back to article 11 Time Lords plan charity shindig

The BBC will unite every incarnation of Doctor Who for a one-off Children in Need special in November - with new Time Lord Matt Smith making his debut alongside William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. That's …

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  1. Tony Paulazzo
    Unhappy

    Wow

    <quote>In case you're wondering just how Hartnell, Pertwee and Troughton will be offering their assistance, the source explained: “The actors who are no longer with us, William, Jon and Patrick, will make special cameo appearances, with footage from original shows being flashed up on screen."</quote>

    How high tech <dripping sarcasm>. No CGI Pertwee? Plus Baker (Tom) etc, are all gonna look awfully long in the tooth. I've never said this in an online comments section before, but epic fail! Why don't the British Broadcasting Corporation stick to remaking 'Day of the Triffids'?

    God forbid they should try anything new.

  2. Steve Evans

    Ummm....

    "Never before have all the Doctors been in the same room, let alone in the same show."

    That would be never before except the last time Children in Need did this...

    http://www.drwho.org.uk/7doctors.html

  3. DJGM
    Paris Hilton

    I detect the distinct aroma of . . .

    . . . fresh steaming male bovine excrement. (In layman's terms, bullshit!)

    Paris ... because she'd know exactly what to do with a sonic screwdriver!

  4. Steve 20

    messing with time

    "That would be never before except the last time Children in Need did this..."

    And before that, the 5 doctors, made for the 20th anniversary but first shown - wait for it - during Children in Need...

    Steve.

  5. Liam Pennington

    Time waits for no man...

    Certainly not those actors who have aged somewhat, erm, naturally since their time in the TARDIS. Dare I suggest that this idea, whilst fan-fap tastic, is best left to fiction of a particular type rather than an expensive slot in a telethon squeezed between tap-dancing newsreaders (yawn) and Jade Ewan singing her [already forgotten] Eurovision classic?

  6. Andy 16

    Not going to be that impressive in any case

    Given it's children in need, it will last ten minutes max. And the plot will revolve around having to pick up a phone and donate money.

    Worthy, but hardly an SF highpoint.

  7. David S
    Unhappy

    Bring back the mop-haired, long-scarved jelly-baby-dispensing one!

    "it’s classic Doctor Who – really witty and very sharp."

    So Russell T is being kept away with a cattle prod, then?

    My inner child really, really hates me for saying this, but I rather fear that the good Doctor might be in danger of jumping the shark soon. Possibly in an episode called "Doctor Who and the Shark of Hubris"...

  8. Andrew Halliwell
    Alien

    Re: messing with time

    And before that, done properly, the 3 doctors.

    (No need to replace Hartnell with a different actor or put one of the doctors in a wibbly wobbly stasis thingy in the matrix with that one (cos Baker couldn't be arsed doing it)

  9. David Viner Silver badge

    Been done in fiction...

    ...several times.

    One of the best is here:

    http://comics.shipsinker.com/category/dr-who/

  10. Chris Thorpe

    An idea whose time will have come

    Can't see the problem. Pop in the Tardis with a digicam and come back with pristine colour footage of not only all the past Doctors, but the future ones too. Though the future Doctors may not be interested, due to the special show having been repeated umpteen times before they actually get to act in it.

  11. Dave Bell

    Remember "The Curse of Fatal Death"?

    This is difficult, but, with the New Doctor I expect we'll have a really good producer/writer.

    Not that I wholly trust the source.

  12. Rod MacLean

    2nd Doctor

    I watched a story with the second doctor the other night and it was genuinely scary. Much scarier than most of the episodes since the franchise was rebooted. Very claustrophobic, dark and tense. When the Cybermen started to come to life, I almost wet my knickers. It's been 30 years since Dr Who did that to me...

    I wonder - the plots are now one episode long and quite obviously made with export to the US in mind. Could that be why the scripts have fallen so far...?

  13. John I'm only dancing
    Flame

    All be done before

    With William Hartnell only on screen from original footage. Now that a couple more have turned their toes up...why not just have the new one with all the others spliced together from old footage?

    And is Paul McGann making an apperance in this one if you remember the special they did for the millenium... And what about Peter Cuching.. surely they can dig him up, he was the Doctor in the films in the 1960s.

    And finally...Children in Need is a total waste of space and licence fee payers money. A better way to raise the sums that this self-congratulatory tosh plucks out the pockets of the financially stretched viewer could easily be made up if all these so-called 'stars' just donated a days pay then I wouldn't have to put up with all the 'fundrasing' activities at work and play.

  14. Andrew Halliwell

    @Liam Pennington

    now come on... Even if they HAVE aged, this has got to be better than anything ELSE on children in need that night. It's not had anything good or noteworthy for YEARS.

