Inclusionary Tactics

I tend to geek out in an obsessive and gleeful sort of way. I've been known to wriggle, squeal, and make databases when expressing my love for something. I'm like Sooty with SQL.

These are observable behaviours.

Beyond the non-verbal vocalisations, and data entry, is another equally observable behaviour. I like sharing the things that I love with the people I love, like, know, meet, and/or of which I am in the immediate vicinity. Some might say 'aggressively so', and indeed some have said that. To my face. It's real! Let me share my things that I love with you.

All I need is your face, and the things that are on it! Your face bits!

I play a game and I want my friends to also love this game (I suppose sometimes I need hands too for these activities). I watch a show and I want my friends to eat fish fingers and custard with me while watching the show. I watch a movie and I see it with as many people as are interested in going even if it means that I have to see Guardians of the Galaxy a cool fourteen times on the big screen.

So cool.

So very, very cool.

When I love a superhero/video game/comic/movie/book/show/album/musical/teddy bear/documentary and I can take something away from our time together that I find joyous or meaningful, I want to be able to 'psychologically motivate' my friends to participate in this thing so that they might also experience that joy or meaning. That seems like an important thing to me. It makes sense in my brain.

In my brain it is a really deep sort of love and affection. Remember this when you have things pressed against your face.

What doesn't make sense in my brain is the idea that anyone should be made to feel excluded by the things that joy me up in my face. And butt. That's where my wriggling starts. Right down in the butt.

Why wouldn't I want everyone to have equal opportunity to feel represented, empowered, and inspired by the mediums that mean so much to so many of us? That seems dumb.

I'm not saying everyone should like everything, because that's unwieldy. It's the kind of idea that breaks things. It's clumsy. I'm saying that everyone should have the opportunity to love everything.

There should be some variety of fair representation within a medium and genre and the services that deliver them to our face receptors. And, I suppose, hand receptors.

Call it a campaign of selfishness, and you can, but just because someone wants something that someone else doesn't think they should have, it doesn't mean that they shouldn't get it.

This is topic du jour, and I'm not contributing anything groundbreaking here. All and all, this is mundane in its passivity, but these are my words on the thing.

I think we should all have a Nightwing. He changed my life. I'm not even kidding. He did that! From his pages! Nightwing is the real hero in the entire Batman franchise. For me. The rest of them are tragic figures. It's bananas gothic up in Gotham.

And Barbara Gordon. She is also my hero. She's fucking awesome.

From the honest places of my self, it frightens me to think of the lives of others without the refuges and representation that I had just because of who I already was when I was born. I feel like it helped me.  I really do.

There should be enough variety so that we can all have a Nightwing (or Barbara Gordon), and we should all feel welcome there. We should all feel welcome in all the Leagues and Squads and teams and Tardises (Tardii? Tardims? Tarda?) and servers. All the servers!

Because I want you all there!

A Quick Introduction to The Past Doctors

You know I love me some Doctor Who. You know that. Maybe you don't. Maybe you have no idea about me and my Doctor Who and how I get down when the TARDIS howls. I get giddy. Panda and I both get us some giddy. We've never grown out of it. It's not going to happen.

Other things that we're prone to are opinions. That is real. So, you know we have Doctor Who related opinions, and with the new season on it's way, I thought I might rifle through the DVDs and drop some of the aforementioned opinions on stories of Doctors past.

I'm going to roll this out in order, and everyone gets a turn. Also, there are some rules that guided the decisions, but I'm not going to tell you what they are. The general thing is that I wanted to just sort of give you all one fairly solid entry point for each Doctor.

William Hartnell in The Dalek Invasion of Earth

They're coming to invade a planet near you!

I don't know if you've heard of these Daleks. They're bad news. And we don't want them invading Earth. That's where we live. This is a bad scene. No one is keen for this kind of thing. Except the Daleks. They're all about it. They're all like, 'It's Invasi-on like Donkey Kong!' I'm going to level with you. I couldn't decide between this one, The Time Meddler, or The Keys of Marinus, until I thought of that Donkey Kong bit. I mean if you throw in The Romans, The Daleks, The Rescue, and the first episode of An Unearthly Child (which is the first episode of the whole thing) you've got the best ones. They are. Argh! I'm so torn. Damn it, he was good!

Patrick Troughton in The Tomb of the Cybermen

You will never look at Glad Wrap the same way!

I sometimes say to people that the Cybermen not only terrified me as a child, but that they're my favourite classic monster, which often elicits confusion. 'Why?', they ask as they wring their funny little hands. Why do so many people have funny little hands? To which I respond, 'Have you seen Tomb of the Cybermen'. It's basically Doctor Who flavoured classic mummy movie, straight up. Did I use that right? The Second Doctor joins an archeological expedition on a distant planet, and things get out of hand. Like, completely out of hand. Holes are dug. People die. Cybermen are involved. It's pretty much everything you want from a Cybermen story, and to this day it is my yardstick for measuring all those Cybermen stories that've followed.

