Ah, now the Targets were the original mainstream novelisations, and were the major thing I used to spend my pocket money on when I was a kid.
After the cancellation, Virgin Books got the publishing rights and did a long series of 'New Adventures' with the McCoy Doctor, plus 'Missing Adventures' with the others, slotted into the existing continuity. Virgin lost the deal at the time of the TV Movie, when the BBC reclaimed it and started their ranges, the 'EDAs' (Eighth Doctor Adventures') with the McGann version, and the 'PDAs' (Past Doctor Adventures) with the others. These ranges are still going, one a month, with the latest EDA, "Emotional Chemistry" by Simon A Forward, due out later this week.
Then there are the novellas from Telos Publishing, the Faction Paradox spinoffs from Mad Norwegian Press, and almost certainly more that I'm not aware of.
That's excluding pure unendorsed fanfic.
So in the 'classical' sense, you're right in saying you've read 'all the Doctor Who books' ('classical' implying 'Target novelisation of TV stories') and in the wider sense the other chap's right that there are many hundereds of other books you've not yet enjoyed - lucky you!
I still am skeptical of how well the new Dr. Who series will be done
I'm not too worried. Russell T Davies has consistently shown himself to be one of the most talented UK TV writers in a generation, and he's a long-standing fan of the show, even to he extent of having written a very well-received New Adventures novel (Damaged Goods). And most reassuring of all is the clear statement that it's to be made for a family audience, not anal longterm fans like me or cliquey teenage genre-viewers.
Mind yuo, all the evidence at the moment suggests Davies wants Bill Nighy for the part, which would represent a *fantastic* return to the original premise of a mysterious and somewhat grumpy stranger with a very uncertain background. Hartnell all over again instead of the knockabout comedy the show was reduced to in the Graham Williams era, when Tom B had been in the role rather too long and was getting bored and playing it for laughs, and which the show never really recovered from.
the Dr. Who loving baby boomers are toooooo old to be interested.
Alternatively, the Dr. Who loving baby boomers are now old enough to have kids to watch with,and t oappreciate that the show is primarily for their kids, and only secondarily for them too:-)
Remember that 'family viewing' is the BBC's Holy Grail here. It's not us thirty-year-olds who were viewers first time round the BBC is interested in, it's not 18-25 genre-fans, the idea seems to be to get back to the 1970's when over half the British viewing public used to sit down as a family after the football results and before the big gameshow to watch Doctor Who together, as a family.
Ah, strictly, the news from last week was 'Doctor Who coming back to Saturday nights'. The Eddie Izzard rumour's a smidge more recent (middle of last week rather than 2 fridays back.
About bloody time BBC ! What took you so long to listen to the loyal fanbase?
As part of the loyal fanbase for the last thirty years, I'd say what took so long was for us, the loyal fanbase, to stop pestering them, harassing them, sending hatemail, insulting their intelligence, claiming that we knew better than them what makes good TV, flooding their switchboards with flame-calls every time they mentioned the show... Eventually we calmed down and started acting more like mature adults. These new stories, I sincerely hope, will NOT be for the likes of me. When I was a happy little 8 year of viewer/fan, Doctor Who wasn't made for people in their thirties with an unhealthy interest in vintage TV shows, and I am absolutely confident that Russell Davies won't be making a show for me (and himself for that matter).
Also my personal view on 'what turned it' - the original viewers (not fans, viewers) grew up and created a new generation of potential child viewers. There needed to be a critical mass of 8-14 year olds who'd never seen the show, but with parents who remembered it, and that was always going to take a while. Remember that the key requirement here is for 'family viewing' - they were waiting for those families to be ready. No 8-year-olds? It's not Doctor Who then.
I'm a bit worried BBC Wales is looking after the project tho. No worries there. The BBC's much more decentralised now than it was when Doctor Who was last made, and a lot of productions are sponsored from one of the regions. The particular production department involved usually doesn't imply location, setting, casting or any of that. BBC Wales films stuff in England, Scotland, Wales, wherever. As does BBC Sctoland, and so on.
Tom's been on a bit of a media blitz recently. Note that Tom, back when he was the incumbent, suggested that the Doctor should have a talking cabbage as a companion.
At this ridiculously early stage in proceedings, I'm rather in favour of Bill Nighy for the part, and there seem to have been a few leaks suggesting this is Russell Davies' feeling too. He seems t ohave let it slip in conversation with Doctor Who Magazine editor Clayton Hickman, and has mentined it elsewhere as well.
But let it not be forgotten that Eddie Izzard has been branching out into very serious drama recently and has turned out to be a very capable and powerful actor, so if he gets the part, no worries.
