The Doctor Who Thread

The Garage
#41

Doctor Who
Shada
by
Douglas Adams

Once upon a time there was a great and clever man named Douglas Adams. In 1978 he pitched an idea to the Doctor Who Production Team titled Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen. The idea was dismissed, though went on to become his most famous work - The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Nonetheless, Adams went on to perform the role of Script Editor for the famed Key to Time themed Season 16 of Doctor Who, penning one of that season’s stories himself - The Pirate Planet. The following season, whilst leaving the editor’s chair to work on his new radio show as noted above, he contributed two further stories - City of Death, and Shada. The former is oft voted amongst the Top 10 stories of all time, whilst the later is the only Doctor Who story that actively began production, yet failed to reach completion (in this case, due to striking BBC workers).

Originally a story about the Doctor retiring from his life of adventure, producer Graham Williams forced Adams to revise, coming up instead with a different retired Time Lord that the Doctor goes to visit. With the location shoot finished, and 1 of 3 studio sessions in the bag, the strike struck, causing the story to lose its second studio session. By the time the strike stroked, WHO’s studio time was assigned to other projects, leaving the story with only approx 50% complete. New producer (and former production manager) John Nathan-Turner attempted to begin his studio time for Season 18 by completing the story, however this never materialised, and the story was eventually abandoned. But it didn’t end there…

Douglas was never a man to let something go, so one of the main characters from the story, Professor Chronotis, was reused in Adams’ story Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. But it didn’t end there…

Several years later for the show’s 20th anniversary, Tom Baker elected not to return for the now awkwardly titled “The Five Doctors”. Whilst a wax-work model of Tom Baker was used for promotional material, it would not be suitable for the actual story - so instead JN-T used excerpts from the Shada footage, spliced into the new story, and giving fans a glimpse of Tom and Lalla in action (leisurely punting down a river).

After Doctor Who was cancelled, JN-T remained active with the show’s rotting corpse, patching together clip-shows direct-to-VHS for BBC Worldwide. The most ambitious of these probably was his final attempt to resurrect Shada, bringing Tom back to introduce the “missing” story, adding some special effects to the footage that had never actually been edited previously, cutting back to Tom now and then to fill in the gaps, achieving a result that almost made it feel like you really were watching an entirely new episode of Doctor Who. Almost. But it didn’t end there…

In 2003, King of Doctor Who Audios, 8th Doctor Paul McGann recorded a new version of Shada, complete with Lalla Ward as Romana II, with rather un-ambitious animation designed for a webcast. After its webue, it was then released with Tom’s VHS version on DVD. But it didn’t end there…

In 2011, long time series fan and saviour of several actual missing episodes, Ian Levine, self funded an animated reconstruction of the story. Although missing Tom Baker, most of the other cast returned to offer their voices. I’ve not watched it… But it didn’t end there…

720×405

Finally, possibly, we think, the story of Shada finally finally came to a close or will do shortly when Tom again returned, with other cast members, to create a definitive new version of Shada, using the original footage, combined with brand new official and better quality probably animation. The story will finally be released in its final form in December 2017, but will also see cinematic release in some countries for a brief outing - check your local cinemas now!

The End.

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#42

New Who Logo Revealed:

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#43

In 2005, soon after Doctor Who’s revival had begun, news broke that Christopher Eccleston was leaving the show.

The reasons behind his departure were initially noted by the BBC as a fear of being typecast, however that was soon retracted. Over the years there have been various sound bytes from both Chris and WHO’s production team of the day, but now whilst on the promo trail for his new BBC series, Come Home, Chris has answered questions about what went on back in 2004 during the show’s production.

My relationship with my three immediate superiors, the showrunner [Russell T Davies], the producer, and co-producer, broke down irreparably during the first block of filming and it never recovered. They lost trust in me and I lost faith trust and belief in them.

Some of my anger about the situation came from my own insecurity. They employed somebody who was not a natural light comedian.

I think that if you’re setting up a huge series like that the director has to be impeccable in setting the tone. Billie [Piper], who we know was and is brilliant, was very, very nervous and very, very inexperienced. So, you had that, and then you had me. Very, very experienced, possibly the most experienced on it, but out of my comfort zone.

So, perhaps still not spelling everything out in black & white, but - my take on it is that perhaps the producers / director had a particular vision for the character, which clashed with what Christopher was intending, and they didn’t have faith to go with his vision.

Ultimately, whether he was thrilled with the direction or not, whether you liked him or not, he won over the public and secured an audience for Tennant to expand upon during his tenure.

#44

Ok - so, not local news, but - wow! For 1 day cinemas in the USA will be screening Genesis of the Daleks - arguably the best story from the first 26 years of Doctor Who. They will be screening the 90 minute “omnibus cut” only previously aired in the UK in 1975, plus a new interview with Tom Baker.

Both feature on the upcoming BluRay box set of Tom’s first season.

(Yes - if you thought you were done with the DVDs… and VHS before that… now they’re doing BluRay…)

__
This will now also screen in Canada… C’mon Aussie!

#45

In the 1960’s / 70’s the BBC failed to properly archive its content, resulting in great chunks of Doctor Who no longer being available on iTunes. :wink:

Thankfully however we can still enjoy EVERY classic episode of Doctor Who - via audio recordings captured by fans from the original live broadcasts.

One such fan was Graham Strong, a 14 year old kid when the show began in '63, who used a reel-to-reel audio recorder, sat next to his parents television to capture the audio for later listening. When he was 16, as a budding audio tech, he re-wired the two devices - directly connecting the tv’s audio output into the recorder’s input, rather than simply using the speaker->microphone approach - achieving a “line level” recording that oftentimes has proven better quality than the BBC’s telecine film copies.

