This is the fifth part of a series
of articles celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. Over the
years there are certain stories that mean a lot to me either from personal
memories or involvement I had in fandom through the years. These articles are
not meant to be close examinations of the plot or production but more about
what these stories mean to me on a personal level. Enjoy.
I have been connected to fandom for
many years. Not as many as some but longer than others. As have been well
documented on this site I have been all over the world and have met many people
because of my love for Doctor Who. I
think some of my favourite moments were in the late 1990s as it seemed that Doctor Who was solely belonged to the
fans. It was for the fans who had been so close to it for many years. It didn’t
seem like the series would ever return but even without the series, Doctor Who felt very healthy. Money was
being spent to restore the episodes, there were 2 distinct lines of original
fiction books being released, audio soundtracks and some new audio dramas
officially licenced by the BBC were on the way. As for myself, I had ramped up
the number of conventions I was going to every year. The Minnesota Doctor Who Viewing Society was going in
full swing and I even started a second group called The Minnesota British
Television Viewing Society. It was so much fun but then it stopped.
Sometimes real life intervenes. I
would have never thought that I would say good bye to going to conventions. I
didn’t go to meet celebrities; I went because I had a group of friends from all
over that I loved to hang out with. I met all the celebrities I cared to meet
at one of the zillions of conventions I attended over the years so that wasn’t
of interest to me. Things changed in the early 2000s and I needed to do things
differently. Apart from getting married and budgets be allocated to different
things, I also went back to school twice. Once for my undergrad and once again for
my graduate degree. That sort of thing can take a while and is very expensive. One
thing that never waned was my love for this series known as Doctor Who. I just didn’t go a lot of
places to talk about it anymore.
Perhaps it was all getting a little
too samey. In 2005, as we all know, things were about to change in ways we had
hoped of for a long time which was the return of Doctor Who on television. I don’t think any of us could ever
imagine how popular Doctor Who was
going to be in the UK when it returned but perhaps even more shocking was how
popular it was going to be in the US. I am jumping ahead of myself. Let’s get
back to the popularity in a moment. First, let me re-introduce myself to you.
For all the years I wrote for this
blog, I don’t really talk about myself outside the context of British
television or Doctor Who. In fact,
that’s the way I like it. For this story to make any kind of sense, I need to
provide some background information. I work in the field of Advertising. I can
guarantee it is one of the most cynical fields of work in the world. This is
why I fit into it so well. In the same day you could have the most brilliant
experience of your life while experiencing crushing defeats. It can be an
emotional ringer. I love it. I think you need to be built in a special way to
understand it let alone to work in it. People ask me if it is like Mad Men. I don’t know; I have never
seen an episode. I have been working in the Advertising field since 1996. I
currently work for one of the biggest (and dare I say it) the best agencies in
the Twin Cities, Carmichael Lynch. We have great clients like Subaru, Jack
Links, Trane, Tempur-Pedic and others. We are a creative agency which means
that everything we do is going to be kick ass. I work in Content Production.
There I manage two internal studios and produce video content on occasion. There
are days where I can’t believe they are paying me to work in a creative agency
and other days I want to walk away and never look back. That’s not a reflection
of the agency but the Advertising industry in general. Emotional ringer. That
being said, I am very proud to be CLer. Content Production is just what it says
on the tin, it produces content. I love doing that. I do it in my spare time
too. This blog is creating content, working on The Omega Podcast is creating
content. Inside Carmichael Lynch is an amazing team called Consumer Engagement.
When I started in Advertising, it was known simply as Media. They negotiate air
time with Networks and Cable stations for our commercials to run during TV
shows. This will be important for later in the article. Thank you for humoring
me, now back to Doctor Who.
Doctor Who was a niche television program on PBS back in the 1980s.
It was popular amongst Doctor Who fans
but as far as mainstream it wasn’t going to happen. When Doctor Who returned in 2005 on BBC1, I thought it had a chance to
become something more than a niche program but then I became disappointed when
it found a home in the US on Sci-Fi. It was very predictable. In fact, it didn’t
seem to be anything more than just another series on the roster of generic
sci-fi shows. It was slotted in on Friday nights, at least it wasn’t sandwiched
between one of the 57 Anaconda
sequels made by Sci-Fi. Doctor Who’s
fortune was going to change when Sci-Fi (or was it SyFy by then) did not renew
their rights for showing more Doctor Who.
