November Round-Up Plus Advanced Class Guide Playtest, Doctor Who Christmas Special Trailer, and TARDIS In Orbit Update

Not surprisingly, November was an even busier month for Doctor Who than October was. We didn’t have the excitement of newly discovered missing episodes, but we did get the 50th anniversary celebrations! Not surprisingly, the vast majority of things on this blog this month had to do with Doctor Who, but let’s start with the non-Doctor Who things first.

I only got round to one Pathfinder review this month: Player Companion: Blood of the Moon. There are a few more products waiting in the wings, including the third part of Wrath of the Righteous, Towns of the Inner Sea, and also Bestiary 4. Expect reviews of those over the next couple of weeks. Of course, there’ll be a whole new selection of products coming in December, too.

With all the focus on Doctor Who this month, I missed mentioning that Paizo has started an open playtest for the upcoming Advanced Class Guide, which will be released next August. This book will contain ten new classes. The Pathfinder game itself began its life with a massive open playtest, and Paizo has kept up the tradition with many of the subsequent rulebooks they have produced. This playtest runs until December 17th, and is a great opportunity for gamers to test what is to come and give feedback on it. There’s only a couple of weeks left, but that’s still enough time to try out a couple of the classes and run them through a few encounters.

The new season of Wizards Vs Aliens premièred at the end of October, and I began reviewing the episodes at the beginning of this month. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen a little behind and so far have only covered the first three stories—“100 Wizards”, “Vice Versa”, and “The Cave of Menla Gto”. I hope to catch up over the next week or so.

And that brings us back to Doctor Who. In the build-up to “The Day of the Doctor”, the beginning of the month saw the release of a couple trailers as well as a clip or two. But far more exciting was Paul McGann’s triumphant return to Doctor Who in “The Night of the Doctor”. This serves as a prequel to the anniversary special, but also details the end of the eighth Doctor’s life and the rise of John Hurt’s War Doctor. A second prequel, “The Last Day” was released shortly after. Then came the docudrama, An Adventure in Space and Time, about the beginnings of our favourite television programme. The month was rounded off with Peter Davison’s hilarious “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot” and the special itself, “The Day of the Doctor”.

Also this month, I completed my series of reflections looking back on my own personal history with Doctor Who. I looked at the tenth and eleventh Doctors, as well as the spin-offs, movies, and other media.

Now, attention turns towards the Christmas special on December 25th. This will be Matt Smith’s final story and will feature his regeneration into Peter Capaldi’s Doctor—the twelfth...er....thirteenth Doctor. The numbering has gotten a little confusing now that John Hurt is in there. And it’s about to get more confusing (slightly spoilerish link here regarding the Doctor’s regenerations). Grumble, grumble, grumble...

Anyway, the Christmas special is titled, “The Time of the Doctor”. We’ve had a lot of “[Noun] of the Doctor” titles recently (“Name of...”, “Night of...”, “Day of...”). I hope this is the last for a little while. Here’s the first (very brief) trailer:

To end the month, here’s the latest update regarding the TARDIS In Orbit project.

Have a great December folks!

Doctor Who - The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

The last few weeks leading up to the 50th anniversary have been a busy period for Doctor Who. While there’s only been one actual new episode (“The Day of the Doctor”), there has been a plethora of other programming, such as the docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time, the prequels “Night of the Doctor” and “The Last Day”, and numerous other things for television, radio, and internet. Some have been serious drama (like the aforementioned docudrama); others have been documentaries (like The Science of Doctor Who) or behind-the-scenes programming. But perhaps the jewel amongst it all is Peter Davison’s “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot”. If you haven’t seen it yet, take thirty minutes out of your day to watch it and then continue reading.

Despite the many years since they were on the programme, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy retain great passion for the show and that passion really shines in this beautiful tribute. The same is true for Paul McGann. Due to other filming commitments, his role here is very small, but the fact that he made time for even the small bit here (and his appearance in “Night of the Doctor”) shows the love he has for a show that he was part of for such an unfortunately short time.* All four of them would have truly loved to have been in “The Day of the Doctor”, but even though they weren’t, they still have a sense of humour about it.

