On The Rediscovered Episodes

I tweeted earlier that I’m dizzy with excitement at the discovery of two episodes of Doctor Who previously thought M.I.A., and that tweet was no word of a lie.

That might seem odd. Why am I so thrilled that a couple of crumbly old black-and-white telly programmes from the Sixties have been found?

As I may have mentioned, I became a Doctor Who fan in 1975. As The Underwater Menace and Galaxy 4 would not be novelised until 1988 and 1985 respectively, I probably didn’t know of their existence until Doctor Who Weekly arrived in 1979. Or perhaps I first learned of them in Jean Marc L’Officier’s Programme Guide Volume One, published by Target in 1981.

And in those days, there was scant hope of ever seeing an old episode. No videos, never mind DVDs, existed. The Five Faces Of Doctor Who repeat season, also in 1981, was an once-in-a-lifetime event. But there was always a small corner of my 10, 11, 12-year-old mind that thought that maybe I’d grow up and get a job at the BBC (I didn’t. So far). Once ensconced therein, I’d wangle a special pass that allowed me entry into The Special Secret BBC Archive. It would look a bit like the UNIT one in the Brigadier’s Sarah Jane Adventures episode Enemy Of The Bane. Once inside, I would wallow in The Ice Warriors, and old editions of Top Of The Pops.

The impossible dream.

And it became even more impossible (if such a thing is possible) when in the Doctor Who Weekly Winter Special 1981 Sue Malden dropped the bombshell that many episodes were missing even from The Special Secret BBC Archive. They were forever lost, wiped by the Beeb for reasons that... Oh, I'm not going there.

But times change. I well remember the astonishment I felt viewing The Abominable Snowmen Episode 2 when it came out on video. You may blither on about the lack of incidental music slowing it down, or you may be trying to spot Harold Pinter, or analysing the performance of Victor Pemberton’s boyfriend, but I was just embracing the magic. I was watching something I’d always dreamed of watching, but never thought I would. A bit like me now, watching the Eleventh Doctor and remembering how I felt when Richard E. Grant was the Ninth.

But of course, Doctor Who fans being Doctor Who fans, some are complaining that it wasn’t the whole of Evil Of The Daleks that was discovered. Or even the final part of The Tenth Planet (can we stop calling it that? Surely it’s The Ninth Planet now?!).

Doctor Who fans: we are astonishingly lucky to discover a single missing episode, never mind two. It doesn’t matter what it is – even an episode of The Celestial Toymaker would be cause for celebration. (I’d like The Hall Of Dolls. I’m a bit obsessed with Hartnell episode titles that would make good names for Lesbian nightclubs).

And actually, I’m rather pleased at the two we’ve just been gifted.

I realise I may be in a minority when I say that I love the existing Episode 3 of The Underwater Menace. But, come on, it’s classic stuff! The Fish People ballet may be a bit silly, but look at the ambition. Imagine shoving that into a prime-time telly programme now. And the Troughton Doctor in one of his early bonkers disguises! And it was directed by Julia Smith, who later co-invented EastEnders. The Julia of “Julia’s Theme” FFS!

And now we get to see the terror of Polly’s operation, so horrible it was justifiably censored by AUSTRALIANS!

Plus Galaxy 4! We’ve never had an episode of that before! Of course, I would have preferred the Four Hundred Dawns episode (Lesbian nightclubs). But, hello, Rills! Hello a new opportunity for Feminist analysis of Doctor Who! And think of all the fun to be had by fans knifing other fans for saying Airlock when it’s clearly Air Lock.

So, hurrah! It really is an early Christmas present, and in a year that saw the passing of two of Who’s most beloved actors, how splendid it is to be going out on a high... So, heartfelt thank yous to Terry Burnett. You are now officially the third most important Terry in Doctor Who.

(Terry's the one in the middle, and the photograph is by @JasonArnopp)

On The 48th Anniversary

To celebrate the 48th anniversary, here are 48 completely random things I love about Doctor Who. Which I've just come up with, off the top of my head, so don't blame me if I've got any facts wrong. Or missed out anything seminal.

1. The Terrance Dicks Target novelisations, which taught me to read.

2. Gareth Roberts getting the word “novelisation” into the ‘The Shakespeare Code’

3. The Fourth Doctor claiming that Shakespeare sprained his wrist writing sonnets.

4. Five-star stories in below-par seasons.

5. ‘Love & Monsters’: “The internet literally exploded!”

6. Caring that ‘Love & Monsters’ is the first story to have an ampersand in the title.

7. ‘Doctor Who And The Silurians’

8. All the title sequences in Season 7.

9. The debates about whether he’s called Doctor Who or not.

10. Drax in ‘The Armageddon Factor’

11. Rassilon in ‘The End Of Time’.

12. That Proclaimers wrap party video.

13. That Ballad of Russell and Julie wrap party video.

14. ‘The Writers Tale’ by Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook.

15. Benjamin Cook.

16. Trock.

17. The William Hartnell Fan Club.

18. Richard Hurndall in Blake’s 7.

19. Paul Darrow in ‘Timelash’.

20. ‘Timelash’ being available on DVD.

