Changing Doctor Who

I've been a fan of Doctor who for more than 30 years. I sat in my living room as a kid and watched the 20th Anniversary episode, The Five Doctors (oddly enough 2 days before they saw it in England). That was my first exposure to the first three Doctors. My how things have changed since then.

Which is the point. Change happens and we cannot stop it. The way Doctor Who has lasted for 50 years is by adapting and changing. Yes, for a time there was no new Doctor Who on TV, but that time was filled with reruns, audio adventures, and the 1996 TV movie. Doctor Who was never gone, he just stepped away for a moment.

Yet after the phenomenal 50th Anniversary special, there are many who are decrying Steven Moffat's choice to bring back Gallifrey. They say it undoes everything that came before and is too big a change. Seriously? I know there are at least as many people who were not happy with Russel T. Davis' decision to base the new series on that premise.

The one thing I will say right now, is that every person had their own tastes and every comment is valid... from that person's point of view. However, many people make sweeping comments intended to imply a fan-wide belief and that is not the case. Each opinion (even my own) comes from a very personal perspective and there will be those who agree and disagree. I'm making this post in response to those who take these changes too much to heart and don't give the show a chance after that.

And here is the logic. What we have today is not the Doctor Who that Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert, and William Hartnell created back in 1963. The character and nature of the show are nowhere near the same, yet it is the same show. There has never been a big jump, a great change (although there were some near misses) that has altered the show into something completely unrecognizable.

In the beginning we have a fleeing Timelord and his granddaughter and two nosy teachers. I realized it after watching the The Day of the Doctor that the Timelords are personified as the Doctor was originally portrayed - unwilling to get involved. Well, thank goodness for character development. The Doctor has certainly had a lot and yet very little of the mystery of his origins has been revealed. The changes in the early years of the first two Doctors were gradual and subtle. The biggest change came in The War Games. Suddenly we know the Doctor is a Timelord. Not only that, but the Doctor stole the Tardis and his constant interference is a violation of Timelord laws. He is punished with exile to Earth in the 20th century. The show had probably its biggest change ever. Not only did the Doctor change, but the series went from 42 black and white episodes a year to 26 color episodes. No longer did the Doctor fly around in his Tardis, he had to sit on earth and deal with the problems that came his way. That was accompanied by a complete turn-over in the creative team. But, if you look back, this was not a sudden change. UNIT was introduced first and the stories led up to the change.

But it was a change destined not to work for long. The Doctor needed to fly, both as a character and for good story ideas. But he didn't fly far. For many years after The Three Doctors, the Doctor kept coming back. With the departure of Sarah Jane Smith, ties to Earth were broken and the Doctor went back to flying. Then came the Key to Time. A problem to solve that resulted in two seasons of the Doctor having to fly randomly to avoid the Black Guardian.

Probably the single worst decision in Doctor Who history was Colin Baker's Doctor. Oh, not in casting that actor (a marvelous man - just listen to the audio adventures), but in his post-regeneration insanity. That plus a poor story (The Twin Dilemma is very forgettable) coming at the end of a good season for Peter Davison, and it derailed the show. Add to that, Baker's first season was comprised of 45 minutes episodes and only half as many. What made it worse is that when they went back to 25 minute episodes, they didn't increase the number so for the last 4 seasons you have the smallest seasons in Doctor Who history..Baker's Doctor is fine. He is brash and loud and his clothes fit his personality. But the timing and way he was introduced left a bad taste in the mouth for many fans. This is not just opinion, it is reflected in the viewership stats.

Typical of a show in decline, there are some bad stories. The original Star Trek suffered from this its last season as well. Then Doctor Who was gone. Here in the US, we had reruns. By that time it was of all 7 Doctors, including the newly recovered Tomb of the Cybermen. US audiences got to know the full range of the series and slowly it came out on home video so just about anyone could enjoy it. Even the orphaned episodes, the last remaining parts of otherwise missing stories, came out, plus the audio recordings for the missing episodes and then the reconstruction by some enterprising fans. Some of us have gotten to experience the full 50 years of Doctor Who through what remains.

The one constant in the history of Doctor Who is change.

That was true when Doctor Who returned in 2005. This was not the same old man in a box. This was a hurt man in a box. He was haunted by what he'd done (or thought he'd done). Gallifrey was gone, the Daleks were gone. Yet the Daleks came back. And came back in a big way more than once. So Davis reversed his own idea first. He even tempted us with the Timelords coming back, but these were those of the High Council who had escalated the Time War and were so determined to win at any cost. The Doctor had the choice of Gallifrey or Earth and he chose Earth (as he usually does). But this story of Davis gave us the possibility of the return of the Timelords.

