Twice Upon A Time

Chapter The 74th, in which a swansong goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Plot: 
The original Doctor meets the latest Doctor at the South Pole, when both are at the point of regenerating but resisting it, and they team up in a desperate action-filled race against time while they hold back death. Incident after incident is overcome, as they defeat Daleks, Cybermen and various other Big Bads to save the universe, all the while being careful not to interfere in the events of the Doctor's own past. Through this, the two Doctors find a begrudging accommodation for each other that masks a real affection, and end up facing their separate fates as wiser individuals... Or maybe I nodded off after a few minutes of talky bollocks and dreamt all that, but it would have been better, wouldn't it? Instead, all action is suspended for an hour until the new showrunner takes over. There's a lot of talking in different rooms. So much talking. A First World War soldier and Bill Potts appear somehow, and there's presumably something significant that happens somewhere along the line, but it's convoluted and unclear. Then, the Doctor regenerates into Jodie Whittaker, and it's exciting for a split second, and then it's over.

Context:

To say I was disappointed by Capaldi's swansong is putting it mildly. As such, I'm going to reiterate that I was disappointed by Capaldi's swansong over and again in different ways in every section of this blog as a form of therapy; maybe eventually I'll come to terms with it. After the first watch on Christmas day, I watched the recording again in a quiet moment during the days after Christmas. On second watch, without the weight of expectation, it was still shit. In fact, knowing that it didn't amount to much no matter how long it went on, made it excruciating to wade through.

First-time round:

It was a couple of hours after the BBC1 broadcast, on the evening of December 25th 2017; the whole family gathered round, old school style, after the traditional turkey and mince pies feasting, and the playing of newly unwrapped board games, and watched the episode timeshifted on the PVR. This was myself, the Better Half and three kids (boys of 11 and 8, girl of 5), plus two grandparents. This is the biggest audience an episode of Doctor Who has had in our house on Christmas Day (or any day) for a good few years. I put this down to excitement about the new female Doctor, and I hope it endures for next year's series, which I wish was starting sooner quite frankly.

Reaction:

I really hated it. Nothing happens. Stupidly. It must be hard to make nothing happen stupidly. The Better Half was losing patience before me, even ahead of the beginning credits, but I was still giving it a chance. Second time round, though, I found it irritating that early on too. There's a lot of pointless nattering. Mark Gatiss turns up as a soldier out of time and no one ever asks his name, so any twist about his identity is immediately telegraphed. We then flash back to this nameless soldier during his time in Paul McCartney's Pipes of Peace video. No matter how important a historic event this day and year of the war was, it's become so crowded a locale (every one from Sainsburys to The Farm has parked themselves on this battlefield over the years) that it can't help but seem somewhat risible.

There's a timing malfunction (always the two most thrilling words to grace a Doctor Who script - who needs 'alien invasion', eh?) and we're back to where we started with the Time Lord nattering to himself. Then, all three go into the TARDIS. Ten minutes have passed, and the only significant action by any of the characters is that they've retreated inside the TARDIS. At this point, I'm wondering who in their right minds apart from really hardcore fans (i.e. even worse than me) would give a toss about anything being discussed. I'm also really conscious that Capaldi needs a haircut. I can't be engaged if I'm noticing that sort of stuff. In the TARDIS there's an interminably long trivial scene about brandy and the decor. Then, Moffat seems to be confusing some attitudes displayed by William Hartnell as played by David Bradley in a bio-pic with those of the first Doctor as played by David Bradley now. But even the real Hartnell himself, reportedly quite old fashioned in his attitudes, wasn't as bad as the character depicted here. Did the Doctor ever expect Polly to dust in the TARDIS? Where's that come from? It may seem like a bit of fun, but this is one of my heroes being trashed.