Doctor Who - The Day of the Doctor

November 25th was not the date of Doctor Who’s fiftieth anniversary. But it was close enough. It was the day I got to watch the 50th anniversary special in a movie theatre. Doctor Who in a movie theatre! Even just a couple of years ago, I never would have believed it. More than that, the theatre was packed. I arrived about an hour in advance and it was already difficult to find two seats side-by-side so that I could save one for my wife, who wouldn’t be arriving until closer to the start time.

It took time to sink in that I was in a theatre full of Doctor Who fans! And there were all kinds there, too: men, women, young, old. A few were cosplaying—as the eleventh Doctor or the TARDIS or an Ood. Others just had an accessory or two, like a sonic screwdriver, or, as in my case, just wearing a Doctor Who-themed t-shirt (I had a Dalek t-shirt on). Surprisingly, I didn’t see any children. It was a 7:30 showing, so not late, yet the youngest people I saw were around 18 to 20. Other than that, however, there was a wide diversity of people there.

Seven-thirty seemed to take forever to arrive. My wife got there around 7:15 and the time continued to tick slowly by. But eventually, show time arrived. Of course, there were the requisite trailers to then get through, but there was also a rather funny specially recorded sequence with Strax explaining the rules of theatre etiquette, as well as Matt Smith and David Tennant introducing the 3D element. It was probably around 7:45 when “The Day of the Doctor” actually started, but it was well worth the wait.

I’ve never shied away from criticising Steven Moffat’s writing on Doctor Who. Anyone who has read my previous reviews knows that I’ve had issues with much over the last couple of years. However, I also don’t shy away from giving credit where credit is due. “The Day of the Doctor” is hardly a perfect episode—it suffers from a number of typical Moffat-isms—but it is highly enjoyable and entertaining, and works well as both a celebration of Doctor Who’s past and a look forward to its future (even if I have concerns about where that future might take it). There are many moments throughout that make me smile and still others that make me want to squeal with delight (this was particularly true on my first viewing). There are also moments that frustrate me, but most of those only really do so when I stop to think about them after the episode is over. While the episode is still going, it’s possible to ignore most of them or even not notice them at all. And that’s a pretty good thing.

SPOIELRS FOLLOW

Doctor Who - An Adventure in Space and Time

The story of the beginning of Doctor Who is a big one. A lot went on in those early years, both in front of, and behind the scenes. Telling that story is a monumental task. Telling that story in 90 minutes is virtually impossible. Yet in An Adventure in Space and Time, Mark Gatiss accomplishes that virtual impossibility with aplomb. Yes, in order to do so, he must leave some things out: there is no mention of original script editor David Whitaker, and the change of producers from Verity Lambert to John Wiles (who is never named) is skimmed over. Sometimes, multiple characters or events must be amalgamated for time or dramatic reasons. Nevertheless, An Adventure in Space and Time manages to convey an accurate, if simplified, version of events, and manages it beautifully with a heart-warming and emotional production.

When I first heard that there was going to be a docudrama about the origins of Doctor Who, I was only mildly interested. On the whole, I’m not a fan of docudramas. I like drama, and I like documentaries, but the combination of the two generally doesn’t interest me—principally because of the need, no matter how justified, to change and simplify things. When I want to learn about historical events, I’d rather learn the true details and not the dramatised ones. But that’s not to say that I think docudramas are inherently bad programmes. They’re just not generally to my taste. However, An Adventure in Space and Time drew me in completely. Perhaps it’s because I was already emotionally invested in its story, and as such it could easily sweep me up and take me along for the ride. Or perhaps it’s just because it is an exceptionally well-made production. It’s not perfect in every way and there are things I wish it did a little differently or a little better, but on the whole, I’m immensely satisfied with it.

Happy 50th Birthday, Doctor Who!

