#Home for Whovians

[afaimsblog]

Doctor Who auf Disney+ - Über ein Jahr später und was sich dadurch alles verändert hat

Weihnachten nähert sich mit großen Schritten, und damit auch das diesjährige "Doctor Who"-Weihnachstsspecial - vermutlich. Zumindest die BBC wird es am 25. herzeigen, Disney+ theoretisch auch, auch wenn das auf den offiziellen Dezember-Listen im Gegensatz zum "Simpsons"-Weihnachtsspecial nicht vorgemerkt war. Und ob wir wieder so etwas "lustiges" wie keine deutsche Tonspur ohne Vorankündigung geschenkt bekommen, ist natürlich auch noch unklar. Gerüchten zur Folge soll der unbeliebte mitten in der Nacht Simulcast-Zeitpunkt verschwinden, aber so genau weiß das keiner, weil Disney+ ja leider irgendwie regelmäßig darauf vergisst, dass sie nun die internationale Heimat von "Doctor Who" sind und sich entsprechend um die Franchise kümmern sollten.

Nicht nur die Fans sind unzufrieden, inzwischen scheint auch RTD daran zu zweifeln, ob es eine längerfristige Zukunft für "Doctor Who" auf Disney+ gibt, wobei natürlich das Internet nur zu gerne Gerüchte darüber befeuert, dass es keine Staffel 3 mit Disney-Geld geben wird oder die Serie gar ganz eingestellt wird. Während Letzteres irgendwie doch sehr unwahrscheinlich ist, kommen Eheprobleme zwischen RTD und Disney nicht aus dem Nichts. Sie begannen schon bei der ersten wahren Disney+-Produktion, sprich beim letztjährigen Weihnachstspecial, als Disney verlangte in einer Serie namens "Doctor Who" den namensgebender Charakter doch auch schon eher früher als später vorkommen zu lassen, vor allem wenn man es mit dem Sozusagen neuen Pilotfilm zu tun hat. Und wie es scheint, scheinen die damals begonnenen kreativen Differenzen während der Produktion von Staffel 1 und 2 nicht weniger geworden zu sein.

Disney+ betreibt im Grunde ja auch überhaupt kein Marketing für die Serie. Die alten Folgen von New Who streamen sie bei uns ja auch nicht (wer weiß wo die sind, seit sie vor gefühlten Urzeiten von Netflix verschwunden sind, sind sie Missing in Action), von Classic Who ganz zu schweigen (da findet man ein paar auf PlutoTV), und meistens ist der einzige Hinweis auf neuen Folgen das Rechteck auf der Disney+-Startseite, wenn man lange genug wartet um alle vorhandenen Rechtecke mit den Empfehlungen durchzusehen.

Ja, ich vermisse den alten deutschen Who-Dienstag. #HomeforWhovians hat sich offenbar auf Bluesky zusammengeschlossen um trotz allem weiter am Dienstag zusammen Who anzusehen, aber die schönen Zeiten als man einfach One aufdrehen und jeden Dienstag den Doctor ansehen konnte, sind für immer vorbei. Vermutlich droht dem Sender nun auch unter anderem deswegen das Aus. Bis letztes Jahr konnten sie zumindest Dienstags ein fixes Publikum verzeichnen. Ja, sie haben es mit der Neuauflage vom "Doktor und das liebe Vieh" versucht und zeigen andere britsche Serien am Dienstag, aber letztlich dürfte ihnen das Publikum fehlen. Natürlich will das Deutsche Öffentlich Rechtliche sich nicht verschlanken, weil sie uns kein "Doctor Who" mehr zeigen, sondern aus anderen Gründen, aber dass die Einschaltquoten auf allen ihren Spartensendern nicht mehr so gut wie früher sind, ist unbestritten, und im Fall von One spielt der Verlust von "Doctor Who" da sicherlich auch mithinein. Dass diesem jetzt auch noch der Verlust von One (okay, ohne Who kein allzugroßer Verlust aber trotzdem), ZDFneo (das ist allerdings ein Verlust, Hände weg!) und sogar 3Sat (nicht so einfach wie sie denken umzubringen) und Arte (ebenfalls nicht so einfach wie sie denken umzubringen) folgen soll macht alles nur noch schlimmer. Es mag sein, dass es zu viele Spartensender für das heutige Publikum gibt, aber gerade diese Sender sind das, was noch am ehesten - abgesehen von "Tatort" am Sonntag - vom deutschsprachigen Publikum auf dem Deutschen Öffentlich Rechtlichen angesehen wird. Disney+ jetzt die Schuld zuzuschieben wäre falsch, weil es zu vereinfachend wäre, aber ...

... der Verlust von "Doctor Who" ohne Wiederkehr war irgendwie der erste Hinweis auf den Anfang vom Ende. Umso mehr, wenn man bedenkt, dass die Streamingblase, die das normale Fernsehen beschnitten hat und hätte ersetzen sollen, ja bereits wieder am Platzen ist. Stellt euch mal vor die halbieren wirklich ihre Spartenkanäle, danach geht's dem FreeTV an den Kragen, und dann gibt es auf einmal keine brauchbaren Streamer außer Prime Video mit Massen an Werbung verseucht mehr bei uns. Und das in Zeiten, in denen immer weniger physikalische Medien veröffenlicht werden. Dann stehen wir alle dumm da.

Klar, dank den Folgen der Pandemie, den Kriegen und der Inflation hat keiner Geld übrig, aber was hatte die Erde davon, dass UNIT defunded wurde? Ja, genau, also bitte warum alles aufhören, beenden, abdrehen und ignorieren anstatt das zu Feiern was man hat?

Nun ja, wir können nichts gegen die Pläne vom deutschen Fernsehen tun, und auch nichts gegen Disney+s Ignoranz gegenüber "Doctor Who", aber wir können festhalten, dass beides falsch ist und uns nervt. (Und hoffen, dass Staffel 2 besser ist als Staffel 1 und Moffats Weihnachstspecial die Leute wieder mehr auf positive Art und Weise über Who reden lässt). Und das immerhin besser als alles einfach nur stumm zu schlucken.

