Smith & Gillan On Promo Tour In March

[StCoop]

Doctor Who will begin an exciting national tour across the UK in March, introducing the new Doctor to fans of the series in five different locations spanning the length and breadth of the British Isles.

The tour will introduce the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith, and his Companion, Karen Gillan, to fans of the BBC One show and offer them a unique chance to meet the stars.

Each location will also host a regional premiere of episode one, The Eleventh Hour, for local children, working alongside BBC Outreach to enable kids to get a first look at the new Doctor in action.

Matt and Karen will travel around the UK on a specially themed Doctor Who tour bus, featuring the new TARDIS logo and iconic imagery.

BBC Outreach proactively takes the BBC into specific communities and sections of society, and has been integral in organising and supporting the tour.

The focus of the tour is to reach relatively under-served communities by the BBC.

The Doctor's maiden voyage will commence on 29 March in Belfast, and then travel to Karen Gillan's home town, Inverness, for a screening on 30 March.

The bus will then move on to Sunderland that afternoon and Salford on Wednesday 31 March before finishing later that day in Northampton – Matt Smith's hometown.

Alec McGivan, Head of BBC Outreach, added: "Outreach is all about getting face to face with people so they can get involved and experience the BBC in a different and exciting way – we're delighted to be able to take one of the BBC's best loved brands out to its audience."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/03_march/08/who.shtml

 

[23skidoo]

The classic series did this a few times, I remember. I think the last time they did it they had Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant - along with Jon Pertwee's car Bessie - doing a tour to promote Trial of a Time Lord.

So much for concerns that Smith won't be as accessible as Tennant!

Alex

 

[StCoop]

So much for concerns that Smith won't be as accessible as Tennant!

Sadly I've already seen people on other forums complaining (a) that it's for kids and (b) that they're not going to places like London or Cardiff (thereby missing the whole point of BBC Outreach).

 

[23skidoo]

Sadly I've already seen people on other forums complaining (a) that it's for kids and (b) that they're not going to places like London or Cardiff (thereby missing the whole point of BBC Outreach).

Yeah - so many people are hell-bent on trashing everything associated with the post-David Tennant Doctor Who that I'm honestly starting to get disturbing deja vu of how Trek fans decided months in advance to reject Star Trek Enterprise, and while the show ran for 4 years, it was the beginning of the end. And one of the "death knells" for the Trek TV franchise was people bashing everything, no matter what it was. The next "horseman of the apocalypse" will be people starting flaming threads every time Moffat, or Smith, or anyone connected with the series (past and present) open their mouths in interviews. Mark my words - that's coming. Already, RTD is being treated by some parties much the way "bashers" reacted with scorn every time Rick Berman went public.

(And if you think I'm exaggerating with regards to the "bashing everything" just take a look at the reactions to the new sonic screwdriver. )

I'm kind of glad Canada isn't getting the new season for a couple of weeks after the UK showing as that'll mean I'll be avoiding the boards (probably for the whole season). It's going to get pretty nasty, no matter how good or how bad things are. It just feels like fandom -- or at least a vocal section of fandom -- is primed, much like it was in the months before Enterprise debuted. I'm not losing sleep over it, but I am concerned because frankly even if Matt Smith and Steven Moffat suck, this is a show that is designed to roll with these punches and they can always regroup, but in today's climate, I don't have confidence that viewers are as patient as they were back during the classic series.

Back to the point, the folks complaining about the lack of London, etc. appearances obviously missed the part about the big-screen showings planned in several major cities, including London, Edinburgh, Manchester and Swansea...

Alex

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Oh great, if they didn't waste their time on this they wouldn't have to do a Doctor-lite episode!

j/k, I think it sounds fun, I'd like to be a kid in the UK. All the adults trying to get scoops from the wee ones will be pretty funny.

 

[ClayinCA]

Ohhh, if only BBCAmerica would bring them to New York...!

 

[Allyn Gibson]

so many people are hell-bent on trashing everything associated with the post-David Tennant Doctor Who that I'm honestly starting to get disturbing deja vu of how Trek fans decided months in advance to reject Star Trek Enterprise, and while the show ran for 4 years, it was the beginning of the end. And one of the "death knells" for the Trek TV franchise was people bashing everything, no matter what it was. The next "horseman of the apocalypse" will be people starting flaming threads every time Moffat, or Smith, or anyone connected with the series (past and present) open their mouths in interviews. Mark my words - that's coming. Already, RTD is being treated by some parties much the way "bashers" reacted with scorn every time Rick Berman went public.

There's a great whopping difference between the two, Alex.

Fandom is always going to be loud and argumentative. It's the nature of fandom. What made it dangerous and destructive with Enterprise is that fandom had become a larger percentage of overall viewers than in years previous. The reason? By 2001, Star Trek was already in decline, and had been for several years, both in terms of creativity and viewership. The loss of viewership was especially dangerous, because Star Trek had been bleeding casual viewers and non-fans since TNG went off the air, and by late in Voyager's run Star Trek was bleeding fans.

What's interesting is that the point where fandom turned around on Enterprise was the point where the series was unabashedly made for the fans. The fourth season was fan service, pure and simple. Fandom considers the fourth season a creative renaissance, when it was really the last gasp. Star Trek didn't die in 2005 because fans bitched it to death. Star Trek died in 2005 because there weren't any casual viewers left, and Enterprise and Nemesis showed that pitching the franchise at its fans won't capture enough of an audience to keep it going.

