Tag: Doctor Who

Look Who‘s back?

So there’s excitement again about missing episodes of a certain BBC SF TV show possibly turning up… a couple of years ago there was also excitement on this subject, though the latter was somewhat quickly squashed, and similarly there was a bit of excitement when Sue Malden said something else about missing episodes at a big TV-related event. In both cases it appears that the episodes in question weren’t new discoveries, but ones that had been “known” for some years to exist in private collections. But there’s a new addition to these reports that looks… promising?

The development comes from Film is Fabulous, which is an organisation (now a registered charity too) that’s operated by John Franklin (from the original Guardian article above), and it’s basically about helping private film collectors with cataloguing and preserving their stuff and hopefully rediscovering lost film and TV in doing so. They have indeed succeeded in recovering an assortment of long-lost TV, even from the ’50s, and that talk with Sue Malden took place at one of FiF’s events. Which is why it’s interesting that they recently posted this comment on Facebook (grabbed it from Reddit):

As mentioned by Sue Malden at our RECOVERED event in May, we are aware of several missing episodes of Doctor Who (Sue stated one or two, but there are more than this) in private film collections in the U.K. We are liaising with the individuals about cataloguing and preserving their entire collection, including the missing Doctor Who episodes, and ensuring that copies are returned to the BBC. We expect to make a detailed announcement shortly.

Obviously the Who fandom on YT  are bouncing up and down and expecting great things… I’m, well, remaining a bit sceptical still. Cos on the face of it, this just looks like another iteration of the episodes we already “know about” that no one has ever proven to actually exist… on the other hand, of course, this comes from an actual organisation, a charity no less, rather than some random goon on the Internet; FiF actually has something to lose if they turn out to be wrong after saying this.

Accordingly, I’m actually inclined to take this with more seriousness than usual; a statement from an actual organisation like FiF has potentially far greater credibility than the aforementioned random goon. And yet… I still can’t get too worked up about the news. Cos it’s only “news” in inverted commas, really. FiF might have something. No one is saying what (and it probably won’t be much if it’s anything). And I see a few cynics claiming the “news” is connected with FiF’s recently gained charitable status and their requests for donations since then which, I don’t know, may not be entirely wrong… I think I’ll hold off getting excited until someone offers tangible proof of any of this being correct.

Dalek tripper?

Going through my download folder, I was reminded that I grabbed this off Bluesky a few months ago… two of my favourite 1960s British pop culture icons together? Amazing. But today I suddenly had an attack  of “oh no, what if this is actually a Photoshop job or, worse, AI?”; I couldn’t imagine why someone would do such a thing, but at the same time it also feels like the exact sort of thing someone would do… So, quick research ensued, and lo, this bloody thing is apparently authentic; apparently it was taken at the Cannes Film Festival, the Fabs had just finished making Help! so they had a film to promote… and so did Milton Subotsky, that being Dr. Who and the Daleks, the big screen version of a certain BBC show that I suppose Amicus/Aaru thought they should make a film of while it was still popular and before it faded from TV screens, never to be remembered again… So yeah, evidently a Dalek did have a close encounter with Lennon, at least; both films came out within a few weeks of each other, too. I just wonder now who the guy lurking ominously to the back and left of the photo is…

Doctor WTF

I’m still processing the end of this year’s Doctor Who, which I haven’t done a weekly comment on this time round but have obviously been watching… and I have considered it to be probably the best season overall of the new series (and I mean the series since 2005; no, I do not distinguish Ncuti Gatwa’s period from the rest despite Disney), it actually has been that good. Not everyone’s happy about it on social media, obviously…

I will admit to finding this awfully funny, though

…because social media can’t cope with anything any more. I imagine that Twitter has been unbearable on this subject like it is on everything else:

“Holy hell, the Doctor’s Aryan again! HURRAY!”
“Yeah, but the Doctor’s a woman again too.”
“FFFFFUUUUUUU RTD!”

…Cos THAT was the unexpected outcome (assuming you haven’t paid any attention to the many and varied leaked reports online) of the whole season:

Indeed, look who’s Who… or is she? Cos a lot of people have been quick to point out a detail in the end credits: Billie Piper is noticeably not credited as the Doctor, merely as “introducing Billie Piper”… that’s an odd enough thng by itself, given she was only in the show full-time for two years as its co-star, but apparently I’m the only one who cares about that, everyone else seems more interested in what’s not being said:

The suggestion certainly got a lot of people talking, with many seeming to agree. Fans were quick to share their thoughts online.
One said: “It’s allowing themselves wiggle room.” Another wrote: “100%, given the reshoots that happened. It’s a smart move to get people talking and potentially have a really interesting Bad Wolf special to lead into the next Doctor.”
A third replied: “Well, the Bad Wolf does have the power to undo the 13 to 15 Doctors, and get the series back on track.”
Meanwhile, someone else commented: “I think the story will pan towards the other Doctor. He has his own Tardis. They are just pointing it out plainly that she is not the next central part of story, only the side kick.”

