Not a quarry, but a city. A big city. Known in Ancient Roman times at Londinium. One of the most wonderful cities in the world: London!
A bunch of scenes or whole stories takes place in the living settlement on the River Thames. Starting with the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, taken place at the fictional Coal Hill School in London, up to present day.
Among the different invasions of aliens, there was the infamous Daleks and Cybermen (at different and multiple times) trying again and again to take over. Which kept the First and Second Doctor very busy!
When the show returned in 2005,London was once again the star location of “Rose”. The story used one of the newer landmarks as a… well, don’t want to get into spoilers :).
For the big 50th anniversary episode, it took place in various very popular London landmarks (Tower of London, Tower Bridge, River Thames, National Gallery, Nelson’s Column, Statue of Liberty… kidding, but I do remember several years ago hearing from someone who thought the SoL was in London).
https://youtu.be/fJcsf9nghCw
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – When Did You Start Watching Doctor Who
Back in the classic days of Who, there were not a lot of ,music from the show. There were some albums released of the sound effects and music, but nothing like New Who which has a soundtrack for each series.
Five years ago, during the 50th anniversary, there was an album release of a number of songs from both Classic and New Who. A sort of “Greatest Hits” of the entire run, ranging from the very cool retro scifi sounds of early Who to the orchestral masterpieces of New Who.
If we are talking for a non-greatest hits, I would pick Series 5, which was to Matt Smith’s first season as the 11th Doctor. It’s what also introduced the awesome 11th Doctor theme, “I am the Doctor” (track 9). The variants of that and “Amy’s Theme” (track 13) are wonderful.
Oh, if you want to see the video from where I got the top image from, it is a clip from the first of three (so far) Doctor Who at the Proms where the BBC Philharmonic performed music from the show (up to that point) as well as classical music. Sadly, they haven’t had a Proms since 2013, though there have been other orchestral performances.
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Favorite Guest Star
This one is a bit easier than the last! Since I already named my OTP and Favorite Friendship, that helps narrow it down. So time for another tie! And it’s a family affair!
The Ponds, or rather, the Williams, and their daughter and no-good son-in-law.
River and the Doctor
How characters are introduced is one of the best things about Doctor Who, especially in New Who where an introduction can be built up over time (see: Missy). We first meet River Song with the 10th Doctor and Donna in series 4 in Silence in the Library. River knows very well who the Doctor is but he has no idea who she is. Even though they are married (Ah, the timey wimey!).
We don’t catch up with her again until the following series with the 11th Doctor with Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone. And the wonderful The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.
Now, normally I don’t like the Doctor being romantically involved with his companions (in fact, I don’t care for romantic stories in general because they are usually cliché ), but River was a different case. And it was an interesting because she appears older than her parents (the River Song version, that is, not Mels), and she’s part Time Lord/Lady due to the Time Vortex, and she’s really handy with a gun (a little too much to the Doctor’s liking) and a .archeologist (a little too much to the Doctor’s liking XD ).
And how she was with the 12th Doctor was adorable. Most of The Husbnads of River Song, she doesn’t know who he really is. And it was so sweet when she does realize it.
Amy and Rory
And now to River’s parents, Amy and Rory. From the time they were kids, and then teens, and Rory going into the medical field because he wanted to impress Amy because she talked about how amazing the Doctor was. They were adorable together, and I loved how committed they were to each other, even the alternate Rory as the plastic Roman solider waiting 2,000 years to keep Amy safe in the Pandorica. Amy’s face when she realizes that with River and the Doctor married, that makes her his mother-in-law. And how, when the weeping angel took him away, she went with him, knowing that she won’t see the Doctor again (*sniff*). And we see their names on the tombstone (*sob*).
On a up note, some of the best episodes were where the 4 of them are together (The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang, The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, A Good Man Goes to War, Let’s Kill Hitler, The Wedding of River Song, The Angels Take Manhattan). They make a great Tardis team :).
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Favorite Soundtrack
This one is tricky. It’s harder to decide on a least favorite than it is on a most favorite! There are the meh/mediocre stories that I simply don’t find very interesting. There can be some good lines or scenes but as a whole they do not grab my attention that much.