There is an equivalent to the final dying years of Berman-era Star Trek in Doctor Who's history, but that equivalent isn't to today. The better parallel is to seasons 23 through 26 -- the latter half of JNT's era. Read Rick Berman's column in Star Trek Communicator from the time and compare it to some of JNT's pronouncements of the mid- to late-80s, and they're not that different. Hell, even Berman's involvement with Voyager was much along the lines of JNT's "I have been persuaded to stay." (Berman didn't want to do Voyager, but he realized that if he didn't, then Paramount would hire someone else who would, and he felt like he could do a better job producing the series than someone else.)

The anger and vituperation of fandom today, especially in places like GallifreyBase, isn't anything to be concerned with, because as a percentage of the people who actually watch the show, the GB-haters are a frighteningly small proportion of the audience who are far louder than their numbers would suggest. The only people who really care that the people behind the scenes are different and that the people in front of the camera are different -- and who see these things as bad -- are fans. To the man on the street, who sits down with his family on a Saturday night, whose kids hid behind the sofa, a change in Doctor and companion is normal. And that audience, Alex, is enormous right now.

Fans note differences between, say, Philip Hinchcliffe and Graham Williams' eras. The casual viewers -- the ones who really matter to the BBC -- aren't going to notice the differences at all.

 

[23skidoo]

Fandom is always going to be loud and argumentative. It's the nature of fandom. What made it dangerous and destructive with Enterprise is that fandom had become a larger percentage of overall viewers than in years previous. The reason? By 2001, Star Trek was already in decline, and had been for several years, both in terms of creativity and viewership. The loss of viewership was especially dangerous, because Star Trek had been bleeding casual viewers and non-fans since TNG went off the air, and by late in Voyager's run Star Trek was bleeding fans.

What's interesting is that the point where fandom turned around on Enterprise was the point where the series was unabashedly made for the fans. The fourth season was fan service, pure and simple. Fandom considers the fourth season a creative renaissance, when it was really the last gasp. Star Trek didn't die in 2005 because fans bitched it to death. Star Trek died in 2005 because there weren't any casual viewers left, and Enterprise and Nemesis showed that pitching the franchise at its fans won't capture enough of an audience to keep it going.

I can't argue with your logic on those points. However one difference was that fan vitriol got so bad at one point that the mass media began to take notice. I remember seeing a story on CNN about it. As a result it contributed to an atmosphere where new fans weren't interested in jumping on board because the widely-spread indication was that it was a sinking ship. The hemorrhaging ratings didn't help, even though there was plenty of verifiable evidence that it was UPN itself collapsing as well. Had they been able to control their affiliates rather than having major markets deciding to run local sports instead (again seen as a sign of Trek's imminent demise) the show might have generated enough numbers to keep going.

Or not. This is all Monday morning quarterbacking, of course. And I'm not defending Trek's creative direction. Nemesis' failure was a self-inflicted injury because it was impenetrable to non-fans.

There is an equivalent to the final dying years of Berman-era Star Trek in Doctor Who's history, but that equivalent isn't to today. The better parallel is to seasons 23 through 26 -- the latter half of JNT's era.

Oh, yeah, I've been making this comparison for years. Read some of the DWM letters to the editor back in that time and you could just substitute Berman for JNT and they could have been written in 2003. Like Berman, I think JNT's biggest crime was staying too long in the job. Which is why I'm glad to see RTD move on. I loved what RTD did with the show, and I'll miss the guy. But what concerned me was that some of the anti-Berman/JNT language began to be thrown RTD's way almost as soon as the first episode of Series 1 ended. Moffat I wouldn't want to see around for more than a few seasons, either. Just like while JJ Abrams is welcome to make Star Trek 12, and maybe even 13, they'll probably be wise to have a new show runner in place should a new Trek TV series or a Trek 14 movie ever be made.

The anger and vituperation of fandom today, especially in places like GallifreyBase, isn't anything to be concerned with, because as a percentage of the people who actually watch the show, the GB-haters are a frighteningly small proportion of the audience who are far louder than their numbers would suggest.

This is where Doctor Who parts company with Trek big time. At least as far as the Tennant era is concerned. Unlike Trek, which as it died on TV had collapsing ratings, which the fans equated with a quality assessment, DW not only has high ratings, BUT there's also that unique Appreciation Index rating which indicates viewers actually liked what they saw. It pissed some RTD haters off to no end, but people liked how RTD handled the show, and his episodes were often the ones that got the highest AI numbers.

To the man on the street, who sits down with his family on a Saturday night, whose kids hid behind the sofa, a change in Doctor and companion is normal. And that audience, Alex, is enormous right now.

And that's the hope I have, is that just as they have in the past, the kids behind the sofa will love Smith and Gillan just as they loved Troughton and Hines, Baker and Sladen, etc.

And in bringing this tangent back to the topic of the thread, that's where I think these live appearances are a fantastic idea. If Smith is an accessible Doctor like Tennant was (rather than Eccleston, who wasn't quite so approachable), then I think he'll be accepted and those numbers will remain enormous. Having Smith appear on Blue Peter to draw the design-a-TARDIS contest winner was a definite step in the right direction!

Alex