21. The animated episodes on ‘The Invasion’ DVD.

22. Zoe’s catsuit.

23. Amy’s skirt in ‘Space/Time’.

24. Jamie’s weighted down kilt.

25. The Doctor’s penchant for sandwiches.

26. And swordfights.

27. Anthony Ainley.

28. ‘Survival’, the only Doctor Who story set on a council estate.

29. Jackie Tyler.

30. “I don’t dispute the results of your excellent potassium-argon test”.

31. Jac Rayner being scared of skellingtons.

32. Ian Marter novelisations.

33. The Sarah Jane Adventures.

34. Clani.

35. Fandom’s creativity.

36. Steven Moffat.

37. ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’.

38. Serial B.

39. Verity Lambert.

40. ‘Human Nature’ winning the best NA in the DWM poll.

41. DWM.

42. All the other Doctor Who magazines I could buy, if I so chose.

43. Merchandise.

44. Mechanoids.

45. Big Finish.

46. Jade Pagoda.

47. The Season 14 console room.

48. Fancying the TARDIS.

On Keeping Some Perspective

At the moment, we seem to be going through a particularly intense period of people panicking about Doctor Who. Rumours abound online – and even in Private Eye – of behind-the-scenes shenanigans, and indeed Doctor Who Magazine itself has struck rather an odd tone in recent months. They even published the same letter slagging A Good Man Goes To War two issues in a row.

There may or may not be some truth in the mutterings, and the recent changes in the Executive Producer roster certainly contrast with the solidity of the Three-Who-Rule days in the RTD era. Perhaps Danny Cohen doesn’t like Doctor Who (though I’m sure he makes decisions based on the measurable popularity of his shows rather than on personal taste – just like Michael Grade did). It may be even be true that Steven Moffat’s plotting has led to a sharp increase in the number of children who have to explain what’s going on to their parents.

Or perhaps we’re all just being paranoid.

My point, and I do have one, is that none of this matters. Not at all. In the grand scheme of things, where the particular thing is Doctor Who, it makes no difference if it’s all going tits up or if it’s all going swimmingly. Let me explain (now, rather than later).

It was always thus. We all occasionally enjoy playing the Imagine If The Internet Existed During Season X game. “OMG, Verity’s quit and now this latest episode *hasn’t even got the Doctor in*”; “Don’t like this Patrick Troguton bloke”; “OMG it’s in colour – Doctor Who Died Today” and so on. But the truth is, we – and by we I mean DW fandom – love our show’s history, warts and all.

Roughly 99% of us hate Colin Baker’s coat (and I’m including Colin Baker himself in that). But 98% of us love having a laugh about how much we hate Colin Baker’s coat (yeah, including him in that, too). Remember the Pertwee-McCoy Wars? Wouldn’t have happened had we not had both those eras to argue about.

There have always been crises. Look at the legendary first block of the 2005 series. Look at Part Four of Planet Of Giants. Look at how many times RTD or the Moff have said “It’s like an Andrew Pixley archive!”

But really, look at the viewing figures. Even were it to be cancelled, Doctor Who Will Return.

Sherlock Holmes fans, as far as I can tell, are happy enough with the Gatiss-Moffat version. I doubt they’re sitting around in 2011 weeping about the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, any more than we think the JNT-Saward rift led to the end of Doctor Who. Maybe a few fans checked out during Timelash and never came back. But most of us elderly types checked out at some point and then DID come back.

(Biographical digression: I checked out (having started with The Sontaran Experiment) during Mark Of The Rani – more precisely, at the point where the Rani kicked the Master in the nadgers. I’d read my Targets/DWWs/DWMs and I knew Time Lord genitalia had *not* been established in the ‘classic’ series (ie, everything before The Invisible Enemy). This was going too far. To be fair, I was fifteen.

But my departure wasn’t a crisis for the show, hiatus or no hiatus. It just meant that I got to binge on the McCoy era years later. Oh, and I did see Part Thirteen of Trial Of A Time Lord because I saw Robert Holmes had written it. I saw that because my little brother was watching it. There’s a lesson there, isn’t there? Biographical digression ends).

The wilderness years seemed awful at the time, yes, but even then, we had all sorts of treats. The NAs. The MAs. The TV Movie (which, crossed with Survival = a whole lot of Rose, eh?). The EDAs. The Big Finishes. The culture that grew up around fanzines. Jade Pagoda. And those years were the proving ground for many of those who brought the show back. At the very least, we got Human Nature out of it.

We can play with counter-factuals (which are different from pseudo-historicals). What if JNT had found that hole in the Television Centre fence and George Gallaccio had taken over? What if Barry and Terrance’s local picture house hadn’t been showing The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad? But you can’t change history, not one bit. Erase Erato and *poof*, Blink blinks out of existence.

So maybe we *will* spend the late 20teenies weeping “I can’t believe they cancelled it during the 50th anniversary year!” But...

Just as our very lives, with their ups and downs and awful moments and stupid decisions, lead us to a point where we are reasonably happy with who we are (and are at least in a position to read inconsequential blogs on the internet) in time it all becomes simply – gloriously – a part of Doctor Who history.

I’m confident that Doctor Who will always be here, ready for tomorrow’s ups and downs and awful moments and stupid decisions, leading us to...

Who knows where?