The WIDWWA Newsletter - Issue 3

DDWF’S Notes

Happy 2022 WIDWWA fans! I really hope you enjoyed Christmas and had a wonderful New Year. We’re now in 2022, our first full year where WIDWWA will be live and in-sync with real time, and also due to the fact only 3 Doctor Who episodes air this year, one of which has passed by the time of publication, it means WIDWWA is even *less* likely to clash this time!

Some important notices about this Newsletter include the fact that the Fan Fiction segment has had to be dropped due to a lack of submissions which have been able to be developed in just a month. Please, if you are interested, submit a story! In its place, I’ve put the whole of the ‘Doctor Who: Through Time and Space’ Christmas Special, as released on 25 December on Wordpress. If you have not read this, hopefully this will give you the opportunity to enjoy a really cracking story!

I thought I’d give you a little update on the book too. It’s about halfway through writing, and I’ve revised my original release date, to now fall on the 6th Anniversary of the Season 27 video’s publication. I realise this is several months later than originally stated, but it’s not only because I’ve become busier than I expected, but it’s also because, the book’s going to be a lot more detailed than expected. Also, it will be a really nice way to mark the anniversary. I can tell you that both Amazon and Lulu editions of the cover have been completed and (pretty-much) finalised, and I’ll probably release one of these in a couple of months, and the other about a month after that, to begin the build-up to the book’s release. As stated this month, I do intend to release a book trailer on YouTube to advertise its release. How exactly this will look and feel... you’ll have to wait and see.

January Releases!

Doctor Who: Adventures is back, and Series 3

just

The first 3 of

brand new animated adventures with

have

Bond

you

this month, and

previews here for you,

what’s in store.

All releases will be posted on widwwa.wordpress.com on the dates opposite.

page 20 for a full preview.

News & Announcements

Doctor Who: Remastered Season 8 to Premiere!

18 DECEMBER 2021

The Paramount+ remaster of Doctor Who’s earlier years will continue in January, with thirteen episodes starring Tom Baker as the Doctor. This follows both Season 6 and 7’s release in 2021 on the platform. Maggy Chan says: “Doctor Who: Remastered has mostly gone down really well in the Doctor Who world, as a new and different way to watch the serials that the fans all love, but also as a brillaint gateway to Doctor Who’s earlier years for many new viewers, who may only know Samantha Bond, Adjoa Andoh and Ace Bhatti. It’s a privilege to preside over another set of remastered episodes.’

Mal Young says: “The brillaint team at CBS Digital have done a stellar job on these 13 episodes which will take viewers from Robot to The Hand of Fear, in just a swift 45-minutes with all new CGI which just makes these episodes as special for fans as the previous two seasons. I really hope you enjoy!”

Season 8 will premiere January 6 on Paramount+ and BBC Player, with terrestrial broadcasts on BBC Two beginning from January 8 and continuing for thirteen weeks.

SUBMIT YOUR FAN FICTION!

Your fan fiction could be here next month and in future months! All you need to do, to be in with a chance of being featured, is to come up with a title, synopsis and the first 200 words of your story and then send it to widwwa1989@gmail.com, whereby if I like it, I will ask you to write a full 25003000 word story, which will be featured in a future issue.

If you do not receive a response, then I will have chosen not to go ahead with your story, at this present time. Please can all stories be original, feature a WIDWWA TARDIS team and not feature any returning monsters, unless I ask you to during the writing process.

To submit a story, please email widwwa1989@gmail.com

2021 CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

While working on Through Time And Space Season 2, Tomasz Szafrański had another idea – a Christmas Special, in reference to Doctor Who’s long history with such specials and in similar fashion to a New Year Special he made for his TV medical drama, Echo Serca, a couple of years prior. TVN was ecstatic about the idea – after all the trouble that pandemic caused with production and release of Listy do M. 4, they had decided to pass on their annual rom-com in 2021 and, in consequence, leave the Christmas market to competition.

Despite several attempts, making special episodes of popular TV shows has never really took off in Poland; some major telenovels are shown around Christmas every year, but these are treated as ordinary episodes. Instead, major TV companies, especially TVN, tend to produce original feature-length rom-coms that release to cinemas in December. Due to popularity of rom-com genre in Poland, this approach proved extremely profitable time and time again.

By producing a special episode of popular show, they had a chance to win a small share of it, at the same time not risking that evershifting lockdown regulations in regards to cinemas will lose them money.

Although the idea for the special had appeared during production of Season 2, the work involved from writing and preproduction meant that it was not possible to add to the end of Season 2’s production block. It was instead shot many months later at the end of Summer 2021.

Maggy Chan expressed interest in producing this episode bilingually, much to TVN’s surprise, as the script of Eve featured many elements completely incomprehensible to the non-Polish viewer. This was due to a prominent fan campaign (which originated in Poland, even though it didn’t affect Polish fans at all) to restore the show back to a bilingual format after Chan decided against pursuing it for the second season. The campaign was nasty and features a lot of personal attacks on Chan herself throughout social media, but due to it, Chan did decide to give the show one final chance in this format, and based on how it performed, she’d decide whether or not to pursue it, going forward. The script received a slight rewrite to fit the new format – interestingly, this included adding even more references to Polish culture, as creative team now saw Eve as perhaps their last opportunity to promote Poland abroad and wanted to make the most out of it.

The episode premiered on Christmas Day 2021 on TVN and BBC Two simultaneously. While obvious from the British perspective, on Polish part this release date was actually a gamble – in Poland, it’s Christmas Eve that is a central point of holiday celebrations and a prime time for TV programming. However, disrupting TVN’s traditional Christmas Eve schedule was no less risky, and the whole thing was an experiment anyway, so the broadcaster decided that timeslot expected by the British is as good as any. To further back the dicey release, it was given an extensive marketing campaign.

As previewed in last month’s edition, the full post, detailing the Christmas Special of Doctor Who: Through Time and Space, is presented here...

Overview By TADEUSZ CISŁAK

This thought wakes Pola up on the board of a TARDIS. The Doktor is hyperactive, rambling and touching literally everything around. It’s only after a moment that she notices Pola’s awakening and asks her if she’s alright, only to start ranting how she herself is very confused by her first ever regeneration. Just as she wonders where to head next, an alarm goes off in the TARDIS. The Doktor reads the report to find out that a time distortions have been detected somewhere around Warsaw in 1871 and in 2021. The Doktor suggest that they investigate both of those. She’ll check the 19th Century, while Pola will take care of her time – The Doktor knows she can trust her with this. Pola agrees. Pola gets dropped in December 2021 and searches the area, but for several days in a row finds nothing suspicious. Since the TARDIS did not reappear during this time, Pola figures that it will take a bit and spends her waiting time with her family, which prepares for the upcoming Christmas. While the montage showing these preparations brings us all the way to 24th December, we get an insight into Pola’s thoughts – she contemplates the problems of her generation.

Every generation, she points out, has their problems; some manage to solve them, some don’t. Afterwards the new generation takes its place and needs to live in the world shaped by them. Her generation inherited the world full of wonders – technological, cultural, even societal. But something has been lost as well; they’re called Generation Why, cause they question everything: why dedicate so much life to work, why follow traditions that are centuries old, why keep ties with disliked family members. Stuff that was obvious for past generations isn’t for them. That’s progress, they know better now – or do they?

She had no idea where to go next with her life

until she met The Doktor. He… she… they reminded her of the miracles of the world worth fighting for. Her generation knows about them and fights – for the climate, for equality… But do they have enough strength? Life is brutal and full of zasadzkas. They’re afraid… doubtful… They hide behind the memes and infobubbles. Some of them just can’t bear it, abandon their life or take it away. Their parents don’t get it – and vice versa. Don’t they see all this aggression and injustice? But that’s not quite fair – their generation also faced huge problems in their time. Like Benek – he lived under Russian occupation, earned worthless money and traded coupons for the food that was barely in the shops. How did he have strength while they don’t?