His “work” came to light to the BBC in the early 1990’s when a fan discovered what Graham had accomplished. Graham allowed the BBC to borrow his recordings, which resulted in a wide range of audio releases, however it also enabled the BBC to release partially-missing stories such as The Ice Warriors (missing eps 2 & 3), creating an abridged “telesnap recreation” of the missing episodes, featuring Graham’s audio tracks.

Side Note… In the late 90’s when I ran a “Hotline” peer to peer server, someone uploaded a couple dozen missing episode audio recordings - not yet released by the BBC. I don’t know who it was, but I’d guess a lot of them originated from Graham’s efforts. I’ve never had the heart to delete those files - still have them all.

In 2016 the BBC animated the 2nd Doctor’s debut story - The Power Of The Daleks. It featured Graham’s recordings of the audio tracks. He was invited to a special British Film Institute screening of the story, and received a round of applause from the grateful fans in attendance. :slight_smile:

Earlier this year Graham handed his collection over to Mark Ayre for preservation. Mark originally worked on Doctor Who in the 80’s as a sound designer, and then later was involved with restoring the series for release on DVD.

Sadly Graham has now passed away after a battle with cancer.

Thank-you, Graham - we owe you so much!

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#46

G’day,

Can you please let me know if you can see this (and what country you are from; once per country will be fine. :slight_smile: )

The video was cleared by the BBC, with its copyright status advising it’s viewable worldwide, however it doesn’t come up when I search YouTube/Google (Bigger on the inside thecosmichobo used to always bring it up), and if I try add it as a featured video on my channel, it says it’s not viewable in all countries…

Thanks.

#47

Nope. can’t see it in NZ

#48

Thanks for the feedback, @MacGeek. I can’t find it searching here in Oz, yet analytics is showing hits for Australia…

Think I’m going to have to re-upload a new copy… Oh well - can revamp it for new examples…

#49

Not viewable in my country. Australia. :-/

#50

Thanks @kyte :frowning:

Was super duper proud of this vid when I put it up. I may not be amazing at this stuff, but it did bring together a lot of different techniques in its production. (Certainly think it’s better than the other “Bigger on the Inside” vids that are just simple A + B + C plain edits.) Kinda frustrating - at least normally you just get a “blocked worldwide” message and know what’s going on.

Oh well - have felt like I’ve been neglecting my hobo channel - time to make amends, even if it’s just a new version of an old vid.

#51

Since I cant see it, I don’t know whether I am on the money here, but it seems the music rights are with mgm (which surprised me… have you used music other than the usual?). apart from that, its still playing off and on, on the ABC, so the rights to play rest with them, I would think.

#52

Thanks kyte :slight_smile:

Silva Records have the distribution rights to the music from Doctor Who, so the song “I am the Doctor” - used throughout - belongs to them. They are in turn owned by MGM… However on my copyright page, it says that they have a claim, but have just monetized the video, not blocked it…

I may as well lodge a dispute with them though and politely ask about it, in case that is the problem…

(I regularly lodge “disputes” with the BBC for my Doctor Who vids - they’ve advised me that they are happy for fans to make “mash up” videos and put them on YouTube - just need to lodge the dispute and ask for them to unblock it when YouTube’s auto filter picks them up… In this case - maybe it’s causing the issue too… not sure!)

1 Like
#53

Teaser Trailer released on Sunday:

With Jodie’s imminent appearance at Comicon this week, there’s expectations of a longer trailer, and/or scene from her first story being released as well…

#54

When I was watching that, All I could think was “why is Doctor Who doing a Flash Crossover”.

#55

The pizza box refills and the news paper changes to a beano magazine but what happens to the first guy?

#56

His food changes to baked beans. I think.

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#57

Earlier this year it was being tipped that the series would return in August, but now I believe the latest rumour is that it wont be until late Sep/early Oct. With just 10 episodes this season (running at around 55min instead of 45min), that is expected to bring the series to an end just before Christmas - with a few weeks break before the Christmas Special - which has not officially been announced as yet.

By all accounts this new season is being launched as a “soft reboot” - you supposedly do not need to know anything about the show in order to watch it. I don’t think for 1 second that means they will be discarding the past 12 years (10 seasons) of NuWho - just attempting to regain some of the ratings the show has lost over the past few years.

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#58

That may well be one of the reasons for the gender swap Doctor (no I don’t personally have a problem with that) but I do have some concern is that it will create the same sort of backlash that the gender swap did with Ghost Busters.

OTOH they might pick up a new audience (which they need).

Interesting times…

#59

Every regeneration you lose some fans, and gain new ones. Hopefully there is balance in that transfer.

Capaldi had falling ratings each of his successive years, sadly, so Jodie has some ground to make up.

If the gender-swap had been done say, when Peter Davison left (as was suggested by series creator, Sydney Newman - not that then producer John Nathan-Turner listened), I think the results would have been catastrophic, because at that point the series had a predominantly male audience. These days however, my understanding is that WHO has a near even male / female fan base.

If misogynistic fans do turn off, there’s plenty of other fans to hold the ratings - so long as Jodie manages to pull in enough new fans as well.

I do get the feeling that the BBC would consider retiring the show if the ratings continue to fall - no longer the cash cow that it was under Tennant. So fingers crossed.

#60

I started watching Doctor Who with the original series with William Hartnell. I just loved it. as a 14 year old female I was a bit unusual, my schoolmates thought I was mad, they didnt get into it until Jon Pertwee.,

Of all the Who incumbents, I think my favourites have been Tom Baker and David Tennant. I liked Christopher Eccleston as well but only one season of him was a bit disappointing.

I could not get past Peter Davison’s previous role as Tristan in All Creatures Great and Small and so I lost interest then until Eccleston and the reboot.

I probably said all this in a previous post, just cant be arsed looking right now.