[terranceholdsapencil]

Fighting the urge to add the entirety or the jekyll and hyde musical to my doctor who playlist now that Ive listened to Master hmmmmmmm

[hopdenerd]

"I don't like multi-Doctor episodes" respectable but please consider: I DO

[twelfth-doctors-browser-history]

Whovians be like "I really hope the Doctor comes for me so I can go on adventures and travel space and time and save worlds and make amazing friends and get traumatised and die and get resurrected multiple times and go to war and and lose everyone I ever knew and watch whole planets die and get abducted by homicidal aliens and feel the most agonising pain a human can feel so my best friend has to sacrifice himself so I can go home and forget I ever met him and continue with my mundane life if I survive that far omg it would be sooooo fun!!"

[gornwen]

A decade ago, give a few years, I knitted my dad a Christmas Stocking. My dad, being a man of a certain age and income is very good at taking care of himself, making him incredibly difficult to find gifts for and has told me not to spend my non-profit salary on him. He enjoys being a dad and enjoys being able to take care of his kids.

Which is why I knitted him the Christmas Stocking. Fresh out of grad school and working in a yarn shop on the other side of the country, I wanted to be sure to get him something he would cherish. He's a Whovian (Tom Baker, if inquiring minds want to know) and my shop carried the absolute perfect TARDIS blue yarn. Worn blue, Nine blue, not Amy Pond's front door blue. As all good folk know, both the TARDIS and Christmas stockings are bigger on the inside.

I hung it up secretly early on Christmas morning. And when he came down stairs I heard his little "Oh!" he does when he's excited. Perfection. And perfectly paired with a full day's worth of Christmas Specials.

Fast forward to this weekend, I get a call from home while planning my trip home for the holiday. Amongst other things I mention I have not been able to find my handkitted Christmas stocking for my home here in time for Saint Nick's. I hear my Mum go, "but I don't have a handknitted stocking."

And from behind her "I do!"

"No Mum, I'm looking for the ones I knit for Princess, Handsome, and I."

"But I don't have a handknitted stocking."

"I Do!"

"But I can't find the ones I made for here."

"I know where mine is!"

And Dad does, it's hung on the mantle with care. And Mum's is now... well it is a sketch in my knitting journal and will soon join Dad's there.

And I still don't know where ours are.

[kottekonst]

Part 8 of my sharing Whovian coffee paintings 😊

We have reached the 12th Doctor, depicted in a familiar pose. Someone at a convention had the excellent idea to buy a print and put it in their home library 😂

Painted with instant coffee on smooth, heavyweight paper.

I especially enjoyed this WIP-snapshot when he was looking very demonic 😂

[kyriefae]

Being a Whovian is sincerely so much fun.

This show is so many different things to so many people but what I think truly makes it special is not just the change it forces on us as an audience but the way it pushes us subconsciously to give up on purism.

"Your Doctor" was <insert amiable character traits> but the current one doesn't represent that same persona? Pity. Almost like we can be different people all throughout our lives...

You ever hear someone say like..."it's fine it's just not for me"?

I wonder how many people who say that about the newest Doccy Who seasons genuinely think in their heart of hearts "actually this is garbage and you should agree with me that it is garbage" because those two are not the same thing at all! 🤭 Ugh, I can't help my incredulity sometimes. Maybe the internet adds to the expectation of toxicity. ...or I just spent a lot of time growing up around cynical assholes that hated fun. *shrug*

More to the point! 😅

Pick an era of this show; pick a doctor and you'll be transported to a world more or less unique to them. That's pretty cool if you ask me. They still have that silly multidimensional blue box; they still have two hearts (even if it didn't become canon until their 3rd incarnation)...and yes they still pick up stray humans (...usually young, petite British women from whatever decade said Doctor conveniently and sequentially visits).

But maybe to really hit home on what I mean about this show tackling purism in its audience's mind...it's always been a silly sci-fi show meant to elicit joy and wonder out of children. Additionally so, to help adults retain that same joy and wonder in their own lives by reflecting on the excitement that comes from infinite possibilities only possible when traveling with a genderfluid space alien that wears extraordinary clothes and hands out candy like it's already gone out of style. Oh and you become the universe's only hope the moment you step into another time or location lol.

Sometimes when we love something, we take it very seriously no matter how absurd it truly is at its core. We may not even notice we're doing it but any criticism of Doctor Who really ought to be taken with a grain of salt (and spread out at the very edge of creation...just for good measure). No need to get all salty over a television show. 🧂

So yeah. Being a Whovian, for me, is having the freedom to dive head first into an ocean of lore whenever I desire and really explore storytelling from several perspectives. Albeit many of the early years were written and directed and produced from the perspectives of white, straight men in the U.K. and stories with misogynist stances that heavily limited the functional roles of women in the context of said stories and were also affirmed by narratives and protagonists that failed to question any of it. *clearing throat* Oof, there was a frog back there!

All the same, our heroes of yesterday battled styrofoam monsters breaking through plywood walls built on cardboard sets represented by painted miniatures dangling on strings over a starlit portrait meant to look like space. Even when they couldn't help but be a bit cringe, they were still a silly lil sci-fi show playing at games of the imagination. Like children at play.

Now, we have this beautiful and talented man standing at center stage:

He is all the play; all the heart(s); all the joy we have known in this character but decorated in his own unique way.

My love for this show has evolved and I intend to allow it to continue doing just that. Hopefully we can continue to see the Whoniverse do just the same...instead of getting too caught up in the past. 🫣

Anywho, that's all for now.

Kisses 😘

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Would any of the Animoprhs and related cast be fans of Doctor Who?

I imagine getting really uncomfortable when the episode where Tegan gets possessed by Mara comes up.

What about Stargate? I think Stargate would be canceled because it's way to close to home.

What about a Stargate crossover with animorphs??

Another crossover idea is that series already have their concept of mind control and body jacking and when a Yeerk tries to possess an already “occupied” vessel the first “guest” goes GTFO or vice versa.

