I thought it would be a good idea to do TWO blogs on Doctor Who as the are two generation spaced VERY far apart?!
I grew up with Doctor Who but was not born early enough to be involved from the start when William Hartnell graced the TV screens as the mysterious Time Lord! In fact I would start watching it much later when John Pertwee was the Doctor and from then on in I watched religiously and saw each regeneration starting with John Pertwee to Tom Baker through to Peter Davidson and on to Colin Baker before Sylvester McCoy became the last for an extended period of time.
Towards the end it was not enjoyable anymore and was something more akin to that you found on CBBC today and no longer could the adult audience that grew up with it find it that watchable, which was a shame.
Of course I did manage to see the William Hartnell episodes along with Patrick Troughton, who Matt Smith kind of reminds me of with the zany and whacky mad scientist like appeal and the bow ties! I would wager that this is what Steven Moffat was actually intending when he cast Matt Smith as the third Doctor in the later years.
Of course today and as much as I am tempted by the back catalogue of absolutely everything that is Doctor Who sometimes you should not revisit certain childhood places as they never live up to expectations and what was good then can look very lame now.
Though I state this I only mean as far as the special effects go as each actor in turn gave their own version of an advanced scientist from a far off world with technologies mankind can only dream of today. With each incarnation we see a different version of our perceptions of what a scientist like that would be like and this ranges from suave, intellectual, the aforementioned zany, whacky and a madman with a box! Each of these in turn has his own unique style put forward by the actor portraying him and it is to this end and this genius idea that our, now, resident Doctor has stood the test of time.
Of course despite the list of actor I have mentioned for the early years this omits three more from a series of one off movies. One actor who played in the first two and early movies was none other than one of the first, if not original, vampire slayer Van Helsing called Peter Cushing and thinking back he would have been the obvious choice for a movie. However in one that I particularly remember and though thoroughly enjoyable back then he did NOT come off as the Doctor very well and seemed almost naive to the goings on and culture of other worlds. This is by no means detrimental to a great actor like Peter Cushing but more a case of the writers not getting it spot on. Nor did the writers manage to do this with the Tardis either with the interiors looking more like a Chemical Nerd's bedroom closet that a Time Machine and I wonder whether or not the writers and designers had EVER seen H.G. Wells classic ... errr ... The Time Machine?!
Of course years later and somewhere around the middle of the long gestation period that the Doctor found himself in, a kind of TV hibernation period over 15 years, we were given hope of a sudden TV return of Doctor Who when the tabloids were awash with the story that the infamous Steven Spielberg had long been an admirer of the BBC show and had purchased the rights for it. I do not think that there was not a Doctor Who fan alive at the time he did not become as giddy as a school girl at the prospect of the Doctor with a genius like Steven Spielberg at he helm. Funny how many scifi genius' seemed to be called Steven?! This incarnation was to be played by Paul Mcgann and there was to be a pilot and 20 episodes?! Head spinning was indeed the 'in-thing' back then but unfortunately despite the acting side being to notch the story line and special effects of the pilot episode were non-existent! A Doctor Who pilot with no special effects? God only knows what Mr Spielberg was smoking at the time or perhaps he was out of town and commissioned the pilot to a spotty teenager? Perhaps a spotty teenager was the wrong choice as an example as I am sure he would have given the pilot the complete works. Maybe it was an accountant who had no idea who Doctor Who was and decided the Mr Spielberg was completely mad to purchase these rights and did not grant it the money it should have been given?!
Needless to say that the 20 episodes never materialised and in all honesty I am not even sure WHY he bothered.
Mad then when you think that today the Americans seem to go wild each time a pilot is to be aired out there and there are queues of people around the block when there is a preview screening of the new series first episode!
Maybe of there was an accountant a Brit should locate him and tell him about Horlicks as this would help him sleep at nights.
So from time to time if i remember a particular story from ages past I have fond memories of I will post about them here and each of my favourite companions of old.
As I typed out this post there were certain things that had considered, like explaining that TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space and that the Tardis is a living entity comprised of energy, or that in the early years it was always the case that the Doctor stole the Tardics from the Time Lords, as did The Master, but an intersting twist in the Doctor's Later Years now suggests that the Tardis SOLE the Doctor?!
But i would not want to insult anyone as I am sure you would all be aware of this and I have to say what a fantastic episode that was with Suranne Jones playing the character of the Tardis with absolute perfection! Bring her back anytime you like Mr Moffat!!
