Dr Who: The Web of Fear
I watched the blu-ray version with the reconstructed episode 3 on 13 January 2023. I had watched the surviving material previously as research for my first novel, Lethbridge-Stewart: The Daughters of Earth (Candy Jar Books, 2017). I read the novelisation of the Web of Fear when I was a kid.
This serial begins directly after the previous ended, with our heroes desperately trying to close the TARDIS doors while they are in flight (for want of a better term). Once that’s sorted, the Doctor is keen for more adventure. Jamie and Victoria do go on about the TARDIS being uncontrollable.
We are back in London, in what looks to be a time roughly contemporary to the audience. How thrilling it must have been back in 1968 watching those references to events watched a few months earlier in the Abominable Snowmen, the serial set in Tibet, 1935 with Professor Travers as a young explorer and anthropologist. Only Professor Travers is an old man now, and his daughter, Anne, is working with the British Army to deal with the Yeti robots and a fungus in the tunnels below London… There is a distinct Quatermass vibe to the Travers x 2 and soldiers in the underground scenes.
Also to emerge from the underground is Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart of the Scots Guard. He immediately warms to the Doctor and believes him about the TARDIS, deals with the incidents in a straightforward manner, even if he’s not wholly successful. It’s not really surprising that we’ll get to see more of him shortly…
Writers Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln evidently didn’t like the news media much. Edward Travers spits about them in Tibet when he mistakes our heroes for trying to scoop his discoveries, and Chorley in the Web of Fear is a truly vile character.
All up, it’s a great tale that sustains interest over six episodes. I like how it continues what we saw three serials earlier, without repeating much, and yet also didn’t reinvent the adversary beyond recognition.
(I haven’t wanted to discuss the animated reconstructions too much because animations aren’t really my thing. I am immensely grateful for the teams to have spent the effort to make them because I find them easier to watch than the telesnap reconstructions — they, too, are fantastic to have, and I admire the work put into creating them — but episode 3 of this serial didn’t really work for me. The people weaving about like drunk Sims disconcerted my autistic brain, and the Doctor was more Matt Smith than Patrick Troughton in facial expression and body language.)
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Today is Dungeons & Daddies’s 5th Anniversary!
I haven’t been listening for nearly that long but the podcast and all its characters means a lot to me. Happy Anniversary!!!
Throwing the cropped sections under the cut because there’s a lot of stuff going on and I know Tumblr likes to throw half the pixel quality out the window. And also so I can ramble a bit about this piece!!!
This piece has been months in the making, possibly an entire year. And by that I mean I’ve had a sketch of the comp scribbled on my whiteboard for ages because I wanted to save this specifically for 5th anni art. Now onto design stuff!
(First off a random thought: I really love how the garlic knot came out, I kind of want it as an enamel pin.)
I knew I wanted to make this a stained glass piece since the beginning, but I was also going to add flowers at one point but quickly dropped the idea. It felt like too much and I also didn’t want to fuss over flower language assignments for everyone. I was also going to add Doodler tentacles, but also dropped that idea pretty early. Kind of on accident, right at the end, I figured out how to make it even more stained glass-like but taking a duplicated lineart underneath the regular layer and turning the brightness all the way down, then setting it to overlay and adding a guassian blur. It’s very subtle but it adds that tiny bit of depth that makes it look more real. As for shading on the lineart/gold, I tried adding more highlight on the characters who died but once I evened everything out it wasn’t as noticeable anymore so I’m throwing that thought here so the attempt at least known lol.
The order of characters only changed a little bit from my original comp, I flipped the Wilsons and the Oaks so the rainbow could work. As for the anchors, specifically in season 2, I lined them up to the teens since the season 1 anchors lined up with each dad:
Tony —> Scary: his death was the beginning of Scary’s betrayal arc and also Willy killed him.
Guitar Pick —> Taylor: it’s not really aligned with Taylor at all, but the anchor was with Glenn so I put it next to his blunt.
Scroll —> Normal: was only because it was the last left to give him, but there’s the whole scene of him and Hermie in the Green Room so it still works!
Garlic Knot —> Link: one of two that he broke, but the more significant of the two with him telling Grant he never wants to see him again.
Small notes on the season 1 anchors: I put the layer of mold in the overnight oats but you can’t really tell with the overlay. And to make the supper bowl more interesting I added the fantasy sodas mix they dumped into it. The lure of actually drawn before so I just traced my own art lol.
As for the other smaller triangles, it took me a bit to figure out what I wanted to put there. I didn’t even think of adding the vehicles until two days ago but I’m so glad I did. I don’t really have my own take on the mascot version of the Doodler (yet?) so I borrowed the design from one of the stickers in their merch shop. Teeny was terrifying as just a front facing head so I made him cute again.
In the outer circles, I put what I felt was the most significant quotes for each family. I really wanted to use “It’s okay to be angry, it’s not okay to be cruel” but it was just a little too long.
That’s all I can think of! If you read all the way through, thank you for indulging me in my excitement to gush over this piece.
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In 1966, The Doctor (Doctor 2) and his companions were stuck on Earth as the TARDIS (his time/space machine) was trapped in a cosmic web. To make things even more difficult, an android Yeti had been reactivated along with the return of the Great Intelligence. This was where the Doctor first met (then Colonel) Lethbridge-Stewart. (According to the novel, this is the inspiration for the creation of UNIT). ("The Web of Fear", Doctor Who vlm 1, TV)
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I've been doing a six fanarts challenge based around LGBT (specifically DNDads) ships on TikTok, and I just finished the first page tonight! I'm real happy with how most of these came out, and it was a wonderful excuse to fully drawn the characters, as I mostly do simplified designs. I had a lot of fun with this, and am really excited to be able to share it with y’all now!
Went a little crazy with the Oakson one I'll admit that... I'm still taking requests for ships in case anyone was wondering, I plan to do wayy more than just 6.
Blank base under the cut
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