Fifty years ago today, Doctor Who aired its very first episode, “An Unearthly Child”. Today, the legacy started by producer Verity Lambert and star William Hartnell still continues stronger than ever. Today will see the airing of “The Day of the Doctor” with Matt Smith, David Tennant, and John Hurt—simulcast in 3D in over 80 countries and in selected cinemas in those countries. As I sit here writing this, I am in utter awe.

Unfortunately, I won’t be seeing “The Day of the Doctor” until the 25th (couldn’t get tickets for today and I want my viewing in the theatre to be my first viewing). That means I’ll be severely limiting my internet access for the next couple of days in order to stay away from the spoilers. However, I couldn’t let the day go by without putting something up on the blog.

Enjoy the special, everyone! Don’t forget about the docudrama, An Adventure in Space and Time either. It’s worth seeing (review to come soon). And if you’re interested, check out my series of Doctor Who Reflections.

Fifty years. Wow.

Doctor Who - The Last Day

"The Last Day" is the latest short mini-episode leading into tomorrow's Doctor Who 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor". The prequel was originally released exclusively to iTunes a couple of days ago, but is now available on the BBC's YouTube channel.



The story details the "fall of Arcadia", which has been mentioned by the Doctor before (although I'll confess I can't remember which episode at the moment; it was a tenth Doctor episode). Really, it doesn't tell a whole lot, and is far less entertaining than "The Night of the Doctor". However, it does set up a nice sense of ominous foreboding for the special.

Just one more day to go (three for me)!

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Reflections on the Movies, Spin-Offs, and Other Media, Plus Addenda

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.

Children In Need Doctor Who Clip from The Day of the Doctor

This two-minute clip from the 50th anniversary special, "The Day of the Doctor" aired today as part of this year's Children In Need charity. It's not as exciting as "The Night of the Doctor", but it's nice to see Jemma Redgrave back as Kate Stewart.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Reflections on the Eleventh Doctor

Doctor Who is undoubtedly hugely popular at the moment, perhaps more than it’s ever been. The 50th anniversary special, which is less than two weeks away, will be simulcast in over 75 countries worldwide—and not just on television, but in movie theatres as well—in 3D, too. When I was growing up, such a thing would have been beyond belief. Even now, as the 50th approaches, it doesn’t quite seem possible. Until I’m sitting in the theatre watching the special on the 25th of November (alas, due to a computer mess-up, tickets for the 23rd were sold out before I could get some for that day), there’ll be a part of me that doesn’t quite believe it, perhaps not even then. But Doctor Who is big now.

Of course, that doesn’t stop the British tabloids from occasionally running stories about slipping ratings. They’ll carefully select the overnight ratings from episodes a few years ago, compare them to the overnights of a recent episode, and declare the show in trouble. They’ll completely neglect to mention that overnights don’t really matter to the BBC. The final ratings, which include everyone who watched the episode within seven days, are just as strong as ever. The only thing that’s really changed is that more people are watching the episodes at the times of their choosing rather than the air-times. A.I. (appreciation index) scores have also remained more-or-less stable, indicating people still like what they’re watching.

These tabloid stories also don’t take into account the massive increase in popularity Doctor Who has received in the rest of the world, outside of the U.K., particularly in the United States, since Matt Smith took over as the Doctor and Steven Moffat became showrunner. This is due in large part to the amount of publicity BBC America has given the show in the U.S. When the Sci Fi network carried the programme during the David Tennant years, they did little to publicize it (similar to how CBC handled publicity here in Canada). BBC America’s publicity campaign has brought in hordes of viewers. However, while publicity has brought the viewers in, the show has kept them watching. People obviously like it.

As with any period in Doctor Who’s history, there are, of course, people who are dissatisfied. There were fans who complained loudly about Russell T Davies. Before him, it was John Nathan Turner. Nothing can satisfy everyone. So it’s not surprising that there are very vocal fans who are disappointed with the most recent period of the programme. But from my perspective, there’s one major difference this time round: I’m one of the dissatisfied.