But seriously, Tom's not into facts, Tom's into stimulating interesting conversation. and here we are, interested, and conversing:-)
Whoops. I really ought to keep away from that Ole Janx Spirit;-)
How about a short delay while we we wait for our supply of small, lemon-soaked paper napins for your comfort and convenience? Coffee and biscuits will be served every ten years.
Indeed DNA said in The Radio Scripts that they took ages looking for someone with a sufficiently "Peter Jones-y" voice, auditioning several people including Michael Palin, before finally realising that, well, actually, you know...
Whereas the radio series had the Shoe Event Horizon, Hig Hurtenflurst, robots with blisters, an entire gelological stratum of compressed shoes and the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation.
You're right on the timing. The Radio Series *is* the HHGTTG (for me!). The spin-off books are wonderful, but they are, nonethless, a spin-off (for me!). The radio series started on March 8th, 1978 and series 2 ended on 25th Jan 1980. The book was published in September 1979, at about the time the first double LP was released. Part 1 of the TV series aired on January 5th 1981. all contain variations, subtle of huge, from eachother, and it's largely a matter of personal choice. Personally, I was hooked uttelry by the radio series when a friend told me about it about half-way through the first run, so for me, that's the 'definitive' version. Yours may vary:-) Personally, I wouldn't give up the Total perspective Vortex or the Bird People Of Brontitall for all the tea in China.
Yup. Face it, the HHGTTG didn't show us a shiny, gleaming megatech galaxy populated by wise, noble superbeings. It showed a tacky, grubby galaxy populated by vain two-headed Betelgeusian egomaniacs, tacky theme restaurant franchises at either end of time, crippling bureaucracy, lazy psychotic cops, irritating and basically useless technology...
The BBC special effects IMHO fitted the atmosphere of the books perfectly.
Although I'd almost go further. At the Theatr Clwyd stage production, when Arthur lay down in front of the bulldozer, it was a 12" Tonka JCB. And when Mr Prosser uttered the immortal line "Mr Dent, do you have any idea how much damage this bulldozer would suffer if I just let it run straight over you?", well, I think you can imagine the audience reaction:-)
Well, strictly speaking, Douglas the Writer and Douglas the Script Editor. Graham Williams was the Producer throughout DNA's time as Script Editor (Season 17, from Destiny Of the Daleks to Shada). DNA wrote three Doctor Who stories, The Pirate Planet in season 16 (also produced by Williams), Shada in series 17, and the sublimely wonderful City Of Death, also in season 17 but credited as 'David Agnew', as Script Editors weren't supposed to script their own show at the BBC back then.
"I say, what a wonderful butler. He's *so* violent!"
The race is on. Doctor Who season 27 starts sometime in 2005, with scripts from the wondrous Russell T Davies, and with HHGTTG coming too, I'm really looking forward to 2005.
And even if the net saving turned out to be zero, well, does anyone fancy a calculation as to how many tons of coal not burned that amounts to per household over 20 years?
Fail an eye test and 2 weeks late your car insurance increases....
it's a reasonable start. But too cautious. You're not thinking big enough.
It would be far far better if on failing an eye test, your driving license was instantly put on hold and the authorities informed, and only reinstated once a correction (spectacles, contact lenses, laser surgery) was in place. So many places do while-you-wait lens grinding now, this needn't cause major inconvenience, but would hopefully reduce the number of people driving cars who can't see where they're going.
Sorry if I got on your case a bit. I'm 31 and have been a "fan" since about 8
Hey, it's perfectly natural and entirely routine that that two long-term fans should hold strong and differing views. It's always nice to discuss stuff for which I have a a passion with others who share the passion, especially at such a joyous time as this:-)
Fact is I seem to pretty much agree with eveything you've said this time round, maybe just differring shades of degree rather than big principles.
