Everywhere I look, I see various projects - official and unofficial - leading up to the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. Adventures with the Wife in Space recently achieved their goal of watching all episodes of Classic Who. Tansy Rayner Roberts has her WHO-50 blogging project going. Big Finish has "The Light at the End" coming out in November. Traveling the Vortex is doing their monthly retrospectives on each Doctor, along with some other extra surprises to celebrate. Steven from Radio Free Skaro has promised to finish The Chronic Hysteresis by November 23, 2013. The BBC and all its subsidiaries have tons and tons of books and videos and merchandise - not to mention "The Doctors Revisited" specials on BBC America. That doesn't even begin cover the myriad of other things, to numerous to recount here.
So, where does that leave a relative-newbie with her fingers in all kind of Classic and New Who in all kinds of media wishing to pay tribute to this show that she loves as much as the I-Watched-It-On-My-Local-PBS-Station-In-The-80s fan?
I don't want to review all the Doctor Who stories in order because (A) It's been done to death and (B) I don't have time (believe me - if all I had to do in life was watch Doctor Who all day every day and still have money for food and fuel and living space, I would be all over that). I had ideas for a music video, but my cheapo movie-creating software doesn't love me. And I'm not starting a podcast (just… no. I can't handle that).
This idea sort of came to me while I was catching up with Wife in Space, so I'm crediting the Perryman household with this, in part. I noticed that Sue (the eponymous Wife) had her opinions about Doctor Who and not all of them conformed to Conventional Fan Wisdom™ and I absolutely LOVED that. This made me reflect on stories that I loved that fandom as a whole hated and ones I didn't care for that fandom fawns over ("The Talons of Weng-Chiang," for a start). Even more recently, my glowing review of "The Rings of Akhaten" broke off sharply from Convention Fan Wisdom™ who largely said that the episode was "boring" (I could make a jab about the various substances fandom may be using lately, but that's a cheap shot, so I won't). I considered taking Doctor Who stories in which my opinion parted ways with CFW™ and say why I felt that way. But, upon further reflection, that would take too long and it's too subjective (not all fans hate "Silver Nemesis," after all. Just the loudest ones).
Also, BBC Books is re-releasing several books from the New Adventures line (and one Target Novelization). Well, this is a no-brainer - (bookworm, librarian - hello!) And I love, love, LOVE Big Finish - though I don't review it often enough. Somewhere along the line, the idea for the Librarian in the TARDIS Blogging Project coalesced and become a Real Idea.
(The name for the project came from the fact that, well, I'm a librarian. And libraries aren't just about books - we also have movies and music and audios and other forms of media. It seemed fitting).
So, here's what I'm going to do - For each Doctor, I am going to take one televised story that I don't think gets enough love or attention and review it. I will also review the BBC re-releases of the New-Adventures-plus-one-Target-book line when they come out. And, if that wasn't enough, I'm going to choose a Big Finish audio for each Doctor and review it (with the earlier Doctors, this will mean reviewing stories from the Companion Chronicles line and obviously New Who Doctors aren't going to have any, so I'll substitute something else there). I don't know how regular this will go, but I imagine it'll take me through the summer and into the fall.
The whole point of this is not to rehash the same assessments that CFW™ has given us over and over again, but rather to look at some other stories that are part of the family - for better or worse - and give them their due. Besides - it's all Doctor Who and it all contributed to getting the good Doctor to his 50th birthday and it all deserves some recognition.
(Hello ambition! I'm glad to see you here again!)
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Next Time, on Librarian in the TARDIS -
Review 1.01 - The Call to Adventure
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ETA: This will be separate from my current tradition of reviewing New Who stories as they air. I just wanted something a little different to mark this very special year for Doctor Who.
Looking forward to them Chrissy!
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