Ten more minutes of chat and an arbitrary change of location informs the audience that something called Testimony is harvesting people's memories at the point of their death, which is a vague, conflict and excitement free concept. But it does introduce Bill Potts again, or a duplicate of her. It's not very clearly foregrounded, but it looks like the dramatic question presented is whether to give up the soldier to his death or not, maybe in exchange for Bill. Despite being talked around for swathes of everyone's precious Christmas day, it's still not clear or tangible because no one has gone to the effort of making the dilemma visual. Next are some flashbacks from old episodes to show how bloodthirsty the Doctor is (a trick Moffat seems to have played 100 times now) and another arbitrary change of location. We're only a third of the way through and my soul has died. From this point on, it's just more of the same really: natter, natter, change location arbitrarily, trash reputation of the first Doctor, more brandy, another Mark Gatiss dopey comic double-take, rinse, repeat. There's a detour which ties up a loose end that literally nobody cared about ever: what became of Rusty, the malfunctioning Dalek that was in one episode three years ago. And it carries on.

There is some investigation, but no sense of urgency or escalation at all. And any facts uncovered are pointless; the Testimony project or collective or whatever turns out not to be evil, so the story doesn't actually have anyone driving it forward either for good or bad, it was all just some stuff happening. And it keeps happening, for ages, until both Doctors decide finally to regenerate for a reason that's somewhat underwritten. Bradley's exit is odd, as Ben and Polly don't reappear (and they should do), but Capaldi gets to see his old friends again, and does a speech that's this time somewhat overwritten. Jodie Whittaker is great in her brief moment as the new Doctor, and the cliffhanger ending is good, but it isn't enough to save things. 

Connectivity: 

Both Peter Capaldi stories which see an aspect of the original classic series returning (the writer, the first Doctor); both feature battlefields, soldiers who go through some timey-wimey weirdness, and an armistice between previously warring sides.

Deeper Thoughts:
Looking back, looking forward. I'd said last time that I expected to be done with looking back over Capaldi's tenure, and I do think I've said all there is to say about that. I forgot, though, that this story also marks the end of Steven Moffat's tenure. Not that I haven't said a lot about him too over the years of doing the blog, but there's probably more to be said, as he's just been so inconsistent and uneven for me that it has felt like there have been several different Moffats running the show over the years. One thing that has been broadly consistent is that he can't bring himself to write anything simple. There should be no shame in doing a straight-ahead big tent pole alien invasion, zap 'em defeat 'em action adventure story. It is the bread and butter of Doctor Who, and can certainly be more enjoyable than something overwrought or overthought (not that I don't enjoy some of the clever clever ones too, but not all the time). When the pressure's on to produce something big, it must be difficult, and Moffat faced the most pressure ever, as he had to write the 50th anniversary show where expectation was at its highest. But he pulled that off with aplomb. Then, with the following story he had the comparatively minor challenge of doing his first ever regeneration story, and The Time of The Doctor was markedly less successful.

Like Twice Upon a Time, The Time of The Doctor gets itself tied in knots trying to be an elegy rather than just being an exciting adventure for the overfed holiday audience. Neither has any story per se, just a long repetitive sequence of events delaying the inevitable final moment, plus some continuity tidying and speechifying. This is frustrating when we know the same author can sometimes cram enough plot for whole seasons of Doctor Who into one 45 minute segment, but for some reason if it's a swansong, he's happy for people to just stand about talking. It's doubly frustrating this year, as Moffat had really turned things around after a moribund patch and delivered the most interesting season in years, and triply frustrating when he has all the potential of David Bradley's First Doctor to play with, and just squanders it. This is the roller-coaster ride that Doctor Who fans have been on since 2010

Looking forward, things look much more promising. I'm so used to overblown post regeneration dialogue that I was convinced Whittaker would add something silly about her hair or kidneys to spoil her well-judged and well delivered first word and a bit, but luckily Chibnall resisted. Less is more. The Doctor is separated from the TARDIS and falling to her doom. Roll credits. Nice. Similar but different enough to the last regeneration handover point, when Moffat took over from Russell T Davies, to be homage rather than rip off. If I ever watch this again, I suspect it will only be these final two minutes or so. That's a shame, as Capaldi, Bradley and Moffat himself deserved better. Anyway, dear reader, have a very happy new year in 2018. See you back here in January for more randomly picked stories - it can only get better from here.

In Summary:

Here's a fan edit suggestion: the Doctor, having just defeated the Cybermen at the end of The Doctor Falls, has visions of Bill, Clara and Nardole, does his nice speech about never being cowardly nor eating pears, then regenerates into Jodie Whittaker, and she gets her great first line and cliffhanger ending. The Christmas special would only be four minutes long, but one could use the rest of that time to eat mince pies or play the family at Cluedo. And that would be nice, wouldn't it?