For Christmas Eve, Pola’s family comes to Bronisławka, a small village near Warsaw where her grandparents live. We get to meet not just them, but also her uncles and aunts, as well as three cousins – two kindergarteners Kajtek and Ula and 17 year old Krystian, who Pola knows as shy and insecure kid that finds it particularly hard to get along with all gathered relatives, and this time it seems even worse, as he’s unapologetically rude to them. Pola exchanges hugs with everyone and engages in conversations while they all prepare Christmas dinner. Eventually, she gets tired and goes outside to catch a breath.

On Christmas Eve in 1871’s Bronisławka, The Doktor vocally tries to convince herself that she feels very confident. She defeated her own fears, and The Cybermen as the added bonus, she’s now perfectly comfortable with the new body and she’s not bothered at all by the fact that she’ll never look at her home planet with the eyes she used to have or that Pola still gives her weird looks sometimes, or that she literally died before

she had achieved her goal… Ok, why in the world did she split up with Pola? Now there’s no one here who can detract her from confronting herself! Fortunately, she spots a cottage that gives out an unusual temporal signature. The Doktor knocks the door and easily gets invited inside, as the house masters assume her to be unexpected guest that came for Christmas Dinner. We meet the peasant family of Piecek: a couple in their late 40s, the elderly mother of the house master and the three kids. The oldest son, Antek, is married and plans to move to Warsaw, where she hopes to find a better life as a worker. The Doktor doesn’t pay much attention to these eight or a dinner and instead looks for anything resembling temporal anomaly, only to fail at doing so. Disappointed, she pretends that she needs to pee and gets out to take additional equipment from The TARDIS. However, when she opens the TARDIS door, all she finds is an inside of a casual police box. The Doktor falls into panic and runs back to the cottage, nervously technobabbling to herself.

She doesn’t reach it though, because she bumps at Pola.

They’re both very surprised to see each other and The Doktor asks what Pola’s doing in 1871. Pola objects that they’re not in 1871, they’re in 2021. The Doktor laughs off this claim, but stops right in her tracks when she looks around and realises that they are indeed in 2021. She concludes that she must have fallen into some kind of paradox connecting both time periods, hence TARDIS got cut off.

Since she doesn’t know when – and if – she gets returned to 1871, so she may as well help Pola out with her part. Pola explains that she’s kinda stuck and she’s just having a Christmas dinner with her family. The Doktor disagrees; she’s doing great, she subconsciously located the area of the paradox. Perhaps her household has more to do with it than it seems. Time to go investigating.

The Doktor again becomes unexpected visitor, this time on Pisarek family Christmas dinner, which she’s slightly baffled by. She quickly becomes the main attraction of the evening, as her natural charisma mesmerises the family, despite them getting nothing from her technobabble. Only Krystian seems to dislike her and loudly makes some rude

comments about her, but The Doktor laughs them off. Pola tries her best to explain who The Doktor is without coming around as loony, which talking about time travel and aliens would certainly result with, so she compares her to Mr. Blot and Mr. Twardowski. A smell of scorch suddenly comes from the kitchen, distracting everyone, which gives The Doktor the time to scan the room for temporal anomalies – with no success – and to ask Pola who are Mr. Blot and Mr. Twardowski. Pola explains that these are childrens’ book character and legendary character respectively – both known from their quorky personalities, wide knowledge and astonishing supernatural powers. She tried to find the closest archetype – something that would help describe the Doktor – and those two came to her mind. The Doktor, embarrassed, protests that she doesn’t see herself as all that wonderful – she barely graduated Time Lord Academy, and now she can’t even pinpoint the anomaly.

Ula and Kajtek, bored by adults’ conversations they can’t really understand, start grieving. Since the work in the kitchen is still ongoing, Kajtek’s dad decides to play them the cartoon on Blu-Ray – and not just any cartoon, but a classic from their infant years, “Weird Adventures of Matołek the Billy-Goat”. The cartoon quickly absorbs the kids’ attention, but it also catches an interest of The Doktor. Pola explains to her that the cartoon is based on the oldest Polish comic book by Kornel Makuszyński and Marian Walentynowicz. The concept is very simple –Matołek is looking for Pacanów, a town where goats can get shoed like horses. However, his wandering brings him everywhere but Pacanów and he constantly falls into trouble. “That’s me” comments The Doktor, and then elaborates to confused Pola „My archetype. Forget Mr. Blot, I’m like Matołek the BillyGoat. I wander through all of existence in search of something ridiculous”.

Pola tries and fails to cheer The Doktor up, while another call for help comes from the kitchen. Pola goes there, but instead finds herself inside Pieceks’ cottage in 1871. Both Pola and the peasant family are pretty confused, fortunately The Doktor comes along to introduce Pola as her niece. Pola plays along, saying that she doesn’t need

a seat at dinner table, just a shelter from cold night, but due to Polish hospitality she gets treated with a dish anyway. Rozalia spots the first star on the night sky, which means the two came right on time for the Christmas dinner to start. The Doktor and Pola negotiate their standing; apparently the paradox entrapped not just The Doktor, but Pola too, likely due to Time Vortex particles remaining on them from their travels. Both the cottage and Pisareks’ household are connected to paradox, since they’re driven to them after each time jump. Can they be the same building? Worth verifying. Their priority is to find the source of this anomaly and shut it down at all cost. Pola disagrees – not at all cost. Two families are having a Christmas dinner here and paradox or not, they can’t ruin their day. Christmas used to be the time of family and communion, the constant moment of safety and warmth in the uncertain life, its preservation matters.

The Doktor picks up on the ‘used to’ part and Pola admits that nowadays it doesn’t quite work out; the marketing act cheapened the event and the family meetings became awkward, as people separated by generations, worldviews and temperaments are afraid of talking to each other – but this is nothing that cannot be fixed, and would be stupid to give up so easily on such important concept like Christmas. The Doktor remarks that they’ll do it Pola’s way then, but she still doesn’t quite get this Christmas thing. Pola points a Christmas wafer at her and says that in this case, she wishes her to discover what she seeks to know. We then get a funny scene as Pola instructs The Doktor how to share a Christmas wafer.

The twelve dishes enter the table. The Doktor, still looking for anomalies, quickly notices that all of them are completely vegetarian – don’t humans eat meat when they feast? Pola quietly explains that this is exclusively Polish tradition – a remnant of times when every eve of important celebration was a time of fasting. When Christmas Eve became part of Christmas around XVIth century, this caused a paradox, as the dinner for this day should be both special and vegetarian. So they came up with the most delicious and remarkable dishes without an ounce of meat. The Doktor gets

handed a bowl of borsch with ravioli and Pola tells her to eat up. As The Doktor enjoys the meal, Pola gets to talk with Antek, who is happy to outline his life plans to her. Pola is shocked that he just casually gives such information to a complete stranger. She points out that his plan is a big risk; he knows nothing about living in the city and he has no friends there. How can he be so confident that he succeeds? Antek says that he isn’t; he may end up failing, but he’ll never know if he doesn’t try. He’s gonna prepare the best he can and give it his best shot. Pola drills further; is that enough of the reassurance? What is he going to do if he fails? Antek responds that in this case he likely comes back to his family, helping them in all they need till he sees the path the good God chose for him. He has faith, hope and people who love him; that’s his courage. Pola contemplates this statement.