Sorry but this is my meat puppet. See Yugioh

I am not up on my sci fi classics! Any folks with Whovian/Stargate/Yugioh feels willing to weigh in?

[clearwingedmaven]

Hello, I'm back with a side fic that I've been working on alongside my original fic on Fanfiction.net! This one is an immense honor for me, as this fic is inspired by the 'Watson is a Time Lord' series by @fruitviking, @jabbage, and @jeremys-come-to-bed-eyes. Once again: Thanks, y'all, for come letting me play in your sandbox for a bit. :) I was wondering what 'The Speckled Band' would look like in that universe, so this fic came about. A two-shot, because I want to give the case the justice it deserves, and the proper Whovian twist. https://archiveofourown.org/works/62004397/chapters/158563504 Please, check out the original story, as well. It's been one of my favorite stories to read of 2024 and 2025, and the world of 'A Picture of Home: Invaded' could not exist without it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/47533717/chapters/119793907 Thank you again! :) Cheers, Clear

[13thdoctorposts]

Michelle Gomez Panel

Please note this IS NOT word for word, but so you can get a general gist of the panel. Both Michelle and Sacha were hilarious.

Whovians of all ages got to ask Michelle questions.

This post is just Michelle’s panel I’ll make separate posts for them together and Sacha’s panel soon!

How’s your New Zealand accent?

Bad I only have one and it’s Scottish I’ve been working on it my entire life… so 27 years. Lol

What was your favourite episode of Doctor Who to film?

I went to set and there was an army Daleks of every variety, and I stuck my 8 year old son in one and they started filming and I didn’t know were he was just that he in was in a Dalek.

Would you like to be in the new series of Doctor Who?

Hell yes, I’m just waiting for the call.

In Who and Sabrina you play a define feminine who was wronged by others what was your motivation to play these kind of villains?

With my face it’s hard not to plays witches and bitches and I long to play a character called Alison but Madam it is. I want to make sure I’m not just playing bad, I believe people are the way they are because of their experiences, so what makes them bad? That’s what interests me in the characters.

Did you like sitting on the throne of hell in Sabrina?

I loved sitting on it and wish I could have taken it home, I would have made room for it.

Did you Ad lib much in Doctor Who?

Steven Moffatt is a phenomenal writer so there’s not much you could add to it. But sometimes on the day something would fit. But Moffatt wrote to my strengths so I didn’t feel I needed to.

Why did you want to help the Doctor?

There’s a thing called a frenemy, keep your enemy’s close. They were originally friends and like all relationships they go through good times and bad times and sometimes they go their different ways. The master went to the dark side and the Doctor went to that other side. I was trying to bring in the nuance to that relationship

If you make it to the new series will you still help the Doctor?

No

If you put Missy and Lilith in a room together would they plot world domination or try to kill each other?

I think they would try each others costumes on. Once I wanted to bust of of Missy’s costume and it was hot so I took the top layer off and thought I’d just wear the petty coats in the scene, and Steven Moffatt was like… what are you doing? This is a children’s show, put your clothes back on. Lol. Lilith got lots of incredible costumes.

Being the last of the Timelords do you think the Master and the Doctor ever had a child?

Wow, I don’t know, I’m not sure the Doctor and the Master have those bits. They’re like Barbie and Ken. The first thing you do with a figurine of yourself is check.

What would you have changed about Missy’s costume?

I don’t think it could have been more Missy, it was a phenomenal image. It sent the message that Mary Poppin’s was the most evil woman in the Universe. There was a corset and after lunch I did hate the costume.

How did you get the role of Missy?

I was offered another part but I was doing psycho bitches at the time so I wrote to Steven Moffatt if you need a villainess I’m your man. Then a couple months later my agent called, said to sit down and that Steven was offering me the role of the Master, I was blown away. I might have planted the seed, I’d like to take credit for it.

If you could travel with any other Doctor and torment them who would it be?

Tom Baker

Do you like being the villain of Doctor Who?

I do. If anyone is listening I do, I would like to come back, stop fucking around, I’m available.

There’s episodes with multiple Doctors why can’t we have multiple Masters?

Because there’s only one! Although Sacha is quite good, I like Sacha.

Were you nervous the first time you were on TV?

Yeah, that was a long time ago on a show called The Bill and I played a ticket warden. The director said to do a banana around the car and slap a ticket on the window. I didn’t know what a ‘banana’ was so I acted like I was slipping on a banana, landed on the ground, the crew looked at me and I just jumped up and they told me what I actually needed to do.

What was your favourite part of being chaotic and fun with your Missy?

They let me piss about with focus, I could be physically free, I could dance and bounce a lot.

Can you share a funny moment on Doctor Who?

I was nervous, it was my first day, Peter and Jenna were there, when I get nervous I over compensate so I grabbed Peter, it’s like I go into some kind of black out, I threw him against the wall and snogged him, had my hand behind my back, because I knew that would make a nice visual, Jenna Coleman took my hand, that was my first 5 mins, it was weird.

What was it like being on set with Peter?

When I was younger I’d see Peter around and he was so cool like the David Bowie of paisley. And I looked up to him. When we started working together I felt like I already knew him, we had an instant short hand, so we crack each other up.

Shouting from the back…

Sacha: Oh so boring!

Michelle: SECURITY, SECURITY!

*Coming soon… there will be a part 2 with both of them and 3 with Sacha… I just don’t have time to post now.

