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      Doctor Who — doctor who guide

      Did You Spot June Hudson in Doctor Who Spin-Off, Class?

      We were in for a treat when watching the first episode of Doctor Who spin-off, Class, which featured a great little cameo – and no, we're not talking about Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor!

      Chased by shadows in For Tonight We Might Die, Tanya (Vivian Oparah) hides in a shop. There, we meet Mrs. Linderhof, played by June Hudson. You might not recognise her name, but you'll definitely know her work: in the 1970s and 1980s, she was a costume designer on 8 Doctor Who serials starring Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor.

      This included redesigning his iconic costume, resulting in the darker outfit the Doctor wore throughout Season 18.

      Lovarzi owes her a debt, as our replica Season 18 Burgundy Fourth Doctor Scarf remains hugely popular with fandom. Although June's last credit on the show was Logopolis (1981), she also had a hand in Peter Davison's outfit, which eventually resulted in the Fifth Doctor's Jumper.

      Written by Patrick Ness, Class airs on the online-only channel, BBC Three every Saturday, with episodes available to watch on iPlayer.

      Are you enjoying Class? Did you spot June Hudson? Which further easter eggs did you particularly like?

      Lovarzi's Series 9 Guide: Heaven Sent

      Transmission: 28.11.2015.

      Writer: Steven Moffat.

      Director: Rachel Talalay.

      Guest Starring: Jami Reid-Quarrell.

      The Doctor is trapped and alone.

      Stuck in a seemingly-endless castle, nightmarish remnants of his past surrounding him and a photo of his dead companion staring down at him, this is a challenge the like of which he's never faced before. Teleported from the Trap Street, he finds himself pursued by the deadly Veil.

      And if he survives, his reward will be the one place he's longed for.

      "I confess," he says. "I am afraid."

      This is the penultimate episode of Doctor Who Series 9, and sees the mysteries of the previous 10 episodes unfold. What is the Hybrid that's been talked about since the Doctor faced Davros on Skaro? The Doctor knows... Is Clara really gone? And what are the contents of the Time Lord's Confession Dial?

      This is the very first 'one-hander' in Doctor Who history: that is, aside from the sole monster, only Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor features. "It's the first time we've ever done an episode like it," Brian Minchin, executive producer, says. "And it's the most virtuoso, fantastic piece of writing from Steven [Moffat, showrunner]."

      "It occurred to me that I had just written a huge monologue for him at the end of [The Zygon Inversion]. Ten minutes. I was typing forever in that," Moffat explained to Radio Times. "And I just thought, 'maybe we don't need anyone else – we don't need to cut to anyone nodding – it's just him?'"

      Capaldi adds that it's "undiluted Doctor Who" that reminded him of The Mind Robber, the 1968's Second Doctor classic. Indeed, it'll be as experimental as that story, as well as recent outings like Midnight, Listen, and Sleep No More.

      This concluding two-parter is the directorial return of Rachel Talalay who helmed last year's finale, Dark Water/ Death in Heaven, and she enthused to Doctor Who Magazine: "I was relived and delighted when the invitation came in, to come back. I had no idea how different it was going to be this time in terms of scripts. They couldn't be more different o last year, or to each other – a two-parter where each part is so completely different."

      It's also the return of Jami Reid-Quarrell, the only other actor apart from Capaldi in Heaven Sent: we last saw Jami as Colony Sarff in the Series 9 opener, The Magician's Apprentice/ The Witch's Familiar.

      So will the Doctor survive this never-ending maze? What is the Veil? How will Series 9 be wrapped up?

      Heaven Sent airs tonight on BBCOne at 8:05pm, with a duration of 55 minutes.

      Lovarzi's Series 9 Guide: Sleep No More

      Transmission: 14.11.2015.

      Writer: Mark Gatiss.

      Director: Justin Molotnikov.

      Guest Starring: Reece Shearsmith; Elaine Tan; Neet Mohan; Bethany Black; Paul Courtenay Hyu; and Zina Badran.

      "You must not watch this," warns Professor Rassmussen. That might not seem the brightest thing to say to entice viewers in – but it's actually remarkably clever. After all, if someone tells you not to do something, isn't that the very thing you're going to do?

      The Doctor and Clara arrive on the Le Verrier Space Station where the Professor has created the Morpheus Machine. In five minutes, it can give you all the benefits of a good night's sleep, and then you don't have to rest again for another month. "Congratulations, Professor; you've conquered nature," the Doctor says. "You've also created an abomination."

      It's used on the Indo-Japanese space station that orbits Neptune – but suddenly, everything goes silent.

      This is a Doctor Who first: an episode comprised of 'found footage', ie. where the story is told through camera recordings, with characters not only addressing each other and the threat but also the audience. "This episode is assembled from footage found in the wreckage of a crashed space station," producer, Brian Minchin teased. "We're just putting it out as it was discovered."

      Writer, Mark Gatiss finished the script back in March, and promises scares-a-plenty. "It's been quite a challenge to make because you have to break a lot of the usual rules in terms of what you can actually show," he says. "Anything you can do to shake the format up is very exciting and that's what we've done."

