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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.

81 Comments

  1. Eric Gimlin
    April 28, 2013 @ 8:30 pm

    Nice place, like what you've done with it.

    It seems odd with you thanking us, you're the one who has been sharing multiple books worth of Doctor Who and related commentary with us for a few years now. But for whatever we've given you in return, you're quite welcome.

    Also, and I should have said this a little sooner: Thank you for taking the time to cover the wilderness years. I've learn a lot (and read a lot of good books and heard some good audios) because of it.

    Reply

  2. Nick Smale
    April 28, 2013 @ 9:34 pm

    A few hours before the debut of "Rose", BBC1 broadcast a programme about Doctor Who called "A New Dimension". You can see it on YouTube here. Although it wasn't obviously significant at the time, the identity of the documentary's Scottish accented narrator will be immediately clear to anyone who watches it today. So, even before "Rose" aired, Davies was dropping a gigantic clue about the future of Doctor Who, and we didn't even know it…

    Reply

  3. Wm Keith
    April 28, 2013 @ 9:43 pm

    I don't know when Billie Piper was cast, but by 2005 she was a familiar revelation to TV critics and at least to some viewers. She starred in the opening episode (and in one other) of the BBC's 2003 contemporary adaptation of the "Canterbury Tales" and was praised in the reviews. "It was a shining debut" (The Guardian).

    Reply

  4. Tiffany Korta
    April 28, 2013 @ 9:46 pm

    If I remeber right all the paper bought into the hype, even the Mail who seem to hate the BBC on principle. The fact that RTD constantly played the press whilst Moffat doesn't seem to is probably why every now and again the paper claim the show if failing. Even if it's pulling around 5 million views a weeks.

    I don't agree with much Lawerance Miles say's about the new series but I do agree that by the end of it RTD was buying into his own press.

    Reply

  5. BerserkRL
    April 28, 2013 @ 10:00 pm

    Thanks for the link. That is surreal.

    Reply

  6. BerserkRL
    April 28, 2013 @ 10:01 pm

    Hey! The new site's CAPTCHAs are a lot easier than the old site's. Maybe there's hope for humans in the brave new future after all.

    Reply

  7. Nick Smale
    April 28, 2013 @ 10:05 pm

    If I remember correctly, Piper attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School and was originally training to become an actor. So her story isn't so much "that most banal of pop star moves, a transition to acting" as "actor returns to her original career plan after temporarily getting diverted into pop".

    Reply

  8. Wm Keith
    April 28, 2013 @ 10:08 pm

    Or maybe you have unwittingly become the robot.

    Reply

  9. Alex Antonijevic
    April 28, 2013 @ 10:21 pm

    You've had this place redecorated, haven't you? Mmm, I don't like it.

    Seriously though, it is pretty good. The background pattern is a little rough on the eyes, though.

    Reply

  10. Ewa Woowa
    April 28, 2013 @ 11:17 pm

    You've had this place redecorated, haven't you?
    Mmm, I don't… Oh stuff… You've all beaten me to it…

    Reply

  11. John Callaghan
    April 28, 2013 @ 11:45 pm

    And thank you, Mr. Sandifer.

    That sense of "how are they going to do that?" when a new Doctor/phase of the show is announced is something crucial, I think. When the speculation for the next Doctor begins, I never feel that Alan Davies/Paterson Joseph/Eddie Izzard/Benedict Cumberbatch etc. would be right. Raise that question with the audience – but then deliver a good answer.

    Reply

  12. Scott
    April 29, 2013 @ 12:53 am

    Ooh, swanky new digs.

    Reply

  13. William Whyte
    April 29, 2013 @ 12:59 am

    Yes, thank you. This has been great.

    I think saying that Ecclestone isn't a stereotypical British actor isn't quite right. It's not like he's one of a kind; he's in a long tradition including people like Daniel Craig, Michael Sheen, Ray MacAnally and arguably Bob Hoskins (though London working class is arguably a different strand from everywhere else). It seems that what you're reaching for here is the idea that by American standards he's not a stereotypical British actor (or, more simply, he's not a Masterpiece Theater actor). Or, even more directly, that he's not a stereotypical Doctor.

    I remember being very excited by the news when he was announced (and I continue to be excited by it — for me, Eccleston is in the top tier of Doctors, although it's hard to disassociate how good he is from how good everything around him is too). But you're absolutely right to bring up the "how will they do that?" factor. Russell T Davies, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper seemed like three things that did not fit together in any recognisable shape.