The Eaters of Light

Chapter The 73rd, several species of time travellers gathered together in a cave grooving with some Picts.

Plot: 
The Doctor, Bill and Nardole go to 2nd century Aberdeen to investigate the mystery of what happened to the famously disappeared Ninth Roman Legion, only to find out they were all killed by aliens (surprise surprise). The local Picts guard a cairn that conceals a gateway to another dimension in which a swarm of light-eating beasties live. One of them was allowed through to deal with the Romans, but has stuck around to terrorise everyone, including the local tribe and the legion's few survivors. The Doctor and Bill persuade members of both these groups to team up and fight the monsters on the threshold of the portal, and the ensuing battle - due to time dilation effects - lasts for centuries, and keeps the creatures trapped.

Context:

A little hiatus was caused in the blog-stream by the combined factors of my PC dying, and my setting myself the challenge of watching 24 Christmas specials and films during advent, which took up a lot of viewing time. On top of that, the Blu-ray box set of series 10 containing Capaldi's 2017 episodes (bar one final important one, of course) had arrived, and also demanded attention. As I did when the series aired, I randomly picked one episode from the box set to blog, which happened to be this Celtic swirl. I grabbed a morning early during the pre-Christmas period to watch the story, and typed it all up double-quick as - at the time of writing - I still have everything to wrap, and After Eights and whatnot to buy.

First-time round: 

This went by in a flash first time round earlier in the year. I've mentioned before that the structure of the series somehow warped things a little for me, the trilogy of Monk stories in the middle dominate to the detriment of the much more fun unconnected single-episode tales either side. Coming as it does sandwiched between that big (and slightly bloated?) centrepiece and the two-part Cyber-finale, The Eaters of Light - like the similarly fun but story-arc lite Empress of Mars that came before it - feels a little tossed away, which is a shame. Watched in isolation, it made much more of an impression, and made me pine for more episodes with this Doctor and this team. At least Capaldi and Mackie have one more outing, but watching this I'm missing Gomez and Lucas too.

Reaction:

For long-term fans, the writing of this episode was significant, as it saw the first time an author of a twentieth-century episode returned to the modern show. This was Rona Munro, who penned the story Survival (the final story of the original run, aired in 1989) and who since then has built up a great body of work in film and theatre. Objectively, though, I don't think anyone who wasn't aware of this would see any join, it just seemed like any of the other stories not any kind of throwback, nor a piece with a distinctive authorial voice shouting out. It's tempting to think therefore "Why bother?" but it's always good to vary the writing duties. I don't know whether it was the Scottish Munro or her Scottish showrunner who suggested the subject matter, but it's a nice fit for her, and gives the story a distinctive locale (although it presumably was filmed no further North than the Brecon Beacons).

The guest cast, by dint of the story structure, don't stand out too much - they are supposed to be the young, unheroic remains of the two decimated groups - but there's still some great material involving them. Most memorable of all is the scene where Bill's assumptions about her new found allies' morals and broad-mindedness are called out. Bill has a great episode all told - challenging the Doctor, working out about the telepathic TARDIS field that translates everyone's words with added lip-sync, and giving a great speech to rally the troops: "I can't promise that you won't all die, but I can promise you this: you won't all die in a hole in the ground." Nardole's material, though superfluous, is fun (was this perhaps one of the scripts written before they agreed with Matt Lucas that he'd be in every episode - he could be lifted straight out without impacting the plot one iota). And Capaldi is on good if slightly grumpy form too.

I'm not 100% sold on the talking crows, and the slight corny (or should that be 'caw-ny', it should, shouldn't it... or shouldn't it?) twist that they have been venerating Kar's name all this time. I'm also not sure that we need the bookend sequences with the children visiting the stones and hearing the music. The end bit with Missy, though, is a lot more successful. It goes on too long, but seeing a tear run down Missy's cheek at hearing the music trapped in the stones is a touching and characterful way to integrate the ongoing series arc.

