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From: TMPLee.DODCSC@MIT-MULTICS@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Dr. Who -- pre/post Baker episodes
Message-ID: <4573@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Aug-83 03:13:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.4573
Posted: Fri Aug 26 03:13:00 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Aug-83 21:35:01 EDT
Lines: 40

[I'm new to SFL; have been trying to catch up on the last couple of
months issues through the gracious help of our honorable moderator.  If
this has been asked/answered before, please point me to it]

I would be very interested to hear about any other parts of the country
that are showing anything other than the Tom Baker episodes.  (one or
two people in recent issues have mentioned the Pertwee episodes as being
in their areas.)  I would like to know two things:

1) which other Dr.'s are being shown, and

2) more importantly, how did the viewers in your area go about
convincing the station to show them?

Here in Minneapolis/St. Paul we have just finished all the 19th season
(Peter Davison) and are currently re-running (for the nth time) the Tom
Baker episodes.  A few weeks ago there was a moderate flack/excitement
when TV Guide said a Pertwee episode was to be shown here; clearly it
was a fault of someone at the TV Guide computer (which happens to be one
built by the company I work for, but that's irrelevant) typing in the
wrong Dalek episode -- it turned out to be a Baker Dalek rather than a
Pertwee Dalek.  Anyway, just to make sure I called the station to find
out what was actually to be shown -- during the conversation I learned
that their contract (with BBC I assume) was eight years long (from now),
so presumably we will be seeing all the future episodes.

The only annoyance was that previously they had been showing the series
as half-hour episodes at 5:30 every week-day evening; they are now
showing them as complete movies (4 or 6 episodes) at 10:30 Friday
nights.  That louses up Friday night carousing or whatever and certainly
cuts out the very large audience of children.

Ted Lee

p.s.  We like Davison -- at least 90% of the point of Dr. Who is the
subtle British humor; he has it down quite well.  We noticed
particularly that Tom Baker seemed to have gotten surly in the last few
stories, and were even worried that maybe he was ill.  It is also clear
that with each season BBC has a bigger budget for the show, which makes
the scenery and special effects better.