Doctor Who – The Hiatus

Apologies for belatedly getting in with more Who posts, my laptop battery unexpectedly gave up so over the rest of the weekend I will be getting the remaining six or seven posts out as and when, so apologies in advance for the apparent spamming of your  WP reader.

Today I shall be posting three Who posts as I am running out of time to get them all in before the 50th. This is the first and the other two shall be following sometime during the day at fairly even intervals;

The dark years of Who were not as dark for me as one would imagine.  To a teen like myself, at the time the loss was not felt quite as keenly with other things to distract me such as girls and football and then of course my burgeoning love for books.  Nevertheless Who continued in other forms and kept the polarity of the neutron flow reversed.

With series 27 cancelled, the show had ended its long run on an interesting and new direction, with so much promise but also on a quiet note.  With no discernible closure and the open-ended nature of the show there was always going to be a need for more.

The Doctor Who Magazine (DWM) carried on after the end of the series and still is going strong, thanks to some wonderful articles and of course the loyal fans, its thanks to the intelligent and well written perspectives of the articles that the depth of Doctor Who was revealed to me and inspired me to have a crack at some of my own writings about it.

Interestingly with the cancellation of the show, DWM eventually evolved into a more adult orientated read with the writers forced to focus on the more in-depth issues of the show to keep the interest and circulation up.  It is impressive that a publication that started on 17th October 1979 is still going strong and is not far shy of 500 issues.

Pre-internet days, fan fiction had arguably more of a platform to be published and Who had the New Adventures and the Missing Adventure series of books, which featured authors who would go on to write for the new era of the show.  Such familiar names as Russell T. Davis, Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts who introduced new characters and companions for adventures which are part of the official canon. Although due to the sheer amount of authors writing, some contention exists over was is and isn’t.

Fanzines and the odd convention helped keep things alive during the drought as well, these stirling efforts show a genuine love for a TV show that had the hiatus been within the internet days, then the push for the show to be reinstated by the BBC would have been of epic proportions.

Audio books were soon coming out with spin offs and official Doctor stories voiced by the original Doctor and companions were and are still coming out thanks to Big Finish productions.  The original stories being written add to an already huge universe and keep the thirst for Who from being satiated any time soon and only help to confirm the stature that this show has in television history.