Merchandise, Merchandise

One of the advantages/perils of being known to be a Doctor Who fan, is that people give you merchandise as gifts.

In the dark days of the mid-nineties, my leaving present from a job included David Banks' Cybermen book and a poster of the Daleks crossing Westminster Bridge. The poster duly graced my office wall in my next two jobs.

Then there was the inflatable Dalek that a couple of History professors left outside my office.

But books and Daleks, whether in photo or blow-up formats are fine.  Jigsaws are another matter entirely.

Don't get me wrong, Vincent and the Doctor and The Pandorica Opens are great stories, but the person who thought that the Van Gogh picture of the exploding TARDIS would make an excellent jigsaw should have both his ears cut off.  

The colleague who gave me this abomination wanted photographic proof of the completed article, all 2,000 pieces of it.  All the pieces were either dark blue, or multi-coloured swirls that could have gone anywhere. The only place to do it was my dining table, so I had an added incentive to complete it, or never have Sunday lunch again.

It took six weeks....

I set foot in the TARDIS

2012
 

When we heard that the BBC were arranging an official convention – in Cardiff- we knew we had to go. Remembering that Panopticon 2003 had been  bit of a let-down,  I deliberately set my expectations low and booked into the posh hotel. My idea was that we would have a pleasant weekend away even if the convention was a disappointment.  I need not have worried.

Breakfast on the morning of Saturday 24 March was enlivened by the sight of Nick ‘Voice of the Daleks’ Briggs in a claret velvet jacket, selecting a banana from the buffet.  Bananas are good, as Steven Moffat’s scripts are wont to say. I first encountered Mr Briggs at Panopticon 1993, when as host, he encouraged the audience to shout ‘Get lost Nick, you bald git!’ at him. The residual Pavlovian training was very strong, but I just about managed not to shout it out at him in the hotel dining room.

The Convention timetable had two tracks: Ood and Silurian, with the same events running at different times for each group. As Silurians, we had a slightly later start than the Ood.  We walked to the Millennium Centre and joined the massive queue outside the ‘Silurian’ entrance.  Convention crew in yellow t-shirts patrolled the queue and scanned our tickets.  We couldn’t help feeling that they should have had Judoon to do this, but there was no sign (yet) of the Rhino police, although there was a Silurian wandering around.  It was a glorious day, and Murray Gold’s soundtrack was playing, so the time passed quite pleasantly. Before long we were inside, collecting our goody bags. As well as our passes, the bags contained the programme, a DVD of Series 5 volume 1, and souvenir postcards. We were also given a wrist band for the 9.30 a.m. Special Effects Studio session, so we joined another queue for entry to this. But just as we reached the front of the queue, they decided the room was at capacity, so we were turned away and given tickets for the 2.00 p.m. show instead.  In fairness, this was the only organisational hiccup we experienced. 

Foiled, we returned to the foyer to watch the prosthetics demonstration by Millennium FX instead. I then made the serendipitous discovery that it was possible to buy a coffee at the foyer café and drink it at a table with excellent view of the demonstration.  This is a luxury I had not experienced at any previous Doctor Who convention, catering not normally being a strong point of such events. This particular  demonstration focused on the Scarecrows from Human Nature/Family of Blood. Monster regular Ruari Mears demonstrated the Scarecrow walk both in and out of costume. It looked incredibly camp without Scarecrow mask on. A member of the audience was also given the opportunity of trying on a Scarecrow mask and walking with the very restricted vision that entailed. Ruari also told some anecdotes about what happens when a Cyberman sneezes inside his helmet (yuk – almost put me off my coffee!), and how as an Ood in The Satan Pit he missed the turning in the ducting and fell right out of the rig.