    BTW, couple of typoes: "Eccleston is a major and respected Doctor" — I think you mean "actor"; "shot across the bough" — bow.

    Reply

  14. Scott
    April 29, 2013 @ 1:00 am

    I remember one day back in 2003 (or 4, whenever it was), reading someone speculating on what-is-now-Gallifrey Base that Christopher Eccleston might be being cast as the Doctor. I replied with a comment along the lines that I thought it would be fantastic if he was going to be the Doctor, but he'd never in a million years go for it, scoffed to myself, switched the computer off and went to bed.

    The next day, it was announced that Christopher Eccleston had been cast as the Doctor.

    I sulked for a week and closed my prophecy agency. Since then, I have learnt to never say anything is impossible.

    Reply

  15. John Callaghan
    April 29, 2013 @ 1:21 am

    (Tries hard to resist. Weakens. Gives in.)

    I think it's actually spelt 'typos'.

    (And 'spelt' is legitimate where I'm from. Honest.)

    Reply

  16. John Callaghan
    April 29, 2013 @ 1:23 am

    In the Daily Mirror (I think it was) they mistakenly announced that Bill Nighy had got the role. He's an actor much closer to what everyone would have been expecting, I think.

    Reply

  17. doublethreatmagee
    April 29, 2013 @ 1:32 am

    Has anyone gone with "changed the desktop theme" yet?

    Thankyou Phil. This has been an incredible journey.

    Reply

  18. Multiple Ducks
    April 29, 2013 @ 2:16 am

    As someone who only came to Doctor Who with the new series, but found you just as you were winding up the Nintendo Project and starting Eruditorum, and dispite being often ignorant to the show's history, I'm incredibly glad you took me on this journey. Coming here three times a week introduced me to stories, creators, and the strange pieces of cultural driftwood that I would otherwise have never known about, and made me a more critical and slightly more obsessed Doctor Who fan.

    Thankyou for an engaging and incredibly thorough education, Doctor Sandifer.

    Reply

  19. Lewis Christian
    April 29, 2013 @ 2:42 am

    Love the new site/design!

    I was going to suggest getting a Twitter account but you have one. It's cheeky but a clever way to get more readers is to hashtag #DoctorWho on Saturdays and link to your posts. I've found a good number of followers by doing that.

    Cannot wait for Rose!

    Reply

  20. Lewis Christian
    April 29, 2013 @ 2:43 am

    Also, following the latest episode, I think it'd be fun if you had a new subtitle for the 'new series'… Encyclopedia Gallifreya, perhaps?

    Reply

  21. J Mairs
    April 29, 2013 @ 3:54 am

    No meta-commentary on Wednesday?! D: I was hoping you'd paste over the first paragraph with a plug for the Graham Norton show!

    I've been following you obsessively since Hartnell or Troughton – I cannot remember exactly which post because it didn't seem important at the time. You were obviously never going to complete it!
    I only found your site because I went on to your Gallifrey Base profile in order to give you a piece of my mind/references to discredit some point you'd made in a post that has since become irrelevant; I'm hooked.

    So I'm assuming we'll be returning to those lovely quote titles for each blog entry.

    It's pretty much a given that the next post will be called "One Day I shall come back", right?

    … I have goosebumps…

    Reply

  22. Matthew Blanchette
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:02 am

    Indeed. Dear god, the paisleys… O_O

    The old blue scheme was so much more preferable and relevant to the topic; this, on the other hand, is… eye-watering. It distracts (and detracts) from the text.

    Reply

  23. Matthew Blanchette
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:03 am

    Ironically, I would've preferred coral, in this instance. 😛

    Reply

  24. jane
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:08 am

    Has the main text always been so gray? I could have sworn it used to be solid black. I'd much prefer solid black to charcoal, easier on the eyes.

    Reply

  25. Matthew Blanchette
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:08 am

    I've been following you, Phil, since… oh, dear god, how long? I think since the Tom Baker era. "Horror of Fang Rock" I definitely remember. Or maybe it was "Talons of Weng-Chiang", I'm not sure; it's… nebulous. The memory tricks.

    Upon joining, I looked back, and saw all the wonderful prior work you'd written. I've kept reading through the Wilderness Years; I only wish you'd kept with those Years longer, because it'd mean we'd hit "Rose" later. The later that happened… the farther off the end of this blog would've been. 🙁

    …but that's in the future. For now, there's the present. Shall we jump in? 🙂

    Reply

  26. jane
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:09 am

    Easier captchas? Funny, got the very first one wrong. Isn't there some way to automatically pre-approve people posting from certain accounts?

