The Horror Channel will be showing remastered classic episodes of Doctor Who this autumn on UK TV for the first time.
The serials were restored for DVD release by BBC Worldwide so will look good as new when they start airing at the tail-end of this month, across October and edging into November.
As part of Who on Horror, the Horror Channel has been showing 30 classics since April, entertaining nearly 4 million viewers, including fan-favourite stories like The Caves of Androzani, The Curse of Fenric and An Unearthly Child.
This new season of remastered masterpieces kicks off with a personal favourite, the Fourth Doctor adventure, Robots of Death, and continues with: The Talons of Weng-Chiang; Horror of Fang Rock; City of Death; Doctor Who and the Silurians; Inferno; Carnival of Monsters; The Time Warrior; The Sontaran Experiment; The Sun Makers; and The Ribos Operation.
As you can see, most are Fourth Doctor serials – with a few choice Third Doctors ones added in for good measure – but they’ll be accompanied with tales from Doctors Two, Five, Six and Seven.
“It’s been great to be able to offer our regular fans the classic Doctor Who content, but it’s equally exciting to see Time Lord devotees flock to Horror Channel in greater number and take part in the various on and off air activities that resulted in a surge in viewership and social media interaction,” Alina Florea, Director of Programming for Horror Channel, said. “With the newer batch of re-mastered episodes, there will be even more reasons for our viewers to tune in and stick around for more fright, thrill and shock.”
These are really exciting and much-loved storylines, so the channel is sure to get good viewing figures screening Doctor Who remastered classics!
Following the spectacular 500th issue, Doctor Who Magazine is continuing its celebrations with an issue dedicated entirely to Tom Baker and the Fourth Doctor’s era of Doctor Who.
Tom Baker: The Ultimate Interview sees Baker talks about life, death and, of course, Doctor Who…
Life is too short to be dull. Be interesting. Because not very much else matters does it? In large areas of our lives, hardly anything matters at all. I mean, nothing can beat being with loving friends, and a few wines, and a few beers, and a few lies, and a few yarns. And to still be adored after 40-odd years… yeah that’s the life.
Maybe I’m the longest-serving actor, in the whole history of actors, who’s actually still, 40-odd years later, adored for the same part and enjoying it in the same way. When I get sent messages from middle-aged men… or from the wives of middle-aged men, who say, ‘Tell Mr Baker he cannot imagine how important he was to my beloved husband when he was a boy’… it moves me deeply to think about it.
I was just going to work. I didn’t know, to begin with, how far-reaching this role would be. I was aware of the excitement, and the generosity, and the affection of the fans, but how could I ever have dreamed of all this?
The interviews are split into seven parts, The Unbreakable Tom Baker, The Insatiable Tom Baker, The Impeccable Tom Baker (with June Hudson), The Irrepressible Tom Baker, The Unstoppable Tom Baker (with Louise Jameson, John Leeson and Geoffrey Beevers), The Unforgettable Tom Baker and The Irreplaceable Tom Baker.
Also featured in the magazine is Part One of brand-new comic strip The Pestilent Heart, an extended Gallifrey Guardian reporting on the latest news from the set of the new series, and DWM’s issue 500 celebrations, competitions and the much-anticipated Cave of 500 Eyes answers.
The souvenir edition, available from 30 June and priced £5.99, comes in a polybag containing four art cards, two classic mini-posters, and a multi-Doctor poster.
Doctor Who Magazine 501 is on sale from Thursday 30 June 2016, price £5.99.
Maybe I’m the longest-serving actor, in the whole history of actors, who’s actually still, 40-odd years later, adored for the same part and enjoying it in the same way. When I get sent messages from middle-aged men… or from the wives of middle-aged men, who say, ‘Tell Mr Baker he cannot imagine how important he was to my beloved husband when he was a boy’… it moves me deeply to think about it.
He certainly meant a lot to me when I was a kid. How delightful it is that he's just as eccentric in real life as he was as The Doctor.
