TV When The Whoniverse was announced just a few short weeks ago the magnitude of it didn't quite land with me. All of the big numbers, 800 episodes of Doctor Who all in one place, most of the surviving episodes of the franchise on the iPlayer permanently. How? Now it's here and oh my. No need to reach for a DVD on the off chance you want to watch The Space Museum, there it is in a special section of the BBC's streaming service between the two extant episodes of The Crusade and the version of The Chase without The Beatles. The programme pages on the BBC website we used to look at longingly with their episode guides but nothing to watch are now largely full with The TV Movie with the Pertwee logo representing them on the landing page. By the way the clips page for 2005-2013 is still there, but hidden. Link here.
Partly as a way of introducing viewers to some of the classics and to give fans something new to watch on launch day, Tales of the TARDIS reunites various combinations of Doctors and companions to reminisce about their time in the travelling machine and introduce stories from their eras. You've probably seen them already, but just in case, they're here. Coming back afterwards. Am I disappointed there isn't an instalment with Paul McGann snogging Daphne Ashbrook again around the The Enemy Within? Of course, but there isn't one for Tom either perhaps because he's 89 years old now and with him still alive it would have been odd for Lalla and Louise wrap around Genesis of the Daleks (because it's always Genesis of the Daleks), a story within which neither of them appeared.
Mostly written by Phil Ford with a couple of episodes by RTD2 and Pete McTighe, they're almost review proof for anyone emotionally invested in these characters. They're an opportunity to complete some emotional beats which the classic series wasn't designed for and/or haven't been covered by Big Finish. So we finally see the emotional toll the Time Lord's removal of Jamie and Zoe's memories of their time with the Doctor had going forward with them apparently returning as an anniversary gift. More hints as to how the Seventh Doctor and Ace parted continuing the thread from The Power of the Doctor (perhaps one of the multiple options presented in the novel At Childhood's End. Steven and Vicki wondering if they were right to leave the TARDIS when they did.
Perhaps the strongest are those which flirt with the para and intertextuality of the show. The Sixth Doctor we meet is the much more approachable, avuncular reimaging from Big Finish showing Peri much more warmth than he did previously on-screen (and vis-versa) whilst also making their cutaway a prequel to The Eternal Mystery by having them fly off together at the end. When the Fifth Doctor and Tegan reunite, RTD2's script cheekily eludes to the lack of hanky-panky in the TARDIS whilst simultaneously throwing us Nygan shippers a bone ("I was fast asleep, in bed, I said goodbye to Nyssa and ..."). Their story is about finally dealing with the death of Adric, but it's the decades of friendship between Davison and Fielding which shine through.
Perhaps the most moving is Phil Ford's return to The Sarah Jane Adventures era in his wrap around for The Three Doctors featuring Daniel Anthony and Katy Manning. There's a version of this with Jo and one of her ex-UNIT colleagues but by drawing in Clyde, younger viewers with an affection for the 00s era are allowed the Proustian punch some of us with an aging physiognomy might have found elsewhere. Like the Pete and Janet instalment, it's about grief, the loss of Sarah Jane (and Lis), the recent death of Cliff (and Stewart) but also moving forward, with Jo imploring Clyde to tell Rani about his feelings for her (in a way I'm reliably informed doesn't contradict anything at Big Finish). As with all these vignettes, the performances are impeccable.
What of the nature of these encounters? Some have interpreted it as the TARDIS having a nap and remembering these former inhabitants in her dreams. But too many of them have memories of where their life is up until that point, many years of experiences and this TARDIS interior with its many consoles stacked on top of one another and knick-knacks from across the era like some time/space equivalent of Brian Cant's Bric-a-Brac shop are too tangible for none of it to be real (and a bit of a cheat if they aren't). Not to mention a couple of the crews decide to borrow this TARDIS at the end for more adventures. The ambiguity is the point, like some of the best stories, especially Doctor Who stories, it's up to the audience's imagination to complete the poetry.
The impression we're left with is just how respectful all of this is, to the characters, the writers who created them and the cast themselves. This is in sharp contrast to most of their main appearance on television ten years ago in The Afterparty mostly there as background dressing to interviews with the current stars, a disastrous delayed interview with 1D, being referred to by their character names when they weren't otherwise being knocked almost out of their chair. The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot (still online folks) is very funny and Tom's emergence as The Curator a gut-wrenching surprise, but the history of the show felt relegated to something for the older fans, hidden behind paywalls. Now everyone has access to (almost) all of TV's tales of the TARDIS.
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