Sylvester and Sophie tried to steal Doctor Who!

[Guy Gardener]

BBV Audio.

(It's been playing in the background all afternoon.)

The BBV thought that if they didn't use the word TARDIS or indeed mentioned their method of time-travel at all, that if Sylvester's character was now called "the Professor" (Even though Ace was still "Ace" in every which way) that their two "Time-Travellers" could just carry on as if the cancellation had never happened.

By the 6th instalment, the BEEBs lawyers sent off a few very angry letters and changes were made lickity split before anyone lost their house or their pants.

 

[Stevil2001]

I only listened to the last one of these, Punchline, which doesn't name McCoy's character anywhere except the CD packaging as I recall, and mentions his blue box. (Aldred isn't in it.)

It sounds very low budget, but is still pretty good. Of course, Rob Shearman wrote it, so it would be.

 

[EJA]

I'd heard about this, but I didn't realise the BBC got peeved about it. What changes were made after legal action was threatened?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Ace was renamed AliCE, and "the Professor" got a new name too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBV#Audio

 

[C.E. Evans]

This really reminds me of when Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant starred in The Stranger Direct-to-video & audio series.

 

[Whofan]

Yeah, there were a lot of independent programs which sort of reunited WHO's actors in the "Wilderness Years". Some were able to license some of WHO's monsters such as the Sontarans. Here's a few more I remember:


-Downtime of course, featuring Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane teaming up with the Brigadiar and Victora Waterfield against the Yeti. I think the voice of K-9 was one of the bad guys.

-Shakedown, which had no major WHO characters but did have Carole Ann Ford and Sophie Aldred, the first and last companions in different roles. Also had the Sontarans and Rutans.

-The Auton trilogy which used the popular plastic monsters.

-The Airzone solution, a pseudo-Doctor teamup with Pertwee, Davison, C.Baker and McCoy. Except they played reporters or something.

 

[diankra]

Re: Downtime - John 'K-9' Leeson's character (a DJ called Anthony) is actually one fo the goodies, as is Geoffrey 'The Traken Master' Beevers's role (a tramp who was a UNIT solder back in the Brig's day). If anyone's over on the dark side, it's Victoria (conned by the baddies) and Professor Travers (already dead, but re-animated but the Intelligence). If you know where to look, you can spot me for about a second, before I get CGIed into a monster...

As for the BBV CDs, the BBC 'tolerated' those probductions (aside from the Ace and the Professor names having to change) until Big Finish came along, offering real money for an official licence to produce audio Who. At that point, things inevitably got tougher.

 

[Yminale]

As for the BBV CDs, the BBC 'tolerated' those probductions (aside from the Ace and the Professor names having to change) until Big Finish came along, offering real money for an official licence to produce audio Who. At that point, things inevitably got tougher.

And Better. Big Finish still makes the best Doctor Who. Honestly if you are an old time fan you should get a monthly subscription.

As for the BBV. Meh. I listened to the first one with the "Professor and Dorothy" and it was decent but the others (except "Punchline") weren't as good. The ones with Nicholas Briggs as "Fred The Wanderer" (seriously it's Nicholas "Emperor of the Daleks" Briggs as the Doctor) is interesting in a weird way

 

[diankra]

As for the BBV. Meh. I listened to the first one with the "Professor and Dorothy" and it was decent but the others (except "Punchline") weren't as good. The ones with Nicholas Briggs as "Fred The Wanderer" (seriously it's Nicholas "Emperor of the Daleks" Briggs as the Doctor) is interesting in a weird way

Well, Nick had already played the Doctor for 10 years' worth of amateur Who tapes poduced by Audio Visuals (with Richard 'Blue Peter editor' Marson as the companion for a bit). As Gary Russell was the producer for some of the Audio Visuals seaons, it shouldn't come as a massive surprise that quite a few early Big Finish stories were remakes of Audio Visuals tapes (eg, Sword of Orion and Minuet in Hell).