Doctor
Who has become far more than
just a television programme. One can think of that metaphorically in
terms of the effect it has had on its fans, but here, I mean it
literally as well. It has expanded into numerous other media, from
comics and annuals to stage plays to movies to books to audio
productions, and beyond. Some of these are just things fans put
together in their own homes, while others are professional
productions or publications. No look back over the history of Doctor
Who would be complete without
including a mention of these various things.
There
is so much out there that it’s unlikely that any single individual
has seen, read, or heard it all (if there is any such person, I’d
love to meet him/her). I certainly haven’t. I’ve already mentioned in these
reflections that, to my chagrin, I have heard very little of the Big
Finish audio productions, something I really hope to correct some day
(especially to hear the Paul McGann ones). I also haven’t read most
of the novels of the last ten years or so. However, I’d like to
take a look back at the things I have experienced. It’s likely that
I don’t remember everything Doctor Who-related
that I’ve ever come across, so no doubt some things will be left
out. Also, I’ve touched on the books in previous reflections (both
the Target novelizations and the later original novels from Virgin
and then BBC Books), so I won’t retread that ground here.
Primarily, I’m looking at the movies, spin-off television
programmes, and some selected other media, such as comics and
roleplaying games.
The
Movies
I’m
often surprised by the number of Doctor
Who
fans I meet who are completely unaware that there were two Doctor
Who
movies made in the sixties. Admittedly, these are not part of the
show’s canon. They involve a human Doctor (whose name actually is
Dr. Who), who invented his ship, Tardis,
and they are based on already existing television serials. They star
Peter Cushing as Dr. Who and Roberta Tovey as his granddaughter Susan
(who is considerably younger than the Susan of the TV show). Each
movie also features two additional companions, but they change
between the films.
My
first encounter with either of the movies was when I saw a portion of
the first one, Dr. Who and the Daleks, on TVOntario. I can’t
remember exactly how old I was, probably around seven or eight. As I
mentioned in my Reflections on the Fourth Doctor, in my head, the fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith
were all there ever had been, so when there was no sign of Tom
Baker’s Doctor, I assumed this was a story without the Doctor in
it. Indeed, it was clearly a story about when Sarah was a little girl
(because apparently, Susan sounds the same as Sarah, or something).
It was much later that I actually learned any details about the two
movies (possibly in Doctor Who Magazine),
and I realised immediately what I had really seen all those years
earlier.
I
didn’t get to see either movie in its entirety until after YTV
started showing Doctor Who
in the late 80’s. Shortly after they started, they showed both
movies on consecutive Saturday afternoons, and I eagerly tuned into
both. Most people who have seen them pan these movies pretty
badly—and with a certain amount of good reason. They are incredibly
campy and silly films, with some bizarre logic to them. The second
one, Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.
makes much more significant changes from its source
serial (“The Dalek Invasion of Earth”) than the first, and those
changes are generally not for the better. Both films also have
moments of inexplicable comedy. By that, I mean scenes that are in
there just for a laugh but actually make no sense in the context of
the movie. The one that sticks out most in my mind is the scene with
Ian trying to open the door into the Dalek city in Dr. Who
and the Daleks. For some reason,
it will only open when he sits down on a nearby platform, but as soon
as he stands up, it closes again, stopping him from going through it.
There is absolutely no explanation for why the door works like that.
How would the Daleks in that story possibly be able to open it?
However,
there is a strange charm to the movies. Peter Cushing is fun as a
doddering, absent-minded version of the Doctor. At the time these
were made, William Hartnell was the only Doctor, so the decision to
play the Doctor differently is an interesting and rather prescient
choice, seeing as that would become tradition just a couple years
later. Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.
also co-stars a young Bernard Cribbins, who, many years later, would
become beloved as Wilfred Mott, Donna Noble’s grandfather. He
doesn’t play Wilf in the movie, obviously, but he’s fun to watch
nonetheless.
That
said, they are the kind of movies that are easy to make fun of, and
would have been perfect fodder for Mystery Science Theater
3000. They really ought to do
RiffTrax for these movies. Oh wait! They have (for the first
one, at any rate)!
K-9
and Company
In
some ways, it’s kind of surprising that, in the first half of
Doctor Who’s
long life, only one serious attempt at a spin-off was ever made.
Today, we’ve had three more official spin-offs, and the possibility
of others (like one about Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax) doesn’t
seem that far-fetched. Yet at the time of K-9
and Company,
it had never been done before—and wouldn’t be done again for
quite some time.