John Pertwee in Carnival of Monsters

I love carnivals!

Not often cited as the best Pertwee serial, but I really like it. One might even say that I like it the most of his stories. And they would be right. It's plot is a very plotty sort of plot, and there are things happening, and you're watching the show, and if you're like me, you're enjoying it. It starts out as your fairly straight forward sort of 'this isn't where we meant to end up' story (which is a whole thing in Doctor Who), but then it very quickly turns into 'there is something not entirely right going on here' (also a thing), and then you're like 'I think something here is broken'. There are some elements that you'll just sort of take in your stride, because it's Doctor Who, but then there's the bit that is further, which is where this goes, and your stride will be interrupted as a result.

Tom Baker in City of Death

What happens when Douglas Adams sends The Fourth Doctor and The Second Romana to Paris?

That's correct! Douglas Bloody Adams! I'm not even kidding. He wrote two, and this is the better of the two, and the plot is the kind of thing that can only be told in Doctor Who. It's full to the brim of the timeiest of time-stuff. It's laden. It's all over the walls. It's funny. The villain is a Bond villain (it's Julian Glover), and the companion is Romana. She is my favourite. Hands down. I had a crush on her from the age of about five or six until infinite! I love this story so very, very much. Just watch it. If you've never delved far, or at all, into the original run of the show, this is something you absolutely must see.

Peter Davison in The Caves of Androzani

Not really a lot like Dune at all.

When I tell you that it's about the mining of drugs on a desert planet, you're going to say, 'like Dune', and I'm going to say, 'Not really'. You see, it's pretty different to that. There are more robots. A whole army of said robots in fact. Someone once told me at a party (these things always get said at parties) that it's an analogue for a real world historical event. I mean, damn, not the robots. Clearly. But, like the general premise, but this story isn't just historical analogues, robot armies, and drug wars. Not 'The War on Drugs' drug wars, but like a war over who can have the drugs. Well, control the drugs. Everyone wants to have the drugs. Children's television in the eighties. What can I say? Actually, the modern series has had drugs and addiction, so I guess just children's television in general. There are also gunrunners. People get executed. The Doctor milks a bat. It's a good story.

Colin Baker in Vengeance on Varos

Do you see where we're headed? Do you?

It's dark. One of the darkest ones. You might watch this, and honestly wonder how it got aired as part of the same show. It's all up in the 'This is where we're headed with the violence' brand of science fiction. It's an oddity. A lot of what was going on for the Sixth Doctor felt restrained. Not this. There were little restraints involved in this. Not little restraints, as in restraints that are small, but few restraints. It's mostly unrestrained. It's the sort of no holds barred Doctor Who the eighties were ready to make, and then everyone freaked out. Some part of that would be the people dying in acid, but not all of it. Some of it would be the other violence.

Sylvester McCoy in The Curse of Fenric - Director's Cut

With 12 extra minutes!

This was not my favourite Seventh Doctor story when I first watched them on TV, but the recut version on the DVD, and I'm assuming other formats, is a substantially better experience. The narative is clearer and there are more minutes. 12 of them. I think they also redid some of the special visual shenaniganery. It's just better. Not that the original TV version is bad, or not even not good, but it's behind things like Remembrance of the Daleks, which the recut version is not. Some people would probably say that it still is. I am not those people. I mean, it's all World War II spies, and vampires, and ancient enemies and the like. It's great, and you want the best version of that. You also want the best version of the Seventh Doctor, which is this. He's cleverer. In both versions. With or without the 12 extra minutes.

Paul McGann in Enemy Within

The best of the only one. It's the only one.

Back when I was all of 14ish, and after 7 whole years without new episodes of Doctor Who, they told us that there might be more, and that a pilot film had been made. It was this, and it was actually, and irritatingly, titled Doctor Who, but the fans decided otherwise, because, are you kidding? That's the show's name! The story itself is, well, it's not really good a tall, but it's either this or The Night of the Doctor, which is only a handful of minutes long, and you can't hold time. The Doctor maybe can, and Paul McGann is an incredible one of those. A time holder. Amazing, in fact. Unfortunately, all of his best stories are audio stories. If you're a commuter, I would highly recommend getting some of those on your iPod, or mp3 blaster.

Christopher Eccleston in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances

A zombie child, an unwed teenage mother, and an intergalactic conman walk into a bar.

This was the story in the first season of the new run that made me realise that this show was not only exactly what the 21st century needed, but that it was set to be incredible. Drama, comedy, tragedy, and horror clown-car into two episodes in London during the Blitz. Then there's Captain Jack Harkness at his Captain Jackiest. Also creepy wartime hospitals, and invisible spaceships, and the threat of zombie armageddon. Fantastic!

David Tenant in The Girl in the Fireplace

Not, like, in the fire. It's not about immolation.

