Video -- Will a Shape-Shifting Penguin Drive the Action in Series Three of Torchwood?
So much to catch up on from the Hub (also known as the Wales Millenium Center, above), what with Cardiff hosting Madonna over the weekend (but surprisingly, she's not the shape-shifter in question, despite the old lady hands and the horrible sans-makeup face photos of recent).
Gotta give her credit for dissing McCain and Mugabe in her concert, though.
Mo Ryan in the Chicago Tribune:
BBC America sent out a press release announcing that the third season of "Torchwood" has begun filming (the full release is at the end of this item). Nothing that spectacular about that -- though I do very much want "Torchwood" to return, and "Doctor Who" (the show that spun off "Torchwood") as well. But one fun fact about the press release caught my eye.
Peter Capaldi has a role in the new season of "Torchwood," which will consist of five highly serialized outings (not a full 13-hour season). Capaldi plays Mr. Frobisher, "a civil servant who is hiding a terrible secret."
UPDATE: David J. Loehr noted in the comments that the "Frobisher" name could be a shout-out to the "Doctor Who" universe -- perhaps a significant one. There's more on that here.
We saw Capaldi (above right) in the episode Fires of Pompeii this last series of Doctor Who. So, I click over to the Wikipedia page on this Frobisher, which starts:
Frobisher is a fictional character who appeared in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who in the 1980s. He was a companion of the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. The canonicity of the comic strips, like other Doctor Who spin-off media, is open to interpretation.
Frobisher is a Whifferdill, one of a shape-changing extraterrestrial race. What is assumed to be his natural form, as seen in his first comic strip appearance, is humanoid, pale yellow in color, three to four feet in height, with a round, featureless head, and wearing spectacles. However, he preferred to spend his free time in the form of a penguin.
And there's much more. If you're a fan, you need to be clicking over. Especially if you, like me, have come to the show since the Davies reboot (you must honor the past and do the work, learn your canon).
And no, I don't think the Arthur Frobisher that Ted Danson plays in Damages is an homage to this. It's just too much of a stretch.
More from a Doctor Who RPG blog at this link.
And, after the jump, this YouTube user, "tidelmor," has finished a graphic arts project for school and created a Doctor Who trailer featuring this specific shape-shifting penguin, and it is after the jump for your edification and amusement.