Connectivity: 

Both written by those rare Doctor Who authors who have become renowned for a non-Who body work in their own right. And a third story in a row where a character is decked in incongruous nighttime attire (Nardole's in a dressing gown throughout - another Arthur Dent homage?)

Deeper Thoughts:
Another Doctor over, and a new one just begun. And So this is Christmas. In total disregard for random ordering, I have decided to blog Twice Upon a Time sometime before the end of the year; but, I have a feeling that any deeper thoughts it inspires will involve looking forward rather than back, so I'll look back now. No matter how good Peter Capaldi's swansong is, and how well David Bradley and the production invoke the role and the era of the first Doctor, it is all inevitably going to be overshadowed by the first few moments of Jodie Whittaker's thirteenth Doctor at the end. Doctor Who handovers are cruel that way - 58 minutes of action inevitably becomes so much prologue. It feels this time, though, that the effect is even greater than usual. The most comparable past point would be The End of Time, the last time a story marked a Doctor and senior crew bowing out and handing over the reins to a totally new actor and team. But watching that previous story did feel like the end of an era, more than the start of a new one. This is because David Tennant felt like he'd owned the part over a decent run. Despite the duration and number of episodes done by Capaldi being broadly similar, I don't get that feeling with him.

Why might this be? I've decided upon a one word answer: Clara. Watching the box set of series 10, I am amazed all over again at how Steven Moffat after so many years in charge has produced a set of episodes that feel so fresh. This feels like Capaldi's year one, and leaves me wanting him to do at least two more. I'm not alone in thinking that Jenna Coleman not leaving in Last Christmas was a mistake. Her second year with Capaldi is damaging to the show as it was in desperate need of the shake-up a new regular would have given it. But I'm coming round to the idea that she shouldn't have done the year before that either. Much as I like series 8's domestic grounding in Coal Hill, it's too much about Clara, who'd already dominated the previous year with all that impossible girl guff. Capaldi should have started out with a blank slate, and a new companion. He only got this in 2017, and so it feels like he's leaving when he's only just started.

Series 10 was generally successful in it's story arc as well as it's character dynamics. A bit less monk would have been welcome, but all in all it's probably my favourite year of Moffat's reign. One plotting thing that bothers me, mind, is when and how exactly Nardole was resurrected, and when exactly the Doctor Mysterio story happens relative to the events we later learn about the vault. It's said in that Christmas show that the Doctor rebuilt Nardole as he was lonely, and it's hinted very strongly that this is because River's gone. But if so, how could River send Nardole off to stop the Doctor executing Missy in Extremis, if she'd already gone to meet her fate. (Incidentally, it's best not to think about how River leaves the Doctor then spends an unidentified length of time hiring a new archaeological crew and having adventures with them before finally reaching the library, as it completely destroys the bittersweet parting stuff.) And if Nardole only teamed back up with the Doctor in Extremis, then why is he so happy to be with the Doctor adventuring in New York with superheroes when they should be guarding the vault? Answers on a postcard, or in a Big Finish play in four years time.

Blog Stats? I've watched a personal best of 33 stories for the blog this year, which will be 34 assuming I manage to file copy on this year's Christmas special before December 31st. This would form a healthy 20 / 14 split, old series to new - a nice mix. I've watched only five black-and-white episodes, and three of those five had episodes missing (one of them being wholly missing). I usually tend to have a story from most of the Doctors bar one - this year it was a Christopher Eccleston story I neglected to land upon. The most popular new series Doctor in terms of stories blogged was the incumbent, Peter Capaldi, and the most popular old series Doctor was the longest running, Tom Baker, so that all seems right and proper. Next year, Chris Chibnall is reducing the number of stories he produces a year, so if I can keep up my current pace, I might just catch up before I claim my pension. And on that optimistic note, it only remains for me to add the traditional "Happy Christmas to all of you at home". Cheers!

In Summary:

Good and solid, like a slab of granite.

Shada

Chapter The 72nd, the unfinished story that's been finished more times than any other.