This was a hard one. David Tenant had an insane run as the Tenth Doctor, and his first two seasons in particular are heavy with great stories, but I chose The Girl in the Fireplace because it's wonderful, and it's funny, and it's creepy, and it's a little heartbreaking, and it's beautiful to look at, and it kind of does a great many of the things that Doctor Who does so well: Spaceships, history, mystery, monsters, and 'stuff because reasons and plot, so shut-up'. I mean, there is stuff in this. Stuff they don't bother to really explain, but it's good. There's also learning to do. There are real, actual, 'once upon a time, and I'm not making this up' people in this story, and the characters talk about their culture in a real way. I mean, boxes ticked, people. So many boxes, and it's fun. Did I mention the fun?

Matt Smith in The Doctor's Wife

Best kissing on the show ever! Ever! David Tenant gets schooled!

This was another one where there were contenders, but this is great. Really great! It's pretty tonally delicious. It's creepy, and it's funny, and, I mean, the dialogue is glorious. Actually glorious. I am more than a little bit in love with this episode, and we get to see Matt Smith Smithing all over the place. He Smiths it right up, and lead guest character is just this thing that I can't even explain. I can, but it would be ruinsome. Way better to not be ruined. You could have that. Go watch it! Do that! It's so much better than me talking about it.


Some of these guys definitely deserve more of my attention than just one episode. Not Paul McGann. That's all he has. I've covered him. The others though. They can have more.

I'll do that later.

Any disagreements?

A List of Covers That I Like

There's been this ongoing conversation about covers I've been having with my father that started sometime last year. It's a good conversation to be ongoing instead of just had, because you find things, and remember things, and it all kind of comes back to you in bits and pieces, and you gather information from other people.

Strangely, I've not yet just googled it, opting instead for the meat mission approach.

It's an interesting conversation, because people like covers for different reasons, and I too like covers for different reason because I am a person, which is the singular version of people.

I decided to copy everyone else on the internet by making a list of people copying other people.

These aren't necessarily my favourite covers, because there are things you guys don't really need to hear.

What these covers represent are versions of songs that totally derailed my train of thought, and absolutely took over. Covers that for a split second dragged my mind through a crowd of a million phonic-faces as it struggled for recognition, before something clicked, it all made sense, and I was amazed.

This means that Lion's cover of 'The TransFormers Theme' isn't on the list, because you kind of expect something like that when you first sit down to watch a film called The TransFormers: The Movie.

I'm going to start with a song that I'm including, because I love it. It did kind of take me unawares when I first heard it, but not because I didn't immediately recognise the song. It's shortlisted, but disqualified for sounding too much like the original right out of the gate, but it's in anyway.

Deep into British new wave, as I was, Gary Numan, and in particular Tubeway Army's Replicas, was something I had listened to a lot by the time I acquired Songs in the Key of X, which had 'Down in the Park' covered by the Foo Fighters nestled deep within its X-Files themed track listing. I remember listing to the CD for the first time, and being all like, 'Gary? Is that you? No, it's someone else!'

Bertie Blackman's cover of 'In the Air Tonight' is exactly this thing that I am talking about. The song starts, and you aren't quite sure what is happening. It's familiar, but it's not the same, then recognition sets in and you're pleased. I was pleased. I like Phil Collins. Oh boy, do I like Phil Collins.

One of the most enduring bands to dwell in my musical flavour zones is Queen, and 'Don't Stop Me Now', is banana city all over my face. All over it! I love it. Similarly, Doctor Who is the business end of my love for pulp-sci-fi television. I also love Agatha Christie and classic mummy movies. That's why Foxes' cover of Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now', from the episode of Doctor Who entitled 'The Mummy on the Orient Express', was always something that was going to make its way into my life.

Good thing, that.

I'm going to say Seu Jorge's entire contributions to The Life Aquatic with Steve Zisou. All of it! But, I'm only going to embed 'Life on Mars', because it's 'Life on Mars'.

This one is obvious and totally token. I was a massive Tears for Fears fan for great swathes of my adolescence, early adulthood, and the like, and even though the Michael Adnrews and Gary Jules cover was in Donnie Darko, I had it played to me by some friends who wanted me to 'guess' which was the cover and which was the original. Little did they know I was a British new wave enthusiast going way back.

No, seriously. They knew very little about it. I kind of had a secret life of music.

On the topic of Tears for Fears covers from films, Lorde's cover of 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World' first came into my life through the Dracula Untold trailer. In much the same way as the 'Mad World' cover, it harnesses something darker and bleaker that already existed in the song.

In 2003 I stayed late at cheerleading training (that isn't even a joke. It's entirely true. I was one of those) listening to Triple J. I was training with a girl who wasn't my regular partner, and I'm pretty sure everyone else had left. We were getting ready to do another lift, and we both stopped.

'Is that a cover of "Hurt"?', she said. It was.

'It sounds like Johnny Cash.' It was.

Is it better than the Nine Inch Nails version? I think so.

Lastly, I'm going to say to you that as an adolescent I loved The Prodigy, and I still have a lot of time for Music for the Jilted Generation and The Fat of the Land. They're incredible albums. I was so into them that while in London I bought WipeOut XL, which is the soundtrack to a game that I didn't even own at the time, only because it had 'Firestarter (Instrumental)' listed on the back of it. That's where I was at. That album is incredible (if you're into mid-to-late-nineties electronica, which I am). I still have it.