      It's a very different tale to his previous two, The Crimson Horror (2013) and Robot of Sherwood (2014), both of which were humorous affairs (though the former remained admittedly dark). Gatiss has been working on the show since 2005, and his previous contributions include The Idiot's Lantern (2006), Victory of the Daleks (2010), and Cold War (2013).

      Sleep No More will air on the weekend of the Doctor Who Festival, which Mark will be attending (and so will Lovarzi – so keep an eye out for us at Stall DW18!).

      Guest star (and friend of Gatiss), Reece Shearsmith plays the creator of the Morpheus Machine, Rassmussen, and he says the found-footage angle of the episode was an interesting challenge: "Time was taken during filming to make sure we never broke the conceit of the episode, and so a lot of time was spent capturing the action from various characters POV's. It was quite meticulous and the action I think feels very raw and ‘captured’... It's very odd doing that because it is counter intuitive to the way you film anything else ever!"

      Sleep No More airs on 14th November on BBCOne at 8:15pm.

      Preview: The Zygon Inversion

      Who do you trust?

      The Doctor thought he knew. And then his plane was blown up. Tonight, we find out what happens when a rebellious Zygon faction wants to take the world - and has already succeeded in taking over London.

      Shapeshifting Zygons are everywhere in the UK, and there is no way of knowing who to trust. With UNIT neutralised, only the Doctor stands in their way. But how do you stop a war? And what can the Doctor do to save his friends?

      The BBC has released two spoilerific clips, but if you'd already gathered that the Doctor and Osgood survived that explosion, this one isn't going to ruin your enjoyment of The Zygon Inversion:

      In our review of The Zygon Invasion, we said:

      "Although it's been billed as such, it's simply not a thriller. Tonally, too, this isn't a sequel to The Day of the Doctor. It stands as an entirely separate entity, and with expectations altered, and the plot set up, I have every hope that next week's The Zygon Inversion will excel."

      Written by Peter Harness and Steven Moffat, The Zygon Inversion airs tonight (7th November) on BBCOne at 8pm.

      Lovarzi's Series 9 Guide: The Zygon Invasion/ The Zygon Inversion

      Transmission: 31.10.2015/ 07.11.2015.

      Writer: Peter Harness.

      Director: Daniel Nettheim.

      Guest Starring: Jemma Redgrave; Jaye Griffiths; Ingrid Oliver; Rebecca Front; Aidan Cook; and Tom Wilton.

      The Zygons are back – and so is Osgood, the Doctor's biggest fan. But she's dead... isn't she?

      We're officially in the second half of Series 9; episodes 7 and 8, and the third two-parter of the run (or fourth depending on how you categorise The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived)! This one has an international scale: because the Zygons are amongst us. Everywhere.

      Following the events of The Day of the Doctor (2013), there's an uneasy peace on Earth. Humans and Zygons live together – but not in perfect harmony. The Doctor and Clara are called in by UNIT when Osgood, somehow now alive, is kidnapped by a troublesome faction of the shape-shifting aliens.

      We're on the brink of a global crisis, and the Doctor has to learn that peace is never easy.

      Rebecca Front's Colonel Walsh sets out the problem quite succinctly: "Any living thing in this world, including my family and friends, could turn into a Zygon and kill me any second now. It’s not paranoia when it’s real."

      "If it's about anything," Peter Harness told Doctor Who Magazine, it's about the difficulty of maintaining a ceasefire. That's something Steven [Moffat, showrunner] really drew out of it; how in a very realistic way, in a very human way, how difficult it is to stop people fighting each other."

      Harness returns to the series, fresh off the TV adaptation, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and showrunning Wallander; last year, he contributed probably the most controversial episode of Doctor Who Series 8, Kill the Moon. This year's contribution is very different, however: more of a political thriller... with an added injection of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

      Peter Capaldi is particularly enthusiastic about having the Zygons back. He told Blogtor Who: "I was very lucky, I made a film many years ago with a very little part called Dangerous Liaisons with Glenn Close and John Malkovich which was set in the 18th Century and had the most beautiful costumes. The costume designer was James Acheson, who had created the Zygons. Because he worked on Doctor Who, before he went on to great success and acclaim in the movies, all I wanted to do was talk to him about Zygons! He created those things with limited resources; I think it’s a great testament to his talent."

      Director, Daniel Nettheim is new to Doctor Who, although he did work on four episodes of K9 in 2010. Further credits include Line of Duty, Humans, and Whitechapel. He's responsible for giving the show an international feel, with a narrative that takes us to New Mexico, through London, and to the fictitious Turmezistan.

      UNIT is back, spearheaded by Kate Stewart who we last saw in the series opener, The Magician's Apprentice – and Osgood is a further returning face. Yes, she died in 2014's Death in Heaven, but when has death ever got in the way of a good story? With shape-changing aliens involved, for anyone thinking they've got the solution to her resurrection down to a tee, Peter Harness says, "It isn't quite that simple..."

      The Zygon Invasion airs on BBCOne at 8:15pm on 31st October 2015, only the second episode of Doctor Who to ever screen on Hallowe'en!