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| Si Hunt |
| Anthony Williams |
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Back in 2003, nobody suspected it but forces were working away quietly to bring back Doctor Who. No, not Philip Segal and his expensive folly of a TV Movie, but a couple of eager fans with designs on recreating "The Dark Dimension" as an internet photo adventure! I look back on that time now, and I wonder just how we did it. This was no "Time Quest Of Fear", not just an afternoon, a digital camera, a few loo-roll tube 'sets' and a great idea. Although there were lots of loo-roll tubes involved, admittedly. We're talking months here, MONTHS! The kitchen has never been the same since. We'd spend most evenings that summer sitting quietly in the lounge surrounded by sheets of paint-covered newspaper, glue and scissors, bits of straws and clear plastic, daubing away at a Dapol figure or trying to make a model of a park bench. Our sets were all absurdly detailed, the 'Jacqueline Hill' underground station being a case in point. There was an intricately painted drinks machine homaging "Paradise Towers", movie posters on the walls nodding to Madonna and Bob Dylan concerts and the "Dalek Invasion of Earth" movie, and an authentic little underground sign. When we shifted the model back seventy miles to Clacton and photographed it under carefully positioned lighting, we were so proud of the results! And this was all for about four photos in the final story! Going out "on location" was fun too. When you're a kid, playing Doctor Who with Star Wars figures (or Dapol, if you're younger than about twenty five) you imagine everything to scale; twisted twigs become tree branches and a muddy puddle is imagined as a huge lake. This was the same, as we set up camp one day somewhere in the wood near the River Stort, just the right amount of sunshine glimmering down between the cracks in the treetops. Thankfully there were no curious dog walkers, so we were left to unpack our carefully prepared figures, the miniature boat and marine accessories we'd bought from the cheap toy shop in town, and a raft made of PVC glue and twigs collected on a previous expedition. Snap, snap, snap and a few hours later we were done, left to walk happily back to the house in the hope that all the pictures had come out. The raft the Dapol Sylvester McCoy was floated off on in the first scene had become waterlogged, so was abandoned in the woods. It should still be there somewhere, though we often walk back that way today and we never see it. I can very clearly recall pausing on our long journey to completing the story. We'd done so much, but were seemingly out of ideas and resources. Yet two huge sets still had to be built - we just had to press on. Painting up some grey floor panels and walls, we began to put together our biggest 'set' yet, that of Hawkspur's UK Base. I think the finished result was my favourite of all the ones we made, a huge model standing not much short of a metre across and featuring a sliding door, a fully linked on balcony section, 'cryo tubes', prisoner-holding cells and a nice red telephone. It would have delighted any kid with action figures to play with, I'm sure. What I love about the finished story is that it features so many contrasts. Because it was made in so many sections, all of course photographed out of order as we carefully made and deconstructed each set in turn, viewing it allows the viewer to leap from the glorious green of the woods where we did outdoor shots, to the gunmetal grey of Hawkspurs base and then onto the street scenes featuring the huge scale model of the Rovers Return! That wonderful underground station set just appears at the end of episode 1, so much detail and it's dropped in almost as an after thought! I think actually I want to go and read it again now, to bring even more memories flooding back... I'm not sure we actually have it in us to do something that big again. It was worth every minute spent painting drinking straws, and every penny spent on Star Wars beast monsters and brickwall-patterned paper, though. Our piece de resistance, in every sense! -- For T, my partner in crime xx
Most non-fans wouldn’t see what was so special about 2003. It’s just another year to most people. However, to most Doctor Who fans, 2003 was something special. Not only was it the 40th Anniversary of our dearly beloved programme, we also got several other things, one of which being the biggest things to happen to Who since the TV Movie of 1996, or possibly even the cancellation in 1989! We got the disappointing "The Story of Doctor Who" documentary, which totally failed to add anything to the "30 Years in the TARDIS" documentary of 10 years previously. Didn’t even mention either of the charity skits, the Big Finish adventures, the books, and to the outrage of a good deal of fans, it didn’t even mention the 1996 TV Movie starring Paul McGann. The usual sort of thing was happening with the books. The dreary Sabbath arc continued, the 8th Doctor failed to gain his memory back, Gallifrey still made no return, Justin Richards continued to make a fine mess of it all, people still called for his resignation from the post of editor of the range. No change there, then. The range of Big Finish audios started and finished the year on a high note, with Rob Shearman plays at both ends of the year, with some damn fine plays in between – "Project:Lazarus", "Master" and "Davros" all spring to mind, some experimental ones – "Flip Flop", "Doctor Who and the Pirates" and "Project:Lazarus" (again) both spring to mind. The year also had its disappointments, most notably in the over hyped "multi-Doctor" anniversary story, "Zagreus". Carrying on from 2002’s "Neverland", it featured appearances from Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy, all in addition to Paul McGann. However, only one of them really played the Doctor. Which annoyed the hell out of fandom. Also, from Big Finish, was the highly enjoyable "Doctor Who: Unbound" range, telling "what if…" stories, starring different actors as the Doctor. The first five were generally accepted to be of an excellent quality, starring such actors as David Collings, Michael Jayston, Sir Derek Jacobi, Geoffrey Bayldon and David Warner. The last one, however, was a "comedy" by Nick Briggs, starring Arabella Weir as a female Doctor. A recipe for disaster? Most people seem to think so, given the general consensus on the story! The BBC range of Doctor Who videos finally drew to an end. Every existing episode of Doctor Who has now been released on video. The last release, "The Reign of Terror" box set was like gold dust, and sold out within days of release, and is currently going for ridiculous money on e-bay. Oh dear. 2003 was also a good year for DVD, with one release per Doctor, and lavish extra features being included on every disc. Top stories, as well (with the exception of the Three Doctors)! Perhaps the thing that will be remembered most by people who were the fans at the time (I suspect that in 2 or 3 years time, there will be a number of new fans who won’t see what was so special about 2003), was the announcement that new Doctor Who would be going into production. All Who fans will remember where they were at the time that they heard the announcement. It was approximately 8:30am, and I was at school. I received a text message from my good friend Si Hunt, telling me that there had been an announcement that the BBC were going to make new Who for the television! When I’d heard this, I went straight to the school library (where they get the broadsheet newspapers and the Daily Mail every day), and found that Si was, indeed, correct. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that Russell T. Davies, a well respect fan, would be producer and writer for most of the series. The year ended on a high for Who, with the announcement of the new series, a good Big Finish audio from Rob Shearman, and the ability to own every single existing episode of Who on video, at last! What a great year!
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