After the demo it was time to joint another almighty queue to get to Donald Gordon Theatre for our first panel of the day: Meet the Stars.  Signs on the way in forbade the use of cameras, but the stewards said that it was OK to take pictures without flash. I dutifully turned off my flash, though I noticed quite a view flashes going off in the auditorium without anyone being exterminated or asked to leave.  The interviewer was Jason Mohammed (a news and sport presenter for BBC Wales, who played TV News Anchor in the 2007 Christmas Special.) The panel guests were Arthur Darvill, Karen Gillan, Matt Smith, Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner (the new-ish executive producer). I don’t know whether the current TARDIS crew end Executive Producers have ever all appeared on stage at a UK convention before – certainly not for a very long time. The Panel  highlights were probably the questions from the audience. One little girl’s question to Matt Smith was ‘Would you like to come to the cinema with me tonight?’ He gracefully declined, explaining that his family were visiting that weekend. Another fan, seated near the front, somehow managed to get Matt to offer him a jammy dodger from the plate on stage, and then went up on stage for a hug. At one point Matt suffered a slip of the tongue and started talking about ‘Doctor Ho’ – which would be a different show entirely. ( I expect to see a video of this on YouTube sometime soon!) Someone asked Arthur Darvill what it was like being Rory in the street, and he replied, reasonably enough, that he was Arthur when he was out in the street.  One member of the audience asked Matt how the Doctor made a new sonic screwdriver and Matt came out with a brilliant explanation in fluent technobabble, which shows that he probably doesn’t need the scriptwriters at all. Steven Moffat was visibly impressed. A Silurian and a Judoon joined the party on stage at one point, causing Karen to jump.

We stayed in our seats for the next panel, which was ‘Creators and Directors’ hosted by Gary Russell.  This was based on one particular episode, The Girl Who Waited.  The guests included the writer Tom MacRae, producer Marcus Wilson and the designer of the Handbots. They were later joined on stage by a Handbot. This Panel revealed some of the trickery behind the filming. You may recall a scene in which Rory walked through a door which closed behind him, then he pressed another button and opened it again to reveal a different room.  This was achieved by the low-tech method of lots of people just out of shot who ran over as soon as the doors closed and moved things around, rather like the old lift joke from Candid Camera and Beadle’s About.

During the lunch break we went out to get some fresh air, leaving the Millennium Centre for the delights of a sandwich at RTD’s favourite coffee bar, Coffee Mania.

On our return we finally got to see the Special Effects demo, hosted by Danny Hargreaves, the undoubted star of Doctor Who Confidential . He demonstrated the ‘air woofer’ which can fire all sorts of fake debris.  A volunteer from the audience was entrusted with the job of firing a big gun at a Cyberman, whilst another young volunteer pressed the red button that set off charges on the Cybersuit just at the same time as the shot was fired, to make it look as if the Cyberman had been hit. We also had a demonstration of fake snow falling and X-Factor style smoke. Danny demonstrated his scary- looking paintball gun that generated sparks on a wall. He explained that this had been designed to look like a submachine gun because it was ‘cool’. He mentioned that one of his favourite jobs had been blowing up the military base on Torchwood: Miracle Day. This had been shot on a real military base, and men with guns had given him strict instructions not to blow anything up. As he explained, he didn’t actually blow it up, he just set it on fire slightly and burnt it a little bit. After the demo finished, the Cyberman posed for photos with fans, while Danny was happy to provide individual career advice on how to get to blow things up for a living.

We then had some time to visit the costume exhibition. This was familiar from the Doctor Who Experience at Earl’s Court, although with some more recent additions, including the King and Queen from the 2011 Christmas Special. One of the peg dolls from Night Terrors was actually an actor in costume, who moved from time to time to freak visitors out. 

We returned to the main auditorium for the final panel: Doctor Who Uncut – hosted by Dalek  operator Barnaby Edwards. The guests included Steven Moffat, Caroline Skinner, Production Designer Michael Pickwoad, Director of Photography Stephan Pehrsson, Director Julian Simpson and Casting Director Andy Pryor. The highlight of this session was the preview screening of the Series 7 (Fnarg+2?) trailer. Steven Moffat spent most of the Q & A trying not to give away any secrets in response to some carefully-loaded questions from the fans.  One question he was able to answer was ‘will there be a Sherlock / Doctor Who crossover?’ The answer was no, because a)they would end up punching each other; and b) Sherlock would no longer work if the rational certainties of Sherlock’s world were undermined by the Whoniverse.