The next five minutes see a montage of The Doktor and Pola going back and forth between 1871 and 2021, finding out that no one notices their absence – it’s almost like they exist in both times simultaneously. The Doktor theories that they do, and their minds simply can’t perceive it. They quickly confirm that cottage and Pisarek house aren’t the same location or even occupy the same ground – the source of paradox must be something else. Meanwhile, they engage in all kinds of holiday hijinks – an argument whether to watch Home Alone or Die Hard (abruptly ended when Krystian almost drops the radio on himself), singing carols (with Pola unexpectedly turning out to be quite a singer) and, of course, unpacking gifts from Gwiazdor… sorry, Santa, as younger Pisareks quickly correct grandma Krystyna. The Doktor is surprised to find the present for herself as well – The Young Chemist set, which she’s almost childishly excited with. Eventually, midnight approaches, and both Pisarek and Piecek families prepare to go to their respective Midnight Masses. Only Pola and Krystian pass on going, which is accepted without further questions. This allows Pola to stay with The Doktor, who thanks to hosts’ absence can check her grandparents’ house plank by plank. She still can’t find anything that could be the cause of anomalies though, which drives her crazy. They repeat the

procedure in 1871, no results either. Furious, The Doktor exclaims that she’s out of ideas; there is no place nor thing here that can possibly cause this paradox, and yet it happens! Are they both completely useless?

“Yeah, what are we doing with our lives?”

Pola freezes. This is Krystian’s voice, but they’re in 1871 right now, Krystian can’t be here. Unless… “The Doktor”, Pola asks slowly, „what if the source of the anomalies isn’t a place or thing, but a person? The Doktor contemplates this; that is theoretically possible, for example if person gets stuck between two points in time. Defective time travel technology, not half as advanced as the TARDIS, can cause it. But does Pola see anyone but them who looks like time traveller around him? Not her family, certainly not those eight sweet peasants- “EIGHT?!”, Pola interrupts, and The Doktor confirms; not counting them, there were eight people on the dinner. Pola counts; master of the house, his wife, his mother, Antek, his wife and his two younger siblings – that’s seven. Who is the eighth person? The Doktor doesn’t notice that question and keeps babbling about possibilities of paradox linked to person and why she finds them unlikely. Pola intuitively turns back and finds Krystian there, frightened. She asks him what’s going on here, but instead of responding, he runs out of the cottage. Pola chases after him, leaving The Doktor there.

Pola only catches up with Krystian well away from the cottage, on the edge of the village. Krystian insists to be left alone, to which Pola objects that he wouldn’t have spoken up if he had actually wanted that. He very clearly asked for attention all evening, and now she knows that he had a good reason; so what’s going on? Now she noticed, Krystian snarks, pity that it’s already too late. Pola tries to get the details; what’s happening? Some evil plan? Krystian confirms that it could be called that way – it’s a paradox that will get rid of humanity, and The Doktor as an added bonus. Pola asks if he knows who’s behind it, and Krystian says it’s some aliens really pissed at The Doktor and Pola. Since this is a long list of suspects, Pola wants to go back and consult the Doktor, but Krystian stops her – she’s not going anywhere, not this time. This time she’s their special guest, and they’re gonna teach

her an overdue lesson on why she shouldn’t sneak into other peoples’ basements. Pola’s confused face turns into grimly annoyed, as she spills “Not you again” and Krystian smiles coldly before shapeshifting into Andrzej Mastalerz, the Zygon engineer from the very first episode of Through Time And Space. He’s flattered that Pola remembers him and she wants to know how he’s even still alive after she blew The Basilisk in his face. The Zygon is glad she asked; since they last saw each other, he got a sponsor. This is possibly the only person who hates them two as much as him, the only person to actually appreciate his genius inventions and most importantly the person who was so kind to get him away from the explosion, in order to enlist his help in a little plot that will deal with them once and for all. The paradox, Pola figures, and the engineer confirms – the paradox, generated by the machine they constructed together, connecting 2021 and 1871. Pola asks where it is and the Zygon responds that he’s not that dumb to tell her that – but he will let her in on what it’s about to do, because he wants to see the horror on her face, so she better listens carefully.

Tonight, at midnight of Greenwich time –so 1 o’clock in Poland – her little cousin is going to commit suicide. He was calling for help all evening, but just as he predicted, they were too dumb to notice. Just like them two, Krystian coexisted in two points in time simultaneously – and so will his death. The same event happening twice in a timestream, in very similar circumstances, will supercharge the machine, which will merge two events into one. The time loop will be created; of course, 21st century won’t be 19th overnight; the machine will start, subtly, but effectively, substituting the old solutions for the new problems. High technology will get abandoned, societies will revert to more traditional norms and people will believe it’s just another of 21st century disasters. Krystian’s hopelessness will empower their own – instead of resisting, they’ll just surrender to the regressive flow, eventually taking roles of their ancestors. Finally, the calendar will be changed – and just like that, 2022 will become 1872. Humanity will relive all of the XXth century with its ups and downs, then enter XXIst, until finally on

Christmas Eve 2021 Krystian will commit suicide – and it all repeats. But here’s the catch; the time loop doesn’t have to play out exactly the same each time, it only has to play out similarly. You won’t just become your great-grandparents; you’ll take their place, but all of your emotional baggage will stay with you. XIXth century was the era of positivism, but are you capable of staying positive? Are you sure you won’t give up before scientific breakthrough? Yield in the time of need? How many times World War Two and the Cold War will be reenacted before someone snaps and presses the red button? The Earth is going to go round and round in circles till the end of the universe – or till it destroys itself.

And the best part? The Doktor and Pola won’t even live to see it all, because the moment they entered the anomaly, the machine recognised them as power source!

When the suicide happens, all the power will be transferred to the machine to trigger the loop, and that includes all the temporally displaced objects – like time travellers. Pola points out that in this case Zygons will be vaporised too, but the engineer tells her not to be concerned – they have teleporters, they’ll leave the area of effect before it happens. The anomalies cut out the technology allowing time-space travel, but not casual space travel, and the paradox will only affect The Earth. Not to mention that advanced civilisations, like The Zygons, will be able to detect the time loop and stay away from the planet – so his disastrous mission from 2019 won’t even happen and he will instead test the Basilisk elsewhere – and conquer some star systems with it. Aren’t paradoxes great?! Pola says that if he thinks she and The Doktor will let them do all that, his mind must have melted in that explosion, but the Zygon says that she has no say –they’ll keep her prisoner until seconds before the paradox occurs, and they keep an eye on The Doktor as well – that’s why they’re still here, to make sure nothing goes wrong. Pola responds that they went wrong the moment they told her all this and puts up a fight to escape.

The Doktor finally finishes his speech about how she has no idea whatsoever what causes the anomaly, but it’s NOT a person – it would

have been a miracle if it was. Then she realises that Pola is no longer here and immediately loses her confidence. She comes out of the cottage, looking and crying for Pola, but she finds nothing. Again. She’s powerless. Stuck in distortion of time she was supposed to be the lady of, with no way out, and without her companion. The Doktor has failed. She sits down where she is, in the middle of who-knows-where-and-when, and starts weeping.