I honestly believe that An Unearthly Child is a better launch-model than the TV Movie. Two schoolteachers follow a weird pupil home to a junkyard, where they meet her even weirder 'grandfather' and are whisked away in an impossible machine to impossible destinations. Regeneration was invented three years later, Time Lords six years in. McGann was Doctor Who for 90 minutes in 1996 in a production which, rightly or wrongly, was considered a commercial flop. Only us fans think of McGann as The Doctor, and by the time the TV series starts, if the hints at BBC online mean what I think they mean, we may have had two whole years of Richard E Grant webcasts (I hope, I hope, yes please!). Whoever the 'incumbent' is, I personally feel Regeneration's not a core feature, and I've never felt comfortable with the 'first doctor', 'second doctor' etc thing except for fan convenience as it feels like different characters, where really there's only The Doctor, and I'd prefer to see a new Doctor established as just The Doctor from the first moment. You started at 8, I started at 5, and it's our kids, nephews, nieces and so forth who might just carry the torch for this show for the next few decades - let them have *their* Doctor properly fom the outset:-)
Absolutely I'd do it as a Police Box (as you and many others have said it would be fab if it stated as something else and then got 'stuck' baqck in Police Box form again after a very early adventure in 1960's Britiain. The BBC did after all just wrap up a trademark case with the Metropolitan Police to establish the blue box as a BBC trademark, since the judge agreed that it's perceived as a TARDIS now rather than a Police ting at all. There's not a lot of name or image recognition left with the public, and the blue box, bigger on the inside than the outside (or 'like a TARDIS', as people say) is important. It's just not strictly critical IMHO. This one's a Highly Desirable rather than a full-on Requirement.
No snoging in the TARDIS! Absolutely. Never part of the formula, unlikely to ever become one.
Auntie Lorraine (Heggessey, controller of BBC1 and The New Verity Lambert) seemed pretty clear that the Daleks will be back. Again, like the TARDIS, Daleks are recognised, and were bigger than The Doctor in marketing terms by a country mile. They still appear in UK adverts regularly, most recently a vast billboard advertising, I think, batteries, on my way to work a couple of months back. They'll be back. And this time they'll be proper scary again like they were in the 1960's. I have no doubt.
It's just weird as all hell to be having "How should Doctor Who be Revived?" debate for real after a decade and a half of rehearsal. I honestly doubted this day would ever come. Romana II is very hard to beat though it's hard to know how much of that is because of the fab emotional chemistry between Tom and Lalla. Leela's great - why scream when you could bellow "die, bentface!!" and hurtle into combat with a knife instead? Zoe and Victoria were the ultimate cuties, but Zoe had more catsuits than Victoria.
But for me because of my age as much as anything, it's Sarah Jane Smith, the ultimate meta-companion. Depending on who'd scripted her, Sarah was the bravest, the screamiest, the thickest, the brightest, the trustingest, the teasingest, all the companions rolled into one.
You my friend are a Thoughtful Fan with a capital TF. I, too, bow to your dedication.:)
Obviously you understand NOTHING about Dr. Who. [...] the fans will abandon the effort in droves.
Wolfrider my friend...
I am 36 years old, and have been a fan of Doctor Who since the age of five. The sort of fan who gives obsessive fans a bad name. The sort of fan who did presentations on the history of the Daleks at school and took the consequences. The sort of fan who buys *all* the stuff, BBC books, Big finish audios, Unbounds, Telos Novellas, I've got every Target since Doctor Who And The Zarbi in first editions, most of the NAs and PDAs, there are three Rollamatic Daleks clustered around the Police Box model on top of my TV, I go to Panopticon every year.
There *is* no official canon and there ahave been wars over 'what is canon' since even before Jan-Vincent Rudski's DWAS tirade against The Deadly Assassin, and the debates continue to this day on rec.arts.drwho and at Outpost Gallifrey. And the original series is remembered with a mixture of fondness, and contempt by the general public. Who invented the Daleks, Yarvelling the chief scientist of the Dals, or Davros, chief scientist of the Kaleds? Take your pick, Terry Nation wrote both versions of the history. Atlantis was destroyed in three different ways across the 26-year run. There's no single coherent canon and there hasn't been since the middle of Season One. Doctor Who went into its final deathspin then John Nathan-Turner started to turn it into a nostalgia-based wankfest after Season 19, and not even The Cartmel Materplan could rescue it once that happened. It became self-indulgent twaddle, and it died.
All you need is a mysterious stranger in an unexplained vehicle, getting into scrapes and righting wrongs. It's probably best if the stranger is called 'The Doctor' and the vehicle looks like a Police Box and is bigger inside than out, and you may as well call it a TARDIS because the general public knows the name. But what you *can't* do is get back to a point where nothing makes sense if you don't know about the different roles of the Rod Of Rassilon, the Sash Of Rassilon and the Toilet Brush Of Rassilon in the exile of the Pythia from Gallifrey after the loss of Omega in the Dark Times. Puhleeeaze...
Remember that Doctor Who *was not* a cult niche programme for fans, it was compulsory viewing for around 10 million viewers every saturday afternoon after the football results and before the gameshow, from 1963 to 1969.
