Adventures in Space & Time & Misdirection?

[Starkers]

Davison's been my bet all along as well, well known and succesful but not so succesful that he wouldn't be up for it, plus he fits into the 'older star' category that Strictly always have at least one of. Of course there are those rumours that they were trying to get Jenna to do it as well.

As a dark horse I'll throw another name into the ring; Louise Jameson. In terms of classic companions who are still with us she'd be quite well known given her output (Who, Bergerac, Tenko, Eastenders) plus she still looks good even though shes in her 60s.

People unlikely to do Strictly;

Eccleston

Colin Baker (although frankly Strictly would be better for his health than I'm a Celeb likely was)

Tennant, although that'd be a hell of a coup!

[Lonemagpie]

StCoop wrote:

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I'm a bit confused as to your point. The Anniversary episode of Doctor Who is 60 minutes long, but there are other programmes (like AAIS&T) that are part of the Anniversary celebrations. I don't see anyone disputing that.

And just so you know, since the contact details have been cut off on that photo, the information at Toy Fair came from the Brand Manager at BBC Worldwide, who would in turn have got it from the Doctor Who Production Office in Cardiff. So it's as accurate as it can be really.

Didn't the BBC's announcement of the special being in 3D also confirm it was an hour?

[StCoop]

Lonemagpie wrote:

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Didn't the BBC's announcement of the special being in 3D also confirm it was an hour?

I don't think so (and as you might have noticed I'm pretty obsessed with nailing all this stuff down). However, in purely practical terms they've only got a month or so to shoot in before Matt heads off to America, which limits how long it can be. (And shooting in native 3D slows things down too.)

The BBC Drama Controller Ben Stephenson did suggest that the Anniversary/Xmas Specials could form a two-part story, though I imagine that would result in some annoyed people who've paid to see the former in the cinema only to be greated with a TBC at the end.

[Mr Awe]

Starkers wrote:

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I still don’t get why people are that upset about a 60 minute special. I think they can fit more into that time than you think. Look at PotD and WoM, both were an hour long and, quite frankly, both had a lot of padding. The Five Doctors was 90 minutes yes, but how much of that was stock footage of Tom and Lalla, and how much was Doctor’s chatting with their companions?

I don't think it's too much to ask for a (short) movie length story to celebrate the 50th. That's quite a milestone and a truly epic story is in order. Plus, I like all that chatting. When that originally aired it was quite a nice reunion! I'd hate to rush that sort of stuff.

But, it's also the implication that there won't be many old Doctors and companions (if any). If the episode was 50% longer, they'd be able to include more. Who knows how much longer some of the older actors will be around? Let's not have a situation like that with Nicholas Courtney repeat itself.

If they were to spread all of that out across multiple episodes, that would be totally fine. But, they're so darned tight lipped about things, which makes it appear like they don't really know what they're doing and it dampens enthusiasm. Contrast that to Big Finish where big things are afoot and they're building the excitement.

Also, a 2 parter that spans the anniversary special and the Christmas specail would also be very cool.

And, I don't give a flying flip who's one Strictly.

Mr Awe

[The Wormhole]

Mr Awe wrote:

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Let's not have a situation like that with Nicholas Courtney repeat itself.

To be fair, RTD and his gang always wanted the Brigadier to appear, but they had to jump through a lot of hoops to get the legal clearance to use him. By the time that settled, they were able to get him to appear on SJA, but Nicholas Courtney's health prevented him from appearing any more.

[Mr Awe]

^ What legal hoops?

[Steve Mollmann]

I'd never heard that Davies & co. wanted the Brigadier to appear earlier than he did, but the character of Lethbrdge-Stewart is not owned by the BBC.

[StCoop]

Mr Awe wrote:

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^ What legal hoops?

Much like the Daleks and Terry Nation, the copyright on the Brig would be shared with Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincon, who seemed to be (understandably) waiting for the right offer before they'd let him be used.

[Redfern]

I assume they were the writers of the first UNIT story (or whatever serial introduced the Brigadier) to air during the Troughton years?

Sincerely,

Bill

[Mr Awe]

StCoop wrote:

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Much like the Daleks and Terry Nation, the copyright on the Brig would be shared with Mervyn Haisman & Henry Lincon, who seemed to be (understandably) waiting for the right offer before they'd let him be used.

Argh, I always forget the British system were somehow the show doesn't retain the rights to the characters and stuff. In the US, this is a non-issue. If you write for a show, you know that you don't own what you're writing (I'm sure it's in the contract).

But, this never seemed to be an issue for the Brigadier character the other times he returned in the original series?

Mr Awe

[Allyn Gibson]

Mr Awe wrote:

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Argh, I always forget the British system were somehow the show doesn't retain the rights to the characters and stuff. In the US, this is a non-issue. If you write for a show, you know that you don't own what you're writing (I'm sure it's in the contract).

But, this never seemed to be an issue for the Brigadier character the other times he returned in the original series?

It's a puzzling thing. It's been said that Haisman and Lincoln wouldn't let the series use the Great Intelligence after the team had a falling out with the producers over, I think, "The Dominators," yet they let Lethbridge-Stewart be used left and right.

[Brendan Moody]

I'm not sure that rights were actually a factor for the Brigadier. His SJA appearance was a last minute thing after Freema Agyeman had to drop out, and was put together in eight days or less. It'd be quite a coincidence if that was the exact moment at which Haisman and Lincoln became amenable.

[The Wormhole]

Brendan Moody wrote:

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I'm not sure that rights were actually a factor for the Brigadier. His SJA appearance was a last minute thing after Freema Agyeman had to drop out, and was put together in eight days or less. It'd be quite a coincidence if that was the exact moment at which Haisman and Lincoln became amenable.

RTD does go on about the legal difficulties regarding the Brigadier in The Writer's Tale, and how Haisman and Lincoln were so uncooperative that RTD had at one point considered giving up.

Redfern wrote:

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I assume they were the writers of the first UNIT story (or whatever serial introduced the Brigadier) to air during the Troughton years?

They wrote the Web of Fear, which does introduce the Brigadier (although he's actually a Colonel) but not UNIT. In fact, a constant foil for Haisman and Lincoln is that since they don't own UNIT, someone they reject wanting to use the Brigadier can just go ahead and use UNIT and create their own ranking officer.

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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It's a puzzling thing. It's been said that Haisman and Lincoln wouldn't let the series use the Great Intelligence after the team had a falling out with the producers over, I think, "The Dominators," yet they let Lethbridge-Stewart be used left and right.

I thought part of the reason Haisman and Lincoln were so uncooperative regarding the Brigadier is exactly because BBC went ahead and constantly used him without their permission? Although, I suppose if there was truth to that they could always pursue legal action.

[diankra]

From what I understand, it's more Haisman than Lincoln (Henry Lincoln was, notably, the one member of the trio who wrote The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail who didn't join in with the unsuccessful attempt to sue Dan Brown for Da Vinci Code profits). It may be no coincidence that some of their other creations have finally returned to the series now that Haisman himself has passed on and the decisions are taken by his heirs (who don't feel his bitterness over The Dominators incident in quite the same way).

[Brendan Moody]

RTD does go on about the legal difficulties regarding the Brigadier in The Writer's Tale, and how Haisman and Lincoln were so uncooperative that RTD had at one point considered giving up.

Could you give a page number or a general location for that? Before posting I looked in the index for references to the Brigadier, and found only two; page 400 where Davies gets the idea, and page 402 where Courtney is at the read-through. There's nothing in-between about any difficulties. There's also no entry for Haisman or Lincoln in the index.