A homeless man comes around, carrying a bundle on the stick. Seeing The Doktor in sorry state, he asks her if she’s OK. The Doktor denies and the man asks if he can help. The Doktor doubts it, unless he knows where to look for the source of time anomaly or her friend. The man baas and says that he actually knows a lot about looking for things – all he does is looking for town where he can get horseshoes. Speaking of which, does she know where to find Pacanów? As far as The Doktor knows, it’s actually quite close – in the neighbouring voivodeship, south-west from here. The man is ecstatic to hear that – he went through Russia, China, even Afghanistan to get to Pacanów, but it actually paid off! The Doktor makes big eyes to this statement and says that he wandered way off-course in this case; is he sure he’s able to find Pacanów? And even if, what if they actually don’t shoe goats there? The man says that a lot has happened to him on his journey; he was caught in tornado, chased by bandits, he even died. But for every bad thing he faced, he also met a person willing to help him, like that nice shoemaker who sewed his head back in its place, people who showed him the right way to Pacanów, and that journalist who made a book about him. If so many people stood by his side, then there has to be something in these rumours about Pacanów, doesn’t it? Or it’s just a lemming rush, a crowd mentality, argues the Doktor, but her interlocutor states he’s just a silly goat and he doesn’t understand what she’s talking about. But here’s what he understands – after falling into trouble time after time, he’s still able to travel further, he made friends all around the world and he saw the wonders of the world. After experiencing such a mind-blowing miracle, why would he doubt that goats can be shoed in Pacanów? Miracles happen every day -

that’s his proof they can happen. Smile lightens up The Doktor’s face, as she says that he’s indeed a very, very silly goat – and she wishes him best of luck on his quest. But she must leave him now, as she has a friend to find.

This doesn’t take long, as Pola runs into her, happy to see her. She explains that The Zygons are behind all this, she barely escaped them and they need to find the paradox machine quickly. Good thing that I can recognise the Zygon then, The Doktor comments and orders her to lead the way, but Pola objects that the Doktor’s smarter and she’ll trust her judgement. The Doktor throws some dust from Little Chemist set in her face and tells the emerging Zygon that Pola would either jump at opportunity or lecture her how it’s her responsibility – definitely not humbly admit her own vulnerability or shortcomings, at least not on the spot. Not that it matters, because she REALLY can recognise the Zygon, which Pola knows since their first meeting. And now The Zygon is going to tell her where to find the real Pola or he’ll discover what else he doesn’t know about her. The Doktor smiles terrifyingly.

The Zygons are busy taunting Pola bound to a tree, so the Doktor’s entrance catches them off-guard. Using only her Little Chemist set she completely obliterates them, very much enjoying herself in the process. Pola is happy to see The Doktor, but doesn’t show it, instead greeting the Doktor with „About time” and then collecting her apologies for dismissing a human-based source theory. The Doktor is pleased to have the actual Pola back by her side, but Pola cuts her off saying that they don’t have time for this – they only have about 10 minutes left until her cousin’s suicide attempt, they need to find him. They run down the list of potential methods – nothing existing in just one of the times will work, it’s also likely to be something public, in contrast to his shy nature. The river to drown is too far, the trees to strangle could have been cut, perhaps his going to jump from some high place, like… oh God.

Krystian is on the roof of the village’s church, looking down. When the mass ends, his parents will go outside and see his dead body on the ground. Perhaps it’s bad on his part to expose them to such pain, but this is

the only suitable place around and… at least once his cry will be heard… hopefully. As he contemplates his life for the last time, he hears Pola from the distance telling him to stop, wait. It’s been a while since someone asked him to do something so personal, so he stops and waits. What’s the last thing this world wants from him? Pola, and The Doktor after her, get on the roof. Pola apologises to Krystian; she should have spoken with him outright when he gave her a question in a cottage, and not address the Doktor like he wasn’t there. Krystian’s not offended; everyone does that, there must be a good reason. Is that all? Pola denies; he wanted to talk with her. Krystian tries to dismiss it, but Pola cuts it and orders him to talk. She’ll listen.

Krystian starts talking, rambling in fact; he’s talking about his fear, his pain, his loneliness, how lost he is. Finally he talks about how suddenly he started being in two places at once, but neither of them noticed him. Pola says they know what caused it and they can reverse it, but Krystian’s not interested; there’s no point… once he jumps, there’ll no longer be a problem; he’ll no longer be a problem. You’re not a problem, Pola says, but Krystian says there’s a problem somewhere. He can’t live on the world, the world can’t live with him, one of them is broken or something is missing. Either way, he’ll perish eventually; why not make it simpler? Pola takes a breath and tells Krystian that he’s not alone; she too struggled with her day-to-day life, she too couldn’t get along with her family and she too thinks something is missing. Krystian offers in this case that she jumps with him, but Pola refuses and tells him to not give up yet. Easy to say, Krystian remarks, but where’s the light?

The Doktor joins the conversation, saying that there’s always light. She’s traveled all around the universe and she saw a lot of light; some of it in places she would never expect to find it. Mankind impressed her with the light they possessed: their imaginative thinking, their ability to find mundane in extraordinary and vice versa, finally their strive for becoming better. Those unique traits allowed them to achieve remarkable feats; one could see history of Earth as a chain of disasters, but in her mind it’s a story of how humans were

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able to overcome them. Harnessed the elements, survived the plagues, got back up from the heaviest blows and rebuilt their lives; faced their own demons and many times managed to defeat them. Despite centuries of hatred, suffering and injustice, today there are more humans than ever before, more peace than ever before and they even reached the moon! That’s a mid-blowing miracle, and they stand in the light of it. Yes, humanity still has huge problems to face and it’s gonna take a miracle to solve some of them, but this planet has taught her a valuable lesson tonight; miracles happen every day, and that’s great proof they can happen. It’s her honour that she, The Doktor, can wander through their planet and she’ll happily continue to do so many more times in her future.

Krystian is unimpressed, There’s truth to what The Doktor said, but he’s not “mankind”, he’s a weak 17 year old with no stability or safety in his life, scared to death. “Don’t give up”, “don’t be scared”, “face the circumstances” are empty words. They won’t make him a titan comparable to those that freed Jews from concentration camps or defeated communism, won’t give him their strength or courage. At the end of the day, he’ll have to fight all his nightmares as he is now, with all his pitifulness, alone. But it doesn’t have to be this way, Pola says. He is not the only one who lacks the courage, a lot of people nowadays are scared. It’s the curse of their generation – the world’s progress out-sped their own and they got lost. But it can be fixed – let’s start with the basics. Krystian’s wrong to think that people of the past were superhuman; both of them got to meet some of them tonight, and despite differences in culture and mentality, it’s clear they’re just as ordinary as them. She asked them where they draw courage from – the answer was faith, hope and people who love them. That’s the the three things they have to look for if they want to have courage of their ancestors. Right now, Krystian has no faith and barely any hope, but he does have people who love him. His parents, grandparents and other relatives may have trouble showing this to him, but they love him and want the best for him. Ula, his little sister, loves him with all her heart and she needs the big brother to stand by her side as she’s going to discover

this mysterious world. Finally, Pola herself loves him very much – and that’s why he is gonna leave this roof, come down safe and sound and help her with very important task. People are afraid of each other – they need to show them that they don’t have to be. Most of them are good, reasonable and would love to have some new bonds – one just has to kindly start a talk with them. Others would initiate conversation themselves and need someone to simply listen to them. Not everyone will befriend everyone, but with 8 billion people on the planet, there’s a good chance some true friends can be found among them. If they convince people of the world to just give each other fair chance and their best effort, it’ll turn out that no one has to be alone. Humanity will find its courage again – and then, they’ll figure out together what is the thing that’s missing from their world. Pola knows that this is more a concept than a plan and it’s rather ambitious. Fixing global problems generally isn’t easy – but it’s doable, because as The Doktor mentioned, miracles happen every day. This knowledge gives Pola the necessary courage; as for Krystian, she is gonna be his courage – if he lets her. Pola stretches her hand to Krystian – and he takes it. They leave the roof – as they go downstairs, the bell rings, announced that one o’ clock has arrived. Against odds and logic, the demise of humanity has been prevented, and the good triumphed over evil once again. The Doktor is struck by the revelation; while it’s probably still a long way before she finds out what causes the good to prevail in the universe, that thing, whatever it is, has just been right there before her eyes. She got a glimpse of her Pacanów. Once they’re on the ground, The Doktor points out that they still have one more thing to do – destroy the paradox machine before The Zygons find another depression victim that it can feed on. There’s only one person that can lead them to it – Krystian, because the machine is hidden via their link. Encouraged by The Doktor and Pola, Krystian focuses and leads them to the hill outside the village. There, we get a climactic resolution in form of the battle with Zygons, caught halfway through preparing evacuation. The Doktor and her amazing Little Chemist set preoccupy them, while Pola armed with