Then Steven Moffat takes over and he doesn't give us anything so big so soon. He builds it up for 4 years. He gives us a series of mysteries and the surprise of changing the total destruction of Gallifrey into the hope of Gallifrey's return. It is like the recent recovery of two of the Second Doctor's stories. For years they were lost, presumed that all copies were destroyed, then hope of finding them surfaced (the shipping records) and then they were found (in Nigeria of all places).

Each lead producer of Doctor Who has faced criticism in the direction they took the show. Some have overstayed their time and their decisions had consequences, but few have truly ruined the show. Even now, if you watch the Sixth and Seventh Doctors, their stories are good, the portrayed is solid. They both (along with the Fifth and Eighth) have gotten a very good extension in the Big Finish audio dramas.

So the claims that Moffat has ruined the show, ruined the last seven years of the war scarred Doctor, are out of step with history. Yes, they may not like the changes, but there is little to prove them right at this point in time. Will this change be like turning the Doctor from a reluctant hero into a man of action (the First Doctor), or like his exile on Earth (the Third Doctor), or the Key to Time/Black Guardian (the Forth Doctor), or the Gallifreyan Mystic (the Seventh Doctor), or the War Scarred Last of the Timelords (the Ninth Doctor)? If so, it will not hurt the series at all. None of those have. The only thing that ever has is having the Doctor strangle his companion and bad writing. Oh, and the BBC big-wigs messing with it.

So virtually every change made in Doctor Who by the production staff over the years has proven successful. They know the show, they care about the show, and they are after shows that will please their audience and attract more people. Only two Doctors have been able to sustain more than 10 million viewers for a full season. The First Doctor did it in the second season. The Fourth Doctor did it in 4 out of his 7 seasons. The new series has been very constant, having its biggest success with the specials (the Christmas specials and the 50th Anniversary).

The end point is that change is good. Change the revamps what came before is normal. Change is what gives Doctor Who its long lasting appeal. Each actor brings something new. Each producer brings something new. It's been around 50 years because of change so we should not be so fearful of change. It usually works out of the best and the fans who come after wonder what the big deal was.

Pertwee Era Color Restoration Critique

I recently acquired and watched all the Jon Pertwee era Doctor Who episodes that have been restored to color through various processes. I thought this would be a good time to share my opinions on them.

To start with, Doctor Who had a major change following the departure of Patrick Troughton. It switched from about 48 episodes a season, to 26, went from black and white to color and most of the production team changed. Much of the same practices existed so even though all the Jon Pertwee episodes were converted for US viewing in color, the original video tape masters were wiped. Only a handful of episodes remain as the original PAL 2" video tape masters. Most of the rest that have existed in color were tapes returned to the BBC from the US market. I was fortunate to see virtually all these episodes in color in the early 80's.

But there are several big holes in what the BBC holds. While they have a black and white copy of every single Pertwee episode, they do not have ever episode in color. After a lot of hard work, they have been able to restore the original color to all but 2 individual episodes. The Mind of Evil episode 1 has no color data at present and Invasion of the Dinosaurs episode 1 is missing the blue color data. Other than that, they have all been restored using original color data and those two episodes have been restored using colorizing techniques and the color data from the other episodes.

The two techniques they have used to restore the color leave something to be desired when compared to even the NTSC copies. The first technique was to use inferior off-air US broadcast recordings and overlay the color on the black and white film copy (which has superior resolution). As the original recording was made according to the standards, it was a black and white layer and a color layer superimposed (so that black and white televisions could interpret the signal). This process was complicated by the warping of the image when converted from video to black and white film (the mechanics were to show the program on a television screen while filming it with a camera). The second method makes use of the detail of that filming process. For many of the episodes (except the two noted above), the detail on the film is such that the individual pixels on the television screen can be made out. This can then be converted to color data based on the red, green, and blue pixels and used to restore the image to color.

My critique comes in the inconsistencies that glare when viewing them. Don't get me wrong, seeing them in color is far superior to having to watch them in black and white. And knowing that the colors are original is magnificent, but the errors could be fixed to make this a much more enjoyable and seamless viewing experience.

One of the flaws relates to how the image was recorded. There are some issues with filming a television screen. You end up with some ghosting. It is especially bad when you have portions of the image that are very bright or very dark. Bright areas have a lighter halo around them and the dark areas can be too dark. This extends back to the first six seasons as well. But with the color, it causes a distortion in the colors.

