Doctor Who – a Forty Year Journey in
Twenty Five Years
Obviously one must start at the beginning. My earliest memory of the show
was seeing Davros’s hand move at the end of part two of Destiny of the
Daleks. I didn’t know he was Davros, I didn’t know what a Dalek was and I
didn’t really know anything but a scary dead man came back to life and
that was the end of the episode. I would have been round about two or
three at the time and was at my grandparents’ house at the seaside. Most
of my earliest childhood television memories happened there. Tom Baker
left Dr Who and I saw it there. Eric Morecambe died and I was there.
Blake’s 7 were killed en masse and I saw it there. Maybe the memory cheats
(as someone once said) or maybe I spent more time there than I remember.
Castrovalva’s scarf scene is the next one I remember. I didn’t appreciate
the significance of the unravelling (either on a literal level – the break
with the past – or on a thematic level – the new Doctor’s mental state
unravelling as quickly and apparently terminally as the scarf). That was
1982 and I was about six. This is why Davison is “my” Doctor. I remember
seeing an episode of Kinda while being baby-sat at a neighbour’s house. I
remember the silent credits when Adric died. I remember knowing that the
first Doctor wasn’t the real first Doctor in the Five Doctors. I can
remember telling this to mum on an aeroplane though I can’t recall when or
why.
There isn’t much in the way of structured memories with me I’m afraid.
Because, don’t hate me, but I wasn’t really an avid viewer. Doctor Who was
on the “safe” list of good, reliable, wholesome BBC children’s programmes
that were ok to watch. So Doctor Who was no more significant a part of my
childhood than Blue Peter or Jackonory. Certainly it was less important
than Grange Hill. I have mental snap shots of Sil, of Attack of the
Cybermen and of the freeze frame at the end of Revelation of the Daleks
but no solid memories on which to hang a hat. I don’t remember being aware
of the hiatus and nor do I remember much about Trial of a Time Lord.
Or for that matter Sylvester McCoy. My mental album has pictures of the
Rani’s bubble traps and of the Cybermen and I remember talking to someone
in House Assembly about Battlefield’s “new” Brigadier but why I don’t
know. It wasn’t as if I was aware of an “old” Brigadier. Then the show
ended and I was ignorant of this fact. Doctor Who – television series –
had ended and I didn’t even notice. But this is how I remember it now.
Doctor Who doesn’t get short shrift compared to everything else, you know.
My entire childhood is like that. A few photos in a dusty brain album and
that’s your lot.
Right, lets journey forward to December 1991 and the last pages of the
Christmas Radio Times. The final day – the first Friday of 1992 – had the
beginnings of a Doctor Who repeat season. This wouldn’t count as my first
exposure to William Hartnell as I do remember the last seconds of the very
first episode because – mock me if you like – I believed it was a dinosaur
that cast its shadow over the Tardis. This belief lived with me for a good
fifteen years until I saw the video. Even after digesting the Programme
Guide and not finding any dinosaurs in the story, I still didn’t put two
beans and three beans together to make five. Why this repeat season got me
interested I don’t know but I still have the cassette I used to record the
Time Meddler. There’s a strange 40 minute chunk of Trevor and Simon
between two of the episodes and the first part of the Mind Robber has
appalling interference from a very loud thunderstorm we had that night. So
something within me had a fondness for the show or why did I decide, weeks
in advance, to tape it? I guess some things are just meant to be. The Time
Meddler remains one of my very favourite Hartnell stories because it was
my first.
With the sort of good fortune that re-enforces a belief in higher powers,
my burgeoning interest in Doctor Who received a major shot in the arm the
following year as it was 1993 and the thirtieth anniversary. That meant
lots of video releases, the second half of the repeat season and, at the
end of the year, plenty of mainstream publicity. I was in California one
day and caught the end of Arc of Infinity on PBS. It was the first time I
had seen Peter Davison – my Doctor remember – since I was little. It was a
nice, fuzzy feeling. So much so that when I got back to Blighty I bought
my first Doctor Who video. The Five Doctors. It seemed like an excellent
place to start.
How that video collection grew. Vengeance on Varos was the next – bought
in Manchester on a shopping trip with my first true love. Then came the
Silurians about which I’d read a fascinating technical article in either
DWM or the Radio Times. Even in 1993 I was a nerd of almost Brentian
proportions and the idea of video restoration on this scale captivated me.
Ah yes – DWM – my first issue was their 200th and I’ve been buying it ever
since. It has probably always been fashionable to slag it off as not being
as good as it used to be but I think it is better than ever. Comparing
that first issue with the most recent there is more content, the overall
design is nicer and the range of material is better (though having new
stuff to talk about helps the new crew). Sadly, 1993s other “new” magazine
– DWB – has gone the other way and become an unreadable mess.
