Geese II (1985) and Hanna’s War (1988). Generally cast as a villainess, her characters often died horribly at the end of the final reel. “Being the anti-hero is great – they are always roles you can get your teeth into.”

In the 1980s she also reinvented herself as a writer. Her first book, after a number of ill-fated tracts on the plight of Native Americans, was the 1980 novel, Cuckoo Run, a spy story about mistaken identity. “I took it to Cubby Broccoli. It was about a woman called Nina Dalton who is pursued across South America in the mistaken belief that she is a spy. Cubby said it was a female Bond. He was being very kind.”

In 1999, her autobiography, Life’s a Scream (Heinemann) was published, and she was short-listed for the for her own reading of extracts from the audio book.

The autobiography detailed the harrowing experiences of her early life—in a Nazi concentration camp, her search through Europe in Red Cross refugee camps for her father, and her escape from East Berlin, one step ahead of the Volkspolizei. “I always had a big mouth and used to go on about the political schooling interrupting my quest for thespian glory. I used to think like that. Not good in a police state.”

Pitt died in a south London hospital on 23 November 2010, a few days after collapsing, and two days after her 73rd birthday, from congestive heart failure.

Seven months before she died, Pitt finished narration for Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest (2011), an animated short film on her experience in the Holocaust, a project that had been in the works for five years. Character design and storyboards were created by two-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Bill Plympton. The film is directed by Kevin Sean Michaels; co-produced and co-written by Jud Newborn, Holocaust expert and author, “Sophie Scholl and the White Rose”; and drawn by 10-year-old animator, Perry Chen.

The Doctor Defeats the Toymaker | The Celestial Toymaker | Doctor Who

The Doctor wins the Toymaker's game, and escapes in the TARDIS before the world of the Toymaker collapses around them! But has he seen the last of this immortal being?...

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The Cybermen: Then and Now | Doctor Who

Humans converted into emotionless metal monsters - upgraded constantly to handle anything the Doctor throws at them!

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Gary Dauberman, James Wan’s Atomic Monster Tackling Live-Action ‘Gargoyles’ for Disney+

lmost 30 years after first appearing as an animated television series, Gargoyles is taking flight once more, this time in live-action.

Two major names in the creature feature business, Gary Dauberman and James Wan’s Atomic Monster banner, known for their collaborations on the hit Annabelle horror movies, have teamed up to remake the 1990s cartoon as a live-action series for Disney+.

Dauberman will write, executive produce and showrun the series with Atomic Monster, the company run by Wan and Michael Clear, joining the executive producing ranks. The project is described as being in early development at Disney Branded Television.

Gargoyles was made by Walt Disney Television Animation and aired three seasons, from 1994 to 1997. The premise involved gargoyle statues moved from a castle in Scotland to modern-day New York. Once in the Big Apple, the statues awaken from a thousand-year-old spell and take on the mantle of protecting the city, becoming, as the show’s narration gravely said, “stone by day, warriors by night.”

The series, created by Greg Weisman, came during a time of innovation in series animation, with Gargoyles riding a wave of shows with more complex storylines and darker tones that also included Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men. As with those shows, Gargoyles burrowed into the consciousness of a generation of TV watchers who have given it cult status.