'Firestarter' was the kind of song (like every other song on this list) that had in its original form taken up residency in the surrounding airspace when I was a teenager, so when I heard the Torre Forlim cover something really weird gave way in me. Not in the same way that it did when I heard Mark Ronson's cover of 'Stop Me If You Think That You've Heard This One Before'. That didn't work for me. Torre Florim's 'Firestarter' works for me.

It caught me entirely off guard while I was waiting for my video to start on YouTube. Thank you, advertising.

What covers caught you off guard?

Timey-time, time, time

It is coming up on that time of year again.

Doctor Who time!

Which is, this time, also a new Doctor time.

Timey-time, time, time.

Time.

The time will actually be in late August. Kind of just after the 23rd.

I think.

I don't rightly know, to be honest. I haven't checked. It'll go out on the 23rd in the UK, and then everyone else gets it after, which is fair. He's their toy.

I like a new Doctor, which isn't to say that I didn't like the old ones, but I've seen enough now to know that this is the reason I like the show. I like that it is always different, but in a way it is always kind of the same too.

I tend to favour the incumbent. That appears to be the general rule for me. They will be my favourite until they are gone. It's part of the adventure.

This has meant that in my life time I have adored some of the much less popular Doctors, but I am okay with that.

But, that's what it's all about. It's all about change. The show endures because of it. Not just the cast, but 'everything changes': the tone; the genre; the style. It is a show about change. That's what's going on.

And, here we are again; time for more change.

I'm excited, and I like that there will be a carry on companion. They're always fun. Not always. That isn't true. When the Fourth passed to the Fifth he bequeathed a small legion of teens, which didn't go so well.

Their were too many, and they all had to be doing things, and each episode was only 25mins, and there were more than a few times that you thought, 'it might be nice if a couple of them would just stay on the TARDIS and have tea for just one story', but it never happened.

As a result of all of this they killed Adric, the maths kid. The Doctor actually made one of the other companions kill him in the TARDIS to conserve oxygen when it was shrinking. It used to be a pretty dark show. Actually, only some of that is true. Adric died. That is the true bit.

He died, and he took the dinosaurs with him.

It's odd, though, because the First Doctor had just as many pets, but didn't have the same pacing issues with his stories. They tended to operate in pairs and groups more I suppose.

Anyway, I've heard things about the new season that I don't really feel the need to talk about, but it all sounds exciting.

Here are the teaser trailers that were built to betease you into committing subconsciously to some sort of viewing arrangement.

Regeneration in the 800th for Christmas

So, as is prone to happen on Doctor Who, there will be a New Guy. This is different to the whole James Bond situation, which is more of an ongoing 'screw you' to continuity. The whole premise of Doctor Who, being some historical larking about during its more mundane moments, and crazy-arse space shit the whole rest of the time, kind of lends itself to a sort of 'anything goes' approach to just about everything. The Doctor rolls on regardless.

I like that this happens. If this kind of thing never happened the show would've ended with William Hartnell, and as much as I love Hartnell's Doctor, it is unlikely I would've become a fan of the show had it not survived to infect my childhood. Maybe I would've, but we certainly wouldn't be in the situation that we are in now.

I quite liked Matt Smith's Doctor. As a matter of fact, during his tenure as the Doctor he was my favourite. This is kind of how I get down as a fan. I have my favourite classic Doctors, and occasionally I get involved in some ranking behaviours, but for the most part the incumbent is my Doctor, which for me started with the fifth. I go through phases in which different Doctors are fancied more than others, but I couldn't honestly say that there are Doctors that I don't like.

This regeneration has a little something in its back pocket in that it will be the last of his natural lives. I have discussed this before, but I'm bringing it up again.

He has a name this New Guy; you probably know it, because it has been in the news. The actual news, not just the nerd news, but the regular people news. It's Peter Capaldi. That's his name, this New Guy. I've seen this New Guy in other roles, including a previous foray on Doctor Who in the 'The Fires of Pompeii'. He also appeared for a handful of seconds (as if you could hold time. I can. It's incredible) in 'The Day of the Doctor' as The Doctor, which is what he is doing next. That's what I'm talking about right now. Whether or not you're ready for a new Doctor, there is going to be one in just under a month when Matt Smith hands over the reigns in 'The Time of the Doctor'.

The Day of the Doctor

It all went down. I'm pretty sure I've done my bit as a viewer. I viewed. They, and by they I mean Aunty, are doing an 'encore screening' tonight. It is basically a very early rerun. Why wait years like they did with the old series? That's old hat these days. Practically antique. You've got to roll it out within twenty four hours or you're doing it wrong. Extending their new-fangularity, Aunty has also webbed the episode in their usual manner.

