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Dear BBC, take my money…

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here by saying the Beeb is now focused on animating all the missing episodes. If it is a limb, it feels very sturdy. The purse strings that used to be tied up in Gordian knots seem to have been sliced open and it’s raining animation money out there.

How do we know they’re starting to spend money hand over fist? In the past, once in a blue egg, they’d animate and finish off two parts of a story like Ice Warriors or Moonbase.

Now, they’re not only animating whole missing stories like Fury from the Deep and Macra Terror but *just* for the sake of visual consistency, they’re animating the entirety of The Faceless Ones, including the parts that already exist. *That* is a significant step that says there’s a growing appreciation of getting a better quality product out there.

To go one step further, they even spent more time and money on “improving” the animation in Power of the Daleks— a story that was just released a few years ago. While that’s great that they upgraded the animation, is it worth re-releasing the thing now? I guess, if people buy it. How extreme is the improved artwork? I don’t know, I *don’t* plan on buying it. Maybe it would have been a better idea to wait and release the updated version when they collect all of Season 4 on Blu-Ray? Perhaps, but maybe it’s just an indicator that that Blu-Ray season collection is many years away yet. Maybe the time/money spent on improving POTD might have been better off spent on animating the remaining two eps of the Crusades? I don’t know. But I guess the money there.

Currently, the Season 4 to-do list includes animating all four parts of The Highlanders, probably all of The Underwater Menace (including the two existing eps) and Evil of the Daleks (including the one existing ep).

Looking at the challenges for each– for the Highlanders and TUM, they’ve already got stock animated heads of the Doctor, Jamie, Ben and Polly. They usually grab photos of existing static backgrounds from scenes and run them through filters which saves time. So in both those cases, they mostly just have to focus on the extra characters and costumes for each, which would be the biggest time commitment. With “Evil”, they’ve got loads of Daleks from POTD, plus Jamie and the Doctor, so again, backgrounds, extra characters.

Season 5 seems to be just as far away, if not a bit farther. They have yet to touch the 6 part Abominable Snowman, or the 6 part Wheel in space. Web of Fear is a sticky situation (sorry) when it comes to visual consistency. One ep missing, existing only in telesnaps. Do you go to the trouble of animating the whole thing? Or raid the house of the private collector and start shaking him and force him to let go of episode 3 already! (Or whoever has it) That’s a tricky one. Probably best just to animate that one alone. I’ve been carping about it for a while but I think it finally dawned on them that spending the money on animating all the eps will more than pay off when they release the entire seasons on Blu-Ray.

You CANNOT have even one episode represented in telesnaps on a Blu-Ray disc.

Season 6, they’re only missing most of the Space Pirates. I can’t even tell if we’re dealing with a win-win or lose-lose there.

With Hartnell, it’s all a bit more clear cut. Season 1, Marco Polo, Season 2, finish off the Crusades. Season 3… well, they’ve got their work cut out for them. Myth Makers, the DMP, Savages, add the Smugglers to the list since I’m sure they’ll tack that and The Tenth Planet on to Hartnell’s final season. I’m also pretty sure that will end up being the last season collection that comes out.

My main point here is that the Beeb is finally spending significant cash to complete all of Doctor Who and to get stuff ready for future Blu-Ray collections.

Beyond the black and white era, there is one thing they have to do.

A personal plea.

Hey, Beeb…I usually don’t re-buy the individual releases once they’re already out, but if you go in to Invasion of the Dinosaurs and replace the bad rubber puppets with convincing CGI dino’s, I’ll buy it again.

And…and if you then go back in and upgrade them again to Jurassic Park quality and release it again? I’ll buy it. Again.

And then I’ll buy it again when the whole season’s out on Blu-Ray. Because the story is *that* good.

But if you *don’t* fix the dinosaurs, I might not even get Season 11 on Blu-Ray, because the entire season hinges on that. There, I’ve said it.