That ended the formal business of the convention, and we went off to dinner in Bellini’s (Margaret Slitheen’s favourite restaurant), escaping before the hen parties got too rowdy.

The following morning we saw Ian McNeice (Winston Churchill) and Mark Sheppard (Canton Delaware III) at breakfast. Ian McNeice appeared to have come dressed as his character from Doc Martin.  As our set tour wasn’t until late afternoon, we walked into the city centre to avoid getting caught up with the Sport Relief Mile, which was taking place just outside the Millennium Centre. On returning in the afternoon, we were in time to see a Black Dalek that had completed the event proudly wearing his Sport Relief medal and shooting at children in the crowd (with a water pistol in his sink plunger).

The final event of our Who weekend was the coach trip to see the TARDIS set at the studios at Upper Boat. We were given either red or green wristbands, as the tour would be in two groups. We arrived slightly early, before the previous coachload were quite ready to leave, but we were allowed to get off the coach, with the strict injunction not to ‘go wandering off’. Now, where have I heard that before? As we had red wristbands, we were directed first to the ‘Blue Box Café’.  This could be a reference to the TARDIS, but it is genuinely a blue box, well, a Portacabin. Inside, they sold Starbucks coffee and had a screen showing A Good Man Goes to War.  After about half an hour, it was our turn on the set.  What can I say? We were on the real TARDIS set, and they let us touch it, and everything!

I had been expecting the convention to be very strict and formal, rather like the last Panopticon I attended (2003), with jobsworth stewards and injunctions not to touch the replica TARDIS console. In fact, the stewards were very friendly and helpful, and there was a very relaxed atmosphere.  We were allowed to play with the real TARDIS set, and no one minded when bits fell off (a common occurrence during filming). The queues were long, but moved swiftly, and even the sun shone for the whole weekend.  The only quibble I would have is that the guest actors were only available for photo/autograph opportunities, which I did not bother with, and did not participate in the Panel sessions.

I hope that similar events are organised for the 50^th anniversary next year. Perhaps with some previous Doctors in attendance as well…

All Aboard the Bandwagon!

For some time I have noticed the number of times that references to Doctor Who appear in quite unexpected books. It can be quite a good game to play if you happen to be in a bookshop with some time to kill.

I first noticed this phenomenon with The Kenneth Williams Diaries (ed. Hunter Davies, Harper Collins, 1993).  On Saturday 29 November 1975, Willams observed that ‘Dr Who gets more and more silly.’ Episode 2 of The Android Invasion was clearly not his cup of tea, but the idea that Kenneth Williams was a regular viewer of the programme takes a little getting used to. It is a huge shame he never appeared in it – he couldn’t have been any worse than Ken Dodd.

I have subsequently found references to Doctor Who in a number of showbusiness autobiographies by people who never appeared in the show. Aled Jones (Virgin Books, 2005), stakes a claim for his interest in the programme with a wealth of circumstantial detail. ‘The other programme that I never missed was Doctor Who. True to tradition, the moment the music started, I would dive behind our leather sofa, from where I would watch the whole episode. I was particularly frightened of the Daleks and would hide every time they came on screen. But, despite my fear, I still desperately wanted to watch it each week. One day when she was cleaning, Mam discovered that I had been nervously gnawing away at the back of the sofa and that her pride and joy now had teeth marks all the way along the top from one end to the other.’* 

Nigel Havers’s autobiography Playing with Fire (Headline Review, 2006) contains a photo which purports to show Nigel and his father watching the very first episode of Doctor Who. Given that in a Doctor Who Magazine interview Mr Havers claimed only ever to have watched the first episode prior to performing in one of the Big Finish audio adventures for BBC7 it shows rare foresight to have had a photograph taken of the occasion.  Cynics might however point out that the television screen is not visible in the photo.