[the-doctors-tardis]

Credit Goes To: @bigfinishprod

The Fourth Doctor is fifty! On 28 December 1974, Tom Baker made his debut on television in part one of the Doctor Who story, Robot

Slides:

1. Recording at home (pic by Sue Jerrard Baker)

2. With Louise Jameson

3. Proudly holding a vinyl copy of Wave of

Destruction

4. With Annette Badland

5. With Matthew Waterhouse

6. With Philip Hinchcliffe

7. With David Troughton and David Warner

8. With Nicholas Briggs and David Richardson

9. With John Leeson

10. A BBC publicity photo from 1974 (colourised by

Clayton Hickman)

#BigFinish #Audiobook #AudioDrama #Audiophile

#AudioPlays #DoctorWho #DrWho #TheDoctor

#TimeLord #TimeVortex #Whovian #Whovians

#Gallifrey #TARDIS #DrWho #ScienceFiction #SciFi

#BigFinishProductions #TomBaker #FourthDoctor

[victorspindrop]

HOA Characters and Fandoms they are in

**NOTE: Second headcanon type post lets go! Love reading peoples responses (Sorry for the Alfie rap erasure you're so right baes) but anyways, thought of this while driving home from college for Easter weekend so enjoy! Also, some of these fandoms I am not even in but they make sense for the characters so**

Nina

-> Harry Potter fandom or Potterhead

-> I mean with the amount of times she mentions Harry Potter in the first episode it just would make sense that its because she's a fan of the books and movies

-> Definitely brought her entire Harry Potter book series to Anubis House with her when she first moved in (but maybe hid it at first because of Patricia)

-> Favorite character is probably Hermione Granger (she loves a strong and intelligent female main character)

-> Dressed up as a Hogwarts student for her first Halloween at Anubis (Fabian dressed as Harry for her <3)

Amber

-> Twilight. Enough said.

-> Girlie has a huge Jacob poster in her room. No like seriously, its in the show

-> I know she had a heart attack during the last movie (I did to)\

-> Obvi Team Jacob

Fabian

-> Doctor Who Whovian

-> This is where we start to get to things I am of little knowledge of

-> Space, time travel, monsters (i think?) it just sounds right up his alley

-> Has one of those TARDIS t-shirts... and a poster...and maybe a keychain... and maybe a secret plethora of Doctor Who merchandise under his bed, but keeps enough out so people know he likes it but not enough to know he is obsessed with it

Patricia

-> Like I stated in my post about the characters music taste, she had a FallOutBoy and PANIC! At the Disco phase

-> I feel like she's read FallOutBoy fanfiction here and there IDK IT MAKES SENSE

-> I feel like she probably had a Twenty One Pilots phase as well

-> All of those fandoms together, she was DEEP in alternative fangirl culture

Alfie

-> HOT TAKE: Alfie watches anime

-> I haven't watched much but I feel like he would watch like One Piece or maybe Dragon Ball Z

->Have you seen all of his costumes in the show, the boy cosplays for sure

-> Puts on cosplay either to watch his shows or just puts it on for the hell of it and then goes about his day (all the housemates have candid photos of him doing the most mundane things in the most ridiculous cosplays)

Jerome

-> This one was hard ngl

-> I feel like he would be more in like Youtuber type fandoms

-> Pewdipie.

-> Ok hear me out, JSclatt. I MEAN THINK ABOUT IT! DOESNT IT MAKE SENSE IN A WAY???

Joy

-> As I stated in my music post, she was a One Directioner

-> Was a Harry girl

-> She wrote and read fanfics on Wattpad (valid)

-> Along with Amber, she is a Twilight fan

-> Unlike Amber, she is Team Edward

-> Her and Amber have had some HEATED discussions at dinner over this topic to the point where it has been BANNED from the dinner table

Mara

-> Ok I know Mara is all books or whatever in the show BUT, I can see her being a cozy game fan

-> Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, The Sims, honestly anything that is a cozy management type game

-> Hunger Games fan for sure.

->Is in love with Peeta

Mick

-> Fortnite.

-> Does Fortnite dance emotes when he scores a goal during soccer/football (whichever you call it)

-> This is a Mick Campbell hate page.

[fortunelowtier]

I can't wait for when media starts being made with the same nostalgia goggles for the 2000s as media now has for the 80s/90s

I wanna watch a supernatural/mystery movie set in 2009/10 about a group of social misfits trying to become famous with the rapidly rising popularity of YouTube by making a fake series "solving" mysteries like it's scooby doo and investigating online urban legends, but one day they end up finding that one of the legends they investigated is entirely true and the rest of the movie is them trying to figure out wtf to do

Like its not like one of those movies where "OOOO THEY UPSET THE SPIRIT AND NOW ITS TRYING TO KILL THEM!!!", it's just like something really mundane, like they discover Mothman is real and just chillin in the woods eating berries n shit and now they have to grapple with the fact that they now know cryptozoology and the supernatural are real and wtf to do with this knowlege

the cast consists of like a Kripke-era Supernatural fan who uses their love of the show to reference it while on their fake stakeout, a Tennant-era Whovian who acts as the tech person, and then the one adult of the group who acts as the straight man archetype whos a 7th gen console gamer who just wants to go back home and 100% the new Fallout 3 DLC

[consanguinitatum]

David Tennant's Obscure TV Appearances: 1989's Biting The Hands

I'm back from my visit with my family and ready to dive straight into my latest find - I'm excited to share I've finally obtained access to David's 3rd earliest TV performance! His first two performances were in 1988: his anti-smoking ad, and in Dramarama: The Secret Of Croftmore. And in 1989 he did a Play On One called Biting The Hands. And I've FINALLY got it! Biting The Hands has been one of the most elusive pieces of work David did in his early years. First, it wasn't a sitcom or an ad but a one-off play, and it was broadcast in the late 1980s, limiting its exposure to those who might be recording on beta or VHS. It was part of the second series of the prime-time contemporary single TV play series, The Play On One (which was itself a re-tooling of an older series called The Play For Today.) Biting The Hands was directed by Carol Wilks and produced by Norman McCandlish. It was 75 mins in length, and was broadcast at 9:30 pm on 11 Apr 1989. Here's the play's synopsis: "Linda and Gail are Hell's Belles - an alternative comedy double act. When success begins to beckon, they must decide whether to change their act or keep doing what they believe in. Are their principles justified, or are they just 'biting the hand that feeds them'?"