Suddenly the show went to a network that seemed to be the right choice from the
start, BBC America. If I am not mistaken, I think they started with the 2009
Specials plus reshowing old new-series episodes. Little did anyone know at the
time that two explosions were going to happen simultaneously. First, BBC
America were going to promote the hell out of Doctor Who when it returned for Series 5 and second, we were about
to be introduced to Matt Smith as the Doctor. The marriage of these two
entities have catapulted Doctor Who
and BBC America in the US farther than anyone would ever dream.
In 2008, the fanbase of Doctor Who imploded with the exception
of myself and some other people with the ridiculous announcement on live television
during the NTA that David Tennant was leaving Doctor Who. I have never been a great fan of his version of this
wonderful character but I cannot deny the stellar job he did for the fan
community. The good news was that were going to get a new actor to play Doctor Who but there is always the
unknown about who they would cast for this iconic role. When Matt Smith was introduced to us in an
episode of Doctor Who Confidential, I
was worried. He did not interview well. He was all over the place using his
hands to illustrate his points but even his points were all over the place too.
It was a slightly unsettling time since Russell T. Davies was also leaving the
series making way for Steven Moffat to take over the duties of Show Runner. It
wasn’t until the 3D Cinema Trailer for Series 5 was released in the UK that I
was literally shocked by Matt Smith. He was confident, decisive and extremely
articulate. He wasn’t rambling like I saw in earlier interviews. I immediately
felt better. Seeing trailers for the series I couldn’t wait.
Back in 2010, Doctor Who was not shown the same day in the UK and US. At that
point, it was shown in the UK and shown in the US a week later. There is a
distinct possibility that I saw Matt Smith’s first story, The Eleventh Hour prior to being shown on BBC America. Just before
the launch of Series 5 of Doctor Who,
I was looking through Gallifrey Base forum and noticed a very interesting post.
Basically BBC America was bringing over Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Steven
Moffat to New York City for a couple of Q&A sessions and a screening of The Eleventh Hour prior to the US
premiere. This is when my brain started to think. As I mentioned above, I haven’t
been to anything with Doctor Who
fans for a while and how often would I have a chance to meet actors from the
new series while they were in the show? I knew I need to go. So, I knew my
favourite spot distribution partner we work with on a regular basis had an
apartment in New York. If I could stay there for a day or so, that would help
expenses. Then I realized that we run some client work on BBC America such as
commercials we make. That was when things got really, really interesting.
I contacted people I knew in
Consumer Engagement at CL to see if they would be willing to contact BBC
America on my behalf to see if there was going to be an after party at this
event in NYC that I could be invited to because all of these things usually
have some sort of get together when the main event is over. To make an already
long story short, BBC America got back to us and said they were not doing an
after party. That’s cool; I understood that. Then, I read the entire e-mail.
They went on to say that they took the liberty of contact Steve Moffat and he
was cool to meet with me after the QA session and oh, he was going to bring
Matt Smith and Karen Gillan along too. I found it hard to articulate in words
how I felt but I think it went along the lines of Holy Shit!
I persuaded my friend Robert to
come along since he is also a massive fan of the series and basically BBC
America set up for us to go to the Apple Store is Soho for a Q&A session
and that night we would have drinks with Matt, Karen and Steven. The next day
we would go to the Village East theatre for a screening of The Eleventh Hour and another Q&A session. I could not wait.
I have never been to New York
before. It really is like no place I have ever been. Landing at LaGuardia, I
could not help but notice how blocky and big the Empire State Building is
against the rest of the skyline. It really is a massive building. We get to the
apartment we were staying at and it is gorgeous. It is just a wonderful place
to stay. This was not something these partners of ours needed to do but because
of their generosity they saved us a lot of money and help make our trip amazing.
The day that we were due at the
Apple store was kind of nerve-wracking for me. We were going to meet the people
who made Doctor Who! I had been
through this scenario many times but this time it felt different. I was
actually starting to feel a little awkward for having this chance to meet them.
It was a Tuesday and during the day we met up with my spot distribution
partners who kindly took us out for steak at an amazing steak house a couple of
blocks from the Chrysler Building. It
was fun and the food was phenomenal. Those who know me will know what a steak aficionado
I am; I love it and I love to prepare it. Yet, the entire time I was nervous. I
wasn’t going on behalf of the agency I work for but regardless I still
represent them and I want to come across as some kind of intelligent human
being. A tall order indeed!