References to Doctor Who are not confined to autobiographies, however. I recently read First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (Hodder, 2007), set in an alternative reality Swindon, which contains a scene in which not only does the heroine’s brother come to collect a video of Remembrance of the Daleks, but there is a discussion about who was the best Doctor: ‘“It was Tom Baker,” said Joffy, ending the embarrassed silence. Miles made a noise that sounded like “conventionalist”, and Landen went off to fetch the tape.’

Now that Doctor Who is popular again (for the moment) these references are likely to increase.

All aboard the bandwagon!

New New Doctor?

January 2009

It has been been an exciting few months.  First there was David Tennant’s live announcement at the National TV Awards that he would not be playing the Doctor in series 5.  Although the timing was a surprise, the actual announcement was not that much of a shock.  Any actor is likely to be wary of staying in one role too long, and although I had been hoping that Tennant would stay for at last part of Steven Moffat’s first season in charge, I had an inkling that this was not going to happen when Russell T Davies revealed at the Cheltenham Literature Festival that he had already written the penultimate line of his final ‘special’.

Then there was the media excitement over the casting of the next incumbent, coupled, cleverly, with the Next Doctor hype. Quite how Russell T Davies and co managed to milk the speculation following Tennant’s departure to promote The Next Doctor when it was really fairly clear that the character played by David Morrissey in the Christmas Special couldn’t really be the next Doctor, is a mystery.  Two major stumbling blocks were the fact that Tennant was contracted to appear in further specials (OK , so I suppose he could be playing Doctor 10.2, who has escaped from the alternative universe, but that seems rather contrived) and the fact that Morrissey’s character, as shown in the trailer, was very clearly imitating the Tenth Doctor (“Allons-y” etc.) whereas a real new incarnation would have his own characteristics.

Meanwhile all the usual old chestnuts are kicked around in the press.  If not Morrissey, could it be a woman? Catherine Zeta Jones? Billie Piper? [Yawn].

Then, in December, Tennant was invalided out of Hamlet for back surgery, missing his London press night.  Hugely disappointing for him, and for the fans who had managed to get tickets.  Also worrying for the Doctor Who production team, who were expecting him to start filming again in mid-January. However, even though he was unable to attend the press launch for the Christmas special he apparently recovered sufficiently to do a last-minute round of radio interviews. Meanwhile, David Morrissey’s position as a bookies’ favourite for the role seemed to slump after the press launch. 

Christmas Day, and all became clear (well, the reasons for Tennant’s bad back, anyway – look at all that wire work!).  Obviously the Dickensian setting was used not only for its ‘Christmassy’ appeal, but to enable them to include a fob watch in Morrissey’s costume as a red herring.

Into the New Year, and speculation mounted about the significance of an episode of Doctor Who Confidential scheduled for BBC1 on 3 January. Then it was confirmed that the casting announcement will indeed be made during this show.  In trailers for the special programme David Tennant looked as if he could scarcely conceal his glee that someone else was going to have to cope with the massive media interest for a change. 

Let’s just take stock here. They actually broadcast a special programme to tell us who was being cast in a role which would not start filming for about six months and would not be seen on the screen for a year, and it got one of the highest audience figures of the day.  

Finally, all was revealed.  The collective jaws of the nation dropped as the youngster with the interesting hairdo appeared on screen.  I have to admit that my first reaction was not favourable, mainly because Matt Smith seemed a little like a younger, unformed version of David Tennant, and I was hoping for more of a contrast (such as Julian Rhind-Tutt or Rupert Penry-Jones).  I also realised that I must have seen him in The Ruby in the Smoke without having noticed him at all.  However, I trust Steven Moffat, and if he says that Matt Smith was the clear favourite out of all those auditioned, there must be something about him. Time will tell.

However, David Tennant managed to trump the announcement with a surprise return to Hamlet on the very night of the announcement, and completed the run to rave reviews.* That is true star quality.  Mr Smith (convenient name, that) will have a lot to live up to.

*I got a late ticket for London in January, having seen the preview in Stratford.

Series 1 reflections

The New Series
 

 It’s all over now until Christmas.  So time to sum up the long-awaited new series.