The writer of Biting The Hands, Rona Munro, was born in Aberdeen in 1959 and is an award-winning Scottish playwright. She started writing professionally in 1981 and has written for film, television, stage and radio. Biting The Hands was Munro's first play for BBC-TV. Given today's excitement about the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary trailer, it might interest Whovians to know Munro wrote the classic DW story Survival as well as the New Who story The Eaters of Light, making her the first (and only!) writer to do both Classic and New Who!

But Munro has yet ANOTHER connection with our dear DT! For their production of Scotland Matters in 1992, the 7:84 Scottish People's Theatre asked established Scottish writers to consider aspects of life in Scotland and write playlets about them. Munro was one of these writers! She wrote a playlet called 'The Fence' for Scotland Matters which concerned the interrogation of a Gulf War peace protester. In a turn around of questioning technique, we are told the story through the security police and not via the protester. David played the protester Keith!

But back to Biting The Hands - which was produced three years before Scotland Matters and filmed when David was still in drama school. Let's take a look at what the play was about, and go more in depth about its stars: Judith Sweeney (Linda) and Louise Beattie (Gail).

Judith Sweeney (Linda McKay) attended David's alma mater - the RSAMD, now the Royal Conservatoire - and graduated in 1977. She played the role of Sally Shaw on the Scottish soap opera Take The High Road. Louise Beattie (Gail Graham) later went on to star in Emmerdale.

Here are a few more articles on "Biting The Hands" from the time of its broadcast:

Beattie's older sister Maureen has ALSO starred with DT many times! Among these are For One Night Only (an evening of theatrical prose, poetry, and gossip at the Swan Theatre for the 1998 RSC Fringe Festival) and a 2001 staged reading of Medea at the Cottesloe Theatre. More recently, Maureen has played David’s mother in Deadwater Fell, and Kelly MacDonald's mother in The Decoy Bride!

Now we've been introduced to the stars of the play, and we know what it's about, let's get to David's part! His part begins about 47 minutes into the play, and it's a role which makes up a total of about 20 whole seconds. He plays one of three squaddies (low-ranking military) and is in a group of soldiers who travel on the train the main characters Linda and Gail board in Edinburgh to go to London - but he's not seen in this particular scene. After the ladies board the return train back home to Edinburgh, by coincidence these same squaddies happen to be traveling on their train. David's character is the only one of the squaddies to speak, and his words entail wolf-whistles at the two women and calling them "Pet"! Here are some screenshots:

In a later scene, Linda and Gail happen to bump into another friend on the train, and the three open a bottle of liquor and sing and drink. David's character sings and drinks with them. Here are a few screenshots of that short scene:

You may notice in the first set of screenshots David is clean shaven & in the second, he sports a mustache. These scenes all supposedly occur on the same train from London to Edinburgh so it seems there's a continuity error here. Perhaps these scenes were shot at different times?

These short scenes are the only times David appears in the play. He's given credit in the end titles. Of significance, though, is he is NOT credited as the "Third Squaddie" (a designation I've seen all over the Internet for close to a decade). He's just the third squaddie listed.

The BFI (British Film Institute) holds a VHS video recording of Biting The Hands. The copy is in "pending" status, which means it's unlikely the copy can be viewed.

Before I close this post on Biting The Hands, two more little benefits: here are its opening sequence, and its title frame!

[witchofthemidlands]

HAPPY 60TH ANNIVERSARY DOCTOR WHO

My love for Doctor Who & the Whoniverse, the impact it has had on me & how it has shaped me as a person- An Unhinged Essay by witchofthemidlands

I can definitely say in all honesty that Doctor Who has changed my life, it is my favourite television series of all time. There’s nothing quite like Doctor Who & it's spin offs & there’s not enough words in any language to describe just how much I love this show. It has had such an impact on me. Both of my parents are Whovians, my dad has seen it since Patrick Troughton & my mum started watching it when Jon Pertwee was the Doctor, we have Doctor Who coasters & for a long time, my dad even had a framed card collection of the Doctors 1-8 & aliens just around the downstairs bathroom (imagine going to the bathroom & having pictures of all eight Doctors, Davros, a Dalek, The Master, a Cybermen, an Ice Warrior & more staring down upon you 😂)

Through my love for Doctor Who, I have met two of my best friends in the world, my friend from college & my fantastic housemate from uni. It birthed this channel when I became hyper-fixated on series 10, It has helped me through depression, anxiety & has taught me to accept myself. It has also shown me so many beautiful places, I’ve been to three Doctor Who exhibitions, walked down to Durdle Door & I’ve been to Cardiff five times. I was in Cardiff last weekend & saw the place they filmed scenes from Eye of the Gorgon for the first time & it was BEAUTIFUL 🤩 I am so grateful for the existence of Doctor Who, I would not be the same person without it. I’d like to now share a couple of anecdotes from my personal life about the way in which I came to discover this fantastic show.

My first exposure to Doctor Who, was not in fact, to Doctor Who itself. The year was 2007, I was seven years old & I was just at home, after school, watching CBBC when a beautiful program called The Sarah Jane Adventures started to play. It was the episode Warriors of Kudlak & was it the incredible & wonderful Sarah Jane Smith? The fantastic & lovely Maria Jackson, the brilliant & hilarious Clyde Langer? The socially awkward Luke Smith? I’m not sure what it was about this show that made me become instantly attached but I did & from that day on I watched series one of The Sarah Jane Adventures RELIGIOUSLY. I watched it over & over again. Sarah Jane Smith was my hero & I loved her so much, she was clever, fun, looked amazing & I can just remember thinking she was so cool, I just really loved that character, I still do even now, I will always love Sarah Jane. I watched series one of that show until my parents, got sick of seeing it & decided that it was time that I started watching the show that started it all, Doctor Who.