I
had heard about K-9
and Company
well before I ever got to see it. TVOntario never broadcast it, and
neither did YTV, which was kind of surprising, since in the first
year or so they showed Doctor
Who,
they also seemed eager to show everything that had any connection to
Doctor Who
(such as the movies as I mentioned above). My first glimpse of K-9
and Company came
when a friend of my brother, who knew I liked Doctor
Who,
noticed that a PBS station that he got (and we didn’t) was showing
it, so he taped it for me (the PBS station we got in London, Ontario
was one of the very rare ones that didn’t carry Doctor
Who).
I was really excited until I played the tape and discovered that he
had only managed to tape the last ten minutes or so (he hadn’t
realized it was on until he stumbled upon it partway through). Still,
I watched the end of it, and I was grateful to him. It had been a
nice gesture (and an unusual thing for one of my brother’s friends
to do).
I
had always heard that K-9
and Company
was not very good, but it was hard to judge from just the last few
minutes of it. What did stick out, though, was the theme music at the
end. There was a voice-over by the station, so the music was dimmed,
but I was still taken aback by K-9 chanting, “K-9!” over and
over. Surely the voice-over was blocking out some part of the music
that made that make sense. It would be years before I would find out
for sure that that was not the case.
I
didn’t get to see K-9
and Company
in its entirety until it was released on VHS in the 90’s. I have to
say, I don’t think it’s as bad as it’s commonly made out to be.
It has a number of strong elements, most notably the fact that,
despite being named after K-9, it’s really a show about Sarah Jane
Smith. K-9 is a fun character, but not complex enough to carry a show
on his own. Having a human lead was the right decision. I actually
think the show could have had potential if it had gone on past its
pilot, “A Girl’s Best Friend”. Alas, that was the only episode
ever made, so we can never say if it would have ever lived up to that
potential. However, I think the success of the more recent Sarah
Jane Adventures
shows what might have been possible.
The show's potential
aside, it had terrible theme music. Seeing—and hearing—it in full
on the VHS quashed any hopes I’d had that what I’d heard on the
tape my brother’s friend had made for me was just distorted or
something. K-9 and
Company,
without doubt, has the worst theme music and titles sequence of any
show I have ever seen. I challenge anyone out there to find something
worse. No, I take that back. If you can find something worse, I don’t
want to know about it. [Edit (Michael's wife here): He totally does, secretly! Put it in the comments! ]
The
Sarah Jane Adventures
This
show could have—and probably would have—gone on for so much
longer if it hadn’t been for the devastating and sudden loss of
Elisabeth Sladen to cancer in early 2011. It was heartbreaking to
watch the final three stories air the following fall (you can read my
reviews of them here,
here,
and here)
knowing that she was gone, but “The Man Who Never Was” has a
wonderful tribute to her at the end.
K-9
The
series really doesn’t seem to have learnt anything from K-9
and Company
(either its mistakes or strengths) or The
Sarah Jane Adventures.
Although K-9 is given human friends, the focus is too much on this
strangely emotional emotionless robot. The show is very inconsistent
with whether or not K-9 can feel emotions. One episode, he’s able
to and the next he isn’t. The other characters don’t fare much
better with consistency either. The initial episodes have Jorjie
discover that her mother works for the “Department” in a
supposedly top-secret position (so secret that her own daughter
doesn’t know). Future episodes have her mother making public
appearances in her position for the Department and appearing on
television. Her top-secret job has apparently become public
knowledge. Characterization is also all over the place and the
relationships between characters just don’t develop naturally.
Although
it’s now been several years since the airing of that first
26-episode season, there is talk of a second season, although that
talk has been going on for over a year now. If it does come back,
I’ll probably check it out (just because it’s Doctor
Who-related),
but I’m really not bothered. I’ll be quite happy if there are no
further episodes.
Torchwood
However,
it climbs to incredible heights with the five-episode Series Three:
Torchwood:
Children of Earth.
Those are five of the most amazing hours of television ever. Children
of Earth
was released on DVD almost immediately after its original airing, and
I picked it up right away. My wife and I watched it over two nights,
two episodes the first and three the second. I think we had actually
intended to do it over three nights, but by the
end of “Day Four”, we simply had to keep going to “Day Five”.
Perhaps we should have waited an extra day to prepare ourselves
emotionally for the final episode.
