Happy 40th-Woo!!! (warning-totally geeky post ahead) ;)
D.W.Q.M.: "One day I shall come back...Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine." -the First Doctor
Tomorrow (November 23rd) marks the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who, the longest runnng scifi show in history. Happy Birthday, Doctor!!! ;) As a tribute, and to add another geeky nail to my geeky coffin, I decided to post some stuff that i've learn over many years of watching and reading about Doctor Who (some 20+ years of watching and reading) LOL.
First I'll start with the quote above-it is from the 10th Doctor Who story, 'the Dalek Invasion of Earth', with William Hartnell. The segment was reused again for the 20th Anniversary special, 'the Five Doctors'. It was shown just before the opening credits. Hartnell had already passed away before the 20th, and another actor was cast to reprise his roll, so I thought it was a nice touch adding that segment to the episode. :)
Ok, more geekiness...
-story that was airing when I was born: 'The Face of Evil'
-my Favorite episode: 'Genesis of the Daleks'
-my Favorite Doctor: Tom Baker (hence the scarf I am making. ;) )
-Each story consisted of a certain number of episodes, show weekly, in 25 minute segments. There have been stories with as few as 2 episodes and as many as 12. There was also 1 90 minute special (the Five Doctors) and a 50 minute spinoff pilot (K9 and Company)
-DW first aired in the UK November 23, 1963. Because it was the day after JFK's assassination, the BBC assumed (correctly, it turns out) that most people would watch coverage of the situation. As a result, when the second episode aired a week later, they decided to air the first episode again before the second.
-First episode filmed entirely outdoors: 'the Sontaran Experiment' (feb 22nd-march 1st, 1975)
-In Genesis of the Daleks (3/8/75-4/12/75) the second episode ends with a freeze frame of Sarah Jane falling off a scaffolding-that was the first time a freeze frame had ever been used to end a segment. (thank you, script books! ;) )
-Colin Baker (the 6th Doctor) refused to appear in the episode where the 6th Doctor regenerates into the 7th (Sylvester McCoy), so McCoy donned a blond wig a played the part of the 6th Doctor for the beginning of his first story.
-Ever wonder why the Daleks have a plunger as an arm? Originally it was supposed to be a claw, but it is said that Hartnell, who was very saftey-minded, wanted something that looked safer-hence the plunger!
-DW was originally supposed to be educational-with the travelers traveling back in time to witness historical events ('the Aztecs', 'Marco-Polo', and 'the Romans' to name a few) turns out that there was a bigger audience for the 'fantastic outerspace adventure' episodes. Imagine that! ;)
-It was the first popular scifi show in England
-first came to America in 1973 (the Jon Pertwee years). It didn't really catch on until Lionheart entertainment syndicated Tom Baker episodes in the 80s through PBS. They then ordered Peter Davison episodes, re-syndicated the Pertwee episodes, and by 1985, had syndicated Harnell and Troughton episodes.
-Tom Baker's long scarf came about because the knitter who made it thought that they wanted all the wool that was given to her to be used, so she just kept knitting and knitting and knitting...
-Did you know that DW was a children's program?! I didn't find that out until I saw some of the extras on the 'Tomb of the Cyberman' dvd-there were clips from a conference, and they kept refering to it as a children's program. From reading some of the comments from the BBC website, it turns out that my family wasn't the only one that gathered around the television to watch DW together-cool!!
-For 6 years the writers got away without mentioning anything about the Doctor's origins. It was finally revealed that he was a Timelord in Patrick Troughton's (the 2nd Doctor) final episode, 'the War Games'
-the Doctor Who character was inspired by H.G. Wells 'the Time Machine.'
-so what's up with the Police Box, you may ask? Originally the TARDIS was supposed to change to blend into it's surroundings...unfortunately the budget did not allow for that, so they decided to keep it as is. Eventually something was mentioned about a faulty 'chameleon circuit', and a couple of times it was fixed temporarily-I think it's been a organ...but for the most part, it has remained a Police Box. Way Cool.
-Unfortunately, not all of the episodes still exist. A few have been patched together for video/dvd releases. Examples: the Tenth Planet (Hartnell's last story) only 3 out of 4 were complete episodes, but they apparently had all the audio for the last episode and a little bit of film footage (less than 5 minutes, I think) So they played the audio, and had a slide show of scenes from the episode, and whenever they had surviving footage, added it in. Patrick Troughton's 'the Invaison' was missing 2 out of 8 episodes. Those episodes were nararrated by Nicholas Courtney, (the Brigadier). There were also a couple of Pertwee stories where color versions were missing, but black and white ones were still in exsistence, so they were put together to make one full story.