broomstick from the church sneaks to the machine (because paradox machines are highly unstable, even primitive weaponry can destroy them). However, she’s spotted and overpowered by Zygon engineer himself, who states that her planet will have to wait – but at least he’ll take her head. Pola asks him if he didn’t forget about someone; after momentary confusion, the engineer turns around just in time to shout “Don’t!” to Krystian, who shoots the purple rubber bracelet he was wearing through the whole episode at the machine. Krystian apologises, but now he knows what he’s doing with life. The machine explodes, not causing any harm, and Zygon teleports automatically activate. Before he’s taken away, the engineer manages to cry the obligatory “I’m not done with you two yet! Until next time!”.

“Now with that out of the way”, Krystian asks The Doktor and Pola, “who the hell are you two, guys?”

The episode slowly wraps up, as the time restores and all go back to points in time they originally were in. The TARDIS returns as well, much to The Doktor’s joy; with its help, she joins Pola and Krystian in 2021, where they come back to Pisareks household – the rest of the family is already there and clearly worried about them. Pola takes Krystian’s parents to the side and explains them stuff – we don’t hear the details, but we can assume they got simplified version and some clues what NOT to do – after which they hug him and say how glad they are that he’s safe and back with them. Later, The Doktor and Pola discuss the events of the night; Pola was serious when talking to Krystian; she wants to spread the knowledge where to look for strength to live everywhere the wind takes her, whether its here or on their travels through the universe.

It’s up to Krystian if he wants to assist her on the latter; she doubts he’ll want to, being trapped between two ages by cosmic shapeshifters is enough of supernatural adventures for one lifetime, as far as most of people is concerned. But in regards to Earth, he won’t go off her radar that easily, they have a job to do. Of course, convincing people to believe in miracles when you don’t have an intergalactic police box at your disposal is quite a challenging task. So that’s the point of Christmas, The Doctor figures out – to keep

the faith, hope and the love between people strong. One day every year, the family gathers to share their love, to see a beacon of light in the uncertain world, to remember that miracles can happen. So many cultures gather in celebration during winter season, believing, hoping and loving different things, but they come together to make the miracle happen – a day of warmth in the time of cold – and to find in it the proof that miracles exist. “You nailed it”, Pola compliments the Doktor and explains that this is why they need to restore Christmas to its former glory – it can provide humanity with what it needs in this and every age. Inside the house, grandfather Ignacy intonates Bóg Się Rodzi, and they both decide to go back inside they can’t miss it. As all of Pisarek family joins on the carol, we get Pola’s closing monologue.

Every generation has their quests; some manage to accomplish them, some don’t. Afterwards the new generation takes its place and needs to live in the world shaped by them. With past generations abandoning the injustices of old, beating the mischievous ideologies threatening to enslave them and building the modern world, their generation was given an important task – to figure out how to live in this world, develop new ideas, new systems and new norms. This is an extremely difficult task, and Pola herself doesn’t know how well they will do at it. But they have a courage to try, they can find it in faith of the past, in hope for the future and in billions of people worth loving surrounding them right now. They’re better that they themselves think, a it’s a good day to think about it. The shape of tomorrow depends on whether they can recognise the good in each other and, together, make a victory every day over evil in each other. Terrifying responsibility? Perhaps. But as a friend showed her, miracles happen every day, and that’s the best proof they can happen. Now, her friend has her own quest – to get to the bottom of all this. How long and what will it take? Pola has no idea. But it seems that The Doktor found her own courage to continue her search – and maybe even an important clue. Perhaps Pola will never find out what it is, as she can’t make sense of The Doktor’s gibberish – what does it mean that it’s all thanks to her, Krystian and a stupid goat?

Intercut with this monologue, we once again see a cottage of Pieceks. Someone knocks; the householder opens and finds a piece of paper that he can’t read on the doorstep –alongside fresh bread, a can of salt and a pouch, containing 80 roubles. He calls Antek to read the paper; Antek reads “For your hospitality, God bless you. The Doktor and Pola”. As happy noises starts coming from all inside the cottage, a camera turns back to show the TARDIS disappearing on the horizon, and then closes up on the night sky. A shiny caption in English appears on it, and the narrator of Weird Adventures of Matołek The Billy-Goat speaks once again, repeating the words from the caption in Polish – a short rhyme…

And so, our poor billy-goat Further in his journey goes To look all around the world for What’s, actually, very close.

The special aired on Christmas Day at 7pm on BBC Two in the UK. The ratings achieved by the special in this slot, would decide whether or not it would be profitable for BBC Studios and Paramount+ to continue funding the show to be made bilingually. It’s competition on BBC One was fierce with the backend of the popular prime-time gameshow

The Wheel, and the whole of another British gameshow institution, Blankety Blank, scheduled against it. On ITV, the competition was ever tougher, with Britain’s 2nd biggest soap opera, Emmerdale, scheduled against it. To be successful, Maggy Chan was hoping for at least 2 million viewers… whether or not this fact came to be remains to be seen…

WIDWWA

Best of

On Richard Griffiths’

Adventures in the TARDIS

The inception of ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’ came from pretty much the same place as in-universe... Doctor Who (the main show) is getting quite dark, a new adult orientated spinoff is starting... what’s gonna happen to the kids? In-universe there was a whole wave of children who had either never started watching Doctor Who, or stopped watching it, after the two Samantha Bond seasons for the reason of it becoming less and less child friendly. I was also aware that in our universe CBBC were keen to make a Doctor Who show, hence why ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’ happened, but even before that, right from Series 1 launching, they were exploring possibilities. The same happening in WIDWWA was likely, although ended up taking longer, because Doctor Who’s status as a children’s programme probably would’ve stuck around longer. When RTD brought back the show, the BBC were very keen to project ‘family show’ as the appeal. The children show status of Doctor Who, while not necessarily true... ever, would’ve stuck with the show, probably through to the Anthony Head era, and although children may have begun to tune out here, as soon as the big Paterson Joseph relaunch happened, they would’ve come back, and the image of children’s show remained. Some people would view it as what is always has been, a family show, but the children’s show name would’ve stuck far longer in the public consciousness, meaning that there was less appetite for a kids version of Doctor Who. That was until Season 51 happened, and Season 52,

and Season 53, and Season 54, and the New Renegade... and basically, Jane Espenson began to work with CBBC to get something sorted. Originally, a live action spinoff was conceived, but when Espenson decided the best hook for the show was to bring back a former Doctor (originally designed to be with a new companion), they moved to a cartoon, as she wasn’t keen on just making more standard episodes with an old Doctor – especially a Doctor from an era where the children’s show image still prevailed over it.

Samantha Bond was chosen, eventually, as she did have a willingness to come back, and had expressed this to Jane Espenson during the filming of the Emerald Terror. Other Doctors were considered, but once Samantha Bond came into place, the show began to come alive. Phil Ford was then brought on board as showrunner, and he then created the show and fleshed it out into an actual pitch, as the show still wasn’t officially greenlit.