The exact date I started watching Doctor Who was the 5th of April 2008. I was eight years old & my parents had decided that I would be watching the new season of Doctor Who with them. I did not know what to expect, I was used to Sarah Jane. I’d heard of this Doctor of course but I had no idea what I was in store for but all I can say was that eight year old me's mind was BLOWN & I’ve never looked back. I’ve watched Doctor Who ever since. I saw my first Doctor, the Tenth Doctor played by David Tennant & my first companion, Donna Noble played by Catherine Tate & I just loved them. Their energy, their humour, they were fantastic. The scene where they find each other again at the window is just brilliant. There was so much in that episode, every time I rewatch it I keep thinking to myself, no wonder I became the Whovian i am today after witnessing that masterpiece & IT ONLY GOT BETTER FROM THERE!

Of course, I do have to take a moment to talk about my favourite scene in Partners in Crime which is where Wilfred Mott waves Donna & The Doctor off at the end of the episode. Wilfred Mott reminds me of my own grandad in the way he was so kind, how he supported his granddaughter & was just a really beautiful soul. That moment where Wilfred is cheering is so euphoric, it is pure happiness & is what made me fall in love with Doctor Who. It is one of my favourite moments in the entire Whoniverse.

I would have to say that my favourite scene in the Whoniverse of all time is in my favourite episodes of Doctor Who, The Stolen Earth & Journey's End. Nothing has ever quite captured the joy of Doctor Who for me like that scene where The Doctor, Donna Noble, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones & Jackie Tyler (well, not really 😂) are flying the Tardis, bringing the Earth home, Song of Freedom is playing & on Earth Luke Smith is holding onto K9 & cheering, Gwen Cooper & Ianto Jones are holding on for dear life, Wilfred Mott & Sylvia Noble are watching their house shake & Francine Jones, smartest of them all, has got under the table. & then in the most beautiful, happy moment, everyone on the Tardis is embracing at the end of it. Nothing will ever quite match the joy I felt watching that for the first time & the emotions it makes me feel now.

I got my first exposure to Classic Who when I was nine years old & it had been announced that David Tennant would be stepping down as the Tenth Doctor & Matt Smith would be taking his place. Now, I’d seen the transition between Nine & Ten, I knew other people had played the Doctor & I loved Christopher Ecclestone as the Doctor but I just remember being very negative about the Tenth Doctor regenerating & I went through a phase where I didn’t want to watch Doctor Who & went back to just exclusively watching The Sarah Jane Adventures, of course now, I welcome new regenerations, I’m so excited to see what Ncuti Gatwa brings to the table because I loved him as Eric Effiong but back when I was a kid, regeneration was just not something I was keen on at all.

Now my nana had watched it since William Hartnell was the Doctor, my dad had watched the Doctor since he was Two & my mum, since he was Three so they were determined to show me that other versions of the Doctor have been fantastic in the past & they decided on this random Saturday night that I should be exposed to Doctor Who The Movie.

I loved that film, I really did. I haven’t seen it in a long time & I always think that I must have dreamt up some elements of the plot but NO, the plot of that film is something else, it really is. It’s camp, it’s funny, it has the best Tardis interior ever, it’s absolutely balls to the wall unhinged but IT HAS HEART, Paul McGann is THE Doctor & the fact he didn’t get a season after this I don’t know because he was brilliant. Honestly The Night of the Doctor changed me fundamentally as a person when that aired. If the rumours are true about the Eight Doctor coming back for a show, I am going to be the most annoying person on this site. I am going to lose my mind.

Now I genuinely think the reason I have such love for the Seventh Doctor is because my first real impression of this Doctor & Classic Who was Seven getting shot by a gang outside his Tardis 😭 which is I think why in my teens when I went into my local HMV the first Classic Who DVD's I picked up were Third & Seventh Doctor era serials. The Seventh Doctor is a brilliant, Machiavellian scheming little gremlin & I love him more than anything & I just fell in love with Classic Who, I really did because I’d seen the Third Doctor appear in a flashback in The Sarah Jane Adventures, he was also my mum’s first Doctor & I knew I had to see a full episode of his & he was a wonderful, the first time I saw a serial of his properly, he reminded me of Twelve.

Another story I would like to share is a Doctor Who related moment that brought me & my uni housemate to our knees at 2 O’clock in the morning on 27th of January 2020 when I was twenty year old.

I was just getting ready for bed, casually scrolling through tumblr when I saw a post. Now, I will admit I’d sort of taken a short break from Doctor Who in its 12th season after Spyfall because I was busy with uni so I wasn’t exactly up to date but Fugitive of the Judoon had just aired & I was reading that apparently one of my favourite Doctor Who characters of all time, Captain Jack Harkness had returned to the show now this is the first lgbtq+ character both me & my uni housemate had ever seen on tv, Captain Jack Harkness & Torchwood helped both me & my housemate accept our identities & taught us to not be afraid of who we are & that there’s nothing wrong with us. Captain Jack Harkness & Torchwood were the first positive representation we’d been given in our youth. I knew my friend was doing the bins at the time so I just opened the window & screamed down to him CAPTAIN JACK'S BACK ON DOCTOR WHO!

Both me & my uni friend are still apologising to our other housemate to this day for what conspired next. My friend dropped the bags, ran back inside the house & got the episode going. We recruited another friend of his that loved Doctor Who & the three of us sat & watched Fugitive of the Judoon together & oh my god when Captain Jack showed up, the three of us at half past two in the morning were screaming like it was a sports match, we were cheering, throwing things around the living room, hugging & all in all, losing our minds. Yes, we did wake up our non-Whovian housemate who was not happy but it is a core memory for me & really showed to me just how Doctor Who had brought me & my friends together.

On another note, I will always be so grateful to Torchwood because of that, no it wasn’t perfect & no neither was Doctor Who in terms of representation but it mattered to me, it mattered to my friend, it was important for us to see Captain Jack Harkness kiss a man (alien) on our screens when we were growing up, for Ianto Jones & Captain Jack Harkness's relationship to exist, for me to see Gwen Cooper kiss a alien presenting as a woman & to also see Toshiko Sato also kiss an alien presenting as a woman.

