Another decade down, and that means it’s time for another WHO-50 round up!

The Eighties was a turbulent time in Doctor Who, beginning with the cancellation of the part-filmed Shada, and ending with the hiatus and final “rest” of the show beloved by so many. The showman sensibilities of producer John Nathan-Turner meant some fantastic guest stars and overseas filming, and script editors Christopher Bidmead (science should not be silly), Eric Saward (if you’re going to have violent stories, let’s make them PROPERLY violent) and Andrew Cartmel (let’s show you just how sneaky and manipulative the Doctor has to be to save the universe) put their stamp on the show, as did the three actors who came in to play the Doctor in the wake of the iconic Tom Baker: Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and Sylvester McCoy.

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Many fans have pointed out the role of Ace, the last of the “classic Who” companions, in shaping what the modern companion of New Who would look like. In particular, there has been a great deal of commentary and analysis about the changes that were starting to be made during this last gasp of Doctor Who (not just the idea of the companion as protagonist, and raised emotional stakes for the Doctor himself, but also stories that reflected a more gender-aware and diverse Britain) and how this seems to have had a powerful impact on the returning version of the show, especially the 2005 Eccleston and Piper season.

This is hardly surprising, as McCoy’s Doctor and Ace’s character were not just central to the last “proper” run of the show, but also remained the focus of fan and pro creativity for many years in the decade that followed, and many of the fans, pros and fannish pros who were part of that world were themselves involved in the return of the show.

Ace is not Rose, not by a long shot, but there are many elements of her character that demonstrate her influence over the creation of Rose, and why RTD might have thought that the returning show should revolve around the family, angst and narrative of a working class teenage girl.

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The junkyard in Totter’s Lane is cemented in Doctor Who history as the location where the TARDIS was parked in the very first episode, An Unearthly Child. It was here that we learned exactly what was Very Strange about Susan, and the lives of ordinary teachers Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton changed forever.

The TARDIS tends to move forwards, onward and upwards to new adventures, but very occasionally it does return to old haunts. In Attack of the Cybermen in 1985, the Sixth Doctor and Peri landed in a certain familiar (and yet looking completely different) junkyard, twenty two years after the Doctor originally left. Not only were there Cybermen walking around the general area, but this story also featured another pointed callback, with the TARDIS chameleon circuit finally fixed, and the TARDIS taking the form of a large harpsichord.

But that callback, it has to be said, was rather gratuitous. The story didn’t have to be in Totter’s Lane, or indeed in a junkyard at all.

Three years later, they did it again.

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There’s a new Verity up – looking at Journey To The Centre of the TARDIS! Some great discussion. The nice thing about being part of this podcast is that I get to listen to it like an ordinary person on the weeks I don’t participate.

Cheryl Morgan writes about the future of gender and trans characters in science fiction at Autostraddle, paying particular note to the way that many of the most innovative and experimental stories about how gender changes/attitudes might happen in the future don’t actually reflect the experience of trans people now. (I’ve been guilty of this myself as a writer in the past so it’s a topic I’m quite keen to pass on to people)

Charles Tan responds to Julia Rios who asked people to create their personal SF/curriculum – very cool post! Try it yourself…

This story of a street photographer who captured all manner of amazing images of the 20th century really caught my attention this week – Vivian Maier worked as a nanny in New York City for most of her life, secretly photographing the characters of her city, but never showing her work. Now the treasure trove has been found…

A discussion on being paid to write – and the expectation (becoming more prevalent in these days of ebooks) that writers will provide their work for free – came up on Tumblr between Cassandra Clare, Holly Black and Sarah Rees Brennan – though unfortunately, Tumblr being what it is, it isn’t always obvious which of them is saying what in the posts. Luckily the three of them basically agree!

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For me growing up, Doctor Who was a big amorphous pile of everything. Trial of a Time Lord, the Key to Time, the Target novelisation of The Myth Makers, Spearhead from Space, An Unearthly Child and even those Peter Cushing movies were part of this big spinning vortex of Everything Who. There was no forward or backward, no serious attempt at chronological order, and little sense of cohesion. I watched either on VHS tapes, on that perfect ABC time slot between 5:30 and 6:30 pm (a timeslot that also included at various times, The Goodies, Bananaman, Roger Ramjet and Danger Mouse BEST TIME SLOT EVER), and in many cases on VHS tapes recorded from that perfect ABC time slot or exchanged with friends.

But in 1987 (or let’s face it, some time within two years of 1987) everything changed. I was nine or ten, and we were ushered to a living room belonging to a representative of the vaguely-organised Doctor Who fan community in Hobart to watch a New Episode.

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David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Series 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the “Doctor Who in Conversation” team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all. We are working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, and sometimes a couple of extra episodes we love as our blogging points. Just for fun!