Phil Ford was the one who suggested to try and bring back Erin and Kyle, instead of establishing a new companion, as he pointed out that a new companion would have to fall before God Save the Queen, and he wasn’t keen on not portraying the Fourteenth Doctor in her pre-49 as-yet-underdeveloped character, which have grown over the course of Season 49.

After a few months of hard work by Ford, the pitch for the show was ready, alongside storyline ideas for the first season, and the show was formally commissioned by the BBC Children’s Department. Originally, CBS had very little involvement with the show, just agreeing to distribute it in the USA on CBS All Access, however things began to change with the ViacomCBS merger and the ViacomCBS report, which added an increased relevance to the show. However, what’s important, is that Series 1 was treated as the first nearly entirely British-led production of Doctor Who in decades. The physical animation itself was outsourced to CBS Eye Animations, but they are no creative involvement, even the character designs were by the team at CBBC. CBS’ only involvement was taking the character designs, the studio recordings, and the scripts and animating them. The 3D animation wasn’t even done by them, as that was done by a UK based team, who created CGI 3D models of all the sets and spaceships,

in which the 2D characters (from CBS Eye) would interact.

The first series was very much a “first series” with the show still finding its feet, and guest writers trying to gage the style of the series, with many of them struggling with Ford’s original ‘rules’ for the show. Episodes such as ‘Starship Harmony’, ‘Orphan 55’ and ‘Halley: 2062’ weren’t particularly popular with fans, due to the fact they were very “formulaic” and “uninteresting” stories, which just seemed to be unnecessarily sugar coated. Other stories worked well, and fans praised the continued inclusion of the Stevenson family, and the fact that the series really fleshed out the time Erin & Kyle had on the TARDIS together. While the first series was rocky, with the bombshell that was the ViacomCBS report, it’s future was ensured, as the report held ‘Adventures’ of high importance, and even moved it over to Nickelodeon in the United States, suddenly meaning that for Series 2, the Americans would want more control. Ford feared this, as he had quite enjoyed the freedom of the first series, but in fact, he managed to dodge a bullet. Due to the ViacomCBS report’s fast turnaround of getting things done, very quickly, Series 2 was rushed into production (it was already 75% written) straight away. The scripts that were deemed the best, by new boss, Mal Young, were recorded with the cast first, while Ford went away and sorted out the rest of the series, and anything Young didn’t like.

The series was finished a long while before it’s scheduled January launch date, with the extra time being used for Visual Effects, something which had been done quite cheaply by the CBBC team on Series 1. In fact, a lot of the postproduction moved over to the United States for the second season.

Ford attempt to get his writers to begin to push the barriers for this series, still enacting his all-important rules, but allowing for more thought-provoking episodes, such as Ed Hime’s ‘Earth Defense Force’, which was far better received by fans than his more troublesome Series 1 outing and displayed an intelligent story teaching children about the dangerous of fascism in the context of the world they understood, and not necessarily history books about 80 years ago. The story received critical acclaim, also showing an allegory for the current migrant crisis and

some of Britain and America’s politician’s response to it.

Another big part of the season was bringing back the Master. The Rani had previously featured in Series 1, but due to unforeseen circumstances, Michael Hogan was sadly unable to reprise the role for the second series. With Jason Isaacs unavailable, and Jane Espenson advising against using him, Phil Ford decided to try a long shot, and asked Murray Melvin (who had played the Master against the Ninth and Tenth Doctors) to return on the show. Melvin was delighted and immediately agreed. Therefore, the Melvin Master returned in the penultimate episode ‘Fear Her’ (I said on the post, don’t be fooled by the title!) and the finale ‘The Prisoner’. This was kept as a surprise for fans, in-universe, who may have had an inclination the Master would show up... but not this one, they weren’t expecting this.

Obviously, you’re probably quite familiar with what happened next, considering all the big announcements in last month’s newsletter. ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’ was recommissioned for 2 seasons of 20 episodes, which Mal Young decided to split into 4 seasons of 10 episodes, broadcast and naming wise. This happened because the show struck a chord on Nickelodeon, with many kids, who had maybe only heard about Doctor Who, or perhaps seen a movie or two, beginning to watch the show, and the viewing numbers were hitting exactly what ViacomCBS were hoping for. While Series 1 had essentially no impact in the US, Series 2 just clicked in America. Also, the show was relatively cheap to make, could have a fast turnaround, and was (according to a lot of fans & critics) the best content the franchise was actually making recently.

What will we see with Series 3? Well, that’s over on the next page, where I’ll be going through short previews of the first 3 episodes, but behind-the-scenes, things did change a bit. The Americans got their feet in the door more, with Executive Producer, Katie Krentz, beginning to take a bigger and bigger role. Mal Young took a step back, trusting Ford to do his thing, and essentially 20 episodes were produced for the year of 2022, as one production season. The Doctor, Erin and Kyle are back... and so is the Master! I hope you enjoy what ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’ has to come!

WIDWWA

ADVENTURES SERIES 3 WHAT TO EXPECT!

When an old and deadly force returns to the planet Earth, 1978 is fundamentally in danger… and the future, as we know it, could change… Who is going to come to the rescue?

CBBC, 17 January 2022

‘The Invaders’ is the first of the new series of Doctor Who: Adventures and is just an out-and-out fun series opener. It’s similar in vain to The Dalek Invasion of Sussex which, of course, opened the entire programme, but instead of featuring the Daleks, it features the return of the Master, as played by Murray Melvin, who of course, also featured last season.

In addition to the Master, with him, we get the return of 1970s UNIT, fronted by Sergeant Benton, as terrifying forces try to invade Earth, who it turns out, the Master is in league with... it’s a real Pertwee era throwback, but in the mix we add Fourteen, Erin and Kyle, with Erin’s family making a swift appearance once more, as well...

“You can’t change history - not one line…” In the first world war, the Doctor, Erin and Kyle come face to face with history in the making, but unfortunately for them, it’s not a very pleasant history, and they’ll have to sit back and watch it unfold.

CBBC, 24 January 2022

‘Patriot’ is the first of a new wave of historicals for the series, coming from the programme’s newfound collaboration with BBC Bitesize, the BBC’s education and study department for children, which mainly operates online, but also has input into CBBC. The main focus was on Key Stage 1 and 2, and exploring historical subjects, also covered in the classroom on the National Curriculum, whereby ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’ could act as a learning resource for children. This episode sees an adventure back into the first world war for the Doctor, Erin and Kyle...

On a planet, far away from Earth, the TARDIS trio arrive, to superb luxury and perfectly designed for them. The Doctor understands something’s up right away, this kind of thing has happened before… something evil is at the heart of this place. Or is it?

CBBC, 31 January 2022

‘Wonderland’ was designed as an Episode for Series 4, originally, but was moved forward to Series 3 because Katie Krenz felt it worked better here. It’s a story which takes us to an alien planet, much like many Episode 3s and follows a very typical, and well worn, Doctor Who-y plot, but... takes a surprising turn, later on, and goes somewhere you wouldn’t always expect. The episode is a lot of fun, and sees Adventures open its door to the possibilities of more interesting things you can do with animation, that you might not be able to pull off in live action. It’s certainly one to watch!

The first three episodes will certainly be interesting, and while they very much follow in the form of what you expect from ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’, I think they might begin to surprise you in a few small ways, and as these two seasons go on, I think they’ll be more and more which will really map out the show’s identity, as it becomes more and more confident in itself.