The short episodes mean that the plot is compressed. A direct result of this is the loss of the  ‘Doctor is suspected of causing the trouble/locked up’ bit that usually occupies the second half of episode one and the repeated going to and fro/running up and down corridors that takes up the rest of episode two and episode three. This is not much of a problem. We have also lost any real attempt to explain the resolution of the plot, which may be more of a problem.

On the other hand, the characters are well developed.  Even the minor characters, such as the plumber in The End of the World, are people rather than ciphers. But this becomes a bit excessive in the case of Rose. Giving her a family background is one thing, but returning home repeatedly in order to hear Jackie whinging is going too far. Or rather not far enough.   I for one would rather see an alien planet occasionally than see Rose’s mother again.  Ever.

Rose herself is an excellent companion.  Once she becomes used to the idea of aliens, she takes the adventures in her stride, without twisting her ankle once.  On several occasions she, rather than the Doctor, brings about the resolution of the problem.

Which brings me to the weakness of the series.  This Doctor is certainly alien and manic enough, but is he heroic enough? He seems to need rescuing rather a lot of the time.  In both the first and last episodes it is Rose’s action that saves the day.  Even Charles Dickens and Rose’s father seem to have more of a clue. I can only assume that the Time War must have been very traumatic.  So it is all the more amazing that a 19-year old from South London can apparently defeat a massive Dalek army using nothing more than a tow truck and a TARDIS.  As I said above, there is often little attempt to explain the resolution of the plot.

On the whole, though, I think that Russell T Davies has taken the right decision to leave out the technobabble. We are left with believable characters, entertaining dialogue and amazing effects.  What does it matter that The End of the World doesn’t really have a plot at all? It looks great. The TARDIS is, er, fantastic, and the aliens are so…..alien.  Some corners have been cut during the series of course, this is the BBC. The Satellite 5 set is reused, and the Dalek invasion of earth takes place off-screen. But it doesn’t really matter as the way in which the individual episodes fit together to form a whole makes this work dramatically.  The second visit to Satellite 5 allows the Doctor to confront the consequences of his actions in The Long Game, just as in the previous episode, Boom Town, he had to face the consequences of his actions in World War Three. The focus of The Parting of the Ways is on the Doctor’s reaction to the Dalek threat, made all the more poignant by the side of him that was revealed in Dalek, not on the invasion of our planet thousands of years in the future.

So as a whole, the series worked well.  Though it was just a little bit on the camp side.  Well, quite a lot on the camp side actually, especially after Captain Jack joined the crew. Even Jonathan Ross commented on this on his Radio 2 Saturday morning show, so I am not imagining it.  On the other hand, for most of the run it was going out sandwiched between Graham Norton and Julian Clary (oo-er) so it fits right in to Saturday nights. And the fact that the series was mentioned at all in an interview between Ross and actress Kathy Burk is a sign of its success.

Perhaps the best thing about the new series is that as a result of both Russell T Davies’ inspired production and the BBC’s decision to promote it properly, Doctor Who is once again popular Saturday night entertainment.  I’m constantly being surprised by the number of my colleagues who are watching it avidly. 

I’m definitely looking forward to Christmas, for the first time since Santa stopped calling.

 

 

 

 

June 2007: losing the plot....

2 June 2007

The Family of Blood was potentially a great story, which was spoiled only by the unnecessary sequence of the Doctor punishing the family. It would have worked perfectly well either to have them die in the explosion of their ship or alternatively to live out their remaining existence as humans without access to their alien technology which was destroyed with their ship. However, the sequence of the children shooting the scarecrows, with the hymn playing in the background, was truly moving, as were the final scenes of Latimer and Hutchinson in the trenches, and then the old Latimer at the Cenotaph.

 9 June 2007

Blink had a lot to live up to, being written by Steven Moffat. As an exercise in writing an episode without much use of the lead actors, or CGI effects, it was exemplary, though it was disappointing that he failed to get in a line about bananas.  At times it seemed a bit like an episode of Coupling, but there is nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t stand out as the best of the season, as Moffat’s earlier episodes have done, but it is so much better than Love and Monsters.