I’m sorry, but I’ll forgive just about any bad effect in DW. The Scaracen, the giant rat, the Foamasi, even the Myrka, because it wasn’t even a great ep, and the karate move is priceless.

But when it comes to those inexcusable dino hand puppets, to quote Picard, “The line must be drawn HERE!”

Small Surprise

We really don’t do fast food *that* often but Matt and I were on our own for dinner the other night and had Wendy’s delivered. I ordered a Double cheese everything and that’s a sizable burger… but when he took it out of the bag, he looked at it. I looked at it.

From the size of that wrapped shape, at first we thought they got the order wrong and gave me single, or maybe a White Castle Slider had somehow mysteriously teleported into the bag, deftly switching places with the Double. Point being, it looked rather small.

Opening up the wrapper, I had to study it for a second but on close inspection, yes, there were two, square, thin, small patties in there. And I wasn’t imagining it, as Matthew recognized the size disparity as well.

Admittedly, it’s probably been several years since I had a Wendy’s burger. I’d say only a couple years but these days, every time I estimate that something happened “a couple years ago”, it turns out it actually happened 8 or 10 years ago.

If I think something happened 8 or 10 years ago. It was really about 30 or 40.

And if it seems like longer than that, it was really dinosaur times.

You know, they have Medieval Times, where you eat turkey legs and watch jousting and knights battling — maybe there should be some kind of Dino Times, where you can watch guys in dinosaur costumes battle. They have some pretty convincing costumes at some theme parks… maybe it’s Universal, can’t remember. But I’m really drifting here…

It’s been a while since I had a Wendy’s burger but when the hell did they downsize the product? I’ll bet the *price* didn’t go down, am I right? Anyone? Bueller?

Thankfully, the vanilla frosty and sugar cookie that accompanied the burger compensated for any miniaturization of the main course.

I guess I should still be happy over the fact that after decades of shortsightedness, of them having *only* chocolate frosties, someone finally wised up and said, “You know, Dave was a closet vanilla hater or something but let’s stop ignoring a huge chunk of the market and offer vanilla frosties too.

And in the distance, a cheer….

For the record, the Double — although small — was still every bit as good as I remember it. Kudos. I remember back when I was a regular patron of Wendy’s downtown. I think it was maybe…. ten years ago…? Yes, it was 1983 at the Academy and quite often, I would indulge in having a Triple. It was magnificent just about every time.

Around the same time, I remember a class mate saying he had worked at McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy’s at different times back in high school. Of them all, Wendy’s was the only one that shipped in fresh food every day. Impressive.

Hmmm…. “Welcome to Dinosaur Times!”

C’mon, who wouldn’t love that?

Um…epilog…. Turns out, when ordering on his phone, Matthew simply ordered the wrong item. Nevermind.

Alright, nothing to see here, go about your business!

ITEMS!

ITEM: At some point in the near future, Matt and I will be sitting across the table from each other and running the hot sauce gauntlet, ala the Hot Ones on YouTube. We are both going to regret this stupid, stupid move. Coming soon. NEXT!

ITEM: There’s a coach on the St. Louis Cardinals called Stubby Clapp. You just soak that in. NEXT!

ITEM: I had a weird nodule on my finger for years, then it went away. Magic? Demons? Probably! NEXT!

ITEM: While we were lucky that no trees fell on our house during the big storm earlier this week, DAMN, we had major limbs come crashing down all around the yard. I was chopping, collecting, dragging and checking wood for 90 minutes. Good work out. NEXT!

ITEM: we also just got our house painted and no damage there from the storm either. Knock on wood! Or my skull! NEXT!

ITEM: I’m rapidly running out of stories from the old days, Horse Guy bits, random musings, Doctor Who columns and lockdown recommendations! Will I be able to fill out the entire 366 daily blogs? WILL I?!?!?!

I successfully wasted one whole column today! HAW!

