Canon! Balls!

Hello there, faithful reader. And trolls. I get a lotta them...

Canon. Canon, canon, canon, canon. Canon... I hope you're writing this down. Today's lesson, class, is on official timelines and canoninity. What happened and what didn't? Do Big Finish audios "count" as "real" Doctor Who? What about NAs? Or annual short stories? Short trips? The new BBC novels? DWM comic strips? The Dalek Annual...? Actually, I'm boring myself now.

Some people reckon that "canon" is everything that is officially sanctioned by the BBC... everything, official, with a BBC logo on it. Even thoughs "make your own adventures" books with K9. People confuse the word "official" with "canon". It's not the same. "Official" simply means "paying the BBC to use their product and not be sued for it". That's all. It doesn't mean "actually happened".

Let's start discounting things. Let's go right back to the beginning. Target novelisations. Not canon. Why? Well, for a start they give a non-representative view of the episode they novelise. This isn't a criticism, I love em, I learned to read - and write - through them - but they don't always follow the story exactly. Mal Hulke, for instance, was very guilty of changing things round, Stephen Gallagher too. Ian Marter. And of course David Whittaker's Exciting Adventure With the Daleks rewrites An Unearthly Child (using Bunny Webbers original premise) into a brand new origin story. So target novelisations. Nope.

Whilst on books, what about the NAs? Virgin and the BBC produced hundreds of books under the banner "Doctor Who" from the early 90s on, featuring every Doctor from one to eight. Are these canon? Did these adventures "happen" to the Doctor? Well, nope, of course not, don't be silly. Why? Well, because the PtB nowadays plunder them for ideas. Which Doctor had a brush with humanity in Human Nature for example? Well, obviously, it was the tenth. Not the seventh. Obviously. We saw that. That in itself is enough to discount everything else. Or, if not that, then, em, who destroyed Gallifrey? The Faction Paradox? Or the Doctor in a desperate bid to stop the Daleks? Well, the Doctor of course, he's told us. To our face. The Faction Paradox didn't happen. It's just a story.

Big Finish suffer from this more than any other medium. I love big finish, but which Doctor was locked in with a broken and insane Dalek who was thought to be the last of its kind? The sixth? Or the ninth? The ninth, of course. Who went to Pompeii just before Vesuvius erupted!? The tenth! Not wee Times Champion. How many official adventures has the Eighth Doctor had? One, I'm afraid, fighting the Master in San Fransisco.

Doctor Who is a telly show. That's all. And, faithful reader, let's stop bush beating here, it's all pretend. It's made up. It's not real. But in the Doctor's own personal "history" he can't have a million different versions of the same thing. Even the time travel excuse doesn't really hold water. It's a telly show, and what happens on the telly is all that matters. That's why RTD and the Moff adapt the other mediums. The Moff redid Blink from a very recent Doctor Who Annual. He also redid Continuity Errors from Decalog3 for Silence In The Library (well, at least used the same setting) and RTD paid Marc Platt for the idea of The Rise of the Cybermen from Spare Parts - even though it's just the pulses that are the same. Human Nature is a complete rewrite, by the same author. So is Dalek.

The television series is all. It's all that matters. The rest is fun. It's genius, in fact. It's brilliant drama written by very talented people. But in the Doctor's universe, it didn't happen, it's just a distraction. It's just a way to make money and to feed fans Who when there is none. Licenced fan fiction, mostly. Brilliant fan fic, but just that. Incredibly well written fan fic, but no more. It's no more "real" than if you wrote a wee story for your nan.

Doctor Who has it's own internal continuity problems - UNIT for talkings sake. I mean, what? Where? When? ("Slightly in the future" according to Barry Letts in The Sea Devils dvd, "the real world, but not ours, slightly in front...") So, the Brigadier retires... anyway, you know the score, you know the worms. We don't need the can here. I mean, we have that, we don't really need te rest. People like Terry Nation, Bob Holmes, Terrance Dicks, alumni of Whovian scriptures, bastions of the narrative, those guys didn't give a fuck if it was set then, had been done before, was a bit like this or that, they went with the story, that's all. Eric Saward lost the plot with Ian Levine for moaning about "27 glaring continuity errors" in a draft of Johnny Byrnes Warriors of The Deep. And it was that kind of bollocks that ground the eighties into the ground. I mean, how hard would it have been, rather than get Levine to look at it, to say "hey Johnny, watch those two adventures, eh? Give us a story that doesn't step on toes..." That's lip service to the fans, and that's what RTD does now. He gives us excuses for continuity errors. The Time War. Torchwood. He gives us escape valves. He doesn't need to.