Doctor Who - The Night of the Doctor

Watch the following first before reading any further if you don't want a really big spoiler (and the internet hasn't already spoiled it for you):



SPOILERS FOLLOW

2nd Trailer for The Day of the Doctor

Hot on the tails of today's earlier trailer  (which actually leaked yesterday), comes this second, extended trailer. In it, we learn that the Doctor is about to face his "darkest day".

What? Again? Just how many darkest days or hours has the Doctor had?

The Day of the Doctor Trailer and Clip

The first clip-based trailer for the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special is now available. Here it is:



Yesterday, the BBC also released a very brief clip from the special, which you can see here:

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Reflections on the Tenth Doctor

I commented a couple weeks ago that the recent periods of Doctor Who somewhat eerily mirror the periods of my own life. I had my own wilderness years of sorts during the show’s wilderness years. In the early 2000’s, I relocated and started to build my life back up to something of a high point, and around the same time, Doctor Who came back and also built itself back up to a high point.

Of course, everyone has their own opinions on when the show has been at it its best, but for me, I do see the Russell T Davies years (both the ninth and tenth Doctors) as the years when Doctor Who was at its most consistent best. This doesn’t mean every episode was great and perfect, and it doesn’t mean there weren’t great and incredible periods before it (I wouldn’t have been a fan for all those years if there weren’t). There were weak episodes during the ninth and tenth Doctors’ periods and there were brilliant episodes, but the gap between weak and brilliant never seemed as great as the gap between weak and brilliant could sometimes be in the classic series. Just look at the difference in quality between “The Caves of Androzani” and the story that came immediately after it in the same season, “The Twin Dilemma”. There was an overall greater consistency under Russell T Davies’s control, and I was immensely satisfied with what I was watching, even after turning my rather critical eye upon it. And I don’t deny I can be very critical of what I watch.

As I covered last week, I loved Christopher Eccleston’s series. I was disappointed that he wasn’t sticking around, but I was eager to see what the new Doctor would bring to the role. Like most of the other Doctors, I hadn’t heard of David Tennant when he was announced, so I had no preconceived notions of him, but I trusted that he would be good. Before Series One has started, I had worried about the quality of the show itself, but those worries were now completely gone. I expected brilliance. Alas, there would be quite a wait for some of it.

October Round-Up - A Great Month for Doctor Who!

This was quite the month for Doctor Who fans! And there’s still nearly a month until the 50th anniversary. Build-up to the anniversary certainly has begun in earnest though. The month opened with further information on the anniversary simulcast. Specific information on the theatre venues came later in the month, although I didn’t specifically report on that. Tickets for the simulcast went on sale on October 25th, and I’m pretty sure they all sold out quite quickly. They certainly did in Toronto.

The tickets were scheduled to go on sale at 9 a.m. eastern time. I was ready and waiting to get mine. The option to purchase tickets for the Toronto location (Scotiabank Theatre) didn’t go live until nearly quarter past nine. I immediately clicked to purchase and went through the whole process, confirmed all my information for payment, and so on. Then I got the following message: “We cannot finalize your payment due to a technical error. Please try again later.” I tried again immediately, only to find that the tickets were sold out. I was very unimpressed. Oh well. I purchased tickets for November 25th instead and encountered the same problem a couple more times before I decided to try a different payment option. That finally worked, so hooray! I hope the 3D doesn’t give me too much of a headache.

The first trailer for the 50th anniversary episode (not including the Comic-Con trailer from several months ago) was released this month. It was specially recorded and does not contain any actual scenes from the episode. Instead, it’s a bit of a tribute to the full 50 years of Doctor Who history, with a narration by Matt Smith to whet viewers’ appetites for the special. Visually, it’s really quite stunning, and if you look carefully, you can see a lot of images from across Doctor Who’s history, both the classic series and the new. Apart from being a nostalgia-fest, however, there’s not much of what one could actually consider content in it, but it is just a trailer. I do wish, though, that Doctor Who would lighten up on the superlative adjectives for a while. “One impossible day”, “the Impossible Girl”, “the Doctor’s darkest hour”—lines like these show up not just in trailers, but in the programme itself, and after a while, they start to lose their meaning. When impossible things keep happening, they’re just not impossible anymore. At any rate, here’s the trailer:

The 50th anniversary, however, was not the biggest news of the month. That honour definitely goes to the recovery of missing episodes! Nine previously missing Doctor Who episodes from the sixties have been discovered and are now available for download purchase. I wrote a review of one of the newly recovered stories, “The Enemy of the World”, something I never imagined I’d get to do a couple years ago when I started this blog. I’ve not actually had a chance to watch “The Web of Fear” yet, but I’ll hopefully get to it soon. Expect a review of it shortly after.