If new doctor Who is to survive, it is *critical* that it does NOT pander to anal fans like me, but rather aims at building a new mass audience, and I am eager to welcome these new fans without treating them like shit cecause they can't tell me Jamie McCrimmon's middle name or the Graf Vynda-K's inside leg measurement.
tV
Re:No cookie-required version of the news article
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Doctor Who Comeback
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How could the BBC version not be linked to in the first place?!?
The Telegraph broke the story on their site just before midnight UK time, the BBC site didn't confirm the story until 4am.
the Borg always were cybermen with better costumes.
Have you heard Spare Parts, by Marc Platt (audio play on mail-order CD)? Wicked. Simply fab.
Before they turned into stock muscle-robots, the cybermen were the same thing as the borg: the walking undead. Dracula / Frankenstein hybrid zombies hunting for new brethren.
As a silver guy with handles on his head and a buzzy vocoder once said
Cushing wasn't a timelord called The Doctor, he was an eccentric human inventor called Dr. Who. But I rate him as a fab Doctor anyway. Bearing in mind these were kids films made in 1965 and 1966 on the tide of Dalekmania, with big-name casts and colour which the TV series wouldn't get until 1970, and considering Mary Poppins (1964) or "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968) as reasonable benchmarks, they were pretty impressive IMHO. When I was the right age for them, I thought they were the best Doctor Who of all.
The TV Movie confuses me every time I try to watch it. It *looks* stunning, live Doctor Who never has. The lighting is gorgeous, the budget is there for the sets and effects. There's some very gorgeous camerawork and some fantastic cutting. McGann probably makes a bigger impression in the space of his first story than any of his predecessors since Hartnell in An Unearthly Child. He's got charisma, he's got humour, he's got energy and he's definitely alien. I can even enjoy Eric Roberts' version of the Master in the spirit in which it was intended - very suave, somewhat camp, a lot of Delgado under the stupid costume. The motorbike chase? Utterly run of the mill in the Pertwee era, could be taken as a nice bit of subtle continuity. The plot doesn't make much sense, but that's hardly unique in the 26-year TV run;-)
But it doesn't have a soul, and I just *can't* watch it all the way through. Stylistically it was very different but I'm cool with that. spiritually it was a million miles and a million years out. It wasn't a story about a mysterious traveller who gets involved with something bad and defeats it, it was a story about Phil Segal trying to cram as much utterly pointless continuity into his Pilot as he could manage, to get an audience up to speed for his obsessively fanwanky series proposal described in his and Gary Russell's book "Doctor Who - Regeneration" (Harper-Collins, 2000). The trouble being that if you're going to build your new show almost entirely from 26 years of old-show continuity, you (a) box yourself in from the outset, and (b) had better get it 'right' (you can't, since it's massively self-contradictory) since the only audience you'll see is the core of the core of the fans.
McGann was wicked in the movie, and is very very good in the Big Finish audio plays he's been doing for the last few years.
Nah, that's a retcon. Almost all retcons tend to be fanwank, but there's a lot of fanwank out there that's not retcon.
So when John Peel used War Of The Daleks to suggest that all the Davros stories from Resurrection onwards were a clever plot to deceive the Doctor so that he could use settings and characters which had been wiped out earlier in the continuity, that was a retcon. Because it involved Davros, Daleks, Skaro, Movellans and The Hand Of Omega, it was an extremely fanwanky retcon
Warriors of the Deep in Season 21 was utter fanwank, depending heavily on the re-use of characters last seen before most of the school-age audience was born, but without a great deal of retcon. The Deadly Assassin was one of the most fabulous pieces of fanwank ever done, and heavily retconned the Time Lords.
Death Comes to Time had McCoy and still pictures, it was followed by the slightly more mobile Real Time with Colin Baker and the slightly-more-mobile again Shada with McGann.
The one i think you're referencing is Scream Of The Shalka, by Paul Cornell, starring Richard E Grant, webcast from www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho starting on the 40th Anniversary, 23rd November 2003 with DVD for the christmas market and novelisation in Feb 2003.
There can never be a timelord of sufficient suavity to give the late Roger Delgado's Master any competition. Evil personified, with impeccable manners, old-world charm, hypnotic powers and extremely sharp suits. RIP.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, now the Targets were the original mainstream novelisations, and were the major thing I used to spend my pocket money on when I was a kid.
After the cancellation, Virgin Books got the publishing rights and did a long series of 'New Adventures' with the McCoy Doctor, plus 'Missing Adventures' with the others, slotted into the existing continuity. Virgin lost the deal at the time of the TV Movie, when the BBC reclaimed it and started their ranges, the 'EDAs' (Eighth Doctor Adventures') with the McGann version, and the 'PDAs' (Past Doctor Adventures) with the others. These ranges are still going, one a month, with the latest EDA, "Emotional Chemistry" by Simon A Forward, due out later this week.
