Radio Times Claims a Classic Doctor Might Be in 50th Anniversary

Relevant to who, exactly?

Though I would agree that an aged companion meeting a young and vibrant Doctor is very fertile ground. An extended cameo would be interesting on its face, regardless of one's knowledge of first Doctor stories.

 

William Russell appeared in the very first 1963 episode. David Tennant and Billie Piper appeared in 2005, and were last seen in 2010.

Russell would definitely be more relevant to the anniversary than those 2. It'd be pretty odd if we didn't get at least one classic series actor, what with the anniversary of the classic series being celebrated.

 

^ Bingo!

 

More fuel to the fire regarding the possibility of Eight returning (hopefully in his original outfit).

 

Hasn't that been rumoured for ages?

 

What about the BBCA footage for the Monthly sample of Classic Who? If he's doing it for The Enemy Within, next month, surely he would have filmed something for his only Onscreen appearance as The Doctor. Could that be answer for the rumor?

Would BBCA shoot theirs here in America, or might McGann have filmed it in The UK? And even if the shooting location disagrees, that could be it, because some rumors become so confused.

It's funny, reading that, my mind kept racing back to the reporter who "broke" the Missing Episodes Rumor

 

Well, it is the same website. Although this particular article is written by a different reporter.

 

You sure that other byline isn't just a front to make the Organization appear bigger

 

Certainly a possibility, I suppose.

 

What fuel? That's all "well, I heard something..." No pictures, no official statement. There's no fuel other than Bleeding Cool trying to get more clicks on the website. There isn't any actual information in that article.

 

As is the case most of the time with Bleeding Cool.

 

None of which answers the question. It's my feeling that the fans of the current incarnation of the show don't, on the whole, give one solitary toss about Doctor Who pre-2005. And the fans who do know and care about the old run of the series are a small group which can be safely ignored. Much like fans of the original Battlestar Galactica, really.

More directly, appealing to those fans with a prominent role for Ian would damage the special's appeal to the larger audience who watches the show today. Bringing back Tennant and Piper, on the other hand, is a must. They were the most popular Doctor-companion pairing of the current series.

 

I'd rather have a former Doctor, after all some are still alive, than a former companion. After all, it's "Doctor Who", not "Companion Who".

And if it's not a Doctor, next in line should be Susan. Not actually a companion, but a fellow Gallifryian. (Interesting that my spell checker does not flag that as a typo).

 

Well, you'd certainly be wrong considering how popular the classic series still remains in popular culture.

Absolute nonsense. The new show goes out of its way all the time to maintain continuity with the old show. The entire pre-titles sequence of the last episode we got depends on the viewer being aware of the classic series, and the episode featured the Great Intelligence as the villain. A villain from 2 missing serials.

The anniversary special is celebrating the anniversary of An Unearthly Child, so we'd like to see an actor from that episode in it. It's not hard to understand.

 

I don't think that's true in the slightest. My perception of Doctor Who in popular culture is the current version, with the old series largely forgotten, save for Tom Baker's scarf popping up in the Simpsons every so often. There is certainly an affection for the old series in geek culture, but that's not even close to the same thing as popular culture.

As someone who didn't know that before the episodes aired, that detail couldn't have mattered less. Name-dropping easter-eggs for the old fans isn't at all the same thing as focusing an anniversary special on a character that 95% of the viewing audience doesn't know or care about.

Nah, the episode is celebrating the modern run of Doctor Who with some snippets of the past series thrown in as a nod to the faithful.

 

The Stig, regardless wether you believe Tennant/Piper are an important part of the celebration, and regardless wether you see the need to bring in Classic Who actors, DalekJim is correct about the Anniversary celebrating An Unearthly Child. This is the 50th Anniversary, so, it absolutely is celebrating the first episode, there is no denying that, it's a simple fact.

There would be no danger whatsoever to the ratings to include William Russel. Ian could easily be in the thing without confusing the General Audience, who may or may not know who Ian is. It would take very little, no more than seconds or a minute to fill in who he is

 

Oh, please. Then why is it airing on the 50th anniversary of An Unearthly Child? If nobody cares about Classic Who then why have the BBC put money in to making a drama based on its creation?

If Moffat genuinely thought nobody cared about Doctor Who before Tennant and Rose came along, then we wouldn't be having a 50th anniversary special at all. He's well aware that the only reason this modern series took off in the first place is due to mammoth public nostalgia for the classic run.

 

The anniversary celebrates Doctor Who, not the episode that happened to air that day, any more than a Trek anniversary is overtly concerned about honoring 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' or, alternately, 'The Cage.' No one is going to be particularly interested in the idea of Number One or Doctor Piper appearing in an anniversary event.

In any case, we're going in circles. I'm not of the opinion that the original Doctor Who series is:
1) Any good.
2) Worth remembering, beyond little easter eggs that don't require me to actually watch any of the old episodes.
3) Beloved by any number of fans large enough to care about.

Since you and DJ think otherwise, we're unlikely to come to any kind of consensus.

 

Stopped reading.

 

It's the same damn series.