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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.

7 Comments

  1. quaint singularity
    January 26, 2011 @ 4:14 am

    Just wanted to say that I've absolutely fallen in love with this blog! You've got quite a gift for poetic insights, and your thoughts about how Doctor Who ties into the nature of the repeating one true story are just brilliant. Promise me you'll keep going with this! I'm dying to read your postings on later stories, especially the Fifth Doctor era, though I imagine it will be a long time before then, heh.

    Reply

  2. Elizabeth Sandifer
    January 26, 2011 @ 5:56 am

    A fair amount of time, though the Fifth Doctor is certainly one I'm looking forward to as well, as it's probably the era with the biggest influence on the new series.

    Reply

  3. 5tephe
    January 26, 2011 @ 12:36 pm

    Superb work in this blog (not a big player of NES games, but found my way over here from Dinosaur Comics).

    I too love the overall story of Doctor Who more than almost any other part of it. Your description of it a a Katamari is very apt, and I think it is something that Russell T. Davies and Stephen Moffatt both understood when they took it up a few years ago. Their overt explanation that history itself can change (leading to a Time War) retro-built in a lot of plasticity into these early episodes, through which you can interpret them.

    I really like your critical and literate approach to viewing these old stories, and hope you can maintain the energy to keep reviewing each one here. I'll be reading, while you do.

    P.S: I too, could not bear to disbelieve.

    Reply

  4. Will
    January 26, 2011 @ 6:41 pm

    I just found out about this blog, and I was already in the process of watching all the classic Doctor Who episodes (watching the first episodes with the second doctor tonight).

    Reply

  5. ant
    February 1, 2012 @ 11:42 am

    I have to say that I think the historicals, in the original format of Marco Polo and The Aztecs worked extremely well. These two stories, and Marco Polo in particular, didn't fall into the trap of thinking "these people lived in a time where people didn't know as much about science, and so are clearly idiots." Marco is clearly as intelligent as the Tardis crew, which is one of the things that impressed me most about this story on first listen. The historicals fell out of favour, not because it is impossible to do a historical without a further sci-fi element (beyond the Tardis crew), but because if historicals are repeatedly lazily written (as in, if Gerry Davis writes them), they turn into The Smugglers or especially The Highlanders, where every character is a second rate clone of a half-remembered character from Jamaica Inn. There can be as much variety in a historical as a pure SF story, so long as it is well written.
    I absolutely love your blog, by the way, it is something that I will check every day as to whether it's been updated (and it absolutely shames me that you seem to know more about Britain than I ever will, and I live here!)

    Reply

  6. Fielding School Council
    May 19, 2012 @ 10:37 pm

    The Ninth Dr said that the assembled orders of Genghis khan couldn't get through that door to Rode Tyler [Rose-DW]

    Reply

  7. ladysugarquill
    June 2, 2017 @ 4:32 am

    The first is that they were unfathomably boring stories that existed only to fulfill the original educational remit of Doctor Who.

    I think this is a big YMMV. The First Doctor serials I personally enjoyed the most were historicals; too often the effects and concepts in sci-fi serials did not age well, but the historicals are gorgeous, and I always felt the characters were given more depth than, say, the Menoptera and their canvas wings.

    Reply

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