The Yearly Cable Battle

It’s around this time each year when I call Comcast to renegotiate a lower bill without losing too many channels.

But they’re crafty. They now have perhaps the perfect set up. They will lull you into a false sense of security and accomplishment before verrrrrrrrry slowly pulling the rug out from under you.

I get internet, cable and phone from Xfinity. The phone, I don’t use. It’s just there for the bundled discount. The internet is pretty reliable and very fast. The cable is the mercurial, shape-changing wizard that needs to be catered to, kneaded, caressed.

So, imagine my surprise when the very nice gentleman on the phone gave me everything I wanted and more for less money.

Mind you, I first had to work my way through all the automated BS by repeatedly saying “agent” over and over and over and over and over again until they connected me. But when I got connected– very nice guy and helpful.

But of course he was fast, friendly and efficient. The automated service would be calling back 30 minutes after the discussion so I could rate my experience with him. So, I had a very pleasant discussion with the gentleman, saying that my year’s plan was up and I’d like to see if I could lower my bill, as we went forward. I also clarified that I was not interested in any of the movie channels, nor any of the sports add ons.

He said that he could give me everything I have now, plus extra channels, all for a lower price. Boom.

Amongst the added channels were Cartoon Network, making Matthew happy, TLC, which made Linda mildly happy (evidently it’s not the draw it once was, but she still has HGTV) and most surprising of all, the infamous Marquee Network comes with the package (that of course is the big Cubs baseball channel). It’s not something I was willing to pay extra for and was already resigned to listening to all the games on radio. But now I’ve got Marquee. ALL of this for about $20 less each month.

But here’s where they’ll eventually get me. And you, if you have Xfinity, or let’s face it, any cable company….

So, I’m all happy with instant gratification and he asks if I can listen to the recording of all the details of the new agreement for my approval. I say yes and they play this four minute recording of the new deal.

Basically, I get a certain guaranteed rate for the next two years and if I pull out, there’s like a $250 penalty etc. This is no problem.

Then they do mention that certain parts of the package may have rate increases at any point during that two year period (hello, Marquee). So, you know there’ll be some price bumps over the next two years and meanwhile, once I get accustomed to certain channels, I won’t want to lose them anyway.

Crafty buggers.

Still, two years ago, I was looking at a cable/internet/phone bill over $200 a month, and that was about to zoom up over $250, so I renegotiated it down to $130 with a different package.

But that first year had my wife going without HGTV and that was bad, so the following year, I added some stuff including that which brought it to $145 per month.

Now, we’re down to $129 a month with everything, so even with the eventual, inevitable price bumps over the next two years, we’re still more or less ahead of the game.

And a percentage of all this stuff is a tax write off for home office purposes.

So, all in all, not bad.

The moral of the story though is that with the massive uptick in streaming services popping up everywhere, and a lot of people cutting the cord, it is possible to negotiate your cable bill down.

And then take an automated survey.

Have fun with that.

CRUNCH, KRONK, CHUNG

The title will eventually make sense but this was something that happened many years ago….

It was cold, close to the holidays, and Sheree’s parents were leaving town. Sheree was a nice girl– I think. I don’t remember how well we knew her at the American Academy of Art back in the early ’80’s. But one day, she announced there was going to be a party at her house and we were all invited. Seemingly the whole school.

You see what’s coming.

So we headed out to the burbs, me in my stylish 1982 velour shirt, to Lemont and it was certainly a party. The relatively small house packed with people, only a few we recognized from school. And of course it was loud. So loud, you couldn’t hear yourself talk, with the crowd and the music. Our little group consisted of me, Lin, Pam, Doug and honestly, we usually had a fifth rotating member of the gang at that point depending on schedules, so it was either Neil, Martis, Jim or Mike, but of the five is us, we could barely see or hear each other because of the crowd.

The first sign that everything was going to hell, was that Sheree was already passed out in her bedroom. So no one was hosting, no one was in charge.

This… was a Rogue Rager.