Children
of Earth
will tear your heart out, stomp on it, cut it up, force feed it back
to you, and then tear it out again. It will shred your emotions and
leave you a sobbing stump of a human being. And it does it so
brilliantly, and I will let it do it to me over and over again. My
wife, not so much. She agrees it’s brilliant, but she refuses to
ever watch it again. My wife is not the sort of person who cries over
TV shows or movies. Indeed, she used to make fun of people (like me)
who do so. However, partway through “Day Five” (at a certain
moment involving Frobisher, his family, and a gun), she broke down,
grabbed hold of me, and sobbed hysterically into my shoulder for
several minutes. I had never seen anything like it from her before,
and I’ve never seen anything like it since. (I should point out
that I was a wreck during that scene, too.)
Then
came Torchwood:
Miracle Day.
It follows in the style of Children
of Earth
by being a season-long story, but extended to ten episodes instead of
five. A lot of people really despise Miracle
Day,
and I’m not really sure why. It’s not as good as Children
of Earth;
that’s for certain. However, it’s pretty much impossible to be as
good as, or better than Children
of Earth.
Perhaps, for that reason, the show should have ended after Children
of Earth,
as anything else will always pale in comparison. Nevertheless, I
actually rather like Miracle
Day.
The second half is not as strong as the first half (except episode
seven), but overall, it’s a good series. I explain my reasons more
fully in the review of it I wrote
just after it originally aired.
I
do hope that there’ll be more Torchwood
one day. It’s still somewhat up-in-the-air whether there actually
will be, but the more time goes by, the less likely it seems. Still,
Doctor Who
rose from the ashes after years and years of absence. Maybe Torchwood
will, too.
The
Comics
It
turned out that these comics were just American reprints of old
Doctor Who
Magazine
comics, but they were all from issues that were published years
before I started collecting the magazine, so I was happy to have
them. They were also reprinted in colour! Alas, the series had
already ended when I discovered it (it only lasted 23 issues, if I
remember correctly), but I was able to acquire all the issues without
any difficulty.
The
Roleplaying Games
These
days, I’m very glad I got it when I did, too. It didn’t show up
in any other stores in London for quite some time, and by the time it
did, it was the second printing (with a new cover). Although I didn’t
know it at the time, the second printing had removed all pictures and
references to the sixth Doctor, who was the current Doctor at the
time (apparently FASA’s license didn’t cover the sixth Doctor).
Luckily, I had my first printing (and still have it, although the
covers have fallen off all the rule books.
It
wasn’t easy to get people to play the game with me, alas. I had one
friend who was interested in Doctor
Who,
and he was eager to play the game, and he occasionally managed to
convince a couple other people to play with us. However, it wasn’t
until high school that I managed to get a regular game going with
another friend who, oddly, really disliked Doctor
Who,
but he loved the game. Go figure. That ended up being a long-lasting
campaign that ran through high school and several of my university
years. It only ended after that friend moved out of the country.
Other players came and went over the years, but that friend and his
Time Lord character remained constant throughout (although the Time
Lord did regenerate a few times).
It
wasn’t until the publication of Cubicle 7’s Doctor
Who: Adventures in Time and Space
that Doctor Who
got a really good
roleplaying game. I’ve reviewed several products
for the game on this blog, and had a campaign running for a while.
Unfortunately, that game has fallen apart, but I hope to eventually
run another.
The
Internet
Of
course, I shouldn’t ignore Doctor
Who’s
presence on the Web. From forums to fan videos on YouTube, Doctor
Who
is everywhere on the internet, even right here on this blog. I talked
last week
about how I came to write this blog, so I won’t repeat that here.
Instead, I’d like to make a quick mention of some of the other
areas of the internet I’ve been floated around in.
In
the beginning, there was rec.arts.doctorwho. Ah, Usenet. It was
basically a precursor to the forums people use nowadays, but much
clunkier. I rarely posted on rec.arts.doctorwho, but I read it
voraciously. Eventually, I tore myself away from that though, and
mostly stayed away from Doctor
Who
locations on the internet for quite a few years. I focused more on
the roleplaying sites. However, I eventually discovered Outpost
Gallifrey and began reading that just as voraciously as I had
rec.arts.doctorwho. After Outpost Gallifrey shut down and its absence
was filled by Gallifrey Base,
I moved over there. I still don’t post often (my post count on
Gallifrey Base is still less than 100; I don’t think it’s even
hit 50 yet), but I read a lot.
There
are lots of other Doctor
Who
forums out there, but I don’t actually visit any of them. I just
don’t have the time. One forum to follow (plus one roleplaying
forum) is more than enough. I do like to surf about from time to
time, though, checking out what else is out there, and listen to the
occasional podcast, like Two-Minute Time Lord
or the Verity Podcast.