These episodes bed you into the show again, but I think as we move into February, you might begin to see ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’ differently... for good or for bad. Whatever happens, at the beginning of 2022, ‘Adventures’ is the show that’s doing the best in the Doctor Who franchise, and we’ll have to see whether it manages to sustain that going forwards.

WIDWWA

R EMASTER ED WHO!

Doctor Who: Remastered is back! Well, it came back last year really, with Season 6, after an absence of 17 years, to help out the launch of Paramount+. Two seasons later, and we come to the Tom Baker era, which let’s just say, Paramount+ were more than happy to advertise. At this time, 2022 New Year, in the WIDWWA universe, TV ads would be appearing all over television, in the US, and other Paramount+ available territories, advertising the Tom Baker era in HD (kinda) and with state of the arts special effects!

Season 8 takes us from ‘Robot’ to ‘The Hand of Fear’, and unlike the past two seasons, it does actually faithfully stick to the original story order, giving us 13 forty-five-minute cutdowns of those stories. ‘Genesis of the Daleks’ gets the worse deal, finding itself 105 minutes shorter than its original, giving perhaps the briskest telling of that story possible. It had already been broadcast in a cutdown 90-minute format, as early as the 1970s, but here the editor’s axe really fell. The only other six-part story fared slightly better as the first two episodes of ‘The Seeds of Doom’ acted as the 7-minute pre-title sequence for the episode, with the rest being treated as a 4-parter cutdown.

When it comes to the remaster, highdefinition wise, much remains the same as the previous two seasons. All the studio footage was upscaled, as best as CBS Digital could manage, which to be fair, was far higher quality than the DVDs already were, while the surviving film prints, for location scenes, were rescanned at 4K and then presented in 1080p for the release.

CGI wise, unlike the optional CGI effects familiar to real-world fans on the DVD and Blu-ray range, Paramount+ and CBS Digital were able to offer an actual budget to Doctor Who: Remastered’s CGI enabling broadcast standard CGI effects to be applied to the

cutdown versions of these stories. While model sequences were the vast majority, other changes included the outside of spaceship/spacestation windows being altered to a CGI backdrop; computer interfaces being replaced; laser gun effects being replaced and more. This was the most expensive season of Remastered yet, as the first six were made in an entirely different era, by a different team, for a different purpose (mainly colourisation and saw only minimal CGI), and the last two seasons were mainly Earth based, so it required much less effects – apart from Invasion of the Dinosaurs, that cost a fair bit.

The episodes were once again given a 5.1 mix by Mark Ayres, with the music also being rerecorded by Ayres, in order to make the timings and edits match, while staying as faithful to the original as possible. The only exception was ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’ which like ‘The Silurians’ and ‘Death to the Daleks’ were composed by Carey Blyton, who’s score was not popular with the original production team, or the fandom. Ayres once again wrote an original score, in the style of Dudley Simpson, for this episode.

Also, like with Season 6 and 7, the title sequence was altered, with the logo being replaced with the 2020 brand logo. It had gone widely unnoticed on the previous two seasons, as the logo was very similar, although subtly different, to the 1970 logo, but in Season 8, the 2020 logo appearing in Tom Baker’s title sequence was certainly very noticeable and divided fandom immensely.

However, on the 6th of January 2022, the first 13 stories for Tom Baker premiered on Paramount+ and BBC iPlayer, with a weekly BBC Two airing beginning two days later, and while purists weren’t impressed, it certainly brought a lot more people to this older era of the show than before...

WIDWWA

Welcome to Logo-polis (not my pun, it’s DWM’s but I stole it)... the new regular feature where we’ll one-by-one take a look at one of the only tangible aspects of the WIDWWA universe we really have: the logos. The logos are also one of the only things barely touched by the ‘retcon-athon’, because there was absolutely no reason to.

Our first logo is one of the community’s favourites, and of course it is, because it was the first original WIDWWA logo. Now, who actually designed this in real-life... honestly, I have no idea. It’s not that I can’t remember, but I just don’t think I ever knew. I remember back in *January 2016* [such a long time ago), I was surfing around the web for Doctor Who logos, and this came up on a site marked “free for use”, I’ve tried to find it since then but... sadly, I have no idea who made it.

In-universe we tell a different story. We begin following John Nathan-Turner’s exit from the show, and Ian Fraser coming on board for Season 28. The 1987 logo was not popular with the fans, the media, the merchandising teams (such as DWM or VHS) and it was not popular with Ian Fraser. One of the first things he did was order a new logo to be designed. It was designed by the same team who designed the 1989 logo for ‘Top of the Pops’, with the brief to work in a CGI

environment but have a clear style and brand identity, and to also work in black & white. Many versions went through the design process, before the one which was selected landed on Ian Fraser’s desk. The logo took inspiration from the 1980 ‘Doctor Who’ logo, with it being interconnected and forming itself as almost an emblem of the show... like a badge or a stamp.

Although this logo delighted nearly everyone, it didn’t delight CAL Video. CAL Video, who like in 1987, had been commissioned to produce the new title sequence, dislike the logo because, even though it was explicitly designed to work in a CGI environment, they felt that the fact it was interconnected made this worse than the 1987 logo, as they could no long have the logo fly onto screen. Fraser told them that he was sure there were other ways to animate a 3D logo than have it comically fly onto screen. CAL Video sulked but did it in the end, using a compromise of 3D and 2D, to achieve the effect.

The logo lasted a long time, seeing a couple of alterations along the way, with title sequence and colour changes, but it fundamentally kept the strong “badge” brand of the show, and when it went, ‘Doctor Who’ fans mourned it loss, as a truly iconic image of the 1990s.

WIDWWA

Disecting the logos of the Doctor Who franchise since 1990!

THE COMPANION

ERIN STEVENSON

If you want the answer simply, Erin Stevenson came from ‘God Save The Queen’; her inception was entirely based around the character I needed for that story. How did ‘God Save The Queen’ come about, well I’ll probably cover that in a future issue, but the point is, I had a story set during the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, a time of huge political upheaval, youth disenfranchisement and counterculture, so I essentially wanted a character that could represent that. Erin was born – a nice middle-class girl, who had fallen into the world of punk rock, because of her boyfriend. The fact with Erin was that, over the course of her first episode, her experiences with the Doctor, make her realise

that the only reason she’s fallen into this world is more disenfranchisement with her parents than the country, and that the punk rock is more of Kyle’s thing than hers and she chooses to walk away from it. In order to actually represent that movement from the late-70s, which I could be accidentally undercutting, it was very important to me that Kyle stay in the series, and eventually become a companion, as always his true self. Erin, on the other hand, left with the Doctor and was allowed to develop and learn who she, Erin Stevenson, the young woman, truly was. It was no accident that we designed her first adventure in the TARDIS to be in an

COMPANION FACTOR

environment as far away from what she knew as possible. It was in the past; it was in Scotland – absolutely nothing like suburban Sussex; and Erin was amongst royalty, instead of fighting against it. Not only did this absolutely flip Erin’s world on its head, but it allowed the audience to see an entirely different side to her. For the previous (and only) 60 minutes, the audience had only seen Erin dressed head-totoe in full punk clothes and make-up while channeling this anger and rage out, before the week after, we see Erin being very polite and mannered, dressed in a beautiful period dress, solving a royal murder. You may have noticed that the themes of royalty, belonging and family come up a lot in the Ronald D. Moore era, especially throughout Erin’s time, and that’s not accidental, creating an emotional arc Erin goes on, which is essentially a “comingof-age-story”. During her time on the TARDIS, she goes from a naïve girl, taken right into her boyfriend’s world, angry at her parents, angry at society... to a confident young woman, who has taken her boyfriend into his world, made peace with her parents, and decided to re-join a society, that’s barely begun, in the aftermath of the American Civil War.