The second, and infinitely more troubling sign of this party running out of runway were the guests in the kitchen. Sheree was very, very loose about invitations to this thing. Not only were there a number of college football players in attendance, but also, a group of bouncers from a club in Chicago.

Only now, nearly 40 years after the spectacle, am I wondering if maybe Sheree arranged for the bouncers to maybe keep things in line? Maybe she knew a friend of a friend? Don’t know. In any event, if there was any kind of plan in place, that plan failed.

Yeah, I don’t think there was a plan.

Because at a certain point in the kitchen, the football players and the bouncers were challenging each other to a game of quarters. A usually harmless drinking game where you bounce quarters into cups, thus forcing the opposing player to chug a beer or take a shot. It’s all well and good until someone gives somebody else the stink eye.

We were in the midst of the crowd in the living room when the music stopped and we heard crashing noises coming from the kitchen. The crowd seemed to be thickest around the outer edge of the kitchen. Curious, I started to insinuate myself through the crowd to go see what was happening in there. When I reached the edge of the crowd, I was frankly stunned.

Admittedly, I was very drunk by this point in the evening. The last hour was just a bunch of noise and beer. So it took me a minute to take in what I saw. To actually comprehend it.

The kitchen was utterly destroyed. There were holes smashed in the blood smeared walls. Scattered kindling that used to be a table with a quarters game on it before everything went to hell. And there were bodies flying around. Things were moving very fast, so I couldn’t count how many guys were fighting, just that they were big and capable of throwing their opponents. One of these opponents landed unconscious at my feet, since I was standing at the edge of the crowd. This was a very bad place to be standing, but that would be made clear to me in about 7 seconds.

I looked down at my feet and saw a guy laying there. I looked up and saw a large shadow fall over me. I raised my hands in — what I thought– was a “hey, I don’t want any trouble, I was just curious to see what was going on in here” gesture. Maybe my drunken face seemed like it had a cocky expression. Maybe he just didn’t like my velour shirt.

Large, looming shadow man interpreted my gesture in an aggressive way, resulting in three, rapid fire sounds.

CRUNCH. His first punch broke my nose, and as my head began rotating to the right,

KRONK. His second punch hit my cheek bone, continuing to rotate my head until,

CHUNG. The third and final rapid punch, now into the back of my head, had spun me around until my head was in the sink.

At which point, a massive dose of adrenaline kicked in, I shot to full sobriety in a nanosecond, and I was PISSED.

Evidently, I must have turned around looking like I was ready for round two, because at that point, several of the other bystanders pulled me into the crowd and to safety. The general message there being “Hey, he will easily kill you. Come here to safety. You’re welcome. Idiot.”

They deposited me back into the living room, away from the danger. I marched into the bathroom to assess the damage. There was surprisingly little pain, as I was still on an adrenaline high, along with the booze. THAT is an interesting mix. Looking into the bathroom mirror, it seemed like I got off pretty easy. Then the blood started streaming out of my nose. For the next minute or so, I tried to staunch the blood with every towel in the bathroom, and clean myself up.

Sorry Sheree, but bloody towels are going to be the least of your problems when your folks get home, I thought. Worst of all, I got blood on my velour shirt.

I wandered out of the bathroom into the living room, only to find it empty, with red and blue lights flashing and glowing in every window around the house. Coppers! Where were my friends? I would later find out that being separated, one pair thought I was with the other pair and vice versa, as they crawled out back windows with everyone else. But the point was moot. I was the only idiot left and in the kitchen, I saw a police officer placing one of the brawlers up against the wall.

Thinking quickly (80% adrenaline, 20% alcohol), I sniffed up as much blood as I could, hoping that because there was as yet no massive swelling, I wouldn’t be mistaken as one of the fighters. In hindsight, there was very little danger of me being mistaken for one of the fighters. Delightful countenance. Velour shirt.

