Jesus wept, is it really 18 years since Paul Cornell's gamechanging Love and War came out? Oh. Apparently it is. Right, now I really feel old.

For a generation of fans, the New Adventures novels were Doctor Who. And after a fairly shaky start with the Timewyrm and Cats Cradle sagas, they came into their own with Mark Gatiss' Quatermass homage Nightshade (you know, the one Scoopz Johnston insisted Tom Baker would be starring in a TV remake of during the season just past...) and Cornell's Love and War, which temporarily wrote out Ace and introduced the new companion of Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield, 26th Century archaeologist.

The prof survived 44 adventures with the Doctor, which included possession, infection, seeing her lover killed, meeting her long lost dad, marriage, and even boffing the Doctor before Virgin Publishing lost the rights to continue the TARDIS' adventures.

That, of course, wasn't enough to kill her off though, with Virgin instead spinning Benny off into her own series of novels. Big Finish gave voice to those novels with a range of audios ahead of them getting the Who licence at the turn of the millennium, with former Casualty actress Lisa Bowerman landing the roll of the 26th Century Lara Croft.

And since then they've been merrily plowing away, first in audio, then with new books, and now back to audio again. Fair play to Big Finish - we're not exactly massive fans of some aspects of their work here at The Thumbcast, but they've kept the Bernice Summerfield franchise going very successfully over the last few years, and retained a loyal fanbase who've grown up her over that time.

To mark the 11th series of Benny adventures, and incredibly the 18th anniversary of the character being create, the Big Finish team have created the first animated story for her - Dead and Buried.

Happy birthday Bernice, and here's to many more new adventures in time and space...

Late slip, but somehow the news that the Doctor Who graphic novel range seems to have been axed passed me by for the last few weeks.

Word snuck out after The Crimson Hand, the final collection covering David Tennant's time in the DWM strip, failed to hit the shelves in the summer, with former Monthly editor John Freeman writing on the Down the Tubes blog that it had been cancelled due to contractual difficulties.

And frustratingly, it seems to have taken the rest of the range with it.  Although the complete run of McGann era stuff is out, and the collected 'imperial era' stories by the likes of Dave Gibbon, John Ridgway and Steve Parkhouse - including the iconic Tides of Time and Voyager - only the earliest days of the Seventh Doctor strip has been released.

It'd be gutting to lose those books, partly for selfish reasons - that was when I came to the comic strip as a reader, and what my fondest memories are of - but also because that run, from 1988 through to 1996, saw the strip striking out in fascinating, challenging directions both creatively and in continuity.

Creepy tales like Fellow Travellers and action-filled romps like Mark of Mandragora, the chilling Good Soldier and the batshit crazy Nemesis of the Daleks, which brought the world this fella...

There were interesting creative decisions, as the strip first coupled itself to the New Adventures continuity then decoupled itself in time to go off in a new direction in time for the TV Movie in 1996, culminating in the genuinely climactic Ground Zero.

As we wrote last year, the graphic novel releases have been very welcome - despite reportedly stiffing John Ridgway on royalties - and brought much to the Doctor Who mythos, not only in resurrecting the great strips of yesteryear but with the additional content they contain - be it cut scenes, early sketches or writer/artist interviews.  As much love has been lavished on making the books as good as they could be as the DVD range has enjoyed.

Here's hoping this ends up only being a temporary pitstop as the range enters its final lap, rather than a permanent retirement.

Now here we are in July, and the first details are emerging for the Christmas special.

The big news, obviously, is that Albus Dumbledore v2.0 is jumping codes to join the Christmas Special cast.  Michael Gambon - who quite frankly we here at the Thumbcast would happily listen to read the back cover blurb for Crime Traveller and be entertained - is to take a major role in the episode, as is Welsh opera star Katherine Jenkins, who gets to be this Chrimble's Kylie Minogue.

The hour long episode - which the rumour mill is claiming will have the title Father Who - has a bit of a Christmas Carol theme, according to the Beeb.  Will that mean visits from Doctors past, present... and yet to come?  

Craig and Iain look back at the rest of season five/one/fnarg, and the betting on a new Doctor next year. And they're not happy about it...  

Hear our suggestion for who Moffat should stick a tenner on, a lament on why being a Dr Who fan's getting very expensive these days,and just who does Iain think should go play in the traffic...

Oh, and apologies anyone who came looking for the Audioboo one - their five minute cap cut off the end of the episode, so we've replaced it with the normal one from here.  Bloody hell, five minutes, how do they expect us to keep to that...?

Right.