Terry Nation completely rewrote the origins of the Daleks - at least once - but no one blinked. In fact Genesis of the Daleks might contain more than "27 glaring continuity errors" but who gives a shit? It's brilliant!

Canon is an old word describing whatever the pope at that time decreed to be the official turn of events. It didn't have to be accurate, just what the pope decided. Some popes would countermand previous ones. History was rewritten.

RTD in the pontif of Who. I'm sure you'll love the imagery Russell, I can see you in a cassock.. the Moff soon will be. Brilliant! Genius! Fabulous fellows both. What those guys say goes. Full stop. It doesn't make it any righter than the last guy, or more wrong than the next.

It's what we see that makes our "history" or "reality". Doctor Who begins and ends on Saturday teatime telly. The rest is smoke.

Happy Times and Places

Eddie

Planet of The Dead

I think, faithful reader, that Planet of the Dead is going to work better as a prologue to what's to come, rather than a one-off Special, and that the next four - or even all five Specials if you count The Next Doctor - will work best as a whole than as individuals. Can't wait for the boxset.

However, despite the exuberance and bonkers flying bus, Planet of the Dead was a little cold for me. It wasn't the romp RTD promised us, and, in fact, was pretty slim on incident and thick on coincidence. If it hadn't been for the Tritovores magic crystal bus levitating devices Time's Champion, the man who gives monsters nightmares and the last of the Time Lords (cept for the Master, and maybe someone else) would have been munched up by some metallic coated stingrays gleaned from an old Judge Dredd comic, not standing screaming with a flaming torch at the gates of some Greek-sounding Time Battle. Pity that. The Dubai setting - whilst pretty - was, well, pretty bland and very underused. This was, I'm afraid, Who by numbers.

What I don't hold with is others views on David Tennant. He's sparkling in every scene, and slipped back into the Doctor's Chuck Taylors after eight months away with aplomb. The Tenth Doctor is a wonderful creation. Good too, was Michelle Ryan, who I've been banging on about for years, as the faux-companion (technically, pedants, not an ACTUAL companion, of course... no TARDIS trips for her). Lady Christina, whilst Lara Croft inspired and Tom Cruise dressed was a decent character (although how much better would it have been to have started with a Ball in the museum with her in flowing robes and dripping class, only to sneak away and change into the cat burglar - give us a sense of the "Lady" instead of the odd plumby vowel) and a good foil for the Doctor, but, of course, in the end, fell into the "what is it Doctor?" mould of yore. Pity that.

Lee Evans, however, was a revelation. Wonderfully comic, a proper "LOL" and warm and believable. Even his Welsh accent. Definitely someone I'd like to see again, and, as UNIT's scientific advisor, maybe that isn't impossible.

The whole thing however, was a bit "meh" for me. It's always good to see the Doctor back, and I love the little echoes as to what's heading his way, but I feel the effort and expense to get the bus, ship it to Dubai and to use that actual setting was an effort because they could, not because they had to. In the long run Gareth ditched most of The Highest Science for an hours worth of fluff. I think I'da prefered an adaptation.

This isn't a bad episode of Doctor Who. Don't think it is. It's all just a bit "so what?". It was fun, it was bonkers, it was original in parts. But, ironically, the derivitives wasted good ideas, the Tritovores were badly realised and underused plot devices (oh, whilst I'm on about the Tritovores, did anyone notice my stinger...? When first shown I made a comment on Outpost Skaro about the similarities to them and Kocquillion in The Rescue, and, indeed, some similarities in plot. Before long the lauded DWF was declaring that the Tritovore was actually Malcolm in a mask! Hmmm, never learn that lot...) and the rest of the characters two dimensional.

It's been said RTD has run his course with Doctor Who, that his tricks are all out of the bag. I don't think, in all honesty, he would disagree. And, sadly, neither would I. The bonkers-ending and kitchen-sink plots have all been done. This isn't a criticism, RTD has been remarkable as head writer on Doctor Who and shown many, many original and genius stories and styles. But, with this, The Next Doctor and even Journey's End, he's probably leaving himself no where else to go. Except for Mars, I suppose. If you think he's run out of steam, believe me, he has nothing to lose with these next three Specials. By New Years Day we'll have seen him throw caution to the wind in abandon and put our tenth Doctor - and the RTD family - through more than you'll ever think he would.