But when an officer advanced on me as I entered the kitchen, I said “There’s a guy wreckin’ stuff in the back.” He went back and I bolted out the kitchen door.

Only to hit the driveway and find more party goers being thrown up against the side of the house by police. One came my way and I said “You might wanna get in there, two guys are beatin’ on a cop.” And sure enough, they ran into the house. All the partygoers bolted, a few of them saying thanks and a block away, I found my friends, who were relieved to see me. We piled in the car and got outta there.

By the time they dropped me off at home, the adrenaline had started to wear off along with the booze, and the pain began to creep in. They gang took a good long look at me under the streetlight in front of my house. The prognosis was not good. That blood wasn’t coming out of that velour shirt. The nose looked bad too.

But it would be okay, I thought. It was the wee hours of the morning and the very next day, before I would get up, mom and Vic were leaving on vacation and they’d be gone for like two weeks. I figured I’d heal up by the time they got back and they’d never know. I washed my face and went to bed.

The next morning, my mother, the behavioral forensic scientist noticed an almost microscopic speck of blood in the sink and immediately knew enough to interrogate me when they got back.

16 years later, I had to get nose surgery to repair the slowly escalating damage to the airways in my nose. Which caused another 15 years of sinus infections. I still have issues.

No idea whatever happened to Sheree.

The moral of the story? Never wear your favorite velour shirt to an even remotely sketchy party.

Stargazing!

So, you say you wanna see the stars?

Well, I did, so earlier in the year, I threw out the idea to the family to take a family trip—while we still can— to go see a proper star-scape. There are various places around the country where you can experience an excellent stellar presentation, and we made reservations at Pickett Memorial state park, as they were on a list of top spots.

Mind you, we made these plans before the COVID apocalypse so things suddenly got a bit iffier. But in the end, the very nature of our plan revolved around a secluded cabin in the woods, as you have to go to the middle of nowhere to get away from civilization and light pollution itself.

The trip down was smooth and uneventful, except when we were attacked by some kind of giant wasp that flew into our car. Mass panic and terror ensued. “Don’t anger it!” was exclaimed. Was it a Murder hornet? Let’s say yes, because it was freakin’ huge.

On the drive down, we *did* see plenty of people at gatherings and yard sales, only some of whom were masked, but we were driving by and good luck to them and all those they infect. Throughout the course of the 4 days, the very few people we interacted with were masked and properly distant. By and large precautions were being taken. We stayed VERY MUCH to ourselves.

Side note: one of the games we brought with was “Happy Little Accidents”, a drawing game endorsed (we hope) by the bob Ross estate. But a very fun game.

Being there for three nights for the star-gazing, we spent some of the two days seeing some of the sights and climbing along some trails. The girls did a lot more extra trail and photo work than us boys did. I can run and sprint and jog all I want but an hour or so climbing up and all over rocks and trails in 90 degree heat had me exhausted, then later sleeping like a baby.

Side note two: another game we brought with was “Throw, Throw Burrito”, which is kinda self explanatory except cards are also involved. Great game!

We really couldn’t get decent photos of the stars with our phones during the evenings, so I’ll have to resort to showing one they have on the Pickett website, as I recognize the nebula! I love me a good nebula. Usually never see them up by us. We hoped we’d get at least one clear night of the three and we got all three, and each night was more clear than the last.

On the way back, we stopped at one of the many distilleries they have in Kentucky, Jeptha Creed. Top marks on this lovely enterprise, where you can peruse their many products and variations on moonshine and vodka. They even have a free tasting every hour in their really beautiful headquarters. After trying some of their wares, yes, you’ll be grabbing at least a bottle or too. I ended up getting some apple pie moonshine, coffee vodka and spicy pepper vodka. Really good stuff.

Friendly folks and even there, very conscientious about social distancing and masking up. Great design, set up and impressive on every level. Highly recommended if you’re ever in southern Kentucky on 64 South.

