Chicago TARDIS 2011: 31+ Years

This year was a 5th Doctor celebration and so Peter Davison was there as was Janet Fielding (Tegan). Matthew Waterhouse (Adric) showed up as well as a last minute replacement for Sarah Sutton (Nyssa). It had been a long time since I had watched any 5th Doctor episodes and so The D and I took in "Snakedance". It is a sequel to "Kinda" and these two episodes vie for the title of Best 5th Doctor Episode with a lot of fans. Screenwriter Christopher Bailey, a Buddhist, incorporated some Buddhist elements into the stories and wrote some very surreal bits into them as well. I really appreciate the sense of menace imbued in these stories – it just doesn't let up.

The 5th Doctor was the first to come along after I became cognizant of the regeneration thing. I first saw Tom Baker episodes on Chicago's PBS affiliate WTTW. At some point – I believe it was during a pledge drive – I heard the announcement that the station had acquired some of the latest episodes featuring the 5th Doctor and I was thrilled. So I have a soft spot for Peter Davison.

I attended a panel called "From Castrovalva to Androzani, and Every Point in Between" which was a general discussion of the 5th Doctor era.



(Photo from the Chicago TARDIS Facebook page.)


Graeme Burk did the bulk of the chatting here and he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the show. I suppose this is to be expected since he used to edit the DW Information Network's newsletter, Enlightenment. It was just a fun panel for me, although it did make me feel bad for not having watched any 5th Doctor episodes in a while. "Kinda" and "Snakedance" garnered a lot of praise but I was happy to know that others thought highly of "The Visitation" as I do. No one mentioned another of my favorites, "The Awakening". Maypole dancing, a malignant force encased in the wall of a church – what's not to like?

The panel brought back memories of being in 7th grade and a conversation I had with some friends about the best 5th Doctor stories. I remember Lenny going with "Caves of Androzani". Great one. I must really watch it soon.

This reminds me. A documentary about American fandom called Once Upon a Time Lord was screened this year. It was shot in Chicago in 1982 at a DW con called Panopticon West by Denver's PBS station. For some reason, WTTW never aired the program so it got its first screening in the Chicago area this year. It was funny seeing how people dressed at that time and I'm talking normal street clothes, not costumes. Anthony Ainley, who played The Master back in the day, got some screen time and he came across as a really great guy who loved the show as well as the fans. He could chew scenery like nobody's business. He is my Master.

One of the presenters onstage noted the Red, White, Who project which aims to write a book about the history of DW in America and American fandom. Part of the project is a site called Broadwcast which is a wiki devoted to DW in America. It lists when what episodes were shown here in the States. So I looked up Chicago. I recall discovering DW when WTTW was showing Tom Baker episodes at 5:30PM CST during the week. I want to say that the first story I watched was "The Ark in Space" but I am not sure. Regardless, I discovered at the site that I became a DW fan in the February-July timeframe of...

1980

It seemed like a lot of people at the con had gotten into the show in 2006-08. (Was this when BBC America or the Sci-Fi Channel started showing it?) Nothing wrong with that and I have no interest in getting into some New Series fans vs. Classic Series fans type of argument. It simply means that I've been into DW for a long time. Then it hit me. I have been watching DW longer than many of the con attendees have been alive. That really put things in perspective.