When it came to plan out ‘Doctor Who: Adventures’, I went with Erin & Kyle during Season 50, instead of, perhaps the more popular, Erin & Hogan from Season

FACT FILE

FULL NAME ERIN ANNA HARRISON

TRAVELLED WITH THE FOURTEENTH DOCTOR THE FIFTEENTH DOCTOR - BRIEFLY BORN 1958, EAST GRINSTEAD MET THE DOCTOR IN 1977, EAST GRINSTEAD

LEFT THE DOCTOR IN 1865, VIRGINIA, USA

49, because I wanted Erin towards the end of this arc, so that these new 50-million (or something) episodes, inserted into that gap, didn’t damage the impact of her arc. This is just before she chooses to settle down with Kyle, but after she has essentially become dominant in that relationship, and to an extent, amongst her relationship with the Doctor too. Additionally, it helped to have an Erin & Kyle who got on fairly well with Danielle & Roger, so they could become recurring characters.

The question one might be asking is “Why did I create a character like Erin”, the answer is that I would never create a character like Erin, or Kyle for that matter. I hate punk, but I also dislike the idea of a monarchy. But I’m not supposed to have created them, Ronald D. Moore & Jane Espenson were... and they suddenly had to prove in one episode that Doctor Who being run by two Americans wouldn’t dilute it’s Britishness. There was a very big reason a massive union flag was slapped on the poster.

PLAYED BY MONTSERRAT LOMBARD

Comparison of Episodes Aired Every Year Since 1989

If you would like to suggest things to compare for future issues, please get in touch with me, either via Discord, Twitter or email. There’s a lot we can compare, so I’m sure we can have fun with this! While we’re at it, perhaps you could also tell me which universe you prefer and why – just please don’t use this as an excuse to bash the current era, as WIDWWA is not about spreading negativity about the real show.

TIME CAPSULE EVIL OF THE GAIANS

Three hours is a long time for a Doctor Who story. In the entirety of the WIDWWA timeline, including the ‘classic series’, up to this point, only 6 stories had met or exceeded this running time. Most of these were the final stories of their respective Doctors, and like those, ‘Evil of the Gaians’ was not exception... at least on television. For the end of Season 48, script editor, Robert Shearman, alongside producer, Gary Russell, and executive producer, Ira Steven Behr, were faced with the challenge of giving the Thirteenth Doctor a large and epic finale to his time on television, which would feel grand enough in scale to warrant his end, but not undercut his feature film ending to come a few months down the line... The task was certainly a difficult one, but one which would be solved by neither of them.

Ronald D. Moore is not an unfamiliar name to WIDWWA fans, especially in more recent years, but in 2010, where our story begins, Moore was simply a writer who had written 7 Doctor Who stories, over the past 8 years, and had been a co-executive producer for six of those, while also co-showrunning America’s most popular science fiction series of the 2000s, Battlestar Galactica, which he’d just finished. He had also just set up a new spinoff series for Battlestar Galactica and was very

busy. However, during one of the early writers’ room sessions for Season 48, Moore suggested the basic story concept of what would eventually become ‘Evil of the Gaians’. Moore initially wrote up a storyline for the serial, with no intention of actually writing it himself. The storyline was quite different to what eventually ended up on screen with the story being more angled from Veronica Latimer’s point of view, who was originally named Ms Richter. Additionally, the Nerva Beacon wasn’t in the story at all, with all the prison stuff taking place on Earth, and the Gaians weren’t the Gaians, they were simply the Earth Command Force.

Robert Shearman had also intended to write the final serial of Suchet’s era, so took Moore’s story outline and wrote the first episode’s script, however, during this time, he was also working on not just the season opener, ‘Checkmate’, alongside Joseph Lidster, but also on the screenplay for the fourth Doctor Who feature film. He asked Ronald D. Moore to take over the scripting process for ‘Evil of the Gaians’, which, after persuasion, he did, especially since he was keen to now write the idea he had come up with.

Moore finished Part I, working from Shearman’s initial uncompleted draft, and then wrote a draft of the entirety of Part II. It

was during this time, that several of the changes to the story happened. After this, which was now early 2011, as time had begun to really roll on due to Moore writing it, in his free time, as he additionally was showrunning ‘Panopticon’, and filming was due to begin in June for the finale, Shearman came back to the script, as the script editor. He made several changes, as he had done with all the episodes in the season but decided there were more extensive changes he felt needed doing.

With Moore really quite busy now, wrapped up in ‘Panopticon’, Shearman decided to redraft the episodes, once more, making a lot of changes to the third act of the second part, especially in regard to Gemma’s exit. Shearman managed to deliver, what he saw as final drafts, in May, but after Ira Steven Behr forwarded them up to ‘the powers that be’, they were sent back with numerous notes asking for the story to be more ‘action heavy’ and ‘grander in scale’. Considering this was a whole three hours long, and the final TV story for David Suchet, they probably weren’t wrong. So Shearman hit at his keyboard again and redrafted, adding in several action scenes, and heightening the stakes, and eventually, just a few days before filming began, he delivered the final version of the script – right up to the wire, which indeed caused grave problems for producer, Gary Russell, but over a period of two months, at the end of the gruelling Season 48 filming schedule, which led straight into even more filming on ‘Doctor Who: Endgame’, the two episodes of ‘Evil of the Gaians’ were completed, before in October, they reached broadcast and went down in history as one of the best Doctor Who stories ever.

starring DAVID SUCHET JULIET LANDAU DOUGRAY SCOTT and EMER KENNY

written by ROBERT SHEARMAN and RONALD D. MOORE directed by RACHEL TALALAY produced by GARY RUSSELL executive producers IRA STEVEN BEHR FAITH PENHALE MARTIN CAMPBELL bbc one, 6.25pm, 15th October 2011 bbc one, 6.25pm, 22nd October 2011

Much like in the WIDWWA timeline, the core idea for the story, was suggested by my co-writer at the time, Matthew Moir, who pitched a story which would serve as a sci-fi version of Stanford Prison Experiment. This was of course developed in discussion, with a flavour of the classic base under siege and then Space Nazis thrown in before I went and wrote up a fleshed-out storyline. This one saw a lot of development, but even before the story outline had been finished, I had already started drawing up plans to feature a shock return for the Gaians in Season 49, which is why, I decided to add Ronald D. Moore’s name to the writer credit, knowing in the future, it would be helpful if the Gaians were a Moore invention.... and it sure was.

THE DOCTOR’S QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“They come together to make the miracle happen - one day of warmth in the time of cold – and to find in it the proof that miracles exist.” - EVE

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The WIDWWA community has been based on Discord since May 2021, and is currently a thriving community with over 45 members. But we don’t want to stop there... as long as your a WIDWWA fan and want to contribute a positive non-toxic discussion, and follow all the rules of the server - please come along and join. Details on how to join the Discord server can be found on the twitter account @WIDWWA. Additionally, there is some information on the YouTube community tab. If you still can’t get on, don’t be afraid to email DDWF at widwwa1989@gmail.com

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INTERESTED IN PRINT COPIES?

Although this is a digital magazine, if there are people interested in receiving the WIDWWA Newsletter as a physical print magazine, I will look into this possibility. I would only be able to offer this service in the UK, but the idea would be you’d pay a 3-month, 6-month or 12-month subscription, and I’d then order in bulk lots of copies of that month’s magazine - about a week before publication - and then send each individual one, via post, to those with a subscription. If I timed it right, you’d receive your copy on the same day as digital publication for everyone else.

If this is something you’d like to have, or are interested in and want ask further questions, please let me know on Twitter, Discord or via email at widwwa1989@gmail.com