As the kids are now adults, any time we actually manage to do a vacation with just the four of, is getting to be a very rare thing indeed, so this one was pretty good.

We really could have used Neil deGrasse Tyson to sit with us and spin tales of the stars but no vacation is *perfect*. But if Neil ever sees this (he won’t), hey Neil, next time, we’re going to shoot for the Northern lights. Any suggestions?

Because the thing IS.

Doctor Who part 5

In 1987, as Doctor Who was at its nadir, us Star Trek fans were starved for more Trek and we got Star Trek: The Next Generation. It didn’t matter that the majority of the first two seasons were not great. The fans were starving for it and we’d forgive anything.

In 2005, us Who fans had just gone through 16 years with only one TV movie and a lotta books and some audios to show for it. But Russell T Davies brought the show back with Christopher Eccleston as the 9th Doctor and it was GOOD! My entire family would gather around a laptop computer to view the bit torrent file I illegally obtained so we could enjoy the latest episode. ***Have no fear, I always ended up purchasing the DVD’s. In fact, for “Series 1” as it was known, it wasn’t being shown on BBC America yet (stupid stupid BBC), so for awhile, I fear I’d be taking it off the Internet forever. But I think the Beeb finally got wise and started showing it in a timely fashion.

Eccleston stepped away after one season (personal reasons) and introduced nu-Who fans to regeneration and we got David Tennant, who was a huge fan of the classic show and stuck around for three series and some specials, then we got Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor, who also stuck around for three years.

The show had now been back for seven full seasons and specials, when came the 50th anniversary special. A true spectacular, that brought together Tennant, Smith, and John Hurt as the War Doctor and dealt with him having to make the decision back in time as to whether to destroy Gallifrey or not. It was huge, beautiful and epic on every level and they managed to not only work in ALL the previous Doctors, but actually hit us with the briefest of cameos, the close up of the eyes (and eyebrows) of the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi, who hadn’t even shown up yet!!!!!!

AND, if all that wasn’t mind blowing enough, yet another future incarnation of the Doctor showed up, who called himself the Curator and was played by Tom Baker. Jesus, I’m getting emotional just remembering that. It was everything a Who fan could have possibly hoped for.

Another amazing fact is that the 50th anniversary special was shown simultaneously on tv and movie screens all around the world in over *90* countries. An incredible technological feat. Possibly the biggest of its kind ever. (I’m guessing).

After a huge battle on an alien planet, the Doctor had reached the end of his life cycle but the Time Lords granted him a whole new batch of regenerations, thus, we got 12th Doctor Peter Capaldi who did as great a job as his predecessors for three seasons, and then a whole new showrunner (Chris Chibnall) new Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and a new direction, which, due to Chibnall’s limitations as a writer and showrunner, made the show suffer and divided fandom more than ever. Half of Series 11 was a mess, Series 12 slightly better. We’ve got 18 months or more to wait AGAIN before the next series and the ratings are tanking again. It is, like Seasons 23 and 24 of the classic series, another nadir. But that’s the thing. There’s always regeneration. No matter what, just like the Doctor, barring incident, the show can live on forever.

Long may it reign.

Doctor Who part 4

The early 1980’s saw an all time high in popularity for Doctor Who in the US and in the U.K., 1982-85 saw great ratings for all three of 5th Doctor Peter Davison’s seasons, as well as the first season of 6th Doctor Colin Baker. The show was really in excellent shape, with Colin’s first season ratings actually improving slightly on Davison’s last.

But unlikely trouble straight out of a soap opera entered the picture.

The new head of BBC programming, Michael Grade, had declared that he wasn’t a fan of Doctor Who and decided it should be rested. This was his first volley. Then, he took the show off the air for an 18 month hiatus. That was the second barrage. The fans were understandably angry. When the show finally came back for Colin’s second season, it was a shadow of its former self. The budget was cut, as was the episode numbers, from 26 down to 14. That was the third strike.

