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.

Wizards Vs Aliens - 100 Wizards

When Wizards Vs Aliens first premièred last year, I was eager to see it, coming as it did from the same people responsible for The Sarah Jane Adventures. There was good reason to believe it would be good. And it was, albeit not as good as I’d hoped it might be. Nevertheless, it was good enough to keep me eager for the second series. I saw a lot of potential in the series, even if many of its characters only occasionally rose above the stereotypes they were based on. So I was quite glad to learn that there would, indeed, be a second series. The first year of a show is often a time of figuring out what it can do and what its overall direction will be; the second year is often the year when the show demonstrates whether it will sink or swim.

Like last year (and like The Sarah Jane Adventures before it), this new series of Wizards Vs Aliens is made of two-episode stories. There are fourteen episodes this year instead of twelve, airing two per week over seven weeks. One of the forthcoming stories this year was originally written for the fifth series of Sarah Jane, but was one of the ones not filmed before Elisabeth Sladen’s untimely passing. The fact that it has been rewritten as a Wizards Vs Aliens story kind of shows the spiritual connectedness between the two shows and I’m eager to see how it works. The final story of this year is written by Russell T Davies (his first script for the show he co-created) and I’m also eager to see that one.

The second series première, “100 Wizards” by Phil Ford does not yet achieve the potential I’d like to see from the show. It’s very much a re-establishing of the premise after nearly a year off the air. But I certainly haven’t given up hope. I still see the potential and still hope that this season, Wizards Vs Aliens will significantly “up its game”. Indeed, “100 Wizards” is a great deal of fun overall, and fun is a great deal of what the show is about. It took me a little while to get into the story, but by the end of the second episode, I was fully engaged in what was going on. So in that respect, “100 Wizards” succeeds admirably.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - The Last Day

The first series of Wizards Vs Aliens has had its ups and downs, but on the whole, has trended more towards the ups. In the final two episodes, “The Last Day” by Phil Ford, it reaches a new height by providing the most emotional story yet and resolving a couple of mysteries that have carried through the whole series so far. The story manages to combine a little bit of spookiness, great atmosphere, action, excitement, and good character development all into one compelling tale. Yes, it does overdo it at times with the sentimentality, but not egregiously so, and as that sentimentality does play into the triumphant and uplifting ending, I’m willing to forgive it for going just a little over the top. Overall, it’s a delightful and fitting finale for the first series and paves the way for the second series to come.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - Dawn of the Nekross

Wizards Vs Aliens is a new children’s series from creators Russell T Davies and Phil Ford, the same team behind The Sarah Jane Adventures. And it’s very much in the same vein as Sarah Jane: a small group of characters defend the Earth from evil threats, in this case, the alien Nekross. There are, of course, significant differences between Wizards Vs Aliens and Sarah Jane, notably the titular wizards, but the influence of the earlier series over the newer is quite clear and easily felt. It’s well known that Davies and Ford had plans for more Sarah Jane (at the very least, the remainder of the fifth series; it was only Elisabeth Sladen’s untimely death that ended the show when it did), and I suspect many of those plans have been given a slight facelift and shifted over into Wizards. Indeed, I can totally imagine Sarah Jane Smith delivering the speech that lead character Tom gives at the closing of part two of “Dawn of the Nekross”. It’s completely in the same style as numerous little speeches she gave in her own show. Indeed, the entire show seems at times almost like a tribute to Elisabeth Sladen.

I’m a great fan of The Sarah Jane Adventures—indeed, I think the fourth and fifth series of that show are better than the fifth and sixth series (which aired at roughly the same time) of its parent show, Doctor Who—and the similarities Aliens Vs Wizards has with Sarah Jane mean that I can’t help but like this show a great deal, too. It’s cheesy and over the top (even moreso than Sarah Jane), but it revels in that cheesiness with wonderfully bombastic performances by Brian Blessed and the other Nekross. It knows its premise is silly and absurd, and runs with it. Yet at the same time, it treats that absurdness with just enough seriousness to make it believable, wrapping the viewers in and making them care about the events. The characters might be a bit like caricatures at the moment, but there’s a lot of depth hinted at in the first two episodes that I have no doubt will develop over time.