Then there are the novellas from Telos Publishing, the Faction Paradox spinoffs from Mad Norwegian Press, and almost certainly more that I'm not aware of.
That's excluding pure unendorsed fanfic.
So in the 'classical' sense, you're right in saying you've read 'all the Doctor Who books' ('classical' implying 'Target novelisation of TV stories') and in the wider sense the other chap's right that there are many hundereds of other books you've not yet enjoyed - lucky you!
tV
I still am skeptical of how well the new Dr. Who series will be done
I'm not too worried. Russell T Davies has consistently shown himself to be one of the most talented UK TV writers in a generation, and he's a long-standing fan of the show, even to he extent of having written a very well-received New Adventures novel (Damaged Goods). And most reassuring of all is the clear statement that it's to be made for a family audience, not anal longterm fans like me or cliquey teenage genre-viewers.
Mind yuo, all the evidence at the moment suggests Davies wants Bill Nighy for the part, which would represent a *fantastic* return to the original premise of a mysterious and somewhat grumpy stranger with a very uncertain background. Hartnell all over again instead of the knockabout comedy the show was reduced to in the Graham Williams era, when Tom B had been in the role rather too long and was getting bored and playing it for laughs, and which the show never really recovered from.
the Dr. Who loving baby boomers are toooooo old to be interested.
:-)
Alternatively, the Dr. Who loving baby boomers are now old enough to have kids to watch with,and t oappreciate that the show is primarily for their kids, and only secondarily for them too
Remember that 'family viewing' is the BBC's Holy Grail here. It's not us thirty-year-olds who were viewers first time round the BBC is interested in, it's not 18-25 genre-fans, the idea seems to be to get back to the 1970's when over half the British viewing public used to sit down as a family after the football results and before the big gameshow to watch Doctor Who together, as a family.
News for Nerds, News from Last Week.
Ah, strictly, the news from last week was 'Doctor Who coming back to Saturday nights'. The Eddie Izzard rumour's a smidge more recent (middle of last week rather than 2 fridays back.
About bloody time BBC ! What took you so long to listen to the loyal fanbase?
As part of the loyal fanbase for the last thirty years, I'd say what took so long was for us, the loyal fanbase, to stop pestering them, harassing them, sending hatemail, insulting their intelligence, claiming that we knew better than them what makes good TV, flooding their switchboards with flame-calls every time they mentioned the show... Eventually we calmed down and started acting more like mature adults. These new stories, I sincerely hope, will NOT be for the likes of me. When I was a happy little 8 year of viewer/fan, Doctor Who wasn't made for people in their thirties with an unhealthy interest in vintage TV shows, and I am absolutely confident that Russell Davies won't be making a show for me (and himself for that matter).
Also my personal view on 'what turned it' - the original viewers (not fans, viewers) grew up and created a new generation of potential child viewers. There needed to be a critical mass of 8-14 year olds who'd never seen the show, but with parents who remembered it, and that was always going to take a while. Remember that the key requirement here is for 'family viewing' - they were waiting for those families to be ready. No 8-year-olds? It's not Doctor Who then.
I'm a bit worried BBC Wales is looking after the project tho.
No worries there. The BBC's much more decentralised now than it was when Doctor Who was last made, and a lot of productions are sponsored from one of the regions. The particular production department involved usually doesn't imply location, setting, casting or any of that. BBC Wales films stuff in England, Scotland, Wales, wherever. As does BBC Sctoland, and so on.
tV
Tom's been on a bit of a media blitz recently. Note that Tom, back when he was the incumbent, suggested that the Doctor should have a talking cabbage as a companion.
:-)
At this ridiculously early stage in proceedings, I'm rather in favour of Bill Nighy for the part, and there seem to have been a few leaks suggesting this is Russell Davies' feeling too. He seems t ohave let it slip in conversation with Doctor Who Magazine editor Clayton Hickman, and has mentined it elsewhere as well.
But let it not be forgotten that Eddie Izzard has been branching out into very serious drama recently and has turned out to be a very capable and powerful actor, so if he gets the part, no worries.
But seriously, Tom's not into facts, Tom's into stimulating interesting conversation. and here we are, interested, and conversing
tV
Whoops. I really ought to keep away from that Ole Janx Spirit ;-)
How about a short delay while we we wait for our supply of small, lemon-soaked paper napins for your comfort and convenience? Coffee and biscuits will be served every ten years.