    Even the last two doctor who children in need specials were just little tagged on bits that would've fitted to the end of the episode or beginning of the next.

    (Parting of the ways, tennant's extra bit and tennant meets davison before colliding with the titanic)

  15. Andrew Halliwell
    Thumb Up

    @David S

    Now come on. Be fair.

    They've got rid of Davies and put a GOOD writer, author of THE best Doctor who episodes ever, in charge. (including of course, Blink)

    WIth Stephen Moffat in the hotseat, I think we can keep that shark at bay for a few more years.

  16. Chris Elvidge

    All the living actors participating in the one-off have waived their fees.

    "All the living actors participating in the one-off have waived their fees."

    So we're still paying the dead ones?

  17. Justabloke 1
    Stop

    Viscount (eldest Son not a biscuit!)

    Thank god for this! it gives me yet another reason to avoid the smugathon... I shall instead go and inbibe a large quantity of beer down my local, providing they are not involved in some form of Woganathon inspired bollocks.

  18. Graham Bartlett

    Not again...

    How often are they going to keep dredging up this old idea? The first time they put multiple Doctors in the same show, it was an interesting idea poorly executed, but now it's a shark-jumping, terminally dull, unimaginative cliche. The horse is dead - stop flogging it!

    Plus if it's a Comic Relief or Children in Need special, track record says it'll be pants. Any time any show does a charity special, it's always rubbish. One day, I'd like to see someone do a charity pitch saying "unless you give us lots of money, we *will* show a clip of us debasing our integrity worse than the Star Wars Christmas episode", and we pay not to have them show us rubbish.

  19. Andrew Halliwell

    @Graham Bartlett

    Poorly executed how?

    I thought it was one of THE classic Who stories.

  20. Andrew Halliwell

    @Graham Bartlett

    Oh, and there HAS been one charity special that was excellently done.

    Someone mentioned it already.

    The Curse of Fatal Death.

  21. Chris Martin 2
    Stop

    Stop

    However the BBC Denies the Dr Who Reunion...

    http://www.digitalspy.com/cult/a161598/bbc-denies-doctor-who-reunion-reports.html

  22. Nic Brough 1

    Hmm,

    I personally don't want my memories of Dr Who sullied by seeing how the actors have aged.

    I mean, I know Tom Baker has aged superbly, but I saw him regenerate when he was young goddammit, and the current Tom Baker doesn't look like Dr Who, it just doesn't work. Exactly as a number of others have pointed out, this is just another damn good reason to go to the pub instead of sitting in front of the idiot box and desperately wanting to throw things at it.

    I can't believe I was posting after about 20 other comments and no one has even hinted at Peter Cushing...

  23. Leon Stringer
    Thumb Down

    Has history taught them nothing?

    Mentioned already: the awful The Curse of Fatal Death, which -- incredibly -- was penned by Moffat.

    But even worse: Dimensions in Time, summarised by one reviewer as "a dreadful travesty". (Amusingly, this is in a tin at the Beeb marked "Not for rebroadcast", actually due to copyright issues, not because it was so awful).

    Oh, and it jumped the shark with the giant Victorian cyberman at Christmas...

  24. David S

    @Andrew Halliwell

    This was my concession to my inner child: I'm not writing the Doctor off yet.

    Look, as soon as the theme music starts up, my three-and-a-half-year-old son reacts with excitement and anticipation, just as I did when I was a nipper. They're doing SOMETHING right. I just wish they'd have a go at resurrecting the several-episodes-spanning storyline format I miss so badly. I'd hate my kids to grow up thinking everything can be solved in half-an-hour with a sonic screwdriver and a liberal helping of deus ex machina...

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    A better Idea

    Would be a mashup of Daleks, Cylons, and dinosaurs. It would make just as much sense and be more fun watching the dinos crunch up the others. Playmobile version please!

  26. Andy Bright
    Pint

    NO!

    11 Doctors my arse. There have only been two real Doctors and including those that preceded them, if they aren't Tom Baker or John Purtwee then they are NOT Doctor Who. If you don't have a perm you can't be The Doctor.

    I believe it's time to start an official e-petition that demands we officially recognise these two as the only true Doctors and maybe an addendum stating only Sean "That's not what your mother said last night Trebek" Connery qualifies as Bond, Jamesh Bond.

  27. Quirkafleeg
    Pint

    Re: @Andrew Halliwell

    Yes – some two- and three-part stories, and (perhaps) two single-part ones. Oh, and could we have the sonic screwdriver destroyed again?

    (Whee! New icons! Must use!)

  28. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    The actors who are no longer with us, William, Jon and Patrick, will ...

