SEA LION PRESS

By Matthew Kresal. In light of how Doctor Who spent the second half of the 1980s, it feels safe to say that Peter Davison’s tenure in the TARDIS was the last period of both popularity and stability that its 20th century incarnation enjoyed on television. Even so, the early 1980s left behind a number of unmade serials in its wake as script editor Eric Saward sought writers who could contribute to the series. Among the casualties was a storyline called Nightmare Country from a

By Matthew Kresal. Paperback and kindle cover, courtesy Amazon. Alternate history and space exploration feel made for each other. Missions and crews that might have been, firsts that could have gone another way, and the tantalizing idea that had events in the middle of the 20th century played out another way, humanity might very well have become a multi-planet species by now. Among those who’ve explored such possibilities is Mary Robinette Kowal in her award-winning Lady Astr

By Matthew Kresal. Imagine that the Silver Age DC comics played out alongside real world events of the 1950s. In his 2004-5 six-issue limited series DC: The New Frontier, writer and artists Darwyn Cooke asked readers to do just that. The result was a critical and commercial success, enough so that when Warner Brothers launched the DC Animated Original Movies line of home video releases in 2007, The New Frontier was selected as its second film. Released in early 2008 and with

By Matthew Kresal. When Survival aired in November and December 1989, a number of ideas and serials were in development for Doctor Who’s 27th season. Ones that would, ultimately, go unmade when the series entered what has instead become known to its fans as the Wilderness Era. One of which has earned a place in fandom as a potential regeneration story for Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor set in a former monastery turned spa with giant beetles crawling beneath it. It wasn’t

By Matthew Kresal. Image courtesy Big Finish website. Ask fans of Classic Doctor Who whom their favorite incarnation of the Time Lord is and there’s a very good chance that you’re going to get one name more often than not: Tom Baker. With seven seasons and 41 serials, his remains the longest continuous tenure, taking in three producers with very different ideas about the series and Baker’s role within it. It’s no surprise that it also left behind a number of unproduced storyl

By Matthew Kresal. Region 2 Special Edition DVD, image courtesy Amazon. Parallel worlds. What ifs? Elseworlds. Whatever you (or insert comic book company name here) might like to call them, there’s no doubt that the idea of seeing alternative versions of our favorite superheroes has a place among fans. Something that the long-running DC Universe Animated Original Movies series took advantage of with a number of their adaptations and productions. Among them was Justice League:

By Matthew Kresal. CD cover, via Big Finish's website. The decision in February 1985 to put Doctor Who on hiatus had an immeasurable impact upon the series. The series, which had already begun to bleed viewers, would continue to do so until BBC executives felt they could end it in everything but name nearly five years later. The decision also arguably tarnished the image of Colin Baker as the Doctor, which was further harmed when the same executives pushed him out of the role

By Matthew Kresal. Deathworld cover, image courtesy Big Finish website For Doctor Who’s tenth season, the programme celebrated a decade on-screen with a serial featuring the three actors who had played the Time Lord. But while The Three Doctors as broadcast primarily focused on the Jon Pertwee and Patrick Troughton incarnations (ill health left William Hartnell in a supporting role) as they faced off against the vengeful Time Lord Omega, the tenth anniversary serial was almos

By Matthew Kresal. Introduced in 1961, the Fantastic Four changed the face of comics. The foursome offered a new take on the genre as a dysfunctional but loving family; their presence put Marvel Comics on the map and set up a still ongoing rivalry with DC Comics both on the page and, later, on cinema screens. They’ve been the stars not only of their own comic for much of the last sixty years but a brief lived radio series, animated television shows, and sometimes ill-fated fe

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 96th contest was The Sea. ***** Even in spring, the north Atlantic could be cold. It was something that Lt. Carl Evans felt in his bones, the wind rippling his baggy flight clothes. The only thing still in place was his the front of his shirt and his jacket, the life jacket he wore holdin

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