    Reply

  27. occono
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:29 am

    Oh, was kind of hoping you'd do a full article on The second Coming. Oh well.

    Thank you, Mr. Sandifer.

    Reply

  28. Christopher Haynes
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:44 am

    Are you suggesting we drink this blog?

    Reply

  29. Andrew Hickey
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:53 am

    Jane, unfortunately, Bloger's functionality for that sort of thing is pretty much non-existent. It's the main reason I use WordPress instead.

    Reply

  30. Froborr
    April 29, 2013 @ 5:18 am

    Last summer I was at the Maryland Renaissance Festival getting a bit maudlin in the cups, and my then-fiancee asked me what was up. I told her I was thinking about your site, which I'd just discovered (we had joked about attending the festival dressed as the Doctor and Martha, so it was quasi-relevant), and what an awesome idea it was, and how much I wished I could do something like that.

    "So why don't you?" she asked.

    A few weeks later I launched my own pale, pony-themed shadow of your project.

    So thank you, Mr. Sandifer. I've learned so much from this blog–not just about Doctor Who, but about Britain, about history, and about writing–and it's been a massive source of inspiration for my own endeavors.

    Also, am I the only person that likes the paisley?

    Reply

  31. Lewis Christian
    April 29, 2013 @ 5:28 am

    Not quite!

    But there are a lot of 'spillages' into the wider world within Sandifer's essays, and we're constantly surrounded by knowledge and fact etc. so it'd be quite fitting in that respect.

    Reply

  32. Lewis Christian
    April 29, 2013 @ 5:33 am

    Rose could have a plethora of quote titles:

    One day I shall come back.
    Change, my dear.
    He's back, and it's about time.
    Trip of a lifetime.
    First Things First, But Not Necessarily In That Order.
    You decided the universe is better off without you. But the universe doesn't agree.
    Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today.
    To hell with the raggedy. Time to put on a show!

    Is it weird that I'm just as excited by seeing what quotes will be used as well as reading the articles themselves?

    Reply

  33. Ununnilium
    April 29, 2013 @ 5:40 am

    Well, the doctor is a science guy. (No, no…)

    Reply

  34. Nick Smale
    April 29, 2013 @ 6:18 am

    Just discovered Phil's "Rose" essay in my email inbox. Thank you…

    Reply

  35. Elizabeth Sandifer
    April 29, 2013 @ 6:19 am

    Note, everybody, that the thanks precede him actually reading it. 🙂

    Reply

  36. JJ Gauthier
    April 29, 2013 @ 6:20 am

    Thank you, Mr. Sandifer. I've been following this blog since Marco Polo, and learned not only a tremendous amount about my favorite show, but seen entirely new ways of looking at media, politics, and a whole variety of philosophies. It's been a wonderful, enlightening experience, and I can't wait to see where it heads as we plunge headlong into New Who.

    Reply

  37. Elizabeth Sandifer
    April 29, 2013 @ 6:20 am

    True. And perhaps more substantively, she's actually good at acting. But the actual biography of Billie Piper is, for these purposes, less interesting than the question of what was signified to the broader public by her casting.

    Reply

  38. Elizabeth Sandifer
    April 29, 2013 @ 6:36 am

    Jane – I've had the text darkened.

    Reply

  39. Ununnilium
    April 29, 2013 @ 6:56 am

    I remember, when I first heard about the casting, thinking "Wait, the pop singer? Well, I guess we'll see", and after I was well into the first season, "Did I confuse her with a pop singer with a similar name?"

    Reply

  40. Ununnilium
    April 29, 2013 @ 6:57 am

    Looks better, definitely.

    Reply

  41. Scott
    April 29, 2013 @ 7:06 am

    It has an almost 'clockwork' motif in places which seems appropriate, I think.

    Reply

  42. Theonlyspiral
    April 29, 2013 @ 7:29 am

    At least it's not Leopard print…

    Reply

  43. Theonlyspiral
    April 29, 2013 @ 7:30 am

    It feels very "1970's academia". I think it fits PERFECTLY.

    Reply

  44. Theonlyspiral
    April 29, 2013 @ 7:31 am

    First things first but not necessarily in that order… but it IS excellent. Thank you very much.

    Reply

  45. Theonlyspiral
    April 29, 2013 @ 7:34 am

    I've been following since…oh…it must be sometime during the Hinchcliffe years, although it took me some time to catch up. Thank you for expanding my palate of Doctor who. I honestly would not have gone back further than Paul McGann without this blog.

