SEA LION PRESS

By Matthew Kresal. Copyright Big Finish Productions The making of a television series, like any creative endeavour, is not without its difficulties. Pitches that don’t quite work out and scripts that aren’t up to scratch are part of that experience. Doctor Who  was no exception to that. Indeed, some eras being notable for their production woes and the latter part of Patrick Troughton’s tenure as the Time Lord was such a period with at least one serial being abandoned so late

By Matthew Kresal. The 2016 edition. In the 1950s, the Golden Age of Comics gave way to the Silver Age. The real world changed and, with attention brought to the comics as a result, some old characters retired or evolved while a new generation of heroes came to the fore, culminating at DC with the creation of the Justice League. Suppose for a moment that there was an alternate history where the Golden and Silver Age characters existed in and interacted with the real world of

By Matthew Kresal. Image courtesy Big Finish website. The 1980s. A time of tensions related to all thing nuclear. A fear of nuclear weapons and nuclear war dramatized so ably in TV dramas such as Threads and The Day After . Also present was a fear of nuclear power, stemming out of the previous decade and heightened by events such as Chernobyl and the secrecy surrounding the industry as a whole, something brought to life in the classic BBC thriller Edge of Darkness . For a tim

By Matthew Kresal. Cover courtesy Big Finish site. What would Doctor Who be without its monsters? The Daleks secured the series’ hold with the public in its earliest days while the Cybermen have offered a glimpse of what humanity could become should it chose to overly embrace technology. There have been countless others introduced over the decades that have become recurring foes for the Doctor from the Ice Warriors of Mars to the Weeping Angels of Modern Who . Among those foe

In May and June 1970, viewers of the BBC’s Doctor Who  were treated to an apocalyptic vision of a fascist Britain as Jon Pertwee’s Doctor crossed over in a parallel world. One where Britain was a fascist state that was risking its own destruction with an ill-conceived project unleashing energies from deep within the Earth with the power to transform men into monsters. Inferno fascinated viewers for more than a half-century and inspired speculation about what led that world t

By Matthew Kresal. “Where do your ideas come from?” That’s almost an inevitable question one receives after a stranger finds out you’re a published author. One that is almost always in the wake of, “What do you write?” It’s an understandable question and one that I’m sure in my younger (and unpublished) days I asked myself. Since being published, I’ve come to realize that like a magician revealing a trick, there’s a risk that answering takes some of the magic out of proceedin

By Matthew Kresal. Charles Dickens being bothered when he's trying to write, in the DVD cover for The Man Who Invented Christmas. Image courtesy Amazon marketplace. Christmas time. Presents. Turkey or a piece of poultry on the table for dinner. Stories of redemption and a new found chance of happiness (romantic or otherwise) amid the snows of the holiday season. All of these are hallmarks across the western world of that time up to and around the 25th of December every year.

By Matthew Kresal. Cover courtesy Big Finish website. On the 27th of February 1985, Doctor Who was officially and quite publicly put on hiatus. The two years that followed were among the most dramatic in the series history, with an entire season worth of serials being scrapped in favor of an overarching narrative even before behind the scenes events played out in the public eye in fandom and the larger British press. Among the scripts for what could have been Colin Baker’s s

By Matthew Kresal. Mention the title Flashpoint to a fan of DC Comics and you’ll get a flicker of recognition. It was the title, after all, of a 2011 crossover event that reshaped the DC universe prior to the launch of the New 52 with alternate versions of various characters. An arc that not only inspired an animated adaptation released two years later but also influenced story elements that appeared in both TV and films adaptations of the Flash (with decidedly mixed results

By Matthew Kresal. The Colin Baker era of Doctor Who , filled as it was with various trials and tribulations, left behind a plethora of unmade serials. Some were scripted for the originally planned season 23 before the series went on hiatus, only to be replaced by Trial of a Time Lord . Others were serials grandfathered into the era (such as  The Space Whale  aka   The Song of Megaptera ) or commissioned but never produced (such as The First Sontarans from Andrew Smith). Amon

By Matthew Kresal. The Dark Planet cover, courtesy Big Finish Productions. Early 1960s Doctor Who is at times an extraordinary thing to...

By Matthew Kresal. On the Sea Lion Press Forums , we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly). The theme for the 46th contest was Elephant . ***** "They did what?" The president's scientific advisor, Jerome Wiesner, spat out the words in surprise. Before he could receive a reply, he reached toward his dark-rimmed glasses, adjusted them on his nose, and sat back in his chair. "It's true, Dr. Wiesner

By Matthew Kresal. Red Son's first collection, picture courtesy Amazon Richard Donner, director of the 1978 Christopher Reeve Superman ...

By Matthew Kresal. Cover of Genesis of the Cybermen, picture courtesy Big Finish From their first appearance in 1966’s The Tenth Planet ,...

By Matthew Kresal Cover of Operation Werewolf, from Big Finish The Second World War has loomed large over western popular culture ever...

By Matthew Kresal The man who started it all, Gerry Anderson. Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Mention the name Gerry Anderson and...

By Matthew Kresal Artemis 8 using Dragon. Picture courtesy The Mars Society. Artemis 8 At Christmas 1968, NASA engaged in one of the boldest missions that the American space agency has ever engaged in. By launching Apollo 8 with astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders to the Moon, NASA sought to finally lay the ghost of the Apollo 1 fire nearly two years before aside. By proving the worth of the Apollo command module, the Saturn V, and the various aspects of the

Marooned guest: Matthew Kresal. Picture courtesy Wikimedia Commons. This time, we have marooned on Lavender Island or very own expert on...

By Matthew Kresal. You were expecting Christopher Ecclestone? Picture Courtesy Big Finish. When Doctor Who returned to BBC One in 2005,...

By Matthew Kresal Not the Ninth Doctor you were expecting? Picture courtesy BBC. When the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie failed to lead to a...