It didn’t help matters that the preeminent writer of the season, Robert Holmes took gravely ill and hasty rewrites lowered the quality of the last adventure. They also experimented with a season long story arc that didn’t go as smoothly as they hoped.

When a healthy Doctor Who left for the hiatus, it was averaging over 8 million viewers a week. When it came back, it struggled with half that. Grade wasn’t done yet. He decided all the issues were the fault of incumbent Doctor Colin Baker and fired him.

And that was the knock out punch. You may ask, why would Grade systematically dismantle and destroy a show that’s not only legendary, but getting very respectable ratings? And what did this guy Grade have against Colin? Ah.

Colin used to date Grade’s then current wife. Yeah. So, this petty, unprofessional asshole basically torpedoed the show for personal reasons.

Season 23 and Colin were both gone. In came Sylvester McCoy for seasons 24-26. Still a shadow of the former show, with fewer stories, lower budget and no support from the Beeb. Toward the end, seasons 25 and 26 were slowly getting better but eventually, the axe fell and Doctor Who got canceled. Mind you, it was some years later that I finally found out all the dirty details. I still stuck by the show, even through “The Wilderness Years”, 1990 through 2005, The only respite being the jointly produced Fox/BBC Doctor Who 1996 TV movie starring Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor. It was a decent, if flawed production which allowed showing McCoy regenerating into McGann, who was great. It was a pilot shown on Fox to good ratings (9 million) but not enough to get a series on the schedule. That may have been a good thing, as nine years later, we got a reprieve.

Next: New Who

Doctor Who part 3

It’s 1981, and I’m swimming in the world of Doctor Who. It had been a year since I discovered it and researched the history of the first four Doctors. Imagine my shock, after finally getting my bearings, hearing that after seven years, Tom Baker was stepping down to regenerate into Doctor number five, in the form of Peter Davison.

That year’ comic convention had a larger room dedicated to Doctor Who, with a lot of merchandise and even some dozen chairs and a tv showing tapes of old episodes. This is when they learned that the Chicago fan base at least was growing exponentially. The room was *packed* with people crowded around tv. I was wedged in between larger, sweatier fans as the standing room only crowd watched the entire six part Planet of the Spiders, 3rd Doctor Jon Pertwee’s final adventure, where at the end, he regenerated into Tom Baker with a cheer from the crowd.

I think this is when the convention people realized there was money to be made on fitting Doctor Who with a bigger space.

1982 — suddenly, the DW section of the con got a lot bigger, with more rooms, features, and even showing some of the 5th Doctor’s adventures on a screen, as our PBS station, WTTW didn’t have these stories yet. We were still working are way through the remainder of the Baker stories.

1983 — the 20th anniversary of the show saw some extra excitement. It had gotten so big in Chicago, that for the first time ever, we, via WTTW, after being all caught up on Davison’s 20th anniversary season, actually got to view the *actual* 20th anniversary special, “the Five Doctors” *before* the UK. (The Brit fans were livid)

The cherry on the sundae was that years’ convention was the biggest ever, a dedicated DW con, packed with over 10,000 fans, and thousands more turned away. They had a dedicated ballroom showing old Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Baker and Davison eps 24 hours a day. I waltzed in there at 3am and watched all ten parts of Troughton’s finale, The War Games.

And all of the surviving Doctors, Troughton thru Davison attended (Hartnell passed in ’77) and all four even appeared together for a photo op. This was maybe the pinnacle of the show’s popularity in the USA and wouldn’t hit this height again for 30 years.

Next: Bad Grade, death and rebirth.

The Doctor Who Addiction part 2

So, having discovered this strange show called Doctor Who one day in 1980, I quickly became an avid fan, watching new 25 minute episodes each day. I can’t remember how soon it would be before we actually owned a VCR so I could tape them but I think it was fairly soon after I started watching.