    What more can I say? Thank You.

    Reply

  46. Matthew Celestis
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:29 am

    As a Sylvester McCoy fan I very much disagree with the suggestion that paisley is irrelevant to the topic!

    Reply

  47. Matthew Blanchette
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:41 am

    I don't. Blecch. 😛

    (Only half-joking, sorry.)

    Reply

  48. Matthew Blanchette
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:43 am

    That was red paisley, though… although it might be nice to change the blog's colors for each Doctor's era, don't you think? 😉

    Reply

  49. Ross
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:45 am

    I've just started reading it. Reading this article on the new show, inexplicably in my email instead of in that blue-bordered blogger site, instead of in my RSS reader. It feels slightly naughty. Like I've somehow got my hands on something that isn't meant to be unleashed on the world yet. Like this was a leak. With the wrong theme music at the end, left in the back seat of a taxi in an unlabled box with the name "TORCHWOOD" scribbled on the disc in magic marker.

    I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.

    Reply

  50. Froborr
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:48 am

    Yes! It's like a clockwork made of flowers and spirals!

    Reply

  51. jane
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:51 am

    Much better, thank you!

    Reply

  52. jane
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:53 am

    I will never object to paisley. 🙂

    Reply

  53. Josh Marsfelder
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:55 am

    Aw, we love you too, Phil 🙂

    What can I say that hasn't already been said? Thanks for the blog, thanks for the books, thanks for your enthusiasm and creativity and for your utterly unique and personal take on such an important pop culture phenomenon.

    And from me personally, thank you for showing me and the rest of the Internet that there's a future for equal parts serious, quirky and unorthodox academic analysis of television, comic books and video games. I can't say I wouldn't be doing what I do without you, but I'd be doing it in a far more lonely and far less supportive environment and with significantly less confidence or expectations for any kind of success. Thanks for that, for allowing such a vibrant community to flourish and for being a good friend both to me and to us all.

    Reply

  54. Elizabeth Sandifer
    April 29, 2013 @ 9:30 am

    For me the point of the paisley is in part the contrast with the grunge typography of the banner at the top. I tend to like stark color schemes and the vintage/punk collision, especially when done in color palates other than "steampunk."

    Reply

  55. Elizabeth Sandifer
    April 29, 2013 @ 9:31 am

    None of you have it. 🙂

    Reply

  56. Ross
    April 29, 2013 @ 9:41 am

    I do like the paisley in principle, it's just that in practice, every time my eyes do a saccade, the pattern makes the image processing parts of my brain crash for a second.

    Reply

  57. Theonlyspiral
    April 29, 2013 @ 9:57 am

    Before I read it my money was on:

    "Who do you think?" (Rose) as the title. Now I have read it, it's not really in the spirit to guess it.

    Reply

  58. spoilersbelow
    April 29, 2013 @ 10:03 am

    "Tennant was a known Doctor Who fan…"

    That's a bit like saying water is wet, isn't it? The man got into acting with the express purpose of being The Doctor. The Royal Shakespeare Company? Feh, just a stepping stone to the REALLY good roles…

    I imagine the first Doctor Who meeting between Russell and David being much like the apocryphal one between Alan Moore and Julius Schwartz (?) over the last Superman story, where Moore practically leapt across the table and grabbed Schwartz by the lapels, shouting "You must let me write that book!"

    Reply

  59. Anton B
    April 29, 2013 @ 10:39 am

    May I be totally English about this and just use understatement – No thank YOU Dr. Sandifer.

    You've provided hours of amusement and sometimes inspired awestruck regard for your erudition and academic prowess.

    I will certainly be promoting this site on my facebook acct. on Wednesday.

    As to the 'desktop theme' I like it. That paisley is a bit Madelbrot Set fractal and therefore eminently timey wimey.

    Now…must check my mail for 'Rose'.

    Reply

  60. Lewis Christian
    April 29, 2013 @ 10:40 am

    Matthew, that's a cool idea. I half expect to find 'bad wolf' written somewhere within the pattern now too.

    Reply

  61. Theonlyspiral
    April 29, 2013 @ 10:40 am

    I can't remember where I heard it (likely DVD commentary) Tennent was sitting down with Davies and Gardner and they watched Cassanova and then offered him the role as they sat on the couch. According to the account I heard, he originally thought they were kidding.