On to University and although I went there with a dream of becoming
someone newer and better than the unhappy little bunny I had been, my
earliest moment of excitement came when I was eating a cheese burger
upstairs in McDonalds and saw through the window that Coventry had its
very own Forbidden Planet. I would buy much from that cramped little shop
over the next three years. The first thing of note was Adrian
Rigglesford’s “The Doctors” book which is still the only big factual type
book I have ever read cover to cover. I am ashamed to admit I didn’t
notice the hilarious “dildo” misprint.
I had no idea there was an “underground” Doctor Who network at that time.
Trades in audio recordings of missing stories, trades in tapes of
unreleased classics, fanzines which hated everything, fanzines that loved
everything and meetings where plans were laid to kidnap Michael Grade and
get him to go back in time and undo the damage he did. The irony is that a
contemporary of mine at University – the very same SiHunt who writes the
site’s most popular column – was happily swapping unobtainable material
with fans but a stones throw from where I was sat reading about it in
Adrian’s book.
Shakedown, the Stranger videos and endless rumours of a new series or film
were the only new material to sustain me at this time. Which isn’t true of
course as I still had much of the show’s back catalogue to discover. The
joys of UKGold meant that between 1993 and 1997 I was able to see
everything that I hadn’t rushed out to the shops and bought. I lived with
three fairly nerdy people (computer scientists you know) but never sought
to interest them. The only two exceptions were when two of them borrowed
the TV Movie as soon as I’d finished it and thought it “ok” and when one
borrowed my new Paradise Towers and condemned it as “crap”.
February 1996 and Teletext breaks the news that Paul McGann is the new
Doctor. I’m not checking facts here btw, it’s all from memory. It might
have been another time but in my mind it is February 1996 and I am in the
middle of trying to write some kind of essay. But Paul McGann is far more
important than two and a half thousand words on some nonsense or other.
Sidebar, how intimidating did two and a half thousand words sound in those
days? And how long will it take to knock up not far short of that in this
ham-fisted column? Times change. I bought the video of the TVM the day it
came out. Of course I did – what was I, normal? I remember going up the
stairs in Coventry’s Virgin Megastore and looking at the bank of TV
screens expecting to see Paul McGann. I was disappointed that it wasn’t Dr
Who – it was a fish being chopped by a Chinese chef. How little I knew.
Over time my interest waned a bit. I went a bit bonkers and tried to leave
all of the nasty past behind me. But the nice was intertwined with the
nasty as always happens and I was left a fairly hollow shell. But for some
reason I never stopped buying DWM. I stopped reading it – there was, at
the time, very little worth reading about – but I kept on buying it. I
think I was largely on autopilot at the time. I remembering being not in
the least bit interested when the announcement was made that a company
called Big Finish would be making new Doctor Who CDs. It all seemed rather
pointless and certainly no reason to leave the house and actually go out
to get one.
Resistance to these new stories lasted for quite a while. I was in
Manchester one April day and, having sold several of my old ST:TNG videos
for two quid each, I had money in my pocket for once. I went to MVC (now
sadly departed) and found that they had these new Doctor Who tapes. I
bought Sirens of Time (hoping, perhaps, that it would have the same
faux-magical quality as the Five Doctors did in 1993) and the Marian
Conspiracy (because for some reason it was the cheapest). I liked them. I
have a compulsive personality so it is all or nothing. Once I’d started,
it had to be all so I built up a collection of fifteen audio cassettes
before Big Finish announced they were stopping the tapes and continuing on
CD alone.
The internet was something I had enjoyed at University (though not for
Doctor Who) but had been slow to get at home. ntl: offered internet
through the TV for a fiver a month and I snapped it up. That took me to
the BBC Doctor Who website which led to the message boards which led to
the Cult which led to Skaro which led me here. A website which I hope
offers something different from all the other Doctor Who sites but which
does so in a tone which betrays the affection I have for the old
programme.
You know the rest. You know I’ve got a full set of BF audio “plays”
(though they have always struck me as slightly pretentious for calling
them “plays” rather than the more traditional “stories”) and far too many
videos. You know I’ve started more Doctor Who novels than the Devil has
hot sinners and finished fewer than Basil Fawlty has had equine winners.
You’ve even heard about the forever-redrafted Toast Monster novella for
the Nine Faces site. This creaking old show has more life in it than I
have and ain’t going away. Thank goodness for that.
Post script – if Word can be trusted, the above text comes to an anal 1963
words and the first letter of each paragraph spell Doctor Who is Forty.
I’m sad like that. Shamefully, with this postscript it makes 2003 words.
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