Plot: 
The Doctor, Romana and Laryngitis K9 visit a a retired Time Lord and old friend of the Doctor's, Professor Chronotis, at his rooms in St. Cedd's College, Cambridge. Chronotis wants them to take a book he borrowed from Gallifrey back for him, as it has special powers and could be dangerous. But Chris Parsons, a young scientist, has already borrowed the book, and is examining it with his colleague Clare Keightley. Also, Skagra, a villainous clever-clogs with outrageous dress sense, armed with a mind-stealing sphere and backed up by an army of Krarg creatures, and an invisible ship with a fruity talking computer, wants to steal the book too. When he gets his hands on it, Skagra kidnaps Romana and steals the TARDIS, and uses the book as the key to take him to the Time Lord prison planet Shada. That sounds quick, but it takes ages and they seem to stop at several different spaceships in between. So many spaceships. Anyway, Skagra needs to steal the mind of an old Time Lord villain imprisoned there, Salyavin, to help him turn everyone in the universe into one connected mind, controlled by him.The Doctor stops him and saves the day, everyone has tea and biscuits, then gets arrested by a policeman.

Context:

Watched on the NFT1 big screen at the British Film Institute on the South Bank in glamorous London, accompanied by long-term fan friend and regular mentionee on the blog, David, and shorter-term but just as much friend, and just as much fan, Trevor. We had gone to the similar screening last year of Power of the Daleks (see here for more details) and when Shada was advertised, we decided it would be fun to do it again. David and Trevor booked the tickets, and it seemed from their reports that this was easier to get in to than the Power event last year. There were a lot of empty seats in the venue, despite it being advertised as sold out. Last year, Steven Moffat was in the audience and on a panel to represent the fans watching at the time, this time it was Matthew Waterhouse. As such, it was clear that there was slightly less buzz for this animated project than the last one, but that's understandable given the fully animated Power was the very first of its kind, and Shada's only ever been half missing not wholly gone like The Power of the Daleks.

First-time round: 

The first experience I ever had with this material was reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective

Agency when in came out in 1987 (Adams reused swathes of the Shada script in that novel). Then, very early in the 1990s, I saw a pirate video which  presented some of the material of Shada with text to explain the gaps. And - if I remember correctly - it also used a scene of the model TARDIS from the story Full Circle occasionally too, but I've no idea why as it didn't really need to. It was interesting watching a scene on location with the Doctor talking to K9 but getting no replies (as they had not been recorded at that point) , and trying to work out the other half of the conversation. I don't know if this really counts as watching the story as it was impossible to follow. In July 1992, I rushed out and bought the newly released VHS. This presented the remaining footage, with some new effects and David Brierley's voiceover as K9 added, interspersed with cut-aways to a pinstripe-suited Tom Baker - it was during the Medics suit years - explaining the increasing longer gaps as the story went on. It also included a script book, but I'm not sure I ever read it. Again, does that really count as watching it? It was the only version of Shada available for over a decade, and I rewatched it many times, so it is the de facto standard version seared into my psyche; even after all that, though, I was still not 100% clear exactly what was happening in the last third - which spaceship were we on now?

In 2003, there was an audio version with pictures that I watched on dial-up from the BBC Doctor Who website; it recast the Doctor using Paul McGann, explaining it with some admittedly clever ret-con, but it is a quite different take on the story. Finally, in 2012, I read Gareth Roberts' great novelisation. But only with this 2017 version do I feel like I've seen Shada properly for the first time: original cast, moving pictures all the way through, I don't see how more could be done to make it definitive (except maybe by adding episode endings).

Reaction:

Shada was infamous at the point early in the 1980s when I first became a Doctor Who Monthly reading full-on fan of the show: the unfinished story that may never see the light of day. A couple of years earlier, this final story of Tom Baker's sixth season had been abandoned due to a strike impacting its studio sessions. It was the final show for the Producer Graham Williams and the script editor Douglas Adams (who also wrote it) so they were robbed of their swansong. In the years since, Adams had become more and more famous and so another new story to add to the couple he'd already penned was seen as something worth seeing. The new producer John Nathan-Turner was still considering somehow reworking it as late as Colin Baker's tenure, but - although a lot was in the can already (all the location filming and the material from studio covering the Think Tank, Chronotis's Rooms and the spacecraft cell) - there was no coverage of the climax and nothing of the eponymous Shada.