I believe this sort of talk is what the kids call “cope”, and I’ve seen a bunch of it on various YT video comments and on Bluesky; people seem to be really hoping Billie’s not the actual Doctor but the Bad Wolf entity who will apparently steer the series back in the direction they liked before that woman (and oh, wasn’t Jodie’s scene in the last episode an unexpected delight?) and that black queer made their nice, unchallenging, always status quo-affirming, never even remotely progressive TV show “woke”… at least the last commenter will accept Tennant’s second go-round, apparently; we can deal with a Scottish actor in the lead role as long as he’s straight and white (shame about the trans advocacy but you can’t have everything)…

There’s been an awful lot of speculation about the show’s future, a lot of it emerging from right-wing media sources with a vested interest in the BBC looking foolish and a “woke” program being axed—and I don’t think online fandom has helped by spreading this bullshit and getting the vapours—and it is notable that there’s still no word about whether or not Disney’s going to continue with the show or if even the BBC will continue with it, will they just rest it for a few years or will Billie Piper’s “oh hello” be the end of it… I don’t know, but Russ is clearly expecting at least one more… if nothing else he’s still got to tie up what those flash appearances from Susan in those two episodes were all about—I mean, Carole Ann Ford will be 85 in a couple of weeks, Rusty shouldn’t wait too much longer—plus a handful of other references we still haven’t had clarified. Quite apart from this “mystery” of whether Piper’s the Doctor or not.

Whatever. I know this much: a bunch of interesting shit has gone on behind the scenes over the last couple of decades (not just what Christophere Eccleston has hinted at), and one day it’s going to come out in full (I’ve always thought Matt Smith’s abrupt departure in 2013 was a bit suss). People are going to be honest, especially about the last few years, and it’s going to make the battles between John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward in the mid-80s look mild by comparison. I think we’ll be amazed that the show has got as far as it has, let alone where it might yet go…

Bill gets the bus

Well HERE’s something remarkable, on multiple levels, William Hartnell on record in 1931 (hence why I’m filing it under music even though there is none, cos “film & TV” feels wrong)… a “one-act thriller” first broadcast on the BBC in 1927, then re-recorded four years later. I never knew until literally just a few minutes ago that this was even a thing; I knew he was in films from the early ’30s on, but I’ve never seen any reference to this until now. So that’s remarkable enough, and probably so is the fact that it survives, but, well, so is the fact that it was even made in the first place. Cos… why was it made? Was there a market for this sort of record? Cos I can’t imagine there being much of one somehow, and yet it was clearly a commercial recording, not just something pulled from the BBC archive or some such. I wonder who was buying this sort of thing.

As for the author, well, “Martin Hussingtree” actually turns out to be a place rather than a person… but the person using the name turns out to have been interesting, assuming there wasn’t another “Martin Hussingtree” out there. He appears to have been Oliver Baldwin, son of British PM Stanley Baldwin, and one of his other literary works was a book called Konyetz, which is described thus:

Konyetz is a dystopian science fiction novel written by UK politician and author Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin, who used the pseudonym Martin Hussingtree. Baldwin, the son of British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, adopted his pseudonym from a small village in Worcestershire near the Baldwin family ironworks factory in Wilden. The novel was published in 1924 and reflects Baldwin’s profound experiences during World War One, which transformed him into an avowed socialist.
The title, Konyetz, is Russian for “end” or “termination.” The novel depicts a series of social upheavals leading to the invasion of Britain by a Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy. This invasion triggers a worldwide future war that culminates in the apocalypse and the end of civilization. The story combines elements of apocalypse, plague, and political turmoil, capturing Baldwin’s disillusionment with contemporary English politics and the global situation.
Baldwin’s novel is summarized by some as a strange yet striking forecast of the end of Western civilization, where a Labour-governed Britain faces bombing and gassing by the invading forces. The novel’s grim depiction of societal collapse and global conflict was undoubtedly influenced by Baldwin’s wartime experiences and his political views, which led him to become a Labour Member of Parliament in 1929.

I don’t know about you, but a dystopian novel about a “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy” destroying civilisation doesn’t suggest to me at least that the author of said book might be an “avowed socialist”… and yet Baldwin Jr was, very much, an avowed socialist. Mind you, per his Wiki entry, he also had an unfortunate run-in with Bolsheviks in Armenia during his post WW1, pre-parliamentary career (after which he was jailed in Turkey for spying for the Bolsheviks), so perhaps he was fine with socialism, just not a fan of the Soviets (and/or Jews)? I don’t know.

Savagery

So “The Savages” is apparently going to be the next animated Doctor Who ’60s story… only discovered this somewhat randomly by looking at Rarewaves to see what’s coming up on that front; haven’t seen any formal announcement of it, nor indeed an informal one, though I now see there was one just before Xmas and I evidently wasn’t paying attention. Interesting choice that I wouldn’t have expected to appear on the schedule so soon, I’d have thought there’d be more demand for “The Highlanders” (cos Jamie’s first story) or “The Wheel in Space”, given that someone did do a partial animation of the first episode years ago as a sort of demo, I’d have thought that we’d have seen that finished first. I don’t think “The Savages” has ever been considered a classic or anything that audiences were clamouring for, but here it is anyway…

On the plus side, I was very concerned about the animation style after the… controversial 3D work done to “The Celestial Toymaker”, but it looks like they’ve stepped back from that to 2D. I’ll take that. Apparently it comes out in the UK near the end of March, so fuck knows when it’ll be out here, and I presume it’ll just be easier to get it via Rarewaves when the time comes.