It's a good thing the young Mark Gatiss didn't contribute to any audience reports! He remarks on the Planet of the Spiders documentary upon seeing Tom Baker appear during the Third Doctor's regeneration scene, "Who's that ugly, beaky guy? It took me a long time to get used to Tom Baker...a LONG time."
Tom Baker was and still is the greatest of all the Doctors though I adore Troughton and Pertwee.
Tom Baker's awesomeness knows no bounds. Here he is in full Doctor regalia on a 1978 visit to Northern Ireland. He's clearly loving every minute of it.
The footage of all the kids chasing after him is magnificent. Those kids are in their late forties now.
Received the three-disc set of SHADA (sha-doobee) today (thanks, Master Card points), thus continuing my ongoing Douglas Adams-Doctor Who interest. Outside of The Five Doctors footage, I will be watching this for the first time this evening.
While I enjoy Shada as much as it is possible to enjoy something in its unfinished state, I feel that Adams' script seems incomplete. Perhaps that's due to the choppy presentation of the story or maybe the script itself was submitted in an incomplete state well after those deadlines went wooshing by. It's still fascinating to me, though, as I'm an enthusiastic Douglas Adams fan.
Too bad the three-disc set of Shada doesn't include a Douglas Adams documentary, a commentary from other principals involved, or even a featurette with the usual Doctor Who pundits commenting on the story.
It was worse when part of Shada was shoved into The Five Doctors!
A newly-produced Douglas Adams retriospective still would have been nice, though at least there's the generous bonus material included on the BBC's H2G2 two-disc jobber as well as the footage we got in City of Death and The Pirate Planet. Am I missing any others?
News has emerged that following 2016’s animation of the missing 1966 Doctor Who story The Power of the Dales, BBC Worldwide’s next animated project will be the legendary lost Tom Baker story Shada.
As fans will know, Shada was set to be the final story in the Fourth Doctor’s sixth season in early 1980, but was abandoned partway through recording due to strike action in the TV studio. With only the exteriors and one of three studio sessions completed, the story was only around 50% finished, and a number of attempts to remount the final studio sessions failed.
One of the reasons Shada is still held in such high regard is that it was then-script editor Douglas Adams’ final work on the series. As a six-part story, it would also have been his longest Doctor Who serial.
Shada has since appeared on VHS and DVD in an incomplete version, and as a novel, an audiobook, an online animation (with the Doctor recast as Paul McGann), and in an unofficial animated version from Ian Levine, completing the story utilising animated segments and voice recordings from most of the extant cast but – significantly – a voice artist’s impression of Tom Baker rather than an appearance from the actor himself. Levine’s version was offered to BBC Worldwide some years ago but declined.
All that could be about to change, with BBC Worldwide set to release their latest version this November.
According to actor Daniel Hill’s Spotlight account, he is credited with an appearance in “Doctor Who – Shada” for “television”, under the joint directorship of Pennant Roberts (the serial’s original television director) and Charles Norton – the director in charge of Worldwide’s Power of the Daleks project. The reference to “television” might be an indication of another North American TV broadcast for the serial.
Indeed, Hill himself tweeted on June 27th of this year: “fantastic time recording for SHADA 2017”, following this up on July 3rd with “v exciting ready in November apparently”. Hill was, of course, cast as the character Chris Parsons in the original production.
All of which pretty much confirms this as the follow-up to The Power of the Daleks. And although fans of the missing 1960s episodes will no doubt be disappointed at the news, the audio track for this new version will effectively comprise brand new “old” Doctor Who, whereas the soundtrack recordings for the missing black and white serials have already been released often several times over. With Tom Baker’s involvement an almost certainty since he’s finally become one of the “Big Finish Doctors”, the key question that now remains is, will this be a full animation of the entire story (perhaps the most likely option if a broadcast is indeed the intention), or a part animation of only the missing segments? Time, as they say, will tell.