This was due to the production process at the time, which would usually front load the film sequences in the first few episodes, and would shoot in studio arranged by set rather than in story order. So, the 1979 Shada, and the 1990s VHS, starts well but peters out, misses the revelations and the big confrontation between villain and Doctor, but resumes again for the comic resolution scene (or one or two of them at least). As such, only an animated version really could work. By the end of the video, Tom Baker was summarising a hell of a lot. This works in the new version's favour, only a few animated scenes sneak in early on, gradually getting the viewer used to things, but by the end it's mostly new animated stuff which helps to convey the somewhat larger aspects of the denouement. The transitions are not jarring at all, which was surprising. The very first transition is given something of a flourish, which works well to set out the stall to the viewer before things settle down to normality: the live action footage pans up to the sky, which barely seems to change as we cross-fade to animation, then there's a pan down to the first animated scene.

The animation is a little improved on Power of the Daleks, I think - just a little. Movement of the characters is still not quite natural, but seems better this time round. The backgrounds are great, comic strip stuff, exactly in keeping with the tone of the original. The new incidental music is truly Dudley Simpson-esque in a way that Keff McCulloch never managed in 1992, taking its lead from similar cues in City of Death: it is perfect. Likenesses are pretty good, which is handy considering there is much more direct comparison with the original actors scene by scene. Lalla Ward's animated nose isn't right, though. And some of the older voices filling in the characters' gap scenes are very slightly different to their 1979 versions, but it's barely noticeable. These are my only quibbles.

The final scene of the story is interestingly presented, but I'll say no more than that. The DVD of this version has only just been released at the time of writing, so it would be a spoiler to go any further, no matter how widely it was advertised beforehand (I wish I hadn't known in advance). It took me out of proceedings much more than any of the animation did, but it's easy to indulge it despite that. Any significant issues all come from the original production, not the stuff created in 2017. Now it is whole, Adams original conception can breathe and the comedy shines through, but towards the end the plot is slowing and there's too much hopping from location to location (most of them indistinguishable spaceships or space stations or space bases) so it tests the patience. Many a six-parter flags around the episode four of five mark, though, and Adams handles this better than most around this time: it certainly feels like the best season finale of Graham Williams' era; shame it never got to screens back then. There are some fascinating ideas too, which one would expect of Adams later, but was above and beyond for a Doctor Who script editor back in the 1970s. The "One lump or two?" gag is never funny, however, no matter how many times it's spun out.  When he rewrote Shada as Dirk Gently, Adams tightened the plot, added loads more ideas, but stuck like a limpet to this running 'gag'; he must have really loved it. 

Connectivity: 

Both stories include action on spaceships with computers and recorded messages; both have a section with a character floating in a protected space extended out from the TARDIS. And both have a character appear in bedtime attire. (Amy in a dressing gown on Starship UK is very Arthur Dent; Moffat's dialogue and plotting has a very Douglas Adams vibe in many of his stories, including The Beast Below, so this is probably a conscious homage.)

Deeper Thoughts:
Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies paper: BFI's Shada event, 2nd December 2017. Last time I went to a BFI event, for the Power animation screening, it was a last minute decision and there was a rail strike on; this time, getting up to London was much more calm and relaxed. I arrived and had a coffee and chat with my amigos before the programme began at 12.30pm. There were fewer cosplayers and no famous faces in the BFI bar with us, unlike last time: all part of the slightly lesser buzz I perceived about this release. I was still excited, mind. Once in the theatre, our hosts were as last year: the BFI's Justin Johnson and Missing Believed Wiped's Dick Fiddy. Again, as per last year, they interspersed the screening and panels with rounds of Doctor Who trivia questions, winning the correct replier a DVD. I had all the offered prizes already (apart from the box set of Class, which nobody seemed to want to win - poor Class) so stayed quiet; but my nerd bone was tickled when I guessed sotto voce to David the answer for one query ("What date would Shada have started broadcasting had it made it to screen?") and got closer than the person who actually won. It would have been Saturday 19th January 1980, fact fans.