Okay, since I have probably totally saturated you with way too much Doctor Who info, i'll stop for now. ;) (and i can just picture you all saying, 'oh, no, there's more?!' ;) Maybe, maybe not...we'll see! ;) muahahahahaa!!!
scarf update: 445/830 rows
(i'll try to get a pic up of my progress soon.) :)
Tomorrow (November 23rd) marks the 40th anniversary of Doctor Who, the longest runnng scifi show in history. Happy Birthday, Doctor!!! ;) As a tribute, and to add another geeky nail to my geeky coffin, I decided to post some stuff that i've learn over many years of watching and reading about Doctor Who (some 20+ years of watching and reading) LOL.
First I'll start with the quote above-it is from the 10th Doctor Who story, 'the Dalek Invasion of Earth', with William Hartnell. The segment was reused again for the 20th Anniversary special, 'the Five Doctors'. It was shown just before the opening credits. Hartnell had already passed away before the 20th, and another actor was cast to reprise his roll, so I thought it was a nice touch adding that segment to the episode. :)
Ok, more geekiness...
-story that was airing when I was born: 'The Face of Evil'
-my Favorite episode: 'Genesis of the Daleks'
-my Favorite Doctor: Tom Baker (hence the scarf I am making. ;) )
-Each story consisted of a certain number of episodes, show weekly, in 25 minute segments. There have been stories with as few as 2 episodes and as many as 12. There was also 1 90 minute special (the Five Doctors) and a 50 minute spinoff pilot (K9 and Company)
-DW first aired in the UK November 23, 1963. Because it was the day after JFK's assassination, the BBC assumed (correctly, it turns out) that most people would watch coverage of the situation. As a result, when the second episode aired a week later, they decided to air the first episode again before the second.
-First episode filmed entirely outdoors: 'the Sontaran Experiment' (feb 22nd-march 1st, 1975)
-In Genesis of the Daleks (3/8/75-4/12/75) the second episode ends with a freeze frame of Sarah Jane falling off a scaffolding-that was the first time a freeze frame had ever been used to end a segment. (thank you, script books! ;) )
-Colin Baker (the 6th Doctor) refused to appear in the episode where the 6th Doctor regenerates into the 7th (Sylvester McCoy), so McCoy donned a blond wig a played the part of the 6th Doctor for the beginning of his first story.
-Ever wonder why the Daleks have a plunger as an arm? Originally it was supposed to be a claw, but it is said that Hartnell, who was very saftey-minded, wanted something that looked safer-hence the plunger!
-DW was originally supposed to be educational-with the travelers traveling back in time to witness historical events ('the Aztecs', 'Marco-Polo', and 'the Romans' to name a few) turns out that there was a bigger audience for the 'fantastic outerspace adventure' episodes. Imagine that! ;)
-It was the first popular scifi show in England
-first came to America in 1973 (the Jon Pertwee years). It didn't really catch on until Lionheart entertainment syndicated Tom Baker episodes in the 80s through PBS. They then ordered Peter Davison episodes, re-syndicated the Pertwee episodes, and by 1985, had syndicated Harnell and Troughton episodes.
-Tom Baker's long scarf came about because the knitter who made it thought that they wanted all the wool that was given to her to be used, so she just kept knitting and knitting and knitting...
-Did you know that DW was a children's program?! I didn't find that out until I saw some of the extras on the 'Tomb of the Cyberman' dvd-there were clips from a conference, and they kept refering to it as a children's program. From reading some of the comments from the BBC website, it turns out that my family wasn't the only one that gathered around the television to watch DW together-cool!!
-For 6 years the writers got away without mentioning anything about the Doctor's origins. It was finally revealed that he was a Timelord in Patrick Troughton's (the 2nd Doctor) final episode, 'the War Games'
-the Doctor Who character was inspired by H.G. Wells 'the Time Machine.'
-so what's up with the Police Box, you may ask? Originally the TARDIS was supposed to change to blend into it's surroundings...unfortunately the budget did not allow for that, so they decided to keep it as is. Eventually something was mentioned about a faulty 'chameleon circuit', and a couple of times it was fixed temporarily-I think it's been a organ...but for the most part, it has remained a Police Box. Way Cool.
-Unfortunately, not all of the episodes still exist. A few have been patched together for video/dvd releases. Examples: the Tenth Planet (Hartnell's last story) only 3 out of 4 were complete episodes, but they apparently had all the audio for the last episode and a little bit of film footage (less than 5 minutes, I think) So they played the audio, and had a slide show of scenes from the episode, and whenever they had surviving footage, added it in. Patrick Troughton's 'the Invaison' was missing 2 out of 8 episodes. Those episodes were nararrated by Nicholas Courtney, (the Brigadier). There were also a couple of Pertwee stories where color versions were missing, but black and white ones were still in exsistence, so they were put together to make one full story.
Okay, since I have probably totally saturated you with way too much Doctor Who info, i'll stop for now. ;) (and i can just picture you all saying, 'oh, no, there's more?!' ;) Maybe, maybe not...we'll see! ;) muahahahahaa!!!
scarf update: 445/830 rows
(i'll try to get a pic up of my progress soon.) :)
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