This marks my 100th post to this thread - about one-quarter of those past have been relevant updates. The rest of them have been responses to your many wonderful comments, and now I have another one to share with all of you!
First of all I'd just like to say I'm greatly enjoying this TL, by giving Star Trek five seasons and saving the Doctor Who last episodes finally I have an alternate history I would like to live in!
Thank you very much for the kind words, stupid_boy, and welcome aboard! I'm not trying to create a utopia, but I admit, I wouldn't terribly mind living ITTL either, though some of my own personal reasons for feeling that way have not yet been made privy to any of you
stupid_boy said:
Now ITTL Katy Manning did not join the cast of the show, with Connie Booth's Linda in her place. Also, I believe it was mentioned that Booth was signed to a two year contract, and she doesn't seem the type to stick in that sort of a role.
I agree with you here - Booth doesn't strike me as the type to enjoy the rigors of a series commitment - apparently, the four-year delay between seasons one and two of "Fawlty Towers" IOTL was mostly her fault, as she had to be convinced to return and write more episodes (presumably by Cleese - and note that they had
divorced in the interim). Needless to say, she's also the reason that there has never been any more of the program: Cleese, to the credit of his modesty, generosity, and collaborative spirit, refused to continue without her, and I've noted before that he seems to do his best work with creative partners - Booth, Chapman, Crichton...
stupid_boy said:
Although I admit a certain bias, Pertwee being my favourite Doctor, I would love to see him do a season or two more, he continued to act until his last years and returned to his most famous role for anniversary specials and in radio productions shortly before his death in 1996, and he embraced the role in such a way that makes me think he wouldn't want to leave due to typecasting.
It's nice to have someone who ranks Pertwee as his favourite Doctor following along. To be honest, Pertwee is really just "along for the ride" - I have no special attachment to him, myself; he just so happened to be the Doctor during that narrow window of opportunity when there could have been a crossover between the two programs. (I've mentioned the possibility of Captain Pike and the Second Doctor, but that's another timeline. And
not one that I plan to write.) But yes, he seems a perfectly amiable fellow, and certainly wouldn't have the same kind of chip on his shoulder that Tom Baker did.
stupid_boy said:
Another though is that due to Doctor Who now reaching mainstream popularity in the United States in 1971, will we see Hartnell and Troughton returning for an anniversary special? I could see such a thing baffling US audiences who only have the exposure of the Third Doctor.
We'll get into that. One thing to bear in mind is that both Desilu and (especially) NBC have a considerable level of creative input into the show's production. Right now, they're taking a hands-off approach, considering the program's present success; however, they may choose to
exercise their influence if ever the outlook is not
quite so sunny in the future.
stupid_boy said:
An how will the Americans react to those genocidal pepperpots, will Terry Nation return to Doctor Who in another attempt to launch a Dalek spin-off in the United States?
Well, now, that would be telling
stupid_boy said:
Really looking forward to see how different the 70s will be in this TL.
Thank you very much! Looking forward to telling you all about the "Me Decade" as it unravels.
I knew he'd lost out because of it. (I even saw the
ninja commercials he did.
) Was that deliberate?
I'm afraid so. And NBC was riding high at the time; it was purely out of spite.
phx1138 said:
Oh, I don't disagree they teased too long, but I have to wonder, if they'd done it sooner, would it still have killed the show?
Well, the comics (until the recent reboot, of course) seemed to be doing just fine with them as a married couple (they even had an adopted
kid for a while there!), so yes, I think the producers officially found themselves past the point of no return.
phx1138 said:
I take the Golden Age ending with the first SA Flash in Showcase.
1956, in other words. The
very latest possible terminus to the Golden Age. And since you explicitly mention the two seminal works of the Dark Age (
The Dark Knight Returns and
Watchmen), that means you're having it end no
earlier than 1986. No
wonder you regard the Silver Age so highly! Though careful not to get
too recent, or you're stuck with Rob Liefeld dragging you down again
Ah but I'm from Belfast and we consider Laws to be more along the lines of general guidance than absolute rules.
I want to thank you for sharing your fascinating story with us, Falkenburg. It's provided all of us with an
intriguing pop culture perspective of your circumstances. I strongly suspect that the politically charged atmosphere of Northern Ireland is not replicated in the Republic - that the vast majority of the people
there are willing to watch the BBC, and other British output, and do
not have strong ideological reasons to eschew doing so. But your particular situation
is highly reminiscent of the Canadian one in that regard. Your parents are surrogates for the Canadian government (and the fourth estate, and the intelligentsia), whereas your own experience parallels that of the average Canadian viewer. So I've learned that approximately one-half of the people of
Northern Ireland are in a very similar situation to those of Canada. And that makes sense to me - there's that same, very dogmatic drive for cultural protectionism in both places.
And since you shared some Irish television with us, allow me to share something that has very much stuck with me, as an outsider looking in:
This clip from "The Late Late Show", hosted by Gay Byrne. (No further comment.)
Love the Doctor Who update!
Thank you, Glen
I think Brainbin that first and second who episodes are actually likely to be aired in US syndication earlier than you indicate. Desilu bought the rights and will want return on investment. I think the early success of the first run series will make them saleable commodities. They won't be as popular as third doctor episodes but will be enough of interest to air in less demanding timeslots. can just imajine the Docotr Who marathons leazding up to the airing of the Three Doctors...
All right, let me clarify my point. Yes, the runs of the first two Doctors
will be syndicated prior to the late 1970s;
however, they will, as you point out, air in truly awful timeslots, on nigh-unreachable UHF stations. And unlike
Star Trek, which did much the same at around this time, they will
not move on to bigger and brighter things... that is, until the late 1970s, which mark the ascent of the earliest "superstations", along with cable television. Remember, there are only so many timeslots, and
Star Trek, if anything, will be occupying even
more of them ITTL. And Desilu can offer the runs of the first two Doctors all they want, but someone still has to
buy them. And there just won't be too many interested parties in the early 1970s. But, to be fair, "not widely seen" does
not mean "unseen".
I believe that's the fourth time he's done that in this thread
One big question you need to resolve for yourself Brainbin is whether to have Doctor Who have some more parallel development to OTL or to unleash the butterflies. If you are going to bring in Tom Baker as the fourth doctor (and maybe Lis Sladen as a Companion?) despite the distance from the POD, then you might want to go with the OTL ending, just making it a BETTER Pertwee era, rather than a BIGGER AND BETTER Pertwee era. If you are going to have someone entirely different cast as the Fourth Doctor, then maybe you should go for a sixth year of Pertwee.
I like your reasoning; that was a very well-thought-out post. I won't confirm or deny any of the particulars, of course, but I do have a few general rebuttals. First of all, it should be made clear that the content of the show is not going to be what I (or you, or anyone IOTL) would want. It's going to be a delicate balance of what the BBC, NBC, Desilu, and the cast and crew want. They'll want
bigger and better, not just better. I suppose that my lovingly detailed
Star Trek posts might have created the wrong impression, but I did do my best to create a kind of "reality check" within them, as I'm doing rather more bluntly with my
Doctor Who posts, given the greatly reduced emotional attachment. The
Star Trek that I, personally, would have wanted, doesn't
exactly line up with the one that I devised for TTL. Likewise,
Doctor Who is being given a better shot at "the big time", but there are still going to be problems, and we'll get to those in due time. I think that after my next update about the show, a lot of your concerns will have been at least partially addressed.
I hope to have my next update ready in the next couple of days. Until then!