Doctor Who - 8th Doctor Season 3 Behind the Scenes: Mars Attacks!

Preparing for battle

Filming on the Treasure of Mars will conclude this week, and as such so will filming on the first half of the third season. Here are a few behind the scenes tidbits from the two-parter, featuring the return of the Ice Warriors (well the title is a giveaway) and my custom Ice Lord! Yes, despite not using him in Terra Nova (which you can find out more here), the Ice Lord was due a comeback. It's been a few years since I first made that custom, and I still think that he and my Silurian are among my favourites. However, the years have not been kind to this custom, particularly his glittery cape which started to leave deposits of glitter across the floor of the set. I've yet to see the rushes on the computer, so chances are as the story goes on you will see little sparkly bits on the floor. Now you know what those are! 

Instruments of destruction

The episode also utilises a few set pieces from my other toy love, Masters of the Universe Classics. The image directly to the left is of a medieval style combat trainer, which came packaged with Castle Grayskull. Basically the warrior would whack the wooden side with his sword, which would cause the large metal claw to hurtle at you, which you would then block with your shield. Given the Ice Warrior's nature I thought that this could certainly be something the Warriors would use in their training regimes. Alongside that comes the Weapons Rack, a valentines gift from my girlfriend, because nothing says 'I love you' more than a set of weapons. All joking aside, I was desperately after this, and now I own the Castle my OCD collecting ways would be going insane over the fact that I didn't have it for Grayskull (thanks, honey!). Again, this was added to give a bit more flavour to the icey catacombs, as well as emphasising the warrior nature of the creatures.

As you can see in the above image, the Ferrero Roche tub makes a comeback, and the device in my hand is basically a remote control hooked up to the camera so that I won't knock the camera when pressing record. Highly recommended when filming stop-motion. Also note the blob of blu-tack and the 8th Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver, there because... well, you never know when either will come in handy! 

Stay tuned for more updates as production continues!