Indeed DNA said in The Radio Scripts that they took ages looking for someone with a sufficiently "Peter Jones-y" voice, auditioning several people including Michael Palin, before finally realising that, well, actually, you know...
And Jon Pertwee in drag. You forgot to mention Jon Pertwee in drag. Oh, the horror!
(I adore it actually)
tV
The TV show had little sole.
Whereas the radio series had the Shoe Event Horizon, Hig Hurtenflurst, robots with blisters, an entire gelological stratum of compressed shoes and the Dolmansaxlil Shoe Corporation.
(sorry, couldn't resist!)
tV
You're right on the timing. The Radio Series *is* the HHGTTG (for me!). The spin-off books are wonderful, but they are, nonethless, a spin-off (for me!). The radio series started on March 8th, 1978 and series 2 ended on 25th Jan 1980. The book was published in September 1979, at about the time the first double LP was released. Part 1 of the TV series aired on January 5th 1981. all contain variations, subtle of huge, from eachother, and it's largely a matter of personal choice. Personally, I was hooked uttelry by the radio series when a friend told me about it about half-way through the first run, so for me, that's the 'definitive' version. Yours may vary :-) Personally, I wouldn't give up the Total perspective Vortex or the Bird People Of Brontitall for all the tea in China.
"I should have you revoked. K-IL-L-E-D: revoked."
tV
Yup. Face it, the HHGTTG didn't show us a shiny, gleaming megatech galaxy populated by wise, noble superbeings. It showed a tacky, grubby galaxy populated by vain two-headed Betelgeusian egomaniacs, tacky theme restaurant franchises at either end of time, crippling bureaucracy, lazy psychotic cops, irritating and basically useless technology...
:-)
The BBC special effects IMHO fitted the atmosphere of the books perfectly.
Although I'd almost go further. At the Theatr Clwyd stage production, when Arthur lay down in front of the bulldozer, it was a 12" Tonka JCB. And when Mr Prosser uttered the immortal line "Mr Dent, do you have any idea how much damage this bulldozer would suffer if I just let it run straight over you?", well, I think you can imagine the audience reaction
tV
Well, strictly speaking, Douglas the Writer and Douglas the Script Editor. Graham Williams was the Producer throughout DNA's time as Script Editor (Season 17, from Destiny Of the Daleks to Shada). DNA wrote three Doctor Who stories, The Pirate Planet in season 16 (also produced by Williams), Shada in series 17, and the sublimely wonderful City Of Death, also in season 17 but credited as 'David Agnew', as Script Editors weren't supposed to script their own show at the BBC back then.
"I say, what a wonderful butler. He's *so* violent!"
The race is on. Doctor Who season 27 starts sometime in 2005, with scripts from the wondrous Russell T Davies, and with HHGTTG coming too, I'm really looking forward to 2005.
tV
Hey, this is not so bad!
And even if the net saving turned out to be zero, well, does anyone fancy a calculation as to how many tons of coal not burned that amounts to per household over 20 years?
Fail an eye test and 2 weeks late your car insurance increases....
it's a reasonable start. But too cautious. You're not thinking big enough.
It would be far far better if on failing an eye test, your driving license was instantly put on hold and the authorities informed, and only reinstated once a correction (spectacles, contact lenses, laser surgery) was in place. So many places do while-you-wait lens grinding now, this needn't cause major inconvenience, but would hopefully reduce the number of people driving cars who can't see where they're going.
Sorry if I got on your case a bit. I'm 31 and have been a "fan" since about 8
:-)
:-)
:)
Hey, it's perfectly natural and entirely routine that that two long-term fans should hold strong and differing views. It's always nice to discuss stuff for which I have a a passion with others who share the passion, especially at such a joyous time as this
Fact is I seem to pretty much agree with eveything you've said this time round, maybe just differring shades of degree rather than big principles.