    ... do no such thing. They will continue to lie their mouldering in their graves. *Video footage* of the actors who are no longer with us will make an appearance, but to say that means the actors will make an appearance is a total map-for-the-territory nonsense.

    "Never before have all the Doctors been in the same room, let alone in the same show."

    Yes, and it still won't have happened after this bullshit fest either, so I don't see why that's relevant.

    Thanks for the new icon - just in the nick of time too!

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bollocks

    "It’s been a logistical nightmare getting all the actors together and available for shooting on the same days."

    So, many of the "old", still living Doctors have busy schedules, doing what exactly? Opening a car boot sale? Bugger off, what a load of old tripe.

    Oi! BBC, unwilling taxpayer here. If you’re going to spend money on Dr. Who, give kids nightmares. Invest the money in making scary stuff. As a kid, the only scary thing that gave me the willies was the episode where Pertwee regenerated. The only other thing that scared the crap out of me as a kid was watching the film Alien.

    And, if I have to witness the Doctor saying “I’m so sorry” one more time, I’m going to make it my life’s mission to track the story writer in question down and punch them in the face.

    The Doctors escapades should be scaring the crap out of kids up to the age of 13. And fuck off with the gay innuendo please, keep it for that abortion you call Tourchwood,

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Big Brother

    pap

    ""it’s classic Doctor Who – really witty and very sharp."

    So Russell T is being kept away with a cattle prod, then?

    "

    LOL yes they MUST keep RT from even commenting to the real sript writers, they MUST review every single serviving episode to get and keep the flow , and fill in the cockups russell inveted.

    remember he tryed to say there is now more timelords, bull, remember susan was a real time lord, a member of Hartnell Dr's family infact, SHe got left behind ON Earth a few episodes after the very first darlek time ship got we assume disabled in the warehouse.

    theres also ramana the time lord in the alternative space ,i forget its name, adn she was expected to build her own TARDIS remember, then davis wanted us to beleave there were no more darleks, BUT there were, frozen in the Ice caves of david Dr i think it was.

    and many more problems caused by RT and his total lack of consistancy of follow through from earlyer original run Drwho classics, and his obsession to let everyone know his sexual pride and preferences subtexted in his all his crumby scripts, hardly fitting for a family tea time scary show is it...

    now perhaps if they made it a FULL 90minutes+ with pertwee, or at least in his style of scypt has the real UNIT with their comic goody/baddy self contained entitys, and SEA MONSTERS, ray guns,mind control machines and all good things a young lad can get behind and scare the heck out of themselves , play along with dad as the brig, sister as the evil screamy blobby thing and mam as the lady that serves the tea and bacon buttys to the UNIT crews, and rather handy with a cosh to knock the master over the head type excitment, now that might be werth the time and effort.

    , but YOU MUST try and give the re-edits some colour processing, some CGI Morphing between stills to try and generate new sequences ina serious manner, proces and use the original sound tapes to at least create off shot sequences to get the kids imagination going,, ALWAYS keeping in mind the threads of the story and how it MUST relate to old and past stories gone by that we older people DO remember seeing once and had it stuck in our minds.

  31. M7S
    Coat

    Is all the ire above coming from (wait for it)

    CommenTard(i)s?

  32. Neil Johnstone

    A Cushing Blow

    The "Doctor" of the movies ,as played by Peter Cushing doesn't fit into this argument, 'cos he ain't a Time Lord.

    He is a Human, (as in Earth-born) an eccentric, a scientist and inventor with an interest in time-travel machines.

    Basically, he's like Doc Emmett Brown on Ritalin.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    cushing

    arr but Neil, you forget that Peter Cushing films were a virtual exact copy of Hartnell main Dr who story lines, and so it could be acceptable to have him play Hartnell in places with a little thought, perhaps a static morph of the faces from Hartnell to cushing and back a few times, showing a dual personality, a hickup trype reflex, were every time it happened they could intercut them both to progress a sub story line, or something of that kind.

  34. MinionZero
    Joke

    logistical nightmare?!? ... to say the least

    "It’s been a logistical nightmare getting all the actors together and available for shooting on the same days"

    Yeah I bet it has ... A few of them are dead!

    Still, joking aside, I can't wait to see it! :)

    ... ummm... no not see it like my joke, that would be kind of way too scary, even for Doctor Who!.

  35. Bod

    Might be fun...

    ... if only to see how many more pies a certain Doctor No. 6 has managed to consume since last seen ;)

  36. MarkJ
    Joke

    I for one...

    ...salute our money grubbing BBC executive overlords for their ingenuity.

    BTW Dr Who has been genuinely scary for a few years now. If you have rampant homophobia...

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