No Classic stories jump to mind. I even like weird ones like Ghostlight. Maybe the Gunfighters? Because of ALL THAT SINGING! Now, I like musicals (The Greatest Showman! *Faints*), but this just did not work in this story. At all.
Even in my post on one of my two favorite series, with my favorite Doctor (other than Tom), I really did not like Face the Raven. It just got me mad because it did not make sense – in a bad way (yeah, the show has way more than one instance of not making sense, but most of the time it doesn’t bother me), and that Clara’s death didn’t seem to mean anything. Frankly, I was glad she was brought back in Hell Bent (and a lot of people did not like Hell Bent). And when I re-watched it earlier this year, I as even more mad because it made even less sense. Though I do want to re-watch it again, to see if I am missing something. And maybe one day I will go into more depth of why I don’t like it…
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Favorite Couple
For this one, I’ll use as my favorite Doctor/Companion team-up
Classic Who: 7th Doctor and Ace
From Classic Who, I love 7th Doctor and Ace. These two were awesome together, and I wish we got to see more of their tv adventures (although there are loads of Big Finish audios with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred reprising their roles).
New Who: 10th Doctor and Donna
As I mentioned in my earlier Favorite Female Companion, I love 10 and Donna. A lot. They are a hoot to watch, but can be beautifully serious when needed.
Next on Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Least Favorite Episode
PS – Yeah, this one is a bit short. Not feeling well today, but wanted to get in today’s entry. Maybe I might write up more about these guys later on. I’ll now go back and watch Fires of Pompeii (again!! 😀 ) to cheer me up.
This is another really difficult one. There’s 26 years of Classic Who, and 13 (and counting!) of New Who. So yes, there’s going to be another tie! Several ties! Each one in a shape of a bow. Because ‘bow ties are cool!”
“Hate is always foolish, and love is always wise”
“Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in.”
“We’re all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh?”
The Doctor: “But I don’t exist in your world!”
Brigade Leader: “Then you won’t feel the bullets when we shoot you.”
“Chap with wings there, five rounds, rapid!”
“Splendid chaps. All of them”
Watch Mojo UK put together a pretty good top ten earlier this year that bring out a lot of really good ones, and a couple I hadn’t thought of:
And here’s one that a fan put together.
There is the one by Steven Moffat about the Doctor:
“Heroes are important. Heroes tell us who we want to be but when they made this particular hero they didn’t give him a gun, they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn’t give him a tank or a warship or an X-Wing, they gave him a call box from which you can call for help and they didn’t give him a superpower or a heat-ray, they gave him an extra heart. And that’s extraordinary. There will never come a time when we don’t need a hero like the Doctor.”
And there is the one that means a lot to me because it’s what got me hooked onto the show:
“But that’s not right!” – Said by Susan Foreman from the first episode, An Unearthly Child as she’s reading a book on the French Revolution. Which got my imagination going and it hasn’t stopped since.
Next on Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Favorite Christmas Episode
Like with my Favorite Actor answer, I’ll go with naming someone who doesn’t have a major role on the show. But maybe a reoccurring role?
Penelope Wilton played the wonderful (and not dead yet) character Harriet Jones. Russell T. Davies, showrunner and head writer for Doctor Who at the time, created the character for
Wilton herself, and she was very committed to Harriet.
What I love is how she is willing to take charge out of necessity, and not out of hunger for power. And to not agree with the Doctor with how to handle a planetary emergency. And even though she didn’t agree with him, she didn’t hold a grudge when he said something that ending up removing her from office. And she was more than willing to organize a way to contact him if they needed help. I felt the Doctor treated Harriet unfairly at the end of The Christmas Invasion.
And I always had a theory that Harriet didn’t die in Stolen Earth. We hear the Daleks shooting and her screaming, but that’s done off camera. We never see her body. And my long held theory was confirmed last year by Davies, who wrote (among others) a poem in Now We Are Six Hundred about what happened after the Daleks attacked.