I also continued my own reflections on the impact of Doctor Who on my own life, looking at the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth Doctors. The last couple were published a bit late (I’ve been trying to work to a schedule of one each weekend), but I hope to be back on schedule with the tenth Doctor this weekend.

In other Doctor Who news, the TARDIS in Orbit project has another update:

With the heavy emphasis on Doctor Who this month, one might start to think this is a Doctor Who blog, but it’s really quite a bit more than that! There were only three non-Doctor Who posts this month, all of them Pathfinder. With my reviews of Mythic Realms, Mythic Origins, and Sword of Valor, I finally got caught up on Pathfinder reviews. When I posted the review of Sword of Valor, I had not yet received any new products. Of course, that’s changed in the last couple of days, so expect some more Pathfinder reviews soon.

Since November is the 50th anniversary month, there will likely be lots more Doctor Who stuff to come this month (including my remaining reflection posts on the tenth and eleventh Doctors, as well as one on the spin-off series), but I’ll be looking at other stuff too. A new season of Wizards Vs Aliens began this week, so I’ll be reviewing that. Plus, I have a couple of other things I hope to get to as well.

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone, and have a great November!

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Reflections on the Ninth Doctor

As year by year passed after the 1996 Doctor Who TV Movie, the likelihood of new Doctor Who (at least in my mind) seemed to diminish—even more rapidly than it had diminished between the end of the original series and the TV Movie. It seemed to me that they had tried a comeback and it had failed. Thus, the coffin was sealed. As I mentioned last week, these next several years became the years that I was least connected to Doctor Who. It wasn’t gone from my life; there were just other, newer things to focus on for the time being.

In the summer of 2002, I left Montreal and returned to London for a couple of months while I searched for new work in Toronto. I then moved to Toronto that September and began a new chapter of my own life, little realizing that efforts were under way for a new chapter of Doctor Who as well. My first year in Toronto was very much a time of establishing myself and making sure I could pay the bills month to month (Toronto is an expensive city to live in; my first apartment here cost more than my one in Montreal and was only about a quarter the size). At some point along the way (either that year or the following year), I acquired my first-ever DVD player and the first-ever DVDs I bought were the complete “Key to Time” season of Doctor Who.

Apart from the very slow change-over of VHS tapes to DVD, however, there was very little Doctor Who going on in my life. I wasn’t paying much, if any, attention to the wider world of Doctor Who fandom and rarely even bothering to check up on the latest news. What news there was, was generally of a kind that either didn’t effect me or just frustrated me: new book releases that never showed up in any local stores, or audio adventures that I couldn’t afford to buy. There seemed little point to following the world of Doctor Who news. Nonetheless, I still checked up on news from time to time and looked at the occasional Doctor Who messageboard. After all, there might occasionally be something to interest me.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Reflections on the Eighth Doctor and the Wilderness Years

The years 1990 to 2005 are known among Doctor Who fans as the “wilderness years”, the years when, with only one brief exception, the show was off the air—well, “off the air” in the sense that no new episodes were being made. For much of the 90’s, here in Canada, YTV continued to air repeats of the show, albeit in ever later and later time slots. It moved to 1:30 a.m. five days a week for a while, and then 2:30 a.m. seven days a week—a slot it stayed in for a few years before they stopped showing it altogether.