    Reply

  62. James V
    April 29, 2013 @ 11:13 am

    Well, I've been here since "The Highlanders," (I don't comment much, but the level of thinking here is way above the point where I feel I have anything worthwhile to contribute). What a ride it has been. There are times when I've looked forward to the blog updates more than the new Doctor Who episode that week! (Usually when said episode has the name 'Gatiss' attached). In retrospect, it's only just hit me how long and crazy the journey between season 26 and here has been. I eagerly await more! Some of my favorite stories come from the upcoming eras (Your entry on "The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon" can't come soon enough!)

    This blog has honestly given me a whole new perspective on what Doctor Who (and storytelling in general) means to me. So thank you. Cheers, Phil!

    Reply

  63. Ununnilium
    April 29, 2013 @ 11:42 am

    I won't say on Rose, since I'm a backer, but I'm guessing End of the World is going to be "Worlds Out There".

    Reply

  64. Pen Name Pending
    April 29, 2013 @ 11:55 am

    I found it a little distasteful towards the end of the run–the middle of series 3 or so, only that was mostly because they harped on Rose's absence–when it became a little too self-congratulatory. Especially "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" and The End of Time, the ending of which really distanced me from the whole Tennant era. I can understand it if you started from series 1 or 2, but it doesn't work in the entire context of the show, or indeed just looking at it from someone who entered the series a year later.

    Reply

  65. Alan
    April 29, 2013 @ 12:16 pm

    I've been here since Invasion of Time … which was heartbreaking because the Leela era was my favorite and I missed it completely.

    Reply

  66. Cleofis
    April 29, 2013 @ 12:22 pm

    I've been here since…well, I actually can't remember, but not terribly long (partway through the wilderness years, I think), and I just wanted to say thank you for providing both a comprehensive way into this sprawling thing called Doctor Who, and providing cultural context and other bits and pieces for this relatively neophyte fan. I've only dipped my toe into the old series so far, but I plan on going further largely due to this blog, so thank you for that 🙂 Can't wait for the Morrison/Moore project!

    Reply

  67. elvwood
    April 29, 2013 @ 1:31 pm

    I've been here since early Hartnell – although I wasn't around for the very beginning, it didn't take me long to catch up – and it's been consistently brilliant. I doubt I'll be able to keep up with the comments from here on (assuming we see as big an increase in the readership as I expect), and I've only occasionally said anything substantive anyway; but I'll still be devouring the entries.

    Many thanks! Oh, and watch out for kissing in your jolly wonderful Rose entry…

    Reply

  68. Pen Name Pending
    April 29, 2013 @ 2:20 pm

    I first became aware of this site near the end of the Wilderness Years posts and checked out some of the stories I had seen. I figured I would get more out of it and began reading from the beginning back in January. I can't believe it's the new series already!

    Thanks to this blog, my mind has been opened about storytelling, symbollism, gave me a history lesson and a new perspective on Doctor Who. I've been better at critical analysis and now see things differently. Thanks to you I own a Kindle, started reading Sandman, did some research on postmodernism, and was happy to find The Prisoner on YouTube yesterday.

    As I am planning on going into English, this has been a rather important part of my own education!

    Reply

  69. Eager Ears
    April 29, 2013 @ 4:56 pm

    I'm not much of an internet commenter, but this seems like a good time to add my voice to the many, and say how much I've enjoyed your unique perspective on Doctor Who. I've been reading it since early in the Hartnell era, and have learned so many interesting things about the show. Various posts have caused me to watch classic stories I otherwise wouldn't have, and see layers that I hadn’t even begun to think of. I especially like your recurring analysis of how Doctor Who uses the imagery and concepts of alchemy – it’ll be interesting to see how/if you’ll be picking up that strand in the new series.

    I look forward to the continuance of this awesome blog!

    Reply

  70. Matthew Blanchette
    April 29, 2013 @ 5:19 pm

    I'm flattered, Lewis! I doubt Phil'll actually take it up, though, but thanks, regardless. 🙂

    Reply

  71. ferret
    April 29, 2013 @ 6:31 pm

    There's even heaps more footage of Tennant as Casanova than of Ecclestone as Baxter 🙂

    Reply

  72. Glenn
    April 29, 2013 @ 8:32 pm

    I found this blog from a link on the Nintendo blog years ago, before I'd seen Doctor Who or developed any interest in it at all. After rapidly catching up on Netflix during the Series Six interregnum I'd check the blog once in a while just to see how far things had progressed; I subscribed shortly after Survival, assuming that surely the TV Movie and new series would follow quickly. What an education this has been! Whenever I've ventured back into one of the old serials I've followed up immediately with the corresponding entry here–just read The Pyramids of Mars last night–and the essays have always been fascinating & illuminating.