The apartment we stayed at was
about four blocks from Grand Central station. If you went out the front door of
the building we were staying at and looked to the left Grand Central was right
there. It is one of the most majestic and cool places I have ever been in my
life. Just around the corner where we were staying and up a couple of block was
the Empire State Building. The Apple store where the Q&A session was being
held was in Soho. We decided to walk from where we were staying up to Soho. It
was a long walk but boy was it worth it. The sights! Everywhere you look was
something familiar or just simply gorgeous. It’s cool that you could walk this
route and not expecting to see anything but suddenly I found myself walking
past such interesting things as the Flatiron building. Once again, the whole
way there I was really nervous. Once we got to the Soho area, we had a little
time before we needed to meet my BBC America contact so I decided to get some
help to calm my nerves from an old friend of mine named alcohol!
We went to this small blue-collar
bar that clearly was old. It was small and wasn’t an old bar that had been
renovated with the owners making a big deal that this was an historic bar. It
was just an old bar. They suggested to me to try a local brown ale and after
about 3 of them I felt a little better. Now, it was time to meet Michael from
BBC America.
After around 2,200 words into this
article, let’s talk about the event. Meeting Michael was a great experience. It
was clear everyone who I met from BBC America that night had high hopes that Doctor Who would perform well for them.
We go up the stairs to where the event was being held. There were a ton of
people there already. I was wondering where we were going to stand but Michael
lead the way. He took us past rows and rows of people sitting and brought us
right up to the front. There was a row of chairs that nobody was sitting in and
they were reserved. That’s where we sat. No one else would join us. Eventually
some photographers and press would sit there but it was just us. I felt kind of
bad because all of these people were behind us and we were just sitting there
taking up a whole row. I felt bad but it was pure awesome! We got Doctor Who magnets which were fun and
then got a preview on a screen of the upcoming Series 5. It wasn’t anything I
hadn’t seen before but the crowd was enthusiastic. Finally the moment we were
all waiting for came and that was when Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Steven
Moffat came on stage.
They were right in front of me,
just feet away from me. Because there were hardly any people in that front row,
I felt very conspicuous and was hoping (for some reason) they didn’t see me. They
answered all sorts of questions about everything. How do you like being Doctor
Who? How do you like New York? How long do you plan on staying in the role?
Moffat made a funny observation I never thought of before. He mentioned how
everyone refers to Matt Smith and Karen Gillan by their names but when
referencing Steven Moffat, most people just say Moffat. Like Matt Smith, Karen
Gillan and Moffat are at the Apple store. I thought that was funny and very
true. So true, in fact, that I actually employ that in this article.
Even though I don’t go to these
types of things often some of the same lameness that persisted in fandom back
when I was super active still exists today. For example, when the questions
were opened to the audience someone from the back prefaced his question with, “this
is so and so from the so and so podcast”. Obviously, replace so and so with
real names. I guess my point is should I be impressed with your podcast so much
so that you need to name it prior to asking the question? Were you hoping for
some people in the crowd saying oh my god, THEY ARE HERE TOO. Should Moffat be
impressed? Podcasts are for many un-realized dreams of being a broadcaster, ( I
worked in broadcasting for years) so they do stuff that is just silly to try
and live out that dream. I think we tend to do that with the podcast I am on too
and that includes me. It’s never good to take yourself too seriously. Then some
400 pound guys gets up to ask a question. He asks in his eloquent way, “Karen,
do you like fat men?” Hi Karen welcome to the United States of America. Wow!
The crowd did squirm but not as much as Karen. She was put on the spot and it
was uncomfortable to me but she managed it well. I wish I could say that was
the only time over the course of two days I would hear someone ask Karen that
question. The Q&A was over and it was time for some drinks with BBC America
plus Matt, Karen, and Moffat!
After the Q&A, we met up with
Michael and he told us we would be going to a hotel a couple of blocks over to
meet up with everyone. He was asking me how long I have been a fan of Doctor Who and general questions like
that. It goes to show how things have changed since 2010 and what BBC America has
done to promote the series. Back then, I felt weird talking about being a fan
because it was so niche but now so many people I know casually are fans or have
heard of it, I am just not bothered by it anymore. It is simply unbelievable.
|
The view from behind our seats at the Apple store. |
We get to the hotel and go to the
second level where the bar was located. It was very modern and even still I
expected a large group of people to be at this bar to meet with the three
stars. It took a while to realize that this drinks get together was solely for
the benefit of me. Everyone, including the BBC America folks, were here at this
function because of me. When Matt, Karen and Moffat turned up we all stood up
from the couches we were on and Matt said, “Which one is the bloke from
Carmichael Lynch?” That was me. Wow! Yes, I was star-struck. It was pretty cool
to see them at the Apple store earlier that evening, I cannot find words to
express how amazing it was to meet each one sit at a small table with them,
have drinks and a conversation. Truly a highlight.