The other major flaw is in color consistency and color ghosting. I must say that the color ghosting only is noticeable in the episodes restored from the off-air NTSC video tapes. In particular an abundance of magenta near darker flesh tones. The real problem is a frame to frame inconsistency. The two processes yield two slightly different results, but it is the same issue. There are color fluctuations that distract. Some ares need some of the colorization stabilization techniques. In particular I recall an orange curtain in the background that had unrealistic magenta stripes than flickered off and on and change position in the scene. In the other process (which I forgot to name as the Chrome Dot technique), some frames loose the color intensity in the middle of a scene. Usually when things move. Both of these issues could be solved by applying some of the colorizing software and some creative computer editing to create a more accurate and realistic color across all the frames. It is kind of bad when a completely colorized episodes (The Mind of Evil episode 1) looks better than the restored color.

But they have come a long way from the colorless versions I last saw. I am suitably impressed at what they have done, but they still have a way to go to get it to a final state. I think they have tried too hard to be faithful to the slightly flawed color in their source material at the expense of the final product. The whole point is to try to make these episodes look like they were never lost in the first place. They have come damn close. They have already tried to restore from the NTSC sources more than once and the current restoration is a vast improvement on the last, but they need another go at it. They need to further compensate for the flaws in their color sources and try to make these episodes look indistinguishable from those that exist as NTSC conversion masters or the original PAL masters.

Just considering the quality of image, I'd rate these restored episodes a three out of five. Just considering what they managed to do with what they had, I'd rate them a five. Just incredible.

Who knows, some fan in the US may yet have these Pertwee era stories on video tape. I think if all the episodes could blend both methods, giving us the best of both methods, that these episodes would then look identical. Sadly that is not possible at this time. I look forward to seeing their next pass at restoration.

The Day of the Doctor - A Triumph

Today marks 50 years since Doctor Who first aired on BBC. To celebrate, BBC America has been taken over by the Doctor for the week (Monday through Sunday), but the magic day was today. At 12:50 pm, here in Colorado, The Day of the Doctor aired simultaneously around the world. (if you care, here is your only spoiler warning)

Very fitting for the occasion, the opening Titles were the original 1963 titles and that set the tone for the entire event. John Hurt, as the War Doctor, is faced with how to end the Time War. He steals an ancient artifact called the Moment. It has consciousness and it manifests in the form of Rose Tyler. If the War Doctor wants to use the Moment, there is a price. The War Doctor does not want to survive so the price is to survive and see what using the Moment will shape his future.

The rest of the story is the Eleventh Doctor in the 21st century, the Tenth Doctor in the 16th century, in a plot by the Zygons (whose planet was destroyed in the time war - Terror of the Zygons never mentioned what war). In the Tenth and Eleventh foiling the Zygon plot, John Hurt sees that his actions will mold his future selves into a crusader to save lives. He goes to use the moment and as he prepares to do it, he is joined by 10 and 11 who do not want him to do it alone.

Then inspiration strikes - a way to save Gallifrey. The Doctor calls all of his selves to use their Tardis's to save Gallifrey. Not just three, but all thirteen (and we get a glimpse of the face of the Twelfth). Gallifrey vanishes and the Dalek fleet is destroyed in the process. Gallifrey is saved, but only the Eleveth Doctor will remember due to the crossed time streams. For the 400 years he lives after the fall of Gallifrey he will continue to think it burned. But now he can try to find it.

And then we are given a sweet epilogue. The Eleventh Doctor is sitting in the gallery looking at the painting of the fall of Gallifrey when the curator comes in. That voice was instantly familiar and the conversation neither confirmed or denied who the actor was playing (was it the Doctor or just a batty old curator). But having Tom Baker, the oldest living Doctor, take part was priceless. And then we were given a shot of all twelve (up to now) incarnations, Second through Eleventh in a V with the First at the center behind them.

Not only was the story complexly woven, it was up to Steven Moffat's normal standard - absolutely excellent. The man did not disappoint. He reshaped the series, removed some of the darkness and opened a new chapter for the Doctor. None of the actors who have been so perfect as the Doctor could have pulled off the role that John Hurt had. It required a different persona and the story weaves perfectly into what we know.

It does, however, remove a regeneration. He has one left that he will use up at Christmas to become Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor. And that leads us back to the last two episodes of The Trial of a Timelord and the Valyard - said to be extracted during the Doctor's final regeneration. Are we about to see a piece of history return? The Valyard was mention in The Name of the Doctor, so it is possible, but we shall see in just over a month.

