I blame Paul Cornell.
On a panel at Eastercon this year, he said that he was about to commence once more the task that every true Doctor Who fan should complete at least once in their lifetime.
(A secular hajj, if you will.)
And that’s to watch every broadcast episode of Doctor Who.
In order.
From the start.
Mad fools that they are, Messrs. Arnopp, Turner, and Harrison (who appears to have no bloggish presence on the Internet, alas) have agreed to join me in my quest. Outside of the three of us, I know that Una is also making the pilgrimage (and is at least three seasons ahead of us already to boot).
Sadly, the tapes to many of the earliest adventures were recorded over in the seventies. After all, who’s going to want to watch an old black-and-white show when we have Colour TV now, the thinking went? And tapes were expensive…
Not put off by this, we intend to listen to the audio tapes of the missing episodes instead, in order to have the full Doctor Who experience.
Because that, by God, is the type of people we are.
If you want to race us, join in, or just watch the occasional story or two, we’d love the company.
The plan is to watch a story a week. If a story lasts for more than four episodes, we’re going to round up (so you can take a fortnight to watch a six-parter, frexample).
At that rate, we should be done in less than three years.
The mission begins on the 1st January 2009.
6 responses to “Your mission, should you choose to accept it…”
Go for it! We got to the end of Hartnell early in November, and have been briefly on hiatus while doing various business and convention trips. We’ll start on Pat in the New Year.
I hadn’t seen (or heard) quite a lot of the Hartnells. Absolutely brilliant.
Surely this calls for a new email group or blog or something?
I’ll pencil in An Unearthy Child for New Years Day (my wife will be delighted!)…
I quiver at the prospect of the early Doctor Who, and also am excited by the gems I am about to see too.
As for Mr Harrison and his lack of Blog presence, I will be remonstrating with him later and fully intend to see the finest of writings on the web soon.
Bring on 2009 and the wanderings in the 4th dimension.
(I have not told my wife yet, and frankly, think it a very bad idea. I think it’s difficult to watch the television when you are locked in the shed)
D.x
Having just done the sums myself, it looks like it’ll be closer to four years than three.
Aha. Ha. Ha. (And… breathe.)
Mind you, all we’re actually committing to is two hours a week. So it’s not quite as scary as it might be.
Rob: You, sir, are a genius. I shall be setting up an email group for us all later today.
OK, when I say “Later today,” what I actually mean is “Real Soon Now.”
Ahem.
Awww… not fair! I wanna play too… humph!