Oh French

Oh, this year’s festive season Doctor Who was a delight. The other day I saw a video on Youtube called something like “The 15th Doctor doesn’t work”, and though the channel didn’t otherwise look like one of those anti-woke chuds, I still decided it was unworthy of any further attention, cos the 15th Doctor is great and the new episode only underlines how good Ncuti is. Needless to say people are still whining about it being “woke”, probably because Moffat had the temerity to reference Partygate, and actually make that a somewhat major part of one of the main characters’ backstory. Kind of glad I’m not on Twitter any more to witness that shit even for a joke, although the Daily Express (which can get fucked, I’m not linking it) rounded up a few of the predictables. Worked for me, I thought it was one of the best Christmas specials the show’s given us. AND we got “mavity” again! All I need now is the new Wallace & Gromit to finish downloading and my festive season viewing should be well sorted…

The colour of War (Games)

So here was a bit of a surprise when it was announced recently… with the colourised Daleks serial having performed to what I presume were expectations, Russell T. told us a few weeks ago to expect this similarly reworked Patrick Troughton farewell story, and here’s me got my virtual hands on it just before Christmas. “War Games” seemed like an interesting choice, it gave us possibly the most important expansion on the show’s mythology, and if nothing else it should at least have technical advantages (having originally been shot on 625-line tape and existing as stored-field films) over “The Daleks”.

“The War Games” was originally a ten-part extravaganza which came about as part of the general chaos of the 1968-69 production season, with two other serials having fallen through and forcing the team to expand this one to unexpectedly great length… traditionally I gather it’s generally thought of as nine middling episodes and then one great episode where the Time Lords finally catch up with the Doctor and put him on trial, but I’ve actually always thought it was the other way round, with the first nine being pretty good and the tenth the kind of ho-hum one (I must say some details of this episode, like the Doctor’s potential new faces, are addressed kind of brilliantly in the new edit). Whatever, “War Games” was an important tale, ending the monochrome era of the show, answering its longest-standing mystery to that point and clearing the decks (with the three leads all having handed in their notices) for what was basically a reboot of the whole thing.

So the colour version is abbreviated to a mere 90 minutes from over four hours, mostly to good effect, colour’s technically pretty good and the additional music isn’t too egregious for the most part (even if sonically it jars a bit with the dryness of the original 1969 TV studio sound). The cutting of so much material does, however, affect things negatively sometimes, particularly when it comes to some of the secondary characters like the Resistance members, and the Germans are basically nowhere to be seen, rendering the character of Von Weich a bit confusing (I don’t recall him being disposed of either, unless I just missed that).

The really contentious point, though, are probably the details that have been added. I’m really not sure what I think of the use of a certain famous musical sting to imply the War Chief was actually the Master, which is an idea that’s been used in various non-TV media over the decades (let’s not get into THAT vexed issue) but I think this is the first it’s been addressed on TV. Even if it is a “special” edition, I don’t think I like it.

More egregiously, though, we now have the hitherto unseen regeneration of the second Doctor into the third. Unseen, that is, if you haven’t previously seen this:

This comes from a Youtube channel called The Confession Dial, whose proprietor made this CGI “bonus scene”, if you want to call it that, to bridge the end of “War Games” and the beginning of “Spearhead From Space”. And the BBC have since acquired this and, with a few changes (I did quite like the way the TARDIS approaches the Earth as the Nestene meteorites from “Spearhead” do), incorporated it into this new edition. And the show’s already complicated continuity just got another new wrinkle added, cos this complicates things by effectively wiping out the “Season 6B” theory, which is a fan theory that was kind of semi-officially endorsed to explain problems posed by the second Doctor’s later appearances on the show. Again, in a special edition of this serial, so who knows if it “counts” or not.

Anyway, that’s what I thought about “The War Games” in colour. Technically quite an improvement on what they could do to “The Daleks”, fairly well cut-down though it could’ve benefitted from maybe another 20-30 minutes being retained, and sonically less egregious than what they did to “The Daleks”… just a bit bothered by the additions, as noted. How was I not going to have at least some reservations? Anyway, it’s made me want to revisit the original, plus we have actual new Who coming in the next few days too…

Look Who’s back

Jodie and Mandip are returning for Big Finish! I mean, I’m sure they wouldn’t have needed as much convincing to come back to Doctor Who as Peter Capaldi evidently does, but this is still quite some news. I wonder how the pissbabies who couldn’t cope with a female Doctor on TV will now cope with one in audio form. Whatever, I just hope the get the stories and scripts right for all those people (like me) who insist Jodie was a perfectly fine Doctor who wasn’t always well served by her material… so come on, BF, please prove us right.