The Brits get all the cool stuff!

[23skidoo]

More than once I've found myself wishing I lived in the UK. Especially as a Doctor Who fan.

- One of the major UK newspapers just spent the last week giving away Doctor Who audio book CDs with each copy (including the new Eleventh Doctor story The Runaway Train which, if Amazon is to be believed, we won't see in stores until 2011!). (Never mind the fact DVD giveaways seem to be going on all the time with newspapers over there.)

- Doctor Who Adventures -- the more kiddified equivalent of DWM -- regularly includes bonus stuff and the magazine isn't even distributed out of the UK.

- There is also a Doctor Who DVD Files magazine that comes with a DVD of episodes each month (again, we never see that here).

- DWM actually comes out BEFORE the episodes being previewed instead of months later. (DWM 419, which previewed Eleventh Hour, hit comic book shops - or those few that bothered to order copies - the week of March 31 (the UK had it March 4), and it finally arrived in regular magazine shops this week. Fortunately the free Big Finish story download hadn't expired yet. To my stunned amazement I was able to get it from Canada - some things are still international! (Actually, to give DWM full respect, I have never encountered an occasion where a giveaway item, whether a download, CD, poster, or even free copy of a Target novelisation, has ever been "stripped" from copies distributed here in Canada.)

- We never did see that SFX issue with the 3-D Doctor Who cover.

- And now apparently SFX Magazine is having a contest, and the winner receives life-size standees of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan! And it's only open to British residents, ya lucky mucks! (Website for entering: https://www.futurecompetitions.com/whocutouts)

Alex

PS. I could also add the obvious one that you guys get to see the episodes 2 weeks before we do. That's not a huge deal, except that it's hellish difficult to avoid spoilers. Exhibit A: the Graham Norton cartoon screw-up which was reported in the clear (no spoiler warnings) on virtually every Who news site and the BBC, and in the process giving away the ending to The Time of Angels!

 

[Bones2]

Well, it is our show after all.

 

[Deckerd]

I seem to recall the Sci Fi channel turned down the first season of the new Doctor Who because it was "too English". That turned out to be a bit of a blunder.

 

[Cutter John]

Thems the breaks when you decide to be a fan of someone elses shows. They usually get dibs on all the cool stuff. Anime fans have the same problem. Its why God created conventions.

 

[matthunter]

US iTunes store has the "make yourself sound like a Dalek" app available for download ahead of the UK, and for this I hate you with the heat of a million blazing suns (which have had chili sauce fired into them).

 

[davejames]

I finally saw the 3D SFX magazine in bookstore where I'm at, so I suspect you'll see it soon too. DWM you can get from Whona.com a couple days after they're released in the UK. And the new episodes and audios aren't too hard to, ahem, find online either.

I agree though, it WOULD be nice to just walk into a shop and pick from tons of DW toys and merchandise, without having to order everything online and pay extra.

 

[Winterwind]

Well, it is our show after all.

Sorry, it's ours actually. Sydney Newman. Canada. Time to make with the goods, mate.

 

[Bones2]

Yeah, and Jesus was English.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I seem to recall the Sci Fi channel turned down the first season of the new Doctor Who because it was "too English". That turned out to be a bit of a blunder.

No, Sci-Fi turned it down because the BBC wanted a million dollars an episode to broadcast it. They eventually realized that no American network was going to pay that for a show that they had zero control over, and settled for a tenth of that from Sci-Fi, though much, much later.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Well, it is our show after all.

Sorry, it's ours actually. Sydney Newman. Canada. Time to make with the goods, mate.

Weeeeell... technically true, but while Sydney Newman came up with the bare bones of the concept, next to nothing of the mythology was created at the very beginning but developed and fleshed out as they went along over many years. You can't really ascribe the creation of Doctor Who to any one person. Newman, Verity Lambert, Anthony Coburn, C.E. Webber, Innes Lloyd, Terrance Dicks, Peter Bryant, Derrick Sherwin, Barry Letts, Phillip Hinchcliffe, Robert Holmes, Douglas Adams, John Nathan-Turner, Russell T. Davies, Steven Moffat et al can probably each claim as much credit.

 

[Count Zero]

Ooh, this is the perfect opportunity to go all 'Four Yorkshiremen'.

You are lucky. We don't get to see any new Who episodes at all!

 

[Pseudo]

More than once I've found myself wishing I lived in the UK. Especially as a Doctor Who fan.

As a Star Trek fan I often found myself wishing I lived in the US. Life's a bit of a bugger like that.

 

[Jax]

Yeah, and Jesus was English.

That was supposed to be our little secret...Next you'll give it away that the Queen is German

 

[Winterwind]

Well, it is our show after all.

Sorry, it's ours actually. Sydney Newman. Canada. Time to make with the goods, mate.

Weeeeell... technically true, but while Sydney Newman came up with the bare bones of the concept, next to nothing of the mythology was created at the very beginning but developed and fleshed out as they went along over many years. You can't really ascribe the creation of Doctor Who to any one person. Newman, Verity Lambert, Anthony Coburn, C.E. Webber, Innes Lloyd, Terrance Dicks, Peter Bryant, Derrick Sherwin, Barry Letts, Phillip Hinchcliffe, Robert Holmes, Douglas Adams, John Nathan-Turner, Russell T. Davies, Steven Moffat et al can probably each claim as much credit.

I think you forgot a few names.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I'm just happy I was able to get the new Sonic Screwdriver fairly early. We usually get stuff like that a little later.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I seem to recall the Sci Fi channel turned down the first season of the new Doctor Who because it was "too English". That turned out to be a bit of a blunder.

No, Sci-Fi turned it down because the BBC wanted a million dollars an episode to broadcast it. They eventually realized that no American network was going to pay that for a show that they had zero control over, and settled for a tenth of that from Sci-Fi, though much, much later.

Has that ever been proven to be true rather than internet rumour? I find it hard to believe they were asking a license fee that's pretty much the entire cost of an episode.

 

[Pseudo]

Well, it is our show after all.

Sorry, it's ours actually. Sydney Newman. Canada. Time to make with the goods, mate.

While Sydney was Canadian, it was John Braybon and Alice Prick who wrote the initial reports that formed the basis and effective inspiration for the series. It was also the BBC who commissioned and paid for the series.

I'm not trying to underplay Sydney Newman's enormous contribution, but he was one member of a team that created Doctor Who. A very important and possibly indispensable member of the team, but a member of a team nonetheless.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

All of the Doctor Who toys are available in Canada from various places, and the episodes are on DVD, so I have no problem.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Sorry, it's ours actually. Sydney Newman. Canada. Time to make with the goods, mate.

Weeeeell... technically true, but while Sydney Newman came up with the bare bones of the concept, next to nothing of the mythology was created at the very beginning but developed and fleshed out as they went along over many years. You can't really ascribe the creation of Doctor Who to any one person. Newman, Verity Lambert, Anthony Coburn, C.E. Webber, Innes Lloyd, Terrance Dicks, Peter Bryant, Derrick Sherwin, Barry Letts, Phillip Hinchcliffe, Robert Holmes, Douglas Adams, John Nathan-Turner, Russell T. Davies, Steven Moffat et al can probably each claim as much credit.

I think you forgot a few names.

I'm sure I did.

 

[Winterwind]

All of the Doctor Who toys are available in Canada from various places...

I'd love to know where. The only Canadian retailer I'm aware of that carries any is Pixel Barrel. And they're so over-priced it's cheaper for me to order from the US or UK.