It was an exceedingly annoying timeslot, as I was desperate to get all the episodes on tape—again. I had taped them all previously, but large chunks of them had ended up with commercials in them. The 1:30 slot wasn’t so bad as it was a time I could pretty much guarantee being home at and I was always something of a night owl. But 2:30... Ugh. Even for me, staying up till 3 in the morning was exceedingly late, and as it was seven days a week, it wasn’t even possible to get a weekend relief. And I was in university and had classes. But I was dedicated and a fool. At least I was successful. I eventually replaced all my commercial-filled copies. Of course, by then, the release schedule for the official tapes had picked up somewhat and I began replacing them all again. Then later, VHS got replaced by DVD. Sigh. That’s something I’ve had enough of, these days. If ever the series is re-released on a new medium, I won’t be getting them again. I’ll keep my DVDs until they wear out and only replace them at that time.

While there may not have been any new television episodes, there was nonetheless new Doctor Who coming out—novels! For the longest time, Doctor Who novels were just novelizations of television stories, but as the television series came to an end, Virgin Books began The New Adventures, a monthly series featuring the seventh Doctor that continued on from where the TV show had left off. I fell in love with these books right off the bat, and they continued to get better as they went along.

I’ve rarely been into TV or movie tie-in books. I find they tend to be poorly written and are little more than an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the programme they were about. Over the years, I’ve read a few Star Trek and Star Wars books, Dragonlance or various other Dungeons & Dragons-related books, and books for various other series, and I have pretty much always been disappointed (with a few notable exceptions). I expected much the same from The New Adventures. Yet they surprised me. They were better than other tie-in books. The weren’t necessarily masterpieces (especially several of the early ones), but they were well-written and enjoyable. In some ways, I actually started to prefer the books to the show. They could do things that would have been impossible for the TV series to pull off—not just in terms of special effects, but also the style of storytelling. The New Adventures could delve into topics and issues that there just wasn’t time to deal with on TV. More than that, the characters developed in ways that they rarely had on the TV show. They had story arcs and they grew as people. Actions—even and especially the Doctor’s actions—had consequences later on, and the characters had to face these consequences.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Reflections on the Seventh Doctor

The first I ever heard of Sylvester McCoy was on the cover of Doctor Who Magazine announcing him as the seventh Doctor. Similarly to when I first learnt of the sixth Doctor, my first thought was that it seemed a little soon for a new Doctor. The difference here, however, was that this time, I was more aware of how long Colin Baker had been the sixth Doctor already (even though we were only just getting to his episodes in Ontario). When I first learned of the sixth Doctor, I mistakenly believed Peter Davison had only been around for one year. When I first learned of the seventh, I knew Colin Baker had only had two seasons.

It would be a couple years before I actually got to see the seventh Doctor in action. However, it did come sooner than I would have expected. TVOntario had always been several years behind the U.K. in its broadcasting of Doctor Who, but in the late 80’s, it began to catch up. The ‘85 hiatus provided the first opportunity to catch up a year. Then, when TVO reached “The Trial of a Time Lord” season, they actually purchased both that and Sylvester McCoy’s first season together and aired them as one season. TVO ran several advertisements for the new “season” before it started, and they focused entirely on the seventh Doctor, showing scenes from “Time and the Rani”. I was actually a little worried at the time that they were going to skip “The Trial of a Time Lord” for some reason. They had skipped “The Five Doctors” a couple of years previously, so it didn’t seem impossible that they might skip that one too. Luckily, that wasn’t the case, and they showed “Trial” before moving on to the seventh Doctor.

I was well into high school by that time, and was surrounded by people who mostly despised Doctor Who, and would make fun of it and anyone who dared admit to watching it. Even most of my friends made fun of the show with a certain regularity, mainly taking it to task for its terrible special effects. Star Trek: The Next Generation was becoming extremely popular at the time, and it was generally the programme people held Doctor Who up to. Even the one friend I had who was a big Doctor Who fan (the one I used to swap VHS tapes with at the time, as I discussed in my first and second Doctor reflections) once said to me, “Let’s face it, Michael. Doctor Who will never be as good as Star Trek: The Next Generation.” I disagreed, of course, but I was alone in that assessment.