As seems to be customary, someone won a rigged question: 'Matthew' in the audience who correctly answered a question about Adric, turned out to be Adric actor Matthew Waterhouse. As also seems customary, Justin repeatedly did jokes based on the false premise that the name 'Dick' is inherently funny. I made check-marks on my notepad every time this happened - there were six attempts in the first section alone. Luckily, this all ceased for the filmed intro (and there was also later an outro and filmed Q&A) by Tom Baker, in which he's still full-power Tom, even now he's passed 80 years of age; no new insights, really, just Tom being Tom - more than sufficient. Lalla Ward provided a pre-written statement that was read out, in which she chimed with Tom's comments and many others through the day: everything we saw today ultimately was down to one person, Douglas Adams, and the love he and his work inspired in others. It was a similar tale last year, when the tributes were all going to Pat Troughton. Doctor Who certainly had some talented people work on it, many of whom are sadly no longer with us.

(L to R) Fiddy, Ayres, Tucker, Norton

Next came the screening - Shada is presented as feature-length, with no episode endings, but was still almost as long as the whole of The Power of the Daleks, which made me wonder why we only got three episodes of Power at the BFI last year instead of all six. After the screening was the first panel focusing on the 2017 material, which featured - as Dick dubbed them - "the Shada Proclamation": Mark Ayres (incidental music and sound wizardry), Mike Tucker (model effects) and Charles Norton (director / producer). Norton gave nothing away about any future planned projects. But he did reveal that they had never considered presenting Shada as widescreen with cropping of the 1979 material, as that - he deadpanned - would be "the work of Satan". He also confirmed that they had started from scratch editing down the 7 hours of footage that remains of Shada's original production. As well as the animation, they also added some new cut-ins of a Krarg and K9 battling, which used the original costume and prop. The other addition was new model work, which Tucker produced as faithfully as possible. Though nothing was shot in 1979, all the models had been made, and photographed in detail for posterity. Studying these Tucker could work out the specific model kits that been used, and replicate. Similar dedication was displayed by Ayres, who arranged and recorded a live ensemble similar to those Dudley Simpson, house composer for Doctor Who in 1979, would have used, including some instrumentalists who had regularly worked with Dudley. The story is also dedicated to Simpson, who recently passed away, which was a lovely touch.

(L to R) Coombes, Dixon, Burgoyne, Waterhouse, Skinner, Johnson

The second and final panel concentrated more on the 1979 work and included three members of the original cast: James Coombes (voice of the Krargs), Shirley Dixon (voice of the Ship), and Victoria Burgoyne (Clare). This started off promisingly with James' revelation that he'd never got to do any voice work back in 1979 despite getting paid, so he'd finally made up for it by completing the job in 2017, plus Victoria expressing the cast's solidarity with the striking technicians who ultimately did for Shada. But, annoyingly, just as it was starting to get going, the organisers - presumably worried there wasn't enough star power on display - dragged the unconnected complementary ticket holders Matthew Waterhouse and Frank Skinner to the stage, to provide the perspective of the fan watching at home at the time. They were both funny (although Matthew Waterhouse's microphone technique produced deafness for anyone sitting in the first three rows - tone it down, Matthew) but it would have been much more interesting to have heard more from the people who were, you know, in it.

(L to R) Johnson, Russell, Fiddy

There was a nice, if a bit bizarre, tribute to Edward Russell to round things off, as he's leaving his role of Doctor Who cheerleader at the BBC (or whatever his specific role title is), then it was back out to the bar. People didn't stay and celebrate en masse as they had last year, but it's nearer Christmas, so this may just have been that the place was full before we emerged with not many places to sit. I was lucky enough to speak briefly to Gary Gillatt (Ex-Doctor Who Magazine editor and reviewer) and Dave Houghton (FX supremo for the first few years of new Who) as David knows them both from meeting at these sort of shindigs before - Gary was also a contemporary of mine and David's at Durham University back in the day, but he doesn't remember me, I don't think, as we didn't move in the same circles. After that, the three of us repaired to another hostelry, drank and talked happily until late. I travelled home with the included-in-the-price DVD in my bag, given out at the box office after the show - someone had clearly learnt from the mistakes of last year, when the animated Power DVDs took weeks to be mailed out to attendees.

In Summary:

It's new old Who, and new old Douglas Adams Who at that, as an early Christmas present: how can one fail to be happy? One final word, then: Shaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-dah!!!!!