The premise is simple: Wizards exist and have been secretly coexisting with the rest of humanity throughout all of history. Tom Clarke is a teenage wizard, who hasn’t quite learned responsibility yet (he still sneakily uses spells to do his homework or win football games). He finds himself caught up in an alien invasion. The aliens have come to drain the Earth of all its magic.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

The Sarah Jane Adventures - The Man Who Never Was

And so the end has come. With the transmission of parts one and two of “The Man Who Never Was”, The Sarah Jane Adventures has come to a premature finish. Many people, myself included, erroneously believed that this story had always been intended to end the season, so even though it wouldn’t be wrapping up the whole show, it would at least wrap up the season. It’s perfectly normal for television episodes to be filmed out of order, so there was nothing unbelievable about this idea and the rumour spread far and wide. (I could have sworn I first read it on the Doctor Who News Page, which is generally a very reliable source of information, so I believed it; however, having just done a search for it, I can’t find any mention in any post on the Doctor Who News Page, so I must have seen it somewhere else.) As it happens, the truth of the matter is, “The Man Who Never Was” was always intended as the third story of the season, and so does not provide the sense of closure that many people no doubt hoped for. However, it does have a certain sense of closure to it, particularly through the meeting of Luke and Sky, and it doesn’t leave the audience consciously thinking about any of the show’s loose plot threads.

Written by Gareth Roberts, “The Man Who Never Was” is a fun story that combines together the meeting of Luke and Sky with a tale about a sinister new computer (the “Serf Board”), an evil corporate villain, and some deft social commentary on human trafficking. It’s not the greatest Sarah Jane Adventures story ever (that title probably goes to last week’s “The Curse of Clyde Langer” or perhaps “Death of the Doctor”), nor is it particularly epic in style, but it is an entertaining romp which perfectly encapsulates the true heart of the series. If any random story had to be selected as the finale of the series, this one works better than pretty much any other. SPOILERS FOLLOW

The Sarah Jane Adventures - The Curse of Clyde Langer

In short, utterly brilliant.

At some point or other, pretty much every science fiction programme out there does an episode in which one or more characters find themselves alienated from the other characters. Sometimes, everyone else forgets they exist. On other occasions, they become invisible and no one else realizes they’re there. However, while the reason for it might vary, the effect is generally the same: the characters are forced to deal with isolation and loneliness, and through it, learn some lesson about themselves that makes them better people. It’s happened enough times on various science fiction shows that it’s become something of a tired trope. This isn’t even the first time The Sarah Jane Adventures has employed it. However, “The Curse of Clyde Langer” by Phil Ford is quite possibly the best take on it I’ve ever seen. There is real emotion here, with some stunning performances and even a bit of social commentary about homelessness to go along with it. It is definitely one of the best pair of episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures and even one of the best Doctor Who of any kind. SPOILERS FOLLOW

The Sarah Jane Adventures - Sky

My earliest memory of Doctor Who is seeing an episode with the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) up against the Daleks. This was several years before I became hooked on the show and began watching it religiously. It was at a time when Doctor Who terrified me and gave me nightmares. I remember seeing the Doctor tied up on a table being interrogated by the Daleks. I remember seeing the Daleks exterminate a man who had betrayed them, and most terrifying of all, I remember an army of Daleks coming out from under a bridge to exterminate everyone.

I often saw snippets of episodes, as my mom watched the show every week. They always scared me, so I never really sat down to watch whole episodes. Nevertheless, there was always something about the show that intrigued me, and the Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith became prominent figures in my mind. Eventually, I saw episode 2 of “Full Circle” and I was hooked for life. Of course, by that time, the companion was the second Romana, and Sarah Jane Smith was long gone. Still, Sarah Jane had formed a huge impression on me over the years. To me, she was part of what made the show Doctor Who.

Now that I was hooked, I simply had to find out more about the programme I had been missing all those years. I began voraciously reading the novelizations of the episodes, and would frequently discover moments I remembered seeing on television. Naturally, I was curious about my earliest memory. I quickly discovered that there was only one Dalek story with the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane: “Genesis of the Daleks”. I found a copy of the novelization in the library, read it, and was surprised to find that it didn’t really fit my memory. Now, the old Target novelizations sometimes deviated a bit from the TV episodes. They were often condensed considerably, so I thought that maybe the book had just handled the scenes from my memory differently than the episode had. I wasn’t fully convinced of that, though, so I tried double-checking that there wasn’t another Dalek story that could fit my memories. Sarah Jane had been in the Third Doctor story, “Death to the Daleks”, so I considered the possibility that that was the one I remembered. I really didn’t think it likely because Tom Baker was so clearly in my memories of the story in question. Nonetheless, I read the novelization of “Death to the Daleks”. It didn’t fit.