This whovian  has nothing but thanks toward Steven Moffat for crafting one of the most epic and outstanding Doctor Who episodes of the last 50 years. Bravo.

The Tumultuous Time War

With the release of the short prequel to the 50th Anniversary episode, The Day of the Doctor, we find ourselves in the middle of the Last Great Time War and a few rumors are now fact. Or are they?

The thing we need to be careful of is anticipating just what Steven Moffat has up his sleeve. In the previous episode, The Name of the Doctor, Clara roots around in his timestream and she only glimpses John Hurt's incarnation as the Doctor comes to rescue her. She knows the other 11 faces of the Doctor, even so far as to have suggested which Tardis the Doctor should take in the first place, but she doesn't know Hurt's Doctor.

We are dealing with a Time War. That is not just a normal war, it involves time travel, time is changed and rewritten and what was once true may no longer be. We now know that the Eighth Doctor was caught up in the Time War, but refused to participate, instead he was up to his usually thing of rescuing others and getting into trouble himself. In the prequel (and if you haven't seen it yet, you really should before you read another word) we see the birth of Hurt's Doctor, now dubbed the War Doctor.

The question now is what happens from there. I feel confident that what we are going to see in The Day of the Doctor is the War Doctor's solution to the Time War. Everything will Burn, as the 9th Doctor has said. But what will the War Doctor's actions do to time itself. The Time War is locked. The Eighth Doctor went in, the Ninth Doctor came out, but what lies in between. Do we now have 13 (with the regeneration due in this year's Christmas Special) successive incarnations of the same Timelord, or is Hurt's War Doctor a side branch, lost in the Time War. Will it count toward his 13 total incarnations. And with the regeneration aided by the Sisterhood of Karn (not to mention River Song's regeneration energy), is the Doctor limited to 12 regenerations (giving us 13 incarnations). I feel sure we will get those answers in The Day of the Doctor, but I have no clue what those answers might be.

One thing to consider is how long this television series can last. It can't go on forever, as much as we all want it to. We have seen the Doctor's grave on Trenzalor. How many more incarnations lie between now and then. After the Day of the Doctor we might have a better clue. What better way to celebrate the 50th Anniversary than to answer this question, at least in part. That is assuming that the Doctor is a normal Timelord. He's always seemed to be, though hints were dropped here and there that he isn't.

I can't wait to see what Moffat has come up with for us.

The First Piece of the Puzzle

As Steven Moffat requested when he posted it, I will not tell you anything about this, but here is a prequel, of sorts, to The Day of the Doctor, the 50th Anniversary episode. Oh there are answers and spoilers here. Lots of revisits.  It is a must watch. Very well made. I'll probably babble more on it later.

Click to watch The Night Of The Doctor!

New Release Sale - Dust Between Stars

At last, Dust Between Stars (Zaran Journals Book 4) is out. It is Live on Smashwords and Amazon at the introductory price of 99¢. It will be at that price for at least a the first week.

 

Those who haven't read the previous books in this series might be wondering if they want to plod through three other books before this one don't need to worry. This book stands on its own and is a great place to meet Ven Zaran. There is an ongoing story that carries through all the books, but each book in the Zaran Journals chronicles an episode in the life of Ven Zaran, space trader, smuggler, and troubled soul.

When galactic trader Ven Zaran is accused of piracy, he’s on his own to clear his name.

Independent galactic trader Ven Zaran is wanted for piracy. Trouble is he was no where near the system where the attack occurred, yet the evidence against him implicates him specifically. The authorities seem to be convinced of his guilt and have set one of their best inspectors on the case. Ven chooses to go on the run to find the evidence that will clear his name. He has to use every trick he knows to stay ahead of the inspector. Only adding to his troubles is a ghost from his past who manages to find him faster than the inspector can and knows too much to leave behind. Ven must juggle his new traveling companion and his own investigation while covering his tracks to keep the inspector at bay. Unless he can uncover the real pirate, his career as he knows it is over.

The Grindstone

The trouble with being a writer is that on occasion you need to write. While I do most of my writing the rest of the year, I have had good luck participating (unofficially) in NNWM. This year I am back at it to pen my fifth installment of the Zaran Journals series. If the end result is as good as the idea in my head, this should be a good, action packed, book. I'll likely be only about halfway through by the end of the month, so this may be the last major post from me before Christmas. There is, of course, a special SF anniversary coming up in just over 3 weeks that might elicit a blog post or two, but I have nothing planned right now.

Watch for my new book at your favorite ebook retailer in the coming weeks. Dust Between Stars has plenty of action and mystery and early readers have really enjoyed it.