9 Missing Doctor Who Episodes Are No Longer Missing

Well, it has now been confirmed. Although news came out earlier this week that “a number” of missing Doctor Who episodes had been found and returned to the BBC, exactly how many and what those episodes were was not officially revealed until yesterday (although some people had a pretty good idea—see my post from Tuesday). The BBC held a press conference yesterday, attended by new series writer Mark Gatiss, and second Doctor companions Frazer Hines (Jamie) and Deborah Watling (Victoria). Details of the conference were embargoed until midnight U.K. time; however, many of those details began to leak out before that time.

It is with great happiness that I can now say that episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 of “The Enemy of the World”, along with episodes 2, 4, 5, and 6 of “The Web of Fear” are no longer missing! Episodes 3 of “Enemy” and 1 of “Web” already existed in the BBC archives, meaning that “The Enemy of the World” is now complete. “The Web of Fear” is now nearly complete, missing only episode 3 (unfortunately, the episode that has Nicholas Courtney’s first-ever appearance as Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart). The episodes were found by Philip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive (T.I.E.A.), which has been conducting an extensive search of television stations across Africa. He found the episodes (along with two other already existing episodes) in Jos, Nigeria. This find is one of the largest individual finds of missing Doctor Who episodes ever, and brings the total number of missing episodes down to 97. Also, for the first time in decades, more than half of Patrick Troughton’s episodes now remain. Rumours persist of further episodes having been found as well, but if true, the BBC and Philip Morris are remaining quiet about them.

The BBC has made all nine of these episodes available for download on iTunes, along with the existing episodes and a special reconstruction of the third episode of “Web”, using still photos and the existing soundtrack. “Enemy” will be out on DVD in the U.K. on November 22, while “Web” will be out in early 2014 (according to Amazon UK in February). There is no word yet on North American DVD releases; however, they will undoubtedly be along in due time.

While the iTunes downloads are definitely available in the U.K., U.S.A., and Canada, this is apparently not the case everywhere. Some countries (such as New Zealand) are not able to access them. It’s also a bit disappointing that the downloads are limited to iTunes and cannot be downloaded with different platforms. Linux users (such as myself), for example, cannot easily use iTunes as there is not a Linux-compatible version (although programs such as WINE can help solve this problem). Some of those unable to use iTunes may turn to other, more illicit, means of acquiring the episodes, losing BBC Worldwide money they might have otherwise made. Still, the downloads have hit both the number one and number two positions on the British iTunes charts, so they’re probably not hurting all that bad.

At any rate, this is a great time to be a fan of classic Doctor Who. We can now watch episodes that no one’s been able to see for 45 years. I am utterly overjoyed!

The BBC News article on the find can be found at this link. Also, here are the trailers for the recovered episodes:

Missing Doctor Who Episodes Found!

O happy day!

Recently, I’ve been writing a series of reflections on my life with Doctor Who. It’s all part of my way of celebrating fifty years of my favourite show. Back in my reflections on the first Doctor, I mentioned how much I long for the missing episodes (of which, until recently, there have still been 106) to be found and returned. There are so many stories I and other fans desperately wish to enjoy. In that same article, I mentioned rumours of the discovery of a large haul of missing episodes and the hope that some aspect of that rumour might turn out to be true.

Well, it seems that dream has really happened. On the weekend, stories began to break in the British media about a find. In particular, Radio Times published a story stating that missing episodes would be available for download on Wednesday (later updated to say later in the week). Earlier today (well, yesterday now in the U.K.), BBC news published a story stating that "a number of early episodes...have been returned to the BBC," and that full details are expected to be available at the end of the week. The official website of Deborah Watling (who played 60s companion Victoria) has also confirmed the news by announcing that she and Frazer Hines (60s companion Jamie) will be at the press conference on Thursday where the find will be officially announced.

This is real. This is truly real, and I couldn’t be more overjoyed.

