My TARDIS has a screw loose...

Saturday 29 October 2016

We have a storage problem: not enough room for our DVDs.   Husband has a brilliant idea: if he throws out all his remaining old Doctor Who VHS tapes we can no longer watch (he has slowly been replacing them with DVDs), then the Doctor Who DVDs can go in the TARDIS video cabinet, making space in our other storage units.

Problem 1: Find the autograph.  I distinctly remember Colin Baker signing a VHS cassette at the Who shop that briefly appeared in Little Chalfont, whilst avoiding falling Silurian masks.  Obviously we don't want to throw that one out. But none of the VHS tapes in the TARDIS are of Sixth Doctor stories. The later VHS tapes are downstairs, but the only Sixth Doctor story we have left is Trial of a Time Lord, and that hasn't been signed.  Have we already ditched the autograph by mistake? 

Problem solved: Husband finds the autographed cassette.  It turns out to be the 1994 Bill Baggs Video The Zero Imperative, starring Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, John Pertwee, Caroline John, Louise Jameson, Sophie Aldred and Linda Lusardi. (Spot the odd one out...) There is also an appearance by the writer, a young man called Mark Gatiss.  I wonder what happened to him?

Problem 2: DVDs are slightly deeper than VHS tapes.  The doors of the TARDIS no longer close properly, and one of them comes off completely.  Husband has another (not so) brilliant idea: we take the other door off to match.

I have a better idea: we put the Virgin New Adventures and Missing Adventures in the TARDIS, and the DVDs on the bookshelf.

The books fit, and I wield my (totally un-sonic) screwdriver to fix the doors.

Just one problem left.  Where shall we keep The Zero Imperative?

The Wilderness Years

You needed to be committed to be a Doctor Who fan in the 1990s. In the absence of any new episodes on the screen we had to make to with  archive features in Doctor Who Magazine, Target novelisations, Virgin New Adventures and Missing Adventures, videos and Conventions.

We became regular visitors to the Hotel Leofric in Coventry, for Panopticon 1994, 1995 and 1996. 

1996 was the year when there was initially much excitement about the new TV Movie, but although Paul McGann was excellent in the role, it proved to be a false dawn.

The Eighth Doctor did appear in a number of the excellent Big Finish audios though.  By the early 2000s, he had become my favourite Doctor.  Did I mention I was fickle?  In 2003, with the fortieth anniversary in view, I was highly excited about the special audio adventure Zagreus.  We made a point of attending the 40th anniversary convention, which was held in London, but found it slightly disappointing. 

At this point we had news that the series was coming back, but dared not hope for too much.  Once it became clear that it was really happening, I started a diary to record the event as it happened...