The episode was a lot of fun, and despite my concerns, it had a plot, and there were things happening, and I'm pretty sure that I squealed on more than one occasion. Actually squealed. Little delighted squeals of ecstasy, like some sort of leaky joy-pig. Much like the previous episode the fan service was rich and fatty, which is par for the course for this sort of activity. It's been fifty years. What else do you do? You make a documentary about the beginning of the show. They did that too. It is also airing tonight. It is also good. It is good drama, and it has all the fun sixties costumes and misogyny. Well, the misogyny isn't fun, but it is in the story. You could learn something about the early years of the show. I did.

I don't rally want to ruin either of them, and I think it might be less fun if I got into it in a really serious and detailed way. Watch them. They're good. That's all you really need. An Adventure in Space and Time is well cast, and is a good bit of drama. It's pretty well written too. If it was just a made up story, you would probably question the pacing, but you'd probably still see something in it. The Day of the Doctor is a fiftieth anniversary special that is worthy of being on the shelf with The Three Doctors, and The Five Doctors, which were themselves multi-Doctor anniversary specials in their day.

The Day of the Doctor will be reaired at 7:30 tonight (Sunday 2013-11-24), and will be very closely followed by An Adventure in Space and Time at 8:45.

Also, there is this, which is for what will be coming next.

Special concerns

It is reasonable to soon begin measuring that temporal distance until airing in hours. I'm excited for the approach, as I always am these days. It's odd now to think of the wait between the end of the original series, and first airings of the revived series, because I gave up. I didn't watch the first episode, instead preferring to remember those Doctors who'd populated my youth, rather than risk what could have possibly come out of whatever the BBC had become.

There are expectations this time. Not that we have experienced the hiatus that came before, but it would be fair to say that most of the truly exceptional episodes of the revived series have been the regular series episodes, and not the specials, which for the most part seem to suffer under the weight of the belaboured spectacle. There is the expectation that the 50th anniversary will somehow be immune to this. I'm not sure how or why, given the track record.

There is this whole other thing that concerns me. Traditionally the format of lots of crazy nonsense going on requires the establishing of a setting, usually all supporting characters, and whatever you need for the plot to get going, which generally takes some time. In the past stories that have gone down the ensemble route, have ended up a little light on plot points and actual story, in order to let everyone involved get enough screen time and dialogue to justify their presence. This issue plagued the early adventures of the 5th Doctor who wheeled about with three whole companions, and is most apparent in the "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" two-parter, which is possibly the most plot-lite story to appear in the revived series, with the possible exception of "Planet of the Dead", in which they run out of time for anything of any substance to actually happen. In defence of the latter, it struck me as an incredibly half-arsed backdoor pilot for a show about the two-dimensional walking cliche-monster, Lady Christina de Souza. Did you like how I said it was a defence an then it clearly wasn't? I did. I enjoyed that. It is hands down the worst Doctor Who story that has ever been televised, bar none. Bar none.

Those are my concerns, and in some ways this has left me more excited about An Adventure in Space and Time, which I have mentioned before as some sort of prolific box ticking monster. I also feel like it might have a little more going on in the story department. Plus the box thing. I like it when boxes are ticked.

The one and only 8th Doctor in his one and only

A few days ago I spoke a little bit about the Doctor Who television movie in the context of the recent mini-episode. I said some things that can't really be taken back. I mean, they could. I could edit the post, and then, in a way, they would be taken back. I'm not going to do that. I stand by what I wrote. So, in a way it is about my integrity, but I think it might also be a lot about my laziness. Let's say that it is a combination of the two, also there is a slippery slope right there, and I probably want to stay away from that. So, it's three things. Except the first and third are really just about integrity, but one is about an immediate sort of integrity, where as the other is sort of an ongoing dishonesty. I think there is a distinction.

Anyway, where was I? Right. It isn't a great story, but Paul McGann is fantastic in it. In a lot ways he is the first of the modern Doctors, as distinct from the classic Doctors. He is definitely more in line with the Doctors that followed than the ones that came before.

As I also mentioned previously, I really like the 8th Doctor, and the way he is portrayed. Paul McGann does a really good job, even in the television movie, of making you like his incarnation, which is why I think you should watch it. No, seriously. I know what I said earlier, but if you like the show you are probably going to like this to some extent, and seeing the bridging Doctor in action in his one and only televised story is worth the one hundred odd minutes of your life it is going to cost you. Also, it's a regeneration story, which are nearly always worth the format they are stored on. Not every Doctor gets bookending regeneration scenes. At this stage most of them have gotten them (4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 10th, and now 8th, AND 11th by the end of the year), so it isn't really rare.

You might be wondering at this stage how I suggest that you get your face around Doctor Who, the Doctor Who television movie. Well, if you're an Australian, and happen to be in Australia, or not Australian, and happen to be in Australia, then you can watch it on ABC iView right now. Once again, this is at the time of writing. If it isn't there later, I mean, that is hardly my fault. Maybe if you read my blog more often, this wouldn't keep happening to you. If you're Australian and aren't in the country, or are one of the many foreigners who aren't in Australia, you might have to get it on DVD or VHS. I believe in you.

