We stared into the untempered schism and all we saw was this dodgy CSO effect

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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

47 Comments

  1. Wm Keith
    November 14, 2013 @ 12:54 am

    Dr Sandifer, this is tube-impoverished South London (aka exile D-K) – you need to get a Southeastern train from London Bridge to Welling.

    Reply

  2. Sean Case
    November 14, 2013 @ 1:25 am

    Beep the Meep lives on in Big Finish, I believe.

    Reply

  3. prandeamus
    November 14, 2013 @ 2:19 am

    I read "Appendix 1: Doctor Who" and wondered, idly, how you, of all people, could possibly come up with a precis of that topic in an appendix. Then I realised it could be a dimensionally transcendental appendix…. I need to sleep more.

    Reply

  4. Julian
    November 14, 2013 @ 2:32 am

    I interrupt your scheduled Moore/Morrison programming to bring you this:
    http://bbc.in/TheNightoftheDoctorMiniEp

    Just… watch it.

    Reply

  5. Anton B
    November 14, 2013 @ 3:18 am

    ^ You got there before me Julian! Off topic but….I have no words..Still doing a happy dance an hour after watching this. No spoilers from me but…Oh hell guys just watch the damn thing!

    Reply

  6. Aaron
    November 14, 2013 @ 3:41 am

    HOLY SHIT.
    I just have no words at all. The 50th anniversary could be David Tennant with a leafblower for all I care. That just made the anniversary for me.

    Reply

  7. Seeing_I
    November 14, 2013 @ 3:55 am

    Lovely! Though it looks like wartime rationing has hit the cosmetics industry in that sector of space – whatever happened to their extravagant maquillage?

    Reply

  8. ferret
    November 14, 2013 @ 4:28 am

    I never really thought we'd get this good a present this early – he's quite wonderful in the role 🙂

    Reply

  9. Julian
    November 14, 2013 @ 4:51 am

    AND! Tom Baker is doing more Big Finish audios… with Lalla(!!).

    Even better, they're doing a season of new audios, plus adaptations of two of Gareth Roberts' Missing Adventures ('The Romance of Crime' and 'The English Way of Death').

    (link here: http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/tom-baker-lalla-ward-and-john-leeson-return-for-new-stories)

    Cor' blimey what a day!

    Reply

  10. Kit Power
    November 14, 2013 @ 5:13 am

    A million times this. Holy Mother Love Bone. Awsomeful.

    Reply

  11. Spacewarp
    November 14, 2013 @ 6:14 am

    I had my lunch-break all planned out and then Twitter drops that on me. How can a 7 minute film take up 45 minutes! Words cannot express. There are fans out there who have been waiting decades for that minisode. Any bets on a 5 second appearance by a certain film actor?

    Reply

  12. Theonlyspiral
    November 14, 2013 @ 6:49 am

    My Doctor…Alive again just to loose him. A Bittersweet reward. But it was lovely.

    Reply

  13. Nyq Only
    November 14, 2013 @ 8:08 am

    ngghghhhghghghghggghghhhhhh…

    Reply

  14. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 14, 2013 @ 8:11 am

    I've been planning that joke since I started. 🙂

    Reply

  15. elvwood
    November 14, 2013 @ 10:11 am

    Well worth the wait!

    Reply

  16. elvwood
    November 14, 2013 @ 10:12 am

    Squeee!

    Reply

  17. BerserkRL
    November 14, 2013 @ 10:21 am

    The nearest Underground stop is North Greenwich, on the Jubilee line

    And just three stops from Charing Cross, I hear. I assume a wormhole is involved.

    Reply

  18. BerserkRL
    November 14, 2013 @ 10:28 am

    two middle-aged British schoolteachers

    While middle age is variously defined, few would count 34 (Jacqueline Hill's age in 1963) as middle age.

    Reply

  19. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 14, 2013 @ 11:00 am

    Doesn't everything.

    Reply

  20. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 14, 2013 @ 11:01 am

    I still feel like she plays the character a bit older than that.

    Reply

  21. BerserkRL
    November 14, 2013 @ 11:22 am

    Oh yeah, I forgot we'd had this discussion before.