Thanks to everyone who nominated us for the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review, we are chuffed and delighted and might even be inspired to run through these a bit faster than we have been doing. No promises, obviously!

“Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” – Season 4, episodes 9 & 10

The Doctor – David Tennant
Donna Noble – Catherine Tate
River Song – Alex Kingston

TEHANI:

We skip ahead again to the first Hugo nomination for the fourth season (there were only two Doctor Who episodes shortlisted that year – well, three, but this counts as a single nomination). This is interesting to me, as the fourth season – Donna’s season – is definitely one of my favourites. More competition in that year?

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The first full-length season featuring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor also produced one of the more memorably arch female villains of Doctor Who. Played by glamorous soap star Kate O’Mara, The Rani was intended to be the female equivalent of the Master, a villain who truly matched the Doctor in wits and plots but had a tendency to get overly obsessed with that rivalry to the exclusion of getting anything else done.

Unlike the Master, who dabbled in many different types of scheme, the Rani was devoted to a single cause, that of Science. She never set out to be evil or take over the world or anything so dramatic – it’s just that her experiments are generally so ruthless, ethically dubious and downright damaging to the test subjects that the Doctor is honour-bound to stop her whenever their paths cross.

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Turlough was one of my favourites. I’m not sure why especially, except that he brought the snark better than anyone. Tegan would complain and shout a lot, but Turlough got to be witty and elegant in his resistance to the Doctor’s particular brand of virtue and heroism.

“What is it about Earth people that makes them think a futile gesture is a noble one?”

There’s a popular idea that classic Doctor Who companions always start out with pots of characterisation and then gradually descend into bland screaming girls until they are finally written out at the request of the actor. I’m not sure that’s entirely true for any companion at all – it is true that many get stronger scripts to start with than later, but it’s rarely such a linear progression as fans (and perhaps the actors) tend to believe. Sarah Jane’s feminism waxes and wanes rather than sliding in a downward spiral, and the same is true for Nyssa’s scientific know-how, Jo’s spy skills, and so on.

It is rare for extra backstory to develop after a companion’s first appearance – though it did happen to some extent with Ace, and with Tegan. Many companions started out with almost no backstory and… never got any more.

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So, it’s the anniversary year, and after months of Doctor Who fans eying November with extreme skepticism, and burgeoning alarm that maybe, just maybe, Moffat and co are planning a fizzler rather than a blow out, the new series has just been launched along with the epic news that David Tennant and Billie Piper will be back for the 50th Anniversary special in November.

Yes, I did say epic. Because, however we might complain at there not being all the Doctors in there (which we don’t actually know for sure yet) or the lack of Eccleston (again, you never know), the thought of Ten and Eleven capering around each other and finishing each other’s sentences is, um. Pretty awesome. (and if nothing else, maybe a send-off for Ten which is a bit more popular than his last one was?)

But that’s not all we’re getting, of course. Doctor Who has been on front pages for some years now, but this year has brought all manner of news and announcement, from the behind the scenes shots from the docudrama about Year One of the show (Verity! Sydney Newman! William Hartnell!) to the delight at the Big Finish announcement of a multi Classic Doctors audio drama, comics honouring all the Doctors, book releases, toys, costumes, conventions, podcasts… once you actually stop and list all the new Doctor Who STUFF we are getting this year, it’s actually pretty overwhelming.

It’s pretty rare to have a TV show reach a 50th anniversary and let’s face it, we’re getting a hell of a lot more than all the James Bond fans are this year. Plus they don’t have Matt Smith OR David Tennant (yet). But what about previous anniversaries?

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David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Series 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the “Doctor Who in Conversation” team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all. We are working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, and sometimes a couple of extra episodes we love as our blogging points. Just for fun!

Thanks to everyone who nominated us for the William Atheling Jr Award for Criticism or Review, we are chuffed and delighted and might even be inspired to run through these a bit faster than we have been doing. No promises, obviously!

TEHANI:
Righto, so we’ve skipped over “The Fires of Pompeii” and “Planet of the Ood”, moving along to “The Sontaran Strategem/Poison Sky” double episode (not Hugo nominated, but Tansy felt they were important to talk about – we agreed!). I would like to mention a couple of things about the preceding two episodes though. In “The Fires of Pompeii”, we saw Donna make the Doctor to rescue just one family from the eruption, effectively forcing him to remember that EVERYONE MATTERS, and clearly setting her up as his conscience and moral compass. This is interesting when followed by “Planet of the Ood”, when his compassion is demonstrated in his fight to save the Ood despite their apparently murderous tendencies. Donna’s impact is swift and cannot be overstated, as it becomes so important later on!

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