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23/04 |
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08/04 |
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It’s odd how things come together. 1996 was a huge year – the TVM was on BBC1, on the cover of the Radio Times, all over DWM, Paul McGann was in the newspapers (and the Daily Mail) and suddenly after all these years we had New Doctor Who. The certainties we took for granted were now gone. Dr Who wasn’t an archive show. It wasn’t dead. We’d never instantly dismiss rumours of a revival because it was actually happening. With hindsight we know it didn’t quite work out like that. But Paul McGann as The Doctor is one of two things that really stick in my mind about 1996. I was a student then and University tends to be three years that all blur together with only the odd change of living space to act as any kind of a memory aid. The other thing that I remember about 1996 was that it was the year that WCW overtook WWF to become the number one wrestling company in America. This was huge – this was the unthinkable happening. WCW used to be a distant second place, running small buildings, run by morons and surviving solely because Ted Turner gave them his personal support. 1996 was the year that the nWo helped WCW become the cool promotion to watch. It was cutting edge. It had been dragged out of the 1980s and into the more cynical and hard hitting 1990s. Cute characters and black & white good guy/bad guy lines were passé. This was wrestling with money being pumped into it to make it all action, all the time. So I’m into my third paragraph and all I’ve talked about is 1996. Well, as I said in the opening line, things tend to come together in odd ways. Having established how WCW and Paul McGann are my two strongest memories of 1996 we move to 24th March 2001. It was a Saturday morning and "Storm Warning" came in the post from Big Finish Towers. I’d not bothered with the DWM freebie disc’s preview of episode one. It would somehow spoil the real thing. I held in my hands, not exactly fresh from the CD factory as I think it had been out for some weeks, proper new Doctor Who. Missing Adventures were all fine and large but let’s not kid ourselves – McGann was the man. Just as the MA’s were never as popular as the NA’s, just as the PDA’s aren’t considered as significant as the EDA’s so the assembling of actors who didn’t seem to work much elsewhere wasn’t the same as getting Paul McGann. I opened the padded envelope as my PC booted up. The cover was a revelation. Previously BF covers had looked like scissor and glue jobs. Not even Photoshop – they looked like they’d been done with an old copy of DWM and a Pritstick. This cover was magnificent. This cover was professional. And then I saw this press release. "STAMFORD, Conn., March 23, 2001 - World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: WWF) today announced its purchase of the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) brand from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS Inc.), a division of AOL Time Warner." So now you see what I mean about things coming together. Paul McGann and WCW again. The death of that briefly successful company brought back all the memories of that year just as strongly as hearing Paul McGann muttering about Agatha Christie and playing Tiddlywinks with Lenin. We also got introduced to India Fisher that day. Big Finish scored two bullseyes with their first two original companions – Charley and Evelyn. So much so that it inspired them to create a bunch more who have failed to make the same impression. Charley combined the girlish wonder that is needed in a companion (especially on audio where "What’s that, Doctor?" becomes "What’s that green scaly thing, Doctor?") with a believable toughness. She wasn’t tokenistic in the slightest – the Edwardian Adventuress who could sneak on board the R101 to begin her journey from England to Singapore is entirely in character to want to go travelling the galaxy in a time machine. She took no (emotional) baggage, had no gimmick and wouldn’t trip over her feet as this is audio and it would make the thing sound like an episode of the Goons. Doctor Who had grown up and it was no longer necessary to replace the perceived out of date stereotype with a new and equally obnoxious one. So 2001 marked the end of 1996. Paul McGann will shortly record a fourth season of audio plays and has finally stepped out of the shadows and become a convention guest. He’s now a proper Doctor, more than just another Cushing, and only the most dogmatic of canonists can deny it. While WCW became a memory that lives on through WWE’s splendid exploitation of their vast video tape library. It’s amazing the difference a day can make.
I spent a lot of time on trains in 2001. It was something of a transitional time for me, and my life was slowly beginning to sort itself out of the mess I'd got myself in over the previous couple of years. For those long journeys Big Finish's output was marvellous. I travelled up to York 3 times that year which was a 3-4 hour journey on the train, so a Doctor Who adventure or 2 was soon seen off. We had some great adventures that year too which made it all worthwhile. Paul McGann returned to the role for the first time and while the adventures weren't entirely great, it was wonderful to hear him back, and the end of the year brought us a great run of adventures for the other Doctor's (well except Primeval, which remains one of the few I've never got to the end of and never want to hear the end of!) too. Loups Garoux is bound up with a hot train trip home from Sheffield in June, where I'd stopped off for a few hours to check out my old haunts and Colditz makes me ill and fluey as I was on the second of my trips to York that year. That trip was a bit of a turning point. the relationship I'd gone up to sort out came to nothing and I came home feeling a little despondent about my life again. Talking to a good friend of mine a day later, he cheered me up and told me of a new obsession he'd formed while I'd been away. It turned out he'd found the Outpost Gallifrey Forum. He'd been scouring it for a few days and decided it was time we sorted out that load of sad fans. There was this one poster in particular going by the name of Si Hunt who was a particular target. A prolific poster even in those days, Mr Hunt was the King of OG. His threads were longer (and it seemed at the time) sadder than all the rest "Your Dream Season 20" was the one that got us, and so we hatched a plan to cause mayhem and mischief round the place. One weekend I logged in with my new username, SiHart, which of course looks a lot like SiHunt... and well I got myself noticed! After a lot of apologising and explaining that it really was my name, I soon found myself hooked. It was a good time to be on OG too. It was much smaller and saner than it is today and there was a real feeling of a community which seems to have gone now. In those days there was a long running and much loved thread "Gay Doctor Who Fans". There was much daily banter on there, flirting and not long after I'd arrived a rumoured meet up for the long term posters to that thread. I'd only been there a fortnight or so at the time. and so it was a bit cheeky of me to jump and volunteer to join them, but that didn't stop me. I had a good feeling about it and the guys seemed really great people, who I wanted to know, so feeling slightly weary, but really excited at the same time, I went on that Saturday and met those four other gay Doctor Who fans. What a day we had! There are details of that day that don't need to be raked over again, but suffice to say we had a great day full of drinking, talking and dancing (oh my yes!) and even time to watch A Doctor Who adventure... The Horns of Nimon! Not all of us enjoyed it, but we sat there chatting over it, taking the piss and giggling and had a marvellous night. I'm not in touch with all the guys I met that night any longer, but I did meet two people who over the course of the months that followed became two of the finest friends I've ever had, Si Hunt and Richard Beeby. I love 2001 for being the beginning of the upswing in my life and for starting off all the things that have become important to me since. |
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