If you missed the BBC’s annual Children In Need fundraiser, the showed a short preview of this year’s Christmas special, The Next Doctor. The clip will probably throw more questions than it does answers…
There’s been a history of Doctor Who doing something special for Children In Need from the showing of the 20th Anniversary Special The Five Doctors to last year’s Steven Moffat mini season joiner Timecrash which starred both David Tennant and Peter Davison as The Doctor.
When I was nine years old I remember being driven along Blackpool promenade at night when the ‘illuminations’ were on and it didn’t excite me that much. Until I saw a Police Box down a side street. A TARDIS! That was the entrance to a Doctor Who exhibition as I later found out. I didn’t get to go to it and we didn’t drive past it again despite my “Dad, can we go back” pleas.
So, scarred for life and scared on a weekly Saturday night basis I finally got to go to a Doctor Who exhibition at Longleat on my 13th birthday. At the time I was a member of DWAS and got the regular Celestial Toymaker newsletter. My paper round money didn’t make it to a further subscription but I’d seen the news item about the Longleat exhibition and bleated significantly to my parents that they took me there for my birthday; if only to shut me up.
I’ve got pics from my visit, all with camera flash reflections off the glass around the exhibits; somewhere in a box in the basement. I’ll scan them and upload here at some point. I remember being really excited when I went around and could see Sea Devils, Silurians (actually, probably only one of each) and a wobbly Dalek that moved back and forth. Oh, and there was a TARDIS console. To be fair it was a good day out (lions are quite friendly and won’t normally eat irritating kids); I did leave feeling underwhelmed though. I wanted to go back to the exhibit and make it mean something, make my connection with The Doctor. Which of course would not happen as it was a collection of props with the occasional clunky moving creature.
So, the point I’m getting to is this: went to the Earls Court Exhibition Centre yesterday and took some pics. I’d been there last month and my camera had no charge so no pics but a friend got tickets for this weekend so I went again.
Going around the exhibit again was amazing. I’m 22 years older than I was when I went to Longleat. Seeing kids who are the age I was at the time, thoroughly enjoying it was just great. And… you get to take photos.
Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be posting the pics that we took, on Web Of Fear, with a topic to discuss.
BBC Worldwide are responsible for syndicating Doctor Who across the globe and last year, Doctor Who was the top five highest grossing programme, followed by Planet Earth, Top Gear, Spooks and Robin Hood. (source: BBC Annual Review 2008)
So, if you thought German speaking Daleks in the series four season finale Journey’s End was novel, consider that it’s being sold and translated globally.
Courtesey of YouTube, here’s The Doctor doing batle with Cybermen in Japanese.
A special 7 minute mini episode of Doctor Who, starring David Tennant, entitled Music of The Spheres was penned by Russell T Davies and broadcast during today’s BBC Proms Doctor Who special at the Royal Albert Hall, London.
Well, you may have missed this but Top Gear put David Tennant in the Reasonably Priced Car late last year. Recently, some bods at the BBC had a muck around with the VT and came up with something new. You can find about how it came to be on the BBC official Doctor Who website.
For some it’s the special effects for others, it’s Adric getting a well deserved put down. Forget the arguments about the relative quality of last Saturday’s finale, the most important thing was the the hilarious German Daleks.
Here it is again in case you were making a cup of tea (complete with translation, no less):
Quite simply the funniest Dr Who moment ever, unless anyone can jog my memory with something else.
The Doctor regenerating was something of a shock on the weekend. There was shrieking across the country and, probably, across parallel dimensions and time zones (I’m not sure about this, just a hunch) as David Tennant’s doctor appeared to be leaking light in rather a spectacular fashion.
Here in all their glory are each and every regeneration (note we never saw Eighth Doctor (McGann) become the Ninth Doctor (Eccleston) - perhaps one day, when we see the Time War in all its gory glory)
Now, having watched these all I have somewhat mixed feelings: I enjoyed (for purely quite nasty reasons) Seventh Doctor (McCoy)becoming the Eighth (McGann) and the teary drama of the Ninth Doctor (Eccleston)becoming Tennant still resonates, but, honestly, they’re all a bit, well, try-hard on reflection.
Personally. I don’t think you can beat the elegant simplicity as the First Doctor (Hartnell)becomes Second (Troughton). But I’m sure you’ll disagree….