Planet of the Dead is a nice starter, a prawn cocktail of a first course in a meal that, by the end, is going to leave us all amazed, satisfied and exhausted.

Happy Times and Places

Eddie

The Representation of Doctor Who

Now, faithful reader, before I go on I have to tell you this is not all about fandom. In fact, I've had my fill of that, at least for a while, well, at least the daft flame war malarky.

The way I figure it, DWF is all but ignoring all the nonsense that has goneon, and AWF is actually posting funny blogs that have nothing to do with the carry on in the past. After taking a wee look and stepping back, I noticed that the only places throwing insults around were AWF's comment pages and, we, us at Skaro. I'm a little embarrassed about that, plus, to be fair, I'm getting a bit fed up with being everyone's whipping boy, so, for now, I think it's only right that we all pull in the same direction and just get on with Doctor Who. That's the main thing here, the rest is just t'internet bollocks. So, that's what I'm gonna do.

Now, the "saviour" stuff in my last blog. Guys, come on now, that's a bloody joke! Has everyone lost their sense of humour? I thought irony was our thing! Clearly not, so, like all bad comedians, I've had to explain it... hohum...

Right, onto new stuff.

Has anyone been to the Doctor Who Exhibition in Blackpool recently? Bloody hell! Now, I presume it's been closed during winter. They've had plenty time for maintenance, a lick of paint (2 tins for £20 in B&Q btw) and maybe the odd bit of dusting. I went yesterday and was wholly, wholly disappointed. The older eps are well represented with a few decent props and costumes, but they really need a bit of a clean, and, of course, a lot of it looks very tacky (although, to be fair, this isn't probably its fault, it's more likely what the Beeb gave them. A lot of Doctor Who props and costumes WERE a bit tacky). Things like Sylv's and Peter's hat squashed into an unrecognisable mess, no representation of a "classic" Tom Baker, no, as far as I could see, "original" sonic screwdriver (or new one, for that matter) and some very badly set exhibits of old monsters - a couple of different vervoid displays, oddly.

I mean, of course, there is always a fanboy thrill to see these things close up, but also a huge disappointment when, em, seeing these things close up. But the classic series is one thing, I get why props and models and costumes which are at least twenty years old can look a bit knackered.

What really got to me was the "new" series stuff. What a waste. I know for a fact there is no shortage of new series props and costume. I also know from first hand experience these things are chunkier, slicker and more realistic in real life than ever before, but, em, where are they at Blackpool? A Human Nature scarecrow I think was the newest piece, but sans head, bizarrely. And it seems someone had it away with Jabe's, too. The display is filled with End of the World mannequins, and, as I said, looks not to have been updated, since series 3. There is no representation of new Cybermen with the exception of one helmet and one standee. No new style Daleks either, except a standee, and nothing at all on the Master or Sontarans or Ice Warriors. Not even a Zygon. Oh, but they do have a Navarino! Hmph. A lot of the exhibits are up high, and hard to see, some of the lights don't work in the displays and I noticed a full rail of costumes, up above the display cabinets that were impossible to detail.

Another thing that was disappointing was the condition of the place - there were actually people screwing things in when I got there, and the whole "new" section was grubby and unkempt. There are huge holes in the ceiling, for instance. The mannequins looked like they had been knocked out of natural poses and just left.

Then there's the prices. I'm no mean Scotsman, and I was fully willing to go there and buy the illusive sixth Doctor figure to complete my collection - and Giant Robot - but £20? £7 in Tescos I think! Even Forbidden Planet do it for under £15. They were selling VHS's for a £10! A tenner! For a video! You can by dvds for under a £5 in WH Smiths. And the whole thing cost £20 for a family ticket.

So I was disappointed, I have to say, and since I was hoping to show off a bit to my partner, a little embarrassed by it. I reckon all it would need is someone who gave a monkeys about the programme - rather than just employing "people" - and it could sparkle. I'm sure a request to the BBC would get them new props and costumes.

Anyway, 6/10... must try harder.

Happy Times and Places

Eddie