The Night of the Doctor

I've always liked Paul McGann as The Eighth Doctor. I wasn't big on the TV film, which is the kind of thing that fans feel the need to make excuses for, but McGann is an outstanding actor, and I have truly enjoyed the majority of those audio adventures that I have encountered in which he appears.

Anyway, Paul McGann holds the rather unfortunate records of appearing in the least televised stories, and the lowest total screen time. This is made all the more unfortunate by the fact that Doctor Who (The unfortunately titled TV film) is at best, more or less, total garbage.

Look, I'm kind of just rambling here, but there is a point to where I am going with this, and that point is 'The Night of the Doctor', which is a mini-episode that offers a little insight into the previously aired 'The Name of the Doctor', as well as the upcoming 'The Day of the Doctor'.

If Doctor Who is your scene, or it is the scene of people with whom you chat, you should probably take the seven whole minutes out of your life and take a look-see. If nothing else, this will bring the total individual Doctors to have cannon appearances this year to five. This hasn't happened in a very long time.

EDIT: There is a fantastic quantity of classic series Doctor Who on ABC iView right now. Clearly this is at the time of writing. I'm not going to update this later to make it say that it was on iView, because you can check the date of the post for yourself.

EDIT: Also, look, there is this too. I'm excited about this, but it kind of ticks a lot of boxes for me. Doctor Who, making of, dramatisation of actual events, British 1960s period piece, history of television. It's all there. Sunday, 2013-11-24, 8:45pm on ABC1 in Australia. Friday, 2013-11-22, 9:00pm on BBC America in the States. Probably other times and channels in other countries. Those two account for about 93.6% of my regular readership, so forgive me. If you want me to consider the needs of your nation in future posts, send me an e-mail.

The Time Lord's Time Sheet

It has occurred to me recently that for a lot of people in my life, I am "The guy that you ask" when it comes to Doctor Who. I'm not at all unhappy about this. It is my favourite show, and I honestly remember a time when no one I knew wanted to talk about it at all, and I was completely convinced that I was the only person I'd ever met who actually watched it. I was a small child at the time, and those years are far behind me now. With the recent increase in references to the lore and history of the show within the show, the job of offering explanation has fallen to me. Once again, not at all unhappy about it. Great show. If you don't, you should. Really.

I might have said this here before. I'm not checking. People ask me on a semi-regular basis, and seeing as they're not prepared to read through old posts, neither am I. I don't thin I did. I actually think there might have been a reason that I didn't mention this earlier, but seeing as the details have been in the news over the past coupe of months I figure that I'm not really delivering any spoilers. If you think that that might be an issue  for you, don't keep reading.

The crux of the matter is that time lords get twelve regenerations, which gives them thirteen lives. I know this isn't really a spoiler, as it comes up from time to time, but it's important for where I am going. I'm frequently surprised at how many who watch the show regularly aren't aware of this little tidbit. What this means is that there are allowed to be thirteen Doctors before they have to introduce plot elements allowing him to have more regenerations. I bring this up mostly because I can count. There were seven Doctors over the original, '63 to '89, run of the show. Then the Eighth appeared in the television movie in '86. Finally, there have been three incarnations since the shows revival in '05, with a fourth taking on the role at the end of the year. This is twelve. 7 + 1 + 4 = 12.

However, at the end of the most recent season finale, it was revealed that there was a previously undepicted incarnation of the Doctor, who would bump all following incarnations along by one. Meaning that Matt Smith is actually playing the Time Lord's twelfth incarnation, and more importantly Peter Capaldi will be playing the thirteenth.

I am fully aware that the other Doctors don't let John Hurt's incarnation use the name, but I think if time lords could just duck on down to deed poll in order to get a few extra goes at bat, the Master and the Doctor would've had a very different relationship. A couple of folks have suggested that he might be the Valeyard, who was meant to be a kind of anti-Doctor that was the purest distilled essence of The Doctor's cranky-pants side who manifested between the twelfth and last incarnations. I know that the Valeyard got a lot more face-time in the spin-off material, but in the show we never really got a completely satisfying explanation of how all of that actually came about, and whether or not it was possible between other incarnations. I'm fairly certain that John Hurt will be playing the actual Ninth Doctor, and that he was the one that took on the brunt of The Last Great Time War.

The short of all of this is that the new Doctor might actually be the last natural incarnation. What this actually means for the show, the plot, the Doctor's opinion of the Master, and whatever else you can think of is anyone's guess, but it is a good time to be a Doctor Who fan.

The 800th Doctor for Christmas

The Doctor Who season finale was pretty big, and big things happened. Revelations were made, and now a lot of people are focussed on the 50th anniversary special, which is an understandable thing. What seems to have gone under the radar a little bit is the Christmas Special, which will air just under a month later. I know that the 50th is a big thing that happens far less frequently than the Christmas Specials, but the Christmas Special on the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who happens to be the 800th episode of the show. This is also a big thing, and no one is talking about it.

