Tidying up after a very busy holiday week here at THT Worldwide. This should have gone out on the 23rd but (insane work schedule + family obligations = who knew?) we'll celebrate the re-airing of the first episode of An Unearthly Child on the 30th instead. In any event the 46th Anniversary of Doctor Who also marks the 12th Anniversary of the site. In the past year alone the site has grown in content by 25%, switched primary hosting twice, along with endless restructuring behind the scenes. Many thanx for all of your continued patronage and as we await the end of the Tennant era coming up, and know that we thoroughly enjoy all of the feedback and contributions as we look forward to a busy 2010. The site anniversary and the headlong rush to the end of the year also reminds us about several site improvements going forward.
- Promo cap images for The End of Time from the end of The Waters of Mars and this years Children in Need are here and here. (As of 4/15/10 these images have been withdrawn)
- This should have been covered during the last site update, but the first "classic" series companion to get their own "Who Not Who" page is Elizabeth Sladen, who has so ably straddled both the old and new eras of the show. This is where any of here SJA images will be located, save those from The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.
- The (much anticipated?) return of the Tour's screensaver array, The Vortex. In addition to the back catalog of previous efforts, there are two new screensavers promoting the end of the Tennant era, The End of Time.
- As always at this time of year, we've dusted off our annual Holiday tradition…. The original Doctor Who Christmas special, The Feast of Steven
It's the beginning of the end for the Tennant Doctor. After a 7-month break in this season-o-specials we're presented with a story which is both very strange and yet all-too-familiar at the same time. Despite the trappings of the "base under siege" motif that has been a staple of both new and classic Doctor Who, the real conflict is the internal struggle between the Doctor's interventionist nature and knowing that this one time, his saving of one very important future-historical person would have consequences. When the turn came, the mercurial qualities glimpsed throughout the reign of the 10th Doctor came to the fore, and the (presumed) coda scene back on Earth had all the more impact for it. A couple of small points however…
When this fan was of an age to appreciate such things, there were three main pillars of British television which formed the basis for life-long Anglophilia, namely Doctor Who, The Prisoner, and The Avengers. The first two were helpfully served up by PBS back when these stations took an interest in such fare, The Avengers was a show obtained, at least in the 80's, by tape-trading. The Avengers was fun and stylish, The Prisoner subversive and strange, and Doctor Who… well it was all of that and more. And there was so much of it.! In any event these three formed the bedrock. Other shows followed (Secret Agent, The Saint, Department S, Man in a Suitcase and so on) but now and again–certainly not as often as this fan would like as the years pass, it good to go back and re-watch these series as a touchstone.