16 June 2007

I found Utopia rather like old-fashioned Doctor Who (quarry, savages, well-meaning scientist etc.) but in a good way, and it was good to see Captain Jack again.

20 June 2007

To Leeds for business meetings. In the hotel bar afterwards, one of my colleagues started enthusing about Saturday’s episode and how good it was to see Captain Jack again, much to bemusement of the others, who started reminiscing about The Archers in revenge.

23 June 2007

The power-crazed loon in charge has now completely flipped. I don’t mean the Master, who was always thus, but Russell T Davies. Has he completely lost the plot? Any plot?

 

May 2007: the Doctor becomes ubiquitous

5 May 2007

Back to modern day England for an encounter with a dangerous monster – but enough of Mrs Jones; what about Professor Lazarus?  Mark Gatiss was excellent, as was his prosthetic ’76 years old’ make-up. The CGI monster also worked well, and moved more convincingly that the Reapers and Krillitanes. The episode looked good, and there was some ostentatious clue-dropping by one of Mr Saxon’s henchmen. Maybe too many false climaxes for perfection, though.  Saw a bit of David Tennant on Parkinson later.  Parkinson clearly hasn’t watched it and was not very well briefed, but DT managed OK.

18 May 2007

Watched Jonathan Ross show as John Barrowman and Andrew Lloyd Webber were due to be on it, with clip from John Barrowman’s return to Doctor Who. For once, JB was totally upstaged by Ross’ previous guest, the completely insane Janice Dickinson. Oliver Reed was nothing compared with her.  God knows what she was on.

19 May 2007

42  was set in real time, on a space ship hurtling towards a sun.  It looked wonderful, and there was real tension, but I didn’t actually enjoy it that much.  I think it reminded me too much of Star Trek TNG.

23 May 2007

To the doctor’s surgery for pre-holiday vaccinations.  Now I know Doctor Who is ubiquitous – they had a couple of the ‘quick reads’ books in the waiting room.  Makes a change from last year’s magazines, anyway. 

According to London Lite, Kylie Minogue is taking acting lessons so she can play a Cyberwoman.  I really hope not!

26 May 2007

Human Nature was much better than I feared. The scarecrows were particularly creepy.

 

April 2007: a monster has been created

7 April 2007

The Doctor meets Shakespeare. It looked fantastic, the Shakespeare in jokes were entertaining, and we even got a bedroom scene. The only downside was that the witches were not quite as scary as they might have been.  But Angela Pleasence’s Queen Elizabeth made up for that.

14 April 2007

Mix up Ardal O’Hanlon, a basket of kittens, car-sharing policies, the Face of Boe, a monster from the Troughton era and an old favourite hymn, and what do you get? A surprisingly good story.  This series just gets better and better.  Slightly embarrassing that I spotted the Macra before the Doctor revealed all, though. I shouted out 'Macra!' at the first sign of a waving claw.  Husband not impressed that I spotted it before he did. What sort of monster has he created?

 

So the Doctor is not alone.  OK, my guess is that the rumours about John Simm playing the Master are true, and that he is also the Doctor’s brother (cf  “I had a brother once”).

21April 2007

Doctor Who’s answer to Snakes on a Plane – Daleks in Manhattan. The ending was rather spoiled by having been given away on the cover of Radio Times. But the recreation of 1930s New York looked wonderful – especially the lift in the Empire State Building, which was perfect for a Dalek.

28 April 2007

Well, I guessed slightly wrong.  I thought that the new human/Dalek Sec hybrid would be a power-crazed maniac and the Doctor would have to form an alliance with the other Daleks to defeat him. In fact, the new Dalek Sec seemed much more reasonable and human than Mr Diagoras had been. The Doctor formed an alliance with him, but was thwarted by the other Daleks.  A very strange story.  Interesting at the end when the Doctor offered to help the one remaining Dalek (Caan) – he has clearly moved on a lot since his encounter with the Dalek in van Statten’s basement.