We've just had a season cross over two years for the first time in the history of the revived series, which included a Christmas special in the middle of the season. This slow release of season seven and the 50th anniversary special are both responsible for making the Christmas special the 800th episode.

The fan inside, not like I repress it or anything, likes to think that something special is happening in the Christmas special. He, Panda and I all like to imagine that Moffat is deliberately distracting us with the anniversary special, so that we don't ask questions about the 800th.

I'm just saying is all.

Doctor Who Finale Leaked

So, there was some kind of production error in the US that resulted in the early shipment of the Doctor Who: Series Seven, Part Two BluRay boxset.

So early is this release that the season finale that appears on the boxset has not yet been aired.

Both the Beebs and Beebs Yanklandia have implored the public not to spread information on the finale over the internet. This may seem like the kind of request that just doesn't have any impact on the way events will unfold, but this isn't without precedent. Asylum of the Daleks, episode one of this current season, was also seen early by about a thousand people. That time Steven Moffat also requested that spoilers be kept off the internet until the episode had aired, and was successful.

This time around Steven Moffat has offered up a tasty bribe if secrets can be kept until the official premiere on BBC One this coming Saturday. What might tempt fans of the Doctor? How about a brand new clip of David Tennant and Matt Smith? Well that is what is on offer here.

If secrets can be kept for a week, we will be rewarded with a short clip of the 10th and 11th Doctors together.

I will also offer this small warning for those who are want to run out to their local torrent shop and grab the goods for an early viewing. There is a high likelihood that you will not get the episode of Doctor Who, nor in fact any episode of Doctor Who. What you are likely to get is graphic racist homosexual pornography. A film by the name of Gay N*****s From Outer Space to be specific. So, have fun with that.

Writers' rights

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has been taking up real estate in my dominant conscious thought processes of late, and the fun-ride that I always spend time on when this thing loops back around is a discussion on the versions that Douglas Adams has released into the wild. There are three truly distinct versions of the story. The radio plays (and the television show which uses the same script), the novels (which were written later) and the film that came out in 2005 all follow varying plots. The key players are the same, but the shenanigans tend to go in different directions at times.

The release of the film version in 2005 prompted a lot of questions that can all more or less be paraphrased to, "Why did they change Douglas Adams' story?" and sometimes, 'Those arseholes changed the story', which is more of a statement. 'Those arseholes' being, in this case, Douglas Adams (the writer). He (the writer) not only approved of, but also co-wrote the altered storyline that appeared in the film.

This kind of behaviour isn't without precedent, as the novels vary from the original radio plays far more significantly than the film does. I first encountered The Guide through the books while in Germany, and for the longest time believed them to be the original version of the story, despite the blurb on the back stating otherwise. Perhaps I never read it. It wasn't until after I saw the film that I found out that the radio plays, with which by that stage was the version with which I was most familiar, was the original version.

Most commonly people cite the altered plot of the film as their reason for not liking it, which isn't really a real reason. Well, it might be, but it doesn't make it a bad film, in the same way that the books aren't bad because they deviate from the radio plays. In fact with all of the multiple universes that appear in the later phases of the storyline, it makes more sense to have multiple versions of events than it does to have a single rigidly enforced plot.

My question, which I have taken the scenic route to, is:

How much right does a writer have to alter stories that they have already 'finished'? 

Other recent players in this discussion are Game of Thrones, the television series based on A Song of Ice and Fire, which has made a number of author approved changes to the storyline to better suit the television format, Star Wars, where the original creator carried out some arguably minor retcons, and Space Pirate Captain Harlock, whose creator, Leiji Matsumoto, has opted to work with a clean slate on nearly every outing with the character.



It is also interesting to note that both Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and Life, the Universe and Everything were originally written as scripts for Doctor Who. Though the latter was never produced, the former was produced twice (with rewrites) as a television story starring the 4th Doctor (later released in its incomplete form on DVD) and as an audio story starring the 8th Doctor.

100th Episode for the revived Doctor Who

I know that I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but here it is again. "The Crimson Horror" is scheduled to air this weekend, and it will be the 100th episode of the revived series of Doctor Who. It's a little bit exciting.

It was written by Mark Gatiss, writer for both Sherlock and The League of Gentlemen, and features Madame Vastra, the Victorian, samurai sword wielding, Silurian detective, her similarly armed, human wife and their angry, little, clone-warrior, space-potato butler. This is also exciting. The Doctor and Clara will also be present and accounted for, but they're always there.

Anyway, 100. Get into it.

'Doctor Who', again!

Just a quick one.

The latest episode of Doctor Who, which aired last night in Australia, is called 'The Journey to the Centre of the Tardis' is all the stuff I was talking about in the last post. It is a fantastic example of how establishing a complex mythology can be immensely beneficial for creating an environment in which these kind of stories can be told. That said, it is still an incredibly accesible episode for new comers.

