Author Archive: Glenn

Friends and fans have been expressing their grief over the recent passing of Nicholas Courtney. One memory of Nick that caught my eye today, was that of a dear friend and colleague of The Brig, Tom Baker who played the fourth Doctor. Here is an excerpt from his website.

From Tom Baker: The Official Website:

Of all the characters in Doctor Who there is no doubt that he was the most loved by the fans for his wonderful portrayal of the rather pompous Brigadier. “Five rounds rapid” was the line we all loved, always addressed to Sergeant Benton. Nick’s close friends simply adored him. There was a certain innocence in his personality that was utterly endearing. He was very easy to tease, and I did my share, which made him shake his head in disbelief when he realised he had been had.

To read more from Tom, click here.

UPDATED: The Guardian has posted it’s Nicholas Courtney obituary. You can read it here.

We are saddened by today’s news that Nicholas Courtney, best known to Doctor Who fans as Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, has died, at the age of 81.

Courtney first appeared in the series as Space Security Agent Bret Vyon in The Daleks’ Master Plan. But we will always remember him as UNIT Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, a role that he would remain in until the Seventh Doctor’s era and even appeared more recently in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

Courtney was a staple in the Doctor Who universe. From the first time I saw him on screen, he commanded an audience with me, and quickly became one of my favorite characters in the series.

I had always hoped that Courtney would return to the proper series after it was restarted in 2005, but I am very grateful that Lethbridge-Stewart did become a part of the new era by appearing in SJA.

Tonight, I will reflect on his life, by remembering him the best way I can… watching episodes of the strict, mostly by-the-book, but often lovable, military commander who will forever live-on, on screen.

Our thoughts go to Nick’s family and friends.

Rest assured he will never be forgotten by his fans.

William Nicholas Stone Courtney (December 16th, 1929 – February 22nd, 2011)

As Many Doctor Who fans know, Gallifrey 22 kicks off next week, February 18th to the 20th, in Los Angeles, CA.

We, sadly, are unable to attend this year, and will be living vicariously through those who will be there.

So, we are asking those who may be attending this years event, to send us your feedback about this years convention.

We are also looking for someone, or more than one attendees, who would like to act as correspondents for the Traveling the Vortex podcast.

We would like to feature your reports in the coming weeks on the show. Just something short and sweet about what’s going on or happening there.

If you are interested please drop us a line at travelingthevortex@gmail.com.

The digitally remastered Doctor Who – The Movie will be release for the first time in North America on Tuesday, February, 8th.

The long awaited release first aired on Fox on May 14, 1996.

Synopsis from WBShop.com

The Doctor is returning home to Gallifrey with the remains of his arch-nemesis, the Master. Forced off course, the TARDIS arrives in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve 1999, where the Doctor is critically wounded in a gangland gun battle. At the local hospital, Dr. Grace Holloway fights – and fails – to save his life. Later, in the morgue, the Doctor wakes up a new man. But he is not the only one – the Master has also found himself a new body. As the clock counts down to the start of the new millennium, can the Doctor stop his oldest enemy from destroying all life on Earth?

Shaun and I (as well as many other U.S. and Canadian fans) have been eagerly awaiting for 2entertain to make the film available to North American audiences since it’s release in the UK in August of 2001 (The Special Edition was released in October of last year).

It’s release here was tied up in legal wranglings with Universal who owned partial rights to the production.

Now the time has come, and I for one cannot wait to finally get my hands on a (legal) copy of the discs. I have already pre-ordered it on Amazon.com.

We will be doing a review of the DVD in two weeks on Traveling the Vortex, so be sure to listen.

Okay, I think we have everything running smoothly now with the feed. If you notice any problem, please be sure to let us know. Sorry, again from anyone who got multiple feeds of the smae episodes this week. We thank you for your patience during these technical issues.

Due to a few technical issues last night, Episode 4 had to be deleted from the feed. It has been uploaded again, but might re-feed to your chosen podcast aggregator. We apologize for the problem. Also, we are trying to resolve the issue of our logo not showing up in iTunes for those who subscribe there. Thank you for your patience on that matter as well.

UPDATE – More technical issues with the episode. The file that is feeding seems to be corrupt. We are working to fix the issue at this time. Please bear with us.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, this week’s episode of Traveling the Vortex will be released tomorrow (Tuesday). Thank you for you patience.

In this week’s episode we issued a challenge to Shaun and the listeners to send us your Doctor Who inpired Rock Band characters. Shaun is hard at work on the first draft of Ten, and I have to say, from what I’ve seen it looks pretty impressive.

If you have some images of your DW inspired characters, please send them to us to feature on the blog!

You can send photos to travelingthevortex@gmail.com, or post them on our Facebook page.

Shaun promises me to have some of his own creations up on the blog very soon.

UPDATE – Very rough draft of Ten, but honestly when Shaun sent it to me I knew who it was even before I knew he did it in Rock Band 3. I will update the post when he gets further along.

UPDATE 2 Shaun, with the help of Keith and others has updated his Tenth Doctor character. This one is much closer to David Tennant as the Doctor.