Bucket? Check. Toilet plunger? Check. El Reg's 50 years of Doctor Who Fifty years ago in November – on November 23, to be precise – the BBC broadcast its first episode of Doctor Who. It was the start of what, in the world of JJ Abrams, we’d call “a franchise”. Just two TV programs have matched the Doctor for endurance and survival: Coronation Street and Blue Peter. In five decades the Doctor’s …
Yes, and honorable mentions from other countries like Sazae-San. True, it's a mere 45 years old, but has some 2500 episodes to Dr Who's trifling not-quite-800. And in any case the Doctor's 16-year hiatus really ought to take the show off the "longest-running" list.
All that said, I'm glad they brought it back, and that it's made it to 50 even with a bit of a holiday in the middle.
"So worried were the Beeb by its viewers’ potential inability to process more than one televisual event they re-broadcast the pilot."
I was always under the impression the BBC had been deluged by requests to repeat it as so many people had missed it.
"Then the BBC ended the Doctor’s run in 1996"
Nope, they ended it in 1989 - 1996 was the "movie" that they hoped would result in a new series.
Except that wasn't for the UK market, it was supposed to kickstart a US series which the BBC would then buy back for the UK market (hence why it was set in Los Angeles and not Cardiff). The project was then cancelled when US reaction was fairly negative (hey who knew, they actually preferred the low budget UK version with dodgy script writing).
The reason it failed was because the US directors, in thier infinite wisdom, placed The Eye of Harmony inside the Tardis itself, and since The Eye of harmony is actually a black hole surrounded by a time field that stops it's decay, placing it inside the time field of the vessel it is supposed to power would lead to catastrophic consequences....hence the new series ended before it began, an eminently fitting result I would say!
Sorry to have to say this, but the producer and director of the Doctor Who TV movie were British. Admittedly, I don't think they had a single clue what makes the series work, so ended up producing a generic actioner featuring a time traveller in a strange blue box (although he wasn't in that much) rather than what felt like Doctor Who.
That is truly, truly sad. Because as a 'Merkin I was willing to apologize for the way our writer/director team made such a hash of it by trying to Merklinize it.
When I watch Dr. Who I want a British Doctor. I could probably tolerate an Australian or Scottish one though Irish would be pushing it a bit (and my dad is Irish so I'm not slighting them and certainly like it when one of his companions is). But the whole charm of the show is precisely that it IS a British show.
There's actually a dirty little secret about the US TV movie. Back at the time a US based writer told me a couple of weeks before it aired that it wouldn't never go to a series.
Fox, the US network who were funding it had 1 slot to fill. They could buy in Doctor Who from Universal (who made it) or make their own sci-fi series called Sliders. Fox bosses preferred the Sliders options as although it would have a higher initial cost, they would own the show and could recoup the costs from overseas sales, VHS etc. With Who the BBC and Universal would be creaming off all the cash with Fox just buying in a rather expensive show with no hope of a return.
So despite all the obvious flaws with the US pilot and the low ratings, it would never have made a series anyway. Doomed before it even aired.
The Eye has been depicted many ways in series old and new. He's even managed to break a piece off (a crystal) somehow, and on another occasion entered it. The fan interpretation is that the Eye isn't simply a physical object, but more of a region of space-time. Like the tardis, it may be bigger on the inside, and being trans-dimensional pieces that appear disconnected in 3-space may still be a part of it.
It's also speculated the Eye in the tardis, the big one on Gallifrey and the ones in all other tardisses are actually one and the same - a many-dimensional structure which just intersects our space at those locations.
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Cushing played a human called Doctor Who who invented a time machine called the Tardis. He didn't play the Gallifreyan Timelord called "Doctor" "The Doctor" or "John Smith".
A bit like Bob Holness played James Bond once, but rarely is he referred to as one of the actors that played James Bond.
I think it is entirely fitting that some one makes up the fact that Danny Baker made up the fact that Bob Holness played the saxophone on Baker Street. It'd teach Marconi a lesson for a start!