Later that year, I’d attend a comic convention in Chicago. While looking around, I spotted a small side room with Doctor Who signage. Inside were some Target novelizations of some of the televised stories, a few magazines such as Doctor Who weekly and various bits and bobs, toys, etc. but nothing compared to what they have nowadays.

Most intriguing was a very nicely rendered pencil sketch of four heads side by side. I recognized the one on the right as Tom Baker, the Doctor, but although the other heads were vaguely familiar, I wasn’t sure who they were. I asked the man running the booth. He explained to me that the other heads were the Doctor’s previous incarnations. You see, the Doctor, when fatally injured, dying, etc., could regenerate into a whole new body to heal himself. It’s how the show had lasted 18 seasons at that point. Then it occurred to me where I’d seen the other heads. The very first story I saw ended with a mental battle between the Doctor and the villain Morbius. As the contest raged, various faces appeared in the viewscreen between them. All these faces and others (?) appeared. Now it made sense. Earlier lives!

Oh my god. This was the greatest concept for a tv show ever. If the ratings sag too greatly, or the lead actor wants to move on, etc., they can regenerate him into someone else! Utterly brilliant. I was IN before but now I was prepared to worship at the alter of all things Who. As time passed, I started finding out everything I could about each of these incarnations, trying to piece together the history of the character and the actors who played him.

William Hartnell was the tetchy, imperious old 1st Doctor in Edwardian garb, who played the part from 1963 to 1966, *filming nearly all year round*, accumulating the to this day, the second highest amount of episodes of any Doctor other than Tom Baker. The Doctor and his companions, including his granddaughter, her two school teachers, and various others down the line, fought alien monsters, present day threats on earth, but also frequently went back in earth’s history to seek adventure. Essentially six seasons worth in the span of three years, compared to these days tv schedules. But the brutal schedule took its toll on Hartnell’s health and he had to step down. But they wanted the show to go on. What to do?

They could have simply recast the part with someone similar but let’s face it, that’s cheap, very much a soap opera move and they knew it. So they had a brainstorm. They’d already established that the Doctor was an alien. What if his alien race could change their appearance?

In his last story, the 1st Doctor collapsed from exhaustion. His body was enveloped in a glow and when it subsided, a different man was in his place, much to the confusion of his companions. They decided to cast character actor Patrick Troughton to take over the role, letting him play the character totally differently. Instead of the old Edwardian gentleman, he now became more of a disheveled and impish tramp. It was a HUGE risk but they didn’t have a lot of choice. And it worked. The 2nd Doctor was a more humorous little character who constantly made his opponents underestimate him, whether they were alien monsters or power mad dictators, you name it. But the experiment worked and from 1966 through 1969, Troughton and his various companions filmed their adventures all year round as well, prompting the 2nd Doctor actor to leave, also due to the grueling filming schedule. The ratings were sinking as well. For a bit there, the BBC considered just ending the show. The 2nd Doctor’s era ended when he called his home planet for assistance in tackling a huge threat, as well as a renegade member of his own race. Here we learned that the Doctor was from a race called the Time Lords, who, once the threat was resolved, put the Doctor on trial for interfering with other worlds and exiled him to earth with no way out.

The show really only came back because they had nothing better to put in the time slot. The 3rd Doctor was played by Jon Pertwee, a tall man of action with white hair and vibrant fancy dress, capable of defending himself with a fighting style of Venusian aikido. With his love of gadgets, he was a colorful mix of the Doctor, Batman and James Bond, or Austin Powers. And the show was finally in color as well. But he was the exact opposite of Troughton’s cosmic hobo, and, since he was exiled to present day earth, he allied with UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) to combat threats from within earth as well as threats from outer space. The filming schedule had relaxed from over 40 eps a year down to around 24 to 26 and Pertwee stayed for five seasons before leaving the role. But not before the Time Lords ended his exile, permitting him to travel through space and time again. In came Tom Baker and his trademark scarf who stayed for a record long seven seasons.

Next: more conventions, escalation, fandom!