    Reply

  22. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 14, 2013 @ 11:34 am

    It's also worth noting that I talk about Doctor Who in ways designed to flagrantly troll my own audience in Last War in Albion. Hence never referring to the character as "the Doctor."

    Reply

  23. Daibhid C
    November 14, 2013 @ 12:36 pm

    If you do another Pop Between Realities on comics, it has to include the link "Appendix 1: Alan Moore and Grant Morrison".

    Reply

  24. Daibhid C
    November 14, 2013 @ 12:41 pm

    I look forward when you get to Alan Moore's view of the series, as expressed in the foreword to Jess Nevins's LOEG annotations.

    Reply

  25. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 14, 2013 @ 12:41 pm

    It's unlikely to. The joke is in part one about the broader scope of Last War in Albion, which has already several times casually reached centuries back into British history, and which is self-consciously broader, even if its band of history is slightly smaller. TARDIS Eruditorum is a subset of Last War in Albion. The reverse… isn't actually true.

    Reply

  26. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 14, 2013 @ 12:53 pm

    I've not actually got the book version of Nevins's stuff – does Moore say anything new beyond his usual "I thought everyone after Hartnell was kind of a pedophile" line?

    Reply

  27. ferret
    November 14, 2013 @ 1:02 pm

    had to laugh at all the "Doctor Who's" in the text, but noticed you did miss one! "a previously unknown aspect of the Doctor’s alien nature" – must be hard to fight the natural instinct 🙂

    Reply

  28. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 14, 2013 @ 1:16 pm

    It really is. I already fixed one. If I remember to, I'll get that one too. 🙂

    Reply

  29. Julian
    November 14, 2013 @ 1:55 pm

    The best bit I realised? The odd time they put it up – lunchtime in the UK. But then thinking about it, it's the one time where most of the world can either see it straight away or very shortly. It was around 11pm here on the Australian east coast, lunchtime in the UK and Europe, and (I presume) early morning across the US. How wonderful is that?

    Reply

  30. Daibhid C
    November 14, 2013 @ 2:13 pm

    No, but that was the first time I heard it.

    Reply

  31. Daibhid C
    November 14, 2013 @ 2:14 pm

    Fair enough.

    Reply

  32. Dan
    November 14, 2013 @ 2:22 pm

    So the history of Doctor Who and all its ramifications but a side topic to the war…

    Reply

  33. Doctor Memory
    November 14, 2013 @ 3:44 pm

    Utterly delightful. Six minutes long, and easily an order of magnitude better than the telemovie. McGann's screen time redeemed at last.

    Reply

  34. BerserkRL
    November 14, 2013 @ 4:19 pm

    And now, a new trailer for "Adventure in Space and Time" too:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEwikIhEZrE

    Reply

  35. David Thiel
    November 14, 2013 @ 4:26 pm

    I used to be one of those "his name is 'The Doctor' pedants, but now, as far as I am concerned, his name IS Doctor Who. And I've got 19 series of end credits, two episode titles, and one crazed computer backing me up.

    Reply

  36. Ross
    November 14, 2013 @ 4:27 pm

    This whole "The thing I've been running from all my lives, the secret I will take to my grave, the mystery hidden behind my name is this thing that happened 3/4 of the way through my life" thing feels very wrong to me, but damn if McGann didn't sell me on being both the character developed in the Big Finish series and also reaching the decision to become a Warlock (I mean, it does feel a bit rushed, in that he basically goes from "Never!" to "Okay, Warrior me up" in about thirty seconds, but the way he carries the character, you actually believe it, it's a very Straw that Broke the Camel's Back kinda thing). Wow.

    Reply

  37. David Thiel
    November 14, 2013 @ 4:30 pm

    I've been down on Moffat's handling of the 50th Anniversary, but I'm prepared to take much of it back after today. Two things I did not expect to see first thing this morning: Paul McGann and the planet Karn.

    So, is there any good reason NOT to do an 8th Doctor one-off? And while we're at it, let's get the cast of "An Adventure in Space and Time" to make a new 1st Doctor story

    Reply

  38. BerserkRL
    November 14, 2013 @ 4:33 pm

    The real secret he's been running from all his life is that he's half human on his mother's side.