Then Penelope Wilton went to do some little show called… what was that? Downton… something or other.
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Favorite Quote
The enemy of the Doctor who helped save Doctor Who: the Daleks. Probably the most famous enemy that the Doctor has. And they were there from almost day1, While not my favorite enemy (I feel they are used waaay tooo much), they are cool and intimidating, and loud. Also cool to draw.
Again, a tie!
Classic Who
Genesis of the Daleks is my first pick. The story that introduced Davros. And in Tom Baker’s first season as the 4th Doctor., only his 4th story.
My other favorite Classic Who story is Remembrance of the Daleks. Aired during season 25. I think that they should have made this the 25th anniversary episode instead of Silver Nemesis, but the BBC knew better (*clears throat* ahem). It takes place in and around Coal Hill school in November 1963, right after the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara had left. And we see the junkyard again (albeit the door to the junkyard is not right, but that’s me being nit-picky)
And one of my favorite little bits. Made me freak when I first watched it. Weird Real World/In Universe type of things.
https://youtu.be/heaneTFht6s
Sadly, due to weird copyright issues, this one (along with just a few other Classic Who Dalek stories) is not on BritBox.
New Who
Got to be Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar. One of the reasons why I loved series 9.
Side Note
And a special acknowledgement for the Peter Cushing’s films as Dr. Who from the 1960s. Only two were made, and both had the Daleks. I have not seen these since I was a young fan, and have been meaning to re-watch them. After 30 years, it will be like watching it for the first time.
Next on Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge – Least Favorite Season/Series
It’s time to grab the tissues, because in this installment of the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge, we have the Saddest Moment. Or Moments since I’m so good at having ties. There’s a couple different types of answers I’ll give for this. One is the Real World answer. And three others would be within the show itself.
Real World
December 6, 1989, was when the last part of Survival aired. It would be the last episode of (what is now called) Classic Who since Michael Grade and others at the BBC cancelled it. And there were no new tv stories until 1996 with the single TV movie. And then not again until 2005 with the successful reboot. While there were the books, comics, official magazine, not having Doctor Who on TV was very sad for us old time fans.
Within the Doctor Who Universe
There are several sad moments, both from Classic and New Who. The saddest Classic moment to me is the death of Adric, as he sacrifices himself to save Earth in the story Earthshock. Companions deaths rarely happened in Classic Who, so this was a shock (sorry, bad pun) to me as a young fan.
New Who has three that top it for me.
While not a death, the wiping of Donna’s memories of her adventures with the Doctor in Journey’s End was breathtakingly sad. Even though he did it to save her due to the meta-crisis, it still…. just…couldn’t he have wiped out just enough for her to be safe but not everything? Ugh. They did address this a couple times during Capaldi’s era.
The other New Who saddest moment is the death of Amy and Rory in Angels Take Manhattan. Or rather the time adjusted death of them due to the Weeping Angel. I saw this with a large group of fans and we were all balling our eyes out.
The below video takes place shortly after the above scenes (kind of shortly after? Time travel messes with ya). Arthur Darvill who played Rory, did a voiceover for his letter to Rory’s dad. Interesting to point out that P.S. is written by the new showrunner, Chris Chibnall. It was released by teh BBC 3 years after the episode, and nicely concludes the story. Shame they didn’t shoot it!
…. Oh, yeah, The Doctor Falls. Just the whole freaking episode. I was still so emotionally worn out after that episode that when Twice upon a Time aired, it didn’t affect me near as much when he actually regenerated.
Next on the Doctor Who 30 Day Challenge- Favorite Spinoff
A bunch of scenes or whole stories takes place in the living settlement on the River Thames. Starting with the very first episode, An Unearthly Child, taken place at the fictional Coal Hill School in London, up to present day.
How characters are introduced is one of the best things about Doctor Who, especially in New Who where an introduction can be built up over time (see: Missy). We first meet River Song with the 10th Doctor and Donna in series 4 in Silence in the Library. River knows very well who the Doctor is but he has no idea who she is. Even though they are married (Ah, the timey wimey!).
Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone. And the wonderful The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.
