Benjamin Cook

LIVE NOW on @BBCiPlayer! THE SEA DEVILS – our 90-minute 2025 re-cut, with new music by @Lornebalfe, fresh sound by @MarkAyresRWS, and a few surprises. 👀 Perfect Sunday-morning viewing, before its TV debut on BBC Four tonight at 7pm. 🌊😈 GO, GO, GO!!! bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod…

@claytonhickman PHWOAR! This might be BETTER than the original.

Here’s a new attempt to reconstitute that holy grail of missing #DoctorWho photos - the sole ‘narrative’ shot (that we know of) from The Edge of Destruction. Jacqueline Hill, William Russell, Carole Ann Ford and William Hartnell cower from the melted Westminster Abbey Skeleton Clock on the TARDIS set in Lime Grove D on Friday 17th January 1964. The picture was printed just once - in the Radio Times on the week of transmission. It’s basically just a load of halftone dots, but stacking multiple scans from different copies helps a bit. After that it’s just endless Photoshop toil. I know it’s not perfect, but at least it looks a bit more like an actual photo now. The halftone wasn’t particularly flattering to the cast’s faces, but I’ve tried to stay as true to the original expressions as I could without making them all look like literal monsters! Oh and I coloured it in as well, natch.

@AvatarKyber Fuck’s sake. If you’re gonna start shouting “AI!”, you could at least learn to identify it correctly.

I don’t know what to be more amazed by… The fact they’re including Martha in something, that Fugitive has a sonic or they’re using AI to promote Doctor Who projects now?

Never doubted it. Easy win. ⚽️

Football.

@gbsheard The George Sheard action figure in… another 12? 😅

12 years 😭😭

@cult_edge @union_films 😅😅😅

@union_films I don’t think you’ve grasped the tone of my post.

Oh yes, please do tell me how you would fix Doctor Who.

@whodpdl This you?

@benjamin_cook This you?

Doctor who fans love to pretend they’re left-wing and then spout the most Thatcherite neoliberal nonsense you’ve ever heard

@Cook11Joseph @BFI @DWASonline I approve this message. 😅

@benjamin_cook @BFI @DWASonline I’ll make sure abzorbaloff art cards are given out at the event 🫡

“Think you’ve seen it all? Think again…” 💙💙 + 🎥 I’m delighted to have been asked back to create the artwork for the ‘Doctor Who: 20 Years On - The Tenth Doctor’ event! In collaboration with the @BFI and @DWASonline Tickets on sale 9th July ✨ #DoctorWho #DavidTennant

@bigfinish 😢 Very sad news.

The Big Finish team were deeply saddened and shocked to learn of the passing of our friend and colleague, Justin Richards, who died peacefully at the weekend. Our sincere condolences go out to his family and friends. A full tribute will follow.

@Cook11Joseph @BFI @DWASonline Not good enough. 😉 He should be front and centre. And naked.

@benjamin_cook @BFI @DWASonline His cane is on the floor 👀

@Erdenetkulkanfc Phil is a freelance writer who’s contributed to DWM over the years. (He’s never designed the mag, as far as I know.) His opinions on canon are as valid as yours, and vice versa. But it isn’t the “official” position because there isn’t one. There never has been. Not in 63 years.

@benjamin_cook I’m not snitch-tagging 😭 I’m just trying to figure out whether this is this person’s personal opinion or an official position. And I think we have the right to know that. But your comment is genuinely very valuable to me, so thank you 🙏🏻

@Erdenetkulkanfc FWIW: DWM generally treats the TV stories as its baseline, with everything else intentionally left loose – canon if you want it to be. 😊 Disagree all you want. (But snitch-tagging sucks.)

@Erdenetkulkanfc There’s no such thing as Doctor Who canon. 😏 The TV show contradicts itself. Big Finish contradict the TV show. The novels, the comics, the ice lolly adverts… all add to the rich, beautiful tapestry, but none of it’s universally binding.

@abitdickensian I don’t disagree with the sentiment. I just don’t think his sexuality is relevant. If the criticism is he objectified women, then that’s the criticism. Whether he was gay or straight doesn’t really change it.

@benjamin_cook It was the 80s. Queer people and women should have been working together not against one another. That’s all.

If we want to talk about sexism in Doctor Who can we talk about the early to mid 80s and its objectification of women? THIS was gross... I've always hated how Peri in particular was treated #DoctorWho

@abitdickensian Yeah, I know the history. I’m just confused why you’re bringing the producer’s sexuality into it…?

@abitdickensian Huh?

@LDTrueBlue “for the dads” coming from the first openly gay producer… bro what are you doing

@whodpdl 😳 Huge if true.

It’s really important to me that people understand the doctor isn’t real

@claytonhickman Tarted up triumphantly!

Here’s another photo colourisation and general tarting-up - for one of those proper old classic shots this time, from Episode 2 of #DoctorWho and the Space Museum. Richard Shaw interrogates William Hartnell on Friday 9th April 1965 in TC4 for ‘The Dimensions of Time’. I combined two differently-cropped black & white photos to get the full image. Or as much of it as they had.