I haven’t written much about the rumours leading up to this point since, well, they’ve just been rumours and this isn’t a gossip blog. However, I have been closely following the rumour since May (although it’s been around considerably longer than that). I actually don’t usually pay any attention to rumours like this, preferring to let news come as it may. But this rumour was a little different, and utterly absurd. It caught my interest and so I paid attention. According to the rumour (dubbed by some fans as the “omni-rumour”), a haul of approximately 90 episodes of Doctor Who, along with missing episodes of other programmes had been found. It seemed too good to be true. But then Ian Levine (who found and recovered 20 episodes of Doctor Who in the 80’s) began tweeting his belief in the rumour and suddenly there was just a hint of credence to it. Then he fell uncharacteristically silent on the matter, refusing to comment on it for months before finally breaking his silence a week or so ago. My own willingness to believe these rumours has waxed and waned over the past few months, but I have always remained cautiously sceptical. There have been hoaxes before, although if this were a hoax, it would be a massive one. However, a couple of weeks ago, things began falling into place in such a way that I became near certain there was some truth to it all. Of course, even true rumours have some exaggerations or outright fabrications to them, but I started to become confident that the core of this rumour, at the very least, was true, and that some episodes had indeed been found.

At any rate, although we don’t know for sure what episodes and/or stories will be announced on Thursday, it seems likely that it will be nine episodes (note this is only rumour, even though I’m reasonably confident in it): five episodes of the Patrick Troughton story, “The Enemy of the World”, and four episodes of the immediately following story, “The Web of Fear”, featuring the Great Intelligence (the villain from the recent stories, “The Snowmen” and “The Name of the Doctor”). When combined with already existing episodes, these episodes will complete “The Enemy of the World” and leave “The Web of Fear” with only one episode still missing. As for the other 81 episodes in that supposed haul of 90? Well, I think we should just wait and see what happens on Thursday before jumping to any conclusions. Nine episodes is pretty amazing, really.

Whatever the exact episodes found are, even only one or two episodes, this will still be worthy of celebration. Every missing episode found is a triumph. We certainly couldn’t have asked for a better 50th anniversary gift!

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary - Reflections on the Sixth Doctor

Much like with the fifth Doctor, the first I ever heard of the sixth Doctor was from the cover of Doctor Who Annual—the very next one I got after the one that revealed to me the existence of the fifth Doctor. Peter Davison’s episodes had only just started airing in Canada and there was yet another Doctor staring back at me that Christmas morning. Already? I thought. I still didn’t realize just how far behind TVOntario was with airing Doctor Who episodes and had always figured we were just a little behind.

The frustrating thing was, unlike the previous year’s annual, this one didn’t have a handy article explaining all about the different Doctors. There was no mention of another regeneration having occurred, simply a bunch of short stories featuring this new Doctor and a new companion named Peri. It didn’t even mention the actor’s name! I honestly can’t remember when I first learned Colin Baker’s name. It was probably when I discovered Doctor Who Magazine, which was sometime in the next year or so, but I can’t be sure on that. Whatever the case, much like when I first learned of the fifth Doctor, I became very eager to see the new Doctor to find out what he was like.

I have to admit, I was very taken by his appearance. It screamed Doctor at me in ways that Peter Davison’s didn’t. Not that I had a problem with Peter Davison (I explained last week how baffled I was that people could so strongly prefer one Doctor over another), but there was something about Colin Baker’s face and, yes, his outfit that just said to me that this was the Doctor through and through. Looking back now as an adult, I completely understand the criticisms of the sixth Doctor’s outfit. It was horrendous and garish. And having heard Colin Baker’s original idea for his costume (which would have had him sporting an outfit very similar to what Christopher Eccleston eventually wore), I agree that would have been far, far better. However, at the time, I liked the outfit, simply because it was bad. In my head at the time, the Doctor was supposed to dress in ridiculous outfits. The fourth Doctor had a 17-foot-long scarf! The fifth Doctor wore a strange amalgam of cricket uniform and Edwardian frock coat with a piece of celery on his lapel! Of course, the sixth Doctor had to look weird. In fact, he looked the weirdest of them all, and therefore was unequivocally the Doctor.