One day, I’d like to get involved in a Doctor
Who
podcast. I used to be part of a non-Doctor
Who
podcast called Screaming Halibut. It was a sketch series, and I’d
like to believe we were very funny. I’d really like to get involved
with something audio again.
Addendum
1: Reflections on the Missing Episodes
I
can’t remember when or how I first discovered there were missing
episodes of Doctor
Who.
I probably learned it from Doctor
Who Magazine,
though it might have been from a book. The knowledge actually didn’t
bother me much. In the 80’s, episodes were still being found with a
certain regularity, so I just assumed that every episode would
eventually be found. It was just a matter of time. I honestly
believed that by the time I was an adult, they’d all be back.
Obviously,
I was very wrong about that.
The
return of “The Tomb of the Cybermen” in 1991 gave hope that more
would come back, but after that, discoveries became very sporadic,
and I didn’t really pay much attention. I completely missed that
the first episode of “The Crusade” or the second episode of “The
Daleks’ Masterplan” had been found until they were released on
the DVD set, Lost in Time. However, by the time of the recovery of
“Airlock” and episode two of “The Underwater Menace” in 2011,
I was paying much closer attention. I didn’t really expect to ever
see a complete story returned again, but I was hopeful that
individual episodes might turn up here and there.
Now
we have nine more back, and reason to believe there could be quite a
few more to come sometime in the months ahead. It’s exciting. I
don’t quite have that childhood certainty that everything will one
day be back, but I do have confidence that a significant number will
be.
Addendum
2: More Reflections on the Eighth Doctor
Alas,
the addition of a forgotten Doctor between McGann and Christopher
Eccleston means that there is still a missing regeneration, just a
different one. Unless of course, Steven Moffat has pulled some sort
of timey-wimey conundrum out of his hat, one which results in time
being rewritten so that John Hurt’s “War Doctor” ends up never
having existed and McGann really does regenerate into Eccleston. I
wouldn’t put it past Moffat. (Just in case anybody’s worried that
I’m subtly spoiling “The Day of the Doctor”, I have not pursued
any spoilers regarding the episode. What I’ve written here is pure
speculation on my part, and very probably wrong.)
At
any rate, more Paul McGann is great.
Final
Thoughts
And
that brings me to the end of twelve weeks of Doctor
Who
reflections. I’ve written in the vicinity of 60 typed pages, and
I’ve rediscovered a lot of things about myself. Throughout the
process of writing, I would frequently suddenly remember something I
hadn’t thought about in years and would have to rewrite to fit it
in. It’s been fun for me, and I hope it’s been fun for people to
read. It’s nice knowing that I even have an audience willing to
read it.
As
a child, I was mostly ridiculed for liking and watching Doctor
Who.
I had the occasional friend who watched it, but for the most part, I
was the only one. I found a bit more acceptance in university, where
I actually met other people who watched the show. Then the new series
started and suddenly there were people everywhere who watched it. I
wasn’t alone anymore.
Alas,
in my current social circle, most of my friends are turning away from
Doctor Who
again. Some (mostly the women) have stopped watching altogether,
refusing to watch until Steven Moffat leaves. Others now only watch
it occasionally. Only one or two watch it all the time. All are
dissatisfied with it. My wife still watches every episode, but she
mostly does so for my sake. If it weren’t for me, she probably
would have stopped watching completely. She’s no fan of Steven
Moffat’s writing of women. (I talked of my dissatisfaction with
recent Who
last week,
and my mention of my friends here is not intended to be proof that
nobody likes it anymore. Indeed, as I pointed out last week, I’m
well aware of how popular it still is. But people tend to hang out
with like-minded people, so it’s not surprising that my friends’
opinions of the show are similar to mine, and I mention it just to
illustrate the social context I’m in.)
But
while my friends may not watch the show as much anymore, they don’t
ridicule me for doing so, like my childhood friends might have. And I
can still talk about the show with them. We can reminisce with each
other about the earlier Doctors or just complain vehemently about the
Moffat years. It’s nice to have that social circle around me.
It’s
also nice to have the wider platform of this blog to tell all this,
and as I said, nice to have people willing to read it, despite how
long I might ramble on. Thanks for sticking through it all!
And
for those who just don’t have the patience to read it all, here’s
the tl;dr version:
I
love Doctor Who.
No comments:
Post a Comment