I hate to say it but there was one
thing I did not want to talk about with them and that was Doctor Who. They live and breathe it. They talk about it in
interviews and I just wanted to have a chat. I asked Matt how he liked New York
and he mentioned how coming out here was their reward for the months of
shooting they endured. He was extremely pleasant. I didn’t talk with Karen
much. To be honest, I wouldn’t have much to say…she’s a girl. OK, that’s not
the reason I just didn’t have anything to relate to as she was a young woman in
NY, she was speaking with a BBC America person who was also female and her age
so they spoke about all sorts of cool relating to being in New York. I really
enjoyed talking with Moffat. He was very interesting and I tried to explain to
him the difference in space between being in New York City and being in
Minneapolis. In New York City, you could be in a room with a door at the far
end of it. After a while you would open the door to find a busy fancy
restaurant in it there you never knew existed and it turns out to be one of the
best restaurants in town. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis the restaurant would be on
a big piece of land with a huge parking lot with signage promoting it all over
the place. Moffat also mentioned he couldn’t see the difference in quality
between SD and HD. I now think it is really interesting with his views on 3D.
When we met, he thought it was gimmicky and didn’t see a point to it. Of course
now, the 50th anniversary special will be in 3D. We spoke a lot of
television production. After about 40 minutes, each of the three stars were
called away to do some interviews. When they were finished with the interviews,
they were done for the night. That was the perfect amount of time as I wouldn’t
have much to say to them. I felt really bad for Robert as it was pretty loud in
there and he was at the far end of the table. I think he was left out of the
conversation and I always felt badly about that.
After Matt, Karen and Moffat left
we stayed at the bar with BBC America for hours and they were very kind with
their hospitality. They bought us drink and food all night plus provided some
great conversation. I really enjoyed it. They were kind enough to invite us to the
BBC America offices the next day which I was tempted to do but I didn’t want to
outstay our welcome. They had been very kind to us and we would be seeing a
bunch of them the next night for the premiere of The Eleventh Hour. It was around midnight when we left the hotel in
Soho. Instead of taking a cab with them, we walked all the way to Time Square.
Perhaps not the smartest idea but we never felt unsafe. It was all good.
The next day we thought we would get
in some sight-seeing and get ready to go to the Village East Theatre. Once
again, we felt it would be a great idea to get in a drink or more in us before
we got to the theatre. I knew that I needed to go into a separate entrance as
we would be shown where we would be seated so I wasn’t worried that when we got
to the area early and walked down the street to the theatre that we saw
hundreds of people waiting in line to get in to watch The Eleventh Hour and a chance to see Matt, Karen, and Moffat. We
get to a bar where I order a drink and we sit outside as it is a warm April
day. A couple of other guys sit behind us. While we are sitting there, some
other dude pulls up in his car to park and hits the other bumper of the car
behind him, he gets out and walks away like nothing happened. The two guys
behind me get up and start yelling at this other idiot. These two guys are
built pretty solid while the other guy was shorter but had quite the mouth on
him. The two guys start telling him that he hit their car while this shorter
guy is denying he hit any car at all but we all saw it. They start throwing
insults at him every time he mouthed off such as, “Shut up dude, you’re like 3
feet tall!” Alright, I laughed at that. He was probably about 5 foot but like I
said, he had a mouth. It escalated with all of them screaming at each other
with the two bigger dudes standing up. I thought there was going to be a fight
with one of them falling on me. Finally, across the block everyone saw a
policeman. So the two bigger dudes start telling the little guy that they are
going to get him over here and they start yelling to the policeman who
literally looks at them and runs off the other direction! Finally things die
down and the little guy walks away. Some other woman sitting out there asked
the two guys, “what are you going to do about your car?” In which one of the
two guys responds, “Nothing. It’s not our car; we just wanted to give this guy
a hard time!” Wow!
|
The front of the line outside the Village East Theatre that went on for blocks. |
So after that we get to the theatre
and go through the VIP entrance. I go up to the registration table and let the
woman know I am guests of BBC America for the screening. She politely tells me
that they are not seating yet nor taking names. So I stand back in a corner.
