The Really Great AbbyShot Blog!

Back in February we shared a blog with you called The Secrets Behind Making Your Handmade Leather Sporran. Just like with our other artisans, we asked Arnold a number of questions about himself and the process of creating these pieces of art. Arnold has admitted that he has never done this sort of writing before and has stepped out of his comfort zone to share with us. We truly honor his courage and honesty! Thank you so much for sharing with us, Arnold!

Grab a dram, sit back and have a gander at his story.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Doctor Who is now approaching the levels of serialization more common to shows like The Walking Dead or Daredevil, but it’s getting there. Steven Moffat had said that he wanted to start “blurring the lines” between whether stories were one, two, or more parts and he’s certainly achieved that. The result is a season that, as we edge into the second half, feels more consistent in its tone and theme than perhaps any season before.

For many of us Diana Gabaldon fans, June 1st holds a special place in our hearts. It's a day to stand united as Outlander fans! Twenty-six years ago, I never imaged that the following for this book and t.v. series would have grown to reach such a massive global audience of 32 million fans and counting!

Well, I suppose I am not truly surprised! After all, I have been singing her praises and recommending her writing for years. And now look at us! I mean, #WorldOutlanderDay???

We couldn't be more thrilled!

This season of Doctor Who continues its run of great episodes without, so far, a single wrong step. Extremis adds to this achievement while being a truly ambitious episode in its own right, which seeks to break all the established rules of Doctor Who season arcs, and even Doctor Who itself, in order to peel back who the Doctor really is. Long, long ago, “Into the Dalek” raised the question “Is the Twelfth Doctor a good man?” and now, as Capaldi’s time in the role draws to a close, “Extremis” seeks to give us the definitive answer.

GUESS WHAT? We have HUGE news! Well, not literally huge, slightly smaller than usual…which is HUGE!

In what’s becoming a trend this season, “Oxygen” again presents a fairly standard type of Doctor Who story but elevates it with sterling character work and a strong theme. Arriving on Chasm Forge, a disaster struck space station mining copper from an asteroid belt, our trio find most of the forty strong crew dead and only four survivors. But the dead walk, passengers in their artificially intelligent motorized space suits; an apparent malfunction causing the technology to turn on its own masters. They kill with a touch by transmitting the infection to the victim’s own space suit. It’s all relatively familiar from episodes as diverse as “Silence in the Library,” “Rise of the Cybermen,” “The Empty Child” and even this season’s “The Pilot” and “Smile” (both of which featured different types of technology innocently muddling its directives in dangerous ways). But the story here is told with a visceral horror and doom laden atmosphere that marks it out as uniquely itself.

Who's ready for some more amazing fan films? This week features fan made videos inspired by Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Harry Potter! We got it all, humor, drama, action, and even some very creative story telling. Sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Back in the Sixties, successive Doctor Who creative teams were obsessed with the idea of coming up with the ‘new Daleks ,’ a monster that would capture the public imagination the way Dalekmania had and, along the way, sell a few toys. While none knocked the iconic pepperpots off their top spot a few, like the Cybermen, came close and some made a fair stab at it, like the Ice Warriors or the Yeti. But many more spent their Doctor Who afterlife propping up the bar next to the Quarks and the Zarbi and telling anyone who’d listen how they could have been somebody.

For those of you who have already watched SMILE, you are by now, well aware of what and who the Vardies are and what they represent. In the case of those less fortunate, who have not yet seen it, SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

Now, I like Doctor Who. That should be no surprise to anyone. After all, it would be a very strange man or woman who would dedicate their free time to writing about a show they disliked, much less swanning off to their local con in their AbbyShot coat and other assorted costuming to tell people, “Meh. Doctor Who. Don’t really care for it myself.” But even the most die hard fan knows that it’s not without the odd bum episode. Some will even tell you how much they adore Doctor Who “except for [insert entire decade here].” So the remarkable thing about Thin Ice isn’t that it’s a great episode (and it is) but that it’s the third great episode in a row. Traditionally once you’re at the third episode of the season, the brilliance of one or two of the episodes has been offset by one that feels like a hurried, unfocused, last minute effort. Series Five gave us the utter perfection of “The Eleventh Hour”, on which heels “The Beast Below” and “Victory of the Daleks” rapidly followed to lower the mood. “The Impossible Astronaut” two-parter was startling stuff… and then “The Curse of the Black Spot” happened. The thrilling and wonderful “Bells of St. John” led into “The Rings of Akhaten” – an episode that was jaw dropping for all the wrong reasons.

Thank you all for your patience. I’m going to keep this blog short & super sweet (tasting the cotton candy). I think you’re all starting to experience the same feeling we have while waiting for a product to be made! Welcome to our world! Painfully exciting isn’t it?

Ever since the show returned to our screens in 2005, every new companion has faced the same, almost ceremonial initiation. There’s the story on present day Earth where they first meet the Doctor and get pulled into his life, the invitation to travel in the TARDIS, and then a visit to the past and a visit to the future. Newbie Bill Potts keeps to the pattern established by Rose Tyler, Amy Pond and all the others with a visit to Regency London next week and this week a trip to a far flung human colony in an unspecified, but distant, future.