When it comes to favourite Whoniverse characters, I love every Doctor there is no version of the Doctor that I don’t love. I’d have to say that the Tenth Doctor is my favourite version of the Doctor & that Donna Noble is my favourite companion because of their significance to me but all in all if I had to choose, I’d say my favourite Doctor is The Ninth & the Tenth, the transitions between the two are so seamless. The fantastic Christopher Ecclestone & brilliant David Tennant will always be my favourite versions of the Doctor. The same way that Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, Billie Piper as Rose Tyler & Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones are my favourite companions. I have a definite soft spot for Rose Tyler because she was my nana's favourite as well, Martha Jones because she’s so brave, clever & beautiful and of course, Donna Noble because she is brilliant.

I have to mention the spin offs because it’s The Sarah Jane Adventures that began my adventures as a Whovian, other than Sarah Jane Smith herself my favourite character was always Maria Jackson. That girl meant the world to me when I was seven, I loved her, oh I loved her so much she was fantastic, kind, clever, amazing & I was DEVASTATED when she & her brilliant dad, the best tv dad to tv dad ever, Mr. Alan Jackson, went to America at the start of series 2. I’ve always liked to imagine that Maria turned out to be a lesbian like I did because I, very much like Maria was also ✨attached✨ to Sarah Jane Smith.

Clyde Langer, Clyde Langer is getting his own paragraph because of how much he means to me. I think I’d had to say that Clyde is my favourite over all because apart from Invasion of the Bane, Clyde was there from the start to the end of The Sarah Jane Adventures & I loved him, he was the funniest character around the stuff he came out with was comedy gold, he was resourceful, sweet & one of the most incredible characters in the entire Whoniverse. He may be my favourite male character in the entirety of the Whoniverse.

Seeing Daniel Anthony as Clyde Langer again in Tales of the Tardis has made the 60th for me, out of everything we’ve been given for the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, David Tennant & Catherine Tate, new Murray Gold music & RTD back as showrunner, everything I’ve ever wanted & more and yet none of that means as much to me as seeing Clyde Langer again did.

Talking of Whoniverse spin off characters that have my heart in a choke hold I have to talk about my favourite CLASS character. I have to talk to you all about Ram Singh, my SON, my lad who can do no wrong. The sweet boy who loved his girlfriend so much, who suffered more tragedies & pain than any other character in the entire Whoniverse other than the Doctor did in only eight episodes. My guy lost his leg, watched his girlfriend get butchered in front of him, watched another woman get torn apart by an alien in front of him, watched his loving, wonderful dad (who was also one of the tv dads of all time) get killed by an alien & then had to watch his friend kill his new girlfriend who had just professed her love to him. I just love him, I really do, he started off rather mean but he grew as a person over the course of the series.

Now I love EVERYONE in the Torchwood Three team equally, they are fantastic characters who mean the world to me but there’s always that one character who just has something about them that makes me love them the most & that character is Dr. Owen Harper.

I mean this when I say this with my whole chest that Burn Gorman is one of the best actors in the Whoniverse. I mean, I came to Torchwood when I was fourteen for Captain Jack Harkness because I loved him so much & I was so happy to FINALLY get to watch his show but as it turns out, Owen Harper became my favourite character even over Jack who I love more than anything because Owen was just so good. The Dead Man Walking / A Day in the Death storyline is potentially a showcase of the best acting in the Whoniverse. Owen Harper is brilliant, he’s sarcastic, funny, morally questionable here & there, the reason I got into Big Finish, a genuinely good person who did care even if he pretended not to, whose story tore my heart out thew it into oncoming traffic & stamped on it like a herd of wildebeests to the power of mufasa dying in the lion king because oh my GOD the character that Owen Harper was but ABOVE ALL OWEN HARPER IS & ALWAYS WILL BE my favourite ratman. He’s the reason that I met one of the kindest most brilliant people on this site, my mutual, my friend who is so wonderful & WHO UNDERSTANDS the level of feral I reach for Owen Harper & the fact they scrapped his action figure is both of our villain origin stories. @kirstyth you are fantastic, I am so grateful that we started talking, you have shown me some incredible Owen audios & I am on my way to respond to your message now because I haven't done that & I am so sorry but I just wanted to say that I am so grateful that the Whoniverse introduced me to you.

Out of the Classics I would have to say that Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor & Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor own my heart because they were my first Classic Doctors but in this past year I have grown to love the Second Doctor so much, oh he’s just wonderful & so is his companion, Jamie McCrimmon, I mean I’ve only known of this character for a year & I was crying my eyes out during Tales of the Tardis so I can’t even imagine how my dad was feeling watching that when he’d actually seen The War Games when it aired & talking of companions, Ace, Ace McShane, my love. I was still mostly in the closet when I was sixteen & first encountered her but it is undeniable now how much I was attracted to her & I STILL AM! She’s absolutely gorgeous 😍

Of course Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith is my favourite Classic Who companion because she was my first Whoniverse character I ever saw, she was my hero when I was a young kid & quite potentially the reason why I am the deranged lesbian that I am today. I still remember that morning, I was eating breakfast & rewatching The Lost Boy for the millionth time when my mum came in & told me that Elisabeth Sladen had passed away. My mum was devastated too because Sarah Jane Smith was her first companion she ever saw, she’d grown up with her like I had & she’d meant so much to both of us. We were both crying through Clyde & Jo's segment of Tales in the Tardis when they mentioned her. I still haven’t watched Farewell, Sarah Jane Smith in full yet, one day I will.

I can’t finish this essay without thanking Doctor Who for introducing to me to a fellow TimePetals shipper because it is & will always be my favourite Whoniverse ship, the loveliest most wonderful mutual a person could ask for @sallysellsseashellssundays You are brilliant, I am so grateful that Doctor Who brought us together. I love talking to you about Doctor Who & the Whoniverse, it’s one of the highlight of my weeks seeing your messages, they really are fantastic, absolutely fantastic, they are supportive & so kind about my own writing & they are currently writing a fantastic TimePetals fan fiction which has got to be one of the best fanfics I have read in a long time, it’s a masterpiece, they are a genius & one of the greatest writers I know, the way they write the characters & craft the stories are inspired, it’s like watching actual episodes of the show.

