The Random Doctor Who Thread

[SiHart]

"He RISES! See! The GREAT ONE RISES!"

[Stuart Wallis]

Well I had to get out of bed some time!

[Nyder]

This is an email you don't get every day

[SiHart]

It seems there's a Doctor Who episode of Pointless coming up... two mentions on Twitter today from Nick Briggs (who now isn't appearing!) and Andrew Hayden-Smith

[Nyder]

Wonder if we'll have one of yer actual Doctors on this? Pity about Mr Briggs - we could have had a Dalek on one of the teams!!

[SiHart]

"Yes director, sorry Director, three bags full Director!"

[Antony Cox]

Three point one, four one five nine, two six five!

[SiHart]

"Use your brain Borg. We would know, wouldn't we?"

[Stuart Wallis]

Speak for yourself...

[SiHart]

23 years ago today, Doctor Who paused for a bit after the end of pt 3 of Survival.

[Stuart Wallis]

And when Sylvester came back after a week's holiday - the Beeb not having told him which week for seven years - he found they'd gone for a younger model.

[Andrew Curnow]

Interesting conversation with the younger guy in the office today - he mentioned the forthcoming Christmas special, and its connection with Douglas Adams. I know Moffat's mentioned the old idea about the Doctor retiring, but wasn't it only ever a suggestion from Adams? M'colleague seemed to think it had got sufficiently developed for their to be some notes that Moffat has now fleshed out, but isn't that just the anecdote getting lost in translation? Or have I missed something?

[Stuart Wallis]

As far as I'm aware, under Douglas it was never more than an idea that events prevented him from doing anything with.

[Antony Cox]

Last night I went to the pub to catch up with the band which I used to play in years ago.

Pat (Phil the bandleader’s wife) was telling me that they’d seen Phil’s cousin over the Christmas period, his cousin being a chap called Bill Dudman who I was already aware was an ex-BBC cameraman. As Pat was telling me that Bill’s house is full of old video equipment and paraphernalia , a thought crossed my mind that perhaps Bill may have some ‘interesting items’ in his collection, bearing in mind that one or two of the more recently discovered missing episodes have been returned by former TV cameramen…
In the interval I put the question to Phil who kind of shrugged his shoulders and said something along the lines of “I suppose there’s a possibility…”, and literally moments later in a remarkable coincidence, who should walk in the door of the pub completely unannounced but Bill himself! As the band started up again for the second set it was a little difficult having a conversation with Bill but I did manage to speak to him on and off in between numbers, and sadly but unsurprisingly he doesn’t have a complete copy of Power of the Daleks in his loft or any other missing or even extant episodes.

However, I did learn that as a young man Bill started out at the BBC Film Studios in Ealing and was present at the filming of the seaweed creature sequences from Fury from the Deep in 1967, and vividly recalls an unfortunate event – you can read in more detail here:

http://www.ealinggazette.co.uk/ealin...4767-30299933/

I forgot to tell him about the colour film sequences of this which are on the Lost in Time DVD – perhaps he even features on it himself?

Bill also told me that he worked on Doctor Who during Season 24 in the special effects department, specifically on Time and the Rani, Delta and the Bannermen and Dragonfire. He particularly recalls the studio scenes on TATR in the laboratory where Kate O’Mara was apparently ‘reacting to punches before they were thrown’, and he also commented on how awful he thought Delta was on recently watching it – something which I had to agree with him on! After asking me if I was a ‘Doctor Who nut’ (and my denying this emphatically, of course) Bill smiled and told me that he was recently at TV Centre and went into the BBC Shop there to see if he could find any of the episodes he worked on on DVD. The chap at the desk said “Let me phone my friend (another ‘Doctor Who Nut’, apparently) and we’ll see if we can find out…”. So his friend says: “Describe the stories you worked on”, so Bill says: “Oh, there was one with a Dragon walking around with a ball of fire in its head…”. “That’ll be Dragonfire!” says the friend…

Bill is also good friends with Mike Kelt who designed and built the 1983 revamped TARDIS console, and in fact saw him just a few weeks ago.

It’s funny who you meet down the pub, isn’t it?

[Dirk Gently]

I'm obviously not going to the right pubs. May be we should all be going to more pubs.





Any excuse.

[Jon Masters]

Interesting conversation with the younger guy in the office today - he mentioned the forthcoming Christmas special, and its connection with Douglas Adams. I know Moffat's mentioned the old idea about the Doctor retiring, but wasn't it only ever a suggestion from Adams? M'colleague seemed to think it had got sufficiently developed for their to be some notes that Moffat has now fleshed out, but isn't that just the anecdote getting lost in translation? Or have I missed something?

