gordon@uw-june (Jamie Green) (04/23/85)
Last Saturday (April 20), the Doctor Who Fan Club of America held its
travelling Whofest in Portland, Oregon. Needless to say, I jumped at the
chance to go, as it was the closest Doctor Who convention I've known of to
the Seattle area (as the program(me) is not shown in Seattle, not much in
the way of fandom exists, but that's another story...). It was a one-day
event, including videos, merchandise, and special guests John Nathan-Turner
and Patrick Troughton! Here is an outline of what happened, with comments
and highlights. Some of it may be out of order, as with a 3.5-hour drive
at either end, some details tend to get a bit muddled...
It started at about 10:30, half an hour late, when the president of DWFCA
(whose name I've forgotten...) introduced the event, and promised that the
latest Whovian Times would be in the mail in 10 days to two weeks (no, DWFCA
members, they haven't skipped you :-) ). He urged all of us members to write
in the latest letter campaign to the BBC, as soon as we get the issue.
(Non-members: when I get the issue, I'll post the necessary information;
please help!). He then showed the video for the song "Doctor in Distress",
which was done by many british pop-stars as a fund-raiser! I'm afraid I
couldn't recognise many of them, and the I don't know the names of the ones
I did, with the exception of Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, who were singing
along with everyone! As a video, it was your typical MTV sort; as a song,
it wasn't bad. All the records of it had sold out before the con had begun,
so I didn't get a copy.
He then introduced JNT, who talked (after a massive round of applause and
cheers) for a few minutes about his association with Doctor Who, and of
course the hiatus. Apparently good ol' Michael Grade, in his Americanizing
of the BBC (JNT didn't use that term, but it is obvious that's what he's
doing), needed money to do his new dramas, and the money ended up coming
from Doctor Who (he didn't say if any other shows were similarly affected).
He assured us that the show would return in fall 1986, in the old 25-minute
format and still on Saturdays. He said that in the interim, there are still
talks about a movie, but nothing definite yet. Someone asked if the Beeb
were planning on bringing it back Blake's 7 style; i.e. do one more season
and then kill everyone off, but he said that it was NOT anyone's plan to
cancel the show permanently. He said that the production team was not
breaking up, that they still went to the office everyday, and weren't work-
ing on other projects. Also, fortunately, the dumb questions were gotten
out of the way early on: a young boy asked him who his favorite Doctor was.
The audience laughed, and when JNT answered "To quote the Brigadier..."
everyone cheered!
We then watched The Two Doctors! It was quite a fun episode, written by
Robert Holmes of course. It's good to see he's returning to the show after
so long. The first scene was in black & white, with the Doctor 2 and Jamie
in the TARDIS, which gave the audience the idea that it was a clip from an
old episode, but then after several seconds it slowly turned into a color
picture, which showed how little the actors have changed in 15 years! Aside
from that, I won't say much, except that Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines
were great, and Colin Baker has now put to rest any doubts I had left about
his portrayal of the Doctor (I had previously seen The Twin Dilemma and
Attack of the Cybermen). Even Peri wasn't so bad! :-) (I don't consider
myself in the ranks of the "Peri-bashers", but I must confess she is far
from my favorite companion...) Jacqueline Pearce as Chessene of the
Franzine Grig (how's that for a name?) reminded me of Servalan so much, I
found myself wondering where Travis was! Oh, one last thing: we get to see
Colin's waistcoat in this episode, and true to form, it looks like something
JNT wouldn't wear himself...
(If anyone else who's seen the story wants to discuss it, feel free to
write me; I don't want to make this posting a spoiler.)
Then, after a short break, the fun part began. Patrick Troughton (whom
I will henceforth refer to as "Pat", not because he and I are pals :-) but
because it's a lot easier to type) came out onto the stage, in a regular
suit, holding a jacket, etc., in his arm. He explained "I wanted to come
out in costume, but someone seems to have misplaced my trousers!" He did,
however, decide to at least put the top half on, so he took off his jacket
and shirt (to cheers and whistles!), and put on his costume shirt, coat and
bowtie. Someone in the audience shouted "go for the pants!", so Pat said,
"alright, let's take a vote. Who wants me to remove my trousers?" Of
course, every hand went up. So he dropped his pants -- and his costume
pants were on underneath! Everybody laughed and applauded, and the question
and answer panel began.
Here are some highlights of the question and answer session, in no parti-
cular order. Pat's favorite story was The Mind Robber. There will likely
be a story involving the Nestene Autons in the 23rd season. Some time ago,
Pat said in an interview that he'd like to return to the show as a bad guy,
and although he's now done an episode reprising his role of the Doctor, he'd
still like to do a "hairy monster" as he put it. The viewing figures for
the 22nd Season in the U.K. were very strong, the average being 7.2 million
viewers. The jelly baby thing came about rather by accident: the "prop
ladies" used to put all sorts of things in Pat's pockets for scenes, and one
day he reached in and found a bag of them, "and the rest is history." Some-
one gave John and Pat Friends of the Doctor shirts, John's being of course of
the hawaiian variety. Someone asked Pat if he really hated Jon Pertwee...
he didn't answer directly, but mentioned a time at a convention when he and
Jon had been presented with water machine guns, which they proceeded to shoot
at each other for the rest of the con.
After the panel was the autograph session and a showing of Attack of the
Cybermen (I already have the episode, but it was sure great seeing it in
something other than a camera copy!), and then the event was over. All in
all, a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to next year!
"You could augment an earwig to understand nuclear physics,
but it's still a stupid thing to do!"
-- The Two Doctors
\ oo uucp:
\____|\mm Jamie Green {ihnp4,decvax}!uw-beaver!uw-june!gordon
//_//\ \_\
/ / \/_/ The Great Green arpa:
/___/_____\ Arkleseizure gordon@uw-june.arpa
-----------dr37@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Joanna Bryson) (04/24/85)
At the 20th anniversery convention here in Chicago, there was a pannel discussion with the four surviving doctors, and Kevin Leesen (sp? the K9 voice) moderating. Unfortunately I missed it, but from what I heard, Traughton was giving Mr. Pertwee a very hard time, until finally Jon threw his glass of water at Pat. Pat managed to duck, but Peter D. got soaked. Joanna