We're in a unique position here

The thing I really like about Doctor Who is that it differs so drastically from one story to the next. This is the reason I have been tuning in for so many years. People

That said, the best stories are the ones that cannot be told anywhere else. Stories that can only really be told in the setting of a time traveling alien mad-man and his charming little bit of tasty human biscuit. "Hide" is the most recent episode, and it is one of these stories. If you missed it, head over to the ABC's iview and give it a watch.

I enjoy this approach to writing for serialised fiction. It is a good way to go. When you think about 'the best' episodes of TV shows or 'the best' story-lines in comics are often the stories that can't be told anywhere else. I'll probably go into this in more detail at a later date, but anyone who is interested should think about how some sitcoms and science fiction shows are written to take advantage of their particular setting or format. Along with Doctor Who, The X-Files and Star Trek both distinguished themselves from the rest of what was going on on TV through this approach, as did Bewitched, I dream of Genie, The Wire and The West Wing.

Other stories of this ilk in the Doctor Who catalogue include "The Doctor's Wife", "Vincent and the Doctor", "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Blink" and  "City of Death", which are mostly available on DVD and/or through iTunes.

On the temporal horizon

It is that time of year agin.  Doctor Who is a moment away, and by 'moment' I actually mean countable days.  Our heroes will be gracing our screens on March 31.  I won't laden you with any of the spoilers that have come my way, but I will direct you to the minisode that acts as a lead in to the up coming episodes.

I should also mention that this is a special year for the show.  "Why?", I here you ask. "Tell us, oh glorious knower of things. What is it that separates this year from the rest?"  Is it that there will be yet another classic villain appearing this season?  Seeing that there has been at least one (sometimes two) villain(s) from the classic series reintroduced in all but one season of the revived series, that doesn't seem like it would be that special.  Is it that this year's Christmas special will be the 800th episode?  True, but no.  Is it that the fourth episode in* this block will be the 100th episode of the revived series?  Also true, but also no.  It is in fact because this year we mark the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast of Doctor Who.  On 23rd November, 1963 William Hartnell appeared as The Doctor for the very first time, and with the astounding powers of mathematics we can mathematise that it will have been fifty calendar years on 23rd November, 2013, give or take nothing (because I'm that good).

While we are looking at score cards I would like to point out that with eight episodes left in series 7 and two specials airing later in the year Matt Smith will move up two spots into second place for appearances in the most televised stories, and up one into seventh for appearances in the most televised episodes.  Here are the current leader boards.

Televised Stories				Televised Episodes
Tom Baker	4th	41		Tom Baker	4th	172
David Tennant	10th	36		William Hartnell	1st	134
William Hartnell	1st	29		Jon Pertwee	3rd	128
Matt Smith	11th	29		Patrick Troughton	2nd	119
Jon Pertwee	3rd	24		Peter Davison	5th	69
Patrick Troughton	2nd	21		David Tennant	10th	47
Peter Davison	5th	20		Sylvestor McCoy	7th	42
Sylvestor McCoy	7th	12		Matt Smith	11th	34
Christopher Eccleston	9th	10		Colin Baker	6th	31
Colin Baker	6th	8		Christopher Eccleston	9th	13
Paul McGann	8th	1		Paul McGann	8th	1

50 years of time and space

I should also point out that the BBC will be actually celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first broadcast of Doctor Who.  I will also be celebrating it, but I won't be producing two TV films to air later this year.  An Adventure in Time and Space will be about the inception and early production of the series, while the other, as yet unnamed, TV film will be a feature length adventure starring the current cast.  I will probably just make a cake.

An Adventure in Time and Space will be written by former Doctor Who villain, Mark Gatis, whose writing credits include Sherlock, The League of Gentlemen and of course Doctor Who, and the Doctor's 50th anniversary adventure will be penned by the current show runner of both Sherlock and Doctor Who, Steven Moffat.

And the future?

Matt Smith has also signed up for at least one more tour as the Doctor, with filming of series 8 to start later this year, and is likely to include the shows 250th televised story.

If you you are interested in the later Doctors from the classic series Big Finish Audio has three ongoing audio play series.  Doctor Who (starring the 5th, 6th and 7th incarnations), The Eighth Doctor Adventures and The Fourth Doctor Adventures.  All of these series see the original actors reprising their  role as the Doctor.

Edit: I stated above that the 100th episode of the revived series was going to be 'the fourth episode in this block' (Series 7, episode 9), which would have made it "Hide". I botched my maths, and it is actually "Crimson Horror", which is the sixth episode of this block (Series 7, Episode 11).

For 10 points:
During their long and tumultuous relationship, the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey has:
a) executed him
b) exiled him
c) elected him president
d) all of the above

For 20 points:
What are the the first and last purely historical episodes in which the only fantasy elements were the presence of the Doctor, his companions and the TARDIS?

For 50 points:
From what we have seen in Doctor Who what is the most obvious distinction between those characters who appear to have some control over their appearance during regeneration and those that appear to have none?

For 100 points:
The first series of the revived Doctor Who carried on a tradition of fulfilling two criteria for regular season stories that contain one of the classic series' monsters.  What are the monsters?  What are the two criteria?