    Reply

  39. Ross
    November 14, 2013 @ 6:12 pm

    In retrospect, Karn makes perfect sense. After all, before The Name of the Doctor, Karn is the setting of the single biggest challenge to the notion that the list of Doctors we've been working with is incomplete.

    Reply

  40. Assad K
    November 14, 2013 @ 11:09 pm

    Really, how can anyone talk about Moore and Morrison after that???? So will Fridays column be more torchwood rubbish? 🙂

    Reply

  41. prandeamus
    November 15, 2013 @ 1:35 am

    Late to the party, but that short was wonderful, and shows what McGann could have brought to the role. Yes, the decision to become a War Doctor was clearly too fast, but given the 6 minute limit it's hard to see how it could done differently: that sort of change would ordinarily deserve a multi-episode setup or even a season arc to do well.

    The only thing I regret (but understand) is that in the litany of previous companions, the EDA ones were avoided in favour of what I presume are Big Finish companions. That came across as a bit mean-spirited, but not to the casual viewer. What fraction of a second would it take to mention Fitz? But that's just being a fanboy.

    I loved the reversals of expectations: "not the doctor you were expecting", the girl knowing what a TARDIS was, the hatred and fear of Time Lords for their role in the war. And calling that stuff the elixir of boredom was delightful.

    Reply

  42. Iain Coleman
    November 15, 2013 @ 2:52 am

    David:

    Not to mention Verity Lambert.

    Reply

  43. Bennett
    November 15, 2013 @ 2:56 am

    Random trivia of the day: There are only four ordinal Doctors who have never been credited on screen as "Doctor Who" (Baker II, McCoy, McGann and Smith). There's an argument to be made here that these four shouldn't be considered canon, if anyone is crazy enough to make it.

    To address the obvious: Davison was credited as "Doctor Who" in Logopolis, and Tennant in The Parting of the Ways as well as The Next Doctor (for some unknown reason).

    Of course, the converse case is stronger as with The Night of the Doctor Eccleston becomes the only one who has never been credited on screen as "The Doctor" (a fact mostly down to The Five Doctors).

    …you're welcome.

    Reply

  44. Seeing_I
    November 15, 2013 @ 3:44 am

    The line about all the things you can do in 4 minutes, culminating in his plaintive plea "bring me knitting?" was the absolute highlight for me. I've been going around muttering "bring me knitting" ever since.

    Reply

  45. Doctor Memory
    November 15, 2013 @ 6:48 am

    Good lord. Well, I guess time heals all wounds?

    (And I imagine that being married to Richard Dawkins will put even Baker's legendary prickliness into perspective. I guess she has a type.)

    Reply

  46. analoguehole
    November 15, 2013 @ 3:07 pm

    Good troll with the references to 'Doctor Who' and effective in giving 'the last war' a different perspective from the eruditorium. As for the series being in decline by the launch of the Weekly, I'm not so sure that's all that relevant as a context for the launch. The Weekly comic surely happened because Skinn sniffed an opportunity based on the record highs in ratings. While fandom at the time was down on the series, ad while it can be seen as a period of decline in hindsight (yes I know this is all about hindsight), at the time season 17 was probably the last time until 2008 that the series appeared unassailable. The comic launched before season 18, don't forget. In this sense the piece does seem to derive from a fannish perspective, if ironic. Also, I dislike the claim that the show's 'visual aesthetic' was never it's strong suit to begin with. Was this deliberate trolling, I'm curious. I thought you'd be down with the argument that the 'visual aesthetic' brought to early episodes by Lambert, Hussein and Cusick et al was precisely the 'strongest suit', one that probably enabled it to survive beyond 13 episodes, never mind three years.

    Great to have some information on Steve Moore though.

    Reply

  47. Elizabeth Sandifer
    November 15, 2013 @ 3:13 pm

    The ratings were artificially high because of ITV, though. And even aside from the ratings, a Doctor Who comics magazine was a sound thing to attempt. This was a period where there was a BJ and the Bear annual in the UK. Anybody would have jumped at the Doctor Who license.

    Reply

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