About 5 minutes later, someone comes up to her, looks like he is checking in
and she lets him pass. So being super hyper as I have been for some reason throughout
this whole trip I go back to her and try checking in again. With a look of WTF,
she once again politely tells me that they still are not checking people in and
she will let me know when they are ready. To try and save some face, I just let
her know I wasn’t sure as I thought I saw her just checking someone in. She let
me know he worked there and I foolishly went back to my little corner. Soon, we
were allowed to go into the theatre.
The interior of the theatre was
magnificent. It was old and beautifully decorated inside. We got to sit in “Reserve
Seating” and had a very good look at everything. Behind us was Arnold T.
Blumberg. I don’t know him at all but Robert did and we all had a nice chat. Soon
we got the screening of The Eleventh Hour.
I have mentioned elsewhere that watching Doctor
Who with a group of people can be pretty exhilarating. I have never watched
it with nearly 400 people before and most of them had never seen the episode.
Please remember, no episodes starring Matt Smith had been shown in the US yet.
This was big. There are moments that still give me chills from watching the
episode in the theatre. This included the first time we saw Matt, especially
after his head poked out of the TARDIS when Amelia was investigating the
crashed ship. Of course the biggest screams came from the shots of all the
different monsters at the end of the episode with the Doctor warning the Atraxi
and then the theatre exploded when all of the previous Doctor’s images show up
on screen. It was really exciting.
Afterwards, we get a Q&A with
Matt, Karen & Moffat. There are some good questions but a lot that we heard
the previous night. That’s not too surprising. Yet again, either the same guy
or someone different asks Karen the question if she likes to date fat guys and
if she does, will she date him. Nice. Really nice. After everything ended,
Robert and I stayed in the theatre to allow the 350 plus people leave. We were
sitting next to a real nice woman who was named Kat. We all had an instant rapport.
I don’t think she worked for BBC America but knew people who did because she
got a call from someone while we were talking with her. Apparently BBC America
were recording people who just seen the episode and wanted to use it in online
promos for the series. Kat asked us if we want to be interviewed to be used in
any of promos in which we both said yes. She brought us down to the front of
the theatre and all three of us answered some questions on camera about what we
saw. It’s funny because you may think you know how to answer questions to
things when you are just sitting in a chair with no pressure to think about it.
It is entirely different when you have bright lights and a camera in front of
you. I don’t remember the questions but it was probably what was your favourite
part of the story? I don’t remember what I answered but I wasn’t embarrassed by
it. Robert had a creative and interesting answer that tied in nicely with the
episode itself. Isaw the promo on the BBC America web site for a little while
and then it was taken down. I never took a copy. It was a nice ending to an exciting trip. The
next day we packed up and went home.
I had started this blog in 2007 and
stopped in 2008. When I went on this trip I decided that I wanted to go home
and start up the blog again because I wanted to write this story. I decided to
wait to tell the story because I didn’t want to look like I was showing off so
I thought I would write it sometime in the summer of 2010 but in the meantime
write some other articles so I could establish myself again and not have my
first article back showing off about meeting Matt Smith. I never thought it
would take 3 years to write this but I am glad I have done so now. A lot of
people, including many I didn’t know or barely knew, went out of their way to
make this trip special for us.
I just want to publicly thank
Michael and his colleagues at BBC America, Sheri Lawrence and her wonderful
team at Tylie Jones, and of course Carmichael Lynch. Also, a special thank you
to Matt, Karen, Moffatt and my good friend Robert.
Back in 2010, I wrote an article about
the actual episode of Doctor Who The Eleventh Hour. Please check it out
here: The Eleventh Hour.
Next 50WHO article: The missing episodes of Doctor Who is my favourite subject concerning the series. I honestly
don’t know if I would have enjoyed the series as much if it weren’t for this
fascinating subject. For long-time Doctor
Who fans, perhaps one of the most exciting moments for missing episodes was
the return of The Tomb of the Cybermen.
Next month I will explain more about my fascination with this subject, my love
of this particular story and how I knew that The Tomb of the Cybermen was going to be returned to the BBC
Archives back in November of 1991 while news broke about it in January of 1992.
Next week: I finish off my month long theme of final episodes of TV
series as I look at the final 2 episodes of the very funny Thames series Man About the House.
Have a great week!
Do you have feedback, article requests or want to talk about a program but do not want to leave a public comment? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at FTA13867@gmail.com
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