I think in the Gareth Roberts interview in DWM about writing Shada, he tells a story that DA wanted to write a story where the Doctor retired but Graham Williams wasn't having it. So DA delayed writing the final story as long as possible, thinking GW would give in if it went down to the wire. Of course, GW didn't, so DA had to knock Shada out in about 3 days

(just found it - p35 DWM 444)

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Last night I went to the pub to catch up with the band which I used to play in years ago.

Pat (Phil the bandleader’s wife) was telling me that they’d seen Phil’s cousin over the Christmas period, his cousin being a chap called Bill Dudman who I was already aware was an ex-BBC cameraman. As Pat was telling me that Bill’s house is full of old video equipment and paraphernalia , a thought crossed my mind that perhaps Bill may have some ‘interesting items’ in his collection, bearing in mind that one or two of the more recently discovered missing episodes have been returned by former TV cameramen…
In the interval I put the question to Phil who kind of shrugged his shoulders and said something along the lines of “I suppose there’s a possibility…”, and literally moments later in a remarkable coincidence, who should walk in the door of the pub completely unannounced but Bill himself! As the band started up again for the second set it was a little difficult having a conversation with Bill but I did manage to speak to him on and off in between numbers, and sadly but unsurprisingly he doesn’t have a complete copy of Power of the Daleks in his loft or any other missing or even extant episodes.

However, I did learn that as a young man Bill started out at the BBC Film Studios in Ealing and was present at the filming of the seaweed creature sequences from Fury from the Deep in 1967, and vividly recalls an unfortunate event – you can read in more detail here:

http://www.ealinggazette.co.uk/ealin...4767-30299933/

I forgot to tell him about the colour film sequences of this which are on the Lost in Time DVD – perhaps he even features on it himself?

Bill also told me that he worked on Doctor Who during Season 24 in the special effects department, specifically on Time and the Rani, Delta and the Bannermen and Dragonfire. He particularly recalls the studio scenes on TATR in the laboratory where Kate O’Mara was apparently ‘reacting to punches before they were thrown’, and he also commented on how awful he thought Delta was on recently watching it – something which I had to agree with him on! After asking me if I was a ‘Doctor Who nut’ (and my denying this emphatically, of course) Bill smiled and told me that he was recently at TV Centre and went into the BBC Shop there to see if he could find any of the episodes he worked on on DVD. The chap at the desk said “Let me phone my friend (another ‘Doctor Who Nut’, apparently) and we’ll see if we can find out…”. So his friend says: “Describe the stories you worked on”, so Bill says: “Oh, there was one with a Dragon walking around with a ball of fire in its head…”. “That’ll be Dragonfire!” says the friend…

Bill is also good friends with Mike Kelt who designed and built the 1983 revamped TARDIS console, and in fact saw him just a few weeks ago.

It’s funny who you meet down the pub, isn’t it?

Last night's gig was weird in that I've never been less interested in playing before. The trouble being that during that second set all I wanted to do was sit at the table with Ant and Bill. I was desperately trying to hear what was being said on that table unfortunately some noisy band was making it hard to hear anything!!!

[MacNimon]

I'm obviously not going to the right pubs. May be we should all be going to more pubs.





Any excuse.

We've only got 3 pubs here in Mauchline. I don't think Mary would buy that as a plausible excuse...

[Andrew Curnow]

So DA delayed writing the final story as long as possible, thinking GW would give in if it went down to the wire. Of course, GW didn't, so DA had to knock Shada out in about 3 days

That's what I reckoned, from memory - I was certain it had never got anywhere near a story outline, far less a script. Thanks Jon! (I even hacked my way through the thicket of The Unfolding Text to see what it says about it there, never thought of looking in DWM!)

unsurprisingly he doesn’t have a complete copy of Power of the Daleks in his loft or any other missing or even extant episodes

Better luck next time Ant!

[Stuart Wallis]

I even hacked my way through the thicket

Is that a euphemism?

[Antony Cox]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Grant-Park...b#ht_312wt_958

[Stuart Wallis]

And now you know where i get my silliest money-making schemes from!

[Lissa]

The original version of "Doctor Who, What, Where, When, Why and How" covered Doctor Who from inception to 2003 in 50,000 words. The revised version (coming to a Kindle store near you in 2013) has hit 50,000 words during the Underwater Menace. It's going to be an epic.

[SiHart]

Yay!

[SiHart]

Tom's 79 today. Who'd have thought it, eh?