Thank you, Doctor Who, I am so grateful that Partners in Crime was the first Doctor Who episode I ever saw & for that (and many other reasons) series 4 will always be my favourite season of Doctor Who, The Tenth Doctor & Donna Noble will always be my favourite Doctor & companion because they were the first & I can’t even begin to explain what it means to me that David Tennant & Catherine Tate are reprising their characters in THREE DAYS TIME 🤩

With all my love to The Sarah Jane Adventures, Doctor Who & Torchwood. I love you so much, thank you for making my life better.

[denimbex1986]

'*****

No sonic screwdriver. No TARDIS. No city-razing destruction, nor stupefyingly cute alien critters. As Doctor Who episodes go, ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ couldn’t be more different from the show’s blockbuster comeback, ‘The Star Beast’, if it tried. Last week’s adventure was Who at the peak of its silly, sugar-rush sci-fi powers: a spectacular kick-off to the show’s 60th anniversary celebrations, precision-tooled to dazzle newbies (Whobies?) and dyed-in-the-wool Whovians alike. This week’s, however — essentially a two-hander — is an insular Gothic chamber piece that goes toe-to-toe with Alien in the spaceship-as-haunted-house stakes. Invoking everything from NuWho favourites ‘Midnight’ and ‘Listen’ to sci-fi horror classics Event Horizon and The Thing, Russell T Davies strips everything back here to remind viewers at home that there ain’t no bottle episode like a Doctor Who bottle episode.

Arriving under a shroud of sworn secrecy (even press didn’t see this one until it aired), speculation had been rife about exactly what ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ would be. Rumours of a multi-Doctor story — Peter Capaldi, Matt Smith, Jodie Whittaker: you name ’em and someone had an in-depth Twitter/X thread red-stringing together a theory — abounded. But while technically this is a multi-Doctor story (and a multi-Donna one at that), it’s not one in the way anybody would have expected. And honestly, amid a landscape of disposable cameos and inconsequential fan-service, that the secrecy is in aid of storytelling rather than stunt casting is a blessed relief.

A comical cold open sees the Doctor (David Tennant) and a newly memory-restored Donna (Catherine Tate) flung back to England, circa 1666. There, the duo catalyse Sir Isaac Newton’s (It’s A Sin’s Nathaniel Curtis) discovery of ‘mavity’ (a communicational mishap) and the Doctor’s discovery of bisexuality (“He was hot, wasn’t he?”). But a classic ‘Doctor-meets-historical-figure-and-hijinks-ensue’ caper this is not. And before long, the Doctor and Donna find themselves stranded aboard a seemingly abandoned spaceship harbouring a threat so terrifying that even the TARDIS has done a runner.

The eerie, empty (save for glacially slow Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy-homaging Chekhov’s robot Jimbo), seemingly endless spacecraft corridors and wheezing hydraulic pistons of ‘Wild Blue Yonder’ represent a stark counterpoint to the crashy, bangy, flashy Meepiness of ‘The Star Beast’. A sublime combination of pneumatic practical effects, soundstages, and nifty CGI made possible by that sweet new Disney dollar, the distinctly Nostromo-esque sense of isolation about the ship aptly evokes the abyss of the episode’s edge-of-the-universe setting. It’s a spatial oddity that serves the plot and augments the tone of the piece perfectly, centralising our focus on the Doctor, Donna, and their unique bond as the uncanny threat they face is slowly revealed. That threat? Why themselves, of course. Sort of.

Revealed in a properly creepy sequence that starts with the slow-dawning realisation that something isn’t quite right and climaxes with an injection of out-and-out Cronenbergian body horror, the ‘Not-Things’ are Weeping Angel-level nightmare fuel. Cosmic shapeshifters bent on universal destruction, the demonic doppelgängers — brought to life with palpable, dead-eyed menace by a multi-roling Tennant and Tate — are able to mimic the Doctor and Donna’s form, manner, and even memories.

This set-up leads to a succession of intricately written “I know I’m me but how do I know you’re you?”-type exchanges — including one particularly fiendish bait-and-switch — that really allow Tate and Tennant to flex their acting chops, underlining their inimitable chemistry in the process. It’s also an opportunity for Davies to really hammer home that this is the Fourteenth Doctor, not the Tenth — and Donna Temple-Noble with a family waiting for her at home, not Donna from Chiswick gadding about with a two-hearted spaceman.

One particular exchange, in which canon-reshaping events of the Chris Chibnall era of the show come to the fore, allows Tennant to really click through the gears as he embodies elements of the Doctors who’ve been and gone since last time around: Smith’s wistful longing, Capaldi’s bone-deep grief, Whittaker’s emotional vulnerability. In about 30 seconds, several years of head-spinning exposition is simply, beautifully reframed. The Doctor doesn't really know who they are anymore, running from reckoning with the weight of all that they’ve seen and done, hoping against hope for somebody else out there to understand — if even just for a little while. No matter whether you’re a hardcore Whovian or don’t so much as carry a provisional TARDIS licence, if you’re looking for a distillation of the show’s essential nature, you’d struggle to find one better than this.

‘Wild Blue Yonder’ is a brutally simple, slickly executed high concept that we’ve seen iterative versions of before in OG Tennant/Tate-era fan favourites ‘Midnight’ and ‘Waters Of Mars’. But, especially when considered in the context of Who’s recent turbulent history, its use here — in a conversation-heavy hour of TV that digs deep into the past 15 years of the show both on and off screen — feels utterly singular. Giving folks the Doctor, with their plucky companion and techno-babble and eccentric wardrobe is easy, Davies seems to be saying: anyone can do it. But without genuine emotion — without heart — all you’ve really got is a pale imitation of something truly great, iconography and nothing more. Lucky for us, then, that by the time the credits roll there can be no doubt. This bold new Whoniverse is the real deal, and nothing is wrong… nothing in the whole wide world. *Sniffle*.

Taut, tense, and frequently terrifying, this spaceship-in-a-bottle episode isn’t just an instant Who classic — it’s one of 2023’s finest hours of TV to boot.'