We can then make up the fact that Danny Baker was in fact first blamed by Holness in an interview before he died, and the entire "fact" disappears into infinitely recursing fiction.....
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Cushing played a human called Doctor Who who invented a time machine called the Tardis. He didn't play the Gallifreyan Timelord called "Doctor" "The Doctor" or "John Smith".
Well, come to that, neither did William Hartnell. The timelords were invented as a plot device written for Patrick Toughton so he could be turned into John Pertwee if I remember right.
But I seriously don't care enough to wade through the Wikipedia to "prove" it either way.
Hartnell you can Treknology into the Gallifreyan framework. They never specified where the TARDIS came from in the show and it was rather apparent that it wasn't from the timeframe in which the show was set. So you can backfill the Toughton storyline back to Hartnell without breaking continuity. Not that they seemed all that concerned about continuity in the Hartnell years, but at least they never broke anything so badly you couldn't explain it. Which sort of will be a problem after the next doctor. Yes, yes. I know they'll JR Ewing away the problem somehow but it will still irk me.
A metal mesh waste paper might be better used than a bucket, that way your vision is not impaired.
Several of these mesh type buckets, have gladly sacrificed themselves to be cut up & been incorporated into the neck of my replica Genesis Dalek (24 days left until project completion date).
www.projectdalek.com
Great writing from, among others, Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy man Douglas Adams and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman
The jury is out on Gaiman's contribution, I believe. Doctor's Wife good, Nightmare in Silver not so good.
I was going to go the whole hog and suggest
"Great writing from, among others Robert Holmes - there fixed that for you"
May I point out that it's a sink plunger.
It clears blockages by establishing a seal around the lip of the plunger, which allows the operative to send shock waves down the blocked pipe by vigorously working the plunger while crying "Exterminate!". This would never work in a toilet because the outlet is too big for the seal to cover it.
@frank ly: You're correct in identifying "operative" as an adjective, but mistaken in thinking the usage wrong.
"operative" in this context is an instance of an adjectival noun. The missing "man" or "person" is understood. Adjectival nouns are more common in inflected languages than in English, although there are plenty of English examples, because the inflection of the adjective supplies information about the implied noun. They aren't a recent invention, either; "cetera" is Latin for "other things", where "-a" is the neuter plural ending that implies "things".
That said, I have to agree that the "operative" usage carries overtones of officialese, perhaps because it de-humanises an operator by reducing him to one of his attributes. I think that's why I chose it.
"This would never work in a toilet because the outlet is too big for the seal to cover it."
Bollocks and double bollocks. I've used a bog-standard sink plunger to clear blocked toilets of all sorts of designs, from quite old to bought in the last ten years, and they work just fine.
A closet plunger has a different shaped lip it is true, but I expect that is so people can rest assured the plumber isn't unblocking their washing-up sink with the same one they just used to get last night's dinner to go away and stop taunting everyone.
I've used a bog-standard sink plunger to clear blocked toilets of all sorts of designs
As have I, but a closet auger is really the proper tool for that job. Faster and easier, and better able to dislodge hard, insoluble objects that are stuck in the toilet's trap but will fit down the drain line.
I've seen warnings that overpressure from a plunger might cause a drain line to separate, but if your drain is that fragile it'll be failing soon anyway. It's more likely to push waste water through the wax closet seal (on a traditionally-sealed toilet), if the clog is actually below the toilet in the line, but again only if the gasket is close to failing anyway.
On the other hand, on Parenthood the other day, a mishap with a toilet and a 1/4" plumber's snake somehow caused water to fountain up out of ... the floor? It wasn't clear. But no doubt a highly accurate depiction of some rare and obscure failure mode.
Good luck using one on a modern commode - and possibly void your warranty while doing so.
The *point* of a plunger is more in the suck than the plunge if used properly - forcing stuff that is already bottlenecked will just jam it more firmly and *will* separate a sink j-bend.
The idea is to apply suction to pull the clog out and give it another chance to swirl away as designed.
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