The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon (Introduction)
On November 23rd 2003, to mark the 40th Anniversary of the TV series Doctor Who, I decided to embark on a marathon where I would watch every episode of the series 40 years on to the day, preferably to the hour. By doing this, I hoped to get a feel of what it was like to watch the stories as they had originally been intended (25 minutes of entertainment with the gap of a week in between). I had no idea how long I would last, whether I'd reach a point where I'd get bored and give up, but I decided to set myself some rules to go by and see how it went.
Firstly, I decided to keep a record of what I thought about each episode. Sometimes this would consist of my thoughts and opinions, other times it would simply end up being a retelling of the episode; it really depended on whether it had fired my imagination and made me think or had just been a run-of-the-mill story that I hadn't been hugely bothered with.
The length of each entry was dictated by the format I used - I began with a notebook and limited myself to two sides. In 2005 I moved on to diaries for a couple of years which cut down the length of the entries, before moving back to notebooks again. Of course, even in the notebooks, if I'd found a story particularly dull the entry would be shorter (and I'd often comment on this).
Secondly, in order to approach the material with as open a mind as possible, and to make it seem as fresh as possible, I gave myself the rule that I couldn't watch (or listen to) an episode from the season following the one I was engaged in. Therefore, as of 23/11/03 I didn't allow myself to watch any story transmitted before the 24th of July 1965 (when the final instalment of The Time Meddler aired).
Since many episodes from the 1960s no longer exist to watch, I would tackle these by listening to the narrated soundtracks and, if possible, view telesnaps or reconstructions which had been made available on the internet. Please note that since watching these episodes, some episodes have been recovered (such as an episode of Galaxy 4, The Enemy Of The World and most of The Web Of Fear); I haven't gone back and re-watched these stories, so the thoughts and opinions are those I had from listening to the soundtracks with whatever stills and clips I could lay my hands on.
Finally, this blog is a direct transcript of what I wrote at the time. Some of it will be boring, some (I hope) will be interesting, I imagine a lot will go against other fans views and much more will fall in line with popular opinion. If I loved an episode I'll heap it with praise, if I didn't then I'll generally slag it off and occasionally I'll end up swearing. It's a collection of thoughts and I swear, so if you find strong language offensive I suggest you don't continue reading.
I've been meaning to publish my journey in a Blog for a while, but never got round to it. I'm currently (today being in early June 2018) between Season 15 & 16, just half way through Tom Baker's run as the Doctor, and I'm amazed that I've managed to get this far - I usually have a very short attention span!
I hope you enjoy reading this - it's been a fascinating journey so far and has quite often resulted in challenging my opinions of stories, characters and eras; in a few cases it's completely turned me round!
Thanks for reading,
Matt
Firstly, I decided to keep a record of what I thought about each episode. Sometimes this would consist of my thoughts and opinions, other times it would simply end up being a retelling of the episode; it really depended on whether it had fired my imagination and made me think or had just been a run-of-the-mill story that I hadn't been hugely bothered with.
The length of each entry was dictated by the format I used - I began with a notebook and limited myself to two sides. In 2005 I moved on to diaries for a couple of years which cut down the length of the entries, before moving back to notebooks again. Of course, even in the notebooks, if I'd found a story particularly dull the entry would be shorter (and I'd often comment on this).
Secondly, in order to approach the material with as open a mind as possible, and to make it seem as fresh as possible, I gave myself the rule that I couldn't watch (or listen to) an episode from the season following the one I was engaged in. Therefore, as of 23/11/03 I didn't allow myself to watch any story transmitted before the 24th of July 1965 (when the final instalment of The Time Meddler aired).
Since many episodes from the 1960s no longer exist to watch, I would tackle these by listening to the narrated soundtracks and, if possible, view telesnaps or reconstructions which had been made available on the internet. Please note that since watching these episodes, some episodes have been recovered (such as an episode of Galaxy 4, The Enemy Of The World and most of The Web Of Fear); I haven't gone back and re-watched these stories, so the thoughts and opinions are those I had from listening to the soundtracks with whatever stills and clips I could lay my hands on.
Finally, this blog is a direct transcript of what I wrote at the time. Some of it will be boring, some (I hope) will be interesting, I imagine a lot will go against other fans views and much more will fall in line with popular opinion. If I loved an episode I'll heap it with praise, if I didn't then I'll generally slag it off and occasionally I'll end up swearing. It's a collection of thoughts and I swear, so if you find strong language offensive I suggest you don't continue reading.
I've been meaning to publish my journey in a Blog for a while, but never got round to it. I'm currently (today being in early June 2018) between Season 15 & 16, just half way through Tom Baker's run as the Doctor, and I'm amazed that I've managed to get this far - I usually have a very short attention span!
I hope you enjoy reading this - it's been a fascinating journey so far and has quite often resulted in challenging my opinions of stories, characters and eras; in a few cases it's completely turned me round!
Thanks for reading,
Matt
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