    Hopefully this isn't gauche, but it would be thrilling to see a project of this scale and with this sort of scholarly & literary perspective applied to the nearly-fifty-year history of Star Trek. Perhaps such a thing exists already, a dozen times over; there's probably less to grab onto in terms of alchemy & genre-bending. I was just thinking, however, that there's something of an analogue between the way that the New Adventures set out to be THE proper extension of Doctor Who going forward and the way Trek tie-in fiction functioned at various times, with novels & comics filling in between the early movies and, later, the rash of "relaunch" novels actively continuing the stories of the various TV series once it was obvious they wouldn't be revisited "in canon."

    Congratulations on the success of the blog, and of the Kickstarter. You richly deserve it. Now, off to read Rose!

    Reply

  73. Daru
    April 29, 2013 @ 11:26 pm

    Love the paisley myself Philip (I am Scottish, though I know it doesn't come from the town!) – and good typography too, smoother, sleeker in feeling.

    Reply

  74. Daru
    April 29, 2013 @ 11:42 pm

    Ah Phil – I want to give YOU a big thank you! I started reading via a link form the Tachyon TV site when it was relaunched. I scrabbled to catch up from Hartnell and read obsessively every post. Just catching up so I can join in on comments by switching between new essays and the older ones not read yet. I have just finished your final 'Trial of a Timelord' essay – interesting then to jump here and find the programme's New Future.

    I am a professional storyteller/performer, working also with groups with stories as a therapeutic tool and creating space for folk to explore their own relationship to narratives. Your essays and writings offer such a wealth of inspiration in this field – both for me as a teller and working with story structure – so thank you again.

    I was in an interesting position with the relaunch of the show. I had left the show during McCoy's era and not come back. In 2005 I did not read DWM, newspapers, follow any internet news or any kind of fandom. So I had the wonderful shock of Doctor Who appearing almost out of nowhere – and it was good! But more than that I had NO IDEA that Eccleston was leaving and was totally blown away when the regeneration came and Tennant appeared – wow! What a lovely moment that was!

    Would be hard to repeat that moment now.

    Reply

  75. Spacewarp
    April 30, 2013 @ 12:33 am

    @Andrew Hickey

    "…Bloger's functionality for that sort of thing is pretty much non-existent. It's the main reason I use WordPress instead…"

    And the main reason why WordPress gets hammered by bots and Blogger doesn't…

    Reply

  76. Andrew Hickey
    April 30, 2013 @ 12:48 am

    But WordPress also has actual working spam filters, so that 'hammering' is invisible to anyone either reading or maintaining the site. I get an average of one spam comment a month getting through the filters and needing to be rejected manually, and I don't think there's been a false positive in their spam filter for more than a year.

    Reply

  77. Ross
    April 30, 2013 @ 2:49 am

    Depends. I had a pretty solid set of spamfilters on my movable type site, and they kept the spam from making it to print, but I was getting hammered so hard by spammers that it exhausted my hosting account's CGI resources, and hosed up the database. The spammers basically decided that if the world wasn't going to see their spam on my site, the world wasn't going to see my site at all.

    I "solved" the problem by switching to a much simpler, but less accurate set of spam filters, so that deluge of spam at least didn't eat up so much processing power.

    Reply

  78. Assad K
    April 30, 2013 @ 9:43 am

    I generally feel woefully underqualified to comment on the posts (or even the comments!) but it's always been interesting, never been dull.. So congrats on the revamped TARDIS interior, and looking forward to the next few months!

    Reply

  79. maninblackreviews
    April 30, 2013 @ 3:52 pm

    You've redecorated this place. I don't like it.

    Reply

  80. Elizabeth Sandifer
    April 30, 2013 @ 3:56 pm

    What, you were worried I didn't see this comment when you posted it back on The Myth Makers? 🙂

    Reply

  81. GeneralNerd
    December 16, 2013 @ 12:32 am

    As an American Doctor Who fan, this article absolutely floored me. I've never been aware or much interested in any actor's career before Doctor Who (about the only thing I did know, before reading this blog anyway, was that Davison was well known before his time as the Fifth Doctor) but I never suspected or had heard anywhere that Billie Piper was best known as a pop singer before Doctor Who.

    Reply

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