I honestly believe that An Unearthly Child is a better launch-model than the TV Movie. Two schoolteachers follow a weird pupil home to a junkyard, where they meet her even weirder 'grandfather' and are whisked away in an impossible machine to impossible destinations. Regeneration was invented three years later, Time Lords six years in. McGann was Doctor Who for 90 minutes in 1996 in a production which, rightly or wrongly, was considered a commercial flop. Only us fans think of McGann as The Doctor, and by the time the TV series starts, if the hints at BBC online mean what I think they mean, we may have had two whole years of Richard E Grant webcasts (I hope, I hope, yes please!). Whoever the 'incumbent' is, I personally feel Regeneration's not a core feature, and I've never felt comfortable with the 'first doctor', 'second doctor' etc thing except for fan convenience as it feels like different characters, where really there's only The Doctor, and I'd prefer to see a new Doctor established as just The Doctor from the first moment. You started at 8, I started at 5, and it's our kids, nephews, nieces and so forth who might just carry the torch for this show for the next few decades - let them have *their* Doctor properly fom the outset
Absolutely I'd do it as a Police Box (as you and many others have said it would be fab if it stated as something else and then got 'stuck' baqck in Police Box form again after a very early adventure in 1960's Britiain. The BBC did after all just wrap up a trademark case with the Metropolitan Police to establish the blue box as a BBC trademark, since the judge agreed that it's perceived as a TARDIS now rather than a Police ting at all. There's not a lot of name or image recognition left with the public, and the blue box, bigger on the inside than the outside (or 'like a TARDIS', as people say) is important. It's just not strictly critical IMHO. This one's a Highly Desirable rather than a full-on Requirement.
No snoging in the TARDIS! Absolutely. Never part of the formula, unlikely to ever become one.
Auntie Lorraine (Heggessey, controller of BBC1 and The New Verity Lambert) seemed pretty clear that the Daleks will be back. Again, like the TARDIS, Daleks are recognised, and were bigger than The Doctor in marketing terms by a country mile. They still appear in UK adverts regularly, most recently a vast billboard advertising, I think, batteries, on my way to work a couple of months back. They'll be back. And this time they'll be proper scary again like they were in the 1960's. I have no doubt.
It's just weird as all hell to be having "How should Doctor Who be Revived?" debate for real after a decade and a half of rehearsal. I honestly doubted this day would ever come.
Romana II is very hard to beat though it's hard to know how much of that is because of the fab emotional chemistry between Tom and Lalla. Leela's great - why scream when you could bellow "die, bentface!!" and hurtle into combat with a knife instead? Zoe and Victoria were the ultimate cuties, but Zoe had more catsuits than Victoria.
But for me because of my age as much as anything, it's Sarah Jane Smith, the ultimate meta-companion. Depending on who'd scripted her, Sarah was the bravest, the screamiest, the thickest, the brightest, the trustingest, the teasingest, all the companions rolled into one.
You my friend are a Thoughtful Fan with a capital TF. I, too, bow to your dedication.
Here's the link to the relevant page at Big Finish Productions' website. GBP15.50 inc P&P for nonUK orders, GBP13.99 in the UK.
:-)
They also do a Dalek Empire range which resoteores the old pepperpots to their malevolent, manipulative best
Buy, beg, borrow Spare Parts. It's fab. The Cybermen get their tragedy back. The poor bastards. They're the undead, as they ought to be.
tV
Obviously you understand NOTHING about Dr. Who. [...] the fans will abandon the effort in droves.
Wolfrider my friend...
I am 36 years old, and have been a fan of Doctor Who since the age of five. The sort of fan who gives obsessive fans a bad name. The sort of fan who did presentations on the history of the Daleks at school and took the consequences. The sort of fan who buys *all* the stuff, BBC books, Big finish audios, Unbounds, Telos Novellas, I've got every Target since Doctor Who And The Zarbi in first editions, most of the NAs and PDAs, there are three Rollamatic Daleks clustered around the Police Box model on top of my TV, I go to Panopticon every year.
There *is* no official canon and there ahave been wars over 'what is canon' since even before Jan-Vincent Rudski's DWAS tirade against The Deadly Assassin, and the debates continue to this day on rec.arts.drwho and at Outpost Gallifrey. And the original series is remembered with a mixture of fondness, and contempt by the general public. Who invented the Daleks, Yarvelling the chief scientist of the Dals, or Davros, chief scientist of the Kaleds? Take your pick, Terry Nation wrote both versions of the history. Atlantis was destroyed in three different ways across the 26-year run. There's no single coherent canon and there hasn't been since the middle of Season One. Doctor Who went into its final deathspin then John Nathan-Turner started to turn it into a nostalgia-based wankfest after Season 19, and not even The Cartmel Materplan could rescue it once that happened. It became self-indulgent twaddle, and it died.
All you need is a mysterious stranger in an unexplained vehicle, getting into scrapes and righting wrongs. It's probably best if the stranger is called 'The Doctor' and the vehicle looks like a Police Box and is bigger inside than out, and you may as well call it a TARDIS because the general public knows the name. But what you *can't* do is get back to a point where nothing makes sense if you don't know about the different roles of the Rod Of Rassilon, the Sash Of Rassilon and the Toilet Brush Of Rassilon in the exile of the Pythia from Gallifrey after the loss of Omega in the Dark Times. Puhleeeaze...
Remember that Doctor Who *was not* a cult niche programme for fans, it was compulsory viewing for around 10 million viewers every saturday afternoon after the football results and before the gameshow, from 1963 to 1969.
If new doctor Who is to survive, it is *critical* that it does NOT pander to anal fans like me, but rather aims at building a new mass audience, and I am eager to welcome these new fans without treating them like shit cecause they can't tell me Jamie McCrimmon's middle name or the Graf Vynda-K's inside leg measurement.
tV
How could the BBC version not be linked to in the first place?!?
The Telegraph broke the story on their site just before midnight UK time, the BBC site didn't confirm the story until 4am.
tV
Have you heard Spare Parts, by Marc Platt (audio play on mail-order CD)? Wicked. Simply fab.
Before they turned into stock muscle-robots, the cybermen were the same thing as the borg: the walking undead. Dracula / Frankenstein hybrid zombies hunting for new brethren.
As a silver guy with handles on his head and a buzzy vocoder once saidtV
Cushing wasn't a timelord called The Doctor, he was an eccentric human inventor called Dr. Who. But I rate him as a fab Doctor anyway. Bearing in mind these were kids films made in 1965 and 1966 on the tide of Dalekmania, with big-name casts and colour which the TV series wouldn't get until 1970, and considering Mary Poppins (1964) or "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968) as reasonable benchmarks, they were pretty impressive IMHO. When I was the right age for them, I thought they were the best Doctor Who of all.
;-)
The TV Movie confuses me every time I try to watch it. It *looks* stunning, live Doctor Who never has. The lighting is gorgeous, the budget is there for the sets and effects. There's some very gorgeous camerawork and some fantastic cutting. McGann probably makes a bigger impression in the space of his first story than any of his predecessors since Hartnell in An Unearthly Child. He's got charisma, he's got humour, he's got energy and he's definitely alien. I can even enjoy Eric Roberts' version of the Master in the spirit in which it was intended - very suave, somewhat camp, a lot of Delgado under the stupid costume. The motorbike chase? Utterly run of the mill in the Pertwee era, could be taken as a nice bit of subtle continuity. The plot doesn't make much sense, but that's hardly unique in the 26-year TV run
But it doesn't have a soul, and I just *can't* watch it all the way through. Stylistically it was very different but I'm cool with that. spiritually it was a million miles and a million years out. It wasn't a story about a mysterious traveller who gets involved with something bad and defeats it, it was a story about Phil Segal trying to cram as much utterly pointless continuity into his Pilot as he could manage, to get an audience up to speed for his obsessively fanwanky series proposal described in his and Gary Russell's book "Doctor Who - Regeneration" (Harper-Collins, 2000). The trouble being that if you're going to build your new show almost entirely from 26 years of old-show continuity, you (a) box yourself in from the outset, and (b) had better get it 'right' (you can't, since it's massively self-contradictory) since the only audience you'll see is the core of the core of the fans.
McGann was wicked in the movie, and is very very good in the Big Finish audio plays he's been doing for the last few years.
tV
Nah, that's a retcon. Almost all retcons tend to be fanwank, but there's a lot of fanwank out there that's not retcon.
So when John Peel used War Of The Daleks to suggest that all the Davros stories from Resurrection onwards were a clever plot to deceive the Doctor so that he could use settings and characters which had been wiped out earlier in the continuity, that was a retcon. Because it involved Davros, Daleks, Skaro, Movellans and The Hand Of Omega, it was an extremely fanwanky retcon
Warriors of the Deep in Season 21 was utter fanwank, depending heavily on the re-use of characters last seen before most of the school-age audience was born, but without a great deal of retcon. The Deadly Assassin was one of the most fabulous pieces of fanwank ever done, and heavily retconned the Time Lords.
tV
In fact, that was a *mini-skirt*.
:-)
Well, it WAS the '60's, you know
tV
There have been a few animated stories so far.
Death Comes to Time had McCoy and still pictures, it was followed by the slightly more mobile Real Time with Colin Baker and the slightly-more-mobile again Shada with McGann.
The one i think you're referencing is Scream Of The Shalka, by Paul Cornell, starring Richard E Grant, webcast from www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho starting on the 40th Anniversary, 23rd November 2003 with DVD for the christmas market and novelisation in Feb 2003.
tomV
There can never be a timelord of sufficient suavity to give the late Roger Delgado's Master any competition. Evil personified, with